And now we’re back to ten

Without going into much detail, we had ALMOST achieved 25-man-ness.  We had to pug in a few.  Sadly, we sucked and it was clear that there were f-tards in the raid that had no business being in a 25-man.

The drama llamas promptly gquit.  Yay!  See ya!

We ran a fresh 10 tonight and smacked all the T9 content available to us (no, we’re not running Grand Crusader – yet).  It feels good to be killing stuff again, rather than scraping my face across the floor as a result of too much stupid in the raid.

Got a fresh new healing mace (sorry – Wowhead does not list the 232 version – no gem slot and slightly reduced stats) last week once it was clear 25-man was not on – always a good day when a new weapon drops.  Still waiting on my old girlfriend to drop my spec-specific hat.

Oh, and I got the Draconic for Dummies off Raggy tonight.  Missed out on Nef the other night due to the fact that my cable modem (brand new) decided that it would suck.  So just a Nef kill and then 10 Elementium Ore (which you see on the AH all the time – not) and the Sceptre….  well.  More work to do there.

Anyway, good to be back to smacking stuff with gusto.  We’re gonna head into Uld 10 tomorrow and see if we can deal with Hodir and Thorim.  The earlier stuff should be regarded as farm, esp with all the new trick gear from ToC 10.

Rocklaw and the Prime Minister

Taken at an event a couple weeks ago.  It was at Canada’s National Cemetary, which is the Beechwood Cemetary in my local neighbourhood.  Prime Minister Harper was attending a ceremony to unveil a plaque commoroating the burial place of the man who codified the original rules of hockey and made it into an organized sport back in the 1800s.  The PM is a hockey nut and an amataur hockey historian and author in his own right.

I work on Parliament Hill for a Member of Parliament in real life.  The Prime Minister was once a lowly staffer like myself and he and I have known each other for many years.  My absence from the Hill over the past 3 years caused him some pause, but he recognized me once we got past the pleasantries.  We discussed the state of play in Ottawa politics before I deferred to the real guests that he should actually be talking to :)

Thought I’d post this just to let you know a little bit about what I do and who I occasionally consort with :)

PS – no he doesn’t play WoW

And this week was meh…

Last week, we whacked Ony, ToCr 10 and VoA in one night.  Tonight started promisingly with our first one-shot of Ony.  It all went downhill from there. ToCr was not on and we struggled with FL.  Razorscale and XT were one-shots, to end on a good note.

I must be diplomatic here.  We’ve brought in several new people but are not yet to the point of 2 10-mans.  We’re getting close, but not quite.  The invites went out and included were a couple of our new folks along with some of our regulars playing non-traditional roles.

We learned that it is as much about cohesion and knowledge of fights as it is about gear.

Suffice to say that the T9 level stuff will be put firmly on farm by those that have proven they can do it.  Ulduar will be open to folks who need the gear or can contribute via alts.  At least that’s my understanding.

No hard feelings (a few regulars were a tad upset).  Progression will continue, I hope.  The latter bits of Ulduar are part of that, even though that loot may be beneath ToCr ilvl.

We’re all about getting everyone a chance.  Progression level raiding is it’s own beast, however.

ToCr, do not for a second think we are done with you this week.  Anub’arak, you are goin DOWN!

Best night ever

I returned to my guild’s 10-man crew tonight after my enforced absence of about a month (RL, moving, netbook, etc). It was a breath of fresh air to be raiding again and our group is a solid bunch of individuals who don’t mess around.  We joke and play, to be sure, but when the time comes to throw down, we’re there.

Now last week, much to my delight, that crew cleared Ony and Trial of the Crusader on 10-man.  I had signed up, but having only just moved into my new place, I was unable to raid because of RL slapping me upside the head.  In the few weeks I was away, my guildmates had surpassed me in gear (I’m 12th on the gear score list now) and I was wondering if I’d get the nod.

