Road to Raiding

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The conversation lately in the WoW blog world has revolved around the “casuals” now being handed the keys to the kingdom with the new Raid Finder (or LFR – Looking for Raid, which seems to be what everyone calls it.) It made it hurt a lot more for some people when it was announced that “nerfs” were already coming to Dragon Soul. While I could go off on a tangent, I am not going to argue about something that has happened to most raid (eventually get nerfed) and no matter what blizzard does, they never seem to win.

The “elite” player looks down upon people that don’t have the time commitment or dedication that they do. I thought it was that simple, just a time and skill vs reward thing. However I was very wrong. In an group that include over 10 million players there are bounds to be a variety of people.

There is another player in WoW that also wants to raid but it is often overlooked by everyone. The guy that does not know where to start.

Many of us learn to play the game and quickly learn that resources like tankspot and elitist jerks are invaluable. We might have read forums before and understand not only the format but how to find information inside of it. What about someone that does not know how to navigate the internet like we do? Do they not deserve to take the steps towards getting to the end game raiding?

When I started playing, while there were resources there were not as many as we have now. There was no Mr Robot and WoWHeroes did not really paint all the picture, neither did MaxDPS. Sure you can read what the right rotation is, or priority list is. Words in a page or even a video do not answer questions. Many questions we take for granted.

Our group of friends and guild have helped many people bridge that gap. Sometimes people take it for granted that it does take someone at least pointing you in the right direction to start the process. I just encountered a person that has been playing WoW for years, has probably put many more hours than most people and has yet to do any endgame content. It has nothing to do with his ability, and all to do with not being at least pointed in the right direction. So I decided to put something together to bridge that gap a little.

I looked at a post I had written previously (Am I ready to raid?) but while I found the information there relevant, it was missing a lot. I know some would simplify the answer by also telling the player new to raiding, purple yourself out through heroics! but it is really not going to help them.

I started a series of post about DPS which is what a lot of new players start out as with. Healing and tanking are a lot more difficult and responsibility at an end game level. So concentrating on DPS I think is a better path.

So if you are new to raiding and want to get to that LFR that everyone seems to tell you is for the noobs, you need to start with your rep!

Before someone tells you, LoL just run heroics and purple yourself out there is a lot of great stuff to be had from rep rewards. One of the things many people don’t realize is that rep rewards are not just gear to complete your sets, but more importantly your head and shoulder enchants are something you will need even when your gear level is way past 359.

If you are a player that likes to quest, you most likely are already half way there to exalted. If you finished Deepholm you probably have Therazane unlocked. That means shoulder enchants!

Plate DPS get their head enchant from Twillight Higlands, Casters from Hyjal and Leather from Uldum. So step one towards raiding is that you have all the reps you need for your basic enchants there. They are not too expensive and will take you one step closer towards your goal.

Why Does my DPS suck? – Computer

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I am starting a new mini series of post geared towards helping people that are searching for the reason that they are told that they suck. Hopefully some of the people that don’t suck still read this and are maybe a little more patient with the people that are not topping the charts.

One of the things that made WoW ultra-popular was that even if you had an older computer you could still play. The graphics engine was very forgiving and let you turn the settings way down without taxing older hardware.

I know a lot of people complain about the shitty graphics that WoW has, old models, etc. The reality is that it being behind on the graphics allowed for a lot of people to play the game. You did not need a gaming machine to run WoW… that is until Cata came out.

One of the many things that hurt our guild quite a bit when Cata hit was that a lot of people were playing on older computers. I have been a gamer for a long time, so even though my computer was not the latest, I had the ram and video card that WoW could run fine if I played with the settings turned down a bit.

If you have never seen WoW run on a high end machine, you probably are playing a different game than most. The spell effects and water effects are not on par with other games that have amazing graphics, but they are not all that horrible either. That said, it will also affect your DPS or your healing if your machine is a little older. Not to mention that you probably stand in a lot more fires.

While the easy answer is, go get a better computer if you want to play end game. There are ways to fix the issue.

