The Kill List

I was having a conversation with Baby the other day about healing, and the term he offered up was determining the "Kill List." Since his new blog is about all things mage, I don't think he'll mind if I steal this topic from him.

I don't care if you're a priest, shaman, druid or paladin. If you're healing, you've got to have a pretty good idea of the kill list. "But Bremm," I hear you cry, "the DPS kills. I just heal."

Well, sunshine, we're not talking about that kind of kill list. I'm talking about you setting the order that your own team will (be allowed to) die in.

As a healer, you're a subset of the group or raid. In five-mans, you may be the only healer around. As such, you'll need to make some instantaneous decisions about who gets the heal when too many people need it. Under the best circumstances, you'll never use this list. But in the event that some bad stuff starts going down and someone is going to die, you can often let the "right" person die and save a wipe.

If someone on the kill list must be expended, they'll quite often say "You forgot to heal me." I never forget to heal you; sometimes I decide that you must die for the greater good.

My kill list goes something like this (From Most Likely to Least Likely to be allowed to die):

1. Pets (except in the rare circumstances where they are tanking). Sorry hunters, you're beloved animal buddy is going to bite it first. It costs nothing but a rez and a piece of food to get them back in the game. Pets never have to repair, thus they can die.
2. Damage classes who have a means to dump threat (feign death, feint, soul shatter, etc.) and are not performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.
3. Damage classes who do not have a means to dump threat and are not performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.
4. Damage classes who have a means to dump threat and are performing repeatable crowd control for this pull
5. Damage classes who do not have a means to dump threat and are performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.
6. Other healers
7. Me
8. Tanks

There seems to be a nasty clump in positions 2 through 5 where it's hard to see who is whom. Lets look at the classes and expound

Category 2 - classes who have a means to dump threat (feign death, feint, soul shatter, etc.) and are not performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.

Hunters, (shadow) priests, rogues and locks have some means to dump threat. Of these, only hunters (freezing trap) and priests (mind control, shackle) have repeatable control. If you're not doing this things, kill em in this category.

Category 3 - classes who do not have a means to dump threat and are not performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.

Druids (apart from cowering), mages (invisibility takes too long to cast), paladins, shamans and warriors have no threat dump. Only mages and druids (hibernate, cyclone, eventually entangling roots) have repeatable crowd control. If you're not doing these things, kill 'em.

Category 4 - classes who have a means to dump threat and are performing repeatable crowd control for this pull

See Category 2. Kill the crowd controlling hunters and (shadow) priests here.

Category 5 - classes who do not have a means to dump threat and are performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.

See Category 3. Kill the crowd controlling mages and druids here.

And that's the whole kill list. And having this available, makes explaining your choices that much easier.

Challenges in WoW

It's no surprise to anyone that I've way too many level 70 characters. It also might not be a surprise that my altoholism didn't stop with the fifth 70. In fact, of the 10 character slots on my realm, it breaks down like this:

• FIVE level 70's
• ONE horde hunter, level 63, will probably transfer him (see below)
• Level 53 Shaman
• Level 44 Shadow Priest
• Level 25 Paladin
• Level 28 Mage

Yes, that's all ten full (and no room for a deathknight, thus the transfer.

Anyway, I'm leveling the alts (yes all of them) with people also afflicted with serious altoholism. We're all good players, all have characters that regularly raid (at least to the point we're at in guild. That is, dipping the toes into SSC), and we've run every instance in the game more than we probably should have.

So, now, to keep the instances fresh, we're breaking the standard procedure for completing instances apart. We've run non-standard groups, we've done things under level. Recently we started our biggest challenge. Running things short people, under level and non-standard.

Sunday we four manned the bulk of Blackrock Depths (everything this side of the bar at least). We did it with four characters - Two 48s and two 52s. My cartographer suggests a level of 48 to 53 for BRD. Prior to Burning Crusade, I'd have not taken much less than a 52 in there at all. Even if the 52 was just filling a seat in an otherwise all 60 party. But, four of us did quite well and didn't have any nasty wipes. Okay, maybe an ankh or two was burned, but anything you can recover from isn't a wipe right?

Last night was the stiffest challenge to date. Wait for it..

Deadmines

Yeah, DM/VC. But here's the thing we had a group of 20 hunter, 24 hunter and 24 paladin. Wowwiki recommends a group of 18-23.

We cleared down to the foundry (about halfway in) when the 24 hunter had to go suddenly. The other hunter and I (obviously the paladin) decided we wanted to see how far we could get. We basically had only the hard half of the dungeon left.

