[World of Warcraft]

w00t! Broodlord down Drops were:

Maladath, Runed Blade of the Black Flight

Boots of Transcendence

Bloodfang Boots

Flamemaw is going to be fun. He hits about as hard as Broodlord, pulses a fire aura that does minor DoT at first, but stacks. I does 150 initially, then 300, then 600, then 1,200, then 2,500. It also is the first boss to breath Shadow Flame -- a move that does a 4-6K intial damage + 8K DoT over 20 seconds. Onyxia's Scale Cloak lessens the initial damage *slightly* and removes the DoT portion.

Sadly, we don't have one for everyone in the guild ; ;

His breath does a piddly amount of damage at first; the MTs died on our first attempt and I was the first one he turned to (which, as a Druid with -20% threat talent meant other healers were being pussies) and it did only 600 damage. However, the first breath gives you a debuff that increases fire damage taken by 250, then 500, then 1,000, then 1,500, and finally 2,000. He likes to spam fire breaths alternated with Shadow breaths on the MTs :\

The good news is Firemaw, Flamegor, and Ebonroc are the "minor" bosses of BWL (Zircon, think of Shazz, Lucifron, and Gehennas) and once you killed one you've killed the other two basically since they act the same. Then we clear the trash shit, free Chromaggus (he's the screenshot you can see on the main site -- looks like a cross between the Dragon Footsoliders and The Beast) and stomp his ass (however long that takes), and then we'll be at Nefarion.

The rush is on for Horde side still, as last I checked there is *NO* Horde guild that has killed Nefarion...yet. Only Alliance side with their "omg it's not unbalanced" unbalanced Blessing of Salvation.

[World of Warcraft]

Weee! Ysondre, the female green dragon from the patch, spawned today in Duskwood. We ride up from Grom'Gol, get buffed up, and start going; we'd already killed Taerar and Emeriss several times so we knew the basics of the fight. The key thing on these dragons are their special move, and their 75/50/25% moves.

Her move is to spawn a legion of Druids equal to the number of half of your raid. They spam Moonfire, and occassionally toss out a 2 second silence. They're non-elites, so mages can AE them down in about 4 seconds.

She dropped my CORNCOB OF DOOM (scroll to the bottom, I have a picture posted), as well as some nice tanking shoulders for our MT. I'd say without her 25% ability (which is a joke, I'm willing to be she gets hotfixed to be harder), your guild could take her Zircon; imagine Golemagg without the adds up front basically, tank gets about 30 seconds of hate building, then everyone engages full throttle. In the event a tank goes down a new one steps in and DPS backs off for another 30 seconds. All healers just focus onhealing the tank, as the dragons hit hard -- 1,400 is the average hit, with crits floating around 5K.

[World of Warcraft]

Plus, Un'Goro is where you can start the "Legend of Zelda" series of quests.

[World of Warcraft]

lvl 54 now. which reminds me, where i should i be questing and/or grinding at this level? winterspring? also, i think i should probably do sunken temple or something.

If you're horde, there's a lot of easy quest lines around low 50s. The cauldron series in Western Plagueland is one (close to 40K), the tablets series in Azshara is another (40K again). Un'Goro has a lot of quests that are gathering but mixed in with killing quests; you'll end up full bags and have to sell a lot of shit before you complete them all (almost half a level in quest EXP alone, nevermind kill EXP).

Winterspring is gorgeous....but has very few quests. Silithus you can start questing around level 55/56 safely and actually make progress. Also, make your way to Moonglade and pickup the Silithus quests there before heading that way; it's 3 quests that nets a total of around 30K, plus you'll have the new quests that just opened up there.

If you haven't done any, there's also the Thorium Brotherhood quests in Searing Gorge, which is easily a level in itself due to sheer number of kills.

[World of Warcraft]

Come on, there is SOME tricky stuff in MC. We wiped on fire packs for months before we mastered dealing with them. Geddon was a hard fight for awhile, as was Garr. Sulfuron still can give us trouble and Domo took a few weeks. It may be an "intro" place but it's pretty demeaning to say it's no harder than scholo.

Read what I wrote again. I didn't say it wasn't harder; I said it's nothing more than the same thing as those instances *on a larger scale*.

[World of Warcraft]

Nah, MC was more or less just an introduction to a raid size group of people; it's really nothing more than clearing Scholomance or Stratholme on a larger scale.

Blackwing Lair and Zul'Gurub are examples of what the real shit's going to be like; every encounter is different and the classes don't do the same thing all the time. For examples hunters kite in Razorgore, go all out on DPS on Vael, and on the way to Broodlord melee while *very lightly* DPSing Broodlord himself in 2-5% increments due to hate being so shaky. Plus, judging from your tone you've already done ZG so you know how different it is from Molten Core.

Coming from FFXI, where *every* fucking 'boss kill' is the *exact same* I can honestly say I've not been really bored in WoW stuff. Seriously, I'd rather do Molten Core everyday then ever have to do an FFXI boss.

spam regrowth.

If I had a Druid do that in one of my raids (aside from Vael, because you have infinite mana and it's the only heal fast enough), he'd have one warning before I talked to Scott to kick his ass.

[World of Warcraft]

wow, more 40-50 player max level raid instances. Woopey fucking do.

They should've gone the ZG route, imo far more engaging than spamming autoshot on a mob for 5 hours at a time.

Then roll another class. The raid size doesn't determine the difference in the encounters, the dungeon does.

