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.
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.
Filed under Blogstuff, Experiences, Legion Beta
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.
Filed under Blogstuff, Experiences, Legion Beta
I haven’t posted in a while and there are reasons for that, but more to that momentarily. There are bigger fish to fry:
I haven’t been this excited to buy a brand new game ever. I know there are a few people in the beta/stress test weekend who didn’t enjoy it, and that’s cool, but I enjoyed the hell out of it, and I want to play again (and again, and again).
Play of the Game seems to be connected to multikills/ultimate abilities, and as such it seems like Bastion & D.Va are (imo) the two easiest heroes to get PotG on, so here’s a couple of mine:
Thoughts on the Game
The Good
What Could Be Better
The game is super addictive. Really, really addictive. I’m going to have to set parental controls for myself when it comes out, but it’s addictive because it’s fun.
One of the reasons I haven’t posted in a while is because my guild is no longer raiding.
We were on Mythic Mannoroth, averaging (good) pulls in the 15-20% range with 70 attempts when the tank we had taken on and geared up to replace our druid tank evaporated. He stopped showing up to raids at all without warning. Last I heard, his work schedule interfered with raiding too much (which would have been something nice to know beforehand).
This lead to a few weeks of trying to do Mannoroth with offspec and alt tanks. This lead to regression, and if you’ve raided much, you can probably guess how the rest went.
In the end, the decision was made to take a break from progression. As you might expect, half of the raid team left to find new guilds, another portion went AWOL, and the rest of us are just off doing other things and occasionally checking back in.
We did come together just enough to get our moose mounts, so at least there’s that. I’ve been spending most of my time playing EVE Online and Hearthstone and cleaning house in preparation for the holidays.
In other words, I’ve got nothing newsworthy to report.
Filed under Blogstuff, Information
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.
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.
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?
Filed under Experiences, Opinion
So far, I like Hellfire Citadel. It looks cool, I like some of the bosses and I don’t absolutely hate any of them (yet). We’re 7/13 Heroic in Group #1 half mains, half alts, and 6/13 in Group #2, similar comp.
Hopefully your experience in there hasn’t been too bad, either! I’m gonna take a look at the next 3 heroic bosses as quickly as possible. 😀
As before, clicking on the boss’s name will take you to the video.
We’ve had our eye on this guy since the beginning of the expansion… >.>
Okay, seriously though, here’s what you need to know:
There’s one other very important mechanic to know about: the Visions of Death.
When Visions of Death is cast, the boss will place 3 glowing rune circles on the ground in the direction he’s facing. One player needs to stand in each rune, and these players will be teleported to a second realm where they need to kill adds and survive.
As players kill adds in the realm, they will receive a stacking buff that increases their damage for 1 minute. The goal is to survive and kill enough adds to get to 20 stacks. When players die in the realm, they are transported out to the main room, at which point they should use their CDs to pump out damage with the active buff.
We sent in 2 alternating teams of 2 dps + 1 healer each and getting the 20 stacks was not a problem.
Handle mechanics, kill the boss, it’s really not more complicated than that.
Okay, this guy is big and ugly and whatever.
Abilities:
Honestly, the fight itself is pretty straightforward, and the execution isn’t terribly difficult. Ezpz.
This fight has a lot going on, but you can break it down pretty easily, I think. This guy, though; dat belleh.
The Main Room
The Belleh
If you die in the main room, you aren’t immediately killed; instead, you’re sent inside Gorefiend’s stomach. Some players will be debuffed with Shadow of Death, as well; which will kill you and put you in the stomach.
While there, your first objective is to kill adds (or if you’re a healer, heal the friendly NPC) before they get to the middle. Roots and knockbacks work, as well.
Your second objective is to run to the center when your debuff is about to wear off so you don’t die inside. If you die inside you’re really dead.
Also, if you die shortly after coming out of the stomach, you die permanently.
Feast of Souls
This is like the boss casting Evocation. During the channel, he takes 100% more damage. He also spawns adds that move toward him and will explode for aoe damage upon touching a player.
It sounds complicated, but once you see it, it’s really not.
We’re doing flex tonight (Thurs 6/25) for fun and tier, then Heroic again Sunday @8pm Eastern on twitch.tv/ambermist. 😀
Ahhh, do you smell it? Fresh ocean breezes, cannon fire, blood in the water–smells like new content!
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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:
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.
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
Blademaster Jubei’thos’s Abilities
Gurtogg Bloodboil
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!
Filed under Experiences, Raiding
Filed under Raiding
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.”
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.
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.
Filed under Experiences, Raiding
Heroic this week was exciting–the raid was trying to kill me. A LOT.
Here are a few of the best moments (profanity warning!).
Filed under Experiences, Raiding