Trash is trash, and I'm not going to talk about that. In fact, I'm not really even going to talk much about the how of what we did. I don't think it's really important what strategy we followed for dealing with Captain Greenskin. Or VanCleef himself.

What I'm thinking about now is breaking down some of my own preconceived notions. Five man dungeons take five men, right? Well, I'm beginning to think not. I certainly wouldn't recommend that a new player who was just learning the game and the instance attempt a two-man of the instance, but for us "oldbies" it really adds some additional challenge to what has become a stale instance.

Some of the things that really helped us out were our usable trade skills and classes. The hunter is an herbalist/alchemist (go figure) and my paladin is a miner/engineer. The buff potions and healing/mana potions that the hunter could pass out were indispensable. The dynamite and bombs allowed me to do damage while still healing, and properly placed target dummies saved my bacon on a number of occasions when my bubble was cooling down.

The frost trap on the hunter was a godsend. Even though level 20 hunter traps don't have a habit of hanging around forever, every little bit helps when Smite is laying the smack down. Seal of Judgment and stuns also helped with some CC and prevented running. And honestly, without a class who could heal, I wouldn't try it at all.

Thank god there is a forge and an anvil right in the center of the zone. It allowed me to turn tons of mined material and drops back into more target dummies.

Next time (and there will clearly be a next time somewhere), I'd probably pay more attention to my bags and what not. I ended up carrying around bits and pieces of in-progress quests and uncooked meats all through the instance. And I had a grand total of five mana potions. And they were the baby ones (i.e. restore 140 to 180 mana). Next time I do this I'm having a full stack of appropriate level potions and elixirs.

So, what's next? I have a quest hanging about in my Paladin's quest log. I need to hit both Blackfathom Depths and Shadowfang Keep. Wowwiki lists them as 18-25 and 20-27 respectively. The other thing to do would be hit the Stockades. That's like 23-28. And Wowwiki (again) suggests a team of well geared 27-ish characters.

So apart from end-game, I'm making the game challenging by doing things I shouldn't be able to. As time goes on, I'll probably keep trying new things to keep making WoW different.

The Bad Instance

I'm not going to talk about a particular bad instance. I don't think that the same instance is most hated, or worst, or whatever for everyone. I think, instead, that there are things about instances that contribute to their "suck factor." I'm going to try to list some of the factors and instances that are strong candidates for sucking in that way.

1. Confusing Layout - It's hard to find your way in instances that are essentially circular. I can generally keep a pretty good mental map of an instance until I run in circles.. If those circles just happen to be in the form of ramps or staircases, you're quickly descending (hah! I pun) into the realm of circular maps with multiple overlapping levels. The sort of place that makes even the most die-hard orienteer crazy. You need look no further than say Gnomeregan or Sunken Temple to find this sort of layout. For an example of non-circular but nonetheless confusing, look to Mauradon. Wailing Caverns is also sort of weird in a semi-circular layout.
   
2. Too Long - We admit it. We're spoiled by instances that can be completed in two hours. We don't like spending our lives in a five-man. It's definitely high on the suck-fest quotient to make us go into long instances more than once to complete quests. This is most notable for the non-winged winged dungeons. I'm speaking of those places where you can go to various areas of the instance once inside but that are not separate entrances themselves. Look at instances like Blackrock Depths which has several ways to go all of which can be a longish dungeon crawl all by themselves or the two distinct halves of Mauradon. Even some low level instances (*cough* Gnomeregan) can be might long at level.
   
3. Midde of Nowhere - These dungeons lovingly crafted are far from flight paths. While these can vary highly by faction, some offenders for the Alliance are: Mauradon, Dire Maul, Sunken Temple, and any of the three in The Barrens (Razorfen Downs, Razorfen Kraul, and Wailing Caverns). In fact the Razorfen instances are not close to Horde Flight Paths either. If it weren't for the transporter in Ratchet, Gnomeregan is way far for Horde and The Deadmines is a trek as well. Uldaman is inconveniently located for both Horde & Alliance, but I think Horde has it worse.
4. The Graveyard is WHERE?!?!? - Wipes happen. Which means one (or more) of you is going to have to run back and accomplish the rezzing. Blackrock Depths and Blackrock Spire are both a HAUL back to the graveyard at Thorium Point. Before Blizzard removed the auto 6 minute release, it was nearly impossible to not run if you died in BRD. By the time someone got back, you had almost always autoreleased. And while not a five man, the starter raid Zul'Gurub fits this bill. It seems that with Outland, Blizzard mostly learned this lesson, however, the ghost walk to Coilfang is still tedious.
   
