What I had time to Fraps before my PC broke - again!

The title says it. Here are the most recent Menagerie raid videos from Siege of Orgrimmar. I would most certainly record more, as Menagerie is nearly at Garrosh, but Saturday morning my PC showed no signs of life. Therefore it's leaving home yet again to be fixed, if it can be fixed that is. It may be that they will just give me a new individual. In fact I hope they finally would.

Either way, I am working on building a supermachine of my own. My budget is around 1500 euros and I'll probably get around to buying stuff around the change of year. If you have any suggestions for what pieces I should consider, I'd love to know! I'll just say that I'd like to go for nVidia this time, instead of AMD Radeon.

A whole new spark

Good evening! After a long while, I come bearing good news.

In the absense of things to do, I've found an entirely new spark for WoW. I never would have admitted this while it was the present feeling, but I almost got bored of the game during the spring. I didn't particularly feel like logging in and I only really did so for the purpose of raiding. I had no projects regarding leveling or gearing up. But now, as I am unable to raid with my guild, unable to run dungeons, unable to explore the new heroic scenarios, I've been doing LFR on most of my maximum level characters. Nicasia and Vladan are quite nicely geared and well able to do Throne of Thunder, but in addition I am working on Raleigh's (holy paladin) and Jester's (brewmaster/windwalker monk) gear to get them into ToT as well. Raleigh is currently lacking three points. Jester's situation still looks a bit grim with an item level of around 465. Oh, and by "doing LFR" I mean relying entirely on the performance of the 24 other people - but hey, three, two and even one FPS is better than no FPS at all. Positive thinking all the way!

I do miss raiding a lot and I hope to get my primary PC back soon. I have given full raid leadership to a very trusted officer with whom I've been raiding since early Firelands, so there should be no more raid burnouts for me. I'm actually really looking forward to being "just a raider" without so much responsibility. Of course I'll still be doing the usual yelling of things and whatnot, but I'll be doing it because I like to do it, not because I must do it. What I am most of all looking forward to is not having to look after others so much, and being able to look after myself more when it comes to raid performance.

Something interesting I've noticed for the first time in my WoW life is that I feel ever so slightly bored of elemental shaman - which I find completely normal, considering I've had an elemental shaman as my main since late Wrath of the Lich King. I sure have respect for our offtank, who has had the same character as his main since he started playing in vanilla. I still intend to raid with Nicasia as I am able to, but I may look into the possibility of raiding with Vlad, for example, when possible. I had a ton of fun tanking and DPSing Dragon Soul with him in late Cataclysm. My gear lacks behind severely compared to the rest of the raid group, anyway, so it won't make much difference which character I am on. Nicasia will continue to be my main character, regardless of who I end up raiding with, though. We've got such a long history.

I am absolutely loving the 5.3 fact that you can choose to get loot for a different specialization! It's enabled me to work on Raleigh's gear through LFR. I wouldn't dare attempt to heal with craptop. I also think it'll be a good help when getting Vlad some new tanking gear, as I don't enjoy tanking LFR. So, yay for 5.3, yay for gearing up, yay for WoW.

Back, not quite in business though

Turns out I was able to reinstall and run WoW on my terribly bad old laptop, "craptop", after updating as many of its drivers as I was able to. As expected, the play experience is far from desirable with less than 10 FPS standing still in an empty room. As you have probably already figured, raiding is not an option for me before I get my primary PC back. Until then, I may redirect you to my attempt to maintain a personal blog number infinite+1, called That Rogue's Broken Keyboard and Other Lame Excuses. Despite the name, it's pretty much Finland-exclusive.

Lanfranco and I were responsible for this year's April fool's guild message of the day in Menagerie. A Menagerie ghost roleplay event was to be arranged in Hearthglen, Western Plaguelands (a very strategic location for Menagerie). Everyone taking part would be required to remain dead throughout the event. The idea of ghost RP first came up in a humorous recruitment advertisement we posted in the Moonglade trade chat once. Last year's April fool's message asked everyone to add 'lol' in the end of each message they posted in guild chat, or they would get a warning.