[World of Warcraft]

And now for something... TOTALLY UNRELATED!!!

World of Warcraft - THE BURNING CRUSADE

The "Burning Crusade"

Illidan has gone insane, and already the alliance between the Draenei, Naga, and Blood Elves has began to crumble. The Naga once again wish to return to the sea, and the Blood Elves' hunger for demonic energies increases day by day... Illidan was tortured by Kil'jaeden after he failed to defeat Arthas - but finally, Kil'jaeden saw another task for Illidan. One that, if he failed, he would be sent into the twisted nether to be consumed by demons... Kil'jaeden then told him everything that had happened since his defeat.

As unexpected as it was, Illidan returned to his three allies and told them of this new plan to destroy not only the Scourge, but all other enemies that would ever oppose them.

Kael'thas and his Blood Elves were to go to the Forsaken for aid. Though they were undead, Illidan explained that their leader was a High Elf - Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, General of Quel'Thalas... or, used to be, anyways. Kael'thas saw this as a great advantage, as he had personally known her in the past. Though their hatred of the Trolls and Orcs was strong, Illidan told them of the new plague they were creating - to kill not only the Alliance, but the Horde as well.

Illidan told the Draenei of the pact with the Alliance they would have to make. He told them that this Alliance would aid in the slaying of the remaining orcs, the Draenei's most hated enemy. Reluctantly, Akama, leader of the Draenei, agreed to this, though only because they were in debt to Illidan for saving them from being destroyed by orcs years ago.

The Naga were to go into the sea of Azeroth, and cripple the Scourge of Northerend by sneaking in, killing groups of Scourge, and fleeing back to the sea before the Scourge's main forces could catch them. Eager to return to the oceans of Azeroth, Lady Vashj and the Naga agreed to this almost immediately.

Blood Elves have made an alliance with the horde by becoming Allies of Sylvanas. The Blood Elves also have claimed to the orcs to want to be rid of the demonic powers corrupting them, and that they wanted to be redeemed of the dark powers they once tried to harness. The orcs, though slowly and unsure, finally accepted the Blood Elves. In turn, the Tauren and Trolls also followed the example of the Undead and the Orcs, and accepted the Blood Elves as part of the new Horde.

Akama went to the Night Elves to plead. They told them of the demonic orcs that had forced them from their homeland, Draenor, and that they wish for an alliance against the Horde. The Alliance, though suspicious of the Draenei true intentions, has accepted the Draenei plead for an alliance.

Soon after Kael, leader of the Blood Elves, Lady Vashj, leader of the Naga, and Akama, leader of the Draenei, had left Outlands, Kil'Jaeden once again imprisoned Illidan within the Black Citadel and closed the Dark Portal to Azeroth... The Blood Elves, Naga and Draenei were meant to never return.

In the Royal Throne Room of Undercity, Sylvanas entered with many of her most powerful guards at her side. She had found out of the betrayal of Varmithras, and that the natherizim Balnazzar still lived. To her surprise, many undeads had already been slaughtered in the Throne Room... and Varmithras was nowhere to be found.

A dark Nightmare has enveloped the Emerald Dream, slowly corrupting it. Rumors have emerged that Archimonde has found his way into the Emerald Dream by using the powers of the World Tree before he died...

Max Level Increased

The max level players may now reach has been increased to 75, and many new max-level raid instances have been added to the game world.

New Races

Horde

Five races compromise the Horde, the brutal orcs, the shadowy undead, the spiritual tauren, the quick-witted trolls, and the reckless blood elves. Beset by enemies on all sides, these outcasts have forged a union tey hope will ensure their mutual survival.

Blood Elves

Serving Illidan to satiate their magical addiction, the blood elves have grown stronger than they ever imagined. But even now, with demonic magic in constant supply, many of the blood elves are hungering for even more magic.

Racial Traits:

Demonic Corruption - Due to their corrupted blood and their hunger for magic, the Blood Elves begin the game with +10 resistances to all types of magic. In Addition, all of their resistances to magical spells and effects, excluding Nature, are increased by 8%.

Available Classes: Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Priest, Warlock, Spellbreaker

Alliance

The Alliance consists of five races: the noble humans, the adventurous dwarves, the enigmatic night elves, the ingenious gnomes, and the mysterious draenei. Bound by a loathing for all things demonic, they fight to restore order in this war-torn world.

Draenei

Nearly wiped out by the Orcs during the early days of the Horde and then faced with the destruction of their entire world, the Draenei have become adept at survival and avoiding danger. Even knowing that the Burning Legion is the ultimate cause for their suffering, the Draenei survivors hope that their pact with the Alliance, and Illidan, will someday grant them a new homeland and, most importantly, help them in the eradication of their most hated enemy, the Orcs.

Racial Traits:

Unseen - Once every ten minutes, the Draenei may go invisible for fifteen seconds. This effect may not be cancelled, and the Draenei cannot attack or cast any spells, and they are also considered to be "in combat" for the entire time of this effect.

Available Classes: Warrior, Rogue, Hunter, Spellbreaker

New Class: Spell Breaker

Spell Breaker - Among the Blood Elves, there are those who show such an amazing aptitude for magic that they can become almost immune to it's effects and can even twist the spells of others to benefit themselves. Called Spellbreakers, they were the elite, holding mastery over all forms of magic. Now, with demonic blood flowing through their veins, these Spellbreakers and their allies among the Naga and Draenei have begun to evolve into demons themselves, with the most powerful able to manipulate the fabric of the Twisting Nether.

