Missing in Action

A couple things to quickly update.

1. The 10 Man Gold Team cleared Normal Trial in an hour last week. We then attempted the Northrend Beasts on heroic again. This time though, we killed them. We tried Jaraxxus a few times, but just didn't have the time or patience to kill him.

2. The 25 Man Gold Team took down the Faction Champions for the first time last week. I hear it was a one-shot. I was out of town. They then quickly took down the Twins, but didn't have time to get through Anub.

3. Just one week until Brewfest!! With it, a new mount. I'm currently at 96 mounts. I am still hoping to get my Red Proto Drake soon (97) then my Violet Proto Drake with Brewfest (98) and finally an Argent Tourney mount will be 99 in a couple days. Then, my special, super-secret mount will be revealed as #100.

4. We went into Naxx last night to get Undying. And, we did. It was not that hard and it took us just over 2 hours to clear all the way through. Not too shabby. Tiddlywinks the Undying sounds good. I do die quite infrequently (when not in raids - where my cloth armor does little to protect me).

5. I was roaming through Stratholme looking for another new mount. While in there, I found my new weapon to look pretty good. (click to enlarge)

4 Down, 1 To Go

Last night, I got my Exalted Champion of Darnassus title and luckily, for the fifth and final faction (Exodar - just because it's last in the row of NPCs), I will finish in 4 days. The key here is there are three random daily quests you can get from the factions - A Blade Fit for a Champion, A Worthy Weapon, and The Edge of Winter. Theoretically, you can earn 5 Valiant's Seals a day. However, when you turn in your 25 seals for The Valiant's Charge, you can then immediately pick which faction you are going to champion next. As long as that faction has a different quest of the three random daily quests, you can do it, allowing you to earn 2 extra seals on the day you switch factions.

The problem I ran into is that after finishing my first faction (the gnomes, of course!) I didn't get that extra quest, so I've been 2 behind people who got lucky that time. But just 2 seals back doesn't save you a day of quests. Luckily, when switching the next three times, I got the extra quest, so I'm 6 seals up right now and will be able to complete the last leg in just 4 days! So even if people got lucky each time they switched, they will be on the same timetable as me. All I know right now though is that I'm going to be up early Saturday morning to get my Exalted Argent Champion of the Alliance achievement and become...Crusader Tiddlywinks!

((And when I do get that, think of the achievement spam in Guild chat...Champion of Exodar, Exalted Champion of Exodar, Champion of the Alliance, Exalted Champion of the Alliance, and Exalted Argent Champion of the Alliance))

Also, this weekend, a grouping of the Gold Team and Group 2 went into 25 man Vault of Archavon and took down Emalon with ease. Unfortunately, no T8.5 for mages, but we had just one wipe due to a priest mistake within the first 15 seconds of the fight. We regrouped and essentially one-shot him.


In that Emalon fight, I was quite happy with my DPS. I've been experimenting with arcane and just haven't been able to figure out how to sustain high DPS with it. I ran arcane through the first half of our 25 man Naxx run last weekend and it just wasn't doing the damage I expected. I was using the right rotation and though it was tough to time my evocations properly, I did have minimal down time to regen mana. Yet each fight, my DPS seemed to be lower than what I could have gotten with Frostfire Bolt.

So I'm back to Frostfire Bolt because A) I think it does more DPS and B) I know the spec and rotations and know how to maximize my DPS with the spec. So here's where I ended on the Emalon fight.

Another Busy Weekend?

Dang, going back through my screenshots and such, it's quite surprising what I got accomplished this weekend. It started Friday with the Gold Team going to 25 man Naxx. We quickly cleared it, but had some fun when we got to Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. On Sapph, we turned off mage armor, frost resist auras, and anything else that would put our frost resist above 100. After one wipe due to the tank somehow dying, we came back in and quickly took care of him, earning Heroic: The Hundred Club.

We then quickly moved to Kel'Thuzad and thought we would keep our achievements going and proceeded to have the most hectic KT fight I've ever seen. We decided to go for Heroic: Just Can't Get Enough and though we lost one person during that, he was rezzed and we continued on. I unfotunately died somehow from a mana blast that hit me for 20,000 damage. I got rezzed (and it was a good thing they picked me up), since at about 20%, he Ice Blocked our paladin who was tanking two of the adds. So those adds got free and we lost a healer before the main tank, Aravic, was able to pick them up. So we had Aravic tanking KT and two adds for a while until the other add tank could peel one off of him. And we continued the fight like that. Then all hell broke loose. With KT and an add on him, Aravic went down. I immediately went invisible to drop all aggro. Let the healers die I say! I quickly returned from invisibility and DPS'ed with all I had. And we did it. Somehow, a few of us DPS remained and were able to take out KT without a tank. We had just enough to power through him as he moved from target to target one-shotting them. We would have gone to Emalon next, but the Horde held Wintergrasp so we called it an early evening.

Saturday took me back out to Icecrown where I became an Exalted Champion of Ironforge. The day also saw me get my 40th Champion's Seal which I used to quickly purchase pet #91, my Mechanopeep. I had hoped to get a 10 seal bonus like I did when I became a Champion of Gnomeregan, but no luck. Apparently you only get the 10 seal bonus on your first Championing, so it will be 8 days from Saturday (next Sunday) until I can get my next pet - I think it'll be the Elwynn Lamb - a nice change from your normal pet. With becoming an Exalted Champion of Ironforge, I also hit 6,000 achievement points.

Later in the day I was invited to the Black Temple, and after some struggles on the later bosses, we made it to Illidan. Unfortunately, coordination was poor and even though we got him to stage 4, we never got him down and after spending 5.5+ hours in there, I had to leave. It was just too frustrating, and in the end, they never got him down.

