A Couple Heroic Dungeons 3/25/11

I did a couple heroic dungeons on my Hunter Brieanna today, but not my random daily.

I queued into Lost City of the Tol'vir and Blackrock Caverns with a guild member that wanted to get those two done for the Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achievement. They went pretty smooth and he ended up getting his achievement.

In Lost City we had no problem at all, everything went smooth and it was pretty much a textbook run.

In Blackrock Caverns there was another Hunter besides myself, and he didn't dismiss his pet before jumping not once but twice. Basically if you jump off something your pet will not, they will take the long way around to get to you and drag every mob between you and them with them. That is what happened not once but twice. That same Hunter pulled a side group we didn't need to get at all, causing a partial wipe, I feigned death to get through that one. You have to remember that this is a heroic dungeon where the mobs have a lot of health and hit hard, you don't want to be pulling two groups at once.

When we finally got to the last boss the other Hunter was elected to kite the adds while we killed the boss. I was pretty happy about that because the last five times I have been in there I had to kite the adds. At least he did a good job of that and we got the last boss down without a problem.

Random Daily Heroic - Halls of Origination 3/23/11

Today my daily heroic on my Hunter Brieanna was Halls of Origination. We did the quick version, only the bosses we needed to get it complete. I did it with two other guild members this time.

It was a pretty smooth and easy run, we had no problems at all. HoO is one of the easier Heroics. The only real challenge is the first boss where you have to jump down and throw the switches. On normal you can have one person jump down on each side and throw the switches, on Heroic the switches are "channeled" and it takes about 6 seconds each to "flip" them and the snakes will interrupt you. You need to have the entire group jump down, one person "flipping" the switch and the tank and dps taking care of the snakes. Then you run to the other side and do the same thing. That operation went really smooth, when I am healing I always end up with some poorly geared dps tanking the snakes who uses up all my mana.

After that we did the 4 Elementals, the boss guarding the door to the top floor, then killed Rahj. The last time I was in there on a group run, the tank, a different one from today, insisted we didn't get in the center when Rahj did, leaving people out of range of heals. This tank had a better grasp of the boss and it went off really well, we had no problems with him. I will be picking and choosing which guild tanks I heal for in the future.

Random Daily Heroic - Shadowfang Keep 3/22/11

Today my random daily heroic on my Hunter Brieanna was Shadowfang Keep. I did it with 3 other guild members, we had to PuG out the healer but they were good.

All in all it was a pretty smooth run and went pretty fast. We made it to the last boss without a wipe but our streak of good luck ended there. It was the bullet barrage that got us even though most of us were standing up top on the landing when you come in. Being a ranged dps I took very little damage though out the run and I guess the healer kind of forgot about me because at the last boss I didn't seem to be getting any heals. I ended up dying a second time there, along with a Shaman from guild, but we got the boss down anyway.

All in all it was a pretty good run and got me another 70 Valor Points towards my next 359 ring or trinket.

Viewless Wings

After I completed my random daily heroic yesterday I was able to buy my new cloak, Viewless Wings, for my Hunter Brieanna. It cost me 1250 Valor Points but is worth it. It kicked up my stats a little and is my sixth piece of 359 gear on her. I am thinking about getting either the ring or a trinket next.

We are planning on trying another raid this weekend, hopefully everyone will be ready and not saved. Last weekends planned raid on Baradin Hold didn't go so well as one person had to leave, one person couldn't make it at the last minute, one person was saved and the list goes on and on. It is pretty disappointing when you wait all week for it then all these little avoidable problems occur and you find out you wasted a half an hour and a flask for nothing. I believe Baradin Hold is the shortest raid with only one boss.

Another thing that is a problem is people wearing PvP gear and not having all their equipment up to speed. I inspected a few people and they were missing chants, gems and had PvP gear on. PvP (Player versus Player) gear is for what the name says, PvP. PvE gear (Player versus Environment) gear is for dungeons and raiding. If there was no difference there wouldn't be two different types of gear would there? People have been told repeatedly that PvP gear is not allowed and they still wear it to raids. I guess what this rant boils down to is we do not have a core 10 man team.

Personally I think we should just do some BoT trash farming this weekend to get everyone working together on the same page, get everyone used to working together as a team. I will bring it up again and see what happens. I will be watching the videos of Blackwing Descent, as that is the one we are thinking about trying this coming weekend, and post the links to guild chant so everyone will have the opportunity to know the fights. I would like to at least get the first boss down in one of these raids, any boss, any raid.

Bastion of Twilight Trash Farming

I did four runs of Bastion of Twilight trash farming tonight. Out of the four runs three epics dropped which was a pretty high ratio compared to the other runs I have been on. Out of the first five runs I was on only one epic dropped. Out of the three epics that dropped tonight, two of them dropped on the same run.

It doesn't take too long to do a run and usually you will not do just one. If you can get the group to stay together you can do three, five or even ten runs in a relatively short amount of time if you have a good group that can work together. We had a decent group tonight for our runs so it went pretty quick.

I did these runs on my Hunter Brieanna, which I won't be doing anymore. There is nothing in there that drops for a Hunter. The drops are BoE which means anyone can win and sell them but they are always taken by someone who "needs" them. Last night I saw someone who "needed" a pair of plate shoulders selling them in trade chat afterward. I would not be able to roll "need" on anything because no mail drops so why bother. Any future runs I do I will be taking my priest so I can "need" on the staff which I would equip. The staff did drop last night but, being on my Hunter, I couldn't "need" it.

We are planning to do some guild trash runs in the near future and I will update on how that goes.

