I apologize that I’ve been absent, but I return with good news. Last night my 10man successfully achieved “Observed” along with “Herald of the Titans” being the 18th guild to do it without 25man hard mode weapons on Earth. I will have a video in a few days. I have a screenshot for now, and a lot of disbelief that he actually died. I’m not sure any raid victory has been as sweet as beating the 1hr timer boss who feeds on our tears. I fully expect blizz to change the timer shortly before 3.2 goes live. I’m glad we beat him when he was still a dick.

This is just a quick post to be followed up later with pics when I’m on my comp and not my laptop. But last night at about 2am EST we got our first 8 Rusted Proto drakes.

After having rushed to free up Algalon and ignoring most non-keeper hard modes we’ve finished going back and clearing everything. FL4 and Yogg 1-Light were sadly post-nerf. We downed FL4 in a bit under 2 hours, and Yogg 1-Light took only 6 attempts (I don’t think this has too much to do with the nerf, it’s just a simple achievement on 10man).

We then found ourselves at about 1:26am with yogg down and one achievement to go. Iron Dwarf Medium-Rare. It was a hilarious end to the fun as we killed dwarves 4 at a time in front of razorscale until we got our first round of drakes. We’ve got several more people close, needing a specific boss for Champion of Ulduar or needing Mimiron Hard for Glory, because we killed him easy-mode this week so no one would die.

So in short, Thank you to the members of my 10man team (I know some of you read this). Thank you to anyone who’s helped me with strats. This drake kicks ass (Pics to follow soon) and as always thank you to anyone who takes the time to read Plaguechill!

Skeleton Jack over at skeletonjack.com is quitting. He’s citing the reasons most of our fallen brethren do. Stop by the site and say your goodbyes. WoW takes up a lot of time, running a website takes up more time. Add in work, sleep and any other obligations and you run out of time pretty quickly. It’s extremely important to try and balance yourself so that you aren’t burnt out and you don’t feel like you’re missing out on that much.

I really hope SJ writes one hell of a novel, and I hope he finds that he’s able to continue on without the addiction that is WoW on his back. He’s had a great website for quite awhile now, and I’m sad to see him go.

I really doubt you read PC jack, but if you do, I’ll miss ya.

-Brandon “Hymn” King

Being mainly a healer in online games, there’s something I’ve always told my friends: Don’t Piss Off The Healer.

Healers are generally one of the quietest in a raid setting. Unless you’ve got someone particularly chatty or maybe a raid officer, from my own experience anyway, healers just keep to themselves. But what do they really do in the shadows besides making health bars green? But most important, how do they feel?

When someone makes an impression on a healer, they dont really forget it. Have you ever been a smartass to your healer in a 5man? Did you find yourself taking more close calls after that – or maybe just recieving a record amount of ressurections in a single instance? Healers have more control than people give them credit for, an amazing healer can make a horrible pug successful. Terrible healers can even make geared tanks and dps look bad.

So, what makes happy healers??

DON’T call people by their class – it’s pretty rude to any type of player role in my opinion. “hey druid” isn’t a very good start to someone’s instance. Even if someone has a ridiculous name, just cut it short and call them that or ask what to call them.

DON’T demand heals either. It’s one thing if the healer isn’t doing their job – it’s another if they’re trying to keep a bad tank alive and can’t get to you yet. If everyone is dying or the healer is undergeared, then get someone else. But please don’t take your bad day out on someone who wants to just play a game.

DON’T pull when you’re not the tank!! This is probably one of my biggest in game peeves, I can’t stand when the tank or I aren’t ready and others purposely pull (especially in a raid setting). If you want the instance to go faster, than just request/say you don’t have much time, but don’t pull and make yourself look like an ass.

DO have Awareness: Like Hymn has already pointed out – don’t stand in the fire. Be prepared for what possible damage can kill you and take steps to avoid it. (LOTS of great survival tips in there, if you haven’t read Hymn’s article yet please do!)

