LOLCrystal

I took plunge and accepted the PvP arm of the Kirin Tor dailies the other day.

Here I was, thinking I'd get some World PvP action with this beacon of light shining the way, and what happens? Zip. Nada.

At one point I sat AFK in the outer Horde camp where the wards are installing Mumble and having a long chat in /whispers and no-one even glanced my way.

I suppose I should have remembered the not-so-epic Silithyst fiasco - not to mention that I'm on Proudmoore, one of the most Alliance-heavy servers (particularly at Oceanic peak time) - but still, a rather zzz-worthy experience.

Oh well, back to the PvE set I go! :P

Oondisaster

Oondasta is the most ridiculously hilarious world boss fight I have ever seen.

Because of Faction tags - in that your entire Faction shares a mob tag whether you're in the raid that started hitting the mob first or not - what should be a heroic NPC fight only to be attempted by the server's most progressive guilds turns into a case of fire ants devouring an elephant while it's still alive.

I can only be glad that the rez timer only goes to 2min, because I'm sure mine would have gone up to half an hour as the last arrow hit Oondasta, who by that time was buffed with 30 stacks of Growing Fury.

What made it extra difficult was that no-one could tank from halfway through the fight - there were just too many buff stacks for anyone to last more than 1 hit and Oondasta was spinning around to hit whoever was closest. Even if you weren't in melee range, you would rez, be hit by either Piercing Roar or Frill Blast and be stuck as a ghost for another 2min.

In the end, I figured that the best time to rez was straight after a Roar, Deterrence the Frill Blast and get the most out of your DPS time before the next Roar.

The 26g reward really wasn't worth the repair bill, but the screenshots of the skeleton carpet sure was! :)

Know Your Role - Solo Cheng Bo

I know most people would be well into the new Thunder Isle quest hub, but I figured this might be useful anyway. Better late than never! :)

Know Your Role can be a difficult Achievement, particularly Cheng Bo.

Most people would suggest taking the easy way out and getting someone else to do the killing for you, but hey, we're hunters! Why not solo it instead?

The easiest way I've found to do this is to stand on the hill that overlooks Cheng Bo's hut:

From here, you can clear out the mobs around the hut from a distance without having to worry about anyone sneaking up on you. Always send your pet in first before you start DPSing except when there is an Earthtalker present.

For the Gai-Cho Earthtalkers, I would recommend hitting them with a silence or stun straight off so they dont cast Earthquake. By the time they're able to cast again, they will more than likely cast Healing Wave instead, which you can interrupt again and then finish them off.

You always need to target Earthtalkers first in the pair, because they will almost always cast Earthquake under your feet, even if your pet has the aggro.

For Cheng Bo himself, he comes with two adds, one of which is always an Earthtalker.

I would recommend first parking your pet right in front of the hut, use Misdirection, then send it in to aggro the Earthtalker and quickly pull it back out. The mobs will follow your pet out, where you can stun and silence the Earthtalker from the safety of your hill.

If you want to take a helper, take Protector Yi - he's melee and he taunts, which means he will be well out of your way if the mobs target him.

Remember that you need to not have taken damage on any of the prior quests as well and you're golden! :)

Ai-ya.... Ai-li Hurts!

Not sure when Blizzard decided to change things, but the rare Pandaren mobs around Pandaria (Ai-Li, Ai-Ran etc) that cast Spinning Crane Kick and Healing Mists used to not affect pets when casting the spin, meaning you could leave your pet in melee range and just worry about interrupting the heal.

Now, however, Spinning Crane Kick will kill your pet within a couple of seconds... and just pulling your pet back isn't quick enough.

I recommend saving Master's Call for those spins; otherwise you could probably use Dash.

Sometimes Things in WoW are Just Disturbing

I think they should have set a time limit on their moves...

I See the Light

After more than a few false starts, I finally found a PuG group that managed not to A) blow everyone off the platform or B) stand in Defile:

I'm really quite happy about that. It's not the easiest raid to PuG when there are so many abilities that will kill you - and the rest of your raid - no matter how much health you have.

