Ascoli

Nice! I haven't been keeping up with WoW news. Anything new and exciting that could suck me back in in this expansion?

Very nice.

Are we raiding tomorrow? Just double checking since Diablo 3 is coming out and I forget what was said.

My mouse if hovering over the button... maybe next month.

Nice! Now where's my beta invite...

Alright, you got me... I work for the Bioware arts department.

Other than the funky taunt mechanic (which, unless stated otherwise by BioWare, reads like a bug to me) this all seems pretty standard (compared to WoW). Still a good read for those interested in game mechanics.

Don't count on my being there on Thursday as well.

For the game, assuming you start out stacked on the right: right -> middle: RMRLMLRMLRLMRM middle -> right: MRMLRLMRLMLRMR

Hmm, sounds familiar but I don't remember how I might have fixed it... Did you try bypassing the launcher and running the executable directly?

I wouldn't worry too much about this. I expect I'll pick up whatever people need as I go along. I've been saving up tokens specifically for this. If you need specifics, I am starting off with: str, int, agi, stam, str+mastery, mastery+stam, parry+stam, and then whatever people request (I've got enough for 30some gems so that should cover most of the useful gems).

So I'm looking at a big server list for this weekend. Which server did you all decide to test on?

From the Blizzcon Q&A:

Since finding a healer to work on heroic Shannox isn't easy I was thinking we could just pick up a dps to kill the other bosses (BH, Beth, Ryo, Alys, Baleroc) and leave heroic Shannox, Majordomo and Rags for Thursday. We'd probably have two short evenings, but better than skipping the heroic Shannox practice? Either that or we forget the heroic and just squeeze everything in on Thursday...

I forgot to mention I would most likely be late on Tuesday (the 11th). Don't wait for me to get started.

I'm not convinced these hotfixes were (all) active last night since threat didn't seem any higher and Ryolith should have died faster (due to armor dropping faster), but in any case, onto the next boss! Majordomo Staghelm. Here are some videos (both 25-man but should give the idea) and the detailed info: Tankspot video Icy Veins detailed info Basic strat: * Staghelm can take 3 different forms: scorpion, cat and night elf. The raid configuration decides if he will be in cat of scorpion form. Every 3rd transformation he changes to a night elf. * To initiate and throughout the scorpion form at least 7 people must stack. Not much going on here, stay stacked to split the damage. * To initiate the cat form, people need to spread out, stay spread out since he leaps on people and leaves a fire puddle. * When he transitions to human form he uses one of two different abilities depending on which form he was before the switch. From scorpion he casts burning orbs and from cat he casts searing seeds. * On burning orbs he summons 2 orbs and the closest people take a stacking debuff and you need to swap so the people don't die. * On searing seed, a bunch of people get a debuff which causes an explosion when it expires, run out of the group when it's got about 6 seconds left. That's basically it, the damage increases as he uses his abilities and shifts. Try and minimize the number of transformations while keeping the damage at a reasonable level...

I went through the logs to look at decimation strike, it seems absorb effects are the only ones that work at reducing the damage. I had trouble figuring out which effect was doing the absorption but I assume all types of bubbles work (I guess I'll have to remember to heal myself before the hit instead of after). I can also confirm hand of sacrifice does work.

Baleroc! Here's some info on Baleroc, the next fight (might even attempt it tonight!) Basic abilities: * Baleroc leaves a debuff on the tank which increases their health and physical damage taken by 20%. * Baleroc does 2 types of attacks, one with takes 90% of the tank's health (for a min of 250k) and the other which just does a ton of fire damage. * Every 35? seconds a crystal appears which does shadow damage on closest player (raid wipe if no one is within 15yds) and leaves a debuff which increases shadows damage and reduces healing done. When people with this debuff get healed the healer which healed them gains stacks of vital spark. * When healers heal a tank their vital sparks become vital flames and they do 5% more healing (to the tanks) per vital spark for 15 seconds. Strat: * OT starts the fight, gets 2-3 stack and from then on his only job is to soak the decimation blade (the attack which takes 90% of the tank's health). When decimation blade is up (lasts 15 seconds) the boss' time between attack is increased by 100% (but not sure how slow that is) so OT needs to be back up to 250k in between those hits. * Otherwise MT tanks the boss and gains millions of health. * DPS set up a rotation to soak up the crystal debuff (I believe 2-3 players per shard is enough). (DPS and tanks must stay away!) * Healers set up a rotation so there is always a healer with vital flame healing the tank. Meanwhile, the other two are building stacks of vital sparks by healing the DPS eating the crystal debuff. Detailed strat: Icy Veins. Vids (both 25-man): TankSpot

