A Look Back at Legion Part 3 of 3: Why I Left My Guild & What Now?

Why I Left My Guild

I don’t think anyone cares enough to have spent a lot of time wondering about why I left Crisp, though I’m sure when it happened, my guildies probably had a few theories. I didn’t give a lot of details then and I won’t go into specifics now, but since the guild as a whole played such a huge role in this expansion for me, I feel like not talking about it as a I look back on Legion would be to leave out a big part of my xpac experience.

I don’t go into detail about my personal mental health a lot, though in the wake of the news of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, I did open up about my personal experiences on Twitter recently, and I will not hesitate to share my issues if I believe it will help someone else. And yet, as it was one of the primary reasons I left my guild, we’re going to talk about it now.

I have OCD coupled with depression and anxiety. My personal feeling is that it’s all one thing, but breaking it down into its pieces makes it easier to talk about. I’ve written about some of my experience with OCD before, and those who follow me closely on Twitter have witnessed my anxiety and depression firsthand during the times when I fell apart (and, thankfully, had many helping hands to pull me back together).

As we neared the end of progression, some of the relationships I had formed in the guild were unraveling, and that coupled with my OCD and the stress of the progression itself were pushing me into an anxiety-ridden, deeply depressed state that was making real-life living difficult and being in-game almost impossible.

I went to a friend of mine to talk about it—everyone needs to have a friend like this, by the way—and he said something that stuck with me: “Amber. You deserve to be happy.” This shouldn’t be a mind-blowing revelation, right? But it was. So I started thinking about what I needed to do to be happy, and I realized that I needed to get away from my current situation. I needed to move on and make a new start. (As it turned out, I also needed medication, something I resisted for a long time but was and continues to be a huge quality-of-life improvement). And I needed time.

So I forced myself to stay on through Argus progression, both selfishly, because after wiping that many times on a boss, I wanted to kill it, and because after wiping that many times, I didn’t think leaving in the middle of progression would be a fair move for the guild, either. When Argus was over and I considered my options again, I knew leaving was the right thing. I needed to get myself back together.

I moved to my old guild, my OLD OLD guild, the first raiding guild I ever joined. I was in the guild for 7 or 8 years; they are family, and as soon as I told them I needed somewhere to be at peace, they opened their arms and welcomed me back.

It’s been exactly what I needed. I loved Crisp; you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better group of people to hang out with (and I’m sure they’re recruiting, so if you’re looking for a mythic raiding guild for BfA, I recommend them!), and had things been different, I probably would’ve stayed there indefinitely. But I did what I had to do to be okay, and that has to take priority.

What Now?

The honest answer is: I have absolutely no idea. Within a week of leaving Crisp, I ended up in the hospital with a persistent infection that I’m unfortunately still fighting. It’s fatiguing, but I’m leaving it in the hands of my dedicated (if somewhat perplexed) surgeon.

Unfortunately, all of that combined–the anxiety, depression, and illness–have made being social extremely difficult. I’ve gone into absolute full turtle mode. Outside of Twitter, I barely speak to anyone. I’ve been appearing offline in WoW and Discord for a few months, and the last time I turned it on, I got a bunch of whispers and immediately turned it back off. If you’ve DM’d me or whispered me and I’ve ignored you, please don’t take it personally. It’s not that I don’t love you guys, I just don’t have the spoons right now.

As for BfA? I’m sure at some point I’ll want to be back into mythic progression and that will mean finding a new guild, something that kind of exhausts me to think about.

For now, I’m happy doing what I’m doing, which is mostly mythic+, chasing professions and achievements and mage tower appearances, and leveling in beta. And spending an unhealthy amount of time in Sims 4. No, really, what is it with that game?

Whatever comes next, I guess we’ll see.

Part 1: The Best, The Decent, and the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Part 2: My Legion Raiding Experience

A Look Back at Legion Part 2 of 3: My Legion Raiding Experience

The Emerald Nightmare

…was aptly named. Elemental shaman in the first tier were uh—well, not so good, honestly. I also was in the midst of a guild shakeup, which made raiding a lot more interesting (but not in a good way). I started in Syzygy on Sargeras at the beginning of the tier, but due to some differences of opinion, ended up in Crisp on Baelgun, with whom I killed Xavius and finished the expansion.

