First Night with 3.0 (Long)

Part One: Summary of the Night

Part Two: First Impression of Warrior Skills/Talents

Easy.

Really the only word. Possibly to the point of uninteresting. Read on...

We cleared BT in under three hours. Three hours, and probably could have done it an hour shorter if we hadn't taken so long to realize our full potential, and swapped people less.

Najentus died in 1:46, before even doing tidal shield a second time.

Supremus died in ~3:00, after a single kite phase.

Akama died in 50 seconds.

Teron took ~2:00 min.

Bloodboil died in the middle of his second Fel Rage.

RoS didn't finish her first enrage, and had over 1:30 left in P2 when we pushed it to P3.

Shaz and Council were faster, but had no exciting landmarks.

Illidan was one-shot. He did shadow demons twice, the whole time.

All the trash was AoE'ed down. We did 3+ Supremus pulls at a time. Akama was done in two long pulls. Everything that was remotely close got done together, and with minimal tank damage, and tons of threat everywhere and on everything. And the efficiency of AoEing, combined with the 30% less health, made it just fly.

Now - for as exciting as this all sounds - it just felt too easy by the end. It felt like a run-through, and we aren't even rocking Sunwell Gear (yet). I had fun flexing my new skills (more later), but by the end, nothing was really challenging. Our healers were board to tears - since we were taking far less damage, and the fights were so short that their healing was a shadow of what it once was.

-Warrior Details-

I consider myself as having taken a low threat spec. No Impale, Cruelty, AttT, Puncture - and I still out-threated everyone on single targets. By a large margin. In avoidance gear. I had to try at some points, so I get the impression that threat talents will just reduce the margin of effort needed.

Shield Block: I macro'ed this into Shield Slam, by the end of the night. I didn't need the on-demand protection, and the extra threat/damage was nice. 

Vigilance: This was fun. I had DPS asking for it specifically, and it was pretty big in maintaining the large lead I had. I also tried to remember to stick it on people that were subject to large amounts of damage for its damage reduction component - Bloodboil's Fel Rage targets, and Illidan's Shadow Barrage Target.

Warbringer: The mobility was nice. The pace of the night was so fast, that I really liked being able to charge around - like when I intercepted the feral druid that was headed towards the next pull, then charged his target - that was fun to see in action.

Sword and Board: This was a general fun talent, and made secondary aggro a breeze. I'll take some time to get the sound/animation completely down in my head so that its automatic, but I see that in the future.

Shockwave: Between this and Thunderclap, I could tank most any sized group. My only complaint, was that there were times I got lazy while waiting for the cooldown to come up, and could have spent more time tab-targeting around. 

I still want to get some more experience with talents before I make final judgement, though.

I felt as effective at AoE tanking as our paladin. It was hard to tell without my fully configured scrolling combat text, but I think I tanked the bulk of pre-Shaz trash. Typically two AoE groups, a Pain/Pleasure Pack, and some servants - all together.

In Summary: I can't wait for Wrath, but its now more urgent. We now have power well above the content available, and need some content designed with it in mind. I really hope that raiding continues with its scheduled course until the expansion, though, and that people don't get disinterested. 

Plan Of Attack!

Old Business:

Kalec to 13% / 23%. Thats a kill in 3.0 speak, with the -30% health nerf. We were using Violet Badges, but I'm going to go ahead and also require Cloaks of Arcane Evasion with +15 AR enchant, for a nice chunk of resist. 

New Business: My Plan of Attack for Tonight (3.0)

1) Spec to 5/0/56. The lone point in Imp Shield Reflect was my only swing point, and its directed towards my current progression (Kalec).

2) Check and Fix my Mods. Some type of Scrolling Combat Text, Deadly Boss Mods, and a Bar Mod are my only necessities. 

3) Check my achievement points, and compare to anyone who will listen.

4) "Train" all my vanity pets, and marvel in my bag space. Talk to a stable master to get back any I may have deleted.

5) Check out the Barbershop! I'm happy with my hair, but I'll take a look.

6) Stroll around Stormwind Harbor

7) Check out the spot where Darlaran use to be

8) /cower

9) Double check consumables, repairs, and head to BT for a night of relearning what buttons to push!

I'm excited. In a good way. I'm getting the feeling that as long as there are working servers, LOKI will be able to bash its way through BT, and overcome any change-related learning that we need to. Bosses are just going to melt, with the increased raid DPS, and decreased health. As long as healers aren't too thrown off with no downranking and a lone potion, we should (hopefully) be 30% Faster. And then there's raid wide buffs - I can't imagine how crowded thats going to look on the side of my screen. 

I'll be sure to let everyone know how things are going as they happen. And I'll be updating Yakra's Theories on Tanking as I feel comfortable with the new talents and such. I actually should archive and modify that now...

I really, really hope WWS works - because I can't wait to see the hard numbers for all this. 

Illidan Kill Two, and Return to SSC

Our second Illidan Kill took just under an hour, from zoning to looting - something like four attempts. Considering we had a different flame tank, at least two new healers, and a handful of new DPS - it was really great. Another thing I'm particularly happy about, is that this entire weeks BT clear and Illidan kill has happened in the immediate wake of the Guild Master title changing hands. We haven't missed a step, in what is typically a guild shattering event. I'm just rather happy with everyone today: Our old GM (for orchistrating this change so well), our officers (for their continued support), and our Raiders in general (for their great performance, and confidence in me). 

I should mention - I nearly wiped us. Right before the last transition into Demon Phase, we were at ~3%. I stayed in too long, hoping we'd kill him, and built an unfortunatly large amount of threat on the demon. When I realzied I should get out of there, I ended up getting a portion of the raid shadow blasted once or twice. We still got the demons down and finished the last 3%, but I felt rather silly.