Sunday of course brought with it Noblegarden so out to collect eggs I went. I found a nice spot in Dolanaar that I was able to camp with 5 eggs within reach without moving. I quickly picked up over 250 and found everything I needed. I got my Tome of Polymorph: Rabbit for 100 chocolates, but found the Spring Rabbit's Foot in an egg and all the clothing except the dress in eggs. I then went out, did the other quests and quickly earned my title of Tiddlywinks the Noble. After doing my daily quests and taking some time off, I awoke late in the night and went to Azure Watch where I found very little egg competition, and on my 2nd egg, I found the dress and completed every Noblegarden achievement. Yay!

A Busy Week

Last week was pretty busy. It of course all started on Tuesday with the Argent Tournament, continued Thursday with 10 man Ulduar, progressed Friday with 25 man full clear Naxx and 2 attempts at Flame Leviathan, extended to Sunday with a Sunwell clear, and finished yesterday with more advancement in the Argent Tournament.

Back to Friday, we quickly gathered up and discussed what our next move would be. Would we concentrate on 25 man Ulduar, or continue for a few weeks in Naxxramas, continuing to gear up players and, maybe more importantly, get gear for secondary specs. It was decided we would stay in Naxxramas for 2-3 weeks and gear people up as the week before was our first time downing Kel'Thuzad (progress bars on the right updated). So we pressed forward and cleared Naxxramas in record time. The week prior, we had taken time on Thursday to clear the Spider wing, whereas on Friday, we cleared the whole place in under 3.5 hours - a very good time for us. We had two wings down in under 1 hour. So with our record time, we decided to head over to Ulduar to see what was going on there.

We quickly formed up, explained the first fight and promptly...wiped on trash. We just got too spread out, so on our next attempt, we stayed together and easily made it to the Flame Leviathan. Unfortunately, some people had issues with their vehicles and we also had problems picking people up after they had jumped on the Flame Leviathan. So we didn't get him down on the two attempts we had before we had to call it for the night. I'm looking forward to having more time in there - we should be able to easily take out the Flame Leviathan, but I can see issues with XT-002 already (it's a healer check) and I'm hoping Razorscale is a little bit easier on 25 man than it is on 10 man.

Then on Sunday, I see someone advertising a Sunwell run in trade chat. Bleh, I've been before and even at 80, unless your team has good coordination, you're not going to get past Felmyst or some other later bosses (which you can zerg as well). But then Aenador messaged me from the group and wanted to see if I wanted to go. With her and others from Familiaris Incursio in the group, I felt a little safer and decided to give it a shot. And I'm glad I did. It was quite fun and I got to finally see M'uru, the Twins, and Kil'Jaeden. I also won a piece of Tier 6 which makes me happy and earned another achievement. I just have the Black Temple left now. Here's some pictures from the run:

(2, 3, 4, and 5)

Which leads us to Monday. After quickly completing the daily cooking quest in my search for a Chef's Hat (I'm now over half way there), I headed up to the Argent Tournament ready to become a Champion! I quickly completed the dailies, bested a Champion in a joust, and earned my title. Tiddlywinks of Gnomeregan.


With the Champion title achieved, it was time to work for another faction. Ironforge just happened to be standing right there, so I went to work for them. He only had one quest for me on the day, so I headed over to the main tent to see what else I could do. Ah yes, the Black Knight!

I accepted the challenge, went outside and picked a steed and awaited the Black Knight. And what happened next? I demolished him. Pretty disappointing. I feel like this was a real opportunity wasted - so did my other guildmates who bested him yesterday. But hey, it's 10 more achievement points, upping my total to 5,860.

After that, it was time to work on getting some more Champion's Seals. The quests are getting a bit tougher this time around. The jousting opponents are much tougher and trying to work your way through the boneguards near the Citadel is a bit tougher. But all the quests were completed, even the group quest with the help of the wonderful Vetarra and I got my 5 seals, bringing me to 15. Just a few more days and I'll be able to get my Mechanopeep!

Achievement 500 is...

Nothing I was expecting! So I figured it'd be Make Quick Werk of Him, but that was #501. Number 500 was...drumroll please...

The Dedicated Few!


We finished off just the plague quarter after already doing the rest of Naxx with just 8 a long time ago, so I now sit at 502 achievements since, although we didn't get The Undying, I did get my Wooly Mammoth after Naxx with my 201 emblems.

After that, I ventured over to Sholazar Basin and switched from the Oracles to the Frenzyheart (after picking up another Mysterious Egg of course).

So, now that that's done, I need to focus on my UI and get rid of these small bars under Scorchio - what are they?? I can't figure out what addon has placed them there.

The (Almost) Undying

Last night, the Gold Team 10 man group had a couple of people running late, so we went into Sartharion before Naxxramas and attempted to 8 man Sarth + 1 drake. We probably could do it, but after one attempt, the two late parties came online, but instead of getting them into the instance, we quickly downed the drake and then 8 manned Sartharion getting us the awesome Less is More achievement.

We then formed up for our 10 man Naxxramas run and blew through the four rings. While doing so, we we able to get Momma Said Knock You Out, Arachnophobia, Shocking, The Safety Dance, and of course all quarters cleared, Sapphiron Down, and we were at Kel'Thuzad with NO DEATHS.