5. Why can't I go there? - Only two instances, and admittedly low level ones, are located inside capital cities. But Alliance can't easily go to Ragefire Chasm and likewise for Horde and The Stockades. By rights, these should be just outside the cities making them visitable, albeit challenging on PVP servers.
6. Poor Crowd Control Options - Anytime there is a dearth of humanoids, CC options become fewer. Usually this is made up for by substituting beasts or undead which still allow shackle & sheep (or hibernate). However, sometimes even those are passed over in favor of other non-CCable suckfests. Look at Mauradon (with its plants and elementals) and Dire Maul (with its plants and demons). Luckily, two often underutilized CC classes (Hunters and Warlocks) shine here. But your mages will quickly top threat meters without sheeping to attend to.
7. Poor Cost to Effort Ratio - With the advent of the Burning Crusade, many dungeons fell quickly into this category. The effort of doing a level 60 instance for substandard blues just became not worth it. Doing just a few (starter) quests in Outland will give you rewards that FAR outshine anything in there (even the epics). And here the list is long, Blackrock Spire, Scholomance, Stratholme, Dire Maul, and even BRD and Sunken Temple. I've even heard it said in my guild that raids like Zul'Aman fall into this category.

So, that's what I think kinda makes instances less appealing. I'm sure I've missed something, and I find it rather dismaying that my personal favorite instance, BRD, is actually high on the suck meter. But it that's what my analysis shows.

Saving My Cool Downs

Everything I know about managing resources really came from me playing Magic: The Gathering. Back in the day, I was a big fan of saving my bombs for exactly the right moment. Unfortunately, I found that sometimes I was stuck at the end of the game with a handful of cards that could’ve come in useful when I was still alive.

To some degree the same principles apply in WoW. We’re all used to resource usage. You have a finite amount of mana, rage or energy. There are only so many reagents, bullets and potions you can carry. There are whole discussions in the blogoverse about it’s better for healers to have a larger mana pool or a greater rate of mana regeneration. And warlocks are constantly faced with the decision about conversion of one resource type (life) to another (mana).

But we all have at our disposal another resource type – time. I’m used to time as a resource as far as potion timer goes. If I drink a mana pot early, I’m likely to be able to drink another in the later stages of a fight. At first it was counter-intuitive to drink a potion when I didn’t really, really need it. But it turns out that this is quite often the best solution.

Of course, this article isn’t really about potion timers either. It is really more about abilities we all have that have a longish cool-down. I’m talking things in the 3-6 minute range rather than the cool downs that are more easily measured in fractions of hours.

I’ve always been a big saver of cool downs. For instance, I only tend to pop my Rapid Fire on bosses. However, I think I’m playing wrong. I should be popping that skill each time it comes up as long as it’ll also be available for the upcoming boss.

I think the thing that needs to be kept in mind is that these abilities have a cool down because they are very powerful. More powerful abilities tend to have longer cool downs. So as long as you can use the cool down and still have it available for key fights, you should. You’ll have better luck knowing when you can use cool downs on bosses that you’ve cleared before, but for the most part it’s never “Surprise! Here we are at a boss!”

I tried to follow my own advice on the guild Karazhan run and I noticed some improvement in my overall performance. Of course, I don’t recommend this for key abilities that more appropriately belong to your raid leader than you (battle resurrection, enervate, and the like). Good luck out there!

Crowd Control - Again

In the interest of completeness, I'm posting this addendum to the crowd control post. As pointed out in the comments, I did miss Wyvern Sting buried deep, deep in the Survival Tree for hunters. I had the nagging feeling I'd missed something. Surprised anyone found me out in the wall of text!

But as I was headed home last evening, I realized I'd also missed a whole other category of crowd control. Yeah, I covered the classes pretty well, but what I missed is the trade skills.

Engineers seem to hit the mother lode here with several options for crowd controlling. The first comes at fairly low level. Low enough to abuse it in Gnomeregan! The Gnomish Universal Remote Control does a mind control effect like priests that only effects creatures of type Mechanical. Later they get the Gnomish Net-O-Matic Projector. Finally, in the Engineering world we get the ever popular Gnomish Poultryizer. Only the Poultryizer requires Gnomish Engineering Specialization. None of these is 100% reliable. You have to love the uncertainty of engineering.

The other trade skill that has crowd control is tailoring. Enter the Netherweave Net. The net only lasts for 3 seconds and is unreliable against targets over level 70. Your mileage may vary.

Raid Symbols & You!

Does everyone recognize those 8 symbols over yonder?

Good!

Now tell me what each of them means?

This is where things start to fall apart. Not each group uses them to mean the same things. I admit, I'm biased about what these things mean because I'm often the group leader in charge of marking. So I've decided what I think they mean, but let me tell you it is NOT universal.