The first one is to make sure you maximize your memory both physical and virtual. Do a search for your operating system and how to increase your virtual memory. The more the computer can keep in memory, the better WoW will run for you.

Second is to make sure your computer is up to date or at least optimized when it comes to drivers for your graphics card. You can search for your graphics card model and world of warcraft and get informed on what the best set of drivers is. You will be surprised at how specific sometimes things get. You might find a post about your card that says, hey WoW works best with this set of drivers. (sometimes it is not the latest drivers available.)

Third is to make sure you are using the correct Direct X. While WoW supports that latest and greatest your computer might work better with the older version.

Fourth is to play with your graphic setting inside of WoW. There are a couple ways to approach this. If you want the best graphics possible with your set up, you can turn everything up and start turning things down gradually. Make sure you read the tooltips of each one of the settings. The one I recommend is to turn everything down and then slowly turn things up.

Fifth and last is do you run a lot of addons? Some addons can really bring WoW to a crawl, specially in raids. I stopped using Recount and switched to Skada for tracking numbers… but I used to advocate turning all addons off during raids. I think if your computer is older, there is really no reason for you to run a damage meter during a raid. You can have someone else whisper you the numbers if you are really that curious.

The first step towards better DPS is to play in the best version of WoW you can. You might be trying to ride a bike with flat tires… no wonder you cannot get up the hill.

Rewarding Bad Play

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If you don’t already read Grumpy, do so! its like having a conversation with someone. He posted about something I have been suspecting myself. That the LFR loot system seems to somehow give loot to the player trying the least (or not knowing how to play their class). While this is speculation bordering on conspiracy theory, I have seen it more than once.

When I first started to get into LFR with my toons, I was on the low side of the totem pole. I had no heroic gear on any of my toons and only my priest had a four piece from Firelands. Those first couple of weeks I got a lot of drops because most of the time my numbers were bellow those epic filled people.

Now every time I go into the LFR even with guildies we top the charts. I assume that most people running regular or heroic DS don’t run LFR anymore (or as much.) We seem to not get look anymore, even though we are missing either 1/2 pieces or basically just valor capping.

I am all for accessibility in a game, but I am not ok with rewarding people that don’t even try.

Now that is extremely subjective. To me someone that does not try is someone that is doing less than 10K DPS… but to someone else that might be someone that is not fully gemmed and enchanted.

I guess this is giving me a new perspective on what it means for others to reward bad play.

As much as I want to seem like a fair person, I fall to the trap that makes me look at my accomplishments and say… why isn’t everyone else here?

I know the resources are there, noxxic alone has simplified having to look at various blogs for the cookie cutters specs. One place has all the answers. But some people don’t even know how to search the internet.

We all know google exists, but knowing what to put on that search box is very important. Knowing how to ask a question gets you half way to solving the problem.

A string of (“Why does my DPS suck”) will not send you to the right spec for your class. Someone with a little more experience than me might know to look for (“Arms warrior 4.3 stance dancing.”) I know some people just went… WHAT?

Exactly. Some people know, some people have just never been told.

While I do think that blizzard does need to punish people not trying at all (they should be able to determine just someone auto attacking and going AFK), there should be a system in place where people that are getting into the LFR can go and ask questions of other players. Almost like in game mentors.

I know guilds provide that, but what if we could have a different color of text under our name if we are willing to give tips and guidance to someone.

Sure, the problem of rewarding bad play is still there and should be corrected. I think that what is important is to help the people that need the help and weed out those that just want to cheat the system.

Nerd Badges – [Shared Topic]

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This week’s shared topic from BlogAzeroth is as follows:

How do you express your geekery? Do you own obvious paraphernalia like a Horde-symbol bumper sticker, in-joke tshirts like the dps/ups pun, or less obviously related items like a gift from a guildie? Rather than physical indicators, do you mix nerd lingo into your everyday speech or talk/post about geekdom in non-nerd spaces? How do you advertise your nerd tendencies? Does it help you to attract new nerd friends?

I will try to not make this a wall of text… but this topic brings out sooo much to talk about.

The first is the obvious horde bias! come on people, alliance play the game and even BLOG! :p I think it is maybe time to create an Alliance blogger ring or something.