It's likely I won't be posting anything to Adventures while in England (9th - 24th of April), but when I return, I will have my good computer back. Below is yet another video that gets posted late.

I wasn't sure if I would ever post the next one, but decided to do so anyway. It's my first ever, and due to technical difficulties, also my only experience in the solo dungeon loot scenario...whateverthedevil thingy. I'm looking forward to doing smoother loot runs in the future!

Sha of Fear video

This one is indubitably a bit late. I uploaded it in a hurry and immediately went to pick up my visitor, who stayed with me for a week, so there hasn't been any time to update the blog. My life is now, sadly, back to normal again.

The visitation had a perfect timing, because Menagerie managed to clear the current content on the last raid day that my visitor and I could attend. We missed out on two Throne of Thunder raids, but as I get back to the world of raiding on Sunday, there will be more raid videos soon enough. I have been busy and more or less exhausted the entire day, but I am certainly looking forward to experiencing the Isle of Thunder and everything else that 5.2 has to offer.

Tsulong & Lei Shi videos

Pushing through four new bosses during the same lockout is definitely our record!

HoF & ToES videos

Here are some recent Menagerie raid videos from Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring.

That Garalon we love

Who would grow tired of watching a berserk as awesome as Garalon's, anyway?

We've got this... Really...!

As we got around to doing our usual Wednesday Mogu'shan Vaults run, suddenly after the Stone Guards I got the idea of recording our raiding for the first time since Dragon Soul, from where we sadly don't have much better material than the Kalecgos part of the Madness of Deathwing Chromatic Champion achievement, a (very stylish indeed) heroic Morchok clip and some early Dragon Soul progression kills like Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara and Ultraxion with the classic bad screaming, despite clearing the raid on heroic mode. Those videos actually make me miss Dragon Soul, heh. The oldest raid video of us, known as "Shannox now", dates back to early Firelands and, well, Shannox, Rageface and Riplimb.

We are well past our progression phase in normal mode Mogu'shan Vaults, but my sudden idea to Fraps the raid really messed with our heads. Before beginning, I told everyone how we should portray ourselves: we mustn't stand in poop, we mustn't die, we mustn't go out of mana, we mustn't do anything stupid! We mustn't do anything that wasn't what I did. For long I've thought I don't really tunnel vision, but after Feng, well, I am humbled. Please do enjoy this exclusive content of a Menagerie raid that was by far the most fun raid I have attended. We sure didn't live through our smoothest kills in history, but people were positive all the way from the first second to the last and beyond, which was really spectacular and made me incredibly happy. It really reminded me of why I fell in love with raiding in the first place.

I just wish Fraps had been running when the Eye of Kil'rogg made the first pull on Gara'jal the Spiritbinder.

Then came the time for the most flawless Elegon kill.
"Did you record that?"
"Nope."
"...You're kidding me?"
"Nope."

This is just one of those times when I try to say that you guys mean a ton to me.

Nica's guide to elemental shaman PvE - Abilities, rotation and cooldowns (5.1)

Prologue

Elemental shaman is the only class/spec combination I have ever truly fallen in love with in World of Warcraft. I created my first and most notable shaman in June 2010. She soon became my main, pushing aside the rogue who had lingered in the spotlight for a good while. She has remained my main character to this day, and I don't see that fact changing.

I have raided as an elemental shaman since late Wrath of the Lich King. The information I'm about to present is, in its entirety, acquired through experience, making mistakes and learning from them, and use of common sense. I'm not much of a mathematician, so if you are looking for accurate numbers and calculations, you should turn towards another source of information, such as Mr. Robot.

Elemental shaman is an interesting and active caster with a bunch of options to make influential changes to your playstyle. Playing effectively as an elemental shaman consists of maintaining one damage-over-time spell, keeping track of totems, dealing with short duration cooldowns and filling that relatively bursty rotation with some lightning.


