Farewll to a few

This is sort of an odd post but seeing as I don't play a whole lot at the moment and don't have in game news or insight to what is really going on. I wanted to take a minute to say good bye to a guild I don't really know but that has been a major source of entrainment and laughs in my playing of this game.

In fact, I was in a guild and had a pretty good in game friend that used one of Sebudai's quotes every raid. I no longer talk to that guy but any time I see the below picture or anything that resembles one of these quotes, he pops to mind. So I guess this post has a tad of duality to it. Goodbye to Juggernaut and Skreebo.

The reason I write about this is, Juggernaut of Mal' Ganis was a top 5 guild in the world at one point. The recently stopped raiding, recruiting and to the best of my knowledge lost most of their members. I've sent an in game mail to Sebudai to see what happened but I got no response. I know guilds come and go, but this leaves me wondering how many long time, vanilla guilds have split apart during Cataclysm and the lack of content?

I think my very favorite one is:

It's not rocket surgery

but I still giggle like a school girl every time I read:

As a guild we struggle with these mobility fights, I'm not sure why we do.If you need practice jumping then you can go find a cliff and jump off it or something. 

In other happenings:

4.2.2 seems to be flying upon us meaning 4.3 is close. It seems this Xpcac has gone by very fast.  I'm pretty interested in the extra bank storage but I don't like that you lose all the gems and enchants. And you can bet your bottom dollar I will be rocking the T6 look all the time! and my hunter will be in T4. I'm pretty excited for these changes.

Thank you to those who congratulated me for my one year as a blogger. For some reason I can not sign in to respond to posts. Odd!

I'd also like to say goodbye to the guy who invited me into the guild. He was my tanking partner and a very knowledgeable guy. I've tanked with some good tanks, knowledgeable people and people who care about the guild. But Life had the best grasp of three at the same time. He always did his home work, had his gear perfect and without being an officer he ran just about everything within the guild and didn't complain. He had to for personal reasons leave the game for an undetermined amount of time. I'm sad to seem him go, with him went his RL friends which wasn't a shock but it took a pretty geared healer and a fill in raider.

Life take care buddy.

To my readers, I will try and post up some more stuff soon. This summer has been SOOOO busy?

DK Solo's LK!!!

This is a solid video about a DK soloing a end tier boss. I'd say the pinnacle of Wrath raiding but Ulduar and Yogg would have something very loud to say about that.

Take a look and enjoy the video. The DK that did this is in 391 gear and is a master at soloing bosses.

Overall nice work and I'm truly envious...well done!



LK's main challenges are:

• 1) Practice of cooldown usage in p1. They're used *very* strictly and if you don't have that practice, you'll probably wipe in p1 endlessly (which is what I initially did)
• 2) surviving transition phases. This is insane and requires, again, extremely precise cooldown management and positioning.
• 3) Finally, the obvious DPS race. This fight lasted an exact 15 minutes, not a single second more or less - I spent the whole evening wiping between 11 and 12% and finally, finally did it, through more Vengeance stacking and better play on my part (oh .. and maybe a lil bit crit RNG I guess? :p).

FAQ:

• Necrotic Plague : cannot target the tank. You need it to clear the ghouls/vrykuls from phase 1, however. The trick is to put an engineer dummy to drop aggro for a split second, LK gives you the plague, outheal it, then proceed. Use either AMS/Chains of Ice or Potion of Purification to remove it/prevent it from affecting you again.
• Valks : Buggy as hell. Can't target the tank, they just mess around. They finally stop eating popcorn and grab me at some point... you'll have to watch to see when.
• Defile : I stand in some of these on purpose in order to increase Vengeance. It has to be done very carefully, since both p2 and p3 are very healing intensive phases (p2 because of Infest which means I can't dip too low on health, p3 because of vile spirit explosions)
• Frostmourne: Yet another mechanic that doesn't target the tank. Wouldn't be difficult to overcome in any way whatsoever, but would make beating the enrage impossible, so I guess that's a good thing it's not there.

Source and source

Nice work!

One YEAR!

