Gruul the Dragonkiller

Last night the Elders ventured into Gruul’s Lair. A few of the guild have been involved in 25-man raids before, but for a large number of us (Kaeron included) it was our first experience of a major raid.

We’d all studied the tactics for High King Maulgar long and hard, as the more experienced members of the guild had wiped on him many times. I was tanking Kiggler, which I had been worrying about, and I had my own personal healer, Damor, which was nice!

As we entered the instance our GM, Tvork, said “Don’t worry if we wipe, we’ll get him down eventually, maybe not tonight, but in the next few weeks”. We were, of course, all prepared to wipe, and many of us had been farming and borrowing money in anticipation of the repair bills.

Of course, it’s obvious what happened next, isn’t it? We one-shotted him. It was a textbook takedown – many screams and whoops over Vent later, we realised that we hadn’t studied the tactics for Gruul, as we were too hung up on the first fight.

Cue a very amusing prep period where our RL, a tree-form druid, ran around, jumping up and down, showing us all where to stand and what to do when taking out Gruul. A quick practice later, where Tvork pretended to be Gruul, and we were away!

Some scary moments on the trash, when our OT got feared into an extra pack of mobs, but we survived (well, I didn’t, but the raid did – damn Wrath being aggro central!) and we were on to the big guy.

Very little preparation, a hyperactive raid, and a big mean dragon killer. There could only be one outcome. At about 20% our Main Tank went down. 2-3% later our OT went down. Our third tank couldn’t get aggro. DPS started dropping like flies. Gruul dropped below 10%. Healers gave up healing and everyone threw everything they had at Gruul. Damor (my healer from Kiggler) went for all out Insect Swarm and Moonfire spam. The raid dropped to 3 people alive. And, all of a sudden, the Dragon-Slayer was dead. One-shotted. A nearly destroyed raid, but we did it.

And what killed him? Damor’s Insect Swarm! Go go Power Druid!

So, not bad as an introduction to 25-man raiding! Gruul’s lair cleared in a little over an hour with no wipes whatsoever!

The Blood and the Light

The Elders are taking over blogspot! Well, there's another addition at least. Kaeron, my favourite healer (even though she's a Paladin) has started up a new blog The Blood and the Light. Only one post so far, put do drop by to say hello - she actually has the ability to string sentences together!

Karazhan - not quite cleared, and certainly not healed to death!

Karazhan was slightly less successful this week than it has been previously. After a few discussions with the Raid Leader and a few other members of the raid, I think we've identified the problem, but I don't want to go into it here, because it serves no purpose to point the finger.

Plus points:

• We downed everything except for Nightbane
• We took a younger member of the guild with us who doesn't normally get to raid as we finish late. A quick re-jig of timing and he was able to come, and get his Tier 4 helm! It was brilliant to see someone so happy, and for our raiding to be so inclusive
• I got [Ring of Unrelenting Storms] Woot! Wrath spam!
• My hybrid healing build worked really well, and although I overhealed by 25-30%, which is a little high, I feel that I did ok.

Negative points:

• Two Kara runs at the same time in the guild meant that no-one took an optimal group
• We had to finish early on Sunday and went back Monday to finish (and still didn't down Nightbane)
• I'm just not cut out to be a healer

Yep, despite the build being fine and my healing being generally ok, I was more than happy to spec back to moonkin form. Some people are designed to be certain things - I'm a utility DPS player, not a healer. At least I know now!

Finally, I've specced back 43/0/18, so no treants. They were fun, but not as useful as an extra point in subtlety.

Sometimes RP is too much!

Ok, I'm not a heavy RPer - I've already pointed this out, but this morning I thought it would be cool to write a brief entry from Nalik's perspective on re-speccing as Restoration.

I was thinking about it, pulling the ideas together and the phrase "I do miss being able to call upon the power of the Moonkin, though" popped into my head.

Huh? What am I? He-man? "By the Power of Grayskull?" or a Power Ranger?

Images of a Moonkin trying to get into a lycra Power Ranger outfit ensued, and needless to say, I won't be writing that commentary now!

Go Go Power Moonkin!

/silly

Restoration (Or another re-specc)

Due to a scarcity of healers for the second half of Karazhan tomorrow, I've re-specced to a Restoration/Balance hybrid build, as I will be Off Tank healing for the night. I contemplated going full healing and taking tree form, but I remembered reading somewhere (I think it was Resto4Life, I may be wrong) that just using HoTs wasn't that effective until you came close to 1,500 +Healing.

The spec I've chosen is a 26/0/35 which can be viewed here. The damage bonus that the balance tree provides is very nice - it means that I haven't damaged my ability to solo too much for the few days while I'm a healer.

There are two spells in the balance tree that are really the core of this build however.

3/3 Lunar Guidance
Increases your spell damage and healing by 25% of your total intellect.
I wouldn't have nearly enough +damage to raid in Moonkin form without this talent, and it's the same for +healing - a massive bonus that will ease the fact that I don't have a great set of healing gear.