Single target damage

As an elemental shaman, always cast Lightning Shield on yourself and self-enchant your weapon with Flametongue.

Elemental Blast: If you did like me and chose this talent, you should use it as often as possible. It doesn't only hit hard, but also increases your critical strike, haste or mastery rating by 3500 for 8 seconds. Ideally you would hope for haste with mastery as your second best option, but extra crit doesn't hurt you either. Elemental Blast will be your third most damage dealing ability. The major downside of this talent is that the numbers are solid: the worse your gear is, the greater the benefit is, which makes the talent particularly powerful for a shaman that is new to level 90, and less effective for a shaman with raid level gear.

Flame Shock: Your only damage-over-time spell and an extremely important tool when dealing damage to your foes. Whatever you cast after Elemental Blast benefits from the stat boost, which is why you should take as much advantage of it as possible, also by casting Flame Shock afterwards. Always keep Flame Shock active and refreshing a second or two before the last tick. If you have the option to cast Flame Shock on multiple targets that aren't going to die within a few seconds, do it. It will increase the amount of your Lava Surge procs, thus increasing your single target damage.

Lava Burst: What you will do the majority of your damage with. Lava Burst is guaranteed to crit when Flame Shock is active. Cast it as often as possible, and keep in mind that Lava Surge procs make Lava Burst instant, which allows you a moment to move without a loss of DPS time, should you need it.

Lightning Bolt: While Lightning Bolt's importance in an elemental shaman's rotation has constantly decreased, often referred to as a "filler spell", its power shouldn't be underestimated, as it will be responsible for dealing the second most damage of all of your abilities. Cast it when none of the other abilities are available, excluding Earth Shock and Unleash Elements in their own ways (see below for explanation).

Earth Shock: While dealing damage with Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, you will eventually gain up to seven stacks of Lightning Shield. You should unleash the offensive power of those charges somewhere between five (5) to seven (7) stacks, whatever fits the global cooldown of your shocking best, but make sure not to keep a fully charged Lightning Shield up.

Unleash Elements: Unless you have chosen Unleashed Fury as your level 90 talent, cast Unleash Elements before Lava Burst only when you need to move or need a little bit of extra burst in a short time. If you chose Unleashed Fury, cast Unleash Elements as often as possible, preferably when you know you will be using Lightning Bolt a lot.

Searing Totem: You should have Searing Totem up constantly while damaging a single target, unless you can use Fire Elemental Totem.


AoE damage

Note: This is how I AoE as an elemental shaman and without Glyph of Chain Lightning. I am sure there are differing opinions, but after crawling through a lot of different techniques, I noticed this one having the highest damage output.

Elemental Blast: As with single target damage, you want to get the stat boost from Elemental Blast for AoE as well.

Flame Shock: The idea is to cast Flame Shock on as many targets as possible. It will be more beneficial to cast and refresh Flame Shocks than it would be to use the cooldowns on Earth Shock.

Lava Burst: A critting (guaranteed with Flame Shock) Lava Burst hurts more than a Chain Lightning that hits three targets. With a lot of Flame Shocks active, there will be a lot of Lava Surge procs, which allows you to cast a lot of Lava Bursts.

Chain Lightning: For when Elemental Blast or Lava Burst are not available, or there is no need to recast/refresh Flame Shock.

Magma Totem: Magma Totem deals more damage to two (2) or more targets.

Fire Elemental Totem: Fire elementals do occasional AoE damage as you do it.


Cooldowns

Ascendance: Before activating Ascendance, make sure you have just refreshed Flame Shock and cast Elemental Blast and Lava Burst, and you have not procced Lava Surge. Also make sure you have used all global cooldowns, such as Stormlash Totem or Heroism before Ascendance.

Heroism: Your best known raid-wide cooldown. It's preferable to agree with your raid leader when to use Heroism in each encounter, if its use lies on your shoulders. If you use it for yourself, it's best to use Heroism together with other cooldowns for maximum benefit.
The following macro makes you unable to cast Heroism out of combat, thus saving you from unfortunate accidents.