Yesterday was the blogs 1st birthday. Its been a bumpy and eventful year. Life has been just tremendously hectic and I am sorry I haven't been updating or posting alot lately. Soon that will change.

This Blog has taken me to a different realm, watched me FINALLY kill the LK after 5 months of trying, watched at least 4 guilds fall apart, seen a computer go bye bye, countless people I was close with stop playing and a new xpac come out. All it all in game life has been almost as eventful for my toons as for me in real life.

I'd like to take a minute to thank:

My guild - a good group of people, I ejoy playing with these guys it makes raiding fun.

Bloggers: Goodbye to some of the greats we have seen go. Wrathy, Honor, tanking tips and Tegen, you guys kicked off my need to write about something I am at times very passionate about.
The new blogs who continue to explode on the scene with great ideas and a wealth of info.
And lets not forget the writers who still inspire me daily - Rhidach, Argus, the Bossy Pally and Manalious. Oh and then there is the trio at sacred duty who fill all of us with the knowledge to be better, make us strive to be great and make sure our shit is gemmed, spec'd and enchanted the right way. If there was anyone I missed or forgot...I'm sorry. The blogging community as a whole is almost as amazing as my great guild.

And...to my family for allowing me this hobby and giving me the time to play a game.
Thanks to all that have read my blog. I really like to write, I'm not great at it but this gives me a chance to allow my voice to matter a bit more. I'll be back posting info and babble soon.

Here's to another year....hopefully a great year!

Fireland Raid guide and videos

I got most of my info from here along with the boss guides they have a great trash guide too.

Thrash info:
http://www.icy-veins.com/firelands-trash-guide it breaks it down pack by pack per boss.


Map of the instance:





Boss videos: All of a Tank POV. I hope you enjoy! Thanks again to Icy Veins !

Shannox written guide and video -



Lord Rhyolith written guide-


Beth'tilac written guide -


Baleroc written guide -


Alysrazor written guide -


Majordomo Staghelm written guide -


Ragnaros written guide -

Bout time!

Allow me to show praise and get the word out that its about time Blizz recognized this person. He is a good guy, does tons for the community and lets face it, some of us tanks would be lost without his "thing" he does.

The only thing missing is a cool lil tag at the bottom stating his moniker he has been given on Maintankadin which he is "bringer of pounding headaches" but luckily he is brilliant enough to put a TL; DR in each section to allow the "rest of us" to understand all that crazy math. Thank you Theck, for always giving us your best, the Paladin community would be far behind without you and you have always taken time to answer my questions with class! People like you make this game better.
[Theck's Emberseal]

My Absence -

While all the blogs are talking about the new HS mechanic and the changes in the spec, I'm sidelined with an ailing computer and a bruised ego, only slightly thou. My guild is raiding without me and while the get their feet wet I'm stuck listening on vent on my laptop. I'd love to be there dying with them, killing trash and planning strats. I'm a few weeks from being back operational so not only will I be behind in gear but I'll be the new tank again. I'm grateful that I'm in a causal guild at times like these. While I haven't been on alot with my computer being down, I'm not in raider status right now so I have the cold shoulder turned to me, ever so slightly. Time will tell.

The Contract

Are you really wearing that?
Now, we have all run across these people, we seen them in PUGs or the LFD system. The clueless, the misinformed, the lazy. Some of us take pride in our toons, as much pride as we would in ourselves, I mean why wouldn't you? We spend hours playing the toon, putting our personality on a pixel. Don't we? Every time we step into a 5 man LFD or PUG raid, people look at our gear, choices and spec to make judgements about us. Rightfully so, this toon we play tells alot about us and its all our mates playing with us know.

The inspection -
When we enter LFD people are inspecting you. Looking to see if you are a good player. Who are they to judge on how we play by the loot we have, gems we use of enchant we put on? In essence there is an accepted way to play this game. If you gear isn't right, the reforging is bad or you say wear spirit on a DK, this is the only know way we have to tell if they can find their as with both their hands. This would be no different than going to a job interview in coveralls or try to put out a house fire with polyester pants on. Neither one is going to make you very successful.

