Screwing around in Ruby Sanctum, and other notes.

So, Surprise! Ruby Sanctum is up and running. I distinctly remember reading that it was not coming out yet, but I guess I was wrong. So story time, My guild and I were kinda doing our thing. I in particular was leveling enchanting in RFC, when in vent someone says Rocket Surgeons is in Ruby Sanctum. At this point our GM decides to go check it out, after hearing her rave on how pretty it was I hit my bubblehearth macro and made my way there. A few of our guildies started joining our little raid we had to get in. Before we knew it we had 3 healers 2 tanks and a few dps. Us being us we grab another DPS out of the guild and decide to give it a shot. 30 mins before we are scheduled to get back to Lich Ling here we are, The Ruby Sanctum. With not a clue what to expect we jump in. First thing we observed about the instance is trash is hard, okay well not hard just hit a little harder than expected. The second thing we observed 2/3 of the mini bosses are really easy, the third not so much without a tremor totem. After a couple wipes on the 3rd mini boss it is time for us to head to poke the Lich King and so ends our first experience in Ruby Sanctum.

Ok now that I have bored you to death with story time, We shall talk about the fights in ruby sanctum.

Trash:

First off is: The Charscale Assaulter.

These little bugger do not hit particually hard is you are a tank but kinda hurt a little if your are a melee getting its cleave or shock wave, so best point this guy away from the group.

The next mob you have is: The Charscale Commander.

This guy I would recommend having one of your tanks tank him away a bit. He has an MS effect and a commanding shout from hell, seriously 25 percent damage increase to all ally in 8 yards of him. All the mobs getting this effect rather hurts, its not unhealable but with the MS effect i can make it a bit sticky.

Now we get to the: Charscale Elite.

He doesn't really hit that hard and does a short stun nothing to bad by far the least threatening mob here.

Lastly we have: The Charscale Evoker.

As we know caster mobs are here just to piss us off. This on is no different. He has a scorch ability that does a bit of fire damage on a single target, no biggie. The thing that makes this mob dangerous is is Blast wave, It does a rather large chuck of damage to a lot of people an knocks them back. Keep an eye on your melee here.

Now to the Mini Bosses:

Saviana Ragefire:

Tank and spank, she will enrage every now and then, just traq shot or heal though the aoe she does. And she will fly in the air and conflagrate a couple people, they will be marked heal them up and keep them away from the group and all will be good.

Baltharus the Warborn:

More or less a tank and spank. He blast waves to annoy your melee and healers. And well will split though out the fight, Just hunter's mark and kill the original and OT the clones.

General Zarithrian:

This guy is really kinda hard is you don't have a shaman, really easy if you do. He does an aoe fear that lasts 4 seconds, bring a shaman and tremor totem them. He also summons adds Tank and have a couple dps kill them, They do a blast wave it hurts but can be interrupted. Other than that just DPS him down.

To the main Event Halion:

This fight is broken into 3 phase each accessible by dropping his health to 75 and 50 percent health. It is a relativity easy encounter if so I have been told, that really only requires a bit of gear and a lot of situational awareness. So If you have the raider who can never seem to move out of fire, you may want to sideline them for this one.

Phase 1:

In phase one the first thing he will do is summon circle of fire around the encounter, limiting your space to fight and not letting you run away when things go bad *looks at Sarth*. The next thing you will notice, if you have not already that he is a dragon. Meaning he has a frontal cone flame breath and a tail swipe. He will summon meteors on random locations, move away from them. When they hit they will launch 4 spokes of fire across the circle, so yet again move out of the fire. Next thing is mark of combustion, it will place the mark on a target. The target should move way from the raid and have the mark dispelled, because it will leave a rather large patch on the ground.

Phase 2:

Upon taking Halion to 75 percent he goes into the shadow realm, you are to follow him. Good news, the meteor of fiery death is gone, bad new it is replace by a Death Beam. 2 orbs will circle the raid every 30seconds they will launch a Death Beam lasting 10 seconds between the two of them rotate the entire raid, boss included to avoid being hit. Along with the Death Beam and the usual dragon like abilities you will now have more of Consumption, which is the same thing as mark of combustion except now the big patch tries to pull you in rather than push you way. Pish him to 50 percent to move to phase 3.