#showtooltip Heroism
/cast [combat]Heroism

Stormlash Totem: Best used together with Heroism, as they both benefit the entire party. If you use it for yourself, combine it with other cooldowns for maximum benefit. Elementals do not benefit from Stormlash Totem.

Fire Elemental Totem: Your fire elemental benefits from any short term stat increases such as trinkets, Elemental Blast and potions, so the ideal time to use this cooldown is when you have such effects, preferably during Heroism as well. As elementals are on a five (5) minute cooldown, you probably won't get to use them more than a maximum of two times in an encounter.

Earth Elemental Totem: Doesn't provide a major damage increase. Also doesn't taunt raid bosses, so it doesn't hurt to use it during raid encounters. As with the fire counterpart, benefits from short term stat increases. Note that you cannot use both earth and fire elemental at the same time, but they do not share cooldown, so you can use one after another.

Elemental Mastery: The level 60 talent Elemental Mastery is best used together with Ascendance for maximum benefit of the latter, with any possible 2+ minute trinket cooldowns.

Ancestral Swiftness: The level 60 talent Ancestral Swiftness should be used as often as possible, preferably before Elemental Blast or Lava Burst.


Miscellaneous

Solar Beam (Symbiosis): The druid ability Symbiosis grants elemental shamans their silence, Solar Beam, and the druid either Purge, Feral Spirit or Spiritwalker's Grace depending on their specialization. You cannot use Solar Beam to silence raid bosses, but casting it while they are casting a spell interrupts the cast (for example the Spirit Kings of Mogu'shan Vaults).

Wind Shear: The following macro makes you stop casting any other spell when casting your interrupt spell Wind Shear:

#showtooltip Wind Shear
/stopcasting
/cast Wind Shear

The following macro makes you Wind Shear a "focus interrupt." If you have /focused on something, and your current target isn't casting, Wind Shear will interrupt your focus instead. If your target is casting, it will interrupt your target.

#showtooltip Wind Shear
/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus , exists] Wind Shear
/cast Wind Shear

As always, any suggestions, corrections and questions are most welcome.

Mogu'shan Vaults as an elemental shaman

So, I finally got around to writing something half-useful! This is not a general elemental raiding guide, nor a guide to boss tactics, but focuses on the fights encountered in the Mogu'shan Vaults raid on normal mode from an elemental shaman's point of view. I may be a wee bit late with this, but perhaps it'll provide a tip or two for an elemental shaman that's paying the raid a visit for the first time.

Mogu'shan Vaults is quite friendly and nice for an elemental shaman to raid. We bring a whole of three raid-wide buffs: spell power, spell haste and mastery, so we make valuable additions to any raid group - even more so, if we know how to best make use of our abilities. Below are some elemental-specific things that I pay attention to in this raid.


The Stone Guard

While one of the quilen in each trash pack goes bananas, bringing the little ones a protection buff against AoE damage, don't be fooled. Chain Lightning continues to damage them as usual, as it's not tied to an area.

Tips: Cast and refresh Flame Shock on both guards that are tanked together. All three of them share their health pool, but you will still get to have two individual dots on, which doesn't only increase your damage as it is, but also gives you more Lava Surge procs. If you wish, you can replace Lightning Bolt with Chain Lightning while damaging the two that are together, but keep in mind that this makes it more challenging to maintain the rest of your DPS rotation: Lightning Shield charges will build up faster and you need to plan your shocking more carefully and with less time to spare. Using Chain Lightning instead of Lightning Bolt is also way more mana costly.

Preferred talents: Both Astral Shift and Stone Bulwark Totem are useful for this fight. It doesn't make any major difference if you go with one over the other. The totem has a shorter cooldown and a lesser effect. In this fight you'll pretty much be DPSing constantly, so for healing, you can practically go with either Healing Tide Totem or Ancestral Guidance. The greater your damage output is, the more efficient Ancestral Guidance is. If handled correctly, people should barely take damage from overloads, so I would rather go with Ancestral Guidance, as there shouldn't really be need for raid-wide healing, but rather specific.


