2 Things: LF Rogue and More Horde Read Matticus than Alliance

poll

A few weeks ago, Wyn published a poll asking to whom you owed your allegiance to in WoW. I know most of you play alts on both sides, but I figured most players would favor one over the other.

To my astonishment, the readers of World of Matticus seem to be fairly split in terms of which faction. I’m an Alliance Priest. What’s with the Horde readers outnumbering the Alliance? Trying to figure out all of our Alliance secrets, are we? Well, you’ll never discover the fact that Theramore is to be a future staging ground we grind Orgrimmar to a pulp!

Second item of interest, although I doubt how useful it would be here since I’m assuming most of you are Priests, healers, or are already in established Guilds.

My raiding Guild is looking for a Rogue!

I won’t repost the ad or anything like that here again. But we lost one of our Rogues a few weeks ago and we’re running a backup at the moment. He’s not the most consistent player in terms of attendance and such. So if you feel that you’re up for the challenge, you can definitely compete for a full time spot. Although they say we don’t need a Rogue, we need a Rogue.

Requirements

  1. Must be able to smash 2 keys repeatedly
  2. Must be able to survive as long as possible
  3. Must be able to out DPS a Protection Paladin
  4. Must not be some kind of non-raid performance spec
  5. Must be able to put up with crap Guildies throw your way about lack of DPS because they want you to DPS more
  6. Must be able to stand with the melee group
  7. Must know when to run out of whirlwinds
  8. Must be able to endure 30 minute boss briefings

BONUS POINTS: Out DPSing Blori (Resident fury warrior) is a guaranteed invite. To tip the scales, you will be given an Enhancement Shaman and your own personal healer.

Illi-down: Joy and Disappointment

illi-down

I never expected myself to get Kalecgos down before Illidan, but go figure. We knocked him out after roughly 3 hours tonight. First kill took 19 minutes and 28 seconds.

Phat loot

Chestguard of the Forgotten Vanquisher x 2
Chestguard of the Forgotten Conqueror
Shroud of the Highborne
Faceplate of the Impenetrable

Well, there we go. Illidan is dead and we have several months remaining to try to get Kil’Jaden down before Wrath debuts. That’s the happy part.

Here’s the disappointing part and to many of you, it will no doubt appear sad that I’m sad about this. I just found out tonight the the Paladin who has more DKP than I will be getting the Crystal Spire of Karabor before I will. There’s nothing I can do to stop it because he’s willing to put up a substantial amount.

I wish players would do a bit of reading and research to find out what items benefit which classes the most first. The Crystal Spire is a topic that’s been written about earlier and it’s a weapon that should go to Priests and Shamans first. Is it bad for a Paladin? No. But the other classes will be able to utilize it better. I do firmly believe that items should be awarded to players or classes who can make the most out of it.

This is the one of the few downsides of DKP systems, but I’ll leave that for Wyn to touch on when she returns.

Now that Illidan’s down, I suppose I can just relax and retire. Maybe I’ll buy myself an island off the coast of Jamaica somewhere. Or retire to a nice little cottage in the interior and do some golf once in a while or shoot some birds or whatever it is that retired people do.

Two Tanking Kalecgos

kalecgos

The setting

It was going to be a boring Monday evening. I caught up with all the blogs and other good reads that I’ve missed during my short break isolated from the hive mind that is the Internet. I figured I’d finish up the Heroes 5 expansion Tribes of the East which I’ve been working on over the weekend.

My good friend Dave, the misguided Enhancement and Restoration Shaman that he is, pops into my vent channel and says to me in a voice that would have made any car salesman proud, “Hey Matt! Boy do I have a proposal for you!”

“No Dave,” I replied, “I’m not taking over your Gruul’s instance with those scrubs you wiped endlessly on.”

“Ah, but I’m talking about raiding Sunwell. We could use a few healers to help us out. Do you have any plans for the evening?”

