The Burrow

Well the new interface works, it just works, nicely. As a team we pugged twice last night and Namtar took a random dungeon from the queue as well.

Forge of Souls (FoS)

The boomkin we were lined up with was a silent type, but seemed to be pretty effective, though possibly a little pewpew happy while I’m trying to get aggro on the mobs (which hit hard….), we lived apart from a double pull of the Wardens.  By the gods those buggers need to be taken one at a time.  Got slightly snarky at one of the need rolls but what the hell it was an upgrade for the party which meant better healing for the final boss (he’s a sod).

Pit of Saron (PoS)

Damm fine DK, knew his stuff and was relaxed enough about the wipes on the bosses.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get the end boss down, I think we have some gearing work to do on the dps and heal side, pushing up my avoidance is going to help as well.  Remember kiddies, these bosses are bigger and badder than anything else seen in the 5-man world so far.

DTK (on Namtar)

15 minutes, hooked into a guild run, and we just nuked through….

So on balance, bring it on, more pugs please

As part of the “let’s have some DKs” on an alternate realm to get to the cap where we know some other people (H & C) so the question becomes, are they going to fight their way up and be self sufficient or do they get a sugar daddy? So, the decision has been made, Korengelf is packing his bags (Mal can handle the tailoring and enchanting side of the family business). So BoA gear which isn’t in use is being moved into his packs, he’ll be sent over with a pile of gold, mats, glyphs and all of that fun stuff.

Also “She who owns auction houses” will no doubt work out what is cheap on ER and expensive on AM so we can gain some extra gold that way as well.

All of which also opens up the spare slot ready for Cata for the Worgen.

So… Worgen mage appears to be on the cards.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIWe3PLC-P8&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Ok it’s nice. The raid has a proper feel to it, we have trash. We have trash which caused the dps to complain “yeah just AoE them down, I hope this isn’t going to be the norm” followed by a single mob which caused some serious pain and deaths. Nice one blizz, keep throwing those unexpected curve balls at us.

The five-man content is pretty, and given that the healing on Unferth wasn’t a cakewalk I’m expecting it to be a proper challenge with Tincan. The attunement side of things is nice, we have to work through the three wings. The last one hurt like hell, though it didn’t help that we were four-manning at that point and just couldn’t nuke down the adds fast enough on the gauntlet section.

I like the content, the bosses are throwing some curveballs, the end boss in the Pit is going to be a swine to heal at a more normal level of kit, there’s some interesting stuff there. I think we’re going to be spending some time fighting our way though it for kit and the iLevel of the kit on normal version is 219.

Loot! Epix! Achievments!

So the plan for tonight (and other non-raiding nights) is to beat the hell out of Icecrown. So Bucanneers, gird your loins, pay your repair bills, sell something to pay for the incoming repair bills (for they will hurt). We need to beat the hell out of the new instances (and by the gods they hurt).

Edit: … gem.. enchant… gem… enchant…

Take two DKs (one heavy blood, the other split blood/unholy), take Hellfire, the Overlord, 63G3, the DKs are both 60. If I’d had mark of blood cool before starting to hit him I think I’d have survived, either way he’s dead.

I wonder when that nerfbat is coming.

Oh it doesn’t matter whether he’s a Paladin or a DK, he’s still an aggro magnet (without frost up).

Trouserleg of time job, Korenwolf & Kaylad have pushed through to 80, they’re Paladins, they’re a good team…however… a year ago in an alternate universe the Lich King got one up on them during the scourge invasion and raised them to be part of his army.

So I present… Evil Korenwolf

He’s busy levelling with Evil Kaylad, all I can say at the moment is that tag team DKs are massively OP, they’re mashing through the content at a storming pace without having to break for anything (except maybe the Fel Reaver)

A good solid run, ok there were wipes but we had some undergeared players on the run (this is a good thing they got shinies), Gormok went down on the third attempt, Demon dude one shotted, bumped into the champions for a number of attempts until we got the dps focused enough (including the healers) to nuke down the tree and priest.

That was a strange fight, there I am nuking the healers, then I remember hitting things with skulls and then suddenly “oh… there’s only one left”.

The flying tarts were one shotted as was Anub.

So achievements went *ping*, lootz was handed out and Unferth is three emblems off the next item.

Someone commenting on the wow.com thread about the new LFG system nailed down how gearing and tiers are working in Wrath.

“Gear progression is now a three-“tier” system. Tier 1 is one raid behind, like Conquest emblems now. Anyone can get Tier 1 for running heroics.

Tier 2 is current raid, normal mode. You have to run Trial of the Champion right now for Tier 2.

Tier 3 is current raid, hard mode.

Every time new content comes out, these three meta-tiers move up a rung. It’s as though SSC/TK gear had become available from heroics in BC. (Which, in a way, it did, with the Sunwell-patch weapons.) If you put in enough time, you can never be more than two “tiers” behind hardmode items from the current raid”

That’s it, it’s simple. As ever the older content becomes trivial but let’s be honest this has always been the case. Who here hasn’t solo’d the Deadmines at 80 on a clothie? Yes there is QQ from some raiders about how everyone can get Naxx / Ulduar level gear with minimal effort. This is true but does this mean they’ve been into U25? Have they beaten the encounters at the gear level the hard core raiders did? Did they learn the encounters or just watch video and faceroll through with an overgeared team?

There is more to raiding than gear, and as a wise toon once said “you gear to kill the boss, you don’t kill the boss to get gear”.

Unferth continues to have face slammed into the floor by the beasts on heroic mode. Progress is being made, p1 is being cleared cleanly most of the time and p2 is improving, we are seeing a lot more of Icehowl. The next check is the dps rate to beat the timer.

Korenwolf has his drake, so no more worrying / stress over the damm holiday achievements.

Wiglaf has come out of his shell and is powering through the levels, he’s now made it over to Darkshire as there is no damm way I am contemplating the nelf zones….