Spell breakers begin the game with leather armor but are able to use mail once they reach level fourty.

Examples of Specific Abilities:

Shadow Orbs: Summons several shadowy spheres to circle the caster's body. This spell will increase the player's parry/block rate, with each parry or block causing shadow damage to the attacker. Each attack blocked/parried in this fashion will cause an orb to violently explode, causing minor arcane damage to the attacker and decreasing the number of orbs surrounding the player until all orbs are gone and the effect ends. 30 second cooldown.

Demon Fangs: Fangs are often the first demonic trait evolved by Spellbreaker characters. Using this ability will cause you to attempt to bite your enemy, causing shadow damage and causing a Damage over Time debuff on the opponent, unless resisted. 3 minute cooldown.

Fel Strike: The Spellbreaker's weapon is charged with demonic energy, causing extra shadow damage every hit. Lasts five minutes.

Dark Whispers: Has a 75% chance to temporarily lower nearby enemies' attack power by 10%, lower their hit points by 5%, or lower their mana by 5%. Has a 25% chance to buff nearby enemies' attack power by 10%, hit points by 10%, or mana by 10%. Effect is random on every target. 1 Minute Cooldown.

Fel Concentration: Has a 50% chance to either slow casting time of the target by 10%, or making it 10% faster. May be used on Party Members or enemies. Lasts 5 seconds. 15 second cooldown.

Talent Trees:

Fel Protection - Centered around defensive abilities that allow the Spellbreaker a chance to survive when up against melee classes.

Fel Combat - Talents used to improve offensive spells and abilities used by the Spellbreaker.

Spellbreaking - Talents used to attempt to increase spell the spell resistances of the Spellbreaker.

Example Talents:

Spell Alignment: The caster attempts to align his body with the next spell cast upon him. Once hit by the spell, his body 'aligns' to that spell's school, making him immune to that spell school for 20 seconds. Lasts until a hostile spell is cast on the Spellbreaker. 15 minute cooldown. LEVEL 40 TALENT - Fel Protection.

Spell Reflection: For 20 seconds, all positive and negative spells used on the Spellbreaker are reflected at the caster. 15 minute cooldown. LEVEL 40 TALENT - Fel Combat.

Spell Absorbtion: For 20 seconds, all spells used on the Spellbreaker will cause normal damage, but the mana cost of the spell is added to the Spellbreaker's mana. LEVEL 40 TALENT - Spellbreaking.

Improved Demon Fangs: Damage caused by the bite of the demon fangs does 5%/10%/15% more damage and has its cooldown reduced by 15/30/60 seconds. 3 ranks. FEL COMBAT.

Melee Specialization: Chance to cause shadow damage on hit with a melee weapon is increased by 10%/20%. 2 ranks. FEL COMBAT.Improved Shadow Orbs: Damage caused by the shadow orbs is increased by 10%/20%/30%. 3 ranks. FEL PROTECTION.

Shadow Shield: Increases your chance to block with a shield by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%. Also gives a chance to cause shadow damage equal to the amount of damage that had been blocked to the attacker by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%. 5 ranks. FEL PROTECTION.

Fire Resistance: Increases your resistance to fire spells by 2/4/6/8/10. 5 ranks. SPELLBREAKING.

Frost Resistance: Increases your resistance to frost spells by 2/4/6/8/10. 5 ranks. SPELLBREAKING.

Shadow Resistance: Increases your resistance to shadow spells by 2/4/6/8/10. 5 ranks. SPELLBREAKING.

Arcane Resistance: Increases your resistance to arcane spells by 2/4/6/8/10. 5 ranks. SPELLBREAKING.

New Areas

Undermine:

The Goblins have finally accepted to allow the other civilized races of Azeroth onto their home of Undermine.

This is a level 60-65 zone, and is now the main hub of neutral transportation.

Quel'Thalas:

With the aid of the Horde and Argent Dawn, the Blood Elves drove some of the remaining Scourge out of Quel'thalas. The Blood Elves have started to rebuild their cities, and have unexpectedly found that some cities were untouched.

Gnomeregan:

After a long struggle, the Gnomeregan Exiles were finally able to retake their home, with the aid of both, Horde and Alliance adventurers. The Clean Zone is the new starting area for gnomes. Gnomeregan can take the player to about level 12 afterwhich they have to go to other areas.

The New Echo Islands:

Farther south of the Echo Islands was a large chain of many islands, which ended up also being named the "Echo Islands".

Nothing but beasts had lived on these islands when the trolls found them. It is the new starting area for Trolls. These islands can take the player to about level 12.

Northrend:

The Horde and Alliance are now able to reach the continent of Northerend, thanks to the aid of the Goblins of Undermine. A zeppelin will take the players to the town of Valgarde in Northerend, where they will begin many quests to oppose the Scourge. Northerend is a massive level 65-75 zone, and contains many new max-level instances.