I need to build up my tolerance. I can handle telemarketers and solicitors just fine. But a shot at Sunwell trash? My knees went weak at the thought of wiping in a raid instance that I’ve never done yet.

Odd, yes. I’m sure you’re used to it by now.

The setup

The strategy calls for 3 tanks. The Guild I did it with (thanks Artifice!) performed with only 2 tanks. I don’t want to explain the fight in too much detail. Suffice it to say, it’s a bit on the complicated side. But after a few wipes and attempts, you get a feel for it quite easily. Think of the encounter as Romulo and Julianne on Ecstasy. There’s an inner demon that Kalecgos is working on and he needs help. Tanks are needed for the big dragon himself in the real world and on the inner demon in Kalecgos’ inner brain. Every once in a while, someone in the raid gets portal’d into his head and a portal appears at random around the area. The raid is divided into four groups. When a player gets portal’d in, his group has to follow him in there and help him out and burn the inner demon.

Like R & J, both the dragon and the demon need to be burned down together as close as possible. Once either of them hit 10%, they both enrage. As their health drops, their enrage gets that much stronger.

Thankfully, both the demon and the dragon are tauntable. Our tanks alternated as much as possible inside and outside to hold aggro on both bosses. The inside guy needs to be distracted as much as possible since he will be tanked by the human Kalecgos. If he dies, it’s game over.

My role as a CoH Priest is an easy one: Maintain raid health as best as I can. The four groups our raid was divided into had two healers each. One of them was on the tank, the other was on the group itself.

Things you want to hear over vent

Here’s a few key phrases that I heard as we were going through the encounter:

  1. *tank name* taunting down low - A tank signaling that he’s in position inside and ready to open up on the demon.
  2. *tank name* taunting high - A tank signaling that he’s got aggro on Kalecgos and any healers on the surface need to keep an eye on him.
  3. Name, portal, group number - Indicates who has been portaled and what group number should be going in.
  4. Portal, location - Says where the portal is so that the group that needs to go in knows where to run to.
  5. Decurse - Person’s been cursed and needs it removed after a few ticks. The curse itself doesn’t actually fall off. It resets to 0 and jumps to another player.

Last points

If you’re having some problems, consider packing a Violet Badge. The boss does apply a random AoE debuff. Remember that this debuff is binary. Either you resist it or you don’t. There is no partial. I left mine in the bank but several DPS players had theirs equipped and I think it had a positive effect on healing.

We killed Kalecgos after 8 or so attempts. We were very close each time averaging around 9% or less before the raid buckled.

Two Bracers of the Forgotten Conqueror
One Bracer of the Forgotten Vanquisher
One Legplates of the Holy Juggernaut

Remember when you’re doing the daily bombing run on the island? Ever wondered who would win the fight between Brut and that blue guy in the sky?

Note: The following images may not be for the faint hearted.

brut-1

brut-2

brut-3

LF Free Agent Resto Druid

Carnage has a position open for a free agent Resto Druid. We’re literally on the cusp of killing Illidan. Hyjal is on farm status as well as the first 8 bosses in Black Temple.

In the brief

Server: Ner’Zuhl (West Coast, PvP, PST Server)
Guild Name: Carnage
Website: http://www.carnage-guild.org/pn/
Raiding Schedule: Tuesday, Thursday: 5:30 PM - 9:00 PM, Sunday: 3:30 PM - 9:00 PM [Note that times are subject to change] That’s under 13 hours of mandatory raiding a week

Faction: Alliance
Progress: 5/5 Mount Hyjal, 8/9 Black Temple

What our Guild can offer:
* A relaxed and fun raiding environment
* Adult, mature players to interact with
* A great sense of community and belonging
* Ventrilo

Ideal Candidates:
* Are mature, over 16 years
* Possess a working microphone and are not afraid to use it
* Possess a stable internet connection and a raid capable computer that will not explode
* Skilled Player: Skilled in the class that you play
* Excellent Attitude: No negativity. A positive personality that synchronizes with the rest of the guild is an asset
* Should be geared in T5 level/Badge epics

Note: If you need gear from Karazhan, this is not the Guild for you.