So we all knew what was on the line. Due to our abundance of melee DPSers this night, we had a paladin, Dantis, step out and help heal so we could have extra help on the ice blocks. It was just Jizo (our shaman) and me on the banshees in the first phase and we did a good job, we transitioned to the second phase and all was going well. We had a couple of double ice blocks in the melee area as we still had four melee DPS standing in there jockyeing for position. Then, at 40%, it happened. Our second pally healer, Eleazarjr, got ice blocked. The attempt to call it out on vent was made, but perhaps just a split second too late. Hemnetcher's heal went off a split second too late and with Dantis out of range, Dylana wasn't able to switch off of the tank to cross heal Jr (or so I'm assuming). Either way, we were so very close to The Undying.

Being that close really hurts. Just that one little mistake after a night of perfect one-shots. A night where on almost every boss we not only beat our own record, but shattered it. However, being this close, I know we can do it. There's no question that we have the DPS, the healing, and the coordination. Our team is set. And next week, with the Undying, I know we can get Make Quick Werk of Him. We were just 5 seconds over the timer this last time through and with our other heavy-hitting mage coming back next week and some improved DPS from our shammy, we should easily be able to get him down in time.

Tonight we hit up heroic Naxxramas. Should be fun. Hopefully we'll get our full clear tonight now that we have all four wings down pat.

Given a full clear, that would give me my 500th achievement. Who knows what it will be. I should get Heroic: Arachnophobia early in the raid and then hopefully Heroic: Sapphiron's Demise towards the end, and then Heroic: Kel'Thuzad's Defeat would be #500 and Heroic: The Fall of Naxxramas would be #501. But if we don't get Arachnophobia, it would be quite fitting to have The Fall of Naxxramas be #500.

Sartharion, Maly, and More

This weekend, while adventuring with young Tozz, Tiddly was invited to go to the Obsidian Sanctum with 24 other adventurers to attempt to kill Sartharion with one of his drakes still alive. After one quick wipe due to some people still not understanding the lava wall and void zones, we quickly reformed, and took him out. Our group then semi-disbanded, but those left decided to go play around in Mount Hyjal. We quickly worked our way to the end, had some problems with a few bad apples deciding to pull the boss when we weren't ready, and then took out Archimonde with ease.

And then last night, after our first few attempts last Monday, we went back to try to bring down Malygos. After a couple of attempts as our death knights perfected their spark grabbing, and a few more wipes due to Malygos glitching right before the vortex (we put hunter pets away and had no issues - seems the bug is back), we took Malygos down after two more attempts. In our first attempt, during the third phase, I was not targeted at all by Malygos and successfully stacked 22 or 23 flame engulfs, but we had too many down to take him out before he enraged. On our next try, we knew we had him where we wanted him. We stacked the sparks perfectly, we took the scions out quickly, and we had over four minutes of the third phase to work him down. Unfortunately, Malygos remembered me this time around and constantly targeted me so I was unable to get past 10 stacks on him. But I survived quite a few until he hit me as I had just added to the stacks and had no energy to work with.

But the rest of our group performed admirably and we took him down. Here's my newly redesigned UI as we gather around to distribute loot:



My new UI builds on the UI I had a while ago prior to Wrath. Fubar lines the top with relevant information, my raid is down the left side which always allows a quick view of our status during a fight and I have tanks and cooldowns right there next to the raid. In the upper-right, I have XLoot and Elkano's Buff Bars and Omen3 (clear) in the middle on the right side.

Above the main black area in the middle, I am using Pitbull for my unit frames (they still need a little customizing), Decursive is above my name and there's more targeting and pet bars over on the right side. I'm still working on it all and will try and get a better shot during a normal battle.

Oh yeah, you've got MalygosCP right there in the middle - an amazing mod. Always gives me a very quick view of Combo Poitns, Energy and Engulf in Flames stacks. If only it could blink if you were targeted or something.

On the bottom panel we have (left to right): chat, map, bartender bars (hidden due to the fact I'm on a "vehicle"), and recount.



Other recent achievements, Heroic: Construct Quarter (last Friday - along with 50 emblems of valor), a Heroic: Twilight Assist on Saturday along with Hyjal, and then of course, last night (not pictured): Heroic: The Spellweaver's Downfall. I now sit at 495 achievements. Wonder what will be #500?

Thaddius Down, Military Quarter on Notice!

We once again ventured back into heroic Naxxramas, this time with a full group assembled at six, ready to go. We quickly stepped inside, buffed up and destroyed the Arachnid Quarter. Ventured into the Plague Quater, ran into little resistance, hit a couple of speed bumps in the Construct Quarter, but we cleared them all. I was forced to take a slight upgrade with the Cowl of Vanity even though I tried passing it, so I'm about 250g lighter in the pocket after buying gems and the arcanum.

But I had fun tonight. I thoroughly enjoyed blowing everything up.

Anub'Rekhan: 4200 DPS
Faerlina: 4000
Maexxna: 2600 (I was on web duty and running all over the place)
Noth: 3800
Heigan: 2700
Loatheb: 6200
Patchwerk: 4200
Grobbulus: 3100
Gluth: Kiting Duty
Thaddius: 7650
Trash Mobs: 4040

So yeah, fun time. I went through a stack of my food, 2 flasks, and lots of conjured food. We had 24 of 25 people split 40 pieces of gear, and next time we go back in, we'll be just that much stronger.

Viva la Gold Team!

Naxx 25: Take 2

Last Friday, the Gold Team ventured into Heroic Naxxramas for our second attempt at the instance. We had some different healers, some different DPS, and some last minute pick ups from the looking for group channel.

In the end, we managed to clear up to Thaddius, a nice improvement over our first attempt. However, even though we had the DPS to take down Patchwerk (which now seems to be a tank/healer check), we didn't have the DPS for Thaddius (a pure DPS check). In our first attempt, we had too many people not knowing what to do with their charges which wiped too much of the group to continue. During our second attempt (mostly) everyone figured it out, but there were a couple that thought you switched sides every time, so they died promptly, but won't make that mistake again.

