When PuGs attack!

Last night I dinged 17 on Serpe but it was not without it's fair share of work.

I had some RFC quests left in my log and a group was looking for a DPS so I volunteered my services. The Mage in the group insisted on sheep pulling whenever they wanted to, regardless of who was AFK, and even pulled Taragaman. The only DPS they were doing was spamming Arcane Explosion even on one mob. The Rogue in the group seemed to know how to play but was overexaggerating quite a bit and cussing the Mage out for being stupid, for lack of a better term. It's RFC, not Kara, but yes.. it was very annoying having the Mage rush up in front of the tank, Fireblast something and then Sheep it while 2 other mobs chase after her. With her spamming AE until she was OOM it was pretty much impossible for our Concecration-less Pally tank to regain aggro.

To make matters worse, after we drop the first boss the group starts congratulating each other and starts to hearth out. Apparently they think this is the end of the instance.. all 4 of them.. all from different guilds. So that ended my first RFC run. Good times.

A T6 raider friend of mine ran me through RFC after he got out of Black Temple so I could finish my quests and then hopped on his 22 Druid to run SFK. He drug me along to heal (*GASP*) and everything went fine. I even got the Belt of Arugal to bank for 3 more levels. w00t!

That was the jest of my WoW evening. I hate lowbie pugs but they make for great stories. I'm sure I'll have a few more on my way up on Serpe!

Another One Bites the Dust?

I made my post in the TD forums that I was going to discontinue raiding with them. Raiding until 530am is brutal. 330am is my limit, I think. I just don't get enough sleep with my current work schedule to consider raiding anymore.

Chalk up a 4th 70 that I've raided on and quit. Ouch. Usually it's guild politics and favoritism that makes me give up but that wasn't the case this time. There didn't seem to be ANY politics or favoritism going on in TD at all and I really admired that about them. They're a fish in a big pond of raiding guilds just trying to make a name for themselves and I wish them all the best.

Where does that leave me? Focusing on my new Horde toons and maybe doing Kara once a week on Jandrae or Mutoh.. I dunno.. What happened on the Horde side last November is happening on the Alliance side now. I WANT to do stuff but no one else does. Pugging a tank or healer for a heroic is a nightmare.

/wrist

7 more Ahune kills last night.. the same damn cloaks are dropping. Is the drop rate for the staff really THAT bad?

On a good note, I won 2 EOTS matches and gathered the rest of my tokens for the new S4 caster necklace and slapped a Veiled Noble Topaz in it.

Looks like Friday is going to be another Kael night. I'm not looking forward to wiping for 4 hours and I'm not confident we can down him but thats all part of raiding.. learning the fight.

I need to nail out some dailies for money since I'm too lazy and have too much to do at the moment to farm consumables. Blargh.

On another good note, a friend of ours that had quit WoW around February-ish came back to the game last night and we took him with us to heal for our Ahune attempts. He got one of the 3 healing cloaks that dropped. At least one went to good use.

Rush RH and Win.

Yesterdays PVP daily was AV which I never pass up. It's also double honor weekend in AV. You figure that AV has been around forever and most people know how to win.. skip Galv, rush the hordes RH, cap their towers and defend until they're ours.

Alliance sucks at AV at the moment and it took about 2 hours to actually pull off a win. On the bright side, I'm only about 1k honor & 8 EOTS tokens short from the PVP neck which is a nice upgrade.

Ah well. With only about an hour a day to play between packing, AV is all I can handle at the moment.

Just a crit buff? I think not.

It seems that a lot of people are ignorant to what a Moonkin brings to the raid. I will honestly say that 90% of the players only see a Moonkin as a +5% spell crit buff for casters but there is more to us than that.

+3% hit to the entire raid - A Moonkin specced in to Improved Faerie Fire brings a valuable utility to the raid with 3% hit. Not just melee, not just spell hit. As long as the Moonkin's Faerie Fire is on the mob the entire raid gets this buff.

2% avoidance for tanks - Insect Swarm is a DoT but also reduces the mobs chance to hit by 2%. Yes, it even works on raid bosses.

25% reduction of attack speed - Hurricane is an unappreciated AoE that is usually lol'ed at for it's lack of damage. What people DON'T know is that ANY mobs affected by Hurricane has their attack speed reduced by 25%. Sure, all Druids get Hurricane but a tank or healer isn't going to be using this very much.

More aggro on the tank - Brambles increases the effectiveness on Thorns which in turn increases threat generated by the tank while taking damage.