D-Bags and gear snobs aside, when we enter the LFD or a PUG we in a way enter into a social contract that states we know how to play, and we won't be an anchor to the system. Far to often people who que don't hold up to their end of the contract. The ill's of the LFD aren't part of this post, I don't think I have enough room or time to get into that.

The Clueless -
Probably the easiest to help of the offenders. A simple tell stating where to look for help or a nudge that mastery might be better than crit and they are on their way to being a better player. Often times these are people that are newer to the game or have a very controlling class lead in the guild. There is a fine line between the clueless and the misinformed.

The Misinformed -
This is the player that will snap at you if you try to help or ask "why did you chose X over Y"? This is the person who "knows it all" yet still does it wrong. For the most part in my book these are the worst players. They do it wrong. They do it bad and won't take advice. Its clear where ever they get their info it holds them back. I'm not condoning have an EPEEN discussion in a pug but if they are doing it wrong and you think you can help, give it a shot. This is in general the play that will disrupt the group and let everyone know just how much they know, even thou they do just about everything wrong.

The Lazy -
This is the one that drives everyone nuts. They don't even care to gem, let alone bother getting hit capped. This is usually an alt, farmer or part time player. These are the people who will wear the PVP trinket and brag about the ilvl they have. This is an unsat toon. Its far worse than the clueless, they don't know any better, the lazy just won't do it. They feel they can get carried and of the above two mentioned this is the biggest reason groups argue or are dysfunctional. They don't pull their weight and don't care.

Every time we enter the LFD or pug we will not be at our best. Not everyone who plays this game is PRO or 'leet. But I think you at least need to have an idea of how to play your class and gear/gem/enchant them. You have 4 other people who are with you counting on you to do your job. This is that social contract you sign up for by que'n. No one is asking for all epics or BiS to do your daily but at least don't step into something you cheated the system on by buying PVP gear off the AH or throwing you healy spec'd trinket in to DPS a pug.

TL; DR
We owe it to try hard and gear correctly. There is no excuse for doing a run with others and expecting that they carry you or cover for your ineptness in spec/gear choices. As in society we owe it to uphold the contract of the norm while playing with others. Expect a vote kick or heckling if you are Lazy, Misinformed or Clueless.

Top 100!

Kind of a BIG deal!

The duality of this post is crazy! This my friends, this is my 100th post and I also wanted to brag a tad about something I set out to do.

Goals are different for everyone in this game. This was the kind of goal that you can work at and not hope for, like say...a piece of loot dropping from a boss. I'm not sure why I wanted to try and get ranked, maybe boredom, but I wanted to try this.

I did some looking and seen what kind of DPS I needed to pull and I was very...very close already. I put in a hit trinket, switched a glyph and added some expertise. There is no secret on what we need to do for damage output. At one point I was at 14.8K DPS but things got a tad hectic at the end and I needed to pop CD's.

A few things I noticed while doing this fight in a pure pure selfish way, when it comes to ONLY worrying about numbers.things seemed off and  I didn't like tanking this way, hell I didn't even like the feeling after the kill was complete. I won't lie, I'm slightly happy I accomplished my goal but I felt selfish. Here is what I noticed; My health meter was low ALOT! I became much more tunnel visioned, I only knew what I was doing and didn't have a firm grasp of the raids position. I never worried about WoG on anyone and my CD usage was delayed to say the least, it wasn't proactive. Would I do this again? Probably not, it wasn't fulfilling, that's just my opinion. (Source)

Personal -

Life has been crazy and hectic and I don't want it any other way. I'm helping coach my kids softball team and my son is playing T-ball for the first time. The sun is out and I think....SUMMER is finally here. These days and times make me me happy I'm in a casual yet competent guild.
If posting is erratic and a tad small on the content side, hang in there with me. The rest of my world is getting my attention.

Playing your best!

I've heard that water seeks its own level.

Oh, philosophical me! What I mean by this is that all water finds the place where it belongs. When it comes to this game I believe you play where you best fit due to the human aspect of the game. Yes, a few people go hunting for the very best guilds, some will play with friends IRL that don't have a clue how to raid in a progressed nature but that is still finding your level. In the game of World of Warcraft that is seeking your own level. How does this relate to "Playing Your Best"!

