Bear Kyrie

Over the past few days I've swapped one of Khyrie's specs from cat to bear. She kept her other spec as resto so she now has dual specs of healer and tank. If I wasn't already used to questing in the world as a tank from Mornara it could be problematic but between that and usually running around with one of DraNgNon's toons it shouldn't be an issue.

Khyrie's old cat spec was handy for dailies and a bit of questing, but I have come to realize that I am just not a fan of playing melee characters. Of course, I used to say that about anything other than playing mage, so we will see if that stays true in the future.

Anyway, over the weekend I did a bit of reading on the Elitist Jerks druid forums. And in an unsurprising turn of events the gear for bears and cats is pretty similar, so all the cat gear I'd been picking up from Timeless Isle stood Khyrie in good stead when she went bear. I did have to swap a bunch of gems and enchants and reforge pretty much anything. Because I'd only been doing dailies as a cat I'd kept that gear with only enough hit to deal with a level 92 mob, not a level 93 boss.

I also had to get a whole bunch of glyphs from Ikoli. With four druid specs I'd been slacking and hadn't picked up all of the bear glyphs. Of course once I had them all I needed to figure out what to actually use. Khyrie currently has some actual bear glyphs, but I am not sure if there aren't better ones for her. And I'm sure that I'll want to swap them out on a fight by fight basis if I ever take her into a normal mode raid.

Once I had glyphs and gear and talents sorted out I set up Khyrie's ability bars for bear. I've tried to keep the same sort of abilities in the same place as I have it for Morn's blood spec. Of course it can't be an exact mapping, but I have her basic single target attacks on my left hand, aoe and interrupts and debuffs on the right, and CDs on the left hand shift. My hope was that even if I wasn't sure about what abilities to use when I went into a dungeon I'd still hit roughly the right thing just by muscle memory flailing.

So then Khyrie was set up to bear tank. I'd even visited the barber shop to keep from being Christmas Bear. It was time, time to actually queue up for a heroic. I made DraNgNon bring Kuan along, just in case Khyrie totally was squishy or unable to hold aggro.

I ended up doing two instances as bear, one with Kuan healing and one with Ikoli healing. It wasn't too bad. I will say that it is a whole different kettle of fish to tank when you're outgeared by 30 or more ilvls. This is not an issue for Morn, but it was difficult to figure out the correct sequence while struggling to hold aggro against some well geared dps. At least their gear kept them from dying when I failed to have enough taunts or aggro to keep the mobs on me.

Despite a bit of initial grumpyness I had a pretty good time bear tanking. The basic bear tools seem to be pretty decent. I don't feel familiar enough with them yet to really compare bear vs. DK. However, I'm sure that familiarity and some comparisons will come with more tanking. I'm also sure that DraNgNon will drag me into a LFR. It should be amusing to have Tylara and Khyrie tanking together.

Stormstout Brewery Hilarity

Stormstout Brewery is often hilarious, but can be a pain. The painful part is based on the hoplings before the second boss. However, the hilarious part is almost entirely due to the Ancestral Brewmasters.

The Ancestral Brewmasters are panda ghosts that hang around in the main brewery. You'll pass by at least four groups of them on the walkways outside, plus a big crowd inside on the lower floor under Yan-Zhu the uncasked.

The Ancestral Brewmasters hang around in the area between the second and third boss. They are in the brewery proper and they heckle you as you go by.


Ancestral Brewmaster says: Whatzit... are they... what are they doin' to our alementals?
Ancestral Brewmaster yells: Hey... hey YOU! Those are OUR flying... beer monsters?

The first set of them whine at you as you kill the trash right after Hopitalus.

The next set of them are standing around inside before you go up to the final boss room. After you kill the set of four adds inside and head out to the ramp you pass some ghostly brewmasters that always make fun of the group. They have a large set of hilarious catchphrases. I'm sure I haven't gotten all of them but here are a bunch.


Ancestral Brewmaster says: Pay up, they made it through those alementals!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Double or nothing on the next group?


Ancestral Brewmaster says: Do you think that we can return to life after death?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Sure! That last group did about thirty times!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: You Know, I really envy these guys!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Why's that?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Because they get to spend so much time with that foxy spirit healer!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: This view is terrible!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: What, are you having trouble seeing the fight?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: No, I can see it perfectly!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: I think that driud had the hots for me!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: That last paladin offered me eternal salvation!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: What'd you say?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Kings, please.


Ancestral Brewmaster says: I, wonder if there's anything this healer isn't good at?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Sure! Choosing which group to be in!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: I liked that last group!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: What'd you like about it?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: I thought it was the last group!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: Why didn't that mage put intellect on his weapon?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Because he didn't want it to be smarter than he was!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: This group is awful!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Terrible!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Disgusting!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: See you here tomorrow?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Absolutely!