Not to worry.  My old guildie Fig (filling in as Raid Leader as our GM deals with RL issues) dropped the first invite on me.  I was thrilled.  We had Ony and ToCr in our sights.  I’d only ever seen the initial phase of the Northrend Beasts so that instance was totally unknown to me.  Ony is Ony, with only a minor twist with the dragonkin that need to be off tanked during the air phase, so I was not worried in the least about that fight.

We started with my old girlfriend.  I’ll have to wait for a couple xpacs before I can solo her again, but she’s the same as always.  We took a few tries, but down she went.  I saw a Judgment Helm drop, but my friend and fellow pally plays his ret more often than I do so I passed to him.  It was just like the good old days – actually, having the dragonkin adds gives me something more to do during the air phase.

On to ToCr.  A few wipes on each boss as I was learning the fights.  Not sure if any were my fault – farm status might be a little premature.  But I was quite surprised at how easy it all was.  Got a new shield and new pants off Anub :)

We topped last weeks results by also clearing VoA after ToCr was done.  I’d never done the new fire Boss – loads of fun.  An entire tier of raiding cleared in one evening.  Back into Ulduar 10 tomorrow – some hard modes are on offer, I hear.

Anyway, it’s wonderful to be back into progression raiding again.

I will take a peek at the 3.3 stuff and pontificate here soon.

Back from the dead

Well, on the 14th of September, I started a new gig in Ottawa, Ontario and was on a netbook until just a few days ago. I was unable to play but now I’m back, baby!

And what do I find now that I am back? My guild has cleared 10-man Ony, and to my extreme delight, 10-man Trial of the Crusader! Tier 9 is on my horizon. Woot!

I’ll post more here in the coming days. This is just to say that the Rock is back.

Video of the Hogger live raid at BlizzCon

Hogger pwns Premonition live at Blizzcon after they had just downed Thaddius, Patchwerk and Anub’Rekhan AT THE SAME TIME!

Ulduar 10 and the new Holy Paladin

We’re back to progression in a pretty serious manner.  Yay for me!  We got Ignis last week and Iron Council last night.  Yes, I know.  Yawn for many of you.  But my guild went through a pretty severe contraction with the departure of many for 25-man horizons in bigger guilds.  I was on the cusp of that myself before being treated disrespectfully by the guild by whom I was finally accepted.  So my return to progression and not just badge farming in Naxx is pretty exciting.  By the way, if I never see the inside of Naxx again on my main, it will be too soon.  I could probably solo heal it in 10-man by this point.

Holy Paladins have changed quite a bit, some good and some bad.  I see Ulduar 25-geared pallies with 28-29k mana pools and now I know why.  Crit ain’t what she used to be.  While I still have to use the occasional Holy Light, it’s now all about Sacred Shield and spammage of Flash of Light.  Keeping those HoTs up, combined with Beacon of Light and the occasional Holy Shock seems to work well.  The only trouble is on really long fights like Iron Council.

Timing is everything.  I have a local recast macro for Beacon of Light and am going to set one up for Sacred Shield as well.  The extra crit from that, combined with the HoTs work really well.  Beacon is still an expensive spell to cast, but I find that for most fights thus far, I can keep two tanks alive with the help of the occasional tick from a shammy’s chain heal hitting the second tank.

Running Divine Plea is something I also need to macro, if I can.  I already have Divine Illumination macro’d to go off every time it’s up.  I’ll have to add Avenging Wrath to that to complete the triumvirate, I guess.

As for gear, I’m eyeballing the deadly MP5 again, as well as epic intellect gems.  With about 2215 spell power unbuffed and with that climbing to around 2600-2800 with full raid buffs and trinkets (Eye of the Broodmother and Forethought Talisman are a rocking combo, btw), totems and whatnot, I feel that I have enough spellpower.  I need a deeper mana pool and better mana regen.