UI Requirements:
Omen
CTRA/ORA2 (For raid querying only, you can use whatever raiding interface you like)
Deadly Boss Mods/Bigwigs

We are looking for:

Healer: Part time position available for a Resto Druid.

Once again, contacts: Send in game messages to Mallet, Maeve, Rackham on Ner’Zuhl. Alternatively, you can create an account on the website, and post on the Recruiting Forums.

This Is What Happens When Matticus Leaves Wyn In Charge…

Matt’s going to kill me for this one, but he’s off studying for mid-terms and left me with the keys. I have a couple of actually informative and opinionated posts in the making, but they’re not yet ready for public consumption - and most people wouldn’t read them on a Saturday, anyway. 

One of the really cool things about WoW is how much time and effort Blizzard put into making our virtual home visually stunning. Most of us probably have at least one screenshot of a sunset or moonrise. Here are a few of my favorite non-landscapes from over the years. If you decide to link to your own in the comments, or click on a link provided, please use caution.

 

Me & My Arrow

I took my dog fishing with me. He’s good company

 

We nearly forgot to loot him!

We all got naked for the Illidan pics - There was a lot of reshuffling and “Can you hold this for me? My bags are full!!”

Dueling Palamang 2-21-08

Very artistic, for a duel, don’t you think?

We Love You Mom

It was one of the other girls’ ideas….. The surprise was that the raid went along with it.

Azeroth from the Spire

That big moon you can see from places in Black Temple is actually Azeroth. You can see the Maelstrom in the middle, there. This is on Illidan’s spire.

 Contemplating Nagrand

Still one of my favorite shots - my human wasn’t 70 yet, and I was puttering around in Nagrand. Yes, I farmed the rep for a real Darnassus tiger.

Tree vs. Spaceman Spiff

There’s a better action shot of this duel… But the speech bubble makes the joke.

Epic PvP

Some back-story here: I met Tras while I was leveling through STV. He’s one of those 70’s that likes to gank all day. When I didn’t see him for a while, I got a little worried about him (I know, carebear.), so I asked a friend to roll hordeside and send him an in-game mail. We started talking on vent, and became good friends. One day, world defense was spamming about STV, and I thought I knew who it was. I showed up to watch the chaos, and a lowbie (no doubt tired of corpse-running) asked me to DO SOMETHING. Nevermind that a Holy Priest in full PvE gear is no match for a Fire Mage atop a yardarm, I went in swinging. I don’t think the lowbie thought it was very funny…..

Silly Dancing Shamans

So I was walking through Shat one day…. and saw this nonsense going on. Proof that Shamans are powerless under a full moon.

 Stock UI

I raided with stock UI all the way up to Vashj and Kael. No lie. And this was on a 15” monitor. Yeah, I don’t know how I did it, either.

Darnassus

This appeals to my girly aesthetics.

It's a Wipe

Learning Archi is fun. Thankfully, fire doesn’t damage your armor.

 

And that’s pretty much a round-up. There are more, of course, but most of them are more meaningful to the people and guilds that they feature. If you haven’t done it in a while, I recommend flipping through your screenshots. The nostalgia factor is enough to make it worthwhile, and you just might find yourself some new wallpaper.

Mattie’s Got a New Pair of Pants

I’m now 3/8 Tier 6. I have in my possession:

Now you might be asking yourself how on earth I can get these 3 pieces without getting the gloves. It’s quite simple. Let me explain to you the system that I use. I call it “the method”.

What is the method?

The method allows you to spend your DKP in such a way that you can get the stronger pieces you want first while allowing you to get mediocre upgrade pieces slightly cheaper. It only works for certain classes and certain systems. My guild uses a 2 round blind zero-sum system.

I intentionally wrote off the Gloves of Absolution when we first started progressing into Hyjal. At the time, I was sporting the 2 piece tier 5 bonus which states:

If your Greater Heal brings the target to full health, you gain 100 mana.