The Emerald Dream:

The Emerald Dream is the primal heart of Azeroth. It is an echo of what the world would be like if intelligent beings had not altered its surface. The ethereal layer of the Emerald Dream shares the same space of the Physical layer one on top of the other - a parallel realm overlapping the physical world like an invisible and intangible layer. It is characterized by its green hue and verdant forests. The Emerald Dream, though, is like a perpetual time-frame of creation, back when the Titans reshaped the planet to bring order to chaos. Yet both realms share the same time. Time passes normally within the Emerald Dream as in the Physical world. The Emerald Dream is ruled by Ysera the Dragon Aspect of the Dream, empowered by Eonar the Titan to watch over the Emerald Dream realm. Lately, the Emerald Dream has been affected by the Nightmare. It is not a place. It is an effect that roams the Emerald Dream randomly affecting other dreamers and attacks them during their sleep. The nightmare twists and reshape the dreams corrupting the sleeping dream-form. Those trapped within the Nightmare are known as the Unwaking. Their physical form may die of starvation, not able to wake up as the affected can't escape the Emerald Dream. There are many magical and planar ways to reach the Emerald Dream. Sometimes, Ysera can't detect intruders that enter the Emerald Dream by means of magic plane-shifting. There are rumors that somehow Archimonde was able to affect the Emerald Dream through the World Tree. Since the World Tree was bound to the Emerald Dream, Archimonde might have found a way to infiltrate the Emerald Dream before dying. Only time will tell... The Emerald Dream is a level 70-75 zone which will have players attempt to cleanse the Emerald Dream of the Nightmare - and, if the rumors that are told are true, Archimonde will once again need to be defeated by mortals...

Transportation

All boats from neutral cities, such as Ratchet, and Booty Bay now connect to Undermine. New boats have been added to Steamwheedle Port, Menethil Harbor, and Theramore which will take anyone on it to Undermine. In addition, there is a new zeppelin which will take the player to Undermine. There is also a zeppelin on Undermine which will take the player to the shores of Northerend, to a town called Valgarde. All goblin-owned transportations now have atleast four level 62 Undermine Bruisers on them. Alliance-owned and Horde-owned transportation now force any members of the opposite faction on them into PVP, and are also now guarded by atleast four level 60 guards.

New High-End Instances

Naxxaramas Necropolis:

Within Stratholme, near the Slaughterhouse of Baron Rivendare, is the Naxxaramas Necropolis. Kel'Thuzad reigns the Undead Scourge from the Naxxramas Necropolis. This new 40-player, level sixty raid instance is equal in difficulty to Blackwing Lair, and will send the player to assault the Tower of Medivh.

The Tower of Medivh:

This tower was described by Medivh as an Hourglass. As the sand particles flow slowly through the hourglass clock, time flows in different places of the glass, allowing one to see the past - and future - of Azeroth. This is a 40-player max-level raid instance, much more difficult than Naxxaramas Necropolis.

Caverns of Time:

This is the lair of Nozdormu, one of the five great dragon aspects. Nozdormu, unlike most other dragons in the game, requires the aid of mortals. To repair damage done to the timeline, Nozdormu will send players on large raids into two 40-player, level sixty raid instances, and one 40-player max-level raid instance, the first two being equal in difficulty to Naxxaramas Necropolis, and the final being equal in difficulty to The Tower of Medivh.

Outlands:

The desolate place of Outland emits flashes of light and streams of energy. Outland is currently a way station. Many portals are still active within some of the floating asteroids, leading to other worlds. This new zone is for groups of five or more max level players. Among the creatures that inhabit Outland are Felboars, Phase spiders, Draeni, Fire Elementals, Fungal Horrors, Succubi, Nether Dragons(composed of nether energy, and not related to real dragons).

THE BLACK CITADEL:

Beneath the Black Citadel, there is a very large prison. Rumors have been created that heroes from past wars are still being held within this prison, and that even now the ruler of the Black Citadel tortures these heroes. Other rumors are that Kil'jaeden, the most powerful entity of the Burning Legion, dwells withing this Citadel, plotting the destruction of Azeroth. This is a large, 50-player raid instance.

GRIM BATOL:

Rumors have emerged that Alexstrasza and her dragonflight are keeping anyone from getting near Grim Batol. They are protecting something deep within its walls, a secret power. Some say they are protecting a powerful artifact or creature.

Some have gone as far as to speculate that Deathwing has been held captive and imprisoned within Grim Batol, though, others believe in the possibility that the creature that now holds the essence of the Sunwell might be under protection of the Red Dragonflight. Anyone who dares to venture into this max level 50-player raid instance will find themselves standing against the power of the Red Dragonflight, Alexstasza, herself. This is equal in difficulty to The Black Citadel.

THE LAIR OF MALYGOS:

Malygos lives in Northrend in a deep and complex cavern. He is known to gather relics of arcane power, keeping them locked away from mortals. Frozen Orcs, Nagas, Trolls and Wendigos are many of the victims of the horror of Malygos' power, and to display what happens to those who venture into the Lair of Malygos. This is a 50-player max level raid instance, equal in difficulty to Grim Batol.

ICECROWN MOUNTAIN:

Icecrown mountain is the most difficult instance to ever be in Azeroth, and will challenge anyone to stand against the power of not only the Lich King's armies, and his most trusted lieutenant, Anub'arak, but also the Immortal Lich King himself.

This is a 100-player max level raid instance, and will challenge the Horde and Alliance to work together to defeat the Immortal Lich King. To have the full 100 players, 50 players of max level on Horde and 50 players of max level on Alliance must work together, merging both groups of 50 into one large raid party. Upon Icecrown, Horde and Alliance may not attack eachother at any time, but are instead able to aid eachother. Leaders of the Argent Dawn have also worked together to teach the Alliance and Horde to understand both, Common and Orcish, so they may communicate as they work together to defeat the Immortal Lich King.

