World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

[Gil Hamilton]

I never reached him at 60, got stuck on Four Horsemen and just never got past it, ended up rerolling Horde before ever managing it.
As for now, you really can't rely on people not being stupid in this fight, its almost as bad as asking people to run in straight lines on Archimonde, you'll get a few who manage it perfectly, but the majority just can't manage it. Take for example the kill the other day, the stupidest thing I saw was right next to our moonkin raider a warlock had the curse, out of range of any other decurser, and not once but twice he just stood there DPSing and letting her die as I screamed down TS for him to decurse.

What a maroon. The Pro-Tip on Sapphiron is not only does he cast curses that have to be removed, he ALWAYS does the curses at the same times. He ALWAYS curses people the a few seconds after he lands and he always does it again in the middle of the ground phase. As a moonkin myself, I know that I have enough time to throw some DoTs on Sapphiron when he lands and then get ready to decurse, which only takes a few seconds to clear up the raid*, and badda bing, it's DPS on for a bit.

*of course, I have the Decursive addon, which largely makes decursing completely retard proof an affair because it gongs when a curse lands and let's me click them off people as fast as the GCD will let me. Like I said, you should chastise that moonkin, because decursing on Sapphiron is just one of those things that you do if you have a decurse, because if everyone who has a decurse does it, it takes less than five seconds on a 25 man to completely clean the raid.

Of course, there are e-peen Hardcore types he can't be arses to do the raid utility stuff, but as a moonkin, what actually makes us indispensable is the variety of support shit we can do. For example, take the Kel'thuzad fight. Healing naturally starts to get pretty hairy toward the end of the fight once the Icecrown Guardians are up and occasionally, a healer is going to get ice cubed. Effectively losing a healer when healing is spread thin and that person needing focus healing is on the ways that that fight can go south. Enter the Boomkin. It doesn't hurt when gets frozen to stop pumping out the rotation and slap some emergency heals on them. 9/10 the other healers are on the ball enough that it won't be clutch, but there have been times when it's just enough to let them live through the affair. And you'd be surprised how useful Cyclone is when Chains of Kel'thuzad hits and the possessed Blood Death Knight declares open season on healers. It's those things, not our wicked DPS, that makes us worthwhile.

But that doesn't make the big numbers on the Damage Meters.

[Rahvin]

Well, you guys weren't kidding about Patchwerk. He hits like a freaking truck. A truck packed with explosives. Unfortunately, our group last night lacked sufficient healing to keep all three tanks alive (by that I mean I kept mine alive just fine, but the other two died rather quickly).

We had 2 healers on each tank, and somehow we still failed. 2 of us were even Paladins with Beacon, which should have made the fight almost trivial - except the other healadin had a ridiculous spec and had geared for haste instead of crit or int, so he lacked several of the absolutely-necessary talents in favor of some that were useless outside of PvP (Toughness on a freaking healer?! /kick!). His longevity in a healing gearcheck was lacking, to say the least.

All of the raid buffs did manage to push me to around 45% crit with Holy Light, 2100 SP, and 22k mana, which I found to work just fine in every other fight. Using Plea on cooldown and with a Shadow Priest in the group, it took a long time for me to run dry.

The only other thing I can say is that I absolutely cannot wait for the patch. They're increasing the range on the AoE effect of Glyph of Holy Light, meaning those of us who have geared correctly and can spam Holy Light for a significant amount of time now finally get a halfway decent AoE heal. I should be able to keep an entire melee group healed up just by healing the tank. It's not quite Chain Heal, but it'll do.

[White Haven]

My precious, precious Circle of Healing.

And they're taking Titanguard away from us too, one of the few good things to come from this patch. What the fuck else am I supposed to use on a tanking weapon, attack power? Ooh, a weapon chain, for all those times, Patchwerk disarms me! Oh wait...

[Sharp-kun]

My precious, precious Circle of Healing.

And they're taking Titanguard away from us too, one of the few good things to come from this patch. What the fuck else am I supposed to use on a tanking weapon, attack power? Ooh, a weapon chain, for all those times, Patchwerk disarms me! Oh wait...

I use the TBC potency.

[Civil War Man]

I can see why they chose to take out Titanguard. I believe GC's rationale was that if they allowed Titanguard to go live, they would have to balance all future content with the assumption that every tank will have it. Then further down the road, people would start bitching that there hasn't been a new tank enchant since Titanguard, so the devs would start getting pressure to make an upgrade enchant for Titanguard, at which point they would have to balance all content with the assumption that every tank has that one.

I mean, one of the reasons they put diminishing returns on Crusader was that if they didn't, there would probably still be Paladins and Warriors using it.

[Ghost Rider]

I can see why they chose to take out Titanguard. I believe GC's rationale was that if they allowed Titanguard to go live, they would have to balance all future content with the assumption that every tank will have it. Then further down the road, people would start bitching that there hasn't been a new tank enchant since Titanguard, so the devs would start getting pressure to make an upgrade enchant for Titanguard, at which point they would have to balance all content with the assumption that every tank has that one.

I mean, one of the reasons they put diminishing returns on Crusader was that if they didn't, there would probably still be Paladins and Warriors using it.

I did have a bit of rant of this with Cider on last night and it's for me the same feeling. Tanks have nothing.

Mongoose? Diminishing returns because of level.

Executioner? Poor replacement for something that scales on shit because of monsters armor values.

Fuck, even a couple of the new ones are just plugs for those two. This would at least been an improvement. I mean nearly every fucking magic user uses Spellpower Chant. Nearly every melee DPS either uses Agi or AP enchants depending on what can eek more DPS. What do tanks use? Something that kinda works in a kinda way so they can kinda skew DPS in their favor. This is akin to that Warriors discovered that Deep Wounds helps them maintain DPS AND threat and now Blizzard gets a worm up their ass because it wasn't their intention. And their PvP line was bullshit. 1500 HP given current damage? Sorry, that's akin to going I have an extra layer of tissue paper on my flak jacket to stop that fucking .50 cal bullet.

So they took this out because this would've been a tanking enchant that tanks haven't had since Vanilla WoW with Crusader being the only one that actually benefit warriors at the time.

[White Haven]

They're worried about tanks all having the same enchant...FINE, so put in multiple tanking enchants. THERE'S a fucking idea. While they're at it, they put in spirit and SP enchants at the first tier of enchants, but only a SP enchant at the Abyss Crystal level. Thank you no, I don't need to heal for more, I need to heal for longer, so fuck SP enchants.

Blizz really seems to have a hate-hate relationship with enchanters...strike that, a bunch of professions. Teh tailoring embroideries are a joke...'cheaper pant enchants' aren't useful once you're at epic spellthread levels of gear, and the embroideries are so unbalanced as to be a joke. Swordguard is nice, for the two melee tailors in existence, but Darkglow especially is a joke. A chance to proc 300 mana on cast? 300? I've got ~19k in raids. Cram your 300 mana up your ass.

Ahem. Overall happy with Wrath, but the state of professions that aren't inscription is sad.

[Rahvin]

300 mana is actually pretty significant for the right class/spec.

My meta gem returns 600 mana when it procs, and it noticeably helps me to last longer when healing, so long as I stack it with other abilities like Glyph of Seal of Wisdom (5% reduced healing mana cost), 4-pc T& (5% reduced healing mana cost), and my Emblem Libram (flat reduction for Holy Light cost, roughly 10%), and all of the Paladin mana-efficiency talents (60% of the spell's mana returned from the base cost, before those other reductions on a crit) etc. Even though I have 22k mana raid buffed, even though I can use Divine Plea to get 25% of my mana back every minute, that meta gem proc is a noticeable increase in my longevity. With all of those other bonuses, it can even be another 2-3 Holy Lights if they crit.

If I were a tailor and could stack another 300-mana proc with that embroidery, I would be all over it.

[Ligier]

Soon as I dinged 80, I started raiding, crappy BC epics and all. (Troll priest ftw!)

This was a few weeks ago, but Patchwerk was a beast. His Hateful Strikes fuck the Off-Tanks right the hell up. We're better geared now, of course, so it's not as bad. It really was an exciting stress test for a newly-minted 80, though.

We're working on Malygos 25 and Sartharion 25 with one drake up. On Malygos, we're using Death Knights to grip the Power Sparks to the raid during phase 1; we're consistently getting to phase 3 but then we just fall completely to pieces. We just need to get through phase 1 and 2 quicker, and get our movements more coordinated in phase 3 to avoid Static Field.

Sartharion 25 with a drake up is ung... I just wish we could get our guys to get *out* of the Void Zones or Shadow Fissures or whatever they're called. -.- Oh ya, I love when then tank turns either one the wrong way, and the raid gets tail-whipped into the Flame Wall. Good times, good times..

Most memorable kills so far have to be getting the Safety Dance achievement on our 2nd ever Heigan kill, and completely fucking up the adds on Grand Widow Fearalina, and thus getting the Momma Said Knock You Out achievement.

No, really, we knew it was an achievement, we just completely fudged up killing her adds on purpose... -.-

Edit: As Ghostrider said, find me any caster that doesn't have a spellpower enchant on his or her weapon. MAYBE when I finish replacing my heroic/10-man/crappy BC epics, I'll have spellpower coming out the ears and will actually use an Intelligence enchant on.... bwahaha, sorry. Couldn't finish the rest with a straight face.

[Rahvin]

If there was a +crit to weapon enchant, I'd take that over my spellpower in a heartbeat. As other have said, I don't need to heal bigger, I need to heal longer, and crit does that for me. A gigantic INT enchant would also grab my attention.

But there's another issue to tanking weapon chants: Death Knights and their runes. The DK Swordshatterer rune gives 4% parry to DKs, and helps bring DK tanks up to the level of the other tanking classes. Same idea with the new rune in the patch with 25 Def skill and 2% health. If there's a tanking enchant, it will take non-DKs significantly beyond DKs in terms of mitigation/avoidance ability. DKs will be forced to use their rune to rise to the level of non-enchanted tanks, and other tanks will get their enchant and surpass DKs handily. Blizzard has painted themselves into a corner give the tanking enchant and buff the DK rune (making it fantastically powerful since it requires no mats), or leave things the way they are.

[Ghost Rider]

Yeah, and I heard it all before, and there is a Crit enchant to weapon, and it gives Hit as well is the only problem. It's called Accuracy.

And 75 Stamina would be buffer room, that's all but it wouldn't be:

+20 Str(possibly the best), but a mid level TBC because it replaces +15/Crusader
+26 Agi(Considered in 25 mans as the best because of mitigation)
Mongoose/Executioner: Diminishing returns...immense actually.

So really they screwed over tanks again, because giving them an all purpose enchant that they haven't provided since the start of WoW is too overpowering for reasons they won't give. And using the DK is just plain shit because that's better then what the other three get, just that there are no real two hander tank weapons. But then again, that's because tanking weapons are as fucking rare as hen's teeth.

[Minischoles]

Yeah, and I heard it all before, and there is a Crit enchant to weapon, and it gives Hit as well is the only problem. It's called Accuracy.

And 75 Stamina would be buffer room, that's all but it wouldn't be:

+20 Str(possibly the best), but a mid level TBC because it replaces +15/Crusader
+26 Agi(Considered in 25 mans as the best because of mitigation)
Mongoose/Executioner: Diminishing returns...immense actually.

So really they screwed over tanks again, because giving them an all purpose enchant that they haven't provided since the start of WoW is too overpowering for reasons they won't give. And using the DK is just plain shit because that's better then what the other three get, just that there are no real two hander tank weapons. But then again, that's because tanking weapons are as fucking rare as hen's teeth.

The way they've been acting about introducing tanking enchants and weapons really leads me to believe they're trying to avoid having to do tons of work on the current content, since as said, if they did intro that enchant and 2h tanking weapons, that then means you need upgrades, or you're stuck in the same situations feral druids were in in Vanilla (level 40 weapon was the best weapon in game) and TBC (trash drop from SSC was your only tanking weapon), and that means changing loot tables, designing new weapons, essentially a lot of work for them.

Since they seem to be ducking it, it leads me to believe they might actually be working on Ulduar already, since they do seem to be avoiding doing any huge amount of work right now.

[Teleros]

Blizzard has painted themselves into a corner give the tanking enchant and buff the DK rune (making it fantastically powerful since it requires no mats), or leave things the way they are.

1. Keep Titanguard
2. Malygos drops new Runeforging recipes to compensate. Guaranteed drop unless all DKs in the group have it (like that First Aid recipe)

Blizz really seems to have a hate-hate relationship with enchanters...strike that, a bunch of professions.

Still loving Alchemy here . Granted Transmute Mastery is a bet "meh", but Mixology has saved me a ton of gold so far (never mind the increased bonuses from my Flasks etc) .

[Maxentius]

We're working on Malygos 25 and Sartharion 25 with one drake up. On Malygos, we're using Death Knights to grip the Power Sparks to the raid during phase 1; we're consistently getting to phase 3 but then we just fall completely to pieces. We just need to get through phase 1 and 2 quicker, and get our movements more coordinated in phase 3 to avoid Static Field.

Not sure how you guys do it, but our Phase 3 calls for everybody to group up as tightly as possible on the Main Tank (or really anyone you can trust to call out when to move, really). Designated healers begin to stack Revivify on themselves, while everyone else starts letting loose with the DPS. When a Static Field is dropped, the MT (or whomever) calls it out, and everyone strafes as one giant ball of drakes until they're out of the static field.

Also, healers should only be stacking HoTs on themselves, and then casting either 3 or 5pt Lifeblooms on Static Fields and Surges of Power; moreso Surges than Static fields I've found, since the Field isn't too bad once you've drilled everyone on getting out of it post-haste.

Something you may want to consider is taking the entire raid out and up to the top of the Nexus, where the quest Aces High pretty much exists as Phase 3 practice. Get people familiar with how to stack their HoTs and put up Fireball stacks and the like and then drill them on moving in unison.

Sartharion 25 with a drake up is ung... I just wish we could get our guys to get *out* of the Void Zones or Shadow Fissures or whatever they're called. -.- Oh ya, I love when then tank turns either one the wrong way, and the raid gets tail-whipped into the Flame Wall. Good times, good times..

This seems a little weird. The raid proper is getting tail-whipped? Generally, we have the one extra drake tanked at the very "top" of the island, in the southwest corner near where Sartharion initially stands, whereas Sartharion himself is tanked on the clear other side, on the "foot" of the island near the raid portal. The Sartharion tank, with proper position, won't have to dodge any waves that come from the south and will only need to move a little bit, to the very tip of the island, to dodge the northern waves. Neither of these movements should result in serious tail-whip fuckage because almost everyone, with the exception of MT healers, should be near to the other side of the island dealing with the Drake/Whelps/Fire Elementals/etc.

Personally, I rarely get tail whipped, and I'm generally on the main tank. There was one horrifying exception to this rule where I got tail-whipped at precisely the wrong moment and ended up being clipped by a Fire Wave, which I somehow survive, and then not five seconds later got tail-whipped again just as a void zone popped up under me. Ugh. Either way, as long as your MT healers stay between his legs, there should be no problems with tail whip, even when you need to reposition him for northern waves. As long as the healers strafe towards the center of the island they should be good. I used to actually run towards the waves and then cut in behind them to move directly back towards Sartharion (the strafing method can sometimes leave the MT out of healing range for a 3-5 second window) but that's actually what led to the aforementioned tail-whip of certain demise.

[CaptainChewbacca]

New patch is out, gonna get my 'Chef' title and learn to make Elixir of Water Walking. Woo!

[Ligier]

If there was a +crit to weapon enchant, I'd take that over my spellpower in a heartbeat. As other have said, I don't need to heal bigger, I need to heal longer, and crit does that for me. A gigantic INT enchant would also grab my attention.

Hrm. I dunno, I'm not lacking for spellpower, mana regeneration, or anything. Maybe stamina since we can't lolspamCoH during Vortex on Malygos now. Mana regeneration's almost gotten to the BC-chain-potting point of "that blue bar that occasionally empties after 10 minutes of constant healing." Mind you, I've yet to try Sartharion 10 with three drakes up, so I may end up eating those words...

Not sure how you guys do it, but our Phase 3 calls for everybody to group up as tightly as possible on the Main Tank (or really anyone you can trust to call out when to move, really). Designated healers begin to stack Revivify on themselves, while everyone else starts letting loose with the DPS. When a Static Field is dropped, the MT (or whomever) calls it out, and everyone strafes as one giant ball of drakes until they're out of the static field.

Also, healers should only be stacking HoTs on themselves, and then casting either 3 or 5pt Lifeblooms on Static Fields and Surges of Power; moreso Surges than Static fields I've found, since the Field isn't too bad once you've drilled everyone on getting out of it post-haste.

Yup, yup, that's how we did it on 10-man. Sometimes, it seems impossible to get our people to do anything right at the same time.

This seems a little weird. The raid proper is getting tail-whipped? Generally, we have the one extra drake tanked at the very "top" of the island, in the southwest corner near where Sartharion initially stands, whereas Sartharion himself is tanked on the clear other side, on the "foot" of the island near the raid portal. The Sartharion tank, with proper position, won't have to dodge any waves that come from the south and will only need to move a little bit, to the very tip of the island, to dodge the northern waves. Neither of these movements should result in serious tail-whip fuckage because almost everyone, with the exception of MT healers, should be near to the other side of the island dealing with the Drake/Whelps/Fire Elementals/etc.

It only happened while we were learning how to position him and the drake. We'll get it down; our DPS is real good at blowing shit up, we just need to drive the point into their thick skulls about moving out of Bad Shit(TM). (See above and Malygos).

CoH and Wild Regrowth nerfbat should be interesting. I played around with Disc to start then spec'd back Holy since I knew the CoH nerf was bound to happen. (It was too good, even before raid-wide smart-targetting.)

[Broomstick]

Wasn't sure if I should put this here or in one of the inauguration threads...

[Rahvin]

I'm liking the changes for Healadins and Death Knights so far.

The last I heard, Howling Blast was supposed to be back on a 5 second (instead of 6, and the first test iteration had 0) cooldown, but on live it doesn't have a cooldown at all. Even with the nerfs to other DK dual-wield cornerstones like Gargoyle, that's an amazing buff to the DW rotation. And Necrosis is now an extra 20% weapon damage as Shadow damage instead of 10%, making Armor Pen. an even worse stat and giving DKs even more armor-ignoring damage. The now 80% (!) armor buff on Frost Presence is amazing, and should clear up a lot of issues with DK tanking. Now we just need competent tanks who can hold AoE aggro. It's a lot harder than AoE tanking as a Tankadin, but DKs have the ability - it's just a matter of skill.

I have a 10-man Naxx raid tonight on my Healadin, and I'm pretty stoked to test out the Glyph of Holy Light buff - it's not a 20-yard range, up from 5. My main single-target heal is now a minor AoE as well with no cost increase or reduction in effectiveness. I can now main-heal the tank while spilling AoE healing to everything in melee range and even a few people farther away (up to 5 people at once, of course). This is a godsend.

What's the cost and healing on Chain Heal, anyway? With the Glyph I know it bounces to 4 additional targets, but I don't know the initial heal amount and mana cost or how much the effect is reduced each time it jumps to another target.

[Teleros]

L80 Chain Heal (minus talents).

[GuppyShark]

Wasn't sure if I should put this here or in one of the inauguration threads...

Thankyou, that made my day and I was sure to pass it on to my guildies.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Broomstick: Awesome, put that up in an inauguration thread .

[SpacedTeddyBear]

Really people, how hard is it to understand that if you get the negative debuff, you run to the left side. If you get the positive debuff, you run to the right. Three frakkin wipes because enough people in our raid got cooked on the polarity shifts so we couldn't get enough stacks on our buffs to beat the timer. Assuming you don't easily get tunnel vision, the most difficult part of that fight is making a proper jump off the platform.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Son of a bitch! Thanks to some bug in the patch, all my alchemy cooldowns are 3 days instead of 1.

[Sriad]

Really people, how hard is it to understand that if you get the negative debuff, you run to the left side. If you get the positive debuff, you run to the right. Three frakkin wipes because enough people in our raid got cooked on the polarity shifts so we couldn't get enough stacks on our buffs to beat the timer. Assuming you don't easily get tunnel vision, the most difficult part of that fight is making a proper jump off the platform.

I made this Super-Thaddius-Strat .jpeg in MS paint for people who have a hard time with it:



Complete with genuine MS paint jpeg compression artifacts!

Really though, the important thing that people have a hard time with is that paying attention to your debuff is more important than anything else you can be doing. It helps for a raid leader to call on vent "Polarity Shift in five seconds" and then everybody just looks at their debuff until the change happens.

He really is a fight though; when you're learning it just a couple stupid DPS standing still means you don't have enough people to beat the enrage timer.

[Ghost Rider]

Sadly Lag has killed us far more on that fight, then the fucker or dumbfucks ever will. Both current and past incarnations.