Our Dragon Soul Progress

We got our first heroic kill (Morchoc) the other night, which felt good. We killed Deathwing a while ago, into the second or third week into Dragonsoul, but haven’t really started heroic modes until now. There is of course a lot of discussion of whether Blizzard made DS too easy, both in guild and in general. I try not to get into that discussion, because to me, it actually doesn’t matter what we do as long as we have fun together. When Cata was released, people complained that it was too hard to start with, now it’s too easy, it’s not possible to keep everyone happy anyway.

I have a friend on realm who is on a very casual guild where they try to raid during weekends, but without doing all the planning and organisation that a raiding guild needs to do. She told me they had heard so much about the level of easiness in DS that her guild thought they would give it a shot and maybe clear the first bosses. Well, they killed Morchoc (10 man, normal mode), but that was after 3,5 hours and with 2 people alive. And although they could not get pass trash on next boss, they were genuinely happy for their guild. We consider Morchoc on normal as an extension of boring trash mobs, so it’s hard to understand that, but that goes both ways. Our guild is not hardcore, but most of us were geared in Firelands Heroic gear, which made us rush through normal modes pretty fast. Gear helps, but it’s not everything, we have raid leaders that do their research (or pretend very well!) and lead us through the fights. My point is that for a casual guild without any real raid leaders, knowledge of tactics and low gear on top of that, Dragonsoul might not seem so faceroll.

The heroic modes aren’t, for sure. And I am ok with that, Dragonsoul is supposed to be the last raid before Pandarien, and we will need something to do before that. Farming for the sake of farming is fun the first weeks, then it gets repetitive and ends up in a bunch of Maelstrom Crystals.

Lootship taken using Far Sight spell

We sometimes still go back to Firelands to help last guildie get her legendary staff, and I can’t say I miss it. We ended on 5/7 heroic and although it would have been great to check off the two last, I never expected it. It’s usually like that in my guild, back in SSC Lady Vashj never died. In Ulduar, we banged our heads at Mimiron hard mode but never got to Algalon. In Wrath, we killed Sindarogosa on heroic, but not Lich King. And that’s ok. I know that if I really wanted that, I need to apply to a more hardcore guild. We have been in realm top 10 or right below most of the time, there was a time where we were crap and suffered at 27th or something like that, but we bounced back. At the end, to me, it’s more important enjoying the people you play with, have a laugh and be social rather than raiding 5 nights a week and always worry about not being good enough. I complete understand the ones who do, but I just wouldn’t have time. Or would want to have time 🙂

Thoughts on Dragonsoul? Heroic modes? Missing Firelands at all?

My Firelands “video” from our time there

Progress and such

So Firelands is a bit better now. A bit. It’s in the middle of summer and several people are away, so we have done 2 x 10 rather than one 25man raid. So far we have killed Shannox and done some nice progress on the spider boss. I came home not too long ago and had a hard time aiming key at the keyhole, still fairly drunk if I must admit, so I don’t think I’m going to try to write the name right now. Betty? Oh well, I’ll have plenty of time to think about that with tomorrow’s incoming headache.

I guess I could say something about healing on Shannox. But that doesn’t sound like me. I stood still for the most of the time, shaked my tail looking sexy as hell. If you want to read about tactics and such, Alacran over @ Stand in the Blue Circle is a lot better on that. To me, the fight looked something like this:

I still haven’t found out how I should arrange my haste vs crit vs mastery in 4.2, it doesn’t help that we keep swapping between 10 and 25 mans either, since healing assignments usually look different for these 2 setups. But healing in 4.2 is so far fun. Of course it is, shaman healing is always fun! However, I have realised that it could be a lot better, and I have only myself to blame. When I was a newly born healer many years ago, I was told that healbot was my best option. Perhaps it is. But if I knew a bit more back then, I’d consider my other options and get more used to keybinding. The way it is now, I am very depending on my mouse, since most of my heals are bound to it (razer naga with 12 side buttons).

On a fight like Shannox it’s no problem, but with fights with constant moving I sometimes have a hard time moving fast enough while using spells at the same time. This is even more a problem for me in pvp. Using WASD keys for turning, hmm not so pro. And when I move with mouse, there are certain combinations I can’t use the way I am using healbot at the moment. So. I have bought a shiny. It’s a g13 mini keyboard, with 22 keys for binds, and a little joystick for moving. Haven’t tried it yet, but will do very soon, hoping for nice results.

It’s light outside, birds are up and while neighbours and other mortals are ready to get up, walk their dogs and have breakfast, I will crawl into bed. Toodles!

 

Firelands, not so hot?

So yesterday patch 4.2, Firelands, was released. Usually, when there has been a patch with new content, I have been really interested in exploring everything with it. This time, hmm, not that much. Have I reached a point of my wow career where I no longer get excited about new things? It didn’t bother me that I would need to be at work most of the day and be one of the last in guild to have a look at Firelands. After logging in, I didn’t feel like rushing to do the quest chain to get a new cloak, start the dailies in Hyjal or gasp at the new boe drops from trash runs. It just didn’t, and still doesn’t, feel…fun.

I am not planning on quitting game. Not really even considered it. I have felt like this before, and it has passed. I know it will pass this time, too. My enjoyment of game time have up and downhills, I only wish that patch day would take me to uphill. Sadly, it didn’t.

Our  25man raiding team have looked better, but also worse. At least we have managed to get some 25man up and running lately, thanks to new recruits, some people coming back from breaks etc. I am an officer in my guild, and sometimes that can suck a lot of fun from the game. I would sometimes like to log on right before raid start, being told where to go and what to do, being giving a flask and food and, lean back and enjoy the raid. Read forum posts that interested me, reply to them if I felt like it, if not move on. While not raiding, just hide on an alt and do my own things. Of course I can do this every now and then, but I also get a lot of questions, about anything, dkp, recruiting, trials, guild bank, guild progress, people in guild not being happy with someone / something, raids, sign ups, forum, things that are usually easily solvable, but things that still take a certain amount of time.

Perhaps I am taking it too serious, I probably am. But, with Firelands and new raid bosses releases, I feel more pressure than joy. We must make sure we kill new bosses within reasonable time. Must not get too far behind. My guild will never be realm first in anything, we are not hardcore, but for a long time after Cataclysm we were among top ten 25man raiding guilds on server, something that got slightly messed up the moment we started doing heroic modes. I am not too worried about that, but at the same time I want us to keep up with similar guilds, maybe get hands of some more good recruit to strengthen team.

Anyway. These are probably the reasons why I have mixed feeling about a new raid. On the other side, killing Magmaw or Halfus was getting just as fun as poking myself in the eye with a pencil. So I am ready for new head banging. I have done a few trash runs in Firelands already, I like how the zone is outdoor. Pretty huge, hostile, lava all over, fiery mobs, well everything to go with its name really. So far, not too much cc needed, but some mobs hit hard and are also very melee unfriendly. Good thing I can stay at range and watch. Sometimes you just need to sacrifice a rogue. Or three!

Boe epics (list over trash drops here) seem to drop at same rate as on trash im BoT, so I can imagine there will be several incidents of ninja qq’ing in trade chat with all the pugs going on trashruns. Oh, the safety of going with a guild. Priceless. Tonight we will have our first try on a boss on 25man mode, and Shannox is our target. Any thoughts on Firlands yet?