THE EYE OF YSERA:

Deep within the Emerald Dream is the Eye of Ysera. The Eye of Ysera is a large golden dome that randomly appears in the Emerald Dream, and the dome in which Ysera dwells. No one has ever been able to enter or penetrate the golden dome. That is, until the Nightmare came... And once again, if the rumors were true, this is where Archimonde will most likely be...

Source: http://www.goblinworkshop.com/news/story.html?StoryID=699

It should also be noted that Spybot is the one that's released leaked patch notes in the past, and *every* single one released by him have been correct. So, take what you will from whatever he posts; he could be entirely correct, or wrong, but he has yet to be wrong. We'll know in about 8 days either way from Blizzcon.

[World of Warcraft]

We don't do the UBRS buff, because I've heard conflicting reports from GMs that it's exploiting. I would rather not get banned for something stupid, when we already have enough FR.

Are you saying you do 2 waves of sons, though? According to the "Pacifists" guide, 2 waves = wipe almost 99% of the time. We can barely handle 1 as is. I don't see how you can NOT do 2 if you can't get him below 50% on the first phase.

Pacifist is overrated. Their raid leader gets his strategies from people in Conquest, so it's not theirs in the first place. Plus, you have to consider that the MT's hate does not decrease when Ragnaros is submerged -- he gets another 10 seconds before everyone engages on Stage 2 and you can literally open the floodgates on him.

But yes, we've had a few cases of 2 waves of sons. We had that happen this past Friday as a matter of fact; two of the MTs healers, a Rogue, and I think a few mages and hunters got disconnected and couldn't log back on. We went into Stage 3 Ragnaros with him having only 3% health.

As far as UBRS is concerned, the only responses I've heard from GMs personally have all stated it's fair game, since the developers have to manually code which abilities you gain from the monster if they're mind controlled -- out of all their abilities and spells only 4 fit on the bar. Tigole and Caydiem CMs even responded that it wasn't an exploit on the forums, but rather it's one of the surprise eggs in there "for players who are willing to find them". The ability was discovered by Reign of Darkness on our server (alliance guild), and we waited a few weeks before even trying it.

We use it for every Ragnaros and Vael attempt, and for the first time we used it there was a GM literally watching us at our request. Take from it what you will, since if they're going to ban your guild (which I doubt) they'd have to be 95% of the other guilds on every server.

[World of Warcraft]

Err.. we're not TOTAL noobs, you know. MC is a very difficult instance (maybe not after you've run it 1279313x) and we read an awful lot about it before we formed the guild to get it started. Everyone does have all the consumables, from tubers to NDB to potions to bandages to fire pots etc. However even with all that, we just can't break the 50% mark before he submerges.

We've been waiting only 3 secs for the MT to get aggro because we're afraid we're not going to do enough DPS before he went back down (and we haven't been able to, but that is perhaps because we've been holding back). Is that bad?

I wasn't calling you 'tards Half of our guild refused to get tubers and such until we told them "Get it, or we're booting your ass." I've never seen so many people log on a Monday night farming session... The UBRS buff question I asked because it's a new thing, about 2 months old and not a lot of guilds do it or even know about it.

And yes, the MTs need more time. By giving them 15-20 seconds, you'll allow them to have a firmer hold on hate. It'll allow the DPS to push a little harder, and since people won't be dying to losing aggro so much you'll have more overall DPS on an attempt due to just more people throwing shit out at him. 50% before he submerges is fine. We've been doing him with 35 usually and that's about how far we get before he submerges.

As far as Sons are concerned, I would suggest each Warrior grabbing one, as soon as they pop (when CTRA announces he's about to submerge I'd have everyone haul ass south to that section). Have *one* Warlock banish one elemental *once* and the rest have Warriors fear bomb, priests included. If you have mana, you should not be anywhere NEAR the elementals because they drain 300-400 mana everytime their fire shield goes off.

Oh, and if you have Resto Druids, they need to make sure Insect Swarm is on him at all times; every case of the debuff is 2% to hit, and that's applied before crits are calculated.

[World of Warcraft]

Bah, I'm not sure if I remember. It was pretty balanced in terms of classes, though. Maybe a few less Druids/Warlocks/Hunters and a few more Priests + Rogues though.

Phase 1 we get him down to about 50-55% ish at best. The problem is that even though rogues are spacing out their DPS, they still draw aggro. This is presumably because our tanks aren't doing their jobs properly, so we're going to try it with new tanks (who do have the requisite FR) first. Usually in Phase 1 we have about 6-7 people die.. maybe a little less lately.

Problem with sons is simply that.. they rape us. We try to all move to one spot immediately while mages frost nova and warp away, tanks engage them and then we assist them down. Usually our assist has died in phase 1 though which is kind of annoying, and another thing is that we can't control all of them well enough. It's just really, really chaotic and very difficult. By phase 2 (if we get to it.. we only have like twice out of ten attempts) we're just about wiped out and have no chance.

(Gnome Warrior 4tw! I'm tinkering with one on the side this week; I've got a funeral to attend so I can't rog in much for raiding).

K, first of all, is everyone engaging when the MTs does? If that's the case, BIG NO NO! The MTs need about 10-15 seconds on Ragnaros to build up a good amount of hate. THEN everyone can engage.