I love these Ancestral Brewmasters. They just crack me up every time I run Stormstout Brewery.

Continuing Challenge Modes

I posted earlier about Kuan and Morn's Jade Serpent Temple challenge mode run. Since then we've done a few other challenge modes.

Tuesday night we took almost the same group into Stormstout Brewery. We'd swapped the dps DK out for a warlock. We managed to get bronze in there, too. Our sticking point was Hopitalus and his terrible hoppy and boppy adds. Pro tip: save a hammer from the gauntlet for the first wave of hopper adds. Their explosion really hurts on challenge. If you don't have a hammer, make sure everybody has a CD or two or you're gonna fall over dead. We also had a bit of a slowdown on last boss. We needed to be more on top of the adds that the boss spawned. Once I started putting up kill order marks they died speedily but before that there were too many of them too fast and the healed too much. It was a long fight. We were pretty handily inside the bronze timer and I think that without the wipes on Hopitalus we'd be able to get silver without too much trouble.

Wednesday we met up again, but swapped out warlock dps for boomchicken dps. The daily challenge quest was for Shado-Pan Monastery. We had previously tried that and utterly failed to not die horribly on the Sha of Violence. So I was a bit nervous about doing this challenge mode. There were a couple of wipes, but overall it was relatively smooth. The only boss we didn't one-shot was Gu Cloudstrike, the first guy. The lightning clouds his serpent puts down are pretty much instantly fatal, regrettably their warning mark is just slightly smaller then the deadly electricity. We honestly had more trouble with the packs of sha trash between the second and third bosses. They were just brutal. I honestly feel like I had more time to react before death with the first boss lightning clouds than with that sha trash. We pretty handily ended the run with a bronze rating.

Thursday after raid we were back to our original group from Temple of the Jade Serpent. Morn (blood DK), Kuan (ele shaman), Saruke (hunter), Expendable (monk heals), and Smokeydeath (frost DK). The daily challenge mode was Mogu'shan Palace. The hardest part of the run was the first couple of packs of trash. The whirlwind was pretty rough, but with some judicious stuns and a small sacrifice of DKs we got them dead. After that the rest of the instance was actually pretty reasonable. We had no wipes on any of the bosses. Gekkan was annoying with all his adds, but with frog, trap, and evil acupuncture we managed to keep them manageable. Xin was not all that different from heroic; just don't stand in the bad and he's dead eventually. Mogu'shan Palace has very tight timers, so we got the bronze but didn't have all that much time to spare.

Friday night the challenge daily quest was Gate of the Setting Sun. We swapped in a different warlock, and headed over there. The first boss again gave us the most trouble. We didn't realize at first that she will explode all bombs at 70% and 40%. Possibly she does that on heroic, too, but if so it's never been enough of an issue that I noticed. Once we were prepared for that it wasn't that bad a fight. A lot of the trash in there was pretty brutal, especially the packs before the first boss with all the bombs dropping from above at the same time. The other bosses weren't all that bad, though. We ended up with a bronze rating, with some time to spare.

I'm looking forward to doing more challenge modes. They remind me of Magister's terrace and heroics at the start of Wrath and Cata. It's nice to have the challenge and it's really a good test of how well you know every single ability your class and spec has. Getting a good rating really requires you to have a thorough knowledge of what you can do and how that will interact with the rest of your group. I think that silver is pretty attainable with just better coordination and knowing the instances. Gold though, gold will be a real achievement to get, but we'll get there eventually.

Temple of the Jade Serpent: Bronze

Monday night we had or usual fun run. This week it was a quick romp through Dragon Soul. Eeyan just needs one more run and then he'll have the legendary daggers. We even got achieves and transmog gear for a few people in the run last night. Including surprising our dps DK with the last achieve that he needed for the meta. Amusingly he hadn't even noticed until I saw the achieve spam in gchat and told him grats.

Because it was so fast to blow through normal DS with seven 90s, a few of us floated the idea of a challenge mode after the raid. Not everyone, of course, was interested or geared, but we did actually have a full set of five. The group ended up being Morn to DK tank, Kuan as ele dps, Saruke hunter dps, Smokeydeath dk dps, and Expendable as monk heals.

Kuan and Morn had tried challenge modes before with a slightly different group. Sadly, it hadn't been all that successful. Oh, we'd completed Stormstout Brewery and Siege of Niuzao Temple. However we hadn't succeeded in getting any ratings. We'd also previously tried to do Shado-Pan Monastery and been utterly blocked by the Sha of Violence.

Monday's daily challenge mode was Temple of the Jade Serpent. I suspect that is one of the easier ones, but it still felt good to work together and go through it. We actually managed to one-shot all the bosses except for Wise Mari. His new challenge mechanic is to aoe anyone who stands in the usual heroic spot. So you're forced to not cheese his adds, and in fact have quite a limited area to deal with them. Once we realized just where the limits were for us standing near him he died. The rest of the bosses were just a matter of paying close attention to their mechanics and using all your cooldowns.