Pretty much everyone uses the skull to mean "we kill this first." So far so good. Quite often the X (or cross) means the tank will hold this one and we'll kill it next. In the case where there is an off-tank, that's usually his or her symbol.

Next is the blue square. To me (and apparently a lot of other folks) it looks like an ice cube and invariably is assigned to the hunter.

Now, some real disagreement begins to set in. While the first three symbols are (becoming) standard, the other five are not really at all. Perhaps, the most consistent, is using the moon to designate sheep. I've used it that way from the beginning and I've begun to notice other groups doing the same.

The yellow star is sometimes used as the sap symbol. I like the alliteration of star=sap.

The orange circle (or condom or nipple) is what I usually mark patrols with. Strangely enough, I also use it to designate a mind control target.

The purple diamond belongs to warlocks in my mind. I think it is because of all the symbols it looks the most like a heart. And a seduced target has hearts rising up from its head. I know, "Bremm is a weirdo."

Lastly there's the green triangle (or panties as Owaru told me). I generally reserve this as a spare symbol in case I have more than one of a class that can CC (the second sheep, the second ice trap) or for the second warlock target if we need enslave and banish. In cases where I need to mark a patrol and mind control, or there is more than one patrol, I'll also use this.

I'm not sure how common my usage is, but I thought I'd share.

Note: Although these are called raid target icons, they are also used a lot in instances. In fact, I will often use them when duo-leveling just to highlight where things are. Don't be afraid to use them, they're not just for raiding anymore.

Crowd Control THIS

Conventional wisdom says there are three roles in MMORPGs. Tank, Heal, DPS. I posit that there is a fourth in the form of crowd control. Let's take a look at crowd control (CC) options that exist for us. And while the photo over yonder has exactly zero to do with our favorite game, it is what comes up on a Google image search for "crowd control." Who knew?

There are several categories of crowd control. Some forms of crowd control can be applied prior to combat only, some can be applied before or during combat, some have long cool down times, and most affect only a few categories of enemies. Some methods of crowd control last a long time; some last mere seconds. Nearly all forms of crowd control can be broken.

Mages are well known for applying polymorph (sheep) to humanoid or beast enemies. Mobs can be re-sheeped in combat. Any damage will break the polymorph. Many instances and raids are absolutely chock-full of monsters vulnerable to sheep. Polymorph lasts around 30-45 seconds subject to resisting. It's a reliable, repeatable form of crowd control if you're fighting humanoids or beasts. The only other method of crowd control that mages have is frost nova. This will lock down melee mobs, but will not prevent spell casting or ranged weapons. Quite often frost nova is used to hold mobs in place for eventual death by AOE.

Rogues are known for sap. Humanoids can be sapped but only when neither the target nor the rogue is in combat. It must also be applied from stealth. Since sap requires both targets to be out of combat, mobs cannot be re-sapped. There is also a danger that a rogue will be "noticed" while setting up for the sap. Liberal use of distract helps lower this chance and if things truly go south, the rogue should be able to vanish out of the problem. Another caveat about sap is that some mobs can "see through stealth." Any enemy in a group that can see through stealth effectively eliminates this method of CC. Rogues can also make use of two other types of limited CC. Blind causes the target to walk around in confusion for a few seconds. This may be useful if a sap wakes up too early, giving the party just a few seconds to burn down another mob before dealing with the sapped mob. Finally, rogues can stunlock mobs keeping them from doing much for some time. Eventually, the rogue will run out of combo points and energy-usually with a pissed off mob on his or her hands.

Priests have a few options for CC. Undead mobs can be shackled. Shackles, apart from which categories of enemy can be affected, are very much like sheeps. Both can be re-applied and break on damage. Humanoid mobs, on the other hand, can be mind controlled. Mind control can be an effective means of crowd control, but prevents the priest from doing anything him or herself for the duration. Instead, the priest will have a "pet bar" representing a (very small) subset of the mobs normal abilities. Mind control is generally not favored for CC if the priest is your healer. While the fight is going on, the priest won't be giving any heals unless the mind controlled mob has healing spells on the pet bar. I've most often used MC as CC for dicey gigantic pulls when there is another healer. Keep in mind, some mobs have access to incredible buffs and a priest that MCs one can buff the party. Keep a watch out for these buffs if you are mind controlling one. Finally, priests can do an AOE fear. Fears are often dangerous as you can't control where feared mobs go. And a priests fear is often overkill as you can't select only one or a few targets to be feared. Everything in the area will be affected (subject to resists, of course).