So, with our remaining two hours, I made the call to go to SSC so we can do half of the Hand of Ad'al title stuff (Fathomlord Quest, and Vial). We skipped Hydross, Lurker, Morogrim, and killed Fathomlord in two attempts (on the first, we had the hunter pet tank go down from a Cataclysmic Bolt). Considering that probably half the raid hadn't seen the fight previously, it only added to my general satisfaction.  Many people got their quest from the guy-in-a-cage.

We went to Vashj next, but were unfortunatly running out of time.  We didn't have any of the ranged DPS officers that had done assignments for sides back when we did it last night, so our Melee DPS officer had to quickly throw those together. That was unorganized, which didn't make healing assignments easy. In the end, we only did one attempt. Rather then keep the raid late on a non-progression night, I polled people, and all those that needed vials said they could make a impromptu Monday raid - so thats the plan tonight. In retrospect - we should have killed Lurker so we wouldn't have to reclear trash, but I suppose those are the breaks. 

Race Against The Patch

I wish that 3.0 had an announced release date, and if I can wish a little harder, that it the announced date would be at least two weeks in advance.

Long story short - I want to get Hand of A'dal titles for everyone who doesn't have them currently (joined us after doing T5, missed a Vial, ect). Come 3.0, those titles can't be earned.

My first priority is securing our Illidan kill, and making sure everyone can be a part of that - its our current progression, after all. He is priority one until we have killed him at least two more times. 

Beyond that, people are understandably split. Those that did joined while we were in BT want to see Hyjal / Kill Archimonde. Those that joined while we were doing Hyjal want Titles. Those that have been around since T5, want to do Sunwell.

I'm looking into ways to speed up the title process - namely trying to find guilds that would sell/share their raid ID that has Lurker (and possibly Morogrim) dead on it, so we could speed up Vashj/Fathomlord. Really, the biggest thing is the need to kill Illidan on our second night in BT, and not drag it out to a third.

The annoying part is - even if we do clear BT in two nights, that last raid night of the week doesn't seem like enough for Fathomlord, Vashj, Al'ar, Kael, Rage. (not to mention the three trips to Akama needed in there). And there is no guanretee that the following Tuesday won't be the patch, and cause things to end. 

The whole removal of ability to earn mounts/titles at 3.0, instead of Wrath, just seems like poor execution to me.

Current Progression: Illidan

Last night was LOKI's first full (3-Hour) night on Illidan. We got to P5 on our last attempt, after discovering a number of places mistakes can happen, and fixing them - noteworthy ones include spacing out (duh), deciding on a parasite kill location, NOT dpsing through the p3->4 transition (and getting the raid shadow blasted), and making sure all shadow demons are slowed.

Prior to this, we had gotten to spend ~1 hour on him after killing council. That night we consistently got through p1, were learning mechanics of flame tanking and positioning, and got to p3/4 once (shadow demons owning everyone with so many dps dead when we got to p4).

Note: Bosskillers is wrong. The only thing you need to do in p2, is make sure every player is within 20~25 yards from one warglave (not both). The only person this really effects, are the flame tanks, who can't go too far away from the glave there flame came form. We used three camps in the middle. 

Anyway - Sheer. Good news is, I know where my sheer button is, and haven't had issues with it - but this has taken some considerable rewiring on my part. For those unaware - Sheer is an ability Illidan uses in P1, 3, and 5. It cannot miss - and if not dodged, blocked, or parried - reduces your max health by 60% for something like 8 seconds. The key to not getting Sheered, is to shield block. Sheer needs to be saved for when he actually starts casting it (1.5 second cast) -elsewise, his rapid dual wielding attacks would eat through the charges. He doesn't crush, so it can safely be reserved. 

What I've done, is replace my shield block / shield slam button, with just shield slam. I then put shield block where shield reflect use to be - and mentelly pretend that its a spell that needs to be reflected. Now, I both click and keypress. I keypress my most often used abilities (threat rotation) - 2,3,4,3,2 (SS, Dev, Rev, Dev, SS...), and click less used abilities (TC, Ironshield Potions, Spell Reflect, ect). What I did for this fight, was put a supersized bar with those above abilities right under Illidan's cast bar - this lets me watch that for Sheer, Flame Crash, ect - while having those abilities to click right there. I find that he will often do a flame crash (requiring strafing and backing up) and then sheer while he's still moving. This setup allows me to move with the keyboard, and click shield block when needed.

So - P1 is easy. P2 is getting finished consistently, now that we've settled on a set two tanks (Feral Druid, who has the highest threat in FR gear), and Protection Paladin (extra blessings, judgements, ect) - though melee still will lose one or two if they aren't careful dpsing flames. I watched Illidan, called sides for eyebeam and barrage, and spammed shield reflect (his fireball damage is reflectable). P3 is generally smooth, but the P3-> P4 needs refinement, making sure all slowing effects are up, prioritising which demons to kill (and having the DPS there/alive) - as well as not being close to people for the flame barrage thing (3.5k fireballs on everyone that splash). 

I think the low point (personally) of the night was on that last attempt, where we got to p5, watching the cinematic, and I got owned right after it was over / the bubbles ended. 

I took three nice hits that just added up to my health, with no hots up, delayed heals, and no ironshield/commanding shout/TC/Demo (it had worn off in the bubble, nothing could be cast on me, ect). I think everyone was just excited that we had got there, and hadn't been ready to refocus (myself included) - but I plan on using some cooldowns next time preemptivly, regardless. Anyway, we got him to 28% with a rogue evasion tanking, until he started to draw soul all over the place.

I predict we will kill him this coming week. 

Oh, and pictures will be included whenever I get home.