Phase 3:

When phase 3 starts send a tank, a tank healer, and ranged though the portal. Keep you melee, MT, and raid healers inside the shadow realm. The fight becomes 2 fights at once, Phase 1 in the physical realm and phase 2 in shadow with the boss being in both. The trick here is you have to keep damage even on the both fights. You do this because un even damage effects his corporeality in either realm, forcing him to be in or out of 1 of the realms more. Its hard to explain so here is the breakdown I got from wowhead:

This is how his buff works:
50%
Deals and receives normal damage.

40% and 60%
Damage dealt increased by 15%.
Damage taken increased by 20%.
AND
Damage dealt reduced by 10%.
Damage taken reduced by 15%.

30% and 70%
Damage dealt increased by 30%.
Damage taken increased by 50%.
AND
Damage dealt reduced by 20%.
Damage taken reduced by 30%.

20% and 80%
Damage dealt increased by 60%.
Damage taken increased by 100%.
AND
Damage dealt reduced by 30%.
Damage taken reduced by 50%.

10% and 90%
Damage dealt increased by 100%.
Damage taken increased by 200%.
AND
Damage dealt reduced by 50%.
Damage taken reduced by 80%.

0% and 100%
Damage dealt increased by 200%.
Damage taken increased by 400%.
AND
Damage dealt reduced by 70%.
Damage taken reduced by 100%.

And thats it! Enjoy your loots!

Any other questions on this encounter, see tankspot.com for videos.

Lastly, Sorry for lack of updates it has need a rather busy last couple of weeks. I should be on a normal schedule now and updating Wednesday and Sunday.

War Games!

Well I was going to do a rant on lightwell but, seeing as someone...*Glares at Dawn Moore*... has already done an article on it this week. In which she decided to show its good side. Has more or less turned me closer to lightwell as a decent spell, and that players are just stupid. With that being said How about we get to the real subject of today's post, War Games!

Before I get into it lets look at the original blue post.

From Kalgan aka Tom Chilton, World of Warcraft's Lead Game Designer

We're simultaneously working on a "war games" mode for battlegrounds that allows groups to challenge other groups to a battle in a specific battleground (including horde vs horde and alliance vs alliance). Granted, the rewards aren't significant, but it's more for players to be able to have fun battling their guildmates and friends or for players on a server to throw down for the sake of pride and bragging rights.

[...] You'll still only be grouped with players of your language, although your opponents can be from whatever part of the region, regardless of language.

Now looking at this at first glance, I got rather excited. Upon thinking though it more, I started to bounce with happiness. Now why? You may ask. Why not this is huge feature people have always wanted. It offers not to just a niche of players, but is a feature that all types of player will more than likely enjoy.

Now let us look at it from the prospective of different types of players.

Starting at one Extreme: Hardcore PVPers

Hardcore PVPers will be the best of the best pvp/pve gear to what ever end will suite their class. They are expected to min/max everything and play flawlessly in a pvp setting. Now they will more than likely be forced to leave their little hole the call the arena and have to do rated BGs. Where they will undoubtedly for a while slaughter everything in their path or fail miserably not being used to the scale of the battle ground. What does the War Games set up offer them? It allows them to do a few things, such as learning strategies(yes there will more than likely be comps and strats and all that good stuff for rated BGs premades) and general practice. Now yes they can do these in normal premade BGs, but really what is their to learn from stomping under geared players who don't have a clue. And last but not least, it offers them a new way to flex their E-peens.

Next we come to the Casual PVPer:

The Casual pvp has mid range gear and high hopes. Hopes that are usually smashed when you are getting steam rolled by players with twice their health and resilience. This mode will allow players to enjoy BGs with their guild and friends during the long pvp grinds, kinda like a break that doesn't cause you to lose your thunder. I know myself I will get to the point on a new pvp character that I will toss my mouse and come back in 10 minute then be out of the pvp mindset for the next 2 BGs causing me to throw my mouse again. War Games offer not only a break, but You can learn things in these a duel will never teach you.

Now lets see what this will do with raiders:

Okay, so this is more of an E-peen flex for them. They can pvp amongst other player with out pvp gear going around 1 shotting each other.