In the end, I averaged 4200 DPS on boss fights which is a respectable number and we had a few under 2000 - which is not acceptable. I know the one shaman under 2000 DPS is a new 80, and we're working on gearing him up, but the others that were down there were from looking for group and unless they can improve by next week, I doubt they'll be reinvited.

On my favorite (or maybe second favorite behind Heigan) fight, Loatheb, I was able to keep the crit buff (which everyone should be able to do), and I put out 6,000 DPS. Now that's fun stuff. Next closest: 4500 DPS.

On Patchwerk, a straight single target DPS race, I was able to do 4371 sustained DPS, #1 over the hunter (4165 DPS) and the ret pally (4065 DPS). It's good to see mages on top of the DPS charts, but I know that in certain situations, there are others with similar gear that can out DPS me which I still feel is an issue. We're the glass cannons and should be doing the most DPS with the optimal spec.

With regards to loot, it seemed as if a lot of tank / pally items were dropping as I didn't see anything to roll on until Loatheb who dropped both Boots of Impetuous Ideals and Mantle of the Lost Vanquisher. I lost both those rolls, but I lost them to core members of our group, so I was very happy to see them get much-needed upgrades (the boots were only a slight upgrade for me).

However, my patience paid off as Gluth dropped another pair of Mantle of the Lost Vanquisher which I finally won after the wonderful Dylana refused to take them (so I didn't really win them, I was given them out of pity :).

So I'm now rocking purple pineapple shoulders and love them. They're my first best-in-slot item, so no more possible shoulder upgrades. Though my T7.5 leggings are very close to being best-in-slot and might be. (The boots Loatheb dropped are also best-in-slot for me).

Next week I'm really hoping to see the Military Quarter as we haven't stepped inside yet. I don't really know how it stacks up difficulty-wise when compared to the Construct Quarter, but hopefully we can spend some time in there, perhaps instead of the Arachnid Quarter.

Upgrades in Naxx Heroic

I've finished updating my spreadsheet to take into account all the recent gains I've made gear-wise and I've also updated the sheet to take into account all encounters in heroic instances. Since our Gold Team had last week off after our first run into Naxx, I'm hoping we'll be up to the challenge again this week.

Two weeks ago we cleared the Arachnid and Plague Quarter before we attempted the Construct Quarter and ran into healing issues on Patchwerk. Hopefully we make it that far again this week and perhaps we can run into the Military Quarter to give some bosses a poke in there.

My upgrades in order of priority (sorted into 4 categories - highest, high, medium, low):

Highest
The Turning Tide (1H weapon) - Kel'Thuzad
Life and Death (1H weapon) - Gothik
Signet of Manifested Pain (Ring) - Kel'Thuzad
Gothik's Cowl (Head) - Gothik

So as you can see, I'd love to do the military quarter just to hit up Gothik as he has my best in slot helm, and the 2nd best weapon before reaching the end of heroic Naxxramas (where my best in slot ring and weapon drop).

High
Surplus Limb (Offhand) - Patchwerk
Valorous Frostfire Shoulderpads (Shoulders) - Loatheb
Cincture of Polarity (Waist) - Thaddius
Binding of the Expansive Mind (Wrist) - Razuvious

Again, best in slot from Razuvious in the Military Quarter while Thaddius and Patchwerk in the Construct Quarter offer me best in slot offhand and belt. And then there's Loatheb, who we can easily kill on a weekly basis if we get a group together who has my best in slot shoulders.

Medium
Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians (Wand) - Anub'Rekhan
Boots of Impetuous Ideals (Feet) - Loatheb
Gloves of Grandeur (Hands) - Sapphiron
Cosmic Lights (Neck) - Sapphiron

Here we see Anub'Rekhan and Loatheb - both easily killable for our 25 man group dropping best in slot wands and boots, respectively. And then there's the big, bad Sapphiron, who oddly enough drops only slight upgrades, though the Neckpiece and Hands are best in slot.

Note: when saying best in slot, that ignores Sartharion (no drakes) and Malygos on heroic modes. I might go into those later. This is for all content up and through Heroic Naxxramas.

Sarth, Maly, Naxx

Last night, our ten man team got together (well, 9 of us for the start), and we quickly downed Sartharion (no drakes) and Malygos with 9, then hit up Naxxramas. We cleared the Arachnid Quarter with 9 and then added our last DPS for the rest of the run. We cleared all four wings except for the Four Horsemen before our quitting time and there were a few upgrades handed out, but most notably, I received the Gown of the Spell Weaver! Currently, it's the best chest piece in the game for me (which is odd that there's no heroic item better).

With the exceptional amount of spell hit on the Gown, I was able to quickly port to Dalaran and buy a Sundial of the Exiled to replace my Mark of the War Prisoner. Right now I'm a little under the hit cap and I'd be at or above the hit cap if a shadow priest or shaman joined our group. But I'm ok with the slight hit chance. Pouring over my Patchwerk numbers from last night, I had one Frostfire Bolt miss and one Living Bomb miss. The Living Bomb isn't a bit deal since it's easy to recast, but losing Frostfire damage sucks. So I might throw an extra hit gem in my gear to get me a little higher.

Our 25 man raid tonight is cancelled due to key players being out of town, so maybe we'll finish up Naxxramas from last night, or I'll just be searching for that last candy to complete my Fool for Love achievement which will put me that much closer to What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been (would give me 4/7 complete).

