Holyssa

Please make sure to show up there on Tuesday with your consumables and flasks ready to go for some learning. The bosses should not be too difficult for us, but remember the trash is nasty and will require your utmost attention.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Eye_%28Tempest_Keep%29

If you guys haven't done so already, go look at this WoWWiki excerpt about The Eye and it's trash. A good portion of them can be CC'd, and following the suggested kill order will make this place a total joke. It's much easier than it appears to be if everyone focuses.

Now for some copy-pasta fun so people don't have to weed through the SSC posts:

http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild...;sid=eb4C3F3r8y - Highly recommended A'lar strategy. Probably gonna be our biggest hurdle due to random bullcrap and his plethora of bugs (lol hitboxes), but I'm confident we can kill him easily.

For fire mages that cannot afford to constantly re-spec: stock up on Elixirs of Frost Power or Wizard Oil.

http://www.wowwiki.com/High_Astromancer_Solarian - She's Baron Geddon with hired goons & less randomness. An incredibly easy zergfest, but I'd still read up & come prepared.

http://kaelthasraiding.ytmnd.com/ - Inevitable.

EDIT: Small reminder: please do not forget your Ashtongue Cowl for the Ruse of the Ashtongue quest. If you forget your Cowl, I will pour liquid-nitrogen down your pants, and smack your buttocks with a hammer! ^_^

http://boards.worldofraids.com/topic-10967-1.html

Patch notes got updated again, but with some fascinating changes to 25-man stuff:

- All 25-man bosses drop 2 badges now.

- You can now purchase Nether Vortex with badges (cost: 15 badges + 6 gold), also Primal Nether & Nether Vortex are not soulbound anymore.

More badges, and most importantly: MOAR (JC) trinketssssss!

New Model: Tuskarr Male

It seems like Blizzard has added a WotLK model to that ptr build (mistake?), they will probably remove it as soon as possible, anyway we got a picture of it now! (Thanks Mech for the tip)

lol walrus.

/outofcontext

Scene: The raid, waiting in front of Hydross, for a member having technical difficulties.

Holyssa: "Mmm.... it's warm in here..."

Orcala: "Get out of my butt!"

/discuss

This is why I love how small Blood Elves are. Druid butts...beware of where you park!

... it seems that many of our raiders have agro'd the Valentine monster, and as a result they will be courageously battling for thier lives in thier own 2 man groups this evening, leaving the rest of us quite a few short to pound some Vashj.

Blessing of Protection, don't fail me now!

*revs up the Editsaw*

Reserving this spot for WWS reports so people can do some number crunching.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...=3&sid=1#55

I lol'd at Hortus's response to this:

How exactly did someone get to Brutallus? That area of the Dead Scar should be inaccessible.

Surprise EXPLOITsecks! A map designer is probably spewing coffee out of it's nose right now, assuming they didn't already get blamed for this mess.

Why do I have this gut feeling that some Blizzard programmer left that tag in on purpose just to tease some curious/insane warlock?

Side note: Blizz gets my thumbs up for making Brutallus look awesome.

Grats guys! Hexlord is a pain in the ass. GL on Zul'jin in the future!

I, too, will miss the raid for one night only, Thursday, Feb. 14. I'm being taken out of town for Valentine's Day.

Woo hoo for surprises! I just found out a few minutes ago.

I'm gonna be celebrating V-Day with my Orcala Friday night, since we won't have to rush about & can enjoy the long weekend right after

I can see it now...

[Holyssa]: Where is everyone?

[Raid]: It's Valentine's Day. Everyone's "pounding Vashj". lawl

"Holyssa ponders at the empty raid roster".

[Raid]: Not THAT Vashj, noobcake.

Sorry, I had to say it .

Nah....

We're still going to want to conquer it. Plus, we COULD NOT walk into Hyjal right now with the gear we have and expect to win.

We'll just enjoy the instances and continue to work.

Oh good. Cause that'd be like doing (pre-BC) Naxx in Dungeon Set 1 stuff. I remember seeing nubcakes do such odd things back when I raided with my mage. Ah, memories...