Now what has me most excited(don't judge me) RPers!:

What does this give RPers? True guild wars/alliances. It will give new depth to pvprp. You can RP in a normal battleground you just get mocked and killed. This you can set your own factions, and take as long as you want. Imagine 2 RP rival guilds on your server want to finally want to settle the score. Enter Ilse of Conquest, Both guild leave their keep line form ranks in the middle, the two leaders step out to try to settle thing peacefully. When that fails an all out battle ensues. I mean in a place like Isle of Conquest you can completely ignore the mechanics for the most part, with no time limits and being able to win though reinforcements I see the potential for RP greatness.

With all this being said, I really hope Blizzard pulls though for us.

Cataclysm Priest talents, Actually Updating!

First off I would like to note that this blog will now be updated at least 3 times a week from now on. It was my original intent, but my laziness got the better of me and now all should be fixed.

Now, after that blurb you really did not care about on to what we all care about Cataclysmic Priest Talents !!! Some things so far I love, others I hate.

First we will go over What I love about each tree then to what I hate.

What I love :

The entire Discipline Tree in general:

Penitence (3 ranks) - Increases the critical effect chance of your Smite and Penance spells by 5/10/15%. A little thing to increase damage.

Atonement (3 ranks) - When you deal damage with Smite, you instantly heal a nearby low-health friendly target within 40 yards equal to 15/30/45% of the damage dealt. Now when you have the urge to holy fire the boss(we all do it) you will not feel so silly for doing it.

Evangelism (2 ranks available) - When you cast Smite you gain Evangelism, increasing the damage done by your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance spells by 2/4% and reducing the mana cost of those spells by 3/6% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times. This is where things start to really ramp up our damage, bringing us from just healing to being a healer/dps.

Archangel (1 rank available) - Consumes your Evangelism effects, instantly restoring 3% of your total mana and increasing your healing done by 3% for each stack. Also allows you to channel Penance while moving. Lasts 18 seconds. This is what All this has been leading up to this, this amazing talent boosts both healing and dps. And to top it off you can channel penance while moving!

And finally we get to PW:B

Power Word: Barrier (1 rank available) - Requires 2 points in Improved Power Word: Shield - 13383 Mana - 40 yd range - 0.5 sec cast - 3 min cooldown - Summons a holy barrier on the target location that absorbs 293 damage done to party or raid members within it each time they take damage. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. The barrier lasts for 15 seconds or until it absorbs 1955 damage. Ok well this has officially taken the role of priest most bloated tool tip(currently held by shadow form, though is being cleaned up, will get to hat in a bit) So far it looks good, but It needs testing to see /pray for beta!

So far no complaints about the disc tree.

Moving over to the holy tree

Things I like...

Chakra [NYI] (5 ranks available) - When you use Prayer of Healing, Renew or Heal 3 times in a row you will enter a Chakra state empowering you for 20 seconds. You can only be in one Chakra state at a time. Prayer of Healing - Increases your area-of-effect healing by 2/4/6/8/10%, and reduces the cooldown of your Circle of Healing by .5/1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds. Renew - Increases the periodic haste effect of your Renew spell by 3/6/9/12/15% and reduces the global cooldown of your Renew spell by .1/.2/.3/.4/.5 seconds. Heal - Increases the critical effect chance of your Heal spell by 1/2/3/4/5%, and your Heal has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to refresh the duration of your Renew on the target. Smite - Increase your total damage done by Shadow and Holy spells by 4/8/12%. Starting at Rank 2 - Increases spell power by 10% of your total spirit. Rank 3 changes the talent to Spiritual Guidance - Increases spell power by 15/20/25% of your total spirit. Really cool talent...really bloated tool tip, sorry PW:B your not fat after all. And I will get this tool tip of slim fast as soon as possible.

Things I hate:

I'm order to get to the amazing, if not fatty tool tipped talent of Chakra. You must first go though the red headed bastardized step child of all priest talents. Lightwell. Lightwell has been completely revamped...no wait I'm lying it is still the same talent of pure misunderstood suck it has always been. A complete waste of a talent point made mandatory.(well have a full post of a lightwell rant at some point.)


Onto my favorite tree, Shadow:

What I love:

Dark Thoughts (2 ranks available)Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting any Shadow spell by 35/70%. Nothing more annoying that at low levels getting this amazing mind flay skill and realizing it is forever a second longer when a mob gets to you. this will be a great leveling talent

Shadowform (1 rank available) - 2676 Mana - Instant cast - 1.5 sec cooldown -Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15%, reducing all damage done to you by 15%. However, you may not cast Holy spells while in this form. See it lost weight!