Things I liked about EN: Ursoc. Who doesn’t love what amounts to a burn fight? Sometimes it’s fun to do minimal mechanics and DPS as hard as you can.

Things I didn’t like about EN: Most of the rest of it. But I don’t know how much of that can be attributed to the instance itself and how much of it can be attributed to my situation at the time.

Trial of Valor

So uh. Yeah. I was on the bench for most of Odyn progression. Guarm was equally fun and annoying, depending on the day. Helya was an adventure and a test of our coordination and communication skills, which had varying states of success.

And then there’s The Chosen. Ahhhhh well. Our first Chosen recipient was a holy priest with the cloak who cleverly abused the cloak’s power to never technically die. Then there were a bunch of people that got it in one of our runs (including brand new guild members) who had never killed Helya before.

Me? I didn’t get it until halfway through the expansion because something always happened. One time we had a new balance druid who Starfalled Helya while we were setting up, then ran back to where the rest of the raid was, literally ran in a circle around us, and wiped us all. If you’ve heard the phrase “he ran around like a chicken with his head cut off,” he was exactly that. One time I got bombed on Guarm by someone’s debuff. Another time I was out of position and Gust-of-Winded into a tornado on Odyn.

It was so bad that by the time I got the title, the healers were focusing me and there was discussion about getting my druid and just staying in bear form to make sure I got it. Thankfully it didn’t come to that, but I’ve never been so happy to be done with a damn achievement in my life.

Nighthold

Ah Nighthold. Honestly, there are some things about Nighthold I really, really enjoyed. After a tier of what-good-is-an-elemental-shaman-anyway, we had a few bosses where we were able to actually have fun. Earthquake with Sephuz on Skorp was a good time; saving Stormkeeper for the little adds on Anomaly was actually helpful. And then there was Spellblade. 

Yeah, our Arcane mage made me cry (I’m looking at you, Pecans), but it was still a good time.

basically botanist

And then there were the other bosses. High Botanist was our kryptonite, and Star Augur and I did not get along. At all. The fel spit phase was almost certain death, and I Trined us a few times until I realized that if you turn on Chat Bubbles you could see the Star Sign announcement above people’s heads and didn’t have to rely on the colors, which apparently in my advanced age of 33 matters (I maintain that the green symbol blends in with the floor like camouflage, I don’t care what anyone else says…).

As far as Gul’dan? I honestly don’t think he gave us nearly as much trouble as Botanist. He was an end boss who felt like an end boss and that was okay. Plus my fellow ele and I got to go ham on eyes at the beginning and that was fun.

Tomb of Sargeras

I honestly enjoyed ToS. I know a lot of people didn’t, but I liked most of the bosses, I liked the environment, and I ran the place a LOT.

Favorite bosses? Actually, I liked most of them. Mistress I could’ve done without, but I was spared most of the progression on it, so I can’t complain much. Harjatan and Host were fun for elemental. I liked the Sisters, Maiden, Avatar, and KJ fights. I thought orb-catching was fun, I liked the dance on Avatar and while I think that KJ had some glaring issues (c’mon, that stand-around-and-get-bounced phase was actually awful), I liked the idea of the mechanics. But I’m not hard to please, so there’s that. I also was the weirdo who loved Imperator in WoD.

I should mention that in order to get a Maiden kill and to be in for Avatar and KJ, I had to switch to hunter because the lower single target damage of ele combined with the desperate need for immunities made it a poor choice (which sucks, I might add. Getting benched because of the class you play blows, but like it or not, it’s been a part of the game for a long time). BUT hunter was fun to play, so it turned out all right.

Antorus, The Burning Throne

Man, screw Antorus. I liked ToS; I didn’t like Antorus. I don’t know if it was my state of mind at the time or the instance itself or a combination of both, but even now I try to do as little of it as possible.