Don't abandon your Vial quests yet either guys - you can still get a kickass ring from downing Kael & Vashj, and the rep boost from doing the quest will give you a head start in getting Scale of the Sands items.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/...patchnotes.html

Of particular notice:

* Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal.

* Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter the Black Temple.

* Players who have completed the attunement quests for Black Temple and Hyjal will be granted the title of “Hand of A’dal”.

* You may now fight Prince Kael’thas and Lady Vashj without first killing all the other bosses in their respective dungeons.

...umm, joy? SSC & TK will become ghost towns. Looks like Orcala was right >.>

Tiny bits of advice from someone who's gotten some "Vashj" before (and believe me, it didn't feel very sexy):

- Keep TS clear unless you're performing a specific role: keeping watch for Tainted Elementals, announcing spawns (keep it simple, ie: "Strider North!" or "Tainted Southwest!"), alerting close-by players that you have a Tainted Core, etc. There's going to be a metric crapton of spam throughout the fight due to macros, so make the most of those ears!

- Keep at least 3 to 4 inventory spots open. Tainted Core icons look very similar to Healthstones or Netherwing Eggs, so don't waste time rifling through bags for em: target someone close by, and use the macro!

- For Phase 1, I suggest we paladins set up a Blessing of Freedom rotation on Cal. The longer he's stuck in place, the more damage we suffer from Multishots. In my last raid, we had the MT simply shout "freedom!" over TS if it became rooted in place, and the pallies would take turns setting him free. Free Action Potions are helpful too, but not recommended in case the tank needs to take a swig from health pots...that, and it will not remove the snare if the tank is already affected.

- You can pally bubble/Ice Block out of Static Charge. Be quick if you decide to do this, so you don't mistakenly zap your nearby friends.

- Phase 2 is one icky NPC zergfest. Zoom your camera out as far as possible so you can see your allies & important spawns. The more action on a platform you can see, the better. I personally use Improved Camera 2 to increase the zoom threshold without mucking with WoW's configuration too much, and I have a nice view of nearly the entire platform.

- A mage can Blink if it is holding a Tainted Core, but cannot make themselves immune to the Core's "snare" side-effect. Beware of this tactic though: make sure the path ahead of you is clear so you don't bump into a Strider or Naga cleave, and don't Blink too far away from a player that is close to a pillar.

- Spore Bats in Phase 3 can be killed by ranged classes, but we can only spend about 3 or 4 minutes taking them down before they become too numerous. After those first minutes, they spawn like rabbits, and it's imperative to unload upon Vashj before we get stuck in a sea of Spore Bat poop.

- In the event that something goes horribly wrong: die safely, and die swiftly. Make a dash for the west end of the platform and wait for death (not everyone can avoid this, but it's worth reminding people), so we can pop and rez quickly while we discuss tactics. Don't be brave and make a dash for the bridge. Vashj will chase you anywhere in SSC, including to the Elevator Monster.

- Turn on Free For All loot thresholds so we can interact with Tainted Elementals/Cores, but do NOT accidentally click Vashj's corpse when we down her. If someone is suspected of having butterfingers, quickly turn Master Looter back on during Phase 3 (if it can be helped).

Last time I edit this. No. Really. I think I covered all the bases. I'm gonna go back to work now

We've been doing such awesome progress in SSC and I really don't want to inhibit our chances of killing Vashj. I refuse to do like most guilds and simply "settle" for another 5/6 SSC & 3/4 TK raid. At the same time I'd rather not force people to constantly revisit the same content over and over again while bashing their heads in a wall trying to down 2 bosses.

Makes sense. Vashj is one hell of a challenge to overcome in a two-week time window though (grrr....Phase 2), but if we blow through SSC as quickly as we've been doing and avoiding little mistakes, I can see it easily becoming a reality, but Leo still scared the crap out of me.

If we down her (or the 2 weeks have passed) then we will move on to TK exclusively until we hit 3/4. After that we will move onto a "farming" schedule to ready ourselves for Kael (or something of the sort).

I'm kind of thankful Blizzard made the bosses in TK so simple in nature, although Al will take some practice, since there's still lots of things that can easily go wrong like the Flame Buffet/melee range bug.

If we can pwn a blind guy with razors, then a giant flaming chicken, purple robot, and the world's tallest T4 warlock (Solarian) should be cake.

