WoW

Finally there’s one week where I don’t forget to post, but then I have other posts and no time.

Anyway, last raid week was a bit weird. On Sunday I had to tank again, first we did the last 2 on Normal (1 wipe on KT), then the first 3 on Heroic. One wipe on Tarragrue (weird), then three wipes on The Eye (also weird), then oneshot The Nine.

Tuesday our main tank was back, and we had a big group again, 21 or so, and one of our raiders brought 3 friends, supposedly Mythic raiders and for some reason nothing really worked. Ner’zhul died on the third pull but the first two already felt weird, then we had 10 wipes on Dormazain. Yes, this is the boss we haven’t killed yet but it seems doable, just that nothing seemed to go smoothly that day, and then one of the mythic people started to smartass and shout stuff between our calls and then there was some arguing. Not a fan of the outcome, or the whole night. But apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt like that, so maybe they’re not coming again.

It seems I’m really bad at this, I wanted to post a weekly recap and again, I forgot.

So in week 6 we were still missing a few people, after all August is summer vacation season here, so we didn’t kill anything new, but cleared normal again and the first 2 bosses on Heroic, including a first kill on The Eye, but I don’t have the wipe count, meh.

This week we did KT+Sylvanas, then the first 2 on Heroic on Sunday, then actually killed The Nine after 4 wipes and yesterday we worked on Ner’zhul for a bit until he fell on the 12th pull, then 4 wipes on Dormazain. So these 2 were the first that didn’t just fall over, now it’s getting a bit more interesting.

I’m starting to slack off and skip the Korthia dailies more often than not now, it’s kinda pointless. Working on Tier 5 of the second faction, but not even sure why. Raiding is fun, the rest isn’t, really.

It’s Blaugust again and this is post number 12.

So I had to tank again yesterday, we skipped Fatescribe and did Kel’Thuzad, Sylvanas, then went to Heroic. I wiped the raid for the first time, on our first KT try of the night. First I thought I had understood the mechanic, then it looked wrong, I did something wrong and then I killed the main tank and myself. Second try went nearly flawless. Sylvanas had the weird bug again on our first try, then we had a normal wipe, then we finished. So I tanked 9/10 normal now and only one wipe that was my fault. That’s fine.

Then we went to Heroic, oneshot the Tarragrue and then wiped 3 times on the Eye. Proper raiding!

But overall I’m still mostly busy with EVE and I definitely need a small break after this week, when I wrapped up some stuff. Too much moving for my taste.

It’s Blaugust again and this is post number 8.

Apparently we were a tank short last night so I got asked if I’d do it again. And it seems to help if you have an officer friend who trusts you, but then again it was only normal, but more like: people knew I was tanking Heroic Nathria progression, and it wasn’t as if I had begged to tank.

Gear in Shadowlands is really, really weird. At first my 213 items were selected for best damage, as we progressed in the tier on Heroic and I was tanking more, some enchants were switched. Now all my 226 SoD gear is pure dps again and so I just swapped out two two-hand weapons to 1h + shield and the trinkets. My 226 DPS gear is still a lot better than my few pieces of 213 tanking gear. I’m not complaining, but it’s a little weird.

Anyway, nothing bad happened, I didn’t mess up, we killed 7 bosses, I think we had no wipes. Might have managed 8 but the start was a little slower than usual and we were missing some key players. I know I made a few errors but I noticed and it wasn’t major, so for once I’m actually happy with my performance there and my fear that I was a big part of the problem why we didn’t kill Heroic Sire was alleviated a little. I basically never feared for my life, even with tank busters, in my 225 ilvl gear (maybe a tad overgeared, but not overly so) compared to my 217ish on the 220 iLvl boss in the 213 instance. But mechanically the fights do seem to be a bit easier than Nathria. A taunt here or there, some mitigation at times, and a lot of (easy) positioning. No running through mirrors at least.

I still hope we have our 2nd tank back on Tuesday as I really need to work on my dps numbers and I’m currently basically only raidlogging and doing 15mins of dailies, with all the EVE stuff happening.