Warlocks have a large number of CC options but only against specific mob types. First of all demons or elementals can be banished. This CC does not break on damage and can be re-applied. However, not many enemies match the types that can be affected. The warlocks succubus minion can seduce humanoids as well. The seduce is not as strong as sheep, for instance. It lasts less time (around 15 seconds) and is harder to reapply (without a macro). Aggro from the previously seduced mob is on the succubus. The succubus is a fairly fragile minion and will often die if the mob is not dealt with immediately. Warlocks can also enslave a demon enemy. This comes at the cost of the warlock's current minion, so don't ask a warlock to enslave and seduce concurrently. Enslave lasts a long time (up to 5 minutes) and can be re-applied. However, most parties will have the warlock release the demon prior to expiration. Enslaves have a nasty habit of breaking mid-combat otherwise. Warlocks also have access to fear in three flavors. Like the priest they have an AOE fear. Untalented, this takes about 1.5 seconds to cast (can be lowered to instant cast in the affliction tree). Additionally they have two single target fear effects (Fear and Death Coil). Death coil lasts only a few seconds and has a 2 minute cool down. However, it gives the warlock back some life. All warlock fears can be broken by damage.While I don't consider off-tanking to be true crowd control, a warlock's minion can also keep a mob busy. The only really viable off-tank pets are the voidwalker and felguard.

Hunters have access to Freezing Trap. Freezing trap will freeze a mob (of any type) in place for about 30 seconds. Any damage will break the trap. The mob must be drawn to the trap and will then trigger it freezing in place. Hunters that manage cool downs can have 2 (or even 3 specced right) mobs on ice at a time, but only one trap can be laying on the floor at a time-traps will last for up to one minute before they disappear. The cool down is shared amongst the five types of traps that hunters have (at 70) and is 30 seconds. While most crowd control can be applied wherever the mob is, the hunter must lure his target to the trap. It is harder for a hunter to CC mobs that cast spells or use ranged weapons. Another party member can interrupt a caster's spell to help the hunter, of if he or she is a Marksman spec, silencing shot can help. Hunters also have a fear effect, but it only works on beasts. The cool down is long (about 30 seconds) and it doesn't seem to last long. I'm sure all PVP hutners know this but both other hunter pets and druids in animal forms count as beasts. I still don't consider off-tanking to be true crowd control, but a hunter's pet can also keep a mob busy. The pet will likely need heals either from the hunter or the party healer to fulfill this duty. Finally, marksman hunters might have access to scatter shot. This will be similar to a rogue's blind.

Druids have access to several CC options, but with even further limitations. First, if outside, druids can use entangling roots to keep mobs in place (but like frost nova doesn't prevent ranged weapons or spells). Some raids and even one dungeon are considered "outside": Zul'Farrak, Zul'Gurub, and Zul'Aman. Basically, if an instance starts with Zul and features trolls, it's probably outside. Druids also have access to hibernate to put dragonkin or beasts to sleep. This is similar to a sheep-can be broken by damage, can be re-appplied, etc. Lastly druids can use cyclone to take a mob out of the fight for about six seconds. The enemy will be invulnerable for the duration (like a warlock's banish).

As we approach the final three classes, CC options are getting more limited. Warriors have an AOE fear like priests and a stun in the protection tree. Paladins have a single-target fear that affects only undead and a stun. Shamans have well...did I mention that I don't consider a pet off-tanking to be true CC? Shamans do have both an earth elemental and fire elemental totem that can keep one mob busy for a short time.

So. I'm looking up at this wall of text. It's important to know what types of crowd control you have available to you in an instance. If you're the group leader, you'll save yourself a lot of embarrassment by not asking rogues to "re-sap" or assigning a mage to polymorph a demon.

When PUGs Attack

When a PUG forms there are a lot of things going on all at once. And there are a couple of varieties of PUG out there. First of all, there's the true PUG. This is the one where you'll see five different guild tags floating above the heads of your party. Probably no one in the group has played extensively with any of the other members. This is the type that takes the most trust building all at once. There is also the mixed PUG where usually the five members are distributed across two guilds - two from one guild, three from another. This is potentially the easiest PUG to adapt to, no matter if you're the two or the three. Lastly there is the PUG where all members except one are from one guild and there is a sole member not in the guild.

