A bit better

Oh my.

I have gone through a grinder and I presume I'm still at one piece. Lack of practise shows -and feels- deep in my head. And partly in my corpse body, too.

You see, last night was the raid night and the guild went to Ulduar 25 for a change. I have decided to give this kind of life a shot and see what the cards hold for me. Staying up late is just a minor repercussion compared to this raging hyperactivity my mind is experiencing. It goes along the lines:
- Did I execute the right skill on that fight?
- Was that really the right decision based on the info I had then, because it sure as hell isn't when I'm looking at it now?
- How could I do it like that?
- What can I do to learn that other thing better?
And so on.

Most of the time I was in my protection spec and in defensive stance (mental note: work out the key layout for prot spec-battle stance!). In couple of fights I had my dps spec and gear on (mental note: badge gear upgrades and practise on this set!), and I even got to tank some fights (mental note: streamline keybinds, pay attention to UI layout, too).

I can see the lure of the dark side raiding, though, a bit more clear now. In ICC25 my computer's performance is too low for the playing to be responsive and controllable enough, but in Ulduar... I could do something and feel I was working with the team and for the team. It was not constantly guessing where I should be, if that attack landed or if I stepped away or in the goo.

This time I had my flasks, I had my foods and I was more prepared and tweaked up. The beginning feels always easier when the encounter is something you know at least adequately, like Flame Leviathan and XT002, latter of which happened to be the last weeks weekly which I tanked succesfully, btw. So tanking the Life Sparks in that encounter should have been easy, but honestly speaking I didn't even remember where they spawned originally! Once I got the grasp of it (thanks to everyone patching my misses) I felt I did it quite properly, missing one which really bugs me (mental note: mocking blow still exists if taunt is on cd).

The first wipe we faced was that with Auriaya and her kittens, but that was because we wanted the achievement and really weren't trying hard enough. And I was the first to die because I just didn't pay attention to my cooldowns just there and then. The second run went smoothly as if everyone had been just woken up.

Kologarn was a blast as the second tank of the colossus himself, even though I didn't find the debuff showing on my screen anywhere (it's on the left side in the middle you idiot! You just put it there SO YOU WOULDN'T MISS IT!!! :P ) so the taunt rotation went a bit awry. But it worked anyhow.

Hodir was our second -and final- wipe, as we tried to go for the heroic one with all sorts of achievements on the way. For this one I changed to my arms/dps set, and boy, was I lost (mental note: dummy): the buttons just were so WRONG! No shield slam, no revenge... Hello, you're holding a two-hander! I suppose I do better damage with my current prot set than with my dps set, so I decided to go with that after this fight. The logs will tell me if I'm correct, but anyhow my dps set requires some badge love. I had even a blue trinket in there, that should tell something!

The only fight I'm really disappointed with was the one with Mimiron. You see, this was the only fight along with Hodir in which my screen froze to ICC25 kind of state, and this resulted a pretty quick demise in the first  Plasma Blast. I think I was one shotted. Never the less, I followed through the whole fight with my face buried beneath Mimiron himself, enjoying the view and admiring the scenery. Just like I'm used to when we're going through content undermanned with my brothers, mind you, so it made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside...

All in all I now understand why Ulduar is referred as being beautiful and well thought instance. Granted my experience of raid instances comes down to ICC25 (being laggy as hell for me), I still loved the feeling of space, epicness and completeness of the place. It has much in common with the scenery and feel of Karazhan in a way, having something new to see behind every corner and imaginative visions here and there. Also there are some great references to Uldaman and other old world instances, which really made me smile on the way.

Now, the next step is to get out of this self-doubt and see what I learned. Now that is a challenge of epic proportions!
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Leaks

by Copra


Cataclysm beta leaks. I hate them. I really do. But they are a genius pre-marketing tool from Blizzards side in many ways.

Achievements. Guild levelling. Instances. Class changes. Gear wipe. You name it.

Every little bit of information going out of the new shiny expansion fills a specific marketing target. There is a fabulous name to this creation of future expectations which cause people focus on the future rather than to the current moment.

Nextopia.

It's the current trend that we expect the next big thing to be The Thing. The same as the reason to publicise the next big concert a year ahead, put an outrageous price tag on the ticket and see how the price of the tickets declines the closer we come to the gig. It's the way we look our world tomorrow and forget to concentrate on the current moment. Tomorrow everything is better.

And we're all playing according to Blizzards pipe on this.

Take the guild achievement system for example. ICC is more or less on farm for most of the guilds out there. They are keeping some sort of raiding schedule to keep the raiders happy, to feed the not raiders through the LK grind and get everyone geared for the next big thing. (See what I did just there? Nextopia!) Some have started to look for greener pastures, and Blizzard reveals their plans for guild achievements and how ancient legendary weapons are ranked high in that system.

Guess what happens. Oh, sorry, you may have seen this, so it's no spoiler at all.

The guilds which have gotten bored or just lost the zest to go through ICC for the umpteenth time turn their eyes towards their legendary weapons. Suddenly there is a new surge in going through Ulduar, vanilla raids and so on. The people scatter from Dalaran to do their magic in the areas where they have set their foot a couple of years ago, if ever.

Blizzard just created 'meaningfull' stuff to do to you people! Clever marketing trick using the Nextopia idea!

At least I'm interested to see how Blizzard will fool us all to go through the old content once again. Cataclysm itself started the new minigame boom on achievements, but what if they introduced another one just to make sure everyone leaves the safety of Dalaran to see the old world again...

