Wish they'd make up their minds...

Multi-shot damage has been reduced. It now deals 120% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 137%.

Anyone else tired of having Multi-Shot damage changed each patch?

I have to be perfect to kite on Magmaw as it is; a nerf is going to make it that much harder... all I can do is hope that I'll still have enough aggro from a full Focus bar to make it work as MM.

Well, either that or start trying to get better gear from the new raiding tier so that it won't matter :P

Impressions of the Zandalari Uprising

So far, ZG has been a lot more fun for me than ZA, purely because it's changed so much.

It also seems more of a challenge, since the last two bosses are where most PuGs (and even guild groups) fall apart.

In fact, I haven't even killed Jin'do the Group-breaker in a guild group yet; the PuG stat bonus helped with both of my kills.

However, there's one thing I did take away from a guild ZA run that I find interesting: a taste of how fun it can be to work things out for yourself.

It's really a little like the elite soloing runs I do - wipe until you figure out the right way to do things.

On my first foray into ZA with a guild group, we went in "blind" (not reading the strats) and figured we'd work out any changes from the old 10man raid on the way.

After wiping a few times on the lynx boss before realizing that we didn't need to spend valuable DPS time on killing the water totems, our priest was still having a little trouble keeping us alive, running out of mana and losing clothies in particular to the cat spirit.

I idly clicked on a totem to read the buff description after biting the dust during one attempt and said, "Hey , what happens if you actually stand next to the totem?"

Of course, once we figured out that the water totems actually gave our priest practically unlimited mana and also helped to keep the DPS alive during the split phase, the fight was a breeze.

Sure, we could have saved ourselves the repair bill by reading up beforehand, but I'm really glad we didn't - it made me feel a tiny bit like being in those top guilds that do this type of thing all the time, figuring out how to kill bosses when there aren't any strats to read.

I mean, I know it wasn't much - the healing circle the dragons in Vortex Pinnacle leave on the floor is a similar concept - but it still felt like a huge lightbulb moment when we figured it out!

Back in Business

After weeks of respeccing to Survival for Magmaw in Blackwing Descent, Patch 4.1 finally made the Multi-Shot change I was looking for: a big enough buff to MM AoE that I would be able to kite parasites.

Although my Focus management needs to be absolutely perfect to pull it off, I'm ecstatic to report that I can now afford to stay MM for this fight, meaning I can stop feeling annoyed at having to respec every week and our raid leader can stop feeling guilty for wanting me to do it, even though it was my choice in the first place!

Well that's depressing...

***QUEST SPOILER***

The poor dragon entrusts her last egg to you with her dying breath, and you send it in to fight and "die" for you? Yeesh.

Holiday raiding time 2: Bigger Challenges

In fact, the biggest:

I grabbed a couple of guildies (a mage and hunter) to make the fight quicker, but it took over a hundred gold in repairs before I managed the trick of swimming backwards and making tiny adjustments to kite the enormous Whale Shark - WITHOUT a range mod.

Yes, I'm aware that it would have been a lot easier if I had installed some sort of range check (too close and the Whale Shark 1-shots you for about 1,000,000 damage, too far and it resets - the range you need to stay in is supposedly 6-20yrds)... but hey, I hate mods and use as few of them as possible; why start adding to the list now?

Besides, I've now proved that I can do it, so nyah to everyone who thinks it's impossible to do this Achievement without one :D

Holiday raiding time

It's that time of year again - school holidays, the Easter looooong weekend, the official Raiding Break.

And, of course, the absolute best time to get all the stuff in WoW done that you can't do during a regular raiding week due to lack of time: raiding Achievements, lowbie quests, reputation grinds, fun retro raids... and dungeon soloing.

My only "wipe" was on the Chess event while I figured out how things work, and the only other minor trouble was Netherspite before I figured out that I had to kill it within one round of portals, otherwise having the green beam debuff meant the dragon went back up to full HP.

Definitely need more of a challenge next time round... perhaps I should try a couple of bosses in Naxx! :)

We beat our record

My 2v2 partner and I have had our share of long Arena matches.

Back in the days when mana drain was a common tactic, we started taking screenshots of the time it took to win; 21min ended up being the highest, against a mirror match (pally/hunter).

However, this new record takes the cake: 45min, the current Arena match time limit.

Sure, we didn't win (in fact, both teams lose rating when a draw happens) and unfortunately I don't have any proof (it automatically ported us out almost immediately after the match came to a close)... but I still think it was a damn good effort.

I hope we get that team again in future - losing is one thing, a draw just makes me keen to try again, because I know we can beat them! :)

New but Not So Shiny

I periodically go through my WoW screenshot folder, rename all the screenshots and store them in folders so I can find them again if I need them.

After sorting through 10 or so of the Algalon fight I did couple of weeks ago, I've realized something - I have nowhere near as many screenshots of the new content than pre-Cataclysm content.

I mean, I know Algalon is quite a visually exciting fight; there's a very pretty celestial theme going on. However, I've hardly taken any screenshots of Cataclysm raids at all - probably a couple in Throne of the Four Winds, but that's about it.

I'm not sure if it's because the raid zones just aren't visually interesting, or because I'm not interested in general... but either way, I hope something stands out in raids soon, otherwise I'm not going to have any good screenshots from the first Cataclysm raid zones at all!

Why doesn't Blizzard hire this guy as a Game Tester?!

Jider the rogue has done it again, on bosses I never thought could be soloed: Twin Emps and C'thun.

I would never have come up with the idea of pulling another boss into C'thun's room to port you out of the stomach... pure genius. If Blizzard wants a bug tester, surely this guy should be on the top of their list to hire - how many people would have come up with that solution?!

The things that surprise you

I joined an Ulduar 25man PuG today to try and get my Glory of the Ulduar Raider Achievement.

Usually these PuGs are terrible - someone stuffs up an Achievement, people get annoyed and leave, the raid breaks up at the later bosses, people roll need on everything...

Although this raid had a rogue that rolled need on quite a few items ("for repairs" - as if the rest of us didn't have the same repair bill) - the rest of the run was actually not bad.

Mimiron was where everyone really impressed me; the raid leader had stuck a symbol on his head and told everyone at specific points in the fight to stand together and everyone did - some guild raids I've been in haven't had such a tightly formed pack.

Vezax took a couple of wipes, but Yogg 1 Light was a one-shot, even with people entering portals that hadn't seen the fight at all. Algalon was a one-shot too, even with me spending half the time taking screenshots.

...and I am now the proud owner of another Proto-drake. Woo!