We were all still on vent from goofing off while we killed Dragon Soul, which was quite helpful. There was a lot of planning that was made much easier by talking, and some nice intra-fight coordination. I also explicitly called out when I was pulling and that it was only one group at a time. I was quite intentionally not pulling like a suicide tank. Yes, challenge modes don't have repairs bills, but since I'd never seen that dungeon on challenge mode before I wasn't sure how hard the mobs hit.

We ended up getting a Bronze rating for the run. I was super happy when that achieve popped up for all of us. And I think that we could pretty easily get a silver rating. We had plenty of time for the Bronze, and if we hadn't had three wipes on Wise Mari we'd have had plenty of time for Silver.

Monk

When Mists of Pandaria was released I rolled a monk. An Orc monk to be precise. Little Sucan was always going to be a brewmaster monk. Because tanking is fun, and really with his name he must be a brewmaster.

Anyway, I'd gotten him a few levels here and there since Mists came out. But being little is tiresome. You have no mount and, even with the Cata streamlining, everything is far away. At least the Monk skill Roll makes that a little faster.

Last week, while DraNgNon was out of town, I took some time to get Sucan more levels. I was questing him up through Northern Barrens. Because of Cross Realm Zones it was mildly painful. There was a fair amount of competition for quest kills. But, even worse, there was some jackass level 90 ret pally flying around killing the quest givers. Fortunately I hit level 15 before too long and could queue for a random dungeon.

Sucan ported in to the start of Ragefire Chasm. The group grabbed up all the quests and stomped our way through the dungeon. It was fun and weird to be an at level tank in RFC. Especially since at that level I had very few of the actual tools of Monk tanking. Basically all Sucan could do was throw beer and kick a little bit. But once I got the hang of it I found it's really nice to pull with beer. Just throw beer everywhere and all the mobs are mad at you. It's ranged, and pretty cheap to use.

After that dungeon was done I queued and ran a bunch more. Between the heirloom shoulders and staff that Sucan had I was level 30 before the evening was done. Also, starting at level 20, Monks can go to the Peak of Serenity in Kun-Lai Summit and once a day get a +50% xp buff. It's pretty spiffy and the extra xp is kinda ridiculous. Anyway, there were some good groups and a few ridiculous ones that were utterly confused about what to do and where to go, but for the most part it was pretty good.

By the time Sucan was level 30 I actually felt like a tank with some basic tanking tools. In addition to throwing beer I can now set people on fire if they are covered in beer. I also have short and long CD damage reduction abilities and a self heal. Oh, and I can make people charge into me; Clash will force someone to charge into me as I charge into them, and it stuns enemies around where we meet. It gives brewmaster Monks a more mobile and dynamic feel than Blood DKs.

I do think that before I run anymore dungeons I need to take a bit of time and have my Leatherworkers make Sucan some gear. The instances weren't hard, but there was always either a rogue or a druid who outrolled me on all the leather agility gear that dropped. So I got a few quest item upgrades, but missed out entirely on any dungeon gear. And now that I'm level 30 the greens I got for questing at level 15 are not really cutting it.

Hour of Twilight

It's old news now, but with the 4.3 patch there were three new heroic dungeons released. They all have to do with retrieving the Dragon Soul and getting it to Wyrmrest Temple for use against Deathwing. Hour of Twilight is the third dungeon in the set. You're there to help Thrall make his way to Wyrmrest with the Dragon Soul.

Of course, this is no simple task. He can't fly there, because there are far too many black and twilight dragons patrolling and attacking the temple. His plan to sneak in with a small escort force (you) is discovered and quickly turns into a set of battles to reach the temple safely.


Thrall says: Alexstraza's drakes will pick us up on the other side of this abandoned excavation site. Check your weapons this place stinks of an ambush.
Let me know when you are ready to proceed.

Arcurion

Thrall says: Heroes, we have the Dragon Soul. The Aspects await us within Wyrmrest. Hurry - come with me!
Arcurion yells: Shaman! The Dragon Soul is not yours. Give it up and you may yet walk away with your life.

Side note: these screen shots are from the first time I ran this. So when Thrall was all "Lets move out" I hopped into my mechano-hog and was ready to hightail it to the temple. A guildie warlock who was with Kuan and Mornara hopped into the side car with me. Neither of us were pleased when the first set of ice elementals appeared.


Thrall says: What magic is this?
Thrall says: Look out!
Arcurion yells: Destroy them all, but bring the Shaman to me!
Thrall says: Hurry - we must keep moving.


Thrall says: Take a moment to catch your breath before we move on.
Arcurion yells: You will go nowhere, Shaman.


