Heroic Yor'sahj

After dealing with a less broken Morchok this week we decided to move on to Yor'sahj. This is far and beyond a much better fight than Morchok even if Blizzard took the lazy way out with both of them. The difference between normal and heroic is rather simple in concept but is a difficult encounter in practice. The only difference between normal and heroic (besides the usual more health, damage, etc...) is he summons four oozes instead of three. This brings several very painful combinations. Yellow, Red, and Black is particularly painful. All in all it's a very tightly tuned fight that will demand the best out of your healers (remember to thank them). After finally not getting set after set of "You're Screwed," combinations we were able to kill him. So now onward to Hagara.

Heroic Morckok

On Tuesday my guild got to work on Dragon Soul Heroic mode fights starting with Morchok. After spending most of the night figuring what really is a fun fight after the simplistic normal mode we ran into a snag. What happened was he enraged and we managed to kill his twin but wiped to Morchok at about 150k health. The end result was Morchok despawning whithout giving us loot, achievements or anything. Worse than that the instance didn't progress so we couldn't even move on to other bosses. So be forewarned.

The Trash Drops Epics???

So apparently Blizzard decided to skip bosses this tier and just go with tougher trash packs. Ok I take that back our raid wiped more to trash this week than we did to bosses.

Where Is My Neck Piece?

So I was perusing the Dragonsoul loot lists to see where my upgrades will come from and start working on my BiS list for 4.3. I came across something odd. The only neck piece that drops in the entire raid is a spirit caster one. So I said to myself, "Self where is your neck?" Turns out it comes from the VP vendor and guess the secondary stats... +Hit and +Haste. Bleh. Not only that but since the neck comes from VP there is no way to upgrade it. I've yet to see a 4.3 version of the Crystallized Firestone and even then the 4.2 ones don't work on VP items. So that leaves me with two choices for next tier.

A)VP Neck
B)Heroic Flowform Choker from Domo

Option A is terrible because of the itemization on the item while option B poses a different problem altogether. In my total of 19 Domo kills (12 being on Heroic) I have seen the choker drop a grand total of once. Yup just once. So sadly I will most likely be forced to take option A due to we will only get one maybe two more Domo kills before 4.3 drops.

Here's hoping.

Staff Completed

After 4 1/2 months and 125 Firelands boss kills I've finally finished my Dragonwrath.

Almost Done

After finishing farm content on Tuesday I found myself at 234/250 Smoldering Essences required for the last stage of the Dragonwrath quest line. After glancing at my armory page and adding the last couple bosses I need, I have determined that it took me 121 various Firelands boss kills to finish the staff. Total time spent has been about 4 1/2 months. In the mean time 25 mans are finishing their 3rd and in some cases their 4th staffs. Not really the 2.5:1 ratio Blizzard had intended. Now after finding out that on 10 man bosses aren't guaranteed to get an Ember to drop I did some quick napkin math and estimated that I would have finished my staff this week. Obviously I was a tad off but I knew there was the possibility of that when I hit the Seething Cinders stage and saw how large of a range that could drop and that Heroic didn't matter.

Overall I'm really happy to finally finish my first current legendary (I say current because I made a Thunderfury and a Sulfuras). At the same time I am so burnt out on Firelands by now. Our mage who is second in line isn't even halfway through the Cinders stage and it's doubtful that he'll finish it before patch 4.3. In the mean time I wouldn't be surprised to see some 25 mans with 5 or even 6 staffs done.

Math Time:
Our average 10 man roster has 4 people eligible for the staff (myself, mage, ele shaman, boomkin). That's 2/3s of the dps being casters. In the end 1/4 get a staff. That's 16% of the eligible players getting a staff.

Assuming same proportions of a 2 tank, 7 heal, 16 dps squad on a 25 man group that would estimate 11 dps being eligible for the staff. Let's assume 5 staffs are finished by 4.3. That's 5/11 so 45% of the eligible players getting one.

Correct me if I'm wrong but 16% * 2.5 /= 45%.

Yes they buffed the last stage of the 10 man part but that part still takes 5-6 weeks depending on drops. On top of that the nerfs in 4.3 to the proc rate are targeted (I believe) at the fact that huge chunks of 25 man rosters will have staffs and if they balance around that then it would mean tuning the Dragonsoul fights to that damage which would screw new 25 mans that don't have 5 staffs.

Hopefully Blizzard sat down and scratched out the math on the Rogue daggers.

Recovering...

So yesterday afternoon my computer decided it wanted to crap out on me. You know how they warn you that if you don't shut down Windows properly bad things can happen. Well bad things happened that prevented me from shutting down properly which led to more bad things happening. Log story short I had to format my PC and reinstall everything. I decided to go with a fresh download of WoW and it just so happens to be about half the size of my old WoW folder. Makes me wonder what kind of junk the old one had.

I'll be good to raid this week but it will take some time to get my PC back to the way it was. Even then who knows how long it will take to get my Windows settings back to the perfect way I had it before.

Introduction To Myself

Since I'm new to this who WoW blogging thing I'd figure I'd give you all an introduction on myself as well as my credentials when it comes to warlocks.  Specifically warlocks when it comes to raiding in a 10 man environment.

I first started playing WoW near the start of TBC but didn't really do much raiding.  I was still new and spent at least two-thirds of the expansion leveling and figuring stuff out.  Near the end of TBC I started to get into raiding clearing T4 and most of T5.  I even managed to get myself an original ZA bear mount back in the day which I was pretty proud of.

Come WotLK I tried raiding with a 25 man guild that easily cleared T7 but had trouble with doing any kind of additional drakes on Sartharion.  I was in that predicament that a lot of players find themselves in where they feel like they are the only decently skilled player in the group.  I decided things needed to change.  Specifically two things.  1.  No more 25 man I was going 10 man.  2.  I wanted progression.  Shortly after I applied to my current guild Vortex on Turalyon US.  Through them I have been able to play at the level I know I'm capable of.  We cleared Yogg+0 in Ulduar, Tribute to Insanity in ToC and then came ICC.

By the time ICC came about the were a distinct group of players that raided using a 10 man strict rule set.  The basis of this rule set  was that no 25 man gear could be used from the current tier and no hardmode gear could be used from the previous tier.  This made 10 man raiding really quite challenging in ICC (but that is another story for another post).  By the end of the expac we had managed to complete a World 2nd, US 1st heroic kill for the Lich King under those rules.

In Cata we went 9/13 HM in T11 (again for the story on Blizzard and raid balance) and are currently 6/7 HM in Firelands with progression on Heroic Rag.  Hopefully more news on that to come.

In regards to my class I am very elitist about my playstyle and will be throwing a ton of math everywhere.  There will be whining and complaining but I hope I will also bring some different ideas the warlock playerbase.  I have lots of ideas for this blog so I hope you guys will follow along with me.

-Harsesis