Secondly, people dying are Rogues I assume (or Rogues + Warriors). *Everyone* in the raid should have the following for this, and every encounter after Ragnaros:

• Heavy Runecloth Bandages
  

Whipper Root Tubers
Night Dragon's Breaths
Windblossom Berries
Greater Fire Protection Potions

Whipper Root Tubers will heal 800 on average every 60 seconds and is on a separate timer from potions. Night Dragon's Breath will heal 400 on average every 60 seconds, and is on a separate timer from potions AND Whipper Root Tubers. Factor in... half of a bandage and that's 2200 health non-tank melee have access to every minute.

To be able to loot those items, I would suggest doing a guild run one night to 'farm' them. The prequest is in Felwood, as are the plants -- just do a Thottbot search for "Cleansing Felwood" based on your faction to find the NPC. She'll send you to find 15 bloods off of the Shambler elementals in the north, and then well open up a few ways to turn in various items for Cenarian Salve. Once all that crap is done, then you can start harvesting the plants.

1 Salve = 1 plant, so one person in the guild should be in charge of hording the turnin mats for the Salve. You find a NDB, WBB, or WRT plant in Felwood, the person in charge cleanses it and then comes the most important part everyone in my guild has problems with --- *EVERYONE* in the area should right click the plant to open the window that says "Do you wish to harvest this plant?" but DON'T harvest it. You wait until everyone has said "Ready," the person in charge says "GO," and then everyone selects collect. BAM! You've just looted 2-20 items per *person* in the raid per plant. Respawn on NDBs are 25 minutes, the rest are about 10 minutes.

What this does for Ragnaros, and *every* boss fight afterwards, is allow non-tanks a way to keep themselves alive. You'll find for Blackwing Lair, the new dragons, and even parts of Zul'Gurub that everyone that *ISN'T* a tank is on their own for healing. Shit hits *that* hard. Mages, Warlocks, Rogues, Hunters, and non-Warriors are on their own in the future boss fights. For example, Vael in BWL (second encounter) can easily crit up to 4K instantly. His normal hits are 800-1,200, and he attacks lightning fast; factor in breath attacks and cleaves and that'll give you an idea of how much healing is needed to keep one person alive -- and with Vael you need around 5 tanks.

Also, are you all getting the UBRS fire protection buff? If you haven't, I'll post how to get it when you respond.

[World of Warcraft]

http://www.wowjuice.org/

Ignore the front page, they're humoring some retard with his newly found 'photoshop skillz'.

Zircon, post your raid makeup from what you had on the last attempt. Also, what is killing everyone? Sons, or too few alive after phase one?

[World of Warcraft]

W00t! Downed three of the new dragons so far. Taerar Friday night, Emeriss twice Saturday, and Ysondre Sunday afternoon. Lethon is the one no one's beat, as he just laughs before WTFPWNing you.

[World of Warcraft]

and man, halloween WoW style = fun.

Yeah, almost all of WoW's events are nice; we were doing Ragnaros last night due to lack of healers being on Saturday and our MTs tanked him as a bat and a Leper Gnome. I really like the Children's Week with the orphans, though.

FFXI's Halloween consisted of creating a trade macro, spending shittons of money buying fruit/juice/food from vendors, finding an NPC that participates in the event, and then spamming the macro. You either got one of the 8 ridiculously fucking rare items (that did absolutely nothing and looked like the same items every year), or you got a costume that you had to manually remove to be able to talk to the NPC again (so it became trade, take off costume, trade, take off costume, etc.). I know some people that spent millions of gil just to try to get these items, with one person I personally know spent over 5 million gil (before the massive inflation 7 months ago of FFXI currency, that was easily 200-300 gold).

[World of Warcraft]

Russ: ouch. I heard Broodlord isn't as hard as Vael though. Vael apparently is a huge bitch of a fight.. everyone else seems to breeze past the next few encounters up to Chromaggus.

Lies! lol...

Seriously, Vael is merely a matter of control like Onyxia. You never have to worry about running out of Rage, Mana, or Energy because you get 20/500/20 every second on him. Plus, once you get him down to 19 percent (he starts at 30) Warriors take over and Execute his ass into the ground.

People that breezed through Broodlord did so because his Mortal Strikes were only hitting 1K max. When BWL came out and people got to him, they were cock-blocked by the 7-9K MSs. When they hotfixed Vael and Razorgore the last time, they messed with his damage table and it shrunk to 1K. Now it's back where it originally was and he's NOT SO EZ.

To be honest, I find the Razorgore fight harder than the Vael. Razorgore's an encounter where one person's fuck up will screw up the entire raid. It has to be done nearly perfectly to get past the puzzle part. On Vael, it's just a matter of aggro control and tank switching when one gets hit with Burning Adrenaline.

[World of Warcraft]

god damn the princess of maraudon is one ugly ho.

also i realized how much of a DPS machine hunters really are. i had the highest DPS of the group, even though I was the lowest level guy there, level 48. there was even a 56 warrior and 51 mage. i actually had to cut back a bit at parts because i was pulling mobs off the tank. but we had an excellent healer who knew how to handle those situations quite admirably.

Yeah, people don't give Hunters enough credit. A properly specced and geared Hunter and rival and even surpass a Rogue or Mage DPS if they know how to dance the aggro threshold perfectly. Usually, unless a specific encounter calls for a certain class to go apeshit with damage (Rogues for Kazzak/Ragnaros, etc.) Hunters are almost always near the top in our guild.