Thrall says: Show yourself!
Arcurion yells: You're a fool if you think to take your place as the Aspect of Earth, Shaman!
Arcurion yells: You're a mere mortal. It is time you died like one.


Twilight forces begin to appear around the canyon's edges.
Thrall says: We're surrounded - dispatch the ascendant while I keep the ambushers at bay.
Arcurion begins to freeze Thrall in a block of ice.
Arcurion yells: The Shaman is mine, focus on his companions!
Thrall yells: You've almost got him! Og'nor ka Lok'tar - Now we finish this!
Arcurion yells: The Hour of Twilight falls - the end of all things - you cannot stop it. You are nothing. NOTHING!


Arcurion yells: Nothing! Nothing...

After Arcurion is dead Thrall shatters the ice wall he'd put up and we continue on towards the bones giant protodrake bones. Thrall goes wolfie and slowly runs there. I fondly remember helping Thrall break out of Old Hillsbrad. And I was really pleased with how fast he moved then. It felt less like a dumb escort quest and more like a running battle. Sadly, it seems that since becoming the world shaman Thrall has forgotten how to run. He kind of skips along in some sort of hold-my-dress-up-with-one-hand gait. It makes me want to yell at him every time I'm in this dungeon.

Asira Dawnslayer

Anyway, once Thrall makes his way to the abandoned excavation the party must fight off a bunch of ambushes and attacks. I'm a big fan of the buff totem he puts down. And though he still has that ridiculous run, Thrall is quite proactive about moving on to the next group to fight. We finally clear the area and get to the location where the red drakes are supposed to meet us for our final flight to the tower.

Of course there is a bit of a hitch:


Thrall says: Up there, above us!
Asira Dawnslayer yells: Where do you think you're going, little lizard?
Thrall says: An assassin! Quickly, ready yourselves for battle!
Asira Dawnslayer yells: ...and with that out of the way, you and your flock of fumbling friends are next on my list. Mmm, I thought you'd never get here!


Asira Dawnslayer yells: Now you see me...
Asira Dawnslayer yells: You're much... better... than I thought...


Thrall says: Well done. Let us see to our friend...
Thrall resurrects the slain red drake
Thrall says: The rest of the drakes should be here shortly. I'll fly on ahead; catch up when you can.

And then Thrall, who KNOWS that the whole place is crawling with dragons and Twilight's Hammer ambushers, flys off. Leaving us, his guards, in the dust (well snow) behind him.

Archbishop Benedictus

Life Warden whispers: Look there! It looks as though the Twilight Cultists have brought the Old Gods and their corruptoin to Wyrmrest. Hold on tight!
Twilight Drake yells: Death to all who oppose us!
Twilight Drake yells: Death to all who oppose us!

And then the poor red drake you're riding is shot out from under you. You land right next to Thrall, who also had his drake killed out from under him. Fortunately you're all on the section of the Path of the Titans just north of Wyrmrest Temple. You've just got to fight through a whole bunch of Old God minions and get to the base of the temple.

However, even once you get to the temple you're not done. Archbishop Benedictus greets you at the door and helps seal the entryway behind you to keep out the Old God minions.

Archbishop Benedictus says: Get inside, quickly! I'll hold them off!
Archbishop Benedictus says: And now, Shaman, you will give the Dragon Soul to ME.
Thrall says: I will NOT, Archbishop. It will never be yours.
Archbishop Benedictus says: I suppose it has to be this way, then. If only you'd seen what I've seen. THEN you'd understand.
THrall says: You were a figurehead of the Light, Benedictus. How could you betray your own people?
Archbishop Benedictus says: There is no good. No evil. No Light. There is only POWER!


I'm not sure if he's got a gnarly neck beard or if that is the collar of his robes. Either way: scary power mad archbishop!


Archbishop Benedictus says: We serve the world's TRUE masters! When their rule begins, we will share in their glory!
Archbishop Benedictus yells: And YOU! We will FEAST on your ashes! Now, DIE!


Archbishop Benedictus yells: The Light will consume you!
Archbishop Benedictus yells: Witness my POWER!

Thrall helps out with the fight to start with, giving players a buff and helping remove some of Benedictus' abilities. However, once Benedictus takes some damage he goes all Twilight. Thrall gets stunned and locked into a Twilight Prison and you're on your own for the second phase.


Archbishop Benedictus yells: Drown in Shadow!
Archbishop Benedictus yells: I looked into the eyes of The Dragon, and despaired...

And now the Dragon Soul has safely reached Wyrmrest. Things are set up for the Dragon Soul raid to begin.

Kael'Thas Take 2

Just before the New Year Tylara and Khyrie went to the Magister's Terrace. It was pretty fun to run through there. And it was a good change for us to practice tanking and healing in an actual instance.

Of course while I was there I had to screen shot Kael's ridiculous dialogue.



Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: Vengeance burns!
Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: Felomin Ashal!

Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: I'll turn your world... upside... down.
Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: Master, grant me strength.
Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: Do not get... too comfortable.
Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: My demise accomplishes nothing! The master will have you! You will drown in your own blood! The world shall burn! Aaagh!

The last line is the most hilarious. Kael is dead but has a ridiculously long line before he actually falls over.

Too Many Dwarves

Over this past weekend DraNgNon and I helped a guildie friend of ours get Glory of the Hero her Red Proto Drake. She had most of the achieves already, but we did end up needing to hit about 5 Wrath heroics.

Because we are 85, and awesome, three-manned all of this and had a good time joking around while we did so.

While we were getting Abuse the Ooze in Halls of Stone, we each popped various dwarf disguise items. I guess if we have to help Brann we might as well look goofy too?

New Zul'gurub

I like the way they redid ZG, as I've said before. It's pretty reasonably paced and has some interesting mechanics to deal with. The bosses are familiar but not exactly the same.

In particular the end boss is no longer Hakkar, but is Jin'do the Godbreaker. He has some nefarious plans that involve overpowering and taking power from Hakkar. In fact, the party has gotten here just in time, as he's already siphoning power from Hakkar.


Jin'do the Godbreaker yells: Welcome to de great show, friends. Just wait 'til ya see what I got in store for ya.


Spirit of Hakkar yells; Your deceit is unforgivable Jin'do. You spit in the face of a god!


Once you've beaten Jin'do for a bit he jumps into the spirit world and pulls you in with him. There you get to see the chains holding Hakkar imprisoned and do something about them. Once you've destroyed all the chains you also get to see, the now unbound, Hakkar face off with Jin'do. This doesn't go so well for Jin'do...


Spirit of Hakkar yells: You overstepped your bounds, Jin'do. You toy with powers that are beyond you. Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten what I can do?!
Jin'do the Godbreaker yells: No... NOOOO!!!
Spirit of Hakkar yells: be freed, insects. I will deal with you another time.


Poor Jin'do, I'd feel sorrier for him he he hadn't planned to overrun Azeroth once he stole power from Hakkar.

Rogues do it from behind

The redone ZG and ZA are pretty fun to run. They have bosses with good mechanics and especially well done dialogue.

Shadowfang Keep

Shadowfang Keep is one of the new dungeons that was updated for Cataclysm. There are some Gilnean undead renegades hiding out there.

I'm rather a fan of the way it's been updated. A lot of the old bosses still have cameos, and the new bosses are interesting. There is also a hefty dose of story/lore spread through the whole instance. Cromush and the Forsaken troops he's monitoring have some nice dialogue.


Baron Ashburysays: I'm trying to convince Godfrey to just kill all of you to end your misery, but he keeps telling me no. More pain and suffering for the lot of you, then!
Forsaken Trooper says: Bastard.

But really the best dialogue is from the bosses. Ashbury is the first boss you have to face. And, as you can see, he's a dick.

It's called Security...

I'm not a fan of Bran, or dwarves in general, with one exception. In fact I'd go so far as to say that I really don't like Bran. And I'd definitely say that I hate the Harrison Jones and Bran quest line in Ulduar.



Bran has been mucking about with all sorts of Titan artifacts in Halls of Stone, Ulduar, and, now, Halls of Origination. You'd think that he'd have learned a bit about them. In particular, the Titans weren't really keen on the inmates taking charge of the prison.

Which, considering that almost all of the mortal races now are descendants of some Old-God-corrupted Titan creations or servants, I think is kind of what is happening. We certainly interfered a lot in Ulduar. You know, killing Loken, and then subverting Algalon. Yes, we did manage to kill Yogg-Saron, but I strongly suspect that if we kill too many of the Old Gods bad things will happen. I mean, the Titans had them on the ropes, and decided not to kill them.

All this basically is my long winded way of saying that Bran is being even more of an idiot than usual. The Titans used a different locking system at each of their installations to make it harder for someone to break into them. It's called security...

Rise of the Zandalari

Rise of the Zandalari (colloquially known as Patch 4.1) downloaded onto my computer yesterday. I'm kind of glad that there aren't new raids since we've only just now gotten a 25man together. But I'm rather dubious about the new 5man heroics.

Here is the patch trailer:


Yeah.... I'm not really sure what is happening.

Oh yes, it's quite clear that the Zandalari are rising and a new troll war is going to start. But WHY?