On Loot

BigBearButt posted something that really struck a chord with me today:

I wasn’t planning on rolling on anything when I went in. I’d rather not roll on loot until I feel that I’ve done MY best to be at the max I can be first. If other people did their best to gear up and I didn’t, why should I get their only possible upgrades?

He was talking about his hunter that has been brought along to a couple Naxx raids which he hadn't played in a while and felt bad that he hadn't done his best to gear up in preparation for serious raiding.

But his loot philosophy is one that I wish more people would follow. I have no problem losing a roll to someone who needs an upgrade. I do have a problem when someone wins a roll and they are able to replace a level 76 quest reward item with a 25 man Naxx item that I needed. Also, while I don't mind passing to regular raiders that I run with, I hate being in PUGs or joint efforts and asked to pass an item for the "good of the raid."

Hypothetical: I'm running with Tier 7 shoulders, Tier 7.5 drops from Loatheb. I win the roll and I'm asked to pass to a Death Knight in a level 77 green item because "he needs it more than me." Well, whose fault is that? If he were sporting a heroic shoulder piece or something similar, I wouldn't really have a problem, but because he's slacked off and couldn't be bothered to run heroics or spend gold on the auction house, why should I have to pass a piece of loot to him? I've done my homework - I had the absolute best items available to me before I entered Naxx (with the exception of my wand which refused to drop in Azjol'Nerub - and ask around, I ran it a LOT). So because I worked my ass off to get the Deathchill Cloak, a Titanium Spellshock Necklace, a Signet of Kirin Tor, etc., I get penalized because you're lazy? HATE IT.

Now you might be thinking I'm a loot whore. I'd like to think I'm not. I've passed plenty of items and I've gotten lucky on some rolls (Valorous Leggings, I'm looking at you). But I've put the work in for my items and I think I deserve an upgrade every now and again.

Another issue I've run into now that we're running 25 man Naxx is that I really don't need much from there. Sure, there's some nice, marginal upgrades. But on our last run, clearing two wings, one item dropped I wanted. Of course, I was outrolled. The problem here is, I'm being outrolled on a Tier piece because now that we have 25 people, there's more people to roll against. Even though I didn't roll once leading up to that point. This is where I think a DKP or EP/GP system would come in nicely for me. I could save points on drops which are of no interest to me and spend them on the very rare drop that does interest me.

This week, we venture back into Naxxramas (25 man) and we'll probably do the same two wings again and I'll probably have another shot at my Tier 7.5 shoulders (best in slot). And I'll probably lose them again. Now, there will be one less person rolling against me since he got them last week, but there's still plenty of overpowered Death Knights and druids running with us. So even though I might not see any other item throughout the whole instance that I want, I'll have the same chance as everyone else at those shoulderpads.

Now, technically, you only get one item a run, but in the case of the undergeared mage we ran with, he got a lot of items by default last run, and now this run won't need to roll on them and will probably win the tier shoulders that I want.

Yeah, I know I'm bitching a bunch, but it just upsets me at times where I get just one chance to roll on loot and my dice forsake me and I've spent four hours without anything to show for it. Other than gearing up other players who may or may not run with us in the weeks to follow.

Last week, of our 25 man group, there were 4 mages, 4 death knights, 2 rogues, and 4 druids. So that's 14 of the 25 people that are going to roll against me on Tier 7.5 shoulders. So my chances of winning are slim.

((Note to readers in my group - if you win, DO NOT pass to me because of my bitching - I don't want to win an item that way. But perhaps we do need to discuss loot rules further :))

Naxx 8 Man

Last night, for an impromptu Naxxramas run, we formed up at about 6pm and figured we could clear what we left on Thursday. So we started to get going, but we were missing a healer and a DPS. What the heck we said...let's try this 8-man. As it turns out, 8 manning Naxxramas is pretty darn easy. We wiped once on Kel'Thuzad because our DPS pally went down from a void zone and Kel'Thuzad wiped us with 50,000 HP left. But other than that, no encounter gave us any issues. And we did all of this with a new death knight in our party who had only seen about half the encounters.

So hopefully later this week, we'll be able to finish off The Dedicated Few - we just need Patchwerk and the Plague Quarter.

Before Naxx 8-man though, I went to Obsidian Sanctum 25-man. It was an easy enough clear and I managed to piss off a good amount of people with my Toy Train Set (I just can't comprehend how people get upset when others make a train noise. Just move away from it or turn down your speakers if it's too loud. Have a sense of humor people. But on Sartharion, I ended up doing 4,600 DPS. Not too shabby. Especially considering the next highest person on the charts was at 3,300 DPS. So that was a fun run - except for the fact that I was the #2 roll on the Illustration of the Dragon Soul. It went to a pally in our guild, which was kind of annoying. The trinket is BEST IN SLOT for DPS casters. There is NOTHING better in the game for us. The trinket is NOT best in slot for healing types. With this amalgamation of spell power, healing power, etc., there's just too much competition for pieces that are generally very one-sided. This trinket is just one example. No paladin would roll on it if it were spell power if we still had healing power in the game. So I lose out on my BEST IN SLOT item so a paladin (who might not even use it - well, he might, even though there's better options out there - including a Darkmoon card which just takes some time and gold to get - which chances are he won't put the time or gold into getting). C'est la vie.

In other news, Wednesday starts Love is in the Air. Judging by the achievements, it shouldn't be too hard to obtain another title and one more event down towards my violet proto drake. Luckily I did the grinding necessary last year for the Perma-Peddle achievement as they're making it tougher this year, but it isn't required for the meta-achievement. So I should rack up another 140 achievement points and I even get to have some fun in the battlegrounds while doing so.

