The New UI in a Raid

Last night, as we quickly took out Gruul and fought our way through SSC, I had the chance to play with my new UI. On a whole, it performed very well. I love my new "Fire Bomb" button (Trinket+Combustion+Icy Veins) and I didn't have too many problems finding the buttons I was looking for. Buffing is still taking some time getting used to as I'm using Grid for my raid status rather than individual raid bars via Pitbull. Here's the Grid I had going last night (taken before a few tweaks I made later in the raid):


The way I've basically set it up is in the lower left hand corner of each grid box is either a blue or reddish/pink square. Blue indicates that they have Arcane Brilliance. Red indicates Arcane Intellect. So as long as all those boxes are full, I'm doing my job as the only mage. Each party is in its own row, so the top row is Group/Party 1 and so on with the pets on the bottom line. So far, I'm using it just for buffs and to get a quick look to see if we have a bunch of dead people in the raid so I need to make a few quick tweaks - I'd like the box to be a bright red if someone is dead so a quick glance makes the dead stand out more. Also, Grid does a lot, and if I can scale it back a little, it might use less memory and be a bit more efficient.

Other than that, the only minor problem I ran into was I had forgotten to whip up my quick /stopcasting /cast counterspell macro, but I quickly made that and was ready for the next Gronn Priest to try and heal. The only major problem I ran into was with Cryolosis. It has some issues with sheeping. Every time a sheep was broken, even though I had turned off notification of sheep breakings, I received a lua error. So I spent a lot of time in SSC clicking lua errors away. At the end of the raid, I downloaded a new addon as suggested in chat, but was unable to test it before people started getting lazy and wiping us on the Lurker Below (more on that later).

Here's a screenshot from last night as we were clearing to Gruul. Compared to my previous "action" shots, this one is just so much cleaner and has all the information I need. I do need to tweak the Pitbull spacing a bit later tonight or this weekend, but in all, everything worked quite well. And people seemed to enjoy the random messages Cryolosis outputs when I teleport, portal, or conjure a mage table.

Lurker Wrap-Up

So last night, as you might have seen, the Gold 25 Man Team took down the Lurker Below! We started the night on a good note quickly taking out Gruul, skipped Magtheridon and went straight to SSC. Trash was cleared quickly with quite a few purples dropping including a Leatherworking and Blacksmithing pattern (never seem to see a tailoring pattern though). We had a few new people in the group, so after a quick explanation, we got set up and took on the Lurker.

He managed to get us the first time through, but we quickly regrouped, and with everyone seeing the fight now, we took him out! My sheep was left alone the whole fight and never broke (yay! for me - boo I'm the only mage). The healing on the individual platforms was amazing as we lost our hunter on our platform on th second dive but we were able to DPS both naga down without any CC on the subsequent dives.

(More shots here and here)

It sure was fun being able to go all out on DPS without worrying about aggro. We completely destroyed the Lurker before his first dive getting him under 65% and I was able to sustain almost 1,100 DPS while sheeping and sitting around waiting for the lurker to emerge. It sure is fun doing over 10% of the total raid damage for a 25 man fight.

On a side note, now that I am a class leader (DPS Casters), I seem to have amassed more addons than I would care to have on the screen. Big Brother was added to monitor my sheeps, but being able to see all pally buffs, consumables, and raid buffs is nice as I can quickly call out if someone needs to be rebuffed or alert people that they don't have food buffs (more on this in another post). I also installed Pally Power to monitor Pally Buffs which is nice because it allows me to quickly whisper a pally if I need a rebuff (i.e. Salvation after clicking it off to tank Krosh). As I am an assist, I can also switch up Pally Buffs as needed (e.g. no Salvation during Lurker fight). I also have Ora2 which litters my screen with tanks and tank targets, cooldowns for locks and druids, and ready checks. Patch 2.4.2 seems to have broken one of my cooldown monitors, but usually that is up as well. Below is a screenshot of my Raid UI while tanking Krosh (and below it fighting Lurker).

(Another shot)

(More shots after he is down here and here)

After Lurker was defeated, we moved on and cleared trash to the next boss, but had no time to even attempt him. Overall, a very successful night as we have made progress and had a great time doing it. SSC is on notice!

Random Updates

A few quick random updates.

Bought some epic gems with Badges. 2xRuned Crimson Spinel, 1xGreat Lionseye. Since I was 2 over the spell hit cap, I replaced a Great Dawnstone with the Lionseye and I was 4 over the cap. With that, I was able to replace a Veiled Noble Topaz with a Spinel. Also upgraded a Runed Living Ruby with a Spinel. So I'm perfectly on the spell hit cap and gained 10 spell damage.

Heading through Kara last week, I picked up the T4 glove token and purchased Gladiator's Silk Handguards. Threw a +20 damage on it and last night Mercreus and I went 5-6 in arenas. We're just barely staying above 1,500 rating at 1,520 right now.

Last week, the Gold 25 Man Team quickly took down Gruul and headed to Mag. We were short one of our regular clickers so we assigned another warlock to the cube. First time through, he tried clicking the wrong cube so no one was on his. Next time through he got disconnected. Third time through I clicked and we took Mag down. We then went and only had time to clear trash up to Lurker. As the only mage, I had fun sheeping and watching who broke my sheeps.

