This little picture snippet makes me smile.

2fps might be undergoing some visual changes over the course of the next few weeks as I fuss and fret over inconsequential details, style concerns and some other things that very very few people care about besides myself. Some links may disappear from the sidebar and reappear as other links, some pages may become unavailable and then randomly return to service.

I apologize for any inconveniences that result from my fiddling and will hopefully finish making the changes I have in mind before too long. I am in process of changing residences however and that may impact the frequency of my posting and the work being done on the site’s theme.

Regular service will return as soon as possible.

Just one new rule today because I’m too focused on this issue to let it be just one of many on a list.

New Rule – Shut the hell up

A couple of pugs over the weekend helped reduce my lifespan by heightening my blood pressure and lowering my overall view of humanity.

In one, the group mercilessly and relentlessly mocked the tank in ToC5 for what one might call general “noobishness” and tomfoolery. The tank had apparently not played the game for quite some time (judging by his gear I’d say he stopped raiding before 3.1 even hit) and was quite slow and fumbling before pulling the faction champion riders. He had to be reminded to switch out his lance for an actual weapon. He then unequipped his lance and ran in to pull. Unarmed. Two dps went splat from pulling aggro pretty much instantly and the tank never equipped a weapon throughout the entirety of the fight. The healer did his best job of spewing hate at the tank even going so far as to talk about him as if he wasn’t there at all. As we continued to clear the zone it became apparent that the tank actually was just a little rusty and after a few minutes more we were collecting our Frost emblems.

The healer never let up on insulting the tank he was furiously healing.

In the second group, I joined a Violet Hold run already in progress. Immediately upon joining I was greeted with the tank saying “Man I hate black people, you aren’t black are you?” Of course I’ve cleaned up the grammar for convenience. He’s immediately joined by his guildies in the group who alternate between asking whether I’m black or simply stating I probably am and should leave the group.

There’s a chance that these idiots were just saying inflammatory things thinking they were being very very funny. There’s a greater chance in my opinion, based on some of the other things they said and did, that they were being more or less serious about their racism. Either way, wildly inexcusable.

So as I was filling out the ticket to the GM against them they decided I was afk and began dishing out ever more despicable racial slurs at me. By this point they’d already cleared through the first boss while I was filling out the ticket and then I realized it: if they were in fact trying to get a rise out of people by feigning/demonstrating their racism and seeing whether I would leave, why not make them go through the entirety of the instance getting emblems for me while I sat and played Bejeweled?

Oh the horror when they found out that they had cleared the zone too fast and the LFD debuff was preventing them from kicking me from the group on the last wave. As Cyanigosa landed I had about 40 seconds on my debuff left. It fell off when the dragon was at 15% health but they didn’t try to kick me again after the first try before they pulled the boss. I collected my Frost emblems as they gnashed their teeth and then left group.

Both groups failed miserably at treating other human beings with respect. The lesson to be learned for these people is to shut. the. hell. up. You know the saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?

Fuck that. For you people, just don’t say anything at all ever period.

The world is a lot better off when jackasses keep their idiocy and hate to themselves.

Also when they get hit by cars.

This is a crazy fight. Nocturne’s first kill came late last night and by the time Rotface’s health had hit 5% everything had started to fall apart. Little oozes were everywhere and the big ooze was kersploding and Rotface himself was of course, vomiting all over everyone.

Having been in the role of Ooze Kiter Extraordinaire for each of our attempts, I share with you now some (hopefully useful) tips on the care and management of oooooze.

Spec

I tried two different specs for this job and custom-made them specifically with the Rotface fight in mind but also serviceable for general tanking should the need to fill in for a fallen bear arise. The first one I used was a Frost spec and the second one was an Unholy spec.

Frost

The spec: 10/56/5

A two-handed Frost spec that trims out the points needed to beef up dual-wield featuring extended range howling blasts and the Improved Icy Talons buff in case your raid group needs it.

This spec played pretty much exactly how you think it would. Howling Blast on cooldown, Icy Touch if a bit more threat is needed, etc. It is what it is. Were I to use such a spec again I would go for Hungering Cold as well, honestly not sure why I didn’t.

Unholy

The spec: 13/8/50

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner to go with an Unholy spec.