What steps can you take to play your best at this game even if you don't have the so called "hard core" amount of time to do that?

Experience-

• Hardly anyone is natural to video games, you have to do it to learn it. So, go do it. The more you do the fight/instance/raid the better you will get at it.
• Challenge yourself - You need to know your toon, your cooldowns and limitations. Take yourself out of you comfort zone. PVP, duel, solo an elite. Do something you would normally ask to get help with.
• Pug - Yes I said that! If you are 100% comfortable, pugging can get you into situations that you have to go above and beyond. A bit of patience and understanding go a long way. This doesn't mean play with rude or dumb people but sometimes mistakes happen. Deal with them and you will learn from it.

Prepare -

• Know the fight before you do it! There is a wealth of info out there for you to have an understanding. I'm not talking about watching Tankspots video and now you are a pro, but read the abilities, watch some videos from the POV of your job.
• Steps to learn the encounter (source ~ thanks Tank Repo)
• Gather facts - ie...read Wowhead or Wowiki
• Watch videos - your POV, Tank spot, google search
• Compare facts with videos
• Look at logs, recount
• Is this a lot to prep? Not nearly as much as a night of wiping would be if you go into a fight without knowing. Knowing what you need to do during a phase transition that you have seen on 5 videos is much easier to understand than having a raid leader say it once at the start of a fight.

Min/Max -
Gasp!!!----I used that 'leet verbiage, didn't I? This doesn't mean drop your profession and power level another for a certain fight or race change your toon to get more HP's to tank. No no no...this isn't what I mean at all.

• Get your professions to max or at the very least to the spot where they benefit you. JC's are allowed to use 3 JC only gem's...put them in there. BS get 2 extra gem slots...etc
• Get the rep you need for the helm/shoulder enchant or that 359 epic that will work for you.
• Spend the gold on the proper glyphs, enchants and gems. Gold is easy to come by in Cata.

Getting to know your toon and rotation take extra work. We have training dummy's all over the place now. Running a few minute rotation, including interrupts and CD usage will go a long way. During a time of high stress we go back to the very basics, the basic you are most comfortable with. If you can do your rotation without looking that makes you comfortable with it.

Does all this sound like a lot of work? It shouldn't. Once you get the toon set up you can knock this out in about 20 minutes every couple days. Less than a full heroic.

Now the water finding its level, after you put your time and work into making your toon better and "practicing" your game, you will make the whole group better because you are doing your job to the BEST YOU CAN.  This will allow the DPS to go harder faster, healers to use less mana and bosses to die.

You will soon find out that you level has raised and you need to move on or you like where you are and others play better due to the work you have done.

Making Progress!

The decision -

The edict was laid down last week, there would be no excuses, for the raiders sake we needed to step it up and move forward. If this didn't happen you could sense that there might be a fall out in the guild, the old way wasn't working.

We logged on last week and did some good progression, sadly all farm stuff and then Zerd (RL) stated that lockouts would be held over while we knock on Cho'galls' door. He then firmly told the raid...you better know the fight. Oh and study Throne of Four Winds as well.

Progression? -

We finished last week downing Atremedes and the Monstrosity. It was our 1st Atremedes kill, its not a hard fight, we had about six attempts at it and got it down pat. We then headed to our 1st end of dungeon boss. We had a quick explanation and the word was given to "see the fight" we had about four pulls and got him to phase 2 once. The next night we added a few wrinkles to the Cho fight and spent the whole night wiping but got him to phase 2 five times or so. It was frustrating but progress was being made. The night ended with the knowledge we needed to learn more.

This week we logged on fresh, ready to go and had about a 15 post thread on how we were going to do this guy. I was excited, we were all chatty on vent and you could tell there was a great deal of confidence. Tuesday was going to be the day...

Again, we got him to phase 2 over and over! 2% 5% etc...we were so close but for some reason we couldn't pull the DPS off to push thru the adds and put damage on the boss. We weren't hitting the enrage timer just dying to high corruption and not kill the adds fast enough. Then came the ATTEMPT from hell. I will never forget this fight, ever!