Tonight we once again go to Gruul, Mag and Lurker.

No new pets or recipes. Enchant Boots: Vitality was on auction for 2000g and didn't sell. Seller lowered it to 1600g. Still too pricey for me.

I logged out last night in my PvP gear which is odd for me, but I can see that I have almost 10k health and 201 resilience. With the new gloves I got, they break the Spellfire bonus, so I went out and purchased Evoker's Silk Raiment and Evoker's Silk Amice. I haven't run the numbers, but I will lose damage in the trade, but gain 68 resilience (or more depending on how I socket them). Once I run the numbers, I will post again.

Gold Team 25 Man

We made a little progress last night as we continue our attempts in Serpentshrine Cavern. After quickly downing Maulgar, Gruul and Mag, we set off to kill the Lurker Below. We only had one shot at him the week prior, so we didn't expect to get him this week, but we got close.

After the first two attempts at him, everyone seemed to have gotten the hang of it and we were doing quite well on our third, and final attempt. We cleared two waves of spawns and were DPS'ing the Lurker quite well when all of a sudden a spout got the tank. He was submerged properly as the spout went by and came out of the water, only to get hit by the spout as it came by him the second time.

I am confident we'll get that damn fish next week though. Especially with the rate we clear through Gruul & Mag and the SSC trash.

On an unrelated note, this weekend I purchased Enchant Chest: Major Resilience. I took screenshots of my progression in each of my tradeskills, but keep forgetting to cut them down to size to post here. A nice progression I've made is I am now at 100% of all first aid skills. I purchased Manual: Strong Anti-Venom to round out that profession. Cooking is probably next, though I'm unsure when I'll be able to make it into Blackwing Lair to get Recipe: Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops.

Lack of Updates

I know I've been slacking, there just hasn't been too much to write about. The Gold 25 Man Team went into Gruul's & Magtheridon's Lair and absolutely destroyed the place. With so much time to spare, we ventured into SSC, cleared all of the trash without any real effort (though nothing! dropped - no Marks of Illidari, Nether Vortices, patterns, nothing), and we got to the Lurker Below. We had just one shot at him, most everyone was new to the fight (I have seen it a few times, never seen it successfully done), and we got him down to about 70%. Next week he dies.

I had a chance to make it back into Karazhan after a few weeks off and picked up some badges. I'm approaching 50 badges now from Karazhan, Shattered Sun Supplies, and random bosses (Gruul, Setthekk Halls, etc.). So now I'm contemplating making more changes to my gear.

The one item I'm considering is the Boots of Incantations to replace my Boots of Blasting. It's a loss of 25 crit for a gain of 12 stamina, 1 intellect, 23 spirit, 4 spell hit, and 16 damage. I just need to get to 75 badges and I'll make the switch.

I'm also considering losing my Spellfire set, but I probably won't as I'd only upgrade two pieces and the stat changes don't really make too much sense at this time.

One other change I'm looking to make quite soon is to switch out Enchant Gloves: Spell Strike for Enchant Gloves: Major Spellpower. I'm pretty certain that with one more Great Lionseye, I'll be able to make the change. It's a huge upgrade as usually hit and damage are traded at a 1:1 ratio, so 20 damage for 15 hit is something I'll be looking into next week.

Should be interesting to be out of town this weekend. It's been a while since I haven't played at least a little on any given day. In fact Sunday will be the first day since the patch I won't be able to complete the daily fishing quest. That stupid quest is the bane of my existence. No good reward yet. No pets, no nothing. At least with the daily cooking quest I was able to get a recipe a week, whereas it's been almost a month now without anything good - no new line, no hat, no pets.

A Closer Look

I'd love to take a look at older WowWebStats outputs from previous Gruul encounters to compare to the damage I did last night, but there are just a couple remaining as most have expired (I'd love to pay, but it's a tad bit too expensive just for parsing Warcraft stats).

This was my first Gruul run since putting together my haste set and it's tough to tell if it worked. The problem is I was hit by a lot of cave-ins last night and had to move quite a bit and bandage more than usual.

On March 11th, during the Gruul kill, I averaged 884 DPS with 91% DPS time. March 18th, averaged 1,127 DPS, 94% DPS time. Last night, 971 DPS, 94% DPS time. On the 18th, I was racing Nefernetcher for DPS and I had very few cave-ins and didn't take too much shatter damage, so it was almost the perfect DPS run. Also, I had a shadow priest in my group that attempt so I didn't need to evocate which costs me 8 seconds during the fight, or 3 fireballs with my haste set.

Looking at the raw Fireball stats, where the bulk of my damage comes from, I get the following:

Date     Hits  Avg. Dmg.  Crit%  Missed%  Mitigated%
March 11  46    2,667      31%     N/A       6.5%
March 19  40    3,202      38%    1.4%       2.4%
April 9   53    3,107      31%    3.6%       4.6%

March 19th I had the shadow priest in my group and due to that fact I could run Molten Armor rather than Mage Armor. The increased crit rate really paid off, along with the fire damage buff. I'm not sure why my miss% was so high last night, I was running at 2 points over the hit cap, but the average damage is up along with the hits - so the haste set seems to be paying off as I can get off more fireballs in the same amount of time.