Improved Shadowform (2 ranks available) - Requires 1 point in Shadowform - Your Fade ability now has a 50/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects when used while in Shadowform, and reduces casting or channeling time lost when damaged by 35/70% when casting any Shadow spell while in Shadowform. In addition, spell haste for all nearby party and raid members is increased by 5%. 5 percent auto haste and a raid buff! Boomkins eat you hearts out!

hadowy Apparition [PH] [NYI] (3 ranks available) - While moving or dealing damage with your Shadow Word: Pain, you will sometimes summon a Shadow version of yourself which will slowly move towards a target which is afflicted by your Shadow Word: Pain. Once reaching that target, it will instantly deal damage equal to 15/30/45% of your Mind Blast’s damage. Cool talent, though I did think Blizz was try to avoid "free damage".

Mind Melt [NYI] (2 ranks available) - Increases the additional damage done with your Shadow Word: Death by 5/10% on targets at or below 25% health, and and when you deal damage with Mind Spike, the cast time of your next Mind Blast is reduced by 11/33% lasting 6 seconds. Mind Melt can stack up to 3 times. Ummm cool? more stacking buffs to keep track of *glares at shadow weaving*

What I did not like:

Over all there wasn't much change to shadow if anything they added more Mandatory talents, so the same floater talents we can't take now we will more than likely still not be able to..

To wrap things up over all the plus outweigh the negative, and we must still take into account that it is still alpha so there is a lot that can happen between now and later.

Sorry no pic for this post...yet

Concerning Fire Mages, AV Weekend, and Trapped Priests

Ah the fire mage. Once upon a time one of the more terrifying things you could run into in the pvp world, now just a shell of its former glory. They were the true glass cannons, able to kill a player faster than they could respond and die just as fast. Now a days the Fire mage is in pvp is a rare thing. With little durability and and resilience keeping their damage in check, most have gone frost and arcane and fire is left to the few.

Now why has this former powerhouse been side lined? Simple. Blizzard took the glass cannon concept and kept it, high damage/low survivability. While this is all very good on paper, the canon part was lost with the creation of resilience. Resilience the new stat(at the time) designed to save us from being 2 shotted by things like mages, reduced chance to be crit and reduced damage taken. This was a big nail in the coffin for the fire mage, no longer being able to quickly dispose of an opponent left it very vulnerable and weakened the spec considerably. As time went on most gave up on fire for pvp, the spec lived on in the pve world throughout BC and Wrath, though now towards the end even in pve it is fading in favor or arcane.

Current Fire pvp is a hard game to play. It is no longer about instant burst, but about creating as much mayhem as possible. Now the fire mage is a fragile thing only being able to take a few hit even with a ton of resil. Its toolbox allows it to deal out a lot of hurt, to a lot of people, in very little time. Your main job is to do as much damage to as many people before you are killed. And you will be killed. You are a Kamikaze.

The skilled used in your bombing runs are as follwed:

• Living Bomb, If you are running up to a group put it on everything. (warlock pets are my fav.)
• Dragon's Breath, This is a heavy hitter and dazes all who are hit. It will buy you time.
• Blast Wave, This is your peal, It is one of your heavy hitters, It will also buy you time.
• Flame Strike, due to your Fire starter talent these will be instant and free when used after Dragon's Breath or Blast Wave.
• Pyroblast, This is your big gun. If your using it it's either instant do to your Hotstreak talent(it will proc a lot when your bombs go off) or really fast when you are about dead(fiery payback is a bitch).

All of there will be used on a group in the course of about 20 seconds. This will leave entire groups dead or dieing, enemy healers panicking, and more than likely you in the grave yard. Note you will have some 1v1, it's not easy, but you have many useful spells for locking down an enemy long enough for you to kill them....unless they have pets...or 1 or 2 more friends and your alone...then Blink Invise and run.

Now best place to apply this new fun AV, a lot of people, a lot of choke points, enough mayhem to cover your to complete your suicide run. AV is your place to shine, Other fun places include...Flag room WSG, Flag in EOTS(try a blast wave there ;), Lumber Mill Flag(another Blast Wave spot) and anywhere else people bundle together. AV weekend owns, 3.6k honor kills in last 2 days.

Lastly we will talk of poor Natrii who is currently stranded on Nerz'hul. Let us all pray that he will be able to return home soon.