There’s not a single boss in the instance that makes me go, “Yeah, I really liked that fight.” Varimathras was okay. Portal Keeper and High Command were fun for Chain Lightning. Everything else was decidedly meh. Argus took us over 700 pulls, and I wasn’t in a great place anyway so it was extra mind-crushing.

I have rarely been happy to see an instance come to an end, but when we killed Argus the relief was palpable.

These days, I only do Argus on normal/heroic on my characters if I can help it. I’ll do the Garothi/Aggramar/Argus bit if I have to, but I haven’t done a full clear of Antorus since I quit raiding, and I don’t see myself doing it anytime soon. I’m having a fine time doing Mythic+ and trying to cap all of my professions, tyvm.

Part 1: The Best, The Decent, and the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Part 3: Why I Left My Guild & What Now?

A Look Back at Legion Part 1 of 3: The Best, The Decent, and the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Legion is over. Well, sort of. I’ve still got a couple of class mounts to pick up, some mage tower appearances to get, some achievements, some profession quests…okay, but really, it’s over. Argus is dead, the expac is done and dusted, so let’s take a look at it.

The Best: Mythic+

Hands down, my favorite thing about this expansion has been Mythic+ dungeons. I knew I’d like them, because I always thought Challenge Modes were cool, but I didn’t know I’d like them as much as I have. While it could never replace raiding for me, outside of raiding they are absolutely some of the most fun I’ve had in this game.

I like the fact that the affixes change to make each week a little bit different. I like that the challenge scales, that you can pick the difficulty based on where you are on your character or with your group. I like that using utility matters, that thinking about what your class/spec actually brings is important. I like that it’s extra rewarding to coordinate with friends but I also like that they can be pugged (with varying success, obviously).

And also, as I’ve expressed before, I really enjoy opening caches. I don’t know, it’s a thing. Send me empty boxes and I’d probably enjoy opening them, too.

The Decent: Story-based, Scaled Questing, the Mage Tower, & Class Mounts

Questing. I’m not going to pretend I did every zone on every character I leveled. I am not that committed. However, I did go through all of the zones on my main, completed all of the chapters, and as I did when they first kind of made the switch to the story-based model, I genuinely enjoy it.

I do love a good batch of quests to turn in (spoiler alert: what I’ve seen so far on beta is a really good balance of the two, at least in Kul Tiras. Story with a bunch of quests you can run around and do and turn in all at once for that super satisfying ahhhhh yeeeeah moment), but I love the progression of the story and having a clear path to follow. And also a clear ending—completing the zones in a dungeon was perfection to me and gave the instances an actual purpose as part of telling the story.

The scaling was well done, too; I liked that I could pick whichever zone I wanted to start in on a given character (Azuna was and still is my absolute favorite) and that no matter where I went in the Broken Isles, it would be appropriate to my level.

Except Suramar. God, I hated Suramar as an elemental shaman at the beginning of the xpac. Ugh. Seriously, I think I casted Healing Surge and Astral Shift more than actual DPS abilities. Thank God for Dwayne, my trusty Earth Elemental and forever tank.

The Mage Tower. I don’t even have a lot to say here. It’s challenging. It’s fun. It feels good to beat it. However, there are certain specs for which it’s annoying in that it could be extremely difficult to beat without a certain item level or legendary. A little bit finer tuning on the balance so that at the beginning it wasn’t a joke for one spec and hell for another would be nice. But they are fun.

Class Mounts. The fact is, I’m a sucker for class-specific things. I like characters. I like things that single out my class, and the mounts are a great little piece of that. The only drawback is that in order to get to the class mount, you do have to do the entire Legionfall Campaign quest chain, and doing that across all my characters got a little lengthy.

Also, my priest’s mount looks like it crashed headfirst into a window. You know I’m right. The wing-flappy sounds it makes when it’s flying are nice, though

The ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ : Legendaries, Artifacts, & Profession Quests

Legendaries. It’s not like we all don’t know what the problem with legendaries is/was, but let’s talk about it anyway: when a spec is reliant on a legendary to do well and the legendary system is RNG, it’s beyond problematic.