Feng the Accursed

Tips: Spiritwalker's Grace allows you to keep your usual DPS rotation up while having to move in phases two and three. Astral Shift is very useful when Arcane Resonance prevents you from stacking on the boss during Arcane Velocity.

Preferred talents: While both specific and raid-wide damage is involved in this fight, the raid-wide damage is much more powerful. Therefore I recommend using Healing Tide Totem for this encounter. If your tanks don't manage to interrupt Epicenter in the first phase, and the protective shield is on cooldown, Healing Tide Totem comes in extremely handy, letting healers save their major cooldowns for later. Epicenter makes you miss a lot, due to which Ancestral Guidance wouldn't be of much use at all.

In the second phase your raid may also be dealing with high raid-wide damage from the stacks that Feng's Draw Flame ability gives him. Although you can continue casting while moving using Spiritwalker's Grace, and therefore get the full benefit of Ancestral Guidance, Healing Tide Totem still makes for a more powerful heal for all raid members. As the last phase is mostly about coordination, having to deal with necessary damage isn't so essential.


Gara'jal the Spiritbinder

Tips: If possible, take the chance to visit the spirit world right away, if you don't become a Voodoo Doll in the first lot. Save the use of Ascendance until you return to the physical world with your secondary stat and damage boosting buff. However, if you are one of the first players to become a doll, don't save cooldowns until you get to go to the spirit world, as it'll be more beneficial to just use them.

Preferred talents: Although the damage the raid takes in the frenzy part of the fight can potentially get high, the fight is quite short overall and Ancestral Guidance is my choice for a healing talent. It'll be a fast remedy for players that suffer from Voodoo Doll. Stone Bulwark Totem is at its best in encounters like Gara'jal, providing you with minor absorption half the time. Astral Shift gives you powerful protection against damage taken through Voodoo Doll, or late in the encounter.


The Spirit Kings

Tips: If possible, have a druid cast Symbiosis on you. It will give you Solar Beam, which, together with your Wind Shear, makes you an interrupt machine for the two spirit kings that require it: Meng the Demented and Zian of the Endless Shadow.

Use Thunderstorm to knock back the shadowy adds. You can easily participate in killing an Undying Shadow that's fixated on you with the help of Spiritwalker's Grace. Don't use damage-reducing cooldowns during Meng's Maddening Call - although that sudden drop in your health may look alarming, you want to be released through damage.

Preferred talents: There shouldn't really be any major raid-wide damage in this encounter, which is why I go with Ancestral Guidance when it comes to healing talents. This also means that Stone Bulwark Totem may end up being more useful than Astral Shift.


Elegon

For the first trash before Elegon and Will of the Emperor, a PvP trinket isn't the worst choice - while the magic debuff can just be dispelled, too, but not by elemental shamans, as we can only remove curses. Just remember to swap your trinket back to a PvE one once you are done with the petrifying trash! You can also make use of Windwalk Totem here.

Tips: All ranged DPS should take a moment to find that particular spot on the edge of the celestial zone that allows you to reset your stacks of Overcharged simply by jumping. It's easy to find by first taking a step into the celestial zone, and then a tiny step back... by backpeddling! If you can't find that spot, or you'd rather reset your stacks by moving out and back into the celestial zone, do it while you're casting an instant spell or get a Lava Surge proc.

If you decide/have to reset your Overcharged stacks during the last phase, popping Astral Shift for your visit outside the celestial zone is a good idea, as you're be taking a lot of damage regardless of where you are. Astral Shift can also be a useful talent for soaking the damage of Total Annihilation from a Celestial Protector. Using a cooldown like that is particularly important if you aren't at full health, as it may save your life in those situations. Both Astral Shift and Stone Bulwark Totem are helpful in the last phase of the encounter.

