Loot, Ulduar and the Cold, Cold Turkey!

It's been awhile since I've posted and it really has been a depressing couple of weeks. After progressing far into Ulduar 10, people suddenly gave up. Maybe it's because the challenge of downing the first few bosses is gone at the same time, the people who suddenly quit already got their gear which for me is infuriating!

Some people passed on loot for you and now that you have them you just quit?! Sigh, it's the same old WoW story in any other guild, I know. It still irks me when people do that though. No more raids, lately I've been pugging most of my runs and nothing happens. It's depressing. You work hard for the raid then you get cheated out of your loot. Happened to me twice already! Same old story.

So, I've been shopping for a new guild and nothing out there has morning raid times except for this #1 guild that wouldn't put you in the core 25 even if hell froze over. Most of the guilds in my server have weekday evening raids. Sucks 'coz it's morning in our part of the world.

I'm down to 3 choices:

1. Lay down my Life and Death and retire my toons to oblivion. Go cold turkey and WoWquit!
2. Spend money and change to an Oceanic Server then go through the whole process again.
3. Stay in Thrall and wait til hell freezes so I can raid on the #1 morning guild.

Nice choices huh!

On the otherhand, my bf gave me a fourth option. Do #1 and play his shadowpriest until his subscription runs out then totally WoWquit!

What do you think?!

9/10 Ulduar Progression: Thorim

We finally got Thorim down last night after 3 tries on last night's raid. After being raped a couple of times, it was pretty awesome. We finally got the groups down pat. Warrior tank with mage, rogue hunter pally and priest on circle, Druid, ret pally, elems shammy and healing shammy on the hallway.

Healing in the circle was pretty intense as dps tend to get aggro from AoE. Deafening Thunder is also a pain in the neck for holy pallies. This is where Aura Mastery helps. I usually pop it when either the tank is going down or when the other priest healer with me is near dead. We also solved the AoE aggro issue by letting our warrior tank thunderclap then single targetting the bigger adds. I pop sacred shield on the mage most of the time with Holy Shock to defuse the damage.

After Thorim we went to Freya. Trash in Ulduar is definitely harder than the boss! We got a couple of tries on her and called it a day since most have work the next day. We resume next week hopefully we progress on to Freya and Mimiron by then.

8/10 Ulduar 10man Progression : Auriaya, Ignis, Hodir, Iron Council Down!

We got 8/10 Bosses in 10man Ulduar as of our 2nd raid! I'm positively ecstatic! Who would've thought that we can do 8 bosses. Of course with such progression comes endless wipes, tries and repair bills but nonetheless it's awesome! :)

We are still working on Thorim trying to balance out our groups inside the corridor and the first room. On Hodir we cheated a bit and our OT used his dual-spec into tree heals for it. Auriaya was easy once the tanks got the pulls right and the Iron Council dropped after a couple of tries.

I've noticed that most of the fights are definitely healing intensive. On tanking the most challenging part would be Auriaya. Blizzard also focused a lot on AoE tanking and specific mobs to dps down or to interrupt. I can say 10man Ulduar is definitely more challenging compared to 10/25m Naxx.

Veterans Down Flame Leviathan, XT-002, Razorscale and Kologarn!

After months of unsuccessful raids in our guild, members leaving and moving on to greener pastures, guild veterans decided to make a solid 10man ulduar team. We regrouped and decided to raid by ourselves and not recruit more members as of now. Farm 10m content then proceed to 25 with pugs or friendly guilds.

It payed out well! Last night was our very first attempt as a group of local (RL) friends. We only had 1 wipe per boss due to misunderstandings, failed readychecks and basically getting the attempt down.

We got Flame Lev, XT-0002 which we only downed once ever! Razorscale who's been creaming our butt since we started doing 10mans, and Kologarn, our first guild attempt ever!


For XT-002 we got 1 healer on main tank, 2 heals on raid and on OT on the adds. DPS on the heart til it got to 10% then just focus on adds. Maybe we'll attempt hard mode some other time hehe! Everyone got the gravity bombs pretty well.




Razorscale! This dragon wrecked our gear over and over before we finally got some solid advice from another guild. We range dps on right side, melee on the left. Range should dps sentinel asap and melee should interrupt chain lightning. 2 Turrets should be fired at the same time. Once Razorscale lands, burn him while dps'ing on her side. No one should be on her tail or in front of her. 3rd phase Tanks need to kite her in a circle kind of like Grobbulus in Nax then switch aggro with the OT soon as he has 2 debuffs while kiting, like Gluth. From here on it's tank and spank but make sure to burn him fast.



