Already having fun in Requiem!
So I faction transferred on Friday to Horde and Raided on Sunday…. We worked on Heroic Baleroc and Heroic Beth’tilac for a little bit before closing out the week with some normal 25′s which was a TON of fun for me having been raiding only 10′s since downing the Lick King on Heroic late in Wrath.
We also got in a Heroic Majordomo Staghelm kill which has ended up on Video…
It has the ability to watch full screen in 1080p no less where you can see my name in the raid frame and my flaming kitty butt jumping around.
We also downed Ragnaros in Regular 25′s
Supposedly the nerfs have really made it all a lot easier though but since I have not raided with these folks or in 25′s it was hard for me to really know since they are all very good to begin with. We one shot Heroic Domo and Normal Rags and the Raid leader sounded pretty happy with that considering a bunch of new raiders in the raid.
I was lucky and scored some new upgrades… Sandals of Leaping Coals, Widow’s Kiss, and Shoulderpads of the Forgotten Gate.
I didn’t die to anything stupid and managed not to wipe the raid so hopefully I get to see some more action this evening, will update as my new adventure as a Horde player unfolds.
On that note, just an FYI…. If you transfer to Horde you have to go and get your portals to Vash and Twilight Highlands again…. was kinda a pain in the arse.
Underwhelmed by 4T11 and Mount Fun.
Just a quick post on 4T11 as I just started using the set bonus this week.
I am not sure the boost in AP is worth switching out better gear. I am not taking into account keeping an eye on the buff and re-applying mangle because there are add-ons that will make that trivial. I am going off just my numbers from one night of raiding and the overall feel. I won’t give it a thumbs down just yet as I had also reforged in the Haste direction and switched out a trinket for testing. I will report back next week, but I am thinking it is more of a break even after taking off better stat gear. My guess is if you can rock non tier Heroic items you are just fine breaking the 4T11 bonus to do so… of course, that is probably an understood anyway.
I started working toward the 100 mounts achievement and it looks like I will get there pretty easy. It takes coin, that is for sure but is not too expensive if you have been lucky and gotten a few rare mounts here or there. I believe I am going to make it to 100 with only getting the cheaper of the Argent Tournament mounts (the ones for 5 badges + gold), the PvP mounts, All possible faction mounts, both guild mounts, Brewfest mount, headless horseman, Violet Proto, and then just a smattering of dungeon mounts (Bronze Drake, Wrath 5 man hero, Rusted and Iron Drakes, 10 man ICC mount). Farming for old 5 man mounts could not be any easier so that is an option as well. A great site to figure it all out: http://www.warcraftmounts.com. Once I get my database of what I have totally updated I will toss up a link to give people an idea of how easy this achievement is now without trying too hard.
Amazing what a 3rd night can do Part 2.
So we extended our raid week once again to include a third night and we downed Nef.
Things that contributed to our success…
- We stopped kiting Nef in phase 3. We held her in place along the east wall and everyone (except the adds tank and healer) stood between her and the wall.
- We pushed a pre phase 2 crackle. Not easy but needed to reduce fire in phase 3.
- We did not push a phase 2 crackle. With only 2 ranged it’s not the easiest thing to do anyway.
- We didn’t fail at interrupts in phase 2.
- We staggered cooldowns very well after phase 3 crackles.
The fight had been nerfed in 10′s as phase 2 damage is greatly reduced but ultimately since we didn’t push a crackle in phase 2 it really didn’t help us much.
Our guild is now 2nd in 10′s progression on server and a big Congo Rats goes out to Team Synergy for their Heroic progression this last week. Team Heraldz hopes to get some catching up done but alias we have a main healer out for the month of May so not sure how that is going to go… ugh.
4.1 has made swipe downright silly. I will be surprised if it doesn’t get nerfed soon but we can always hope it stays. Multiple 20K+ crits from swipe is pretty funny though. I pulled 72K DPS on the Sindragosa trash as we ran into ICC to knock out the LK Heroic achieve we still needed for the guild. This was using swipe and berserk.
I am liking the new 5 man encounters released this patch. It is a great way to gear up for an alternate spec and the gear level prereq’s make for less failed runs. ZA is WAY too easy IMHO if you ran it back in the BC days. The fights are the same but have been watered down for 5 mans. I was lucky and got a couple boom upgrades right away. (Helm and Shoulders, raiding has been cruel for casting leather). ZG is harder but fun.
Now that I have personally cleared all T11 normal content I can safely say the only fight where ranged vs melee balance can be an issue is on Cho. I still switch to Balance for that fight. As far as Heroics go we will see. In Heroic Hal I am a tank for drakes for the first half of the fight and we do fine with only 2 ranged. As we push forward now in BWD Heroics I will report back our success with only 2 ranged and myself as kitty and whether or not I have to run balance for us to have success.
Amazing what a 3rd night can do.
So we added a 3rd night of raiding this week and it paid off.
Al’Akir down!
We typically only raid 5-6 hours per week and although we can get through all our farm content in that time we found it difficult to get over the hump on both Al’Akir and Nef. We finally got Nef down too it seems (<20% wipe) and we will most likely extend the lockout to assure it happens before our MT goes on vacation.
Al’Akir is not a horrible fight it just takes 100% perfection from everyone in all phases… lol.
P.S. Start phase 3 at the top and work your way down, it made all the difference in the world… I mean a change to that way and on the 2nd try have no one die and kill the boss difference.
A big congratulations to the crew that was there, especially our uber DPSing Pally that healed the fight while hating every minute of it.
On that note, I had someone “in game” mail me about our tank opening. Sent you back a mail, read it if you get a chance… and by the way, can you tank for us Tue night 7:45 server to show the group what you can do? Oh, and yeah, you will be tanking Nef. Oh, and if you know a healer and some DPS that would like to do some successful raiding let me know… oh, I kinda have a plan… it’s in the game mail.
Some kitty Al’kir tips…
- Go crazy in phase 1 because you most likely won’t get to use shred in phase 2. Personally I will push to move some DPS to his backside with a healer but I don’t think we are doing this fight again until we do it on heroic.
- In phase 2 just do whatever you are told and don’t die.
- In phase 3 just do what DPS you can while mangle spamming.
Honestly this fight sucks as kitty and as soon as my boom gear is up to snuff I will be changing DPS specs for this fight.
Heroic Hal Vid and short explination
Here is our video from our Heroic Hal kill. Note I am tanking Skull. I set X as my focus and when Skull is at about 10% of health remaining I taunt X off one of our tanks. I tank X until he dies and I then switch to kitty and DPS down the remaining Drake and then Hal. If I hear our main tanks having a problem I might even taunt earlier and blow a couple CD’s (Barkskin, SI).
You will not hear me talk in the video but you will hear some of my guild mates as mumble was giving me issues (mumble is hic version of vent running on a Ti99 somewhere in the south 
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