Popping Spiritwalker's Grace as you begin your journey towards your designated Draw Power phase spot is a good idea, as it maximises your DPS on Elegon. Killing the Energy Charges in second phases is quite easy for a bursty spec like elemental. It's essential to keep DPSing the boss while you don't have a charge to kill. Keep your burst spells, like Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Elemental Blast and highly charged Earth Shock mostly off cooldown for the charges. It may save you some close calls.

Preferred talents: I personally go for Astral Shift over Stone Bulwark Totem for this one. The berserk timer doesn't allow much spare time between your offensive attacks, so using a global cooldown for a minor absorption every minute doesn't really help maximise one's damage output. Ancestral Guidance works well in this fight, because you want to be DPSing as much as possible and most of the time, but there can be situations where you can't do enough damage to make Ancestral Guidance useful. So, although the cooldown is one minute longer, I use Healing Tide Totem for Elegon, as there are a lot of moments when the raid takes a ton of damage.


Will of the Emperor

Tips: As with the Stone Guards right at start, have Flame Shock active on as many targets as possible, but particularly Jan-Xi and Qin-Xi. There isn't much time to just DPS the bosses, so those dots will make a good contribution to the damage they receive. Again, while their health pool is shared, you have two individual dots ticking.

Emperor's Rage adds fixate on random targets. Both Frozen Power and Earthgrab Totem are useful talents for slowing and preventing them from getting to their targets. Keep in mind that while Earthgrab Totem replaces Earthbind Totem with an improved version of the totem, you can use Earthbind together with Frozen Power. You should use Thunderstorm to knock them back if they are about to reach their targets, and no other methods are used. Capacitator Totem, together with the Totemic Projection talent, gives you an AoE stun that you can relocate if your targets move out of its range. This, as other means of crowd control, only work on the smallest adds, the Rages, but you can use Earthbind Totem to slow down Emperor's Courages. You may also want to crowd control the Rage adds with Hex at some point, usually towards the end of the encounter.

The best time to use Stormlash Totem in this encounter is during Titan Gas, as this is when melee DPS will likely be damaging the bosses as well, there's little to no target swapping and people get the most out of their DPS rotations. Save Heroism/Bloodlust for the last/fourth Titan Gas phase that you encounter in the fight, and preferably cast Stormlash together with it. Keep in mind that you get to use Stormlash Totem and Fire Elemental Totem twice in this encounter.


Preferred talents: As Titan Gas does relatively high raid-wide damage, I recommend using Healing Tide Totem in this encounter. Both Frozen Power and Earthgrab Totem are useful talents for add control. Totemic Projection allows you to relocate Capacitator Totem to stun any Emperor's Rages within 8 yards of the totem.


Please do let me know, if you feel that something is missing from the list. I'll make sure to add anything new I discover.

A warlock's mission

I just came up with a crazy idea that just might work.

Sorley, my demonology, and only, warlock, currently sits at level 50 and my leveling interest for him is moderate. I'm in no hurry to get him to 90, so I began to think what I could use him for. A certain title called Herald of the Titans popped on my mind. I never got to do it in Wrath of the Lich King and I think it's one of the most epic titles in the game. Considering my raiding experience as elemental shaman I'd only take on such a challenge as a damage dealer, so it's perfect. Sorley Sylvester, good sir, I trust you with this heroic task.

I realise this would be mighty impossible on my main realm Moonglade (EU), which is why OpenRaid is the way to go. I've seen several Herald of the Titans runs about, so I'm sure there will be some when the locky is 80. The actual challenge before Algalon is to get the gear, though, as I must acquire it from Wrath of the Lich King raids up to and including Ulduar.

Does anyone have interest in joining me for this challenge? It's definitely not a walk in the park, in fact I'm sure it'll be very difficult, but as I've now got the spark for it, I might as well ask if anyone would like to come along! Just to be clear, the base requirements are: a level 80 character with no items higher than Ulduar 10.

Life-threatening bugs detected

How could I have missed this??!?!? I am forever disappointed and sad.