That bonus is one of the top bonuses in the game for any raiding Priest. If you’re a raid leader and you need to decide which token goes to which player, make sure your Holy Priests at least get the 2 piece bonus.

In any case, I’ve passed on the gloves continually up to this point. They’ve gone for 50 when they first dropped. Now the price has decreased by 50% to about 25 which appears to be the going rate. By allowing the other classes in my tier set to spend their DKP on the earlier weaker tokens, this puts me in a position of strength to pick up another token later. Several weeks after we first downed Azgalor, we killed Archimonde and I snapped up the Helm. The weeks following, I was able to pick up the Shoulders and then the Pants after.

DKP doesn’t determine who gets what loot. It determines who gets what loot first. So by intentionally passing on the first token, I can pick up a higher tier token without having to spend as much because I know that my competition has reduced slightly. Furthermore, I get access to cheaper gloves because the classes that I do compete with already have them.

On the other hand, if no one goes for the gloves first, you can always lowball it with a minimum bid. If everyone else is conserving, that means you can acquire it for cheap first!

Due to some piercing comments, the below additions have been removed in addition to the comments.

Council Down, Crosshairs on Illidan

council

It was certainly quite the intense campaign. The first several wipes of the night were my fault. 3 wipes, and I suffered 8 deaths. Why? Because I’m way too slow and sluggish and I got suckered by the Rogue several times. No big deal before I repositioned myself on the far right on top of the stairs and just did laps around the area.

Highlights of the Night

Our first kill involved one of our Warlocks being locked out because he was on the wrong side of the door. Ergo, we had no choice but to 24 man him. I thought we were going to wipe because we had one less DPS but it turns out I had nothing to worry about.

This is nothing more than a straight up survival and endurance fight. As a CoH Priest, I was uniquely suited to run around and heal ranged DPS or melee DPS if it was needed.

After the kill, we paid a quick visit to Hyjal…

…and wiped to Rage. After being in BT for so long, it seemed as if we had lost our raid legs in Hyjal. No worries! Got him down in the next attempt after our Holy Paladin randomly DI’d a Druid. Thank goodness it wasn’t the main tank.

illy

And now it all ends here. I started Karazhan last year around February. I did not expect to see Illidan at all. I’ve trained long and hard for this opportunity. Every boss up to this point had a lesson to teach. It won’t be easy, but we’ll sure as hell give him a bloody nose.

I want to give a very special shout out and thank you to reader Wynthea. She stayed up late last night helping me plan the different healing roles. She talked me through the encounter as it was happening ensuring I didn’t lose my cool. Without her help, Illidari Council will have taken another week or two. I’m in your debt.

So. Whose got some Illidan Priestly pointers?

Mother Shahraz Down, Crosshairs on Illidari Council

mother

Mother is too easy. We 2 shot her. If anything, the trash leading up to Mother was a pain. How quaint and ironic it is that we downed her on Mother’s day. Having capped our Shadow Resist helped incredibly.

Installing EasyMother made this fight a piece of cake.

Illidari Council

When Carnage first started raiding, we had minor difficulty on High King. We entered the caverns of Serpentshrine and manhandled Fathom-Lord and his lackeys. Following that, we infiltrated Tempest Keep and surprised Kael along with his advisors. Now we end up at the last of the multi-mob encounter before Sunwell: Illidari Council.

Healer Arsenal

2 Holy Priests (1 CoH, 1 Imp DS)
1 Resto Druid
4 Paladins
1 Resto Shaman

After 3 hours of wiping, I can say with absolute certainty that I want to bring in another healer for the time being.

2 Paladins and 1 Resto druid assigned to Gathaios tank
1 Imp Ds Priest on the mage tank
1 Paladin on the Rogue tank
1 Paladin on the Priest tank
1 CoH Priest on the melee group, the raid, and the tanks whenever possible
1 Shaman on the raid

And we’re still dying. Even after I devote myself to paying more attention to the Divine Wrath and Poison damages that ensue, we’re still dying. This is an endurance encounter, it appears to me. The enrage timer is like 14 minutes.