DON’T run to the middle of nowhere/Behind a wall. Healers can only go 40 yards – this seems like a long range but honestly I’ve seen many people keep running while they have a debuff on themselves to the point that nobody can save them. Also don’t run behind walls and stand there expecting to get topped off – if you’re on stairs or dealing with strange terrain then make sure you stay in LOS at all times.

DO use Health Stones: Of course you need a warlock for this – but seriously pick up healthstones whenever you see a soulwell or if you already are a user and need a new one – please kindly ask in raid/party chat for a new one. It’s one thing if the Lock is a jerk, it’s another to miss an opportunity to save yourself.

DO use Bandages: Everyone should have first aid imo – no matter what role you are. Use them during combat when you have a few seconds to spare. Ulduar has a lot of AOE damage so it might be hard to get off more than a tick in certain situations – but that tick may mean enough time for a healer to heal you!

DO drink/eat between pulls: This also goes for all you locks who life tap to dead and then expect big heals while your healer is drinking. Use a bandage or some food while there is downtime! It’s in the game for a reason ;( (Another thing you can use is an Intravenous Healing Potion – purchasable in Dalaran)

DO use Lightwell if you see one. This is a Holy priest only talent, that many priests do not take simply because many DPS refuse to switch targets because they want to top meters. Most don’t seem to realize that death = no dps. Lightwell is actually pretty good now and it’s a shame it’s not utilized more often.

DON’T take unnecessary damage because you want to prove a point. Yeah yeah.. you’re a DK and you can stay in an Overload now and then, but don’t do it unless you give some warning or let someone know. You’re just gonna get yelled at and probably some healer eyerolls in your direction – after they had a heart attack.

DO use your special abilities and cooldowns. Lifeblood (Herbalist), Rune Tap, Mark of Blood, Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Shell  – unlike the previous advice, if you didn’t get out in time by accident, use whatever you can to cushion the blow.

If everyone does their best to stay alive during any instance then the healer(s) has an easier time keeping their tank alive & you in the long run. A happy healer is a good healer and won’t discriminate your health bar. Good luck and stay safe in Ulduar!!

I went into 3.1 thinking I’d be looking anywhere but Blood for my spec options. I tested it on the PTR and hated it. I tested it on live realms and hated it. Even working on the Blood guide where I spent a bunch of time researching and testing it, I still didn’t like it very much.

At the same time I was testing Unholy with some pretty respectable numbers, though with all the AoE and movement in Ulduar I found the gargoyle a nuisance. After my buddy XT dropped me a sigil I played around with frost and simply couldn’t pull the greatest DPS. My frost set is somewhat lacking, where I had gathered up a pretty decent blood set in Naxx after I’d given up on DW to pursue some time as diseaseless. So I finally put some extra effort into perfecting a blood gear set, did a lot of testing last weekend and I’ve got to say, I’m pretty happy right now.

Originally the change to DRW made me hate it, but with ulduars frequent but short “burn phases” it feels almost too-perfect. While DRW takes a bit of foresight to set up correctly with other CD’s and maximizing the RP going into it without wasting much or losing GCD’s, getting the practice in is certainly improving my damage.

So I guess what I’m saying is for an all around Ulduar spec, I really like Blood. Between burn phase burst and versatility, ability to do burst damage without diseases up (Death Strike) on low health adds, and frequent self healing, I’m pretty much in love with blood on every fight but Thorim, who really favors the constant steady stream of AoE I can deliver with my dual spec, Unholy.

Crazy week for Azeroth! Yogg-Saron has been killed in 10 and 25man versions of the instance, many hotfixes had to be pushed through for certain encounters to work, the masses are either thrilled or angry at the latest changes… But, hey what else is new?

There are now 2 Yogg videos available (there may be more out by now but I haven’t seen them yet), one by The Legacy in a healer’s perspective, and another by Epicfabriken as a Ret Paladin. Inner Sanctum has had some world first Hard Modes down already!! Grats to them – hard mode is hard! (seriously. have totally seen the 10man versions of some of them. >.< )

The Blue Boss this week has some things to say about Death Strike, Dual Wield, and Gargoyle~

Can we please get some feedback on the status of buffing a dual wield build for us?