On another note, there was a bug that I certainly didn't miss out on. In last night's Dragon Soul, at Ultraxion, I experienced a random death that apparently didn't have a cause. Basically, what happened was I got Fading Light. A second or two after getting it, I died. Since it was so soon, it couldn't have been Fading Light that killed me, but I'll get back to that in a bit. I wasn't smart enough to screencap my combat log, but basically what it reported was Nicasia first taking damage from Ultraxion's instability, then that Nicasia died. We were all at a high health and I received no 'low health!' warnings during the encounter. After my death my DBM count down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 for Fading Light going off - yet another proof it wasn't the debuff that killed me. And you can be sure I cleared that out, since I, officially again, lead the no fails list of Ultraxion. /cheer

Bright things are that with 5.0.5 some existing bugs, such as Karazhan chess speed and Halion's post-pull disappearances, were fixed. It seemed to bring some new ones to light our paths, though. I'm not complaining, certain bugs make the game more fun and unpredictable. Well, sometimes. I can also see how they would be extremely non-beneficial.

A rather short post this one, but I'm still busy with work and I'll have more time to write about things when it's done. All in time.

Patchfever

I only just realised that the only thing I've mentioned regarding 5.0.4 is a bug. A bug! Before the patch was released, I complained about my Cataclysm burnout, Pandaria not being released yet, guild worries... And not one positive word now that the game is actually fun again. In fact it's fairly logical, since I really want to play it now - that leaves no time for writing, right?

Anyways, I thought I'd go through the start of the patch and how it has worked out for me. The most notable difference in gameplay are obviously the new talents and abilities, so I'll start with those. For Nicasia the elemental shaman, my main, I chose the following talents for heroic Dragon Soul raiding purposes: Astral Shift, Frozen Power, Totemic Restoration, Echo of the Elements, and despite the fairly overpowered totem, Ancestral Guidance.

After testing in multiple encounters, I came up with the result of Echo being better than the other two options. It was particularly strong in encounters with steady DPS maintenance, such as Ultraxion. Her major glyphs are Telluric Currents, Flame Shock, Spiritwalker's Grace, and for minor ones I went with Far Sight, Totemic Encirclement and Lakestrider, which has nearly got me killed already! I was really jaded raiding with Nica. I kept thinking about swapping for my death knight for the remains of Dragon Soul... Until 5.0.4 came out. Then BAM! It all got fun again!

Vladan received Boiling Blood, Purgatory, Asphyxiate, Death Pact and Blood Tap talents for his blood spec, and Unholy Blight, Anti-Magic Zone, Asphyxiate, Death Siphon and Runic Empowerment for his frost spec. His blood glyphs are Unholy Command, Icy Touch, Anti-Magic Shell, Horn of Winter, Resilient Grip and the oh-so-essential Corpse Explosion. His frost glyphs are Shifting Presences, Death Coil and Icebound Fortitude, which I thought I'd find useful in some situations. The minor glyphs are the same, apart from Tranquil Grip replacing Resilient Grip.
I wonder if Chilblains is actually meant to be spelled with only one L?

Purgatory is, to my mind, a very cool talent mainly because of the feel of it. It suits the death knight playfeel perfectly. I think it's useful for raid tanking. And because I was bored, I bound various insults to Vlad's Dark Command taunt. It's not common for people to share my sense of humour, but we'll see!

Raleigh, who is a holy paladin, has got a bit less attention post-patch. He did make my jaw drop after doing 20k DPS on a dummy, though. Sadly I don't find protection very interesting at the moment, so I will more than likely make his offspec retribution - again. This is also because holy pretty much lost Exorcism, and I think that spell has the sexiest sound effect in the whole game. That sound is no doubt one of the best things about paladins.

Despite Nica's raiding getting a lot more fun, I still think Vlad is on top of the gameplay chart, bursting 60k DPS on a raid boss with relative ease, and with an item level lower than Nicasia's. This doesn't mean that Nica isn't still my main, and most loved character.
The remaining three Dragon Soul runs in fact seem a bit saddening now that we had a really fun raid last Saturday. It's been a long time since we've had that much fun as a group - at least I felt that was the case. Otherwise, too, I think the recent rough times are over for now. The timing of 5.0.4 couldn't have been better, since the new stuff is really refreshing, and it shows. Thank you, Blizzard, for this patch!