I think I might have to go pay Dr. Boom a visit. I've never gone out there and tested gear DPS, so maybe later tonight if I'm not in the Karazhan run I'll go have some fun out there.

Also tonight, I will be exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive. I already updated my exalted factions count over to the right (22 and counting) and note the new progress made for the Gold Team. Mag down. SSC coming late April maybe. New pet count also. 63. #32 in the Top 50.

Gold Team One Shots Magtheridon

Last night after a rough Gruul run (one quick wipe on Maulgar after my spell steal was resisted twice by Krosh (110 spell hit should not allow for two resists in a row) and one wipe on Gruul due to a bad shatter), the 25-man Gold Team headed over to Magtheridon's Lair to pick up where we left off last week. We went over the strategy quickly before engaging the monster and we took him down (WWS) in one fell swoop.

The clicking of the cubes was done perfectly, Aracely did a masterful job tanking the behemoth, and DPS was steady through the fight. When I went last week with Familiaris Incursio, we had cube clicking issues and when we got to the cave in, it seemed the raid was not ready for it. This time around, we stopped all DPS at 32%, waited for a blast wave, healed up, powered through his cave-in and continued our one shot. We were rewarded with the Eye of Magtheridon (which mistakingly went to a healer - a problem with anonymous need bids), Magtheridon's Head, a few Tier 4 chest pieces, the Pit Lord's Satchel and a very nice Black Sack of Gems. Inside the sack, we received a Crimson Spinel, Lionseye, and a Pyrestone. Though I wanted the Pyrestone more (I need a couple Veiled Pyrestones), I won the Crimson Spinel and will have a Runed Crimson Spinel waiting in my mail when I get on tonight.

The run was amazingly smooth, we had very few problems (a slight healing mix-up when Magtheridon broke free of his chains and an early pull on Maulgar), and the team as a whole is amazing. Congrats to the Gold Team!

A Few Planned Upgrades

With 2.4 hitting, and a new Badge of Justice vendor opening soon, I plan on purchasing two new items. Along side those items, I'm hoping the daily quests can quickly fund the purchase of a couple Hearts of Darkness for a craftable item. Once I receive those upgrade, I also plan on switching out my cloak for additional haste rating. When all is said and done, I should be able to hold off Nefernetcher who almost beat me in damage last night on Gruul.

Upgrade #1: Nathrezim Mindblade (with +40 damage enchant) --> Scryer's Blade of Focus (with Sunfire enchant)

Gain of: 24 stamina, 10 intellect, 54 damage. Loss of: 23 crit.

Upgrade #2: Signet of Ancient Magics (+15 Stam Gem, +12 damage enchant) --> Fused Nethergon Band (+12 damage enchant)

Gain of: 2 intellect, 28 hit rating, 4 damage. Loss of: 10 MP/5.

Upgrade #3: Pauldrons of the Aldor --> Mantle of Nimble Thought

Gain of: 12 stamina, 38 haste. Loss of: 16 spirit, 15 crit, 4 hit, 1 damage.

Swap #1: Collar of the Aldor --> Spellstrike Hood

Gain of: 16 hit, 22 damage. Loss of: 14 stamina, 23 intellect, 17 spirit, 15 crit. Trade of: +3% increased crit damage for +92 damage for 10 seconds with Spellstrike Set

Swaw #2: Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi --> Shadowcaster's Drape

Gain of: 4 stamina, 25 haste. Loss of: 23 crit, 1 damage.

Total gains/losses over all five changes:

Gain of: 26 stamina, 40 hit, 63 haste, 78 damage.
Loss of: 11 intellect, 33 spirit, 76 crit, 10 MP/5.

In all, it's a great trade off. Hit and crit are traded at a 1:1 ratio through sockets so I lose 36 hit/crit. But with 1 Haste > 1 Damage, and both Haste and Damage > Hit and Crit, it's some huge damage gains (141 haste+damage is much better for damage than 76 crit (though I'm really only losing 36 in the tradeoff)). The intellect I lose isn't nice as a larger mana pool is always nice, but only 11 lost isn't too bad. I never liked the MP/5 in the ring, so I'm glad to get rid of that. And though spirit now factors into mana regen, it hurts a little to lose that, but it's not a big deal as I was able to make it through Gruul last night without potions and with a mana emerald still in my bags.

With these changes, I should be able to hold off Nefernetcher for just a little while longer. I just haven't seen any Hearts of Darkness on the auction house for a while, but hopefully spamming trade channel with requests will get me the two I need for my shoulders.

Of course, this also factors in the Sunfire enchant which I have a bit of farming to do, but I think with some concerted effort this weekend I can either farm up the mats or earn enough through 50 daily quests to purchase the mats.

The spell haste rating I will be achieving with 63 points grants me a 4.01% faster cast time which translates essentially to 4.01% more damage. With these haste items now also affecting the global cooldown, it'll be pretty nice if I can stack some more haste. Perhaps with the additional hit rating gained through gear changes I can put some epic haste gems in some slots previously reserved for +hit and if I amass enough badges, I can think about swapping out Fury of the Ursine for Runed Spell-Cuffs giving my total haste rating a boost of 1.59% for a total of 5.6% faster casts.