3/3 Moonglow
Reduces the Mana cost of your Moonfire, Starfire, Wrath, Healing Touch, Regrowth and Rejuvenation spells by 9%.
The reduction in the Mana cost of three of my main healing spells is certainly not to be sniffed at.

Some people advocate going further still down the Balance tree and going at least 33/0/28 - this enables you to take three points in Dreamstate which turns 10% of your intellect into mp5. I'm hoping that my Mana regen will be fine - it's near 100mp5 without this talent, and there are goodies in the Restoration tree I would rather have.

I think that I've selected my points in the Restoration tree very carefully - all of them provide a useful bonus and are fairly self explanatory, but again there are a few key ones.

5/5 Naturalist
Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch spell by 0.5 sec and increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%.
Half a second off the cast time of my major healing spell? Yes please!

3/3 Intensity
Allows 30% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting and causes your Enrage ability to instantly generate 10 rage.
Not too bothered about rage, but as a Druid healer I'm going to be throwing HoTs around like there's no tomorrow, so I won't make it out of the 5 second rule very often. This is an essential to ensure I have enough Mana.

5/5 Tranquil Spirit
Reduces the mana cost of your Healing Touch and Tranquility spells by 10%.
I don't use Tranquility very often - if I do, something's gone horribly wrong, but the 10% reduction in the Mana cost of Healing Touch is very nice.

Improved Rejuvenation, Gift of Nature, Empowered Touch
I Don't need to go into these individually, but they provide a very nice boost to two of my main healing spells, and a 10% boost to all healing.

Swiftmend
Consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on a friendly target to instantly heal them an amount equal to 12 sec. of Rejuvenation or 18 sec. of Regrowth.
The reason for coming so far down the restoration tree - a very useful spell to counteract spike damage.

A final note - taking three points in Living Spirit may seem a bit odd here, but I think it provides a really nice synergy with Intensity and, of course, Innervate.

So I have some nice talents that boost the viability of individual spells, approximately 1.1k +healing, which will go up if I get a few drops today and my [Idol of the Emerald Queen].

I'm not sure how well this will work, but my Raid Leader has confidence in me and we spent a long time discussing this build over ventrilo before I went and re-specced. I'll give you an update on being a Healkin after Kara tomorrow night!

(Another) Introduction

As several people have pointed out, Moonglade (EU) is a Roleplaying server. I'm not a heavy RPer, and The Elders is not an RP guild, but we do have an RP section on our forum. I do stay in character in /s and /1, and, depending on who I'm with, in /p as well. I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce Nalik to you.

Headstrong and stubborn, Nalik Runetotem struggles to achieve the serenity and calm of his druidic brethren. Called by the Earthmother at an early age, Nalik lacks the composure so typical of the rest of his clan. A bright and friendly youngster, Nalik can occasionally reveal his lack of age and experience by getting very excited by new sights and sounds, and sometimes asking the simplest of questions.

Growing up in a traditional Tauren clan setting, Nalik feels a strong affinity to nature, greatly enhanced by his training as a druid. This does, however, mean that he is often unable to control his anger when he witnesses something he views as an abomination - only a strong sense of honour and duty allows him to adventure alongside the Forsaken. This feeling of righteous anger grows whenever Nalik encounters the works of the Burning Legion – he can be single-minded in his determination to rid Azeroth and Outland of their presence.

Despite this determined streak, Nalik still loves to dance and enjoys adventuring in the company of good friends, as long as he feels he is doing the will of the Earthmother.


I actually started RPing without a clear sense of character, but I felt Nalik's identity grow as I adventured more. I'm not convinced that the description does him justice, and I know that the style is a little awkward, but I'm working on it. The idea I'm trying to capture is that he's quite dedicated and serious, but in a way that only the young can be - almost overzealous - and when he relaxes he's just a fun person who wants to help make everything better. My problem is I'm a Mathematician by training!

(Constructive) criticism welcomed - how can I make this less stilted and awkward? Also, does anyone have a fun idea that they use to RP?

For the Trees!

I think that it may be time for a re-spec. My "About me" section does indicate that I may be the only treant-less Moonkin in WoW, and I think I know why - they're useful!

The main tank in our Karazhan group is a Paladin, we have several holy paladins, and there are loads of other Paladins around. This means, of course, that I have so much Salvation I may actually be a saint.

So, by dropping one point in Subtlety, I lose 4% of passive threat reduction - this isn't a problem as I'm rarely above the tank on Omen, so actually have a 30% buffer.

The damage that these guys do scales at 15% of Spell Damage per hit, and deal physical damage. So with my 868 +DMG, that's 3 Treants hitting every 2 seconds for 30 seconds: 5,859 Bonus damage - not bad for a DoT. Fairly mana intensive, but useful in certain situations.