The PUG with five different guilds takes some trust building at first. You don't know what to expect out of your party members and they don't know what to expect of you. This is the PUG that I've had the most problem with. I expect to be in for big repair bills and lots of frustration when I join this type of PUG. When I'm playing my healer, I'm adjusting to exactly how good everyone is at their job and how good the armor is. Mostly I need to learn how low I can let a tank go while I tend to other's lowering health pools. There's no way you can know right from the start whether a down-ranked heal will keep the tank up while you flash heal or renew another member. When I'm playing a DPS or CC class, I show them that I can do my job by keeping my mob locked down until the group is ready for it. If I'm playing the 'lock, I ask if I'll be CCing (so I know whether the succubus or the imp is the better pet to have out). Most of this will probably have to be done in chat because I've not found many using in-game voice chat and there likely won't be another method of voice communication (unless someone has a ventrilo or team speak server available). This is also the only PUG in which I'll specifically ask about loot rules. You should definitely be comfortable with whatever the loot rules are before heading out.

The 2-3 or 3-2 PUG is easier on you. You (presumably) know at least your co-guildmember in this PUG. You have to only be concerned with the other guild. And quite honestly, this type of PUG rarely forms unless two of the non-guilded players have played together before. Even if you don't know three of them and have ridden on your guildmate's coattails, they will expect you know how to do your job because your guildmate recommended you. Voice chat is much more likely here. Someone will likely offer their guild server

The 1-4 PUG is easy if you're the 4. If you're the 1, you're the odd-man out and you need to prove to this other guild you know what you're doing. If you're the 1, re-assure them that you can do your job. Voice chat is almost assured here as well. Voice makes all PUG work easier.

I will say that in general, I've had very good PUG luck. I like to think that's because I know what I'm doing and can prove it. And there's nothing like having them say in chat that "At least you're not like that last hunter."

Tagged - Part One

Pelides over at Hunter Mayhem started his own meme since he didn't get tagged in the other one that was circulating. His meme is about the five worst wipes. And believe you me, he tagged the right guy!

1. Garr in Molten Core. This is the rock elemental guy that starts with 8 adds. The general strategy is to have 4 warlocks and 5 tanks. MT gets Garr, each of the other tanks gets an add. Each warlock banishes an add. Kill the first 4, kill Garr, kill the 4 banished guys one at a time. Simple. Wipe. We're setting up for the next attempt, raid leader calls for buffs. Suddenly without warning for no apparent reason, my favorite paladin healer, Qerk, takes off at a dead run for the boss and his eight friends. Qerk dies, the other 39 of us die one by one by one. We find out later, Qerk has fallen asleep at the keyboard, finger firmly pressed on the run key!
2. High Priestess Jeklik in Zul'Gurub. Back in the day before Burning Crusade, ZG was where my guild spent a lot of time. We never had the forty people needed for other end-game stuff, so we ended up in ZG a lot. And we wiped a lot. I could likely write up 5 wipes just on this boss alone. But I'll coalesce all these wipes into one. Drawing any attention to yourself (unless you're the MT) in this encounter is a bad thing. The wipes generally started when some thoughtful healer sent me a Renew about half a second after I'd pulled her when I was tanking. I had the aggro of a single gunshot on her. The priest now had more. And died. Then the rest of the raid died.
3. Trash in Mechanar (Heroic). I was healing a heroic Mech before my gear was uber. I had enough healing that I knew I could do it. Sent the paladin tank a bunch of love as we were fighting one of the three robots at the beginning. Rogue took too much damage, sent a flash heal then back to tank. Greater Heal - No discernible change in health. Another one. Still no change in health. Another. Another. Another. Still nothing what gives. Tank dies. We run out. Then I notice that I. Have. The. Wrong. Party. Member. Targetted. At least the rogue had awesomely full health (and I did a TON of overhealing)
4. Ragnaros in Molten Core. We were on about our tenth (felt like the hundredth) attempt on old Rags. We were out of pots, out of bots, out of food. We were spent. And he'd been getting a little lower each time. We had someone hearth and pick up mana and healing pots, some food, a bot, fire resistance pots. Anything we could think of. Chipped gold together and made one last attempt. A mis-timed heal wiped our best tank out just before the sons. By the time we got him battle rez'd it was too late for the raid and way past most bedtimes. Final health of Rags somewhere about 50% greater than the best previous attempt.
5. Zul'Farak runthrough. Bremmie got a run through of ZF from a 70 lock. Apparently, when you target a far scarab with Seed of Corruption, it runs towards you bringing its buddies. Then when it detonates, you have about 9,000 level 40-ish scarabs beating on a lock. And it doesn't last long.

There. Five wipes. Maybe not the worst, but definitely bad. Who should I tag..let's see. First off, the three folks who've started blogging since I have: K, Owaru, Iron(shield|helm), Then two others Pike and Kestrel. I owe a responses to Ratshag from his tag. I was scared to tag him until I have completed that previous tag. But notice the title is part 1.

Getting Ready for End Game

One of my co-workers asked me to write something about "what you do between 60 and the end game." He went on to say "I've got the leveling game down, but I'm not sure what lies ahead of me."