Plus, it was the last Achievement I had in ICC... and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to solo or at least only need a small group to do most of the rest of the WotLK raid Achievements. Woot! :)

A Change of Playstyle

I was extremely surprised to see that Wrathion's Legendary questline - picked up and thus far carried out completely in solo PvE and raids - suddenly veered into PvP territory.

The two quests you get in this current patch (if you've been keeping up with the legendary quest chain) are A Change of Command (kill an elite with a raid group), which I expected, and The Lion Roars, which I did not.

Having next to no PvP gear due to not PvPing regularly since probably WotLK, I was rather apprehensive going into my first Battleground, particularly since I had no idea what the rules were.

As it turned out, I needn't have worried:

It only took 1 round for me to get the idea - hold the orbs for as long as possible - and 1 more round to get a win (coming back from behind, no less!).

Sure, if I was targetted I went down faster than the global cooldown, but it definitely whetted my appetite to get back into something competitive.

I especially liked the arena-style Kotmogu battleground since it's a bit of a free-for-all and can't wait to try the other new one (Silvershard Mines). I've never quite liked BGs like Alterac Valley, where you can win or lose the entire map without having touched anyone from the opposite Faction.

Happily, I've been getting through the dailies slowly and only have 2 more to go - Cloud Serpents and August Celestials - meaning I'll soon have more time for all the things I've been missing, like PvP, soloing old content and starting on that minipet collection. :)

Cracking the Vault

My guild managed to scrape a raid together this week to down not only Stone Guard, but Feng as well, with the help of 2 PuGs.

And I do mean help, because not only did they endure numerous wipes and (embarrassingly) out-DPS most of our raid - by a fairly wide margin, I might add - but they also helped to lay out strats for Feng since we hadn't looked at him previously.

I was incredibly relieved that with my newly-acquired 4pc the PuG warlock with 6 blues didn't show me up (that wouldn't just have been embarrassing on a personal level... it'd be horrifying!), but it does highlight a bigger concern that as a guild we may not have enough oomph.

With the advent of LFR and the casual raider, I feel that a tendency to be lazy has arisen - stand in fire in LFR and you probably won't die; neither will you be punished for low DPS.

Maybe it's time we all went back to raid training camp to re-learn how2play - I've made a lot more mistakes myself this expansion than I ever did in previous ones!

For Peace

After months of ranting to my guild about horrible loot luck in LFR, I've finally got my 4pc tier set.

It's rather timely considering we're starting to get the hang of the Stone Guard mechanics and really need more DPS to beat the enrage timer (I'm one of the highest-geared characters (if not the highest); the lowest DPS currently hits around 30k, so we need the boost).

Hopefully we'll get enough people to raid on Sunday so I can test my new gear out - it'd be nice if we could get a guild raid kill on the board before next patch!

Topsy-Turvy Land

***Spoiler Alert***

The more of the Shieldwall quest chain I do, the more bewildered I get with how a lot of things seem to have turned on their head.

Firstly, Jaina is acting like Varian; after the Horde razes Theramore and she realises someone in her own Kirin Tor has betrayed her Faction, she completely purges Dalaran of the Sunreavers - something that I-hate-all-Horde Varian would usually do.

Secondly, Varian is acting like Jaina; he berates her for evicting the Sunreavers because he wanted to lure them over to the Alliance - something that we-are-all-equal Jaina would usually do.

...not to mention the shock of meeting with Valeera in Dalaran and having her casually mention her late husband.

Rhonin gone? I'm a diplomat myself. Losing both Rhonin and Jaina as advocates of "world peace", as it were, is crushing. Having read Wolfheart, I've been tentatively on Varian's side for awhile now, but since he is still a fairly new character I haven't completely been taken by him.

I have to admit, I'm a little lost trying to find a character I can really follow in MoP, especially since Sylvanas has been fairly quiet (at least from an Alliance point of view). I don't know if I'll have to wait until next expansion when Alleria Windrunner shows up, but I hope not!