Last night's Kologarn was our first guild attempt. I've healed on this guy on a pug but I didn't catch when the tanks should switch aggro on the body and the right arm. Anyway, our first attempt, since we're all pretty fuzzy on this guy, Raid lead decided to let the MT tank the body and the right arm. Tank charged and we all died! Lol.

So try # 2 I told him to let the OT tank the left arm and MT on the body, switch aggro at some point ( I let the tanks decide this haha ) while the OT grabs adds. Laser beamed like Superman ( our raid lead's words lol ) were to go to the stairs while melee have to just move away from group. Pally heals on the MT, shammy on the OT and priest on raid heals. Of course we try to help out as much as we can on the stone gripped. Oh, I forgot to mention at some point, Kologarn grabs one of you and holds you in his hand. This has to be healed by the healers. It's not like Ignis that you can heal yourself in the cauldron.

We were all surprised that we got to Kolo on our first attempt. Honestly We've been trying Ulduar 10man a couple of times with a different guild group and it always was a fail. I guess it really must be synergy between friends and knowing how to work well with your raiders. Also, all of the raiders we had were quick to learn, know how to adjust and plays their characters well.

It's a Small World After All

Have you ever noticed how small it is in your realm? That sooner or later you're bound to run or raid with your friends and foes randomly? I figure that about a hundred people are in my realm and they're just cycling through different characters.

Last night, I ran a couple of raids with pugs and most of them I know from having pugged over and over again. Then a 10man E0E was up in the trades channel looking for a DPS. Since my warlock has never seen a dead Malygos, I pm'd the raid lead and got invited. Turns out the raid was ran by a couple of people formerly from our guild. I was tempted to leave the raid but I figure it wasn't me who left the guild and I shouldn't feel bad about it. I stayed and it was definitely awkward for me.

They recognized me and one raider said hi in vent and I just said hi back. After that I was silent the whole raid, making sure I was doing great in EoE. I didn't ask them why they left or why they didn't have the decency to be honest about leaving. I just played. I understand that people should play for themselves to have fun but after a couple of months of giving your time and effort for the benefit of the guild the least they can offer you is honesty.

I'm not mad at them for leaving, it is the constant thing in this game I suppose. People come and people go. I'm just glad our 10 are RL friends and no matter how tempting it might be to join a new or better guild, we 10 stick together.

At least for now...

Being a Loot Whore or Just Plain Lucky

I ran with the guild Notorious yesterday for Heroic Naxx on my warlock. We started at 2am and I thought I'll just do 2 quarters then log off to catch some sleep. We started with Construct quarter maybe because they wanted to see everyone's dps on Patchwerk. As we were doing trash pulls, I quickly checked Recount to see if my dps was anywhere decent. I was surprised to see 2 warlocks doing 5k dps and I was only at 3k. Personally I thought wow I hit 3k when I usually just do 2.5 K. Then I saw that I was 10th in the dps. Maybe this raid might not be so bad.

The raid swept through Hnax in 3 hours all the way to KT. I got nice loots since most of the dps don't need it and this toon always did roll high when it comes to gear and mounts lol. I wanted to grab 2 more but I figure they might kick me if I get any more loot! Next Hnax run I'm gonna pray for the Hit neck from Patch, The Soulblade from KT and the Hit trinket from Saphiron.





I wanted to ask the Warlocks in their guild how they manage 5k dps. One lock was afflic and the other has the same spec as me 31/40 Demonology. I guess it's all in the rotation and connection speed. I admit raiding on my lock has less pressure than healing. You don't get blamed for anything other than the occasional aggro issues and even if you fall asleep you don't kill the raid!

For now 25m raiding, I'm on my lock. Ulduar 10m and the rest of progression on my healadin!
Now I need to level a melee dps don't I haha!

Malygos Raid Bugged

After a few weeks of not raiding, I finally pugged Heroic EoE and got him down after 3 tries. Sweet actually coz most pugs don't even reach phase 3 on the first try! I already gave up hope on getting the Hnaxx key quest reward before running this raid.

The group was awesome, minus a few dps that had to run towards every shield instead of waiting for every other one to maximize their dps. Phase 3 and we were all huddled up! 3-4 healers got the revivify and the aoe heals down pat so it was all left to the dps to huddle up and pawn Malygos! We got him and as soon as he died, I died too!