So, am I happy?  With the general healing mechanics, yes.  I’m not happy with what 3.2 did to both my mana pool and the regen I have.  Gonna go tonight and look at replacing crit gems with int or MP5.  Sigh.  Man up, Rocklaw (or should that be Dwarf up?)!  Do it for progression or gtfo :)

Thought Dump: Blizzcon and Wow 2.0

I’ve brought my baby druid out of storage and this got me thinking about what the game experience will be like come Cataclysm.  Now that I’ve had time to digest the changes announced at Blizzcon to some extent, it’s really quite extraordinary.  What this amounts to is a stealth World of Warcraft 2.0 without a total graphics overhaul.  By reworking the Old World and introducing lots of new content there, as well as overhauling the underlying stats/talents/races/classes, they’ve essentially given us a whole new game.

Because all players, regardless of how long they’ve played, have to take each toon they level (even if it’s only ever one), through Old World content, we all have our likes and gripes about it.  We all know it intimately, although those of us Loremasters know it better than most.  We’ve got all the flight paths and know the quickest route from point A to point B.  We know at a glance what zone we’re in or flying over just by the terrain or flora and fauna.  We know all the towns and cities like the back of our hand.  It’s our home, to be honest.  Regardless of how much time we spend in Northrend or Outland, Ironforge or Orgrimmar will always be where we feel most comfortable.

The actual changes are pretty staggering.  Sure there are new races and race/class combos and new zones with new instances and raids and other new content.  But they’re telling us they’ve reworked the entire rest of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor to greater or lesser degrees.  Everything from all new quests to re-itemizing levelling gear (yay for no more agi/spirit cloth!) to remapping flight paths to flight itself in the Old World.  Think of the level of work that will require and the changes it implies.

Add to that the near total overhaul of stats and talents, with the removal of things like spellpower and defense and MP5 to the introduction of Path of the Titans and Archaeology and Mastery.  If you thought the introduction of one new class in LK was upsetting, getting the balance right on what seems at first a simplification is going to be a feat of tuning that Blizzard has heretofore never attempted.  I’m in awe of the sheer magnitude of it.

With Ony coming and Arthas to follow, we have much to occupy ourselves.  I’m currently back to progression raiding (more in another post today) and am looking forward to the coming Lich King content.  I hope I will get to see most, if not all of it.  But Cataclysm is gonna be just spectacular.  Can’t wait for the ride!

Cataclysm – Holy Crap!

Spellpower?  Gone!  MP5?  Gone!  Holy Crap, what a major overhaul.  Granted, this is likely more than a year away, but the announced changes from Blizzcon yesterday are staggering.

The trailer is stunning.  Rather than bring us unknown places to play, they have decided to re-do the old world in such a way as to make it all seem new.  With Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms all torn asunder, we’ll be greeted with new vistas over every horizon.  Flying mounts in the Old World FTW!

And getting to go head to head with Ony’s daddy is uber cool :)

Oh, and we finally downed Ignis in 10-man and are working on Freya!  Back to progression raiding again.  Holy pallies rock again (although mana is a bit of an issue) – I can keep 2 tanks plus a bunch of the raid alive all at once!

Onyxia redux

So the last time I solo’d Onyxia, it took an hour. That was shortly after hitting 80 in blues and greens. I did it the other day in full 7.5 (with a smattering of Ulduar 10 gear) and knocked a full 30 minutes off my time. Looking to take the death knight into the instance to see if I can do better.  But more than that, I’m REALLY looking forward to having my ass handed to me again by her in 3.2.2.  FR gear, anyone?  Gonna have to go farm FR pots again, perhaps.

As for healing in 3.2 as a holy pally, well, I haven’t done any yet. I expect the nerf bat to mana regen/mana pool will be offset by the OP buff to bacon. Something else to try.  My guild has been making little progress of late.  I was using the mage in Naxx 10 but I’ll be taking the pally back in there as DPS for badges, if they’ll have me.  They skipped over me this week.  Probably because I’m overgeared.  But it’s badges I’m after so I can get T8 level stuff so we can progress, dammit!

The mage has a nice new Kaluak fishing pole, and the DK is working towards one as well.  And the pally is working on Oracle rep – first egg was a dud.  Grrrr.

Loving the new Tournament dailies, except for that idiot Kul.  Why do I have to save his ass every frickin’ day?  Note to the curious: create targetting macros for the Get Kracken bombing run.  Makes your life a lot simpler.