Any idea as to when our crew will hit The Eye? I'm in the mood for some rotisserie Phoenix, and it'd be nice to get people their T5 shoulders.

Curse you, Al'ar...drop my trinket!

You know if you didn't fill so many pages with crappy sexual innuendo I might be able to safely read the forums at work , just a thought!

Not our fault Blizzard named a boss after the "v" word ;D

Very nice job last night, despite the cliffhanger ending that occurred just before Leo's trash repopped. We can only get better with experience

we still have one mor boss to learn before we can even start pounding the Vaj. (yeah I went there too )

Bah! Leo is going down tonight. Three hours to down the guy? Yeah.... I plan on "Pounding Vaj" tonight as well.

- Bar

Leo is made of blind & easysauce. His trash, on the other hand, is the most tedious I've ever seen next to the crap past Curator. Mushroom laying elementals, shield-chucking Broken pallies, and lots of those water elemental totems.

Nothing we haven't handled before though. Bless you warlocks for having Banish. ^_^

Why is it watching that little demonstrations reminded me of Pong? Or and yeah I saw my little cube! Its the one that accidentally blinks forward during the Pound ability Kidding I hope I dont newb it up that badly!

I glanced at the Alar strat guide btw..boo on him bein immune to fire-_- I dont want to have to respec to Frost every single time we go kill him =(

Actually, it reminded me of those lil' Kubrick Japanese figures. Now that would make for a nice piece of WoW merchandise

Regarding Al'ar & Fire Mages: If you can't afford to re-spec, consult your local alchemist for some Elixirs of Major Frost Power. Even if you aren't properly spec'd to take advantage of frost's perks, consumables can help fill in the DPS gap just a little bit.

We had a few mages in my old raids who refused to let go of their huge like X-Box DPS from fire spells, but this was one approach that helped take a load of their shoulders, despite the farming that went behind making it work.

Grr. Baracko beat me to it

And for a copy pasta-friendly version of the Tainted Core Macro (used in phase 2), here:

/use Tainted Core

/y <------- TAINTED CORE TO: %t ! ! !

/s <------- TAINTED CORE TO: %t ! ! !

/script SendChatMessage("!!! YOU HAVE THE CORE !!!", "WHISPER", "Orcish", UnitName("target"));

Chat spam aside (you will see a lot of it in this fight), this will toss the core to a friendly player, and send them a message. If you need to practice, replace the Tainted Core line with something else (like a Leather Ball, Happy Fun Rock, Voodoo Skull, etc.), & bring a buddy or two to an instance or poorly populated zone (so that people don't gripe about the macro spam).

Take the time to play with it before Thursday night. Like the Spitfire macro, this is key to making Vashj a little less nightmarish.

EDIT: If you haven't taken the time to do so, please drop by Caverns of Time, and get this quest from Soridormi:

The Vials of Eternity

That way when Vashj kicks the bucket, you can't say "OH SHI- I can't get my vial! /wristcrit". It's also shareable.

If we ever decide to do TK:

Void Reaver movie. Yes, I know - he's super easy. But this is very useful for people that have never ever set eyes on this guy, and can help guarantee a win by being just a bit more informed

The script used in this movie helps you zoom out your camera much further than usual, since the orbs fly at a low arc now.

/script SetCVar ("cameraDistanceMax", 50); (type this into a chat window).

As for A'lar, this is the strat I commonly used: http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild...;sid=eb4C3F3r8y

Again, it's easier than it appears

the appropriate course of action is not to get the Wyrmcultist's or some random green but to go and beat the stuffing out of that dragon again and make a new one.

WTB free 18-slot Ony bag or Onyxia Blood Talisman ;_;

A very useful instructional video on how to pwn this Tazmanian Sin'dorei. Great for anyone who wants to get a good idea of the room visuals, Leo's behavior, and how to handle Inner Demons.

While I'm thinking of FR gear, if our warlock cannot access an Onyxia Scale Cloak or random AH greens, there's a way to get the Wyrmcultist's Cloak after performing a series of quests in Blade's Edge:

Start by getting this note from the Wyrmcultist Hewers & Poachers around Blade's Edge:

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31120

Once you've done the "note" quest, you get to start the quest that lets you get the disguise. It's very easy & solo-friendly:

http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=10894

If you have already finished these quests long ago, the scraps will still drop.