I guess saving for my epic flight skill is out - I'm off to re-specc!

EDIT: New build looks like this

Powered by Wowhead

I'm sure that most people have figured this out by now, but I was very pleased when I managed to get the mouseover for my [Mantle of the Mindflayer], so here's the gist of how to do it.

Copy and paste

<script src="http://www.wowhead.com/widgets/power.js"></script>

into the html of your blog template, then link to the item from Wowhead. It's as simple as that.

You input the square brackets around the item manually, and add

class="q#"

to the link tag to change the colour of the link, where 0 is grey and 5 is legendary.

So, for the shoulders listed above, the code looks like this:

<a class="q4" href="http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28726">[Mantle of the Mindflayer]</a>

Easy. More information here.

Blogroll Updated

I've added a few more blogs to my blogroll. There are more on my Google Reader, but I need to check them for a few more posts first before I recommend them!

Aran and Aggressive Ladybirds

So, Aran. Meanie. Evil guy with lots of nasty spells. Obviously it was our duty to go and beat him up, then rob him of all his loot. Needless to say, it didn't start smoothly - we got him down to 14% before we wiped. It turns out that the Elementals were bugging slightly and one of our Warlocks wasn't able to banish them. Weird. (Actually, Kara as a whole was pretty bugged last night, but not enough to seriously hinder us).

So it turns out that for us, the secret to Aran is bringing two Warlocks. If they can banish and fear the elementals we can DPS and heal, and ignore them. We clicked on the second attempt and managed it fairly easily - it was pretty much a textbook attempt. No deaths, no OOM, happy raid :-D

Turns out that Aran had been hiding [Mantle of the Mindflayer] which none of our cloth wearers needed. Now, as a Moonkin I don't like wearing cloth, but they were such a good upgrade over [Lunar Claw Pauldrons] that I couldn't turn them down. Also, as a friend pointed out, they look like giant angry ladybirds! Pure win! They should keep me going until I get another 60 Badges of Justice anyway.

Just a few other general observations from the run:

• Just because you're lower on the threatmeter than the mage doesn't mean you won't pull aggro - especially if they use invisibility! D'oh!
• When fighting Netherspite, if a Warlock goes down, cast BR on them, then take over Blue Beam duty - you can lay off damage for a while and heal yourself - the healers can heal everyone else, and the raid doesn't go boom! (This only works if you have enough damage output in the raid to beat the enrage timer)
• BigWigs is cool - the Final Fantasy victory music when you down a boss always makes me smile!

The T4 helm dropped from Prince, but our Priest won it. Other than that a great run - more Kara fun next week after the reset!

Aran Down; Kara Clear!

Aran is down, I repeat: Aran is down! Yep, we spacked* him good and proper last night and sent him to bed with no supper. We also took down Illhoof, Chess, Nightbane, Netherspite, Prince and went back to clear up with Attumen, so not too shoddy at all!

More later on how we managed, the phat lewt that dropped (I finally got some new shoulders!) and a little bit about my alt too, but right now I have to head to work.

*This is a technical term. Honestly. DPS characters should understand!

Aran made me do it!

Ok, so we're here. The layout is a bit dodgy, there's hardly any information, but the blog is up and running. Hopefully things will get a bit prettier as time goes on, but for now, I'm happy enough that I have a blog!

Let me introduce myself: I'm Nalik, a level 70 Tauren Druid on the Moonglade EU server. I'm a member of The Elders and I have recently started raiding in Karazhan.

I'm not quite sure what direction this blog is going to take yet, or if it will survive, but I've been inspired by the likes of Big Bear Butt Blogger, Karthis, Phaelia, Delos and Fiordhraoi. I noticed that most of these erstwhile bloggers are a) in the US, and b) Alliance. It's time to take action and try to balance this out a bit (it is my duty as a Moonkin after all!)

I finally made the decision to start this thing after a raid in Kara a few days ago. The Elders have a few groups in Kara at the moment, and a few players who are now geared for 25 - mans, so we generally know what we're doing. Wednesday, however, was special. Up until now, we haven't enforced Voice Chat, but on Thursday the whole raid was (finally) on Vent. Cue an incredibly smooth run of the first part of Kara. Moroes, Curator, the Crone and the Maiden one-shotted (we skipped Attumen).

Then, of course, we get to Aran. Only 3 or 4 deaths all evening. This has to be my least favourite fight of any boss I've experienced so far - too much random luck for my liking. First attempt - as we walk through the door Blizzard starts, and we lose players right off the bat. It's a wipe. Next attempt - all going a bit better, but our 'lock goes down and we can't take out the elementals. Third attempt - the healers get it. In the end we had to call it a night, having wiped 3 or 4 time, after one of the best runs so far. Very frustrating.

Is there a better way to deal with Aran than rely on luck? He seems to be the only boss we have trouble with at the moment. We're back to take him on again tomorrow night, so hopefully it will go better.