And he does have the leveling part down. At least up to mid forties. He's got (at most recent count) 24 alts of various levels. He has also never played old-world end-game. His newbie druid was merely level 20 when Burning Crusade came out. He never had to worry about attunements for Molten Core, Onyxia, Blackwing Lair & Naxxramas. He never spent too much money on raid consumables. He never spent weeks learning a particular encounter. He is a raid noob.

So, let me answer his questions the best I can. There are a couple things that would-be raiders need to keep in mind. There are also a couple of questions you should already have answered.

Questions:

1. What is my end-game spec? Will I heal or DPS or tank?
2. What are the five most important stats for my end game build? Can I order these hierarchically?
3. Am I ready to be away from the "Old World" cities for long stretches? Can I avoid going to the auction house, bank, trainers in the Old World? Do I have an alt that can perform these duties for me?
4. Have I done some research about what gear I'd like to pick up from various quests, instances, mobs? Someone wrote an awesome guide to having a wish list on their blog and dummy me, I can't find the post. But its out there.
   

Having answered these questions, it's time to take the plunge into Outland Questing. The thing that is most different, and hardest to understand for a player coming from Azeroth is how important reputation is. Reputation rewards offer recipes, enchants, and gear that are the best pre-raid (and sometimes early raid) choices. At least five of those factions also offer heroic versions of their dungeons. For most of the factions there is an early quest that turns into a repeatable quest. As I mentioned when writing about the Cenarion dudes it's important to do those quests at the exclusion of others from the same faction, until you stop getting reputation for the repeatable one. Some of the factions are more optional, clearly benefiting some class or tradeskill over others. Here's a quick list of factions and the items they accept:

• Cenarion Expedition - Unidentified Plant Parts
• Sporeggar - Bog Lord Tendrils, Fertile Spores
• Lower City - Arakkoa Feathers
• Kurenai/Mag'har - Ogre Warbeads
• Consortium - Elekk Tusks, Oshu'gun Crystal Fragment, Ogre Warbeads, Zaxxis Badge, Ethereum Prison Keys
• Scryers - Firewing Signets, Sunfire Signets, Arcane Tomes
• Aldors - Mark of Kil'jaeden, Mark of Sargeras, Fel Armament
• Sha'Tar - Either of the Aldor or Scryer turnins

The next thing to consider is your crafting professions. Everyone should have first aid. And cooking. And probably *ugh* fishing. I'd take the time before heading to Outlands to level cooking and first aid to 300 minimum. Cooking finally makes real sense post 300 giving some of the best food buffs to date.

If you've got a gathering skill, please be 300 skill in it before coming to Outland. That way you can level it as you level from 60-70.

That said, get out there and level. The quests in Outlands are located in a few quest hubs for the most part. Get a bunch, group them as best you can and get out there and do them. Keep an eye out for dungeon quests and do them level appropriate. A nice change from the "Old World" is that most dungeon quests are picked up right outside the dungeon. And there's usually only 2 or 3 for a particular instance.

Here's my guidance on when you can do certain dungeons.

• Hellfire Ramparts & Blood Furnace - 58-60
• Slavepens & Underbog - 61-63
• Auchenai Crypts - 64-66
• Mana Tombs - 66-67
• Old Hillsbrad/Durnholde - 67-68
• Setthek Halls - 68-70
• Shadow Labyrinth - 70
• Shattered Halls - 70
• Steamvaults - 70
• Black Morass - 70
• Mechanar, Botanica, Arcatraz - 70

Another thought. When you hit 68, PLEASE go to Karazhan in Deadwind Pass (by Darkshore/Swamp of Sorrows) and do the pre-requisite quests for Karazhan attunement. You'll very quickly get to collecting key fragments from Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvaults & Arcatraz. If you have the quests the first time you go in there, you'll be better off.

During the 60-70 grind you should be saving money for mounts. If you already have your epic ground mount, you're that much ahead. If not, you'll need to buy that. But at 70, you need to have the 900 gold for flying mount & training. All of the Tempest Keep Instances (Mechanar, Botanica, Arcatraz) are locked out unless you can fly up to them. Summoning doesn't work. Which effectively puts a cap on your progress until you can get the mount. See my articles on mounts for more information

My Favorite Place

Lately I've seen a lot of guild chat that starts with "Hey anyone want to help out in Gnomer/Dead Mines/Black Fathom Deep/etc.?" For most of these I answer to myself (silently in my head) "I'd rather gouge out my own eyes with a rusty bottle opener." Which, when put into guild chat becomes "Can't help right now, farming primal air."