I can't wait for it to happen. It's bliss to live on expectations!
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Like a pun or something

As I messed up with my first impressions in raiding, I also messed up with my good intentions to upgrade the layout.

Sorry for losing the commenting for a while there. It's up again. Took it for granted that it would follow the layout changes, but it doesn't. It has to be activated each time.

Sorry. The program resumes as normal after this.

I messed up my good impression (YAWP)

by Copra


They say that you can make a good first impression only once. I had my chance and I blew it, really.

You see, I got myself to enter into the Saturday raid and I made a promise to myself to be prepared. Like all good plans, it was ruined by bad luck and bad execution.

First of all, I took upon the preparations in a hurry and by accident put the flasks meant for my warrior on sale. I was to check my gemming before I enter the raid, but was sucked into a living hell of a Stratholme and couldn't leave that be.

And I noticed the lack of flasks when the raid leader did his check...

Then the actual hell began. Like I've told earlier, my computer handles the 25 mans very badly: my fps dropped to 2 on Marrowgar, making it next to impossible with my experience in the encounter to avoid everything. No problem, though, as the other two were pro's and I learned that one of them has the same issue with the encounters. Though it never shows in his performance due to long learning. Which I lack naturally.

Marrowgar was just the initiation rite for the lower depths of hell. My heart sinked when I had to change to and fro between dps and tanking, as I noticed at one point that my action bars had gotten messed up. I was supposed to dps, I was in battle stance (my secondary spec is Arms) but my bar was lacking the critical skills! No time to switch anything in the heat of the battle, but I learned later that... I had been in my protection spec all along...

Now the logs are a mess on my part: they'll show me being is protection spec on fights I was dpsing and I fear it's the other way around on some other fight.

I think all this comes down to two things. Trying too hard and leaving things to the last possible minute.

Let me tell you something: I wasn't pleased on my performance, my gems nor my preparation. I feel miserable enough without the motivational message from the tank officer, which explained in detail what I had done, what I hadn't done and what I should have done. However I've taken everything under consideration and I'll be more prepared next time, if I'm ever allowed to join again...

Raiding is really fun. /cry
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The Three conquered all

by Copra


Another Thursday evening, the evening for the Three Stooges to stand up against unbeatable odds. And get beaten the heck out of them in doing it.

That's the general idea of our brotherly Thursdays and this one was no special. One random heroic to begin with (smooth and crispy Utgarde Pinnacle) followed by Icecrown instances. Three against the odds designed for five.

We like to give the opponents an advantage, you know.

So we went from the beginning. Forge of Souls. Bishopgeorge decided to give the instance the advantage of having his keybinds being unlocked. This did cause a wipe on trash (aye, on this gear and knowledge level, it's just appalling :D) but we downed the bosses one by one with no real problems. The Devourer of Souls was a kind of "one man standing" in the end, but FoS was a nice distraction. Lots of unnecessary movement, strange mantras being recited by Förgelös who is trying to learn to use his Trick of Trades and one hand miracle working on my part.

Pit of Saron. Off we went like the current modus operandi states, riding on our high horses past the initial introduction of our main target, Scourgelord Tyrannus. Where the tanking me and the dps'ing Förgelös circumvented all the additional trash, decided our residen healer, mister Bishopgeorge, give the instance an upper hand again by leading a group of mobs to our combat zone. Thanks to that, we had a very pleasant bloodbath and survived the hilarious onslaught of pixelated carnage.

Forgemaster Garfrost was just a tad short of being a let down. You see, I had the Permafrost debuff at around level 30 all the way, only resetting it twice over the course of the encounter. It took a while, but it was over just around the time we all started to worry if we would make it.

Krick and Ick. Now this bugger is really a bugger. For some reason it seems that this fight is our Achilles heel in many ways, but not because of the movement part. Oh, no, the movement is ok, the stopping to hit is the bugger: we gain so much momentum -each one of us- that we just simply keep running when the running part is over. And we always seem to manage to reset the darn boss in the middle of the battle. Like this time.

Then I have to admit that we resorted to the current modus operandi of avoiding the majority of the trash leading to the tunnel: mount up and run as far as you dare. Which usually leads you to the last pack of mobs before the entrance.

Like the mobs in the tunnel, the mob was a pushover. I heard my brothers yawn even though Bishop didn't even have his headset on. I on the other hand had fun, trying to learn to time my Spell Reflect right on the casters: the havoc it caused!

Finally, Scourgelord Tyrannus. The only boss in this set that tries to bore you with his monologue. Really... /yawn... boring, but the fight was a perfect example of dedication, sacrifice, selfless commitment and sheer dumb luck. The execution was perfect and when Tyrannus finally fell, he was the end of a series of very long boss fights in Pit of Saron. We prevailed and Tyrannus went down on the first try, even though we had had problems with him last two times we had visited him!

By the cost in repairs, Tyrannus has been the most expensive boss for us so far. But I fear that Halls of Reflection will best that and some more. You see, we got in and tried to see what it was like on three of us. I was the only one who had been in there before and I have tanked it only once with a good group of guildies.

We were severely under dps'd and even though my control over the incoming mobs was pretty good (ok, one or two got to hit the other two, maybe once or twice before I caught them), the sheer amount of damage was such that the healing had a bit of a problem there. And it didn't help that we had three waves on us at a time because we couldn't kill the buggers as fast as they came.

Result: The three stooges have a new challenge, a challenge for which everyone of us has to work on. I need more dps (I really need to check if I can get some str or haste on me), Förgelös has to get new set of daggers and attack power and Bishop... well, he just has to be.

All in all, one great night at the Icecrown instances.