I should be unlocking the ilvl 365 blacksmithing weapon patterns from the molten front some time this week (possibly Tuesday). I should have enough chaos orbs to make 2-3 weapons after I make mine so if you don't expect to get a 378 soon you might consider getting one of these crafted in the meantime.

Looks like Orcala is also missing tonight so going to Alysrazor is a waste if time if you ask me (it's a fairly complex fight and since everyone has to do their part having people missing will only mess with the learning curve). Better off working on Ryo and/or Beth again. Lord Ryolith is just an annoying rng fight, I think we have the strat down and we just need practice. For Beth'tilac I think we should focus on trying to get to p2: * Only send Holy + healer up * Ascoli tanks drones + Drae killing them * Kailand + Sky killing spiderlings * melee dps bringing down and killing spinners (don't go taunt crazy, kill the ones you brought down before you taunt again) If we end up dying to the frenzy we can adjust later and send some dps up...

As predicted: - There are now fewer Hell Hounds before Beth’tilac, making the engagement a little less… hellish. - Creatures linked to Shannox will now respawn every 4 hours until he is killed, up from 2 hours. Looks like Holyssa and Orcala declined for tomorrow so the raid is most likely off (unless they change their minds). I'll probably try to get a group or two running some Zandalari randoms to get a few valor points for the week if people are interested.

After heroic Halfus, the most killed (so easiest?) heroic bosses are Atramedes followed by Chimaeron. The mechanics for Atramedes remain mostly unchanged, it seems the one big difference is during ground phases there is an add (with 155k health) that fixates on someone and needs to be interrupted/nuked down. He also destroys a gong during the ground phase so we won't have the luxury of 2 gongs per air phase. For Chimaeron, for mechanics the only differences are he will keep hitting the tanks during the stacking and there is a debuff that afflicts everyone during the nuke phase. Most guides I read suggest using a dps as a 3rd "tank" who takes the job of the MT eats all the breaks (Sard or Orcala I guess, can't be in tank spec as the extra DPS will be important). The OT (Ascoli) does the same as always and eats the double attacks and then during the stacking phase, Holy would have to take over tanking due to increased damage and to let the breaks drop off the DPS otherwise they will eventually go splat. When we spread out, the dps should have lost his stack of breaks and be able to tank again. The most challenging thing will be the transition as you want everyone to be pretty much topped off when it happens. Here are some links with decent detailed strats and descriptions of the fights: Atramedes Chimaeron Here are the tankspot guides (25-man, but should be good enough): Atramedes Chimaeron

As usual, here are some notes about a possible strategy for Nef p3 (for those who are interested): Here's a start for p3 which seems to work very well. There's a threat with details on TankSpot. Instead of tanking Nef on the side, we tank her in the middle and slowly rotate her around while the add tank goes in circles around the edge of the room. Here's a pic of what it looks like: The fire always falls where the adds were and follows the closest person (which should be the OT). Using this strat all the DPS has to worry about is slowly turning with the boss, and the add tank doesn't have to worry about trying to kite around flames without the adds walking in them (which is fairly hard to do). I found a and it looks like this could be executed pretty much indefinitely (assuming I don't mess up the kiting).Anyway, just something to consider.

Nefarian: tankspot guide

Did you forget? The raid tonight has already been cancelled due to Holyssa and Orcala missing.