But it made me start to think--What dungeon or instance (or raid) would actually get me to respond in the positive and why? If anyone recognizes the tiny photo the quick answer to the first part is "Blackrock Depths." The second part I'm still not sure of.

I like BRD because it feels like an epic movie I guess. There's just a TON of quests to do in there and chaining the appropriate quests together can lead you to several (I count 3 minimum) times that you wind up inside. Part of what makes it epic, I think, is the lore. So many different story lines get advanced in BRD. And for someone that ranks content as high on their list, BRD is the perfect instance.

I also like the types of mobs you fight in there. Mostly humanoids, a few elementals, some beasts. Nothing too esoteric or non-controllable by most parties. (Compare to, say, Dire Maul East. Your CC options there are banishes or ice traps. Pretty darned specific group makeup). I like BRD also because of the mix of scripted encounters (the arena) and puzzles. By puzzles, I don't mean solving them is required to move on but rather doing things in a specific order makes them easier. BRD is also the first instance (that I know of) that can have a real chance to drop purple items.

I guess the last reason I like BRD is the difficulty seems about right. The gap in BRD is also wide enough that back in the day, you could forseeably spend 10 levels or more inside. I know the idea is to narrow the level gap for dungeons, at least from Blizzard's stand. But I like the fact that different parts of BRD were able to be completed as you leveled. It's also damned cool that there's a quest you can't even acquire unless you're a ghost. Clever!

I guess the last thing is it's probably not a "run-through-able" dungeon. In that one 70 couldn't reliably take a boatload of lowbies through all alone. Thus I'll not have to run it in that way. The 70 would have to be only one part of a full group.

I know. BRD is too long. It takes, if you added all trip times together, probably 13-15 hours to complete. But the positives for me in terms of lore, mob composition, difficulty and encounter types far far outweigh the negatives.

But that's just me. And no, guildmates, don't start spamming for BRD run throughs. You don't want to make me hate my favorite instance now, do you?

10-man raids are not merely 2 5-man groups

(Extra bonus post since I promised to post this on yesterday's entry and then got distracted by the herbs)

My guild has had its share of drama over Karazhan. We started running it sometime in late April. Unfortunately, at the time, our raid leader wasn't really in tune with what we felt the guild was about. The vast majority of the guild was very much casual. We'd run together if we could, if not we'd find something that the rag-tag collection of folks on could do. He was a hard(ish)-core raider.

When we had 22 people (or so) sign up for raids, he was very much about making the very best, most cohesive, effective, blood-chilling group he could to take on Karazhan. But that left those not picked for this elite bad feeling chopped liverish. And the secondaries had approximately zero chance of doing anything worthwhile in there.

The guild leadership tried to moderate this by choosing groups such that both groups had decent make-up and moderate chance of success past the opera. This went, bluntly, not so well. About 15 /gquits later, we were a shell of ourselves and not able to attack Karazhan at all (even though we'd previously cleared through the Maiden).

The next thing the guild tried was an alliance with a more powerful guild who was routinely moving beyond the Curator. Unfortunately, our bad luck continued and this "alliance" wasn't interested in anything but them absorbing our guild. Strike two.

We made a few halfhearted attempts at Kara, eventually getting ourselves into position to routinely challenge the Curator. Then about a third of the raid group quit for reasons of their own. Still in guild but not logged in for about 6 days at a time. One of the tanks respecced arms.

Now we're at the present. Woefully short on tanks and healers, but having an adequate group to give it a shot. On our most recent excursions we've reliably cleared Attumen but Moroes has evaded us. Unfortunately, many of the attendees are recent eager 70s. But not the kind of gear you'd expect to be downing Attumen. They lack..badly. However, a string of Moroes at under 20% shows we've got the spunk and guts to try it, I'm afraid the gearcheck thing is going to beat us for a while.

This brings me to the most recent development in the guild. Several of the guys who are new to the raid are suggesting we put Karazhan on a back burner and instead do some 5-man heroics. They go on to say that getting folks together for Karazhan is hard, and the experience we gain as a constantly changing group of heroic instancers should more than make up for our lack of gear.

Having done heroics, I'm not so sure. In most heroics I've been in there's only a single healer (maybe a backup for tough fights) and clothies die pretty much arbitrarily. And maybe it's just me but I find Attumen and crew (up through the Opera) to be somewhat easier than most of the 5-man heroics. Granted I haven't been on all of them and made the mistake of doing Mana Tombs as my first heroic, but it just doesn't seem like its worth it to do heroics at the cost of not doing Karazhan. And the elite drops that I'm sure are enticing lots of folks drop from bosses that are WAY harder in heroic than anything I've seen (in my limited experience) in Karazhan.

I dunno.