I used to have a dragon figurine in my desk at work, but my current office is not really that conducive of displaying my geekery and not too many people visit it. At home that is a different story.

We do need to rewind things a bit though. I have been a proud geek before Bill Gates made it cool with his bags of money. I would tell anyone about my love for anime or video games. My first actual convert, or maybe someone I made come out of the closet about her geekdom is my wife. Since meeting me she has watched anime, read manga and even gone further than me creating an actual facebook page for her in game character. I think it might be time to create some toons in an RP server.

We have attended Blizzcon and even sported custom made T-shirts with our guild logo.

Currently at home we have various models from the game displayed, from the Panderan to the Deathwing little thingie we got at blizzcon. I would put an alliance lion on my car if I found a good one (mental note to get one.)

I use a lot of geek speech that sometimes leaves people dumbfounded in the corporate setting I work at, but it has helped me identify other geeks. If someone gets it, then I know they are more than likely geeks themselves.

One of my latest post on my “other” blog is super geeky. I am think I am pretty open about it. I have always identified myself as a tattoed geek. Most people think that because you are a geek you have to be wimpy somehow… but I love to ride motorcycles and love sports as well.

Now that you mention attracting nerd friends, I do think I need to get a group of people to play some BSG Board game, I miss playing that.

The wife and I are also planning to have a pretty nerd out room for our computers once we move to a bigger place.

When to NOT Need or Greed at all

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When a player is used to solo play they don’t ever have to really make many decisions when it comes to what they pick up or not. As soon as you group with others, there is that annoying little box that has a dice, a gold coin and now a nice little disenchant icon. Then the player new to grouping asks, what do I do? The lazy response that I have heard before is, “need on everything you have a dice light up for.”

That is how a warrior ends up wearing spirit gear.

The LFR has tried to curve that a little making things a little more specific to classes. Basically if your class can wear it, you can roll for it. On top of that you now get a nifty little bonus for the job you are performing, tanking, healing or DPS.

I think this removes something out of the game in the name of convenience. That is basically how I first learned about what stats were good for me. Those rules are now second nature to me, but from time to time I encounter people that don’t know why an agility ring is not good for a plate tank even though it has dodge.

Gear and stats are intricate parts of the endgame, but they do affect play way before that. It is also why people now enter the dungeons or LFR with resilience gear. They look at the iLvL and some quite don’t understand why people look down upon them. I remember the term “welfare epics” used to describe PvP gear being used in a raid environment. Now we can all go to the AH and inflate our iLvL to circumvent the system. Most players new to end game don’t understand how much difference the sacrifice of dropping one stat for resilience really hurts.

So it is a numbers game!

Yeap, all over WoW we deal with numbers. DPS check, iLvl check, its all about the numbers! ROAR!

Warriors have it rough. While everyone jokes that everything is a hunter weapon, a warrior can equip pretty much anything in the game. It makes it very annoying to page through gear vendors and not have stuff shaded red because technically you can wear it.

But how do we as a community continue to pass down the knowledge to people that might have never visited MrRobot or Elitist Jerks?

We teach them when to need or greed depending on their spec. We teach them why a Greed is considered an OS roll. We pass down the knowledge that we either read, but in many cases was passed down to us.

The Need Roll – Main Spec

You roll need whenever an item drops that you can use on your main spec. To continue with the warrior team, if you are a protection warrior, you want Strength, Mastery, Dodge or Parry. For the most part if a plate piece has haste or crit in it will be a DPS piece. Hit and Expertise are different from tier to tier, but without a primary stat from the first list, it is probably not best for a tank. So if you have a slot in your gear where you are wearing a piece of gear of lower iLvL, you will roll need on that piece.

The nice thing to do in my opinion with tier pieces, is to only roll need if you don’t have them for your main spec. However we all know that most see their tier token and roll need. I think this is just being too greedy. Which brings us to our next roll

The Greed Roll – Off Spec

You roll greed on any piece of gear that you CAN use, but is not part of your primary spec. (Or spec that you are participating on the raid with) So our friendly warrior tank can then roll greed (or roll during an OS – Off Spec call out) on any plate item that has haste, crit on it. Some raid leaders are even nice enough to announce what the piece they are about to link is for (Tanking Plate – DPS Plate, etc).