Here’s what makes Unholy awesome for this fight:

• 20% less damage taken throughout the entire fight (you’re not getting hit by anything that removes a charge of your Bone Shield thus it has a 100% uptime.)
• 6% less damage taken from magic
• Stronger Anti-magic Shell

I didn’t end up using Anti-magic Zone very much even though there were moments where I could have for a few seconds I suppose. It probably isn’t worth picking up and the point could be swapped for Unholy Blight or something else to beef up the abilities you will be using. Sad because I do love me that Anti-magic Zone. Someday I’ll find a justification for taking it (besides the fact that its hella cool looking)!

Faster Pussycat, tank tank!

Despite the header for this section I don’t advise actually trying to tank the big oozes. The header was also my guild note for a long while but I never figured out why. Ashmaw, enlighten?

So now it comes to the actual kiting part. We found it easier to cleanse the debuff asap since dealing with the 50% healing reduction was just too risky. People with the debuff would run their ooze to me until it merged with the other little one at first to make the big ooze. Right around the time the first big ooze is created you’ll have a section of the floor just about to flood. Go the other way if the flooded part is close by you and strafe away from the ooze.

Ever heard of a jump-shot? Its what you should be doing with your Death Coils to keep the big oozes fixed on chasing you. Don’t know what a jump-shot is or how to do it? Let’s ask our hunter friend Pike from Aspect of the Hare!

This movie of Pike’s helped learn me to jumpshot proper-like back in the Burning Crusade and hopefully she won’t mind me linking it here. If she does mind of course, it’ll be gone right quick!

To see the original page this video comes from, head on over to Pike’s site.

So coming back to Rotface, we find ourselves strafing away from the big ooze and we’re being awesome and jump-shotting it with Death Coil and we’re very pleased with ourselves.

Uh oh. The room just flooded right in front of you and the big ooze makes turning around a bad idea. No problem. You were probably getting a little starved for runic power anyway right? Pop Anti-magic Shell and continue on through the flooded area as normal. Anti-magic Shell will nullify the slow effect of the flood and convert the flood’s damage into a full runic power bar. Blessing of Freedom is pretty handy too if you’ve got a paladin in the raid. Yeah, I still call it Blessing of Freedom. Deal with it.

Remember also that if you’re dealing with a stubborn little ooze who won’t play nice and merge with the big ooze you can hit it with Chains of Ice to make sure it gets eaten up. To clarify what kinds of snares and taunts are effective against which ooze type here’s a reminder.

Little ooze

• Immune to taunt
• Immune to Death Grip (both the taunt and the pull)
• Susceptible to Chains of Ice and other roots and slows

Big ooze

• Susceptible to taunt
• Susceptible to Death Grip (the taunt effect, wasn’t drunk enough to try pulling it closer)
• Immune to Chains of Ice and other roots and slows

If I’ve missed anything or got anything wrong (I never get anything wrong, ever) just holler at me! Good luck on your own attempts at this guy!

A long time ago, just before patch 2.4 came out, there was an epic post on the raids and dungeons forums on the official WoW boards. Despite the obvious ego issues in the post its still the funniest WoW post I’ve ever read. I went looking for the thread again recently but found that it no longer exists on the WoW boards. Luckily I found a copy on the interwebs and now, that I may always preserve a copy, I present it to you here.

Again, what follows is not my own work, credit goes to a fury warrior in a guild called Simple Math.

So you’re off to BT/Hyjal (A Guide for bads) is brought to you in part by:

Simple Math JewelCrafting Services, Your ONLY source for BT Gems until 2.4: Speak to Grouch For Availabity and Pricing,

The Corporation for Public Forum Posting,

AND

Readers like You!

Kael Got you down? Vash not your cup of tea? Fear not young baddie, you will soon be entering the dynamic world that is Black Temple and Mount Hyjal raiding. So pack your flasks and lets hop right in:

PART 1:

THE BATTLE OF MOUNT HYJAL

In this exciting 25 man raid zone you will engage the legions of (bad guy) and protect the forces of (good guys) also this instance has the awesome pacing mechanic of 8 waves of trash before every boss attempt. You will love it. Now lets take a look at the encounters:

Rage Winterchill:
After 8 waves of slaying exciting and dynamic pacing mechanisms, you will do battle with Rage Winterchill, who you may have met before in your adventures to Scholomance. He hits nearly as hard as the guy in Scholomance, so make sure you have at least 1 person Bandaging the Main Tank every minute. He will also periodically do an ability called death and decay which kills retards, but dosent cause your raid to wipe. In addition he will shoot an iceblock at random raid members, you should heal this person unless they are a fury warrior in which case you should refresh blessing of salvation on him instead and let him die (this is Simple Math’s strategy and we win every week) Collect your 20th pair of mail healing bracers and prepare for:

Anetheron:
Another 8 waves of pure bliss will lead you to the next exciting encounter with this dynamic and challenging boss. He has a conal attack that gives you a debuff that reduces your healing done by alot, so make sure everybody stacks up. He also puts people to sleep, but dont worry because according to bosskillers you can probally tremor totem and WOTF out of it. Anetheron also drops Mans from the sky, if you kill them they die. After his exciting and dynamic death animation, you will recive purpals and then you get to see the guild miners strut their stuff as they consistently fail to mine crimson spinels. This brings you to the horde camp and:

Khaz Rogal:

After some Trash waves that are both filled with excitement and rife with dynamism, you will get to fight Khaz Rogal, who is a fearsome big guy with cataclysms edge. The goal for this fight is for every caster to spend all of his or her mana as quickly as possible so that they can quickly attend to the buisness of blowing up their raidmates. If your DPS dosent suck, you will win. Next Comes:

Azgalor:

You wont beat the azgalor trash, but you shouldnt worry because, he drops leather healing chest and double vanquisher 100% of the time, so you arent missing much.
if you do somehow manage to beat Azgalor its time for the master of Mt Hyjal:

Archimonde:

The key to this encounteris to make sure that all the retards in your guild are playing as either hunter, shaman or druid. if anyone besides a Hunter Shaman Or Druid Dies, its a wipe. Another exciting and dynamic facet of this encounter is playing the game of “who the #*#% ran the fire through the raid!?!” and of course “who fergot to get their #*#%ing stars tears?!?!” A great way to prepare your guild for this encounter is to have all your guildies meet up in real life and kick each other in the balls repeadley, until they break down and cry. Collect your t6 helms except for your main tank because his t4 one is better.

Stay tuned for part 2: THE BLACK TEMPLE

PART 2: BLACK TEMPLE (THE EXCITING AND DYNAMIC FIRST HALF)

Black temple is the home of Illidan, he is in a guild called < The Betrayer >, You cannot enter in the front gate, because its locked, so instead you must enter through the sewer, which is gross. While waiting for your raid to form, you can play the exciting game of repeadlley aggroing doomwalker on a flying mount, causing him to yell at the entire zone. The lvl 68’s nearby will either threaten to repeort for for spamming in general chat or send you wispers asking to join your doomwalker raid, both should provide suitable entertainment while you wait for people to hearth and come back because they fergot their SR neck. okay Now that everyone is here prepare for the first Boss:

The Trash pack In Najentus’ Room(you know the one):

Although not technically a “boss” by conventional gaming standards, this pull is far harder then the three lootbags that follow it, requiring raid coordination, strong healing, and actual Skill from the Tanks, needless to say it is exciting and dynamic. Possibly collect your epics or lvl 67 greens of spirit, and prepare to face:

High Warlord Najentus:

This guy was a high warlord Pre BC, that means he smells incredibly bad from grinding BG’s 19 hours a day, as a result he now lives in the sewer. He also has a seashell for an arm. I think You can Draw your own conclusions. Whats most exciting and dynamic about this encounter is listening to it on vent when you arent in the raid, in no time “THROWIT-THROWIT-THROWIT-THROWIT-THROWIT-THROWIT-THROWIT-THROWIT” will be a word in your vocabulary, look foward to that. Collect your purps and head over to:

Supremus:

One of the truths that trancend WOW raiding across many dungeons of all types and sizes is: Dont Stand in the Fire. With this encounter, blizzard has introduced a new twist to the classic fire, with an alluring Blue tint thats sure to entrance even your most hardened veteran raider. I Also read this fight has phases. Resist the beautyful glow for about 6 minutes, collect your loot and make your way over to the next jok…err boss:

Shade Of Akama:

If you diddnt know, I play a fury warrior, and as a result i have no clue what the strategy for this boss is. As far as im concerned its hit the small guys until they go away then hit the big guy, This seems to work well for me. If you dont play a melee DPS class you might have to try here, but I doubt it. Collect your epics and get ready for:

Teron Gorefeind:

The key to this fight is prayer. Before attempting this boss, everyone in the raid take a 15 minute break to adress their diety of choice. Their request is simple: Please dont let THAT GUY get Marked for Death. if everyone prayed hard, this fight should be extremeley easy, everyone goes about their merry way hitting things, healing things, killing ghosts, and collecting loots. However if your raid diddnt pray hard enough THAT GUY will get marked for death, possibly followed by THAT OTHER GUY, causing a whole bunch of skeletons to run into the raid and 23 people to groan loudly on vent, this simply means you diddnt try hard enough with your prayer, human sacrafice is also an option. Once your bloodthirsty gods have had their fill of human hearts, you can collect your elemental shaman totem and thrown weapon (YOU DISERVE IT!).