On a side note, FLJOPDH)@(Y@)($&)(*&EU)@E& I HATE BROODLORD LASHLAYER IN BLACKWING LAIR! Jesus fucking CHRIST that is a bullshit encounter. If any of you have ever been to the Lycieum in Blackrock Depths, you'll KNOW what constant instant spawn of 10+ monsters is like. It's like that in the suppression chamber in Blackwing Lair....

...except there's no torches to turn off spawns like there is in BRD, there's no place to stop and rest at the end, and there's also the added bonus of the Suppressors; they're traps basically Rogues have to disable. If a Suppressor goes off, Attack speed is reduced by 80%, casting speed by 80%, and walking speed by 80% -- in short, if you let this stay on longer than 5 seconds you're almost guarranteed a wipe.

Sound fun yet? It gets better. The 'trash' mobs are whelps, which have 4K HP each, and come in groups of 5-20. There are also Blackwing Taskmasters, which are like a Warrior/Mage hybrid -- they hit fucking hard and their Flamestrikes can do well over 2K, with 500 a tick additional. PLUS, there are Dragonkin casters that give off an aura doing 50 damage a second for 5 seconds -- this can stack unlimiited times and I've seen it get up to 1,500 a second damge.

WAIT! It gets better... because...

YOU HAVE TO FIGHT THE BOSS WHILE ALL OF THIS SHIT IS GOING ON!

That's right! Broodlord can one-shot a Protection specced, Molten Core geared, 8K+ HP wearing Warrior with his Mortal Strikes. Fun shit. Plus, he has not one, but TWO knockback abilities that COMPLETELY reset hate on the tank -- the AoE is blastwave and reduces movement speed to 50% and does around 3K damage, the single KB does about 2K + fall damage if you go high enough. So, what essentially happens is the gap from healing to tanking aggro is very narrow, and WILL eventually tip the other way.

Now, because hate is so tricky, Mages are literally demoted to AoE bitches on the constantly spawning whelps and/or wanding Broodlord -- but watch it, because you CAN pull hate via wanding on this guy. It's a race against the clock to down him via DoT tactics, surviving the respawns, Rogues being on top of the Suppressors, and trying to survive without pulling healing aggro.

So yeah, fucking goods times are after the first two bosses.

[World of Warcraft]

Last night, we tried rag for the 4th and 5th time - serious attempts using greater fire pots and other consummables. The first time, we got him to about 65%, and barely got through the Sons. The second time, we got him to 46% - the sons went pretty well, but they took down a bunch of healers and rogues, and people were relatively drained by the time Rag came up. I think personally that we had way too much FR. I had 85 unbuffed with no Shaman totem giving me more, and I had NO trouble managing the fire damage (in fact, I used mana potions more). Some other casters had anywhere from 150 to over 250 unbuffed with IMO is completely ridiculous.

Right!

Grats on your progression, though. Usually I reccommend AMAP for tanks, 150ish for melee, and 80ish for casters/ranged DPS. 46% is *VERY* good for a starting point upon entering your first Sons phase.

As for the Sons, what I'd reccommend is enforcing everyone to have the newest CTRA installed; period. On the MT list, put slot 1 as the MT (i.e. Ragnaros's slot) and on MT list 4 or 5 put a non-tanking Warrior. The Warrior's job is to focus on one target during Sons of the Flame and *everyone* in the raid burns them down; each Son should be dying within 7-8 seconds. Use fear bombs, freezing traps if Hunters can get it done, but don't use Banish; you're under a time limit and you can't wait for that to run its course.

While this is going on, the MTs should NOT be engaging unless they get the aggro of a Son. Their job is to stand near Ragnaros so that when he emerges they can quickly get aggro again. If no one is in melee range of Ragnaros, he does his 1-2 shot move, going down the hate list, so it's imperative that the MT (and their healers) are ready when he comes back.

If you've got 1 Son left when Ragnaros is back, don't sweat it, just get the damn thing killed. Any more (unless he's down to 20% when he emerges) and you probably won't have enough mana/people alive to burn him down.

[World of Warcraft]

this is wonderful. i finally get on illidan, i'm on for a total of 2 minutes then i get disconnected and the server goes down.

but does blizzard update the realm status page to show which servers are down? hell no. that would require effort.

That's because your server isn't down. The login servers are fucking up, not the realm servers. It happens every patch on most MMOs, just relax.

[World of Warcraft]

yeah so umm... anyone else having problems getting on tonight? there's a message at the login screen that links to the forums... the forums are down too.. sigh.

Same, it's patch time. I'll start getting back into playing sometime Wednesday.

[World of Warcraft]

no. and the reason for that is everyone is on different servers. I'm horde on Smolderthorn, Rama is horde on Illidan/Archimonde, Zircon is horde on Gorefiend, Russ is.. somewhere... and Wingless is playing in the Forest of Feelings.

Horde, Stormscale

[World of Warcraft]

no, we were behind the NPCs, trying to do as much AoE as we could. they came in waves of 4 or 5 for the first minute or so, but after that it was just a complete zerg.

If you're behind the NPCs and you're all dying then something's wrong. The NPCs are elite, and 99% of the monsters in the waves are NOT, so you're essentially wiping to 4-5 non-elites at a time. At most you'll see 5 elites throughout the entire encounter (not including the 'boss' at the end of the runs).

AoE is never the answer in WoW unless it's a *finite* group of monsters in a solid pack -- the ZF event is a staggered spawn cycle. Have the tank focus on one monster at a time, and everyone else assist him (with an " /assist PlayerName Here " macro); it's required later on in the game so people may as well start getting used to it in Zul'Farrak.