What a warrior will never need is intellect or spirit. Whenever you see that pop up, you can either pass or click disenchant.

The important lesson here is that when you need on everything when that dice lights up you are truly cheating yourself on one of the coolest aspects of the game. You don’t get to click shift to compare the stats of the two pieces of gear to see what kind of difference it will make. I have always found that part of the fun playing WoW.

Stats are an important part of the game, and it is the reason why so many people get up and arms when someone does not enchant or gem their gear. Those +30 +40 to stats really make a huge difference. Being hit capped and stuff like that… but that boys and girls is a story for another day.

Dragon Soul Getting Nerfed

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Last night I read the news that Dragon Soul is getting nerfed! and I went Yey!

I’m in a small friend guild. We don’t always end up with the best raid composition. We don’t always have the same healer from one night to the next. Sometimes our tanks get stuck at work. We raid with 2 awesome hunters, in 10 man.

We are all competent players and individually could join a progression guild and do well. But we like playing together, because we know each other. We know the jokes, we push each other, we die, get frustrated one night to one shot the same boss the next night. We are currently 5/8 with some solid attempts at the ship… we just always seem to run out of time. We are casual raiders, we know it, we don’t pretend to be anything else. Individually I think some have already cleared DS with pugs. I have cleared up to Madness on an alt.

/rant

I read Kurn and listen to her podcast. I enjoy the banter and enjoy reading from the perspective of her and many other progression raiders I listen to. I am however quite disappointing, because what I have seen kill many WoW communities is what I am reading on her post.

My toons grew up in a PvP server that had population issues ever since I started playing. I never experienced the life of a larger server other than making a toon to talk to a friend there before real id, or to pass the time if our server was down for whatever reason.

When I first started to raid lead and lead a guild I started to bump into “progression raiders.” I quickly saw that they enjoyed trolling others establishing superiority via their achievements in game. That really does not mean much to an adult. Then the groups in this small server introduced me to the systematic dismantling of other groups. A raiding guild would move in, or progress and they would do what they could to poach players, not to help them but to slow the other guild down. I saw what a competitive environment can do, and how it hurt the overall community. I am hoping that this was an outlier of the community, and not the norm with progression raids.

I looked up to people like Kurn, progression raiders that seemed to just want to play the game at a higher level. Willing to share tips and help the overall community. I admire their dedication to their guild and the game. I even went as far as to be ok the calls of foul play when T12 was nerfed. I felt I was part of her community, the WoW community… I guess I was fooling myself.

Cataclysm arrived and with the T11 content nerfs, my faith in Blizzard was shaken. When the Firelands nerfs arrived, I was furious and my trust in Blizzard eroded. And now, with the announcement of Dragon Soul nerfs, despite the fact that Looking for Raid exists *for* those people who will not make the efforts needed to raid seriously, I have to admit that my faith in Blizzard is shattered. My trust in the developers of World of Warcraft is gone. I am obviously not the type of player they want playing their game. And that’s what’s so very shocking to me. I am a good player. I am a community asset. I am a guild leader, a raid leader, a healing lead. I write a blog dedicated to the game that has had hundreds of thousands of visitors and pageviews since December 31st, 2009 (and more before then, but I don’t have any data before 12/31/09). I co-host and produce a podcast dedicated to the game.

Read the whole post, it is a great way to get perspective. A perspective I don’t agree with because it uses word like incompetence, laziness, and “this game is no longer for me“.

Before I continue with my thoughts on the subject, lets be clear about something. Blizzard is a company that makes a game. They are there to MAKE MONEY because it is what businesses do in a capitalist system. They are above and beyond one of the places that is the most sensitive to their customers and keep millions of them happy.

This is not the first time I see these kind of diatribe about the game. The moment a person starts to feel above others, to me it is the moment that they show they feel insecure. I don’t know Kurn personally and that statement is not directed at her personally. It is directed to all of the progression raiders that have yet to kill Madness on Heroic, that never Killed Ragnaros Heroic per nerf.