I’ve said it before, discussed it with guildies, run it into the ground, but it’s worth repeating: the whole thing could have been resolved by making legendaries 100% utility. Instead of “Oh man, I got Portal Pants” or “Damn it, I got the Feign Death helm” (my first legendary on my hunter, I might add), you’d get “Hell yeah, imma portal all over this bitch” or “I’ll live f o r e v e r.” As it was, if you were looking for that magical legendary (fire mages and their bracers, for instance) and kept coming up short, the difference in your ability to perform was noticeable and that sucks.

Granted, with the new Wakening Essences catch-up system, that’s somewhat improved by making it possible to “farm” legendaries, but it’s still a legendary chance, which means you could still end up on the sad end of the spec you want to play minus the legendaries you need to play it competitively.

Once you get the legendaries, however; they do make for some compelling gameplay and choices (depending on the spec, some specs are just “equip this legendary, do this rotation, check and check”). I enjoyed having them and using them, just the getting there part could’ve been better.

Artifacts. Again, this mostly applies to the beginning of the expansion. The whole “we didn’t think you’d actually farm Maw of Souls endlessly to get AP” and “just because we design the game to be played 80 hours a week doesn’t mean you should” system is an issue. The fact is, sometimes WoW players want to be competitive and if you say “you have to acquire this to be better,” we’re going to find the ways to make the acquiring happen.

Grinding AP was not the most fun experience, let’s be honest. Now, of course, it’s a joke—we have the research that makes catching up characters easy peasy, but in the beginning, that AP farm was a rough haul. Hopefully we’ve learned from this? Team? I haven’t hit level cap in beta yet so I don’t know what that experience is like. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Oh, and while we’re on artifacts, can we take two seconds to talk about the damn Crucible? Do you guys remember when they took reforging away from us specifically because “we don’t want you to get a piece of gear and have to take it to the reforger and run it through sims before you can use it?” Um. Hello? What do you think we end up doing with relics and the Crucible? I’m just saying.

Profession Quests. Okay, so, here’s the thing: I actually like the profession quest concept. I love that you can just jump right into the current level of professions and get moving on it by doing the quests. I even like that there are stories for each profession (if you can’t tell, I like stories).

But some of the requirements for those quest chains got tiresome, especially if you repeated professions on multiple characters. Just—I don’t know, ease up a bit? Shorter quest chains? Fewer instances?

And then there’s Field Medic achievement. I just really started working on this after seeing everyone talking about it on Twitter, and holy hell, I can already see why everyone’s talking about it. Hang in there, boys and girls, I believe.

Part 2: My Legion Raiding Experience

Part 3: Why I Left My Guild & What Now?

My Little Army: Warlords of Draenor Characters

It’s here! Legion’s less than 12 hours away from launch. I’m sure there will be server queues and lag and downtime, but that has never stopped me from being awake at 3am to see it happen.

I’ve been almost exclusively doing invasions for levels and gear (I know I’m not alone, I see you all out there), and now I have a little army of level 100s ready to go. As I did at the end of Mists of Pandaria, here’s my collection of characters as we say goodbye to Warlords and a big hello to the Legion, starting with my new main ❤ :

I could not be more ready. Let’s go.

Legion Beta Picture Dump 2 – Val’Sharah & Stormheim

It took me longer than it should have to hit 110, but I’ve been taking my time. And, of course, screenshots. What’s a vacation without pictures?

More after the break cause don’t wanna accidentally spoil for someone.

Legion Beta Picture Dump Part 1: Azsuna & The Dreamgrove

I can’t help it, I have to take screenshots. It’s a thing, okay. And there are lots of pretty pretty things to take screenshots of in the Legion beta so far. I’m going to put everything else after a break; I don’t plan on posting spoilers but some people I know are really particular about their exposure, and I don’t want to risk ruining anything.

I Don’t Like Flakes

Raiding for the purpose of progression at any difficulty is a time commitment–at least, if you intend to be even moderately successful at it.

Experience and consistency go a long way in re-clearing farm content and killing new bosses in a timely manner. It’s not everything, but it’s definitely something.

When you flake out of your raid group, you’re being a selfish prick. There, I said it, and I’m not taking it back.