P.S. I'm going to be studying Mon-Thur evenings now and I'm not sure about how much that affects my WoW playing and blogging, but in case I seem a bit inactive, it's most likely because of that.

Through Your Interface: 15 Days of Screenshots #7

See Saz's blog for more information regarding the challenge!

7. Best screenshot of the year
Show us the best screen shot you believe that you have ever taken and why you think it is the best (content, meaning, how you framed it, etc).

I realise I'm twisting the order of the days a little bit now, but I just have to give this one to a shot I just took tonight. While helping a friend's guild in Dragon Soul, we found ourselves in a 'custom story'-like situation. (I also think it's quite essential to just have one screenshot here, so consider the first one the one that represents the title.)

Indeed, when we were jumping over to the platform involving Kalecgos, Deathwing suddenly went: "I am Deathwing, the Destroyer, the end of all things..." and got a little bit ahead of things, giving us two phases to deal with at the same time.

Let this be a tribute to what is by far the worst raid I have ever raided. But even in all that crap we can dig out good things. It's been a real changing point for our guild, and we've achieved a lot in the raid. But thank the Light, the Death God, Elune, the loa, Hakkar, the sha, the spirits, King Rastakhan, the Earthmother, the aspects, the titans, Cult of the Damned, the Old Gods, the deities and all the power of fel that we only need to go there a few more times!

Fangs of Fluty

Thank you, thank you. -Fluty

Wings of the Father.

Nicasia = Interviewer, guild master.
Fluty = Core raider, honored member.

N: Congratulations, Fluty!
F: Whoo!
N: How do you feel now that this journey towards your laggers is finally over?
F: Awesome.
N: How are you planning to use your daggers in the future?
F: Stab stuff, flair.
N: How do they feel in your hands?
F: Have you looked at them? There are tentacles on the handles.
N: So, wiggly then?
F: Yes, very.
N: That is fascinating. How do you think that will affect your fighting?
A part of the interview has been censored.
N: How do you feel about their pink colour?
F: Yay! Pink! Landslide should be pink, too.
N: Fair enough. How do you feel about Pandaria's greens replacing your oranges?
F: They what? They are not going to replace them with greens!
N: Well, blues then.
F: Meh, I'll still have them to show off.
N: Will you be sad when you cannot feel the wiggle in your hands anymore?
F: Yes, wiggling in hands is good.
N: I can't really come up with any more questions. How are you feeling overall?
F: Well, WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! That and slightly hungry.
N: We will get you some food immediately.
F: Whoo! Food!
N: Thank you for the interview and congratulations again!
F: No problems, and. Thank you, thank you.

Shiny admiring shiny.

Because we do not appreciate censorship, we have published the parts that originally had to be cut out of the interview.

F: I might "accidentally" stab Mael.
N: Who is this Mael? Would you describe them for us?
F: Maelarii? He's known mostly as Dolores.
Muffet: Fluty, can I touch it?
F: He mumbles and he calls himself a tracker, but he usually gets lost. And he's lazy, very lazy.

Hail Fluty

On Friday 25th our little guild fought the evil Warmaster Blackhorn, his companion Goriona and their horrifying friends. Our aim had always been to save the ship from any damage caused by Twilight Barrages. However every time at least one was too far, or had a particularly unfortunate timing.

Desperation filled our hearts as our beloved Skyfire was about to suffer a blow! Luckily our amazing rogue Fluty bravely sprinted into two barrages, sacrificing his life for the sake of Skyfire!

Fluty's heroism will inspire our further adventures. He had to make a macro to thank people for praising him.

All hail Fluty, champion and savior of Menagerie! And the Skyfire. Sky Captain Swayze also sent his regards to him.