Keep Your Eyes peeled for the 3rd and FINAL Installment.

PART 3: BLACK TEMPLE (THE STUNNING CONCLUSION[not really])

If your bad guild has made it this far, you may be on the verge of moving from being one of the better bad guilds to being one of the worse mediocre guilds. This accomplishment is not to be taken lightly, celebrate your achivements! but dont get too cocky, as many exciting and dynamic challenges await!

Gurtogg Bloodboil:

You are in a Guild. In your Guild There are Shamans. In your Shamans’ Spellbook There is a Button. This Button is called Brain Heal. In ye olde timey days of yore, healers in MMO’s had to engage in the laborious task of selecting the targets they wished to heal. But those days are over thanks to the stunning healing technology available to every shaman in the form of Brain Heal (It does the thinking for you!). Employ the Brain Heal and recive epics from this boss. Another fun thing about this encounter is that you get to use amplify magic, I dont know exactly what is fun about that, but I always like having amplify magic, its like a little white hand waving hi to you for the entire encounter. Perhaps I am losing my mind(although these are no longer necessary for raiding thanks to brain heal).

Reliquary Of Souls:

Things that Will Wipe you on Reliquary of Souls(100% true wipes):
1) Shadow Word Death Crit
2) Fatfingered Kick
3) Left Healthstone in My Other Bag
4) Shadow Word Death Crit
5) Vent Arguement Over which face Essence OF Souls Poops From
6) Not enough RAAAAAAGGGEEEE to Spell Reflect
7) Shadow Word Death Crit

Mother Sharazrazaz:

Phase 1 of this fight is 2-3 weeks long and involves farming trash for heart of darknesses.
Phase 2 of this fight is 1 week long and involves attuning a leatherworker to Black temple so that you can craft leather Shadow Resist Gear
Phase 3 of this Fight has been Intentionally Left Blank
Phase 4 of this fight requires players to equip their shadow resist gear and turn their spell detail level all the way down
Phase 5: ?????
Phase 6: Profit

INTERMISSION FOR THE WORST DESIGNED TRASH MOB EVER: 1-SHOT the ROBOT

Illidari Council:

All thoughout your World Of Warcraft Raiding Career, you have been preparing for this fight, From Magmadar to Magtheredon, Ragnaros to Rage Winterchill, you have learned not to stand in bad things. Well My friends its time for all that experence to pay off because Illidari council is the SUPER BOWL OF NOT STANDING IN THINGS! this fight has So many things not to stand in including: Concencrate, Blizzard, Flamestrike, the general area around the mage guy and much much more. The other amazing thing about this fight is that whenever someone dies no matter how early or late or how preventable or unavoidable their death, that person is 100% guranteed to claim that their healthstone was on cooldown. Cherish these moments folks, you only live once.

stay tuned for part 4 the REAL REAL STUNNING CONCLUSION: ILLIDAN THE BETRAYER

PART 4: ILLIDAN THE BETRAYER AND ASSOCIATED PROPERTIES OF BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT CORPORATION ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Well congratulations baddies, you are just 1 step away from the end of the pve raiding line. This ones for all the marbles and after its all over, you will have walked away with the privlage of saying “I, [your name here] have SLAIN Illidan” Your WoW forum trolling potental will be heightened considerably, your epeen will be legthened likewise, and may also experence some increased girth. Now that i have piqued your interest heres how you do it:

First Impressions: Illidan is Tiny

For the Boss of the whole goddam game, Illidan is really freaking small, this is GAURANTEED to be your official first impression. Your secoond impression will be that illidan dosent care that you /dance or /train at him. Once Illidan starts his speech, you will have your third impression…..actually let me stop myself here, you are probally expecting me to make some wisecrack regarding your level of preparedness for this encounter, I wont engage in such petty tomfoolery, instead let me state for the record that your duplicity….is hardly suprising.