Cause of Wipe

The two things that lead to our demise:

I really want another healer. I think that would help ease the pressure a little.

Tango Down: Reliquary of Souls

ros-2

This is one of the fastest progression kills we’ve had in a while. It only took 3 hours before we were able to take him down.

Notes

From Wynthea

A frequent commenter produced a useful list of tips for trash and the boss that I’m going to duplicate here:

Trash:
Put your MT on follow, shield yourself, and spam CoH. There is a niche close to the last pull - your raid can stand there for a second, get out of combat, let all the mana users drink, and then have only one or two little pulls before engaging the boss. Pot as you run in, so you’re at full mana.

Phase 1:
PW:Shield anyone and everyone taking a fixate. Early, and often. Don’t be afraid to take a fixate yourself (as long as it’s not an enrage, obviously). SW:P the boss. Every little bit helps.

Phase 2:
CoH. Nothing but CoH. 400 mana for 2k heals on 5 people. Tell your shadow priests that SW:D is off-limits. No matter how much you want to, do not pot during this phase. Pop your earring, pop your fiend, but do not pot. You’ll need your cooldown. Save your Inner Focus ’til the end, and your Vial of the Sunwell. You may go oom, and need the heals. I have been told that you can Mass Dispel the last shield using your Inner Focus, so I save mine for that, but we’ve never needed it. Pray that your rogues are smart.

Phase 3:
Bosskillers said (when we were reading) to take a cauldron of Nature’s protection pots. Not sure why, the nature damage is minimal. Our guild uses Shadow Protection pots. Take them at 80%. (This is why you couldn’t mana pot in phase two.) Make sure everyone has one before you start the trash.

Pally’s on the tank, priests CoH everyone. Druids saving Tranq for this phase is not a bad idea.

Things I’ve found helpful:
Golden fish sticks if you have 10k health. Stam/regen food if you don’t. Don’t be afraid to take a fixate - no one has any armor anyway, so unless it’s an enrage, you’re not going to take more damage than a tank would. Rogues can also evade-tank enrages. Don’t flask for this. Wait until you’re ON PHASE THREE, then take draenic wisdom and healing power.

The more balanced stats are really, insanely helpful compared to Raw mp5. But you’re going to die a lot on the first couple of phases ’til you learn it, so don’t go broke wasting elixirs until people learn how to take fixates from one another.

Frequent Issues:
Trash: Mages like to AoE and kill themselves. Shield and renew them.

Phase 1: People being nervous to get in there and take a fixate, or not being smooth with the transitions = dead people. Watch those who are exceptionally low on health, and dispel them first.

Phase 2: S.priests, warlocks, Mages critting themselves to death. Rogues & interrupters interrupting badly or not at all.

Phase 3: Don’t. Let. The. Tank. Die. Everyone else is expendable. Especially you, if you have Spirit of Redemption. In fact, if you go Oom, just let yourself die, so you can keep healing.

The phases are very short, with full mana regen afterwards. Don’t be stingy with your mana.

Phat loots

Naturewarden’s Treads
Boneweave Girdle

Not sure what’s going to happen this week. The Guild will need to bust out the Shadow Resist stuff and all that. I’ve got the SR Neck, Cape, Boots, Belt, and Bracers crafted. I hope that’s enough.

Bloodboil Down and Notes

 

bb-down

Bloodboil got taken down last night with relative ease on the second shot.

Loot

Staff of Immaculate Recovery - I passed the staff off to a different Priest. I only wish that he were able to play more often. But I’m sure the staff will drop again. When Archimonde dropped his, I got mine the week after we killed him again.

Shroud of Forgiveness - Nice cape for me.

Notes

Sunday’s going to be progression night. 6 hours of wiping on Reliquary of Souls. I’m going to see how we do and take some notes.

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