20 Quests and Counting

After all was said and done tonight, I'm halfway towards friendly with the Shattered Sun Offensive, the Gold Team killed Gruul, and I completed 20 of the 25 daily quests.

Did the cooking quest, the fishing quest, the quests in Nagrand and Netherstorm, the Ogri'la quests, the Skettis quests, and a majority of the Netherwing quests. I did one PvP quest in Hellfire Peninsula and I also was able to turn in one of each of my PvP tokens for even more gold. After all the quests, minus the gold spent on large prismatic shards, I think I made over 200g tonight and it was all quite easy.

I should find out tomorrow if I won my Oozling and at this rate, I should be able to purchase a couple Hearts of Darkness for my Mantle of Nimble Thought sometime soon.

No New Dagger...

Well, I had forgotten that the new badge vendor isn't available during the first part of the siege on the Sunwell Terrace. So even after buying 5 prismatic shards for my enchant, I cannot buy my new dagger. But that's ok, I had fun over on the Terrace, did some extra daily quests, gained 1600 rep with the Shattered Sun Offensive (yay, already over halfway to friendly) and did even more daily quests.

I did the fishing quest, but did not receive a pet today - but I'm sure I will soon. I then did the Nagrand and Netherstorm dailies, did the cooking daily, went back to Shadowmoon to do more dailies there and as of right now, I have done 13 of 25 possible daily quests. We're getting ready for Gruul's now, so I probably won't do many more, but it sure is nice to be able to buy 5 large prismatic shards and make 60g on top of that with daily questing.

2.4 Today

2.4 came out today and while I haven't had the chance to play around with the patch, it will be relatively uneventful. I have the patch downloaded and burned, ready to install, and I've got my 150 badges sitting in the bank for my new dagger - the Scryer's Blade of Focus. I was swamped at work the last two weeks and didn't make it to Karazhan, so I didn't get the 60 badges for the Fused Nethergon Band.

Hopefully I can make it over to the Sunwell to pick up the dagger before Zul'Aman or Gruul's tonight and hopefully Large Prismatic Shards aren't too expensive on the auction house becuase I stupidly didn't buy enough yesterday and I would like to enchant it before I go.

Either way, the patch should provide a lot of fun over the next few days as we explore new areas, participate in new daily quests, and amass even more new pets! Speaking of which, I have a bid in on a beautiful Disgusting Oozling. If I don't win it, I'm tempted to bid on a Captured Firefly. There's one cheap on the Auction house now and even though I wanted to find him myself, I can't pass up a great deal.

A Tale of Two Teams

Last night, the Gold Team once again ventured back into Gruul the Dragonkiller's lair and quickly disposed of him. We wiped once on Gruul due to a horrible shatter but quickly took him down the second time through.

For the second time in two weeks, he once again dropped two pairs of Leggings of the Fallen Hero. Again, this time I did not roll for them as we are now using a DKP system called EP/GP. It rewards both effort points (showing up on time, etc.) and gear points (gear that drops). And even though I'd like to have the pants to complete a Tier 4 set, I am not going to roll on them since I would not use them (Spellstrike is significantly better).

But last night, once again, the difference between the two teams I have run 25-man content with was plainly clear. The Gold Team had clear leadership, we had all the classes in their respective channels, and everything seemed to go smoothly. We had a couple new people so the initial Maulgar pull took a couple of chances but we quickly took him out.

This image (Gruul: Week 1) compares two teams on Gruul. The blue on the left is the Ungawa group I previously ran with. The brown on the left is the Gold Team I currently run with. When you look at total DPS, it's clear why Gruul will not die for my old team - DPS. Plain and simple. If we can average 8,104 DPS over a 25 man raid and they get to 6,500 or so, that is a provlem. Another thing you notice is 16 people survived all 100% of the fight and 7 of the remaining 9 lasted 90% of the fight. On the other side, you've got people dorpping off at 50 and 75%. Sure, we had an early death, but we pushed through and destroyed the Gronn. You also see at the top of our list, 2 mages, and 2 hunters. In the Ungawa group, there's 2 hunters at the top and the mages come in at #7 (lasted whole fight) and #10, 11 & 13 (died early - only one was going 600+ DPS).

In this second week's numbers, you can see that our DPS actually increased from 8,100 DPS to over 9,200! Comador completely destroyed Gruul with over 1,000 sustained DPS and I lost a bit of DPS due to more movement (I was only able to DPS 91% of the time compared to 97% the week before). We had 13 people doing over 500 DPS, and 5 people doing 700+ DPS. Ungawa has 9 people doing 500+ DPS (2 died really early) and just 2 people doing 700+ DPS (none doing over 800+).

Now, the point of the post isn't to point out one team being better than the other, but rather to show what dedicated players can accomplish. All too often with the Ungawa raids, I saw people show up without consumables. Not have enchants on their main set of gear. Having green gems in gear instead of blue gems. And just a laissez faire attitude towards raiding. On our side, we are all committed. We are all working to progress both individually and as a group. I really do hope the Ungawa team can continue to make gains, but I was just discouraged with the attitude of the group and they were attempting SSC without being able to down Gruul. We are able to one-shot Gruul on a consistent basis and we're planning on goin to Magtheridon soon. We have yet to step inside SSC. There's a reason you used to have to down Gruul and Magtheridon before going to SSC. There's a purpose behind the madness of Blizzard. Hopefully Ungawa will progress and figure out that attempting SSC without being able to down Gruul or Mag is a fruitless endeavor.