There is no reason to take a crap on top of the community because the allotted time to accomplish what others do in hours, days, weeks, you ran out of time to do. If you can be that awesome, then why aren’t you done already.

I’m tired of the people in the community acting like if the game is not for the top raider, the game is garbage.

WOW is in the BEST state a game can be. There is so much to do it is unreal!

Stop acting like the game has to be tailored to just YOU or it is garbage and you won’t play anymore.

If you are truly a part of the community and want to report and serve that community, think of the WHOLE community and not just your very small percentage of hardcore raiders that need 4 months to clear an instance on heroic instead of 1 or 2. The nerfs affect you only because now you cannot compare yourself with those that did it before you… the reality is that you could not do that to begin with.

I am not a top 100 player, probably not even top 1000 either. But every night I log on and kill a boss with friends I have FUN! if the game is not fun for you, by all means, quite playing.

There are so many people in the community doing creative things to have fun with the game, that it pains me to read that the people that do what I like to do in raiding, don’t even consider me a part of the community.

If you hate pandas, do it! If you want to quit playing the game, see ya! But stop acting like the game is not for you, simply because the game is not JUST for you.

Who’s your main?

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Vuuk wrote an excellent post talking about “mains“, when I started to reply to post I realized that it actually merited a post.

I currently don’t have a main, while I raid with my priest with our raid team, I have also tanked a lot with my warrior this expansion. I also use my bear and DK quite a bit and try to valor cap them now that is so simple with LFR and LFD.

First Born: Logtar – nElf Warrior

Besides him learning that crocodiles are fierce killers on my way to Ironforge, Logtar’s leveling was not very memorable. He was power leveled in BC so that he could become a potential tank and eventually raid. While he did do Karazan before WotLK came out, he did more dungeons than actual raids. I did spend a lot of time in the isle of q with him.

I guess he could be considered my main, but I enjoy playing all of the alts that I have taken to max level. I have been told both that I am a great tank and also the backhanded compliment of, you are a great healer, bring your priest!

Second Child: Hollogos – Dwarf Priest

I have never RPed, but I created this character with one of my grandparents in mind. He was my mentor in a lot of ways and while an avatar in a game is no replacement, it is a reminder of how much I cared for my grandpa!

The priest was the personal challenge. I heard that priest were horrible to level because they got hit really hard and did not put out much damage. I don’t know if it was because people tried to level anything other than the supreme priest spec! DISCIPLINE! ROAR.

I had a great time leveling this toon and apparently it is one of the ones I play best. He was a dungeon and raid healer all through WotLK and eventually did the whole shadow thing for ICC when we needed an extra DPS for Sourfang. He was actually my first toon to Kill the LK with his bubble spamming abilities.

T11 our lack of tanks made him take a backseat, while he still raided on alt runs we were in a low pop server where pugs were pretty non existent. So the warrior got all the first kills in BoT, BWD and TofW. Fast forward to T12 when we moved and he was actually the first toon that made it over with a secured raiding spot. He once again became exceeded the first child by killing Raggy first.

He is happy sitting on his 4 set bonus (which I am not all so sure is as cool as the FL one) and working on the lootship.

Gatoso the wonderbear!

If I was to start all over in WoW, a druid would probably be my first toon. They can do it all, mele, range, heal and tanking! Truly the overachievers of the WoW world.

Gatoso also had a lightning fast leveling pace. He was leveled when my wife started playing. As his name suggest (Gato-Cat/Oso-Bear) he was supposed to be a DPS/Tank. He did tank towards the end of Wrath, but was quickly relegated to an on hold status for most of T11. Enter the new server and the lack of healers there and bam! he actually raided T12 almost every week. He has been the networking toon with other guild because he can heal or tank for them. Most people eat one of the “o”s when pronouncing the name and call him Gaatzo. I am a pretty decent tank with him but still working on becoming a better healer for sure.