Am I saying that you shouldn’t quit when you’re tired of playing? That you shouldn’t back out when something in real-life supersedes in-game shenanigans? Of course not. But there are ways to handle these situations and still be considerate to the rest of your raid group.

The worst way to handle it? Stop showing up. That’s it–if your goal is to try to set your raid team back and be labeled a flake, that’s all you have to do. Easy, right?

If you are part of a raid team and you have real-life get in the way, tell someone. That’s it. Two seconds. “Hey, man, I’m really sorry, but my cat just developed super powers and is being taken to a private testing facility for magical creatures and I have to go with him. I won’t be available for the next few weeks.”

Granted, whether or not I believe your cat is teleporting around your living room is questionable, but hey, at least you told me.

If you decide you’re tired of playing/burnt out/not having fun anymore, warn your team and give us some time to find a replacement. “I just can’t get excited about the game anymore. I hate logging in and I’d rather snort glass than kill these bosses again. I’ll stay for the next two weeks, but then I’m done.”

Granted, it’s not as easy as just flat not showing up, but it’s also a) less of a dick move, and b) leaving your bridges in tact. Which may, as it turns out, be handy to you if you decide to come back in the future.

I’m an old lady, guys. I gotta stick by at least a few of my old-lady principles, and this is one of them. I love corn flakes and frosted flakes and honey-bunches-of-oats flakes (no, that’s a lie, I like the clusters). I don’t like raid flakes.

Mythic Hellfire Citadel & I KNEW It Was Legion

Mythic Hellfire Citadel Progression

It’s been about a month and a half since we all started venturing into Mythic Hellfire Citadel, and so far it’s my favorite instance of this expansion. That’s actually saying quite a bit since I was a fan of Highmaul and Imperator remains one of my favorite fights in my raiding history.

So far, <Check Please> is 9/13 with a frustrating amount of sub 25% wipes on Tyrant. Xhul’s next on the target list, and then we get to step into the exciting world of Mythic Mannoroth and Archimonde, and man, Archimonde looks like a good time. 

I will say, though; for having some fun fights and looking cool, HFC also has one of the least enjoyable boss fights in Warcraft–can you even call Assault a boss fight? It’s a Mythic trash pull that isn’t even as uh–exciting–as the trash before Tyrant or Fel Lord.

But hey, there’s green fire and some fun mechanics and a lot of great stuff to die to (COULD YOU PLEASE THROW THE EYE? NO. OKAY. THANKS), so all-in-all, not bad. 

P.S. We stream our raids! Catch our main tank and GM Kinas on http://twitch.tv/almondstv or if I’m streaming, http://twitch.tv/ambermist. 

I Don’t Mean to Say I Told You So, But…

Obviously, the biggest news this month in WoW (aside from flying in Draenor coming September 1st!) has been the announcement of the next expansion, and I knew that I knew it was going to be a Legion expansion.

I could use this time to discuss how I remembered that day 2 or 3 years ago when a Blizzard developer made the comment about there being a bridge expansion followed by a legion expansion, and I knew that it was going to be a legion-based xpac, but instead I’m going to discuss the fact that almost no xpac predictions were wrong.

There have been a lot of discussions about the future of World of Warcraft going on for a really long time–forums, Twitter, fansites, blogs–and if you look at what we’re getting in Legion, you’ll see that there’s a bit of Oprah in this expansion. I said it on Twitter the day of the announcement: “Did you think the xpac was going to be Legion? You’re right! Emerald Dream? Yes! Azshara? YES!”

I’m not on the edge of my seat for this expansion, nor am I holding my breath. I also haven’t jumped on the Hype Train…

But it looks like it could be fun to play, and I haven’t stopped yet. Besides, the last time I wasn’t hyped (okay, the opposite of hyped, really), I ended up loving most of the expansion, so I’m along for the ride. Choo choo?

6.2 First Impressions & Heroic Hellfire Citadel First 3 Bosses

Ahhh, do you smell it? Fresh ocean breezes, cannon fire, blood in the water–smells like new content!