Of course people were in a hurry to get loot so a couple looted before others rezzed but we were all the instance so no problem right? I walked back and voila! I was dead again! EoE is bugged apparently so the loot master said to wait for loot before rezzing. Once loot was done, I walked back again to rez and I couldn't click the Heart of Malygos! Dammit! I relogged to see if it would work, and I died yet again! I zoned in once more and clicked still no Heart!

Time to send a ticket to the GM! Posted it and saw the cue time. Jeez 1 hr and 55min! I tried clicking the portal to go back to Coldarra. Dud! I tried dismounting and hearthing, still Duds! Frustrated as hell I left the raid group and I got ported to the graveyard. Hearthed to Dalaran and repaired. Got a smacking 38gold repair just for zoning in and out of EoE!

It's frustrating and irritating as hell that they can't fix simple raids like these. Don't get me started on the Obsidian Sanctum Flame Wall bug! Oh and the Heroic Violet Hold portal keeper that wants to hide underground! Blizz has been too busy concentrating on Ulduar and Argent Tournament that simple bugs like these have been in game since 3.1 came out! It's been a couple of weeks and still no fixes!

I understand that Blizz has been trying to keep players happy with the new raid and PVP tournament but I hope they maintain their not-so-old raids to keep non-progression people satisfied too.

Witnessing the death of a Guild

It has been a depressing 2 months of endless wipes, uncleared raids and still no sign of Ulduar. I'm disappointed, depressed and torn between leaving the guild or staying and doing 10 mans of everything!

Good people have gone, new recruits sit idly by till the next batch of people leave. No one signs up for raids, then complains that there are no raids. WoW has become too much of a responsibility. It's not fun anymore.

I'm seriously contemplating leaving the guild. To where? I don't know yet. Any guild doing Ulduar in the mornings I guess. If they'll have me.

On the other hand, people I know and play with are in this guild. Starting over in a new guild means probationary status, full attendance etc...

Maybe I should just quit WoW altogether.

Blasphemy!!!

Emalon and XT got served!

Wednesday night, I rushed home to catch the 10M Ulduar raid. Logged in at exactly 11 to see that the raid is full :( Got a little miffed 'coz I skipped my scheduled overtime to get home asap. I was on standby so it wasn't anyone's fault.

I saw a pug forming at Dalaran for 25VoA and since I wasn't raiding that night, I joined in. It took an hour to get the raid going. People are now wary against VoA pugs whereas before you can do it with a couple of people in greens. First pull wasn't pretty. Tanks died before they even got to their spot. Uh-oh right?

We tried a second time, BOOM! Emalon died like a pansy! Woot! Was I surprised? YES!! I've been to so many pugs for VoA and they all ended with a big fat repair bill. And now we two-shot it? My faith in pugs have been restored somewhat lol!

Loot time! It was depressingly all PVP gear! Save for a ret pally and DK pants :( Boo! Nevertheless sweet still! My very first Badge of Conquest!


Then a spot opened up for Ulduar 10M, one of the healers had to log off. I arrived and they were working on XT, took us 8 tries for that piece of jellybean! Finally figured out that we were doing hard-mode instead of normal lol! In the end we downed XT-002 by not range dps'ing the heart but let them focus on adds. We got the achievement too for not dying on gravity bombs! Armbands of the Construct and Vest of the Glowing Crescent dropped but i figure my Bracers of Liberation are still good. Difference between 3 iLevels is kinda small to re-enchant ! Yeah, I know, I'm a cheapskate!

Good night for my pally's progression raid!

Too much drama

The only thing I don't like about playing WoW is the drama. Too many people are jerks and so few are actually good players without an attitude problem.

I logged on my paladin at 6am server and stayed til 3pm. I spent more time sorting out problems than actually playing. From loot system to raid leader whines even guild rank! I mean c'mon! Guild rank? Why should it matter if you're a raider or a senior raider! It's not as if you are given responsibities. It's just bragging rights!

Then a member also whispered me to ask if he can be an officer. I wanted to tell him,

"Have you done anything for the guild?"

I mean really!

Then another situation came up, a probationary toon was talking trash in gchat and 2 of our regular raiders gquit because of him. This was the second time he did this, first i pm'd him to be more respectful. His response was,

" Your opinion only matters if you're an officer"

Big mistake dude!

I wrote,

" I AM an officer!"

second time?

/Gkick!

After 7 hours, all is well in WoWLand. A couple of people are stepping up to the job and hopefully this month's drama will be over soon and we can get on to our regular awesomeness! I have high hopes on this rebuild. It sucks that people you've played with have moved on, but raiding must go on. Change comes with every patch! ( cliche? damn right! ) That's the only constant thing in WoW and real life.