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

Last night, we cleared Naxxramas in record time and even pulled in a few new achievements. First up was the Arachnid Quarter, and even though the majority of us had already completed Arachnophobia, we did it again without an issue. We then moved on, completed Momma Said Knock You Out and then cleared the rest of the instance, including achieving The Hundred Club without an issue. Next up, we'll either start trying to have some fun 8-manning Naxx or going for some of the more difficult achievements.

We did have some interesting drops though. For the most part, leather, mail and plate dropped. Caster drops were few and far between. However, the Gown of Blaumeux, Cowl of Sheet Lightning, and Heroes' Frostfire Circlet dropped, leading me to have to run some numbers this morning. In the end, I won the Cowl of Sheet Lightning, the Tier 7 head piece went to our wonderful healy druid, Vetarra, and the Gown went to Matnocuido.

I knew the Gown was a slight upgrade, but it was a large upgrade for Matnocuido, so I passed my roll to him, especially after I had already gotten the Cowl of Sheet Lightning and I didn't know if I wanted to break my four piece Tier 7 bonus for the Gown. Which led me to wonder, if the Gown is better than the Tier 7 piece, and the Cowl is better than the Tier 7 piece, but I want to keep my Tier 7 four piece bonus, how do I do it? And that's where the numbers come in.

If you compare the Heroes' Frostfire Circlet and the Gown of Blaumeux to the Cowl of Sheet Lightning paired with the Heroes' Frostfire Robe, the Circlet and Gown come out ahead:

Circlet + Gown = +20 STA, +4 INT, +39 HIT, +11 HST, +11 DMG, -15 MP5, -2 Yellow Sockets.

Assigning values of 1.3 to Spellpower, 0.89 to Crit & Hit, and 0.95 to Haste via the Theorycraft-O-Matic (Hit actually receives a value of 0, but since I can swap Hit and Crit gems equally, I assign the same value to both), the Circlet + Gown give me 25 extra "points."

But in the mean time, the Cowl was a huge upgrade over the Hat of Wintry Doom, giving me 12 "points" though the Gown would have given me 30 "points" over my frostfire robe, but then I'd lose my 5% extra damage on crits via the 4 piece set bonus.

Given that I crit 48% of the time on bosses (from last night's full Naxxramas clear) and my average crit is 8,345, that means that my average four piece tier 7 bonus results in extra damage of 397. I crit 386 times last night, which equals 153,390 extra damage from frostfire bolts alone. Factoring in all my other offensive spells, my 5% extra crit gave me increased damage of 233,464. Considering I did 10,381,794 damage last night, overall, the 5% increased crit damage bonus increases my total damage output by 2.25%. The question now is, what additional combination of spellpower, crit, haste, and hit would allow me to up my damage by 2.25%?

In the end, upgrading to the Cowl of Sheet Lightning and the Gown of Blaumeux delivers: +46 STA, +12 INT, -120 SPI, -94 CRIT, +45 HIT, +107 HST, +16 DMG, +15 MP5, and 2 fewer yellow gems. Using TCOM point values, it's a gain of 35 "points." But is it 2.25% damage? I'm not sure. Throw out stamina, intellect, spirit and mp5. And I lose 94 crit for 45 hit, 107 haste and 16 damage. Given that 107 haste equals 3.2% faster casting, I'm inclined to say that the tradeoff is worth it. If you can cast 3.2% faster, you can do 3.2% more damage - right? Losing the 94 crit though really hurts, but at 1:1 with hit, it's really a loss of 49 crit. With crit at 0.89 and damage at 1.3, the gain of 16 damage offsets 21 crit, so I lose 28 crit total. Now obviously, 107 haste is better than 28 crit. But if 28 crit equates to 26 haste, we have a net gain of 80 haste, or 2.45% faster casting. So running the numbers, it looks as if the Gown + Cowl is better than the pieces of Tier 7.

So now that I have that information in the back of my head, next week when we run Naxx, if the Gown drops, I'm needing it and I'll be set. I'll take the Tier 7 head piece just to have the full set, but I won't use it, so it'd be a purely cosmetic roll, coming after any need or greed rolls.

Next up, tonight we have Malygos. Last night I was lucky enough to win the Key to the Focusing Iris which will turn into the Chain of the Frost Wyrm after completing the quest tonight. I didn't initially think the Chain was that much better than the Necklace, but it's about 28 "points" better with the following stats:

-1 STA, +7 INT, -41 CRIT, +30 HIT, +37 HST, +7 DMG, Blue instead of Red Gem (Boo), +Spellpower instead of +Intellect socket bonus (yay!). However, I'll probably throw a +19 damage red gem in it since the +5 spellpower bonus is outweighed by the +10 you get over a blue gem which only has +9 damage. So in the end, it's just a 4 intellect loss on the socket from the bonus.

But I'm hoping that the new Chain tonight, paired with my Cowl from last night will up my DPS a bit. Also, I haven't been casting Mirror Image at all while raiding. I thought it was a spell in the Arcane tree that I never spec'ed into. But all the time, it's just been sitting there, extra damage for the low cost of a global cooldown. It has now been added to my uber-damage macro and will be cast every time it is up during a boss fight (every 3 minutes).

2 Days, 2 Titles

On Thursday, our rag-tag bunch of adventurers stepped into Naxxramas looking to clear as much as possible, little did we know, a full clear was within our grasp. Taking about four hours, we cleared the whole place in one night, leaving Friday night open for Sartharion and Malygos. We quickly down Sartharion (after a couple of attempts with one drake up) and then made our way to Malygos.