This is one of those categories, like the Conflag nerf, that we feel like you have options. We needed to kill the DW spec where you pretty much ignore weapons and just try and proc big spells. That was not the DW DK style we wanted. We felt like we had a choice between OP DW DKs and no DW DKs and thought the second was a more acceptable risk.

As we have explained, one of our ideas long term is to give Frost a couple of DW talents. It might not take much more than “Your Frost Striks and Oblits now hit with two weapons.” Having 3 tanking and PvP trees is challenging enough. Expanding that matrix by also having DW Blood PvP and DW Unholy tanking gets to the insane level. But having DW Frost PvP, DW Frost PvE and DW Frost tanking (only) may be more manageable. We are not at all sure if this is the approach we will use, but it’s an idea.

DKs were overpowered in a few ways. Fixing that was more important thank keeping DW at equal dps to 2H. That does not mean we have given up on DW for DKs in the same way that we no longer support 2H for Enhancement shamans.

Q u o t e:
I think it’s time to drop the “Let DKs be able to tank/DPS/PvP with any spec” thing. Other classes don’t seem to follow that design, I don’t understand why DKs need to. If each tree had a focus, then it’d be a lot easier to balance DKs.

It would also be a lot less interesting. We don’t like the trees being that narrow for any class. Arms vs. Fury or Arcane vs. Fire or whatever should be a style choice, not what you pick for a certain role in the game. It’s going to take some time to get everything there, but it’s something we want to do.

Q u o t e:
I understand your situation, but please don’t kill Frost 2H. I feel for the dual wielding death knights, but I don’t want my spec killed in the process.

Absolutely. We would not turn Frost into a DW tree. We would just make sure all DW DKs were Frost. And again, this is just an idea. We may reject it for some reason. As I have said many times, we want DKs to be a class that uses 2H or DW. We do not want DW to dominate, as it typically does in classes that have that option.

Q u o t e:
What’s wrong with a spec of DKs that has an emphasis spell damage?

Some spell damage is fine, and an interesting niche for them, but they are designed primarily as a melee class. When you face Arthas, I guarantee he is going to hit you hard with Frostmourne.

Could you please hotfix summon gargoyle? According to the tooltip it’s supposed to last a maximum of 40 seconds, and only lasts 25. It was like that for well over a month on the PTR, and never addressed.

Gargoyle is working as intended. Because of the way it works some of the tooltips are never going to be totally accurate. To be honest. the entire spell is a little complex and I’m not sure we get much from that complexity. We have discussed changing it to something simpler (like no RP over time or something).

Death Strike Healing Nerf Announcement

We hotfixed a change to the amount of healing provided by Death Strike.

Originally, this ability was something you would use only situationally to heal yourself at a cost of damage. Since then we have redesigned the death knight class sufficiently to where Death Strike was a major rotational ability for Blood. Given how much the attack is hitting for, we think the amount of healing it provided was too much.

Healing still scales based on diseases and the damage is unchanged. Blood retains its other tools to heal.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend in Northrend!!

PS:  Funny thread on Blues and how they evade telling their guilds they are blues!

How’s everyone’s experience so far with the patch? Anyone done some Ulduar yet?

Our 25man got Flame Leviathan down, our guild’s other 25man raid group got him down without a Shutdown involved! So they have earned their first achievement. But both groups were unable to down another boss: Ignis seems bugged as he is one shotting tanks & players, The trash to XT seems screwy, and one group got Razorscale to 30% so far.

I’m about to check out the Argent Tournament in a few minutes. My boyfriend is running a 10man Ulduar, so far so good!

One major complaint from me has to be about some bosses being buggy. I understand there was PTR and Internal testing, and I just find it odd for flaws like these to slip through the cracks. (Ignis doesnt appear to be losing a debuff and is causing this to do a lot of damage to the raid) And the trash to Ignis seems a bit overtuned! Maybe I’m wrong but we were having trouble with those Fire Tornados. Without Rune Tap I would have been a goner everytime!!