Here is a locally hosted version of the WowWebStats from last night: here. Here it is on the WWS server: here.

Massive DPS

This is what I love to see...


Just massive DPS by all involved. I took a couple cave-ins on me, but for the most part was able to stand and cast and do massive damage. It was amazing having Hemnetcher in the raid as I didn't have to use Mage Armor, but istead could use Molten Armor adding fire crit. I used all three of my mana emeralds and I think I had to evocate for a couple ticks towards the end, but in the end, having a shadow priest helps immensely. Not only did I have great mana regen, but I think I only bandaged once and even then it was a misclick. I was able to quickly regen all health after a cave in or shatter through the shadow priest.

In short, the 25 Man Gold Team Rocks!

Gold Team 25 Man One Shots Gruul

Another fun and interesting night. Rather than our usual Karazhan Tuesdays, we have rearranged our schedules and had a split Zul'Aman / Gruul night. The Gold Team quickly ventured into Zul'Aman, one shot Akil'zon, Nalorakk, and Halazzi earning two timed chests and then we got in a couple attempts on Jan'Alai before we headed over to Gruul's Lair.

We picked up the rest of the Gold 25 Man Team and we had a brief meeting as this was the first official Gold Team venture into Gruul's - a quasi-Gold Team went in last night and one shot Maulgar and took Gruul down to 5% the first try and down the second try.

After our quick team meeting, we rushed Maulgar, took him down despite a quick death of one of my healers as I was mage tanking - Lexten quickly shifted over and kept me up with Dylana quite ably. After Maulgar, we headed to Gruul and without a hitch one shot him. Much to my surprise, two Leggings of the Fallen Hero dropped. I didn't roll since they wouldn't be an upgrade for me. But hopefully we'll continue to see them and I'll get them on a need roll and work towards completing my Tier 4 set.

Congrats again to the amazing Gold Team! We will quickly conquer whatever lies in front of us!

((Locally hosted WowWebStats can be found here for Zul'Aman and here for Gruul's Lair. The WowWebStats site is down, but I am just itching to see what my DPS was for Gruul himself...))

Two Free Chests

I had been waiting to post about last Wednesday night since I took some great photos, but I keep forgetting to send them to my journaling location. Anyways, after a 2 week hiatus from Zul'Aman, I was able to rejoin the Gold Team as we went for timed chests and hoped to take down Jan'Alai. We started on time and completely tore through Nalorakk and Akil'zon both with time to spare. We got some cool loot from the timed chests and I walked away with Shadowcaster's Drape. I don't have many haste items, but this is the start of my haste set.

After Nalorakk and Akil'zon, we hurried to Halazzi, but ran out of time. It is rumored that in Karazhan gear, you should be able to get 2 timed chests and it takes Serpentshrine Cavern and Black Temple gear to get 3 timed chests. We will keep pushing it though to see if we can pull it off. I certainly would love to see the Mana Attuned Band from the third chest.

Even though we ran out of time, we quickly one shot Halazzi which gave us a lot of time to learn the Jan'Alai fight. We got in 6 tries (reset him quite a bunch, so it didn't take too long), but ran out of time in the end. However, on our last try, we completely cleared out one side of eggs and about 1/4 of the other side before we lost our tank and had to run out. I am confident that if we can keep our tank up, we can balance the DPS on Jan'Alai and take out the eggs in a timely manner. Next week he should go down. After that, we can begin working on Hex Lord Malacrass who drops the amazingly magnificent Hood of Hexing and sometime after that, take down Zul'Jin and clear the place out.

The thing is, last Wednesday, I genuinely had fun running with our Gold Team. We enjoy ourselves on vent, we have time to joke around - even during timed boss fights - and there's never any loot drama. The only real drama we have is people refusing to take items...Contrast that to last Sunday when I ventured into SSC with 24 other people. We wiped countless times on one boss, took an inordinate amount of time discussing strategies and other minutiae, and it just was too long. And as I go back and re-read my post on that subject, I just wonder how much more I can take in there. I know it takes time and sacrifice to progress, but I personally feel, that until we can take down Gruul and Magtheridon (there's a reason they were pre-requisites for Serpentshrine Cavern attunement), we have no business inside that place. And I'm not willing to waste 5 hours of my Sunday wiping over and over. I will probably give it a few more weeks, but will notify the leaders that they should look for a replacement mage and replace me when possible.

For my future reference, WowWebStats from 2/13 Zul'Aman: http://wowtid.com/wws/wws-20080213-1854

First Foray into SSC

//CAUTION: WALL OF TEXT

Yesterday was our first official visit to SSC with a set group of people that we plan on raiding with each Sunday. We spent a few hours learning the Hydross fight and while we were unable to get him down, we did learn a bit about the fight. It was the first time seeing SSC for most people in the raid and while we were able to handle the trash without problems, the first boss gave us lots of issues.