An additional Innervate - Moonkin provide good single-target DPS while also bringing the utility of an additional Innervate for the healers. This is a risk free Innervate because the Tank sure isn't popping out of form to use his/hers and the Resto Droods don't have to stop healing to use theirs.

An additional Rebirth - The same benefit as listed above for Innervate. The healers don't have to stop to use theirs and it adds another one to the pot. Good times!

Backup Healing - Balance Druids get talents that increase their spell damage and healing by a certain percentage of their Intellect and pack a lot of it. In situations where tanks need that extra healing, a Boomkin can pop out of form and throw up every HoT a Resto Druid has, albeit less effective.

Treants - Ok so this is just a fun spell to use and it never fails to hear someone on vent say "WTF?". Sure it brings nothing to the table but I don't leave home without them. Sometimes wiping repeatedly brings everybody down but Treants turn that frown upside down. I'm a rapper. Quote that.

You Live & You Learn.

As I continue raiding with Jandrae, a few things have come up that I'd like to point out as well as some macros that I would like.

In Zul'Aman, spamming Rank 1 Entangling Roots on the Scouts is just as effective as the max rank and is far more mana friendly.

On raid bosses, using Rank 1 Faerie Fire with the Improved Faerie Fire talents provides the same +3% hit rating as is far more mana friendly.

Being a Moonkin that normally runs with a Paladin and isn't as geared as the rest of the DPS, it's kind of pointless to take the Subtlety talent and I should have taken Intensity isntead for 15% mana regen while casting.

If a boss has no aggro table (i.e. Aran) I can blow my entire mana bar in 20 seconds. That sucks. I need to learn how to conserve mana. Badly.

I need to make a macro for Entangling Roots that casts the max rank with a shift modifier for rank 1 (for times like ZA or PVP).

Thats about all I can think of at the moment.

And Back to Raiding I Go! + Knowing When to Say When.

An officer from the guild I had applied to whispered me last night in the middle of a horrid Kara group on Mutoh. He had mentioned wanting to take me on a Kara run on Jandrae later in the night once he gets more people and I agreed to go to make a good first impression.

We WTF pwned Kara but left behind Nightbane because no one had their urn on them and we were in a hurry to finish the place so it wasn't worth the 2 badges. I'm now 10 badges shy of my Moon Walker boots. Wewt!

After the run, he whispered me again and said they were prepared to give me a guild invite and would like me to run SSC with them on Friday. I R EXCITED!

So by Friday I somehow need to obtain 10 badges and 9k honor.. ouch..

So yeah.. as of now.. I am a raiding Boomkin. <3

On to part 2!

A new guild had formed on our server and said they were just looking to farm Kara for badges once a week. I had whispered the guild leader and said that I had a Shaman I would like to bring and since they were short on healers I would respec Resto.

He shot me a guild invite and the way they were all talking in guild chat you would figure they've all been to Kara 100 times, they were geared and were just looking for a fast one night clear per week for 22 badges.. yeah right.

Tonight was our first night in Kara and it was a total nightmare. We didn't start the first pull until almost an hour after the raid started and the people that showed up didn't even have the gear to run heroics, let alone Kara. The healer assigned to the MT was in 60% greens with the Wal-Mart Healer package of the Crystal Pulse Shield and Essence Focuser. Nothing against those two pieces of gear but at least get them enchanted before you walk in to a raid.

Lets take a run down the raid list here. For our healers we had a Priest with a few pieces of S1, some greens and some isntance blues. A Holy Paladin which is who I spoke about earlier with mostly greens and the AH blues, and me. A Resto Shaman with +1400 healing,, 200 mp5 while casting unbuffed and the only person in the entire raid using consumables.

Our tank was pretty geared in a few pieces of S1, the badge shield and Thunderfury. He was the raid leader and I was actually pretty impressed with his tanking ability and raid leadership. Sadly, he was the only one in the raid that I was impressed with. Out OT was a Feral Druid with full S1. No PVE gear at all.. and he was taking a TON of spike damage.

Our DPS consisted of a Hunter, a Warlock, a Mage, an Arms PVP Warrior and a Rogue. The Hunter was wearing PVP gear which is OK for Hunters I guess. The Warlock had a few Kara epics so I figured they knew what they were doing but they seemed to die every.. single.. pull.. The Warlock and the Rogue were in a DPS race trying to out-do each other but they both just seemed to pull off the tank and die very very often so I stopped healing them.

The Warlock wore their Argent Dawn Commission trinket the whole time and said they didn't have anything else to wear. The Rogue was to concerned with his DPS and died regardless of how much gear he might have had. The Arms Warrior kept attacking shackled targets and was wearing the S1 2h sword and the blue pvp rep gear that came out with the last patch. Let me tell you, it was a great time and more than 2 hours after the raid started we wiped on Moroes for the 2nd time. 2h 30m in to the raid we finally down Moroes and then most of us wipe on the next trash pull so I called it quits.