The NPCs will heal themselves occassionally as well as heal your team, but still focus on keeping them alive mostly otherwise the quest at the bottom is null and void.

[World of Warcraft]

Sounds like someone was on the steps of the temple, so the monsters never took their 'breaks' between waves.

[World of Warcraft]

Nah, we have some items per person from Azuregos and Lord Kazzak (we dominated the spawns for about 4 months) and we DO have Molten Core gear, but there's not a lot of equipment per person. I'd say, on average, we've got 4 epics per person on JUICE and that's including all slots and PvP rewards as well (Alterac, Arathi, etc.). A lot of our best people are still in blues. We also have close to 90 people altogether in the guild as well.

Try the Greater Fire Protection pots (1 Crystal Vial, 1 Elemental Fire, 1 Dreamfoil); they're cheap, the mats are easy to get (best place for Elemental Fire are the Burning Exiles in Arathi Highlands, Dreamfoil = Un'Goro) and most people will use 2-3 per Ragnaros attempt. That's 7K absorbed *PER PERSON* on the raids. And yes, it absorbs the lava bursts as well, and if you don't get hit by his RSTS (BY FIRE BE PURGED!) that's usually 3 bursts on average you'll absorb per pot. This alleviates a lot of aggro from the healers and they can in turn put DPS on Ragnaros as well with wands. If your MT doesn't have problems holding hate and ranged DPS don't get a tons of bursts (crits from mages, Shadowbolt crits, etc.) then that basically means you won't really need heals until 1:30-2:00 into the fight -- that's a LONG time to be DPSing and a shitton of mana saved by not having to heal.

The only advice I can really give, without being there in person, is that the MT engages Ragnaros for 5 seconds, 2nd MT engages and after 5 more seconds everyone else engages and go full-throttle without being fucking retarded (you know what I mean). There are three 'key' places you can stand where the half-walls are on the C-Island; Usually we put MTs + their 4-6 healers on the one closest to Ragnaros, groups 1-4 spread out along one wall, groups 5-8 on the other, and melee stand close to Rangaros, then just jump/swim through the short lava to land at his back to cut-time and start engaging when it's called.

[World of Warcraft]

We've tried it three times now with MTs having over 300 FR and we have failed miserably - wipe before phase 2 at 75% or so. It is a hard fight. It's easy to look back on it and say "oh, that was so easy" AFTER your entire raid is geared up with MC weapons and armor, and after you've collected tons of cores to get the DI stuff.

None of our tanks have more than 2 pieces of DI gear. Their FR is over 300 because of the UBRS mind control buff as well as librams and other gear. Secondly, the only classes that have more than 4 pieces of ANY Molten Core gear are Druids since we only have 4 and Cenarion drops regularly. Stop assuming we're geared out the ass.

"wipe before phase 2 at 75%" is ambiguous. What are you dying to? The Sons themselves, or few people left alive after he submerges? If most of the raid is dead before Phase 2 then it's a problem with you healers, their positioning, and people that are NOT Rogues ripping hate and not backing off. If they're not using Greater Fire Protection potions, they should -- 2.5K absorbtion (roughly) goes longer on this fight than a Major Mana/Health pot will. The pot mats are dirt cheap and the absorbtion lasts 60 minutes; you can put one on before battle and wait until your timer is up again before engaging.

Whether or not you killed him doesn't mean he's hard. He isn't and that has nothing to do with the fact that my guild has killed it; if your people pay attention and do their job (and Rogues don't forget they have a damn Feint) you have him in the bag -- the practice is just to nail it down. None of the bosses in Molten Core are (except Majordomo *before* you could Polymorph the Priests...); it's a dungeon that's designed to get people used to working together in a 40-man team to prepare them for the truly hard dungeons later on. If Ragnaros was "hard" you wouldn't even have gotten him beyond 99% if you've only had three attempts.

(On a separate note, hopefully you aren't killing him JUST as Majordomo summons him -- he's fucking PISSED then and I don't know of any guild kills him then since it's not worth the hassle. Usually you have 39 people log off on the © island, the 40th person naked and sacrifice themselves after talking to Majordomo, and then everyone logs back on in 2-3 minutes.)

[World of Warcraft]

Eh. Maybe on your server. On mine, the first Horde rag kill was not even a month ago. Only three Horde guilds have done it to date, and my guild has been trying since we formed (a little over two months ago).

Um, sorry, but Ragnaros doesn't change difficulty based on server. He's nothing more than a glorified Lord Kazzak; the only difference between the two is your tank needs Fire Resistance gear for Ragnaros and you have to deal with his Sons (wow, 6 mobs that die in 5-10 seconds each to 40 people).

In the end it's just a race of massive DPS burst by the Rogues, and success is measured by whether they remember they have a "Feint" ability or not. Pat yourselves on the back for doing Majordomo Executus with ease, no Ragnaros.

Most of the guilds that are just NOW getting to kill Ragnaros are going for massive fire resistance gear on *everyone* in the raid, whereas only the tank need as much as possible. 120-150 after buffed on the Rogues and Warriors, as much as possible on the main tanks, and 50+ on the rest of the classes. Guilds go for this massive hunt for gear for everyone and spend months doing this, and then when they get to Ragnaros realize all the work was for naught because they end up needing more and more DPS/Healing gear than FR.