We had seen Malygos one week before, but only got to the final stage a couple of times. But this week, we had over 3 hours to work on him, and we would not leave without him going down! So after about 5 or 6 wipes, including a couple of tries at his last phase, we realized, we didn't have the stacks working for the last phase and we'd never get him down. So we took a break, stepped outside, and went to practice on the daily quest, Aces High. After a bit of practice there, we stepped back in, revitalized, and ready to go. We had a couple of missteps, but in the end, Maylgos was defeated! And there were quite a few people in our raid who obtained the awesome title, Champion of the Frozen Wastes.

Skip ahead a day and the Lunar Festival had returned to Azeroth. I awoke at 7, ready to go get my coins. After collecting about 40 coins, Aravic and Eleazarjr awoke from their slumber and we set out to rescue the elders in the Northrend dungeons. After four heroic dungeons, I was left to go back to coin collecting. I quickly snapped up the rest of the coins throughout Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms and then looked for a group for some other instances. I found a pick up group going to Nexus and we quickly found the elder in there and I was left with just a couple of elders left. I took a quick side trip to Moonglade where I defeated Omen and bought a nice pant suit. I ported back to Dalaran and quickly found a group for my remaining coins in my wonderful guild. We got the coins, and in just under 12 hours, I was Elder Tiddlywinks.



The next morning, I woke up, started fishing for a sewer rat, and was waiting on the last book I need for Higher Learning to spawn when Rylara asked me if I wanted to go kill C'Thun. Heck yeah, I wanted to kill C'Thun! So I ported to Theramore, flew to Cenarion Hold, and made my way into the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. We quickly dispatched of C'Thun (even though I died in his stomach), and I was finally able to complete my Classic Raider achievement!



In all, it's been a crazy couple days. Two titles received, Malygos and C'Thun down, and over 230 achievement points. I'm hoping my book spawns soon so I can receive another pet and my weekend will be complete!

Naxx Quick (Almost) Clear

Last night, the Silver Team went back into Naxxramas with a goal of clearing all four quarters in our allotted time. And we accomplished our goal. And even got in two shots on Sapphiron before having to call it for the night. We had a couple of new people with us, so it was awesome to see so many one shots on the night where we gave just the shortest description of each fight. I'm confident tonight we'll quickly clear the Sanctum, Sapph and Kel'Thuzad, and then we'll have some fun on Malygos (a fight I have not yet seen).

Last night, out of the few upgrades available to me in Naxxramas, I got two! First, the Tier 7 shoulderpads dropped from Loatheb (leaving just two upgrades in the game, one drops from Malygos (Heroic) and the other are the Tier 7.5). I also found the amazing Blade of Dormant Memories from Patchwerk. After quickly enchanting the weapon with +50 spellpower, my shoulderpads with the exalted Hodir enchant, and throwing a +16 hit rating gem in, I still dropped due to losing 34 hit on my weapon. Hopefully The Soulblade doesn't drop from Kel'Thuzad tonight because it'd be tough for me to take it over someone else who didn't get the Blade last night. Plus, the Soulblade is a bit more healy with the spirit, but +461 damage is a huge upgrade.

Speaking of damage, after killing 13 bosses, tons of trash, and two tries on Sapphiron last night, I basically tied with the ret Paladin in our group. I output 16.2m damage whereas he had 16.1m. It's pretty funny to see how close we got after all the bosses. For the full run, I averaged 2426 DPS, our Ret Pally 2394 DPS, our Death Knight 2276 DPS and our Hunter output 2241 DPS. We absolutely tore the place apart. Including achieving Arachnophobia without really trying that hard. Though we did have some big AOE pulls, we could have done it quicker.

Naxxramas (10) Clear!

In just three short weeks (5 days entering Naxxramas), the Silver/Gold Team has cleared Naxxramas. Last night, after quickly clearing the Military Quarter, we hit up Sapphiron for the first time and took him down in 4 attempts. The first couple were us learning the fight, the third was a freak accident where Sapphiron cleaved/swiped just as we engaged and took out our healers, and on the fourth, he was down. Quite an accomplishment as we had heard of other groups of good players from other guilds taking up to 20 tries to learn him in his entirety and take him out.

After that, we quickly hit up Kel'Thuzad and had him under 5% before a freak accident where our tank got frozen which ended up in a wipe as he also had the three Anub'Rekhan looking beetles on him and they couldn't be controlled in time. The second time around though, he posed no issue as we disposed of him very quickly.

Our raid leader/main tank now has the Malygos key and I'm looking forward to the Eye of Eternity. Before Naxx last night, we quickly took out Sartharion with 9 players (just 2 healers) and I'm thinking with a third healer we could tackle one or two drakes up for the fight. The encouraging thing about last night is we have found a good healer replacement for a priest that had to leave for her guild runs, so we're set there and also, during Sartharion, I didn't see anyone get hit by the lava waves, so our coordination is doing quite well (as we could also see with only 3 (real) tries at Sapphiron).

With the recent addition of my Plush Sash of Guzbah, I felt my DPS increase a little last night as I averaged 2400 DPS on Sartharion, 2900 on Instructor Razuvious (I believe this is from the Living Bombs detonating on the two mind controlled mobs), 2460 DPS on the Four Horsemen, and 2730 DPS on Kel'Thuzad (again, probably from Living Bomb detonating on the three beetles that were within range).