My question is this. When is it OK to say when? If you don't dislike anyone in your raid group but you just don't want to spend your entire night wiping on Kara with a group that has no business being there, when is it OK to tell the raid leader "I give up"?

During our second Moroes wipe I whispered the raid leader and told him that I was very familiar with Kara and didn't feel that we had the right group makeup or the gear to be in there. He whispered back and said it was a lot of their first times in Kara and to be patient but there has to be a line there. Is it worth being patient when 80% of your raid isn't geared enough to even run heroics?

I made an excuse and told the raid that my mains guild whispered me and needed me for something and I couldn't tell them "no I'm running something on an alt", hearthed, left the raid and have little to no interest in signing back up for their Kara runs. Part of me feels like a total jerk for doing that but at the same time I was told they were geared, experianced and just looking for a "weekly, fast" Kara runs which was far from true.

At least this allows me to focus on raiding 3 nights a week on Jandrae =X

Guild Drama 4: The Finale

Ah, where to begin?

I am not a raider with GTK due to my work schedule conflicting with their raid times. My wife IS a raider with them and has been for 8 months, 3 of which she has been the Mage class leader. My wife has a close in-game friend that is also a Mage and raided with us in GTK.

As time went on, my wife grew tired of obvious favoritism, selfishness and (insert word here for "going behind class leaders backs and telling people to do what the guild leader thinks would boost their own dps instead of bettering the player and raid group") on behalf of the guild leader.

A former guildy of ours left for a more progressed guild, had been raiding with them for about a month and was quite happy. He is also friends with my wife's Mage friend and told him that their guild was hurting badly for 2 really geared Mages to down Archimonde and move on passed the first 4 bosses in BT. This sparked an interest in the Mage friend leaving our current guild for the more progressed guild and asked my wife to go with him for the 2nd Mage spot.

They were both unhappy with the current leadership (not all, but mainly the guild leader) and considered this for over a month. The Mage friend finally got fed up with up and gquit without posting a reason or telling anyone.

My wife continued to raid in our current guild and was whispered by an officer asking why her friend had left the guild. She told him that he had left for another guild because he wasn't happy but was asked if she was leaving as well. She responded that she wasn't sure what she was going to do and was instantly belittled and cussed out by the officer.

She never said she WAS going to leave, just that she wasn't sure what she was going to do. She wasn't sure if she was going to leave or just stop raiding altogether, etc., but this officer, in my opinion, overreacted and jumped down her throat for no reason and called her selfish.

She talked to the guild leader over vent shortly after, telling him that the officer she talked to treated her unfairly and wanted to talk to him about her future in the current guild and why she was unhappy. She was given an ultimatum that if she left GTK she was done and would not be allowed back followed by the guild leader trash talking her Mage friend saying he was trying to take her away from the guild.

If someone is unhappy and respectful enough to TALK with an officer and the guild leader about their situation and is, for lack of a better term, slapped in the face and disrespected, what are the odds that person is going to stay in the guild when they've been offered a raid spot by a more progressed group of people? Zero.

So my wife, after talking to the officer and guild leader, left a post on the guilds forums saying that it was a hard decision and that she would be leaving for another guild.. but did NOT mention how she was treated by the officer and guild leader out of respect for the guild and to avoid people leaving based on what happened to her.

I was furious at the way she was treated and /gquit shortly after. I am close with a few people from the guild and sent them a personal in-game mail explaining why I chose to leave and put all of my characters in to the Mage friends Alt guild until I found a new home.

My wife took the position in the new guild and starts raiding BT with them tonight to down Na'jentus, Supremus, Akama and Gorefiend and I wish her all the best. Shes an amazing Mage and very passionate about her class so she deserves better than the way she was treated in our previous guild.

Shortly after, a guild posted that they were recruiting a weekend late-night Moonkin for their 25-man content. I hadn't heard of the guild before so I assumed they were new and recruiting for Mag/Gruul. I questioned the person posting and he said they raid Hyjal at the moment and referred me to their website but he had armoried me and said that my gear might be an issue. I explained that I misunderstood and that I had a T5 geared Warlock that I would be interested in raiding with so I was told to apply online.

I apply but the application asks for the names and classes of my alts. I received an in-game letter from the guild leader.. on my Moonkin, not my Warlock. It said they were running ZA this Thursday and they would like to take me along. Puzzled, I responded and said that I was unsure if the time would work.

Later last night I received a whisper from an officer about my application and he, again, said my Moonkins gear might be a slight issue but he wanted to discuss it with the guild leader again and might have a raid spot for me. Wait, my Moonkin? I applied on my Warlock lol. They said they're more interested in a raiding Moonkin that fit their schedule and he liked my personality so he'll talk to the guild leader and see where to go from here.

As it stands right now, I'm nervously awaiting their response as I would LOVE to raid end game content on my Moonkin.. but I wouldn't be that upset if they turned me down. A bit depressed because no one likes rejection, but I'd understand their reasoning. ;)

Another guild had formed from the ashes of a 25-man guild and just wanted to do some easy weekly Kara clears so I signed up to raid on my Shaman with them.. however they want him as a healer. Boo. I respecced Resto and I HATE it. I'll see how tonight goes in Kara and if it sucks I'll just tell them healing isn't for me and see if they want my lock instead.

So there is the weekend drama in a nutshell.

Meatshield LFG.

Warriors have it hard from 60 to 70. Paladins can level Prot just fine (some even say it's the prefered level spec) and the same can be said for Druids that level Feral. They can both level fast and when asked to tank, fill said role without changing their spec. Arms or Fury is the prefered level spec for Warriors but we miss out on important tanking abilities like Last Stand, Imp Shield Block and Devastate which makes it more difficult to hold aggro or survive the beating.

Last night while trying to form a PuG for Ramparts I came across 3 Warriors, myself included, who were either Arms or Fury and none were interested in tanking or respeccing Protection.

I finally just said screw it and strapped on my shield, brought in a Rogue, Hunter and a Mage friend but had the hardest time finding the OTHER important part of the group.. a healer.

I guess healers are in the same boat that Warriors are. I don't say tanks due to the above statement. Shaman, Paladins, Priests and Druids do not level Resto/Holy. If anything, you'll always be stuck with one of these classes in a healing set of gear much like a Warrior wearing more tank-friendly gear. Sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't.

My Druid is Balance but I heal just fine. My Warrior is Fury but I tank just fine. It just takes a little more effort than normal to make ends meet.

Last night I tanked Ramparts after spending 45 minutes looking for someone to heal. We had little to no problems at all and no one died. Not too shabby for my first tanking job since SFK lol.

T-minus 4 levels to go.

Adiar dinged 54 last night as I finished up a few Felwood quests and is now sporting 3 pieces of Valor gear. I know the D1 stuff sucks compared to the gear upgrades from the recent patch but I'm a collector. Do I plan on getting the full set for fun? Of course.

I had mentioned to an in-game friend of mine that I had planned on getting Quel'serrar, full Valor and starting the Thunderfury quest chain eventually.. to which I got a resouding "WTF for?" response.

I started playing WoW in May of 2006, shuffled around a few alts to find my niche' and eventually landed my first 60 in December later that year. The Burning Crusade landed in January of 2007 which gave me a little over 2 weeks to enjoy life as a level 60 and, of course, missed out on ALL of the level 60 raid zones outside of UBRS.

I've always been interested in the "old world" stuff and ALWAYS tell myself that I'd go back and do it all just to experiance it eventually. To some extent, I've done that. On the Horde side, to get our guild in to raid mode, we formed a team and cleared ZG as well as the first 2 bosses in AQ20. On my Alliance Warlock I've done MC about 3 or 4 times and collected a few pieces of my T1 set.

Where am I going with this?

In response to the "WTF for?" comment, for fun.

I already have 3 70's and have spent extended amounts of time gearing each of them. This time around, it's all for *gasp* fun. I wan't to see things I had never seen on any of my toons before and from a different perspective.

The first time I had ever seen Thunderfury my jaw dropped. I was playing my Troll Warrior pre-BC and had told my friends that one day I would have it. I wasn't joking. I know it's going to take forever but I'm in no hurry. I know people still like to run MC. Oh yes.. she will be mine.

There are other "old world" things on my list of things to do with my Warrior -

Acquire Quel'Serrar
Do a DM Tribute Run
Tank Onyxia
Clear BWL
Clear AQ20
Clear AQ40
Run Naxx (pre-BC Naxx but this is unlikely.)
Get full Valor set
Get full Might set
Tank Baron in Scholomance

To me it's not always about getting the best gear but to enjoy the experiance that I pay for. I've experianced the end-game part of TBC to an extent (raided 5/6 SSC and 2/4 TK) and want to see what I missed out on before.

Rock out with your Lock out!

I've been on a Warlock blog kick lately and I like what I've read so far. It's good to know that there are smart Locks out there that don't give us a bad name. For the most part we're considered selfish (No CoE for joo magez!) and the Mage class already hates us for having a better AoE in Seed of Corruption but a lot of other players don't see us as a viable CC option.

Srsly?

I'll give you an example.

Our guild has 3 Warlocks. Myself, and 2 Destruction spec cookie-cutter raid Locks. When asked about using your Succubus for CC the other two would respond something like "lolwut? I sac my Succubus for the buff." I, however, am totally comfortable using Seduce in any situation. Most locks are so concerned about their own personal DPS that they'd rather screw the group over for their own personal gain.

CC > DPS

On the Horde side, I normally ran with 2 Rogues as the other DPS which left me as the only viable form of in-combat CC. I got used to chain fearing, banishing, enslaving and, most importantly, seducing.

Seduce is an odd creature that takes some time to master due to it's inability to be reapplied before it breaks (much like all Lock CC). Downloading some form of timer add-on and creating a focus macro helps a ton but it's not required. After awhile you'll start to remember when the CC is about to break by timing it with your cast rotation. Once you seduce, see how many shadowbolts it takes before it breaks and plan accordingly. I'd rather just play it safe and use a timer myself but I know not everyone likes to use addons.

Another issue I have with the Warlock community is the "my spec is better" attitude. Most Warlocks are dead-set in their ways and REFUSE to accept that the other specs are viable at all in PVE regardless of the amount of WWS, math and spreadsheets you put in front of them.

"LOL Fire?"
"Felguard FTL"
"Shadowbolt > DoTs"

I'm sick of it.

Every spec is viable if the person behind the keyboard is not a total douchebag and the raid make-up is there.

Fire can actually pull of better DPS than a Shadowbolt spamming assclown IF (and only IF) you are in a raid with a Fire Mage that is on his A-game and doesn't let his Improved Scorch debuff fall off, you sac your Imp and use Curse of Elements.

Immolate -> Incinerate x6

There is your cast rotation. Run with it.

Demonology can put out more DPS than any spec but is the most gear dependent spec of them all. Having 2 pieces of T5 for the set bonus as well as the Void Star Talisman trinket from Solarian is a MUST. You also need a Shadowpriest in your group for VE/VT. VE is needed to keep your Felguards mana up and keep Cleave going off every cooldown.

If your Felguard dies you lose a huge chunk of your survivability and DPS. Have a "Dismiss pet" macro handy so if he's about to take a dirt nap you can dismiss him fast and save his buffs. If he dies you need to fully rebuff him and will, again, lose a huge chunk of DPS. The general spec is 5/5 Imp Corruption, 5/5 Imp Shadow Bolt, 5/5 Bane, Shadowburn and the rest in Demonology all the way down to the Felguard. Also ask another Warlock to keep CoS up.

CoA -> Immolate -> Corruption -> Shadowbolt x3

Keep the DoTs refreshed between Shadowbolt spams. Run with it.

Affliction is a great support spec and still has potential to close in on the top of the DPS meter due to it's increase in damage for Seed of Corruption. It's a little harder to keep up with higher burst-DPS specs during trash mobs but who cares about trash? A raid full of Ret Paladins can clear trash. It's the boss encounters that count. If you're stuck on CoS/CoE duty, 3/3 Malediction is a must and having Dark Pact is just icing on the cake. Another huge advantage that Affliction Warlocks get is 5/5 Suppression for 10% spell hit on Affliction spells which lets you pack more +damage gems instead of Veiled Noble Topaz. You'll still want some spell hit since you'll be using Shadowbolt in your rotation a bit but not nearly as much as you would need with the other specs.

It's up to you to put that last point in Unstable Affliction or move over to Ruin. Ruin will help with your burst dps but Unstable Affliction will give you 100% consistant DPS instead of relying on lucky crits.

Curse -> Siphon Life -> UA -> Immolate-> Corruption -> Shadowbolt

Refresh DoTs as they fall and spam Shadowbolt anytime you aren't refreshing. For AoE you only want to use Seed of Corruption unless the mobs are immune to shadow. For trash you do not want to waste mana on DoTs.

Curse of Shadow -> Shadowbolt

Thats it. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't matter if you're Affliction, Demo or Destruction. Trash mobs die way to fast for any dot to do much damage at all. The only exception would be if you are Fire specced then always use Immolate. If you can afford the mana, use Conflagrate as a finisher.

So there you have it. How to maximize your DPS through cast rotations. I'll go more in dept with each spec in a later post and maybe have another post about starting a Warlock for you noobsauces.