Phase 1: Chillin with Illin

The Fight Will Start and You Will notice one thing quickly: He hits HARD. Use your phase 1 attempts to get the sheer joy of wiping to runaway parasitic infection out of your system. If you are melee DPS on this fight you will quickly observe that Illidan jumps really high, but fear not, as hitting the air where his body just was does the same amount of damage as hitting illidan himself. Once your Mages l2frost nova and your tank l2sheild block, its time for:

Phase 2: Dinner is Served.

Chef Illidan has prepared a special meal for your raid: The Flames of azzinoth, and he encourages you to have a taste, but I would personally advise against it unless you are wearing full FR gear. Fans of bright colors will ejoy this phase: featuring Neon Green Fire, neon Blue Lazers, and Neon Blue Fire behind the Neon Blue lazers! As per WoW Raiding rule 47.2(b) You still Shouldnt stand in the fire. This phase is also where your warlock tank reveals he fergot to equip his Shadow Res Gear.

Phase 3: Like Phase 1 But Different!

Phase 3 Is an exciting and dynamic phase that is exactly the same as phase 1 except for something called agonozing flames. In order to not get agonizing flames you have to spread out. As a result your raid leader will spend phase three yelling on vent “SPREAD OUT” and “HEY SPREAD THE !#!% OUT” Eventually Illidan will get tired of his incessant whining and decide to start Phase 4:

Phase 4: Our Warlock Tank is French Canadian

Phase 4 is where Illidan gets Huge, everyone runs away from him, then you hope that you dont get demoned. You also have to spread out (when do you NOT have to spread out?). When other people get demoned you mess with their heads and pretend you arent going to kill it until it gets really close then you execute it, or at least thats what I do. If YOU get demoned you say something to the effect hey I got demoned, and then hope that you are well liked.

Phase 5: ITS A TRAP!

When Illidan reaches 30% Everyone Gets a sweet shadow bubble thing and then some guy with a hula hoop comes and talks crap to illidan. Then Hula Hoop guy runs someplace hilariously inconvienent such as directly against the back wall and drops a trap. Now in theory these traps are for illidan, they weaken him and make him take extra damage. In reality though the traps are actually traps for your raid that mess with your positioning and cause you to wipe to parasites. Most times you just ignore the trap and kill the mans, in which case its time for:

Phase 6: The Afterglow

Congratulations on your double vanquisher, healing cloak with spellhaste, felhunter on a stick and leather Bracer pattern. You are also gauranteed to get a warglave of azzinoth, unless someone in the raid diserves one.

More Important then loot however is that now you have killed illidan you are now offically “Mr. Cool”

Try not to piss of too many “casuals” with your “2 button epics” and always remember that all your accomplishments mean nothing because they are MONTHS BEHIND.

New Rule – No more paladin shenanigans

Persuaded by Rurie, Nocturne’s wayward child, I dusted off my paladins Protection set this weekend and went to work grinding out emblems. When I started, I was still using a couple pieces of Burning Crusade items, good ones but old ones. At the end of the weekend I have 3/5 T9, a new ring, new weapon and an ingrained resentment towards the op’ness of the paladin tank.

Halls of Reflection with blues in some slots and unenchanted items? No problem. Shield breaks in the middle of said Halls of Reflection? No problem, just throw on my healy shield and faceroll to victory. First boss kills everyone in the party AND me and I just keep on battling until the boss dies? Yeah, totally happened.

Bullplop! Let’s get rid of this ridiculous new Ardent Defender and the million other tricks they’ve got going for them and bring back the days of unquestioned Death Knight superiority!

Until then, feel free to say hi to Ravhinn if you group up with me in random heroics.

New Rule – Raiding has to be done drunk

Not drunk in reality, that’s already a time-honored tradition worldwide. No, I mean drunk in game. I only recently discovered the pleasures of virtual inebriation and much like in real life, found that I tend to go a little overboard with the booze. I feel like I’m a million years late to this party but getting drunk in game really makes things interesting looking. This is me wandering the streets of Dalaran.

I like the way things look! The fish-eye lens effect, blurred details, and inability to walk a straight line is a lot of fun! Therefore, all future raiding shall be done while inebriated. In preparation for this new rule, Shay’s bags have been well-stocked. Bring on the Blood wing of Icecrown!

New Rule – I have to get a new UI

I think this one speaks for itself if you’ve ever taken a look at the screenshots I’ve posted here.