I ran Zul'gurub at level 60. It was the Zandalari, sent by Rastakhan, who were sending you in to fight the Hakkari and stop them from raising Hakkar. The Zandalari were supposed to be the highest caste of trolls. The priestly caste. The people who were bringers of, well perhaps not peace, but certainly some sort of order. Look at the chat log for Exhal, the Servitor of Rastakhan

Exzhal says: [Troll] Bring forth the prisoner. Place him in the circle of binding.
Zandalar Enforcer:[Troll] Right away, servitor!
Zandalar Enforcer: [Troll] Move!
Exzhal says: [Troll] Kneel, heathen
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Curious. A servitor of Rastakhan that does not know the Hakkari do not converse in the old tongue?
Exzhal says: I said KNEEL!
Exzhal says: Do you know who I am, zealot?
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: You are a fool, soon to forfeit his life. No?
Exzhal says: I could crush you with but a single motion. Do not anger me.
Captured Hakkari Zealot laughs
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: How pathetic. I am infused with the power of the Soulflayer. I fear nothing but the almighty Hakkar. I serve no one but my master, Jin.
Exzhal says: So Hakkar has returned?
Captured Hakkari Zealot laughs
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Do you really need to ask? Can you not feel him? Has the almighty king Rastakhan sent his Servitor and Hand here on a mission of diplomacy?
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Oh yes, old one. Hakkar has returned. Soon the world shall crumble beneath his might. Consumed. Left in ruin...
Exzhal says: We will never allow it... We have banished him once from this world before and we will banish him again.
Captured Hakkari Zealot laughs maniacally
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: FOOL! Do you purport to even have one-tenth of the power you had during the Uprising? The nations were united and still were nearly consumed by the shadow of Hakkar. You stand no chance.
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: And now, those nations that you would have called allies have joined forces with us... Yes, old one, do not look so surprised.
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Bloodscalp, Sandfury, Skullsplitter, Vilebranch, and Witherbark. They all pledge their allegiance to Jin - their souls to Hakkar. You have lost.
Exzhal says: Times have changed. The younger races will join us. You will never succeed.
Captured Hakkari Zealot laughs
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: The young races? The infants? Humans? Orcs? Dwarves? You expect to defeat the Hakkar? To destroy a GOD?
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: It shall NEVER happen. We are legion. We are united. Where are your heroes? Vol'jin sits in sanctuary at the side of the young Warchief, unaware. Zul'jin is missing, probably dead.
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: And... do you expect to defeat the Primal Gods?
Captured Hakkari Zealot smirks
Exzhal says: The Primal Gods? Impossible!
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Is it? Call out to them, Servitor.
(At this point, Exzhal attempt to make contact with the Primal Gods with a spell emote similar to a Hunter switching Aspects. There is no orange-text emote for this.)
Exzhal uses his index finger to make a cutting motion across his neck.
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Where are your Gods now? WHERE, SERVITOR?
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Strike me down. I shall be reborn... Even more powerful.
Captured Hakkari Zealot lowers his shoulders and exposes his neck
(The Zandalar Enforcer kills Captured Hakkari Zealot with a single swing of his axe. Again, no orange-text emote for this.)
Zandalar Enforcer spits on the corpse of of the fallen Zealot.

Ok so here we have Rastkahan, the leader of the Zandalari, sending trolls to help combat the Hakkari and stop troll armies from spreading across the land. This was in Vanilla and these NPCs are now gone from Yojamba isle.

Now in the current Azeroth we've got some troll leader gathering all the troll forces under his banner to retake Azeroth. All we know about this new leader is that his name is Zul. And that he seems to want to unleash Hakkar again...

I'm really wondering what happened to Rastkahan. Based on the people he sent to Yojamba, he seemed like a pretty level headed troll. I'm deeply afraid that, like the goblins, the Zandalar home island got destroyed by Deathwing. And that Rastakhan's corpse is either a pile of ash or under a bunch of rubble. Maybe both.

I'd like it even better if we get a chance to avenge Rastakhan and help his rightful successor restore the honor of the Zandalari.

Accidental Heroic

Yesterday I was home sick. After napping and other sick related activities, which I shall not go into, I woke up around 4-ish feeling slightly better. I went down stairs to the lounge and puttered a bit. Put some music on, petted the doggies, settled on the futon with some hot chocolate.

I logged in and did some WoW stuff, too. Khyrie got a level or two. Mornara did her daily JC quest and the fishing quest. I hopped on Telt and did the daily cooking and fishing quests with her, too.

Then I thought that perhaps a nice dungeon run with Telt would be a good thing. She's just at the point where normals are pretty ok. In theory, her gear is over the limit for running heroics. However, in practice I think some of the gear that is counting towards that limit is for her damage set. DraNgNon has been agitating for Eeyan and Telt to run heroics. Especially since Eeyan needs Chaos Orbs for the Blacksmithing. So I figured that a normal dungeon would be good for getting some more rep and maybe a piece of gear or two.

I queue Telt up and 7 minutes later the window pops up and I'm healing.

It was an in progress Halls of Origination. The gauntlet part had already been cleared and the group had clearly wiped on Anraphet. But I kept us all alive, and we handily killed him. We go up the elevator and also handily kill Isiset.