Basically, Hydross debuffs everyone in the raid so they take more damage depending on which stage he is in. Every 15 seconds the buff goes from 10% more damage to 25, 50, 100 and 250. So you have about a minute before you need to transition him to his other form. Each time you transition him though, he spawns four elementals. So the key is you need enough DPS to kill the spawns before you need to transition again and spawn four more. Our problem was we were unable to kill the spawns in a timely manner each time. Another problem we had is that when transitioning from one tank to the other, he drops all aggro. So if a DOT goes off or an arrow hits him at the wrong time, you can pull him back causing another transition and with 8 elementals, there is a wipe.

When you first engage Hydross, you have a chance to do maximum DPS as there are no elementals to worry about. During this first phase, the raid should be able to get him to about 80%. However, we were unable to do that. I didn't watch it as closely as I probably should have, but I think our best might have been 85-86%. The problem I have is that I can do a lot of burst damage and I get too close to the tank's threat. This is mitigated with invisibility as I shouldn't reach the tank's threat again through the fight, but that causes downtime as well. Either way, the problem is we couldn't get enough initial DPS on him. DPS will also be an issue later on...

After the first transition, he spawns the elementals and the warlocks are banishing one while the druid tank picks up two and another is tanked by an off-warrior tank. The DPS needs to be coordinated and work on the same elementals one after another. I've also heard that these can be AOE'd down, but I think that might just take a little too much coordination for our group at this time. As elementals went down, I switched to get an occasional fireball off at Hydross as a poorly timed fireball that hits after the elemental is dead would be completely pointless. There was also some time in there where I could get some scorches stacked while an elemental was banished, but usually, after we got the four spawns down, I was unable to do any real DPS as another transition was happening.

So where'd we go wrong? I'm still not sure what exactly was going wrong as we were all brand new to the instance and learning how the fight worked and what our responsibilities were. At first glance, I'd say we didn't have enough DPS. Towards the end of the night, I started logging the fights and I analyzed them with WowWebStats. Here's our third to last attempt. Sustained DPS numbers are off as there's downtime at the start where the tank builds aggro, but you can just see that there's a top tier of DPS and then a huge drop off. I'm 82% present since I did nothing at the start while the tank built aggro. I could have been helping with the initial elementals, but they only have 8k DPS, so if I had used my mana to kill them, I don't think it would have been efficient so I got ready to let loose on Hydross when we were ready.

Going on from there, we had our second to last attempt. Again, you see a top tier and then some dropoff in DPS. I'm again only present for 92% of the time as I'm waiting for the tank to grab aggro rather than working on the small elementals. For the last attempt, I started in on the elementals to try and help out a little this time, but an errant hunter arrow during the transition wiped us. Either way, there wasn't enough DPS being done and not enough coordination during the spawns to really get everything working correctly.

While the saying "practice makes perfect" is true, I feel that there's a point at which you're just banging your head against a wall and nothing is being accomplished. After 4 hours of trying to down him, I'm not sure how much more "practice" people can take. After seeing it 4-5 times, I think that's about as much as you should attempt in one night. Maybe more if you have soulstones and can quickly attempt it again. But after a certain time, you need to call it a night, have people do some homework, and have people work towards the next week.

When it comes to DPS and healing, these are what make or break a raid. DPS and healing not only comes from skill, but also from gear. According to Bosskillers.com, this is what you should expect gear-wise.

Gear must be extremely high quality. Every member should be able to look through their equipment and be able to say to themselves "I only need a few more upgrades from Karazhan or Gruul's lair."

Melee DPS: Karazhan quality weapons, lvl70 blue armor or better
Healers: Mix of Karazhan quality blue/purple armor or better

The problem here is I don't think we're adequately geared for this instance. If we don't have the DPS to down Gruul, let alone Magtheridon (not even attempted yet), how are we supposed to progress? I've spent thousands of gold on patterns, gems and enchants to ensure that I have the best gear possible and to ensure that I can output the most DPS. I've spent hours reading forums, learning about he mechanics of a mage and even though my talents are cookie-cutter, they do more damage than anyone else.

The problem is, I can't say that everyone else has done the same. I raid in full epic gear except for the Scryer's Bloodgem which I only use on bosses for the +hit. There were people in our raid last night that were in greens and blues. If we are going to be seriously attempting 25 man tier 5 instances, we need to make sure everyone is geared. Bosskillers recommends Karazhan quality gear. This means mostly purples, some blues, and there should not be any greens. Also, it means PVE spec and PVE gear. There's always going to be some PVP gear that just outshines any PVE alternative at this level, but for the most part, if you have resilience, you are wasting stats. Looking through the armory profiles, it appears many people are adequately geared, so it may just be a matter of looking at specs and spell/melee rotations. Also, while you may be wearing purples, if you don't have the necessary +hit or expertise to hit on a consistent basis, you are just wasting damage. Also, a quick browsing of profiles shows people with green gems in sockets and *gasp* EMPTY sockets. That is unacceptable for raiding. Go run 4 dailies and you can buy any blue gem you need. I think this was a last-minute fill in that I saw, but still, how can you be running around with green gems and empty sockets?