One thing I’m happy to see though are UI changes, such as the talent spec preview. It wasn’t highly noted – but under Interface -> Display options you can toggle “Preview Talent Changes” to see your points before they are actually spent! I think it is a shame it is turned off by default – but do check it out. Although it didn’t make it into this patch, I am looking forward to the Equipment Manager. The additions of new dailies, and mounts, and pets, are always awesome. I know plenty of people who are casual and even the “hardcore” that enjoy these things. Always welcome additions!

Oh, and if you are not aware ~ WoWMatrix will no longer be working! So please use the Curse client or download your addons manually.

Have you run into something hilarious in this patch? Please share it with us!

May the Light of Elune stabilize your servers. <3

SOME People may have achieved Glory, but the rest of us are still working on it!   This week has been the most exciting in my “WoW Life” I think. I have raided from Tier 1 through Kiljaeden but have never experienced the excitement and satisfaction of a server first achievement before.

If you talked to me 2 months ago, I would never even DREAM I could achieve a Plagued Proto Drake. But my boyfriend, Deathkin (Tank DK) took the reigns of starting a 10man 3Drake Sartharion group, and we’ve been working on it for nearly a month now. We’ve tried different strategies, Voidwalkers, Different types of tanks and healers, almost everything we’ve heard of. But it has been mainly the past week or two where we really shined. We realized that DPS taking portals after Vesperon lands was killing us. We had to readjust what we were doing, change the strategy or something. We were spending upwards of 5 hours a NIGHT trying things out. We have spent so much gold and time and tears trying to achieve The Twilight Zone.  We had so many different people help us, whether they donated mats or gold, or stood outside and helped with extra buffs every attempt. We’ve had an overwhelming amount of support from our friends and guildies and without them I don’t think we stood a chance.

We had decided to completely change the way we thought of the fight. We weren’t going to do a DPS race. We decided to take control – This idea spawned because of a thought I was sharing with Deathkin one night. We were having a horrible time in a 25man one night because one of our less-than-skilled healers was not doing so great. And it was glaringly obvious because as a healer you have more control of a fight than others realize.

I have played a Holy/Healing Priest for 4 years. I LOVE healing. I will never ever deny that. I love pulling horrible groups through 5mans and able to almost single heal a Karazhan. I know I can do it – I know with strong healing we can really pull through. (I even healed a  normal Magister’s Terrace where an Elemental Shaman was the tank. Crazy? YES. Challenging? YES. Worth it? Not really =P)  In my last raiding guild of BC we had amazing healers in our raid. We were able to progress amazingly quickly and catch up with some of the most hardcore guilds on the server and even outdo some of them by the time Wrath rolled around.

I rerolled Death Knight on a different server for a complete change of scenery and I don’t regret it at all. I have a new perspective on raiding, and even healing because of it. One thing as a DPS is that I have less control of a fight than the tanks and healers. It frustrates me when something is going wrong in a fight that I really can’t help to change things. I could maybe put on tank gear and help offtank something if that is the case, but otherwise I can’t really contribute to a fight other than swinging my weapons! But a friend has recently quit the game, and gave me access to their priest since they decided they are not coming back.  I have already used her to help heal and to mind control for Razuvious, buffbot and such. When we decided to change the strategy it was decided I would become the Discipline priest for the group. Although I have played a priest for four years, I only ever healed as Holy spec. And without PlusHeal.com, I would not have figured out how to get the best from the Discipline tree. (So a HUGE <3 to all those who share their information and tips, you all rock!)

So on the night of March 12, we stepped in with a whole new view on things. Instead of burning everything down ASAP we decided to take a different approach with 3 tanks and 3 healers + 4 DPS. With more control by adding another healer, and having separate tanks on every aspect of the fight -  we figured we might have a better chance, since everything else so far was not working. With a different perspective on the fight we were progressing much faster than ever before though. DPS was pumping up the meters, Healing was solid, Tanking was flawless. After some decent attempts, we cleared our heads and pulled again. And I don’t know what it is, but during that attempt I think we all knew – we knew we had it. As the fight continued, and people were still alive (well one mage was Battle Ressed) and Shadron was almost dead and DPS was about to switch to Vesperon, we knew we were winning this fight! But to be honest – we had NEVER gotten to the point where Vesperon was dead before. EVER! So at that point we got chaotic -I yelled to clear vent and Deathkin took over directions and called out assignments for people. Mistakes were made through the process, and we even lost a tank and a DPS after this point. I remember a guildie logging on vent and kindly asking “How’s Sarth going guys?” And then 4 voices telling him to “SHUT UP!!” (Haha, we love you dude!! sorry!) But we still had the fight in our hands – we still had control of the situation and were able to pull through…