Left Behind Lock – Talgro – gnome

When my wife started playing I leveled Talgro so I would not be completely dumb when talking to her about the class. He is a max enchanter and engineer and made me some money with both of those professions. I think he has built about 6/7 bikes.

He was mostly a fun alt. I thought that he would be easily recognizable as one of my toons because I stone one of the practices from our guildie Curan to use the same letter for alts (Talgro<- Logtar) but it is amazing how many people just don't recognize it at first. I did raid with him and even kill the LK before Cata, but he was mostly a last choice because it was rare that we did not need heals or tanks in a run.

He is my only max level character left on the last server and I have not logged in there for a while now.

With my wife being our resident lock, there is really no reason for another one. The other thing is that if I want to be a damage dealer, a shadow priest is fun to play with. I do miss his money making capabilities... but not sure he will get played any time soon.

The DK that did not get deleted – Talgor

I have played with a lot of people, but one of the people we miss the most was our awesome blood DK that killed the LK with us for the first time. Phaetal was not just an awesome blook tank, he is also a great person. We actually still keep in contact even though he gave up on the game the week we killed the LK!

I had played a DK since the expansion came out, but he was the default (delete character to make room.) When some of my guildies decided to see how the horde side was in our server, my almost capped DK was deleted and Mooerte (the tanking cow was born)… I think he made it to 60, helped guildies through some zone and was deleted. Fast forward to the LK kill and us loosing a DK tank and I rolled one in his likeness! I think that is what made it hard for me to ever delete him.

So I leveled the DK but did not tank much at all during Wrath. DK rotation takes a bit to get used to because its more patience and coordination than OMG IF SMASH the KEYS HARDER I WILL CRIT MOAR (ROAR)… yea that is my warrior DPS mode. Eventually got into a nice wave of spreading diseases and the like and realized that he is just beast even as tank.

DKs are probably the strongest tanks right now in T13, and he has done lots of LFR… not sure if I am going to push him to a higher spot because I have 3 toons already somewhat committed to other raids, but he is fun to do LFR with and out DPS people as blood.

The ones that never made it

I am on my second hunter (born only to harass Froto… then I realized that playing a hunter in BGs is just unfair, lol) and first mage right now as alts go. Not sure if either of them will make level cap. I also have a forgotten 50+ level rogue that was going to complete a guild achievement but some people are just too hard to beat when it comes to leveling. Not sure if I will level cap any more toons, I love having flexibility when the need is there. I have not deleted many toons other than DKs and I currently have no horde toons I play. I am thinking of leveling another DK on the horde side in a server some RL friends play so I could raid with friends that have horde toons using the new tools coming up.

So that is pretty much my alt history, not really a clear main, just whatever is needed to rescue the princess.

I have a dream!

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Ever since the LFR was announced I have been salivating at the opportunity to run a raid with some of my real life friends that I have never had a chance to raid with. Now that dream is close to a reality because Blizzard will soon implement cross-realm raiding. See, I was late to the WoW party. Most of my FPS friends played WoW from the beginning and some had way more hardcore raiding experience than I did. They are spread over many servers and I have always wondered what it would be like to run a raid with all of them together.

Furthermore, what about running a raid with all of the WoW bloggers I read?

While there is the little caviat of me not having a horde character… which might have to be fixed by me rolling a DK and gearing them up. All of my alliance brothers and I could get together and do an awesome Firelands 25 or an LFR together in the not too distant future!

So my dream is to be raiding with people all over the world of warcraft! I cannot wait for this feature to come out.

LFR Tanking Guide

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Before you even que up for the LFR as a tank, be aware the the tables have turned and your queue will not be instant, no sir! be ready for a little bit of a queue time. So without much more to say, let’s have a real quick LFR tanking guide. This is quick, and oversimplified!

Morchok
1 Debuff – Taunt at 2 Stacks!
You can survive more, but 2 seem to clear nicely and not cause you much issues.

Taunt in the middle of the road. You might have to reposition. Make sure you are always stacking with the other tank.

Rotate through your cooldowns while you are tanking and be ready for getting hit a little harder towards the end.