Another thing that really upset me while we were waiting to attempt the boss is the lack of self-applied buffs. According to BossKillers, these are the MINIMUM, requirements:

Melee DPS use a Flask of Relentless Assault, Fel Strength Elixir, Elixir of Major Agility, Winterfall Firewater, DPS food, and any other damage increasing consumable. Poisons do not work on this fight: bring Adamantite Sharpening Stones.

Ranged DPS use Flask of Firepower, Adept's Elixir, Elixir of Major Fire/Frost/Shadow Power, and any other damage increasing consumable.

Tanks use Flask of Fortification, Defense Potion, Elixir of Mastery, stamina increasing food; anything that will increase HP or mitigation. Note: Stoneshield-type potions are useless because all "melee" damage is elemental (resistance gear check, not armor).

Healers use Flask of Mighty Restoration, Mana Regeneration Potion, Elixir of Healing Power; anything that will increase your healing efficiency or the amount of mana you have.

I brought a Flask of Pure Death, multiple Superior Wizard Oil and two full stacks of +spell damage food and even some +30 stamina food in case I needed an HP boost. On top of that, I was also prepared with more +stamina gear in case an encounter called for stamina over +damage. While clicking from person to person, I rarely saw food buffs and even worse, rarely, if ever saw flasks or potions. The reason I brought the flask of pure death is because it persists through death. Had I known we were spending 4+ hours in there, I would have brought two. Either way, for the first two hours of attempts on Hydross, I had my flask. I always had a +spell damage food buff and I always had Wizard Oil applied to my weapon. I was prepared. Most others weren't.

If this is going to be a serious raid, that requires that you spend time grinding for stuff you need. Take the money you get from a day of dailies and buy two flasks. Those will last you 4 hours and persist through death. Buy the food you need or ask someone if they can make it for you. And I believe everyone has oils, stones, or poisons that can be applied to weapons. They should ALWAYS be applied. I also came with 10 mana pots and 10 healing pots, but didn't use many, but if I had needed them, they were there. I also had a stack of bandages I could use in a pinch as well. I was prepared. Most everyone else wasn't. I realize we're more of a casual raid group, but farming these items doesn't take much time. Put the work in and we'll have more success. Don't put the work in and we'll continue to bang our head against a wall for weeks on end.

I guess in the end it just comes down to how serious about this everyone is. Do we really want to progress or are we just in there to have some fun and kill some time? Why should I put in over 100g to two flasks of death when I could just slack off and not use any pots? Why should I put over 700g into my new pair of boots when I could just use a blue? Why spend so much on different sets of helms and pants including the best enchants and best gems available when I could just put cheap enchants and cheap gems in them? Well, yes, I like doing the most damage. And it's not by pure luck that I do so on most raids I attend. It's because I've put the time and effort into making this one character the best he can be. I know my role and I do it to the best of my ability. Sure there's probably areas where I could improve my DPS, but the raid as a whole needs to be improved in my opinion before we can take Hydross down on a consistent basis.

Last night we managed to get him down to the mid 70% range a couple times I think during our best attempts. We we able to get up to 4 or 5 transitions at most before a tank went down or aggro was pulled back across the transition line. It's still a work in progress, but while I would like to share the same optimism of our raid leader, until we are able to take Gruul down on a consistent basis - after all, you just really need pure DPS there and you just really need DPS on Hydross - I'm not sure if we have a chance. I'll be there next Sunday and I'll come prepared, but until we get everyone Kara and Gruul geared, there's a limit as to what the raid can accomplish.

Gruul Down (With a PUG)

Last week, after finally seeing Gruul taken down, I received my Earthen Signet (it goes well with the Blazing Signet that had been sitting in my bank). Just as I was about to call it a night after running a few quick dailies, Aracely messaged me and asked if I wanted to go to Heroic Underbog. Since I knew he had a great group already put together, I obliged and forced myself awake for a little while longer.

So not only would I be able to complete the quest, The Cudgel of Kar'desh, but I could also gain a little more rep and get me a little closer to exalted with the Cenarion Expedition (one of the few factions in the Outland I'm not exalted with). After turning in all my Coilfang Armaments, I am within 1,000 rep of exalted. So close.

So while I was able to turn in the quest and get one step closer to being a Champion of the Naaru (Vetarra received her title last night with the quest turn-in - CONGRATS!), I also got rep, and...Quagmirran's Eye dropped. Now, I've recently been using Icon of the Silver Crescent when fighting trash mobs and during everyday grinding, as I don't need the extra +hit that the Scryer's Bloodgem provides. However, the Icon really doesn't get put to full use. I use the extra spell damage whenever I remember to activate it, but sometimes, that can be 5-10 minutes between uses...not very smart. So the nice thing about Quag's Eye is that it has no "use" requirement. It's all on equip.

The Icon of the Silver Crescent adds 43 passive damage while the Eye only adds 37, but the eye also procs to increase haste by 320! for six seconds. According to Lhivera's page, with my current stats, the Icon adds 3 more DPS over the Eye. However, those 3 DPS are conditional on maximum usage of the "use" of the trinket. Unfortunately, like I said, I don't use the trinket to its maximum potential. So I'm thinking I'm going to use Quag's Eye for a while and see how it stacks up. It'll be really tough to figure out how it does do in comparison to the Icon, but it will be one less thing I have to worry about activating during fights.