New Rule – Maraudon has to be the first victim of the Cataclysm

Heaven help you if you use the dungeon finder and get Maraudon because rest assured if you wipe even once you’ve guaranteed yourself a fifteen minute wilderness trek as you search in vain for the instance entrance. Pray you aren’t doing the waterfall section and wipe too because there’s a good chance you’ll come across the portal and won’t be able to click it while dead which will only make you wish you were actually dead in reality.

Here’s to looking forward to the cataclysm which, if there’s any justice in this universe, will sink Mara into the depths of hell where it belongs.

New Rule – Warrior ability sound effects have to stop sucking

I’ve always been a little turned off to warriors for a number of reasons. One of which is the awful sound effects they make with their abilities. While tanking I’ll run through Shield Slam, Revenge, Shield Block, Disarm and begin to wonder if my character is a poorly built steampunk-reject automaton with unoiled gears. All I need is a whistle sound and I’ll be a turn of the century locomotive. My death knight sure doesn’t sound like this. Icy Touch sounds forceful, magical and cold. Plague Strikes and Heart Strikes with their near-silent whooshing sound precise and ninja-like and the sound of Death and Decay dropping sounds like it means business.

New Rule – Putress-brand plague only

I got my fill of the abom-infested plague factory theme back in Naxx. I have to say, I’m not thrilled its back in Icecrown. I get that its a major part of Scourge Inc.’s business but they’re terrible at it. Look at what Putress was able to cook up with his alchemists. Comparing that to the Scourge’s plagues is like comparing the iPod to the Zune. You know, never mind. Let’s just skip ahead to the other wings of Icecrown and just forget about the Plagueworks entirely.

…except for the green fire room as you first enter the wing, that part is cool looking.

When I first started this blog I had grand aspirations of including a lot of math, numbers, theorycrafting, analyses, and what not about Death Knight tanking. I have a few posts with just such information sitting unpublished in my drafts folder, some with information dating back to a year ago.

Obviously if you follow this blog, you know that I actually don’t do much of that kind of posting. There’s a reason for that.

In the Burning Crusade you pretty much had to min/max the daylights out of your character if you were serious about progression raiding. Every paladin tank worth their salt knew how to figure out whether they were crushable off the top of their head and they stressed about it constantly. Heaven help those paladins who wanted to be Retribution. For that you had two spreadsheets: the spreadsheet for gear upgrades and dps estimation and the Judgements spreadsheet that calculated how much of the raid’s dps was attributable to your personal buffs. You needed the second spreadsheet to justify your raiding spot by showing your raid leader plain numbers about how much you were bringing to the table.

3.0 hit and things changed. As Nocturne ventured into Naxx we quickly found ourselves steamrolling through the place. The first night we downed Sapphiron (2nd attempt was the kill by the way) we started the night with two wings of Naxx still left to clear. I thought there was no way we could clear two wings of a whole raid instance and still have time to tackle the penultimate boss, let alone beat it. Turns out we were able to beat it with twenty minutes left to spare.

Compared to what it took to raid in BC, only a minimal amount of effort was actually required to be successful in Naxx. Sure I could still crunch the numbers to figure out if that tanking cloak from Maexxna was better than the one out of heroic Nexus but ultimately it didn’t matter which one I used.

As long as I knew the basics about what I wanted from my gear with respect to roughly how large I wanted my health pool, how much hit and expertise I wanted, etc. I could just eyeball it and do fine.

For the most part, that’s still the case today. Broad brushstrokes are all that’s required if you have a basic fundamental understanding of your class. I don’t have to stress so much about what kind of red gem to use to fulfill my meta requirements. I know I can use a guardian’s or a regal or a shifting dreadstone and be fine with whatever I choose. On my caster DPS characters I know that for the most part my priorities look like this: Hit (until capped), spell power, haste, crit, spirit, int and that will hold true more or less for my lock, my mage, and my shadow priest. Yes I could go into more detail (and I do) and no that priority list isn’t perfect but for the most part it works.

This expansion has reduced the need to go deep into numbercrunching and theorycrafting. Mind you I’m not saying you can eyeball things and do great at downing 25man hard modes. There is still very much a need for the spreadsheets and simulators. For my own purposes however, I rarely encounter a situation where I feel compelled to go run a bunch of simulations. I still do for fun and profit, but I don’t have to do it.

So I’ve slacked in my original focus here but I’m ok with it to a degree. I plan on rethinking just what kind of helpful information to post and the audience for which the information is intended but I think its safe to say that I won’t be making post after post of intense theorycrafting.