It’s Blaugust again and this is post number 7.

I don’t actually rant a lot about random single mechanics, but this irks me every day when I do dailies in Korthia (in WoW 9.1).

So there’s this NPC, Popo, who is running across a third of the map, in (I think) 3 places a few very easy mobs spawn, then at the final destination a Rare is spawned from a portal. First of all, this whole thing has upsides and downsides. Upside: You see Popo spawn and move on the map, so you know “aha, a Rare at destination X in 1 or 2 minutes”, that’s fine. Just that most of the people (me included) ignore Popo on the way, so there’s always one or two poor souls who kill the mobs on the way, the rest is finishing up what they are doing or simply waiting at the portal. Lazy.

But that’s not the point. The mob that spawns, Wild Worldcracker, has a few boring abilities and one really annoying one. It does some sort of scream that will silence you for a full 20 seconds. And for a few weeks I was thinking “what a stupid mechanic”, you can’t kick it, I think you can knock the mob away or stun to interrupt it, but not 100% sure about the stun. So it’s always a little “am I lucky or will stand there for 20 seconds, doing nothing. Who thinks this is a fun mechanic?”.

At some point I went to Wowhead to look it up. I’m quoting the top-rated comment here:

If you just got CC’ed and can’t cast or attack, you must find a feared reflection of yourself (like the Kul’tharok soul separation mechanic in the Theater of Pain dungeon). The reflection is static (it does not move like the dungeon mechanic). Of course, with a lot of people around the mob on the first days of the patch, it’s harder to see the reflection.

Has this encounter designer EVER done a World Boss in WoW before thinking up something so stupid? For ranged, it’s some sort of amount of people with spell effects and looking for a grey? shade on grey ground in Korthia, maybe it’s doable.

For the melee it’s… a de-facto invisible shade in a huge ball of spell effects and 20-40 people in one ball around the boss. This is not a 20 man raid with coordinated people, this is a rare spawn, not even a world boss. It’s full nuke until it’s dead. Everyone hitting every button that lights up the surrounding.

Since I read this comment I’ve been trying to find my shade. A few days ago I seem to have run into it by chance because my silence was broken after 3s, on all the other occasions since looking for it, I have not seen it a single time. Yes, I do play Melee.

Yes, it’s nitpicking, but it’s the single most stupid thing I’ve seen in Korthia so far.

It’s Blaugust again and this is post number 5.

What I wanted to do: Write a post about our third week of raiding (on the 27th or 28th).

What I didn’t do: write the post.

Anyway, in week 2 we were 8/10 and in week 3 we recleared either 6 or 7 bosses on Sunday, I think it was only 6 because Painsmith was a bit painful that week. But on Tuesday we managed to get Kel’Thuzard down, bringing us to 9/10 Normal. And of course I didn’t write down our rank.

Starting this post on Sunday of week 4, after the raid, we actually downed Sylvanas (can’t say killed because the fight ends at 50%) with our extended ID and I have to say… it was a bit meh actually.

When I watched the tactics videos it looked at least a little epic and/or a lot going on, but we had a first try with getting into P3 already, but wiping quickly. Then a good 2nd try where we wiped at 50.3% (a classic), then we had a bugged try #3 which I won’t count, because she teleported away in Phase 2 and cast Ruin before the bridge was there, so either nobody or nobody except a Hunter could’ve interrupted that. And then we won in try 4 (or 3), which was a bit messy and she did raze the 4th platform but we had enough cooldowns to nuke it. Very anti-climactic. Then our RL got a half-done id and we did Guardian and Fatescribe, then our 2 hours were up already.

I even forgot to take a kill shot. But it was only normal and no one bothered anyway.

Now raider.io says we’re world rank ~10700 or ~10300, no idea how you can have a different rating for “Sylvanas” and “10/10 Normal SoD” (I just noticed I misread the numbers, need to update the other post) and realm ~170. My old guild seems to be 8/10 now, for World ~13200 and realm ~25.