((Yes, I know you can put the Icon in a macro so it will activate if available during every fireball, and maybe that is a better option for me, but for now, I'll try the Eye. I like to save my trinkets for certain points where I know I can get full use of the "use" feature, but if I'm not using it as much as I could, then waiting for those times doesn't make sense. We'll see how the eye stacks up.))

JubJub!

((My apologies for the lack of udpates. I've been slammed at work and as such, missed Gruuls, Kara, and Zul'Aman last week and have already missed Gruuls and plan on missing Kara tonight - however, some stuff has happened...))

On Friday night, after taking a week off from raiding, I awoke with the need to set some things on fire. The lovely Amatsuterasu messaged me just as I awoke, requesting my presence as mage tank for High King Maulgar. I obliged since I knew it was the only time during the week I would be free for Gruul's Lair. I quickly donned my stamina set from the bank and received a summons and was ready to go. We had some problems with the initial pull as this new group I was with did things in an odd manner. They used a Paladin to go in and initiate the fight. He would then bubble and I would have to try and grab Krosh off of him. The first time it worked, but my heals were not enough as the only healer on me was having mana issues. After I went down, the attempt was called. The second time through, the pally pull didn't work as planned (I think a hunter jumped the gun) and Krosh was sitting in the middle of everything. I was able to keep aggro and stay alive, but with his fire novas, anyone near him was toast.

The third time through, we got it all down, and Maulgar went down without a problem. Our first attempt at Gruul went quite well as we had some people who had never seen the fight and they needed to just see what happens once to figure it out. Our second time through, we finally took down Gruul. And while he dropped two Leggings of the Fallen Defender (I do not have good luck with Fallen Hero drops), it was nice to see him go down. The only problem is, I couldn't figure out what they did right and what our raid does wrong. I'm thinking it's a pure DPS problem as we have more people who are focused on having fun and gearing the way they want, rather than understanding how their class works and how to maximize their DPS. There's always the same few people at the top of the DPS charts, and there's always the same few people who are contributing far too little. Gearing them up would help I suppose, but if they don't understand how to use their abilities to the maximum benefit of the raid or how to watch for multiple events and avoid certain things, it's tough to progress. Also, if you aren't willing to take the time to learn the fight, and have the add-ons that should be required, how are we expected to be able to progress in a timely manner?

After Gruul's though, we were polled to see if we wanted to continue on that night. So, I was able to see Serpentshrine Cavern! We didn't have the necessary tank gear to take down Hydross, so we skipped ahead to Lurker. For the majority of people in the raid, it was their first time seeing SSC, so we only had time for two shots at Lurker, and we didn't get him down. But I have now seen inside SSC and look forward to going back again.

On a completely unrelated note, though I have been collecting pets in my spare time, including the Spore Bat and my beloved Bananas, I hadn't really been going around and picking up lots of random pets. However, last weekend, I took it upon myself to travel to Netherstorm, Exodar, and all over to obtain as many pets as I could without spending a fortune. As of last night, I had collected 41 of the 73 pets available to me. I have excluded 8 pets as I cannot get EU only pets, Engineer only pets, or the Panda or Zergling as I chose the Diablo. And as much as it hurts to do so, I excluded the Blood Parrot. As I am already at maximum hated reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers and I am also revered with three of the Steamwheedle Cartel factions, there is no possible way for me to grind to friendly with the Buccaneers and then back again. If I had known about that option earlier in my career, I would have done that, but it is much too late to do so now.

But back to my pets. Yesterday, the Darkmoon Faire arrived in Terokkar Forest. I hopped over there, turned in the Dense Grinding Stones I had saved up and caught up to Flik as he chased his frog around. I bought a Tree Frog and a Wood Frog. I then made the trip back to the Grim Guzzler, a run I know all too well from grinding Thorium Brotherhood reputation, and bought some Dark Iron Ale Mugs. I threw one at the feet of Morja, her pet Jubjub arrived, and I was able to get a Spawn of Jubjub. In seven days, it will hatch and I'll have my very own Jubjub! However, this weekend, I was not aware that I could get Mojo just by blowing a kiss to someone outside Zul'Aman and now I'm quite upset. It may be a long time before I get to find Mojo inside Zul'Aman itself, but one can only hope.

Tonight, I might continue my search for a Firefly or start questing for a Smoldwerbeb and Worg.

In the realm of recipes, nothing too new to report. I bought a pattern for the Black Belt of Knowledge yesterday. Probably will never craft one, but I'm getting closer to all the recipes...

Today also begins the Lunar Festival in Azeroth. There are no pets to be had, but the important thing are the patterns. One year ago today, I was but a young mage and my tailoring skills were not high enough to earn the patterns. There is both a Festival Suit and a Festival Dress to buy. Oddly enough, these are not soulbound, but I have never seen them on auction...perhaps I will collect extra coins and sell a few of these throughout the year like the Green Winter Clothes pattern I'm saving.

Love is in the Air also begins in a few days and that will be my one chance this year to obtain Peddlefeet...let the grinding commence.