We did our normal routine, the fight went smooth, not flawless thou. We got to P2 got the adds down FAST, could this be the kill? We hit bloodlust, put damage on the boss and were getting close, 6% I died and a DPS went down. "REZ CHASEY" went the call, I accepted and taunted as fury just hit 4% only 2 dead and adds popped up. "GET THE ADDS" 2% I LoH to our shadow priest and we hit 1%, we were losing people...omg so close....we can do it. We have our DK tank, me our SP and healer alive. The SP drops, I spam my 'lock cookie....it didn't work....dammit. 100k, dots are ticking, 75k the damn healer dies, he is in angle form. Only our tank is up 50k...omg we got this....25k his icon is red but we can do it. What do you call 22,462 Hp's on a boss? A WIPE! We wiped with twenty two thousand hit points, roughly what I had buffed toward the end of TBC.

We had a few more solid shots but this one broke us or at least told us that even a 5 minute breaks is not going to shake off the sick you feel from dying to a boss most DPS hell, even tanking classes can do in one global. It was going worse, mistakes were being made. In my mind thou we were learning, I know I did. Life, my tank partner died due to his healer getting MC'd and taking to much damage. I picked up Cho and he was rez'd. I had 2 stacks of fury on me so he kited the adds and ooops his healer and my healer didn't realize it. Yes, we wiped due to raaaaannnnnnggggggggeeeee, oh fuck! We called it soon after, kinda shaken and hit BH before the night ended. We beat him like a rented boss, we took out frustration him, beating our or at least my record by 40 seconds.

Wednesday I logged on at almost raid time. I was getting grief for this, but people were laughing and having a good time on vent. The mood was light. Zerd (RL) was tipsy and telling jokes. We needed attention, we needed focus. Someone flipped the switch when we killed the adds. See Zerd plays a hunter and well, he is a huntard. He was putting the wrong traps and auto shotting ice blocks last night in "tard style. It was funny and he took the ribbing well.

We pull, DPS is rocking the  adds. This one seems pretty solid for the first fight. No deaths and adds are dying fast. Oh fuck, yells Zerd....the que the pull is going bad, or at least not good. We push to phase 2 and as we kite to the thrown, we have fire everywhere. I died and so was the dps. We kept on and got him to 5%. Not bad for the first attempt.

We rez, buff and sat silent. I was hoping that we weren't getting defeated, I was hoping this wasn't our 22k mood haunting us. I pull, position and bang away at him. He is dying fast. The adds too. The 2nd add pops and dies so fast my internal clock is off, I run to where Cho is being tanked and taunt....of fuck....he casts fury and I now have 2 stack of it on me. It hadn't fallen off....*SIGH* Life says I have adds as 3rd pops, he is kiting...it dawns on me, I say in vent for my healer to stay with me and for Dread to head with Life. It works. I chain my CD's so fury doesn't eat my healers mana. 4th add pops and dies, we have to hault DPS on Cho so we don't get the ooze and push to phase 2. Corruption is low, placement is good and he doesn't screw us with fire. I look at the second stalks spawn and they are all on me. OH WHAT? I say this in vent and these die fast. OMG we have a chance, no one dies. I look at his healt, cuz at this point Fury on the tank is almost automatic taunt. You just know you have to do it, you don't know why thou. 1% pops up and down he goes....

Yes folks, we 2 shot him after a make or break night, we did it. Everyone executed amazingly, and Zerd didn't yell OH FUCK! The feeling was great, we did it. For me, this has been a long and odd journey, I had my first halfus kill in December and slowly I plugged away to get a complete instance out of the way.

Our shadow priest, who raids on another server is 6/12HM 25 man says (and he very rarely speaks of that)  in vent, "that was pretty great guys, after doing it on 10 man, 25 man is easy mode, nice job". He doesn't say alot in vent, usually just tells people to stop screwing up.

The Throne -

We head over to this gawd awful place and get the low down on how we are going to do Conclave. We pull and our druid DC's, Zerd says, don't wipe see how far we can. We did pretty well on the first pull and downed them on the second pull.