6.2 First Impressions

Let’s go ahead and say what most of us are thinking, shall we? PLEASE MASTER PLAN & GARRISON MISSION MANAGER, WE NEED YOU! How many of you, like me, didn’t realize how good you had it until it was gone? I want them back and fully functional, please and thank you.

Until then, I’m using Garrison Commander as suggested by @thegoldqueen, and it’s working beautifully!

Commander Captain Ambermist has arrived, okay? I’m enjoying the ship missions so far, if not the wait time between them…or the fact that I can’t 100% anything at all yet. Heck, I was excited to get a 94%! But c’mon, I’m a captain.

And then there’s Tanaan Jungle. So far it’s just a thing to do–I go there, I do some quests and bonus objectives, aaaaand that’s about it.

Heroic Hellfire Citadel

Last night we took our first split run group of half mains, half alts into Heroic HFC and blasted through the first 6 bosses, so here’s a look at those in the most TL;DR I can get.

Clicking the boss’s name will take you to the video.

Hellfire Assault

I’m not exaggerating when I say this is basically a really big trash pull. You have 2 cannons that you need to protect from mobs and siege engines until they’re full of ammunition.

Ammunition drops from siege vehicles and lands on the ground in a big green glowy box when you kill them, and you just need someone to be responsible for picking them up and running them to the cannons.

Kill priority is roughly:

1. Crushers – big sieges that go straight for your cannons
2. Felcasters – cause ouch
3. Siege vehicles
4. Everything else

Sure, I could be more specific, but trust me when I say that’s more than enough to get you through it. Watch out for things shooting at you. If it looks like it can hurt you it can.

If you get marked with Howling Axe, run away from the raid and wait for it to smack you before running back.

That’s it. All done.

Iron Reaver

This one gave us the most hassle because of the need to spread out and cause fire burns. Oh, and because the boss likes to suddenly swing around and Blitz in a random direction sometimes. RIP.

Phase 1 Abilities & How to Handle Them:

• Unstable Orb – Hits random raiders and does splash damage. Spread 8 yards.
• Barrage – Boss targets a player and launches fire on the ground in a cone. Move away when she faces you.
• Blitz – Boss charges in straight line, picking up whoever is in her path and doing damage to them. Don’t be in the way of her charge.
• Pounding – Raid-wide AoE requiring cooldowns.
• Immolation – Fire left on the ground by Barrage. Don’t stand in it.
• Artillery – Debuff placed on the tank that does raid-wide AoE when it expires, reduced by distance. Tank runs away to let it expire and no one hugs him until he’s done exploding.

What worked for us was splitting the ranged kind of in half with healers on each side of the room. This gave us more space to spread out for Unstable Orb and more flexibility for dodging Barrages. Healers responsible for Pounding cooldowns would move into melee before casting their CD to maximize raid coverage.

Phase 2 Abilities & How to Handle Them:

• Fuel Streak – Boss spits oil on the ground that will slow anyone standing in it.
• Um, FIRE – Boss lights the oil on fire. Don’t stand in it.
• Uhh, BOMBS – Boss drops bombs all over the room that do a crapton of raid damage if they explode. Kill them ASAP.
• Artillery – The raid-damaging debuff on the tanks from phase 1 will now target a few random players who will need to run away from the raid before the debuff expires.

That’s the fight. Stay away from dangerous things, kill the boss, kill the bombs. Easiest.

I really do recommend finding a way to spread out your ranged and healers, though. Getting people to watch their range meters when resetting after Barrage is turrible, and having more space makes it way easier.

Hellfire High Council

Three bosses, a multi-dotter’s wet dream. We cheesed this a bit…

The three bosses are: Dia Darkwhisper, Blademaster Jubei’thos, and Gurtogg Bloodboil.

We opted to just burn down Bloodboil, eat the decreased HP debuff, and basically put him out of commission for the entire fight.