Once your costume is done, go to the Wymrcult Cave just southwest of Grishnath, and go down the dead-end tunnel on your left as you enter. He sells the BoP cape, and a cool orb toy

So who's next on the list? Leotheras, Kentucky Fried Phoenix (A'lar), or Loot Reaver?

My 2 copper regarding last night:

~ Hydross went well during the last few attempts, but could have gone a lot smoother. Remember: if you think you're a high-threat class or experience trouble timing your DoTs, move up and down along the platform with the appropriate transition tank as he reaches the 250% mark. Not only will it make life easier for us by catching Hydross before he makes a mad dash for clothies, but it prevents him from running too far away & doing a double transition switch, which is a guaranteed wipe.

~ Lurker. Spout is very, VERY easy to notice. If you're one of those people that lacks boss mods like BigWigs (WTH are you smoking?), watch for him to stop & suddenly flap his arms/fins wildly and open his lower jaw.

~ By the ######ing Tides! Aside from Calendar getting his ass handed to him by the purple giant (random luck, his crazy burst damage and the Graves gimping his main healers..something that will take some practice in contending with), I think I have a nice strategy to better handle the murlocs, and perhaps give our healers a bit of extra time in keeping Cal up. Here's what I found from the Maintankadin forums, and is a carbon copy of the strategies my previous Tidewalker kills worked with (my own comments in bold):

Staying out of grave range (50 yards) while tanking the murlocs really helps reduce the randomness of the fight. My guild killed Morogrim quickly after we switched to that strategy, having worked on him for a few nights using others. In fact, we did so well on the first try with that strat that we were completely unprepared for the globules (raid leader didn't think we'd get that far on the first try) and wiped.

You don't even need to wear any healing gear. I just put on my blocking set and a healing mace/shield/libram, then swap in my sword and tanking shield when the murlocs reach me, swapping back out when they're dead (not really necessary, but I can easily tank them with my healing mace next time). Morogrim is tanked at the entrance to Fathom-Lord's tunnel while I stand with a warlock and a healer at the bottom of the steps out of grave range (it's that ramp I always stand on with the green triangle over my head, FYI ). The warlock never gets hit with anything before the globules come (since he's out of grave range but NOT on top of me...since the murlocs tend to easily turn around & tap anyone they please even with me on top of their aggro table), so he just lifetaps down as far as he can so that I can heal him to pick up the murlocs (remember kids, healing doesn't generate threat unless the person is missing HP!).

We load him up with every +healing buff we can use, which is generally Fel Armor, Amplify Magic, BoL (Blessing of Light), and in a group with a tree druid if we have one. Along with pots and weapon oil, this easily lets me get aggro with a couple HLs (Holy Light, our biggest heal with a 2.5 second cast time). Both groups hit me at about the same time, and all our warlocks and mages turn around and destroy them while I hold aggro. Once the globules start, everyone in the grave area moves up top and we just keep at it with the same strategy. The warlock just has to be a little more careful about lifetapping since he'll get hit by earthquake (PW: Shield on the warlock just before the Murloc/EQ cooldown hits is very useful here).

It makes the fight very simple, if still mind-numbingly repetitive. A brief interruption of dps on Morogrim is far outweighed by eliminating the possibility of wiping because key people get graved at a bad time.

~ Go read about Fathom-Lord Karathress so we can get our damned Tier-5 pants . Looks messy on paper, but is easier than it looks, since our Hydross attempts have proven to me we have the punching power to wreck this Naga.

Rest up dear friends, and better luck tomorrow night

Hydross down! *does a lil' dance*

Dell came by & tossed a new motherboard in my machine, so I'll be seeing everyone tonight for Hydross.

*pokes Mr. Wiggles for good luck*

Heyo all,

Won't be able to make it to tonight's run. Last night my PC motherboard chose a convenient time to suddenly drop dead & didn't get on the phone with tech support till last night. Grr...

Dell's supposed to come fix it by either tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm (safely) assuming I should be back on my feet by tomorrow night.