However if you are interested that sort of thing (and I certainly still am), do stop by http://pwnwear.com/ and say hi to Gravity.

DPS don’t get enough love.

I know, I know its because they’re depraved mindless drones that are fit only to drool, flood your chat window with endlessly scrolling Recount meters and respond to every strategy explanation the raid leader gives with a resounding "TL;DR lolz" but still!

Cheap shots aside, it just isn’t true that DPS don’t matter as much as healers and tanks. Give the meatshields and rejuv-bots their due, yes but don’t think for a second that elevating them beyond what they deserve while sneering down at the dps is at all right or fair.

I’m primarily a tank. Sometimes when there are multiple Bad Things to kill, my job will be to tank the one we’re killing last. This gives me a long enough time alone with the mob to really see how futile my damage output is when it comes to being able to kill that mob alone. If that mob happens to be a very dangerous one that hits like a freight train powered by the souls of the damned then I can tell you, the moment the DPS switch to my target and I see its health bar start to go down rapidly its like seeing Gandalf and the Rohirrim ride up over the horizon.

I’m prone to giving shoutouts to people I end up grouped with in random heroics on Twitter. One of the people I gave a shoutout to was Valesara from Nordrassil. Valesara is a warlock and a darn good one at that. In our Heroic Forge of Souls she topped damage meters, didn’t throw big nukes at the second boss while it was linked with the healer, helped burn down the drawn soul during the first boss fight, etc.

On top of doing great damage and playing well generally, she also buffed the party with Detect Invis so we could see the floating skulls before they aggroed to us and she did it without being prompted or asked. To top it off, when she spoke in party chat it was with full words, not abbreviated leetspeak drivel. I cannot express how appreciative I am towards this kind of DPS.

This is the kind of player that makes me balk at people saying that tanks and healers deserve more loot, praise, attention or whatever else than DPS.

Bottom line is, tanks and healers don’t burp rainbows and pixie dust and DPS don’t actually waterlog their keyboards with drool. Thank good DPS the same way you’d thank a good tank or healer and recognize that without good DPS your time playing WoW would suck.

Last night Nocturne downed Festergut on the second attempt. This comes after a series of extraordinarily brief attempts on him last Tuesday. I believe one of the biggest reasons we didn’t kill him Tuesday was because I simply got things wrong about what to expect from the encounter.

For instance, I expected a lot more of the incoming damage to be magical in nature. As it is, 80% of the damage done to the tanks in this fight is raw physical melee hits. The disease and shadow damage is so negligible as to almost not exist. As a result of this misunderstanding, healing wasn’t coordinated to match the raid’s needs and the tanks were caught with our pants down when Festergut inhaled for the third time.

So, armed with correct information and a much better idea of what to expect, we charged the gates of Icecrown again last night. We had a bit of a hiccup that cost us the first attempt and honestly I have no idea what that was anymore. The next attempt we downed him with 20 seconds to spare on the enrage timer.

How we did it

Aurorai and I (Bear and Blood respectively) were on tank duty.

Amaniita, Zenhakar and Balor (Disc, Resto shammy and Holy paladin respectively) were on heals.

Zindo and Gorrok (Assassination and Frost DK respectively) made up the melee duo.

Zulrohk, Astoreth and Zarat (Marksman, Affliction and Shadow respectively) remained at range.

The healers stacked on the melee so they would never have to move. Ranged with spores moved in to spread/receive the innoculation.

The first tank let the bloat debuff stack to 9 before the second tank taunted. For us, the second tank ended up taunting just a few seconds before the third inhalation. I think this worked out very favorably for us. Tanks called out when they were taunting so healers would be able to switch to the active tank without wasting heals. When the bloat stacked to 9 and the other tank had taunted, the tank with the bloat stacks switch to kitty form or blood presence and kept attacking.

There was one suspenseful moment where I had 9 stacks and after Aurorai taunted off me, I forgot to switch presences. I very shortly regained the top spot on Omen and looked on in dismay as I waited for the tenth and final bloat debuff to kill us all. Luckily Aurorai is always on the ball and saved us from certain doom.

At the third inhalation we blew all available cooldowns to keep the tanks up. Festergut hits for an absolutely ridiculous amount of damage after three inhalations and despite using a multitude of cooldowns I found myself hovering at 5 or 6% health a few times. Dicey business that.

Our kill was rewarded with an Abracadaver and Precious’s Putrid Collar.