With regards to loot, nothing really dropped for me last night. We saw a lot of healy plate items, and there was the T7 gloves which went to the lovely healy tree, Vetarra. Right now, the two piece Tier 7 bonus is doing quite well for me as I usually don't have mana issues, so I can use my mana gems as an extra damage boost (I just have to watch out though because my trinket shares the same cool down, so while I could use the mana gem while my trinket is used, I can't get the spell damage bonus from it while the trinket is in use). So right now I'm not looking for huge Tier 7 upgrades, but I'm looking to get another piece so if I replace my chest piece (hopefully I can get the Gown of Blaumeux off the Four Horsemen at some point), I can retain my 2 piece bonus. Though, from my spreadsheet, the Tier 7 helm, shoulders, and gloves are all better than what I'm currently using, so if I could piece together two more pieces for the 4 piece bonus, I'd be more than happy to have 5% extra crit damage.

Silver Team, Take Three

What was supposed to be a quick, two hour pre-clear for Sunday's longer raid turned into a fun four hour three wing clear, including a new wing clear, the Construct Quarter. All that's left for Sunday is the Military Quarter and then Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. After quickly blowing through the Arachnid Quarter and the Plauge Quarter, we ran into some troubles on Globbulus (more learning the fight than anything) and on our 4th (maybe 5th) attempt we got him down - almost had him on the second to last attempt, but our DPS was just a little behind.

Only one item dropped on my upgrades list, the Tier 7 shoulders, but I lost a roll to the rogue in our group, and I just hope he can use them (I think he may be swapping them in and out on trash/boss fights). I guess we just need more people to realize that not all Tier 7 pieces are better than items found in heroics just because they're Tier 7. So while the rogue might use them on bosses only, it's a significant upgrade for me and with the gloves, which I hope to get soon from Obsidian Sanctum, I'd almost have the 5% increased crit damage, which, since I crit almost 50% of the time, is a huge DPS boost. With a 310% crit modifier on Frostfire Bolts, I'm not sure if the increased 5% goes before or after the 310% crit modifier, but either way, it's a large DPS boost, but I'm still two pieces away.

On another note, man is Loatheb fun. I got in about 25k damage before getting my buff from the spore and I didn't lose the buff for the duration of the fight. What's that mean to me? Oh, just 90% Frostfire Bolt crits. Hot Streak here, Hot Streak there, Hot Streaks everywhere! It's a great fight (though the healers seem to think otherwise).

But all in all, great progress for the Silver Team, we might have a full clear on Sunday should we master Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad which would put our clearing of Naxxramas at three weeks. Not too bad, considering we're still switching people out at times and we don't have a set 10 man group every day yet.

On a final note, yay for mage DPS. The following chart is my damage done for all bosses in Naxx tonight while clearing the three quarters.

Silver Team Continued...

We headed back into Naxxramas for a quick run tonight - starting from scratch due to the holidays, and we quickly blew through the Arachnid Wing and then went over to the Plague Quarter where we had to learn Loatheb as most of us had not seen him before. We had one wipe while we quickly learned the fight; the three seconds of healing, the spores, etc. But after one wipe, we quickly got him down and I got to have a lot of fun with the spores:


My Frostfire Bolts crit 70% of the time on the fight and I was able to put up 3929 DPS :) And that was without my Flask of the Frost Wyrm as we had 45 minutes to go in the night and I didn't want to use a 2 hour flask.

But after the Plague Quarter, we once again hit up the Military Quarter and quickly blew through the Instructor and Gothik. Emboldened by our victory over Loatheb, we continued to the Four Horsemen. Again, it was a learning experience, and we wiped twice as we learned the fight, but we easily took them down on our third attempt and we should now be able to clear those three wings without any issues in the future.

Overall, a great night. Two more wings cleared, one more to go before we can hit Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. Plus, the trinket I lusted after dropped for the second week in a row and it is finally mine, Embrace of the Spider. The Grieving Spellblade also dropped, but it went to Eirama who was much deserving of it. Hopefully next week, it or the Blade of Dormant Memories will drop. Then all I'm really looking for is Tier 7 items and loot from the last two bosses.

A Good Night

After putting some time into crafting an all-in-one list that outlined the upgrades I needed from Naxxramas (10) and Heroics, I was duly rewarded last night with a drop in heroic Azjol-Nerub of Stone Worn Footwraps (the Rod of the Fallen Monarch continues to elude me (currently the best wand in the game until 25-man content)).

Also, Azjol-Nerub happened to be the heroic daily, so after collecting my three emblems in Azjol, then two for the daily, I was at exactly 80. And that means...new robe! The Heroes' Frostfire Robe is mine. It has been socketed with Runed Scarlet Ruby and a Veiled Monarch Topaz. Basic theorycrafting states that two rubies would have given me the most DPS, but I just lost my Leiah's Footpads and their 43 hit, so I've been a bit lacking. And even though my Frostfire Bolts all hit, I'm missing with Pyroblasts (Hot Streak), Scorches, and Fireblasts (while moving). So it's something I really have to work on bringing back up. Plus, throwing in two rubies would lose me the socket bonus as well, so I'll take that +6 hit there as well.

So right now, I'm sitting pretty. My Naxx (10)/Heroics list only has a few more items that are must-have upgrades. From heroics, I would greatly like the Sash of the Servant (again from Azjol-Nerub) and the Forge Ember from the Halls of Stone is a nice trinket upgrade.

From Naxx (10), I'm looking for a huge helm upgrade from either Sapphiron, Thaddius, or Kel'Thuzad. I'm hoping for the Tier 7 shoulders from Loatheb, and Tier 7 pants from Thaddius. Grand Widow Faerlina, Patchwerk, and Kel'Thuzad all drop huuuuge weapon upgrades, but the one thing I want more than any other is the Embrace of the Spider from Grand Widow Faerlina. It dropped for us last time around and Eirama won the roll (a very nice upgrade for her as well). That about concludes what I am gunning for in the near future. Fingers crossed!

And here's my hastily thrown together Naxx (10)/Heroics gear upgrade list: