Thursday, February 25, 2010

Why you gotta be so needy?

For those of you running daily randoms for your frost emblems, I'm sure you've noticed a trend emerging since the latest patch notes were released.  You run your instance (half watching the screen and half doing something else because you're way over geared for these dungeons), you roll through each boss fight in near record time (clicking disenchant on every piece of gear that drops), you down the final boss and toss out your customary "TY for group" in party chat... then you wait for all the rolls before you leave group and take your port back to where ever you came from.

Just a normal day in WotLK heroics, until... you notice some bozo was the ONLY one to click "need" on the frozen orb (AFTER everybody else greeded on it).  "Dude... seriously?"  Yeah, we all know frozen orbs will be used as currency come patch 3.3.3, and we all know this makes them the only relevant loot in these 5 man dungeons, but what possesses these people to believe they "need" these frozen orbs?  What makes them think they "need" them more than everybody else in their party?  Do these orb needers know how pathetic I think they are?  (If they didn't before they will soon.)

Let's take a look at what these needy frost orb ninjas are so desperate to get their hands on.

•Crusader Orb (6) - Six orbs o' the frozen will get you one crusader orb.  Mmmm, k?  Triumph badges are so easy to get it's hard to image anyone wanting to grind out orbs for these craftable items (even with the nerf to the mats for those craftables).  But hey, who am I to judge.  If you'd rather grind on your main to gear out your alt, go nuts (4 donuts) but keep it on the level.  K, ninja boys and girls?

•Runed Orb (4) - The low low price of four frosty orbs will get you one shiney new Runed Orb.  Go go Ulduar patterns!  I'm all for nostalgia armor sets, but com'on... you're not even getting tier gear here. (Three rhyming words in a row... blog bonus points!)

•Eternal Fire - Now we're talking!  Straight up trade for a somewhat annoying to grind Eternal Fire.  I can just sense all you blacksmiths dusting off your titan steel cooldowns.  My server sells these for roughly 8g on AH (with the price likely to drop thanks to all those orb needers.)  Is the bad ninja karma really worth it to you?

•Eternal Earth - Slightly less annoying to grind, but still... 1 for 1 trade here.  Median AH price on Eternal Earth = 4g.  Vendor price for frozen orb = 5g.  No economics degrees needed here.  You'd probably be losing money by trading in your frozen orbs for these mats.

•Eternal Water/Air/Life/Shadow - You get the picture.  One orb = one eternal.  Can you imagine people "needing" on eternals?  "Lame."  Yeah, I feel the same way about these orb whores.

•Frost Lotus - Ahhhh. Here's the culprit.  The once nerfed, soon to be buffed, spawn rate of this reagent has driven daisy pickers crazy across azeroth.  Whether you're looking to make a buck or simply trying to get your flasks made in a timely manner, one frozen orb for one frost lotus is a great deal.  SO... is it okay to essentially steal these valuable commodities from your fellow party members?  It sure is.  If you're middle name is Ninja. :-p

•Pattern: Frosty Flying Carpet [Tailors Only] (6) - "Don't you dare close your eyes..."  For all you Alladin wannabes out there who are thinking "Hey, frozen orbs help me learn stuff for my profession, so I neeeed them." I ask you this... is it OK if I need on every blue that drops in heroic dungeons because the dream shards buy me enchanting patterns?  If so, you A. have questionable moral fiber and B. must have brown eyes because you're so full of...

Anyway, the point is this.  People who used underhanded tactics to obtain frozen orbs back when they were THE orbs to have were called ninjas.  The people who do the same thing now and don't believe they're ninjas are simply lying to themselves.  In fact, if you ask me (and nobody did), they are a somewhat more pathetic version of loot ninjas that I like to call "frosty orb whores".

Rant... ended.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Quick question: Rotface

To insta-cleanse or not to insta-cleanse.  That is my question.

Undoubtedly many of you have already cleared Rotface and moved on to bigger and badassier things.  So I'm curious to know, how does your raid group handle mutated infection?  Do you have it cleansed immediately to remove the -75% healing debuff or do you wait for the infected one to get near the OT before making the ooze drop?

It seems to me, cleansing mutated infection right away makes sense.  Granted, dropping the ooze in the middle of melee will increase raid damage, but there really isn't a lot of raid damage to heal otherwise.  And it will be easier to keep the infected one alive without that damned 75% decrease to healing debuff... right?  I mean, having Mr. or Miss Mutated One running around near the edge, not receiving full heals, and sucking on a 3k dot doesn't make sense in my head.

Still, most of the guides I've read say to wait, and I'm not shy about saying neither way has really worked well for our raid.  So, I turn to my faithful reader(s) (gosh I hope I have more than one)...

How do you and your raid handle Rotface's mutated infection?

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

On the hunt: Time-Lost Proto-Drake

The target:

Time-Lost Proto-Drake

Known flight paths:

Storm Peaks

Spawn times:
Time-Lost Proto-Drake appears to share spawn timers with Vyragosa, another rare spawn monster in Storm Peaks. There are multiple reports putting the spawn time anywhere from every 6 hours to +1 day for Vyragosa, and a 1 in 16 chance of Time-Lost Proto-Drake spawning in her place.

Camp spot:
Over the Bor's Breath waterfall southeast of Valkyrion village. {TLPD flies roughly 20 to 40 yards above the ground}

Group make-up:
Solo-able at level 80

Addon:
Prat 3.0 - Set whisper sound to chime

Macro:
/tar time
/tar vyragosa
/stopmacro [noexists]
/w YOURNAME >>%t!!<<

Note: There's an addon out there called _npcscan that essentially does the same job as Prat + macro, but does it automatically. 

Reagents:
Snowfall lager

The strat:
1. Park your toon over the Bor's Breath waterfall (southwest of Temple of storms and southeast of Valkyrion) and have your macro mapped to a key board key. 

2. Make sure your game sounds are enabled and the volumn is turned up so you can hear Prat 3.0 chime when you get a whisper.

3. Find something else to do.  You will likely spend hours in that one spot, smashing one keyboard button, and not seeing any results, so watching TV, listening to music, reading, etc... will all help pass the time (and keep you sane).  Just remember to keep spamming that macro and to hustle to your pc when that chime goes off.

4. Engage TLPD as quickly as possible.  This usually means flying right at it, using an instant cast range ability and then popping your snowfall lager so you don't fall to your death.  Once engaged, kill it quickly because there will likely be some other toons (from the other faction) in the area who will not hesitate to gank you and steal your kill.

5. Loot!

The reward:

Reins of the Time-Lost Proto-Drake

My personal time lost:
+32 hours {and counting}

{1st Vyragosa kill at 3:18p server time (Bor's Breath)}
{2nd Vyragosa kill at 7:51p server time (Brunnhildar)}
{3rd Vyragosa kill at 3:13p server time (Bor's Breath)}
{4th Vyragosa kill at 8:22p server time (Bor's Breath)}

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Healing on the run: Gunship Battle


Gunship Battle (Image courtesy of bosskillers.com)

Healing on the enemy ship:

Where to stand -

If you're assigned to heal on the enemy ship, stand on the edge within boarding range, do your best to avoid fire from the big guns, and don't forget to equip your rocket pack (available from the goblin NPC on board).

Note: As of 3.3.1 the rocket pack will shift you out of tree form when used.

What to watch for -

1. Below Zero! When the battle-mages cast this spell, your gunship's cannons will freeze (which means you will no longer be doing damage to the enemy ship).  That's the queue for you and your boarding party to hop on over and put those mages out of commission.  Be sure to WAIT for your tank to board first or else you'll aggro Muradin/Saurfang. 

2. Battle Fury! Battle Fury is a stacking debuff that will increase the damage done to your tank by 10% for each stack.  This will make reboarding your own ship a bit tricky as your tank will be taking big damage while you're rocketing through the air.  Make sure you have a full set of HoTs on your tank before you jump ship.  You should be able to get a swiftmend off in mid air.

Note:  Use the enemy portal to reboard your ship whenever it's available.  The portal will spawn behind Muradin/Saurfang.

3. Cleave. Inflicts 110% weapon damage on up to three targets in front of Muradin/Saurfang.  If anyone other than the tank is being hit by this ability, something is going seriously wrong.

4. Rocket Artillery. - While your ship is firing at the enemy, their cannons will be doing the same.  If you see a large targeting circle appear under you while you wait to board... move.  You're given plenty of warning so there really is no excuse for getting hit by enemy fire.

5. Enemy Riflemen. - These little buggers will shoot at random targets in their range and you will likely take some gun fire as you're standing on the edge waiting to rocket across.  There isn't much you can do about it other than take solice in the fact that they do not hit very hard.  If you're targeted and have some time, feel free to move out of their range.

Healing on your own ship:

Where to stand -

If you're assigned to heal on your own ship, stand back from the edge and out of range of enemy fire.  Be sure not to stand near the enemy portal when it appears on your deck.

What to watch for -

1. Enemy Portal! - The enemy boarding party will use a portal to arrive on your ship.  Pay attention to where it spawns and get far away from it.  Also, give your tank some time to gain aggro before you start renewing HoTs.  Playing nice with your tank will make this part of the fight much easier to heal.

2. Bladestorm! - This ability inflicts damage on up to 4 targets every second for six seconds.  Keep an eye on your melee group and be sure to stay far away as possible from the action.

3. Wounding Strike! - Inflicts 200% weapon damage and reduces all healing done to the target by 25% for 10 seconds.  Hopefully only your tank will be hit by these, which will make healing through it rather easy. 

4. Ranks. - The longer an enemy unit is allowed to live, the larger the buff they will get from their rank.  Every 20 seconds they will gain a rank increasing their damage and attack speed.  This means that you're job as heals will get more difficult the longer each fight goes on.  Don't allow yourself to get complacent if there is very little damage to heal early on.

Summary -

This fight is one of the most fun in the game.  It's typical tank and spank stuff and usually only dangerous when transitioning from ship to ship.  Have fun with it!