Yor’sajh
1 Debuff – Taunt at 3/4 Stacks!
Oozeappoloza! Purple – Yellow – Red (Green does not do splash damage on LFR)

Make sure you help kill the Oozes, there always seems to be a DPS (see hunters) that refuse to switch. If one of the oozes that comes out is the black one, be ready to AoE taunt adds and be free with your AoE abilities.

Zon’ozz
If you are the OT you could be the one bouncing the ball back and forth. If you have aggro, face the boss towards the raid initially and once the ball is formed face him away. No other movement needed besides stacking up.

Hagara the Stormbinder
Probably the first fight that actually requires some tanking.

Focused assault hurts! you could just pop a cooldown, but learning the timing and running away will make it so you take no damage.

Try to tank off center and be ready to tank the add during the electric phase.

Do not tunnel vision during ice phase DPSing a crystal, move early and stay alive.

Ultraxion
Tank and Spank… well kinda!

This is a fun fight for tanks, we get to use our cooldowns a lot more. Make sure you time them correctly and this fight will be no problem.

Warmaster Blackhorn
2 Debuffs – Lots of movement
You start having to tank two types of adds. While it is important to swap, it is more important to not let one of them run wild. Get everything controlled and the talk to your off-tank if you need to swap.

Help soak all incoming damage to the ship. Rotate through your cooldowns.

The boss will have to be move away from void zones and avoid his shockwave.

Spine of Douchewing
This is the fight where you will become a STAR! make friends across all realms and have post written about you!

Mark and kill 1 (uno) tentacle. Grab the add and get it to 30%. Let the OT kill 9 bloods. Pick up the 10 bloods, nuke the add. Rinse and repeat!

Here is where this fight causes issues to everyone though. The very first add comes out when there are not enough bloods… people see adds, people blow up add without sufficient stacks, process has to start all over. If you time things right with your OT, the first part will seem to take forever, but it will help the new people understand what is going on.

Towards the end of the fight the issue might be too many bloods beating on healers, so if you are the free tank, go pick the up with an aoe taunt, and potentially keep them from the main add until it is at 30%

Mark and DSP the tendon and WIN!

Madness of Douchewing
Debuffs that can KILL YOU! BEWARE!

Not a bad tanking fight. Move to the back to start tanking the tentacle, specially on the last platform because it spawns almost as people are arriving to the platform (if they left blue for last like most people do).

Tank swap on debuff (survivable with cooldowns, but not recommended)

When you actually get to DPS deathwing, don’t forget about the green button specially when you are going to take a big damage spike.

Kill all the tentacles and WIN!

Bear to wood transformation

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You would think that a druid shape shifter can do great things on all of the different specs, it is just not that easy. I am a sucky druid but I am working at it.

Gatoso, my bear, actually grew up during wrath alongside Trizilla. He had the added bonus of our accounts being linked so he leveled quickly. Back then we had a serious shortage of tanks and well, the natural thing was for me to do some bear tanking because of the similarities with warriors… they both use rage (that is where the similarities start and stop). We also did not play with a lot of resto druids and the ones we had were excellent healers. I have never actually played with a true Boomkin (I call them chubby chickens… maybe I should stop so we can keep a attract more of them.)

Once we moved to our new server it seemed that what the server lacked most is healers, so I played a lot with my priest… and ended up building a quick set for my bear. During Firelands it seemed that my healing style as a resto seemed to work well, fast forward to dragon soul (and a bag full of non straight intellect gems) and you have a resto druid that has gear with all the wrong gems and probably reforged poorly. I am simply not putting out the numbers I need, and even though he is not one of my main toons I don’t like to feel carried by others.

So I am going to start working on him seriously and get better at resto. It has changed a lot over the patches and I have plenty of resources to pull from. Just last week I read a great post from Cannot be tamed which will already help a lot in a couple of fights.

One of the drawbacks of having alts is that they always seem to be able to get gear drops a lot quicker than your main. Dragon Soul is proving to be an exciting raid, and like Lich King one that we will probably be able to get everyone that wants to get through it, through it on normal. Who knows, by next month we might even be doing well into heroics! Death to Douchewing!