We then went to Al'Akir...omg this fight sucks. I mean could there really be a more RNG based fight ever? It got so bad on our 7 plus wipes we were seeing how fast we could wipe. As the tank,  I have work to do to figure out how not to get blown off the platform, avoiding the ice he put around me and then getting knocked back. Honestly I HATE THIS FIGHT. Maybe after downing him a time or two, I'll change my mind but really after killing Cho, this was a bad way to end the night. This one seems like more luck than skill is needed. Time will tell.

Thanks for reading me brag about progression that is a few months behind but none-the-less its progression. I'm glad for a few things, I'm in a guild that I enjoy being around and they seem to enjoy having me there and one that even if its later than normal, they still want to progress. Oh, and I can still tank pretty well...

Eye for an Eye!

Talent builds-

If you look at Wowpopular and other data mining sites around you see that most Prot Paladins use a variation of the 0/31/10 build. We have a tremendous threat talent in that build, making it worth it for us to spec that way. There is are a few other builds (threat heavy) and the (WOG raid build). If you have no idea how to spec please see Thecks thread at maintankadin.com. My purpose of this blog post isn't about what to do, this is food for thought on a different talent. Allow me to introduce you to [Eye for an Eye].

No one questions the utility of the extra range on judgements but the problem lies if you are not kiting or working on trash this does no extra damage for you. Standing at the bosses toes getting beat on is where Eye for and Eye shines. I did some digging in the last few weeks of logs, on average I get an extra 2% damage per night by only using only 1 point in this talent.

The above picture one night of raiding, this shows 45 procs hitting for 9k and almost 18k on a crit. Just doing my job getting damaged. Here is my spec for that fights above. Below on a night with Cimaeron as the main focus (really a bad night) I did 4% of my damage via Eye for an Eye. (source)

The extra range that costs a talent point maybe nice, but it doesn't add up to the extra damage 1 point talent does. I don't kite enough for there is not enough trash for me to wan the extra 10 yards. That adds up to zero extra damage only increased range. [Eye for an Eye] put out more than enough for it to be worth it. Over the course of the fight, you don't see a ton of procs but that is a lot of extra damage for just being a tank. What would you do to get an extra 2% damage over the course of a night?
How it works-

Note: Eye for an Eye has been proven to proc from direct magic damage and some untargeted spells. Examples are Shadow Nova from Halfus Wyrmbreaker and Scorching Breath from his Proto-Behemoth, Twilight Blast from the Double Dragons, Magma Spit from Magmaw, Arcane Storm from Maloriak, and so on. Passive auras, such as Blood Queen Lana'thel's from Icecrown Citadel, are not eligible for reflection.(source)

In other words any coded magical spell that a boss can cast can proc this. A thread I read stated that even physical attacks that are coded magic can make this proc. It is also based off hit, I missed roughly 5% of the time every night. I do not know if Avenging Wrath or Inquisition increases the damage, I'm sorry I looked and could not find any conclusive evidence on this. I will continue to look and if I find anything I will edit and repost.


What others are saying -

Info is a bit on the scarce side for this talent, as far as prot is concerned anyway. There is a thread or two out there but here are a few quotes that I could dig up. I've even been called a "baddie" for putting a point here, to be honest, I'll be bad if I keep seeing these results and as long as I am not required to kite more.

Eye for an Eye actually has the potential to give you some additional "free" DPS. If you take magic damage, it can possibly pump a portion of it back at its source. This could lead to some free damage with your name on it in the meters. (Source)

Eye for an Eye deserves a special mention here. It seems to proc off of most spell-like attacks, regardless of damage type (even physical). Thus, depending on the boss, it can contribute anywhere from 1%-3% of your DPS completely passively. I personally value the utility of Improved Judgement too much to make that trade, but for those that don't E4E is a perfectly valid way to progress to tier 2 of Ret. (Source)

Conclusion-

I don't think you need to be blown away for a passive talent such as this to do what it is doing. You are only skipping a 10 yard extension to a talent you already have to increase damage by 2% for just standing there I think its a no brainer. Give this talent a shot, no boss does just physical damage all the time, this is cheap dps even...if you are the OT on a fight.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this talent and if you have an experience on it.