Dia Darkwhisper’s Abilities

• Mark of the Necromancer – Puts a debuff on a player that jumps to two people when it’s dispelled. It starts as a green debuff, then changes to yellow, then red. Dispel on red.
• Reap – Removes all Mark of the Necromancer debuffs but leaves puddles at the feet of those who have it. When Reap is cast, players with the debuff should move to the edge of the room.
• Wailing Horror – Raid-wide AoE that also spawns voidspawn-type spirits on the edge of the room. They’ll fly in a straight line from where they spawn doing damage, so move out of them.
• Tank Junk – The boss casts Void Bolt on the tank instead of meleeing, and every once in a while she transforms and does a bunch of damage to the tank. Do tank stuff and live.
• Sub 30% – She stops casting Reap, so the debuffs never go away and require careful dispelling and healing.

Blademaster Jubei’thos’s Abilities

• Felblade – Boomeranging sword that goes out and comes back in a straight line noted by an arrow. Don’t stand in the path.
• Felstorm – Unavoidable raidwide AoE.
• Windwalk – Blademaster disappears and summons Mirror Images that do either Felblade or Felstorm. Kill the Images quickly.
• Sub 30% – Occasional, unavoidable raid damage.

Gurtogg Bloodboil

• Bloodboil – Damages the 5 furthest targets, but isn’t a lot of damage, so you can practically ignore this mechanic.
• Fel Rage – The boss fixates a player, granting them a defensive buff. His attack speed increases every time he hits the player, so use a cooldown near the end of it if needed.
• Demolishing Leap – The boss starts jumping around the room; avoid swirly circles.
• Tank Junk – Puts Acidic Wound on the tank, a stacking, armor-reducing debuff.
• Sub 30% – Debuffs everyone with lower HP, stacking by 10% until he dies.

Regardless of whether or not you try nuking Bloodboil down like we did, the kill order will be Bloodboil > Blademaster > Darkwhisper.

That’s pretty much everything you need to know about the fight right there, easy peasy.

I’ll post the next 3 tomorrow, thank you, friends! ❤

We’ll be doing Heroic HFC again tonight (Wed 6/24), starting a fresh clear in a second group and working on the bosses we haven’t killed yet, as well. Tune in to watch at 8pm Eastern at twitch.tv/ambermist!

On Mythic Blackhand, Guilds, & My Missing Appendix

“April is the cruelest month.” 

First, there’s Mythic Blackhand, the tyrant hanging over our heads for the entire month of April. There’s something about that boss, man; he’s really good at making people exceptionally tense.

Getting him down felt good. Not the same way Imperator felt good–the Imperator kill felt like a perfected dance, a 5-star performance on opening night kind of good. Blackhand felt like a battle won, like putting away our swords and wiping dirt and blood off of our faces with a resounding “Hell yeah, we’re still here.”

Guilds

This month has been a different sort of interesting for me, as well. Some people and situations within my guild pushed me to the brink of leaving–far enough into the gap, in fact; that I applied to other guilds (and met some pretty cool people, I might add).

I felt obligated to stay through the Blackhand kill, and during that time there’s been a concerted effort to make things a little less frustrating. This left me at a difficult juncture: do I leave my guild and the friends I have here and try something new with people who seem nice? Or do I stay with the people I like, deal with the ones I don’t, and give my guild a second chance?

In the end, I believe I’ve opted for staying home. Maybe I’m screwing myself over, but I love this guild, I just want it to like me back.

I Didn’t Need It Anyway

We killed Blackhand on a Monday night. The Sunday previous, I’d started having lower right abdominal pain. I took some ibuprofen and pressed on. Monday was miserable, but I sucked it up, a little more ibuprofen, and we killed the boss.

The next morning, I could no longer ignore the pain, and a visit to the ER later, I was being scheduled for surgery to remove my appendix.

The Twitter community was, of course; as supportive and cool as they’ve ever been, sending me well wishes and virtual hugs throughout the process. I’ve said it a hundred times, the WoW/Gaming/Geek Twitter community is one of the best, and you’d be hard-pressed to convince me otherwise.

I wish I could say the process was painless; it wasn’t. It mostly sucked. My belly button hurts, my back hurts, my side keeps cramping, and I’m under these pesky orders not to do much of anything. But hey, I’m home and not dead, so I think I came out on top.

I’m kind of glad April’s over, though. I need May to be chill.