Well, perhaps not quite handily. These pulls were taking all of my mana. Even the trash pulls were leaving me with only mana left. It was pretty rough, the everyone was taking a lot of damage. I took a quick look at the tank's health and the dps of the group. The tank had a fair amount of health, was he just stacking stam and not picking up any mitigation stats? Hmm, the dps were actually not doing as much as Eeyan was the other night, in Halls of Origination, but as a group their average was at or above that previous group. So why were things taking so long to die?

Anyway we engage Rahj. Not too bad a fight, even if the mage decided that standing in my healing range was a silly idea. But then Rahj drops dead and Telt gets the achieve for HEROIC Halls of Origination. OMG Heroic! I thought this was a normal. My jaw literally dropped. I had healed a heroic, and I hadn't even noticed. I struggled a bit because I thought it was a crappy group, but, aside from frantically remembering all my mana regeneration tools, it hadn't been all that bad.

I even won the Chaos Orb.

Random Moment of Hilarity/Awesome

Kuan and Mornara were in a heroic Grim Batol last night.

Well technically two of them, but I'm talking about the second. The first was so painful all I am saying is that I am repressing it.

Anyway, Grim Batol. It was us, Ildiavolo, a holy pally who had queued specifically for it, and a mage.

These pugs, both this one and the first GB of the night, make me weep for mages. As I asked in guild chat: is every mage not in Darkfall a blithering idiot? The response seemed to be mostly yes, aside from examples of a few DF mages who have moved on and Talaitha. I weep.

With just a few wipes, we made it through the first two bosses, despite the mage breaking his own sheeps at the wrongest possible times. We're on the third boss, and the adds just aren't dying fast enough. Because I do occasionally have Situational Awareness(tm), I see that both Volo and Kuan are trying to kill the adds, but most of the time one of them has to kite. The mage, is just staying on the boss, except for when he dies to dragon flame....

Well after our 2nd wipe the mage bugs out and drops group with not a word.

As the rest of us are running in the pally pipes up:
"Darn..."
"Who will die to easily avoidable mechanics now?"
Hotfries of Nazgrel, you are my hero.

We all laugh, and a new mage pops into our group. The new mage assures us that he is able to not stand in fire, and can kill things. He knows the fights, and with a small amount of division of labor we proceed to one shot both of the remaining bosses of Grim Batol.

Grim Batol Heroic

Last night DraNgNon and I decided that we wanted to have Mornara and Kuanchichi finish up the Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achieve. This was not a trivial undertaking because the only heroic we had left was Grim Batol. Grim Batol was the first heroic we'd ever gotten from the random dungeon finder. And just barely meeting the requirements to do a heroic was not actually enough for us to get the first boss down then. We're better geared now, so we thought it was time.

I asked around in guild if anyone wanted to join us, sadly people were busy or needed their daily random heroic. So, with more than a little trepidation, I queued just the two of us for Heroic Grim Batol.

Roughly 2.3 seconds later the dungeon popped. I guess tanks really are the missing link these days...

We zoned in with a hunter, a fury warrior, and a pally healer. With the hunter and Kuanchichi that meant we had good crowd control options. I was upfront about never having done the dungeon on heroic. And then off we went!

The first pulls were a bit rough. I didn't die, but it was clear the pally was struggling to keep me alive. I was mentally buckling down to pop every cooldown as it came up every fight.

Then the hunter says "brb", and when he gets back mentions having smoked a bowl. Inwardly, perhaps even outwardly, I wince. Here we go, I think, time for Huntard and The PUG From Fail. The hunter's guild name was even <THAT Guy>.

But before I can say anything in party the dialog box for requeueing after a member has left pops up. The pally has abandoned ship. I requeue and someone (the warrior I think?) says the pally must not like smoking. The new healer joins us and zones in.

It's a troll druid.

Named Ganjja.

Kuan laughs and points out that Ganjja isn't likely to have that issue. We all laugh, and tell Ganjja what had happened. He laughs too. And then off we go again, but this time with much stronger heals. I certainly wasn't afraid of dying on the trash pulls unless I did something very dumb.

Side note: I'm really loving having a druid healer behind me in heroics. I've heard that druids are not doing so hot (pun not intended), but every one I've run a five man with has been super. I really like how the constant stream of heals from their hots mean I rarely plunge in health.

Back to Grim Batol: we oneshot the first boss, and wiped only once on the second boss. The third boss took us 6 or so tries to get down. The fourth boss took about 10 tries to kill. Stupid faceless dudes are a pain in the ass. The grand total of deaths for the instance was 15 for the two lowest people and 18 for the highest person. Through it all the group as a whole discussed strategy prior to every boss pull, and updated that strategy if it proved to not work. There were no recriminations and people admitted it when they messed up thought there was something they could have done better.

And when we finally killed Erudax the achieve popped up for all of us. No one in the group had completed Heroic Grim Batol before. There were cheers and congratulations and compliments all around.



It was a pretty excellent pug. Maybe I am having phenomenal luck. Or maybe I just don't pug all that much. Regardless I want to give a big round of applause to Ganjja, Faragorn and Pez. They were awesome and a pleasure to run with.

Two Things

First:


Mornara is now an officer of Darkfall. I don't know if I'm tank officer or what, but I volunteered to help with setting up EPGP. And immediately after taking this pic I went through every single character's officer note to get it ready for EPGP.

Tomorrow I will put the actual EPGP info in the notes and the guild info. DraNgNon and I have been tossing a bunch of ideas for it back and forth. The specific details of it should be worked out soon, but it can be changed after the initial setup, so no real problem.

Second:


Kuanchichi and Mornara's random heroic of today was Stonecore. I don't like Stonecore. Actually that isn't true, I think it has beautiful art, but the bosses are excruciating. They are so easy to mess up with just a little bit of lag. Or maybe on the second boss, you don't actually line of sight the crystal storm, despite being behind a pillar.

However, my least favorite part of Stonecore is Ozruk. I can't seem to get out of his shatter. Just total fail on my part. But tonight we oneshot him! Booyah! So maybe I don't hate him quite os much anymore. Funny how him being dead at my feet does that.

Finding the Bar

A long long time ago, I was lost in Black Rock Depths (BRD). I wandered around the Prison Block and the Ring of Law. I fought my way through the Quarry and the Dark Iron Highway. I could see the Bar (aka the Grim Guzzler), but I had no fucking clue how to get to it. Shortly after that I was trying to get attuned to Molten Core. After several corpse runs and the other mishaps that result from trying to ask the Dark Irons for directions, I finally found my way to the place to lava hop to get attuned.

Those two experiences convinced me to always learn my way around a dungeon. Always always always. So I remember pretty much every dungeon I've been in (aside from Maraudon, fucking Maraudon). I can easily lead the way through Dire Maul. The Outland dungeons are laughably easy to navigate. The Northrend dungeons are also cake to find your way around. I know where the bosses are in ZG and I'm pretty sure I could get around MC. UBRS, LBRS, and even BRD are no problem.

In fact BRD I know so well I can give directions in gchat. I don't remember why Zephon was trying to get to the bar. I think maybe he had some rep turnins to do there? Anyway, Tylara and Kairon were helping to retake the Echo Isles. So while we did that I gave Zephon some directions:





I believe that he did eventually take a break from dwarf and gnome slaughtering to actually go to the bar.

that magic number, 68

We finally got Tylara and Kairon to level 68. That magic number, where both the beginning Northrend quests light up, and the Karazhan keying quest chain opens up.

The question is, do we start questing them in Northrend, or take the time to get them Heroic-keyed like we did with Mornara and Ikoli. The only keys they have left are Sha'tar, Keepers of Time, and of course, Karazhan.

It was going to be Lower City, as well, but we ran a random dungeon and ended up with Tylara tanking Sethekk Halls (at 67! OMG). That would have been more fun if the shaman in the party's answer to my asking for Tremor Totem when we got the the groups that feared was something other than "Meh."

You're welcome?

Right after the ICC10 raid last night Kuan and V did a speedy heroic.

It's always a bit odd to go into heroics. Regardless of who I bring, at this point all my characters are over geared for them. And since Mornara is my newest 80 and is actually still pretty undergeared relative to the Triumph badge median, that's actually saying a lot about easy the standard Heroic is. So Heroics are not as much about the content as a contest with the other players. Unless it's the new ICC5s or TOC5 none of my toons are going to wipe due to not having good enough gear for the content, they will wipe due to someone being an idiot. Either with a bad pull, or fear getting a 2nd group, or dps being aggro-stealing jerks.

Razaruckus from Shu'halo was the pally tank we got last night. His health and gear was a bit low, but still way more than enough to do H Nexus. We smashed through Nexus quite fast. The only one who died was the rogue, who was clearly someone's alt who had forgotten that if a boss does whirlwind it'll hurt.

Anyway after blowing through the instance I whispered Razaruckus saying "ty for tanking". He responded "ty for not pulling aggro". I'm at a bit of a loss how to take his thanks, because I *did* pull aggro a few times.

I meant my thanks sincerely. The bosses died, and, aside from the rogue being dumb, the rest of us didn't. I did pull aggro once or twice, but honestly with V in almost full ICC25 gear that's not surprising. No matter who the tank is at this point I have to be careful with aggro, especially in aoe situations. For the vast majority of the run I kept myself in check and Razaruckus did a good job holding aggro.

So Razaruckus, wherever you are on the internet, you did a good job tanking. I appreciated it.