Faction Champs Explained

There is a great post up at Maintankadin (great resource for pally tanks). It explains the basic mechanics behind the faction champs fight. Check it out here.

So how was Maly you ask? Well

Actually not too bad we got to phase 3 on every try and we got him down to 10-11% on a couple tries but we really just need to work out phase 3 but I think we are close to getting it down. We just need to stick together better and move out of the lightning balls faster. Except for one try we made it to phase 3 with everyone still standing every time (I tried pulling Maly away from a spark and killed my raid leader on the other one, sorry Swan). We are going to go back tonight and finish him off. I am confidant we'll get him down first or second try actually as long as we get everybody back. It was actually a pretty fun raid even if we didn't kill him.

So I'm gonna tank Maly tonight

This will be new. I have never been in yet and haven't even watched a vid on it in a long time because my old guild quit raiding, so tonight I will watch a refresher. I do know the basics of the encounter with the 3 phases and all the movement and the dragon riding at the end. I usually do pretty good in the vehicle fights (lets not mention that FL from a couple weeks ago alright). I am pretty excited actually and hopefully we'll get a bunch of people their Champion of the Frozen wastes titles tonight (better late then never right). I didn't actually get in very much gaming over the weekend as Saturday had my uncles birthday and Sunday helped a buddy move. I have gotten my long forgotten hunter about halfway through 78 and I am really enjoying it. It took leveling one hordeside to make me remember how much fun playing my hunter really was. Its really weird because he was my second 70 and now he'll end up being my sixth 80 (hey remember laid off over the summer played alot of wow). I don't know what I'll do with him at 80 but I'll figure that out. I am starting to level a few alts on my new server but I am starting to consider maybe transferring a couple of my 80's over because it would be nice to have some full grown alts to help me out. I just am not sure what I want to do honestly. I guess I'll just see how it goes.

I missed last nights raid

It was about 15 min before I got out of work that I started getting a headache. I went home and it wasn't getting any better. I took a couple Tylenol and went to bed for a couple hours. I really enjoy raiding with my new guild and they really are a great bunch so I hope they got going good without me I just wasn't up to it last night. I don't even know what the plan is for this weekend yet so I may not have any good Wow stories to tell next week (quiet back there, I know where to find you, OK not really but it sounds better if you say that.) I am really looking forward to getting back into Ulduar and making some progress. I think we can probably get Hodir and Auriya with some practice. Maybe even start working on keepers.

I don't know anything about Enhance Shaman's but..

If you do or are curious about the mechanics behind them I just read a very interesting post over at Big Hit Box about weapons that was really surprising to me.

In other news, we finished our Naxx from Thursday last night and steamrolled through the last wing and Saph and KT like nobodys business. I couldn't get enough people interested in a Voa though so I called it a night after that. There was a group of people going through Gnomer instead for the lowbies.

It's Monday again??

I'm tired, but that's not that unusual. We ran a couple of raids this weekend. We did an aborted Ulduar on Saturday which with a bunch of Halloween stuff going on involved just 3 bosses, but I just have to say I suck driving the siege engine. I have been driving demolisher's the last few weeks which is no big deal and I think I have a pretty good handle on that. Well trying to be bait for the boss is a whole new ball game and I don't know what to do I get targeted and I try to run away but I get blown up in super fast time. I can't get away from him I am just getting destroyed super fast. I died all three times in very short order. Luckily the rest of raid knew what they were doing without me so on the third try they got it down no thanks to me. I may have to watch some vids on that because I r failboat at that part. XT and Razorscale seemed to go pretty smoothly on my end but somebody else may have had another opinion. Sundays ToC was a exercise in slow learning. I had watched the vids through Faction champs because I was pretty sure that's as far as we would get because that's the kind of fight I usually would say is a struggle to learn. Well I was right we made it that far and thats where we got stuck. Unfortunately it took us a ton of tries on Northrend Beasts and a couple wipes on Jarraxus to get that far. I was a little disappointed actually because since I had switched over we had really done a good job on most fights and making good progress on stuff we were trying to learn. Well Northrend beasts really took the heart out of us I think. We had to make some roster changes early and went to a 3 healer setup and we made incremental progress. It was a very slow learning progress but we finally got them down. I'm glad we got in though because at least now a bunch of people have seen it and we should have a much easier time the next time we go.

Last nights raid and the Icecrown Radiance thing

First off last nights raid was kind of a pushover. We rolled through 3 wings of Naxx like we know what were doing, well because we kinda do. My favorite part was tanking the adds on Gluth because I'd never done that before and rounding up Zombie Chow is actually pretty fun. My least favorite part was missing the jump on Thaddius 3 TIMES!! (grrrr). I felt like such an idiot. Luckily we were coasting through and I was lucky enough to get the jump finally and not wipe us all on a polarity shift but still. We DE'd a ton of stuff because not very many people really need anything out of there anymore and we might need to think about making Thursday an Ulduar night and leave Naxx as an offnight raiding thing for alts and fun runs or achievements. But I'll leave that up to the higher ups. I just go where they point and smash my shield into monsters. It is good to run though to get some raiding experience for and good practice so who knows. I really like the progress we are making and I think with a good push we could really start banging Ulduar out and run through it just like we do Naxx. We also ran the H daily which was H Toc and I don't think our raid leader knew that when she brought her priest in because she didn't seem confidant about it but other than a couple wipes on Paletress (which without a shaman can happen to anybody because of that stupid fear) we moved through it pretty good and got some upgrades for people which is always nice.
OK, Icecrown Radiance or whatever the chill thing is called. I actually am going to be in the minority on this one and say its probably a good thing. Obviously its an artificial factor to make the encounters harder but I think it has even more to do with the changes they are going to be making with stat allocations in the next expac and I think if you know what your doing its not going to effect the outcomes its just a debuff and I hope it makes the encounters easier to balance and so they are fun and exciting. Its not going to keep anybody from trying to kill Arthas so might as well just get over it and keep gearing up for the showdown.
K Out!