And we DID! And it was server first for Nazjatar. People on vent started screaming and cheering, Deathkin and I hugged offline. It was amazing. I looked at my hands and realized I must have been shaking like a leaf the whole time. The people that were dead were crying for resses – we took our kill screenshots and oh <3 it was such an experience. We were so pumped! Deathkin and I couldn’t even sleep until 7am the next morning, lol

Our adds tank Spectin (Frost DK Tank!) was AMAZING! He did such a phenomenal job on whelps and everything. He had this great rotation for freezing the whelps after they spawned, then picking up extra adds, and picking up the whelps again. He gets super props for that <3  Deathkin (Blood tanking for Sarth) did a fantastic job staying alive during Flame Breaths – that is really the most stressful part of the fight for me!! He got some amazing avoidance moments because really.. he should have died like 5 times in that pull. Everyone did the best to their ability, even our Boomkin would help heal when he was low himself.

But that brought us MUCH closer to Glory, the rest of the week has been Naxx achievements and even 6min Malygos – which was so flawless we still had 45 seconds left! And our warrior, Fizzie, was the first on the server to get a Black Drake AND the Plagued Protodrake! Woohoo And now I am only missing 2 achievements on my own DK – Zone and Lava Strikes, haha Sartharion you silly dragon! <3

I don’t know about everyone else’s Road to Glory (Please share!), but I know I will never forget mine. =)

When it was announced that we only had a few more weeks to get Glory of the Raider it really lit a fire under some peoples asses and I’m proud to announce  that I have received a letter from Alexstraza, and aside from her sincere gratitude, I also have been given a Plagued Proto-Drake. Shortly afterward, I was at Dalaran’s flight pad and found myself taking place in a happening, involving many, many proto-drakes. We formed a circle around the landing pad and looked imposing to anyone wishing to land or take off. It was pretty funny to see so many drakes!

As we preview more and more bosses it seems obvious that most of these encounters are either extremely under-tuned or that Ulduar’s base progression line will not be a big leap from Naxxramas. My group of 8 people who made it on and into the instance (after about two hours of DCs) managed to almost get a Hodir kill the first night, before the HP nerf.

I am not swayed one way or the other on how good of an idea this is. The “raider” in me is more used to the hard earned progression in which you claw your way up through some serious challenges in the interest of getting to fight major plot characters and enjoy some of the most interesting and challenging boss fights Blizzard can come up with. The “non-douchebag” in me understands that there’s a whole lot of people out there who would really like to see these fights, and understands that with two progression tracks more people can be happy.

I think the real qualm I have is that the lines are not clear enough. The idea of using Hard Modes to unlock a boss is a great way to reward raiders who really like making the fights hard, but it seems like the differential vs time commitment is off balance. Perhaps what I’m looking for is a hardmode version similar to heroic and nonheroic for regular instances, instead of those two just meaning the number of people in terms of raiding. These are probably the ramblings of someone who is casting the shadow of his fears over the light of the truth, I’ve always had enormous faith in Blizzard’s ability to make me enjoy the game, but the last few months of Naxxramas have really bored me to death.

With that said, I’m looking forward to a boss who feeds on my tears and destroys my raid. I actually enjoyed the difficulty of sunwell (though I didn’t get as far in as I wanted to before 3.0 hit and we speed cleared it in a week). I just hope I still feel accomplished while I’m standing over the corpses of my enemies, because PvP is starting to look a lot more rewarding than raiding.

I’d love to see some comments on what you guys think of the potential difficultly of Ulduar and how likely you think your guild will be to partake in hard modes.