Kinda interested what we will do on Tuesday, if there will be another id for bosses 1-6 or if we will just do Kel’Thuzad, I’m guessing the former.

So we went in, wiped a bit on Kel’Thuzad in the old ID, then cleared bosses 1-5 without any problems and then after the 2h were up officially ended the raid, but everyone who had a few more minutes could stay for Painsmith. Around 13 of 20 did and we killed him again on the second try. Not bad, considering we had like 3-4 people who hadn’t done him as there was quite a bit of achievement spam. First week where we cleared everything I guess, even if in a very weird order. Boss #10, #7, #8, #9, #1-6.

It’s Blaugust again and this is post number 2.

Second week of raiding has come to a close yesterday, and we’re 8/10 Normal. Not great overall (~9700 world rank[*] according to raider.io), but I am 100% happy with this result and my decision to transfer and raid with the other guild.
It’s not that my old Alliance guild had any major problems (and they’re 6/10 Normal as well, which is ~12300 world rank[*]), but everything feels a little better suited to my needs so far. Not so much hemming and hawing, just proper analysis of what’s wrong, people being assigned jobs and doing them. My old guild did 3 days of 3 hours per week, now it’s 2 days of 2 hours, but people are focused. No idea how it will work out when there’s actual tedious wiping involved, but we’ll see. So first week 5 bosses in 2h, then 8 bosses in 4h. I really can’t complain.

Having forsaken M+ completely in 9.0.5 I got into this raid as one of the lower geared people with my 216/217ish iLvl I’ve gotten to nearly escape the bottom third with my 220 now. I’m not one to brag or fret a lot about damage meters, but I simply don’t want to be in last place, and even with up to 7 iLvl less I wasn’t. I’m most happy when I am in the middle of the pack.

I also did my first M+ since 9.0.5 hit (a +10 DoS, 15 minutes over time) and I think I hate the new mechanic with the powers even more than Spiteful. First of all I was on a timer while deciding which power to take, and then the first boss seemed a lot harder than anything else, so it got progressively easier. Why?

But in the name of gear I will probably try to get one in per week from now on, and maybe set a loose goal of timing them all at +10, for the gear upgrades and the achievement. I don’t think +15 is worth it or feasible if you kinda hate doing them. There was a really short time in 9.0 when I enjoyed them because they were new, and with the right people. Yes, I’d say I was being carried a little, but having no prior experience it was more like learning in the correct environment. I did my interrupts and damage, and they told me the tactics and routes. After all you’re probably not supposed to get it right the first time. We’ll see if this works again.

As long as we’re doing normal I don’t see much point upgrading all my 213 gear to 220 in Korthia (did my MH weapon which I have since replaced, got a 226 2hander both weeks), but if we’re stalling a little longer and I don’t get gear quite so easily, I might fill a slot or three. Also on the one hand the Korthia dailies are mostly short and nice, but the 2 assaults per week are a little meh already in week 2 or 3. I get it, one is fine to get your weekly bar filled up, but if you put these into your weekly routine.. why two of them?

Overall impression of 9.1? I like the dailies, Korthia isn’t bad, the raid is nice but looks boring, I hate everything with anima powers, be it Torghast or the Tarragrue, or M+. Not convinced yet that there are new Legendary powers and that I maybe have to craft another one. And I’m not a fan of the story so far, it’s kinda dull. The game I’ve been playing a lot for 8 months now.. new patch comes out, I blitz through the story bits and they are meh (except the one big reveal, ok). Contrast this to FFXIV, where I come back after 2 years, play for 1 day and instantly love the story again.

[*]: I think it’s kind of meaningless to measure this directly, once you leave the top 500 or top 1000, but I like it as an indicator of “how many guilds are raiding this tier” and “how many of them cleared normal and heroic” after a while, I think this is the first time I write it down. Also we’re ~165th on our realm with 8/10 and my old raid guild is in the top 20 with 6/10 – just shows how dead that server is (also 60 guilds with at least 1 Mythic kill versus 2) 🙁