Exalted With Baradin's Wardens

My Hunter Brieanna hit exalted with Baradin's Wardens today. I have been doing the daily's for them every day to get my rep to exalted so I could buy the Unsolvable Riddle, an item level 359 trinket for her. That brought my item level up to 350 and should increase my dps. Because it is a "use" trinket and has a 2 minute cool down I will primarily use it on boss fights. I should be getting Viewless Wings, an item level 359 cloak, tomorrow if all goes well and I do my daily random heroic today and tomorrow which I plan on doing.

My Priest Brieonna is already exalted with Baradin's Wardens and she got the Mandala of Stirring Patterns, an item level 359 trinket. The thing I really like about this trinket is the +321 spirit. A healing Priest can never have too much spirit.

Daily Random Heroics - 3/19/11

Today my daily random heroics were Halls of Origination on my Priest Brieonna and Blackrock Caverns on my Hunter Brieanna.

I did Halls of Origination with a full guild group. There was one person in the group, a Paladin, that was a mana sponge from start to finish. I told one of the guild leaders, who was in the group, that it would be the last run I healed with that person in it. After asking them nicely to please target the tanks target and explaining to them how to do that, they went into every fight picking their own target and trying to tank it. Not being a tank they were taking massive damage so I had to split my time between healing them and the tank and throwing a heal or two to the other members of the party when I could. Basically they were taking more damage than the tank in every fight. Melee fighters take more damage than ranged fighters, that's a given, but when they are tanking and not geared for it that damage is multiplied. Sad to say I have healed pugs that were easier.

My Hunters daily was Blackrock Caverns and that wasn't a smooth run either but at least I wasn't healing so it was a lot less stressful. It was a PuG (Pick up Group). The main problem we were having was with the second boss Corla. There are 3 beams that need to be broken. That is done by standing in them to block them from the mob they are going to. The mob just sits there so all you have to do is block it. While you are blocking it you are building up stacks on yourself. At 80 stacks you need to step out of the beam and let the stacks wear off you, then you step back into the beam for another 80. Depending on how fast the group gets the boss down you will have to repeat that 6-10 times. If you are out of the beam too long the mob will transform into a Herald of Twilight and attack the group, if you stay in it too long you will become mind controlled and attack the group. They just didn't get it. We wiped 5 or 6 times on that boss before enough people left and were replaced so we could kill her. It was sad. After that the only problem we had was the healer not having any water so they were going into every fight with little mana.... Not sure why you would queue for a dungeon without water when you are queuing as the healer. Personally I carry 80 water on my healer and I replace what I use after every dungeon. That is the quality of people you get in a PuG but I can't say it was worse than our guild run.

I will get my new trinket on my Hunter tomorrow from Baradin's Wardens which should bring my item level up and increase my dps. The day after tomorrow I will get my new cloak with valor points and that will also increase my dps. I guess I will be saving up for the other trinket after that.

More Random Heroics - Grim Batol - 3/18/11

I have been doing my random heroic dungeon every day on my Hunter Brieanna to get Valor Points. You spend the Valor Points on level 359 gear from the Valor Vendor. I think I will be getting the cloak first. I am over half way through revered with Baradin's Wardens on her and will be getting my 359 trinket soon too. One of my guild mates made me a Dragonkiller Tunic the other day which is a 359 chest piece. I have noticed an improvement in my dps since I started wearing it. My dps is improving every day.

Today my random heroic dungeon was Grim Batol. Grim Batol is the hardest of the Cataclysm heroic dungeons and it took us a while to get through it today. It was also my random heroic dungeon yesterday too but we got through it a lot faster.

The first boss in Grim Batol, General Umbriss, is not much different on heroic than it is on normal, he just hits a lot harder with his blitz, hard enough to kill you in one shot if you do not get out of the way. He might call out a few more troggs too.

The second boss, Forgemaster Throngus, is a lot tougher on heroic than normal. On heroic he leaves behind pools of molten lava when he has his mace equipped and is being kited. When he equips his shield he shoots fire from it which he does not do on normal and changes direction a lot so you have to stay on your toes.

The third boss, Drahga Shadowburner is the worst boss in there on heroic in my opinion. He calls his fire minions in heroic just like he does in normal but in heroic they will one shot you and anyone around you while in normal they hit for around 60,000 dmg. He seems to call a lot more of them in heroic too, there seems to be one up just about all the time. His primary method of attack is a shadow bolt, he throws a lot of those at you but they are not too bad. Another thing he does in heroic when he is on the dragon is the dragons fire breath attack. He does it in normal but at best it just knocks you down, on heroic it hurts. A lot. It fans out 180 degrees in front of him and you have to get behind him fast. That was the problem we were having. If there was not a minion out we were dealing with we all had no problem getting behind him, if there was a minion out we were wiping. What you do when the minion comes out is kite it while the dps kill it. If you are involved in that and he pulls the fire breath thing it is hard to kite that, kill it, and get behind him all at the same time. We had a Mage that thought he would be smart and just ice block himself when the minion came after him instead of kiting it. Well, the minion exploded and the Mage was alright because he was ice blocked but it killed 2 dps and the healer so it was not a very smart move after all. After 5 or 6 wipes we finally got it down and got by him. Unfortunately, because it was a pug, we will never be together in that same group again so next time it will be starting from scratch again.

The last boss Erudax is not too bad. Like normal, heroic has the Shadow Gale that you will need to get out of. Shadow Gale is like a vortex and you will need to get into the "eye of the storm" to avoid damage. Most of the damage is directed at the tank but he does do binding shadows that will bind someone in place and causes damage to them. After he does Shadow Gale there will be 2 adds that need to be killed, unlike normal where there is only one add. It is very important to kill these add(s) before they can hatch an egg. If they hatch an egg it releases a dragon whelp that flies around and dps' the group while healing the boss, very important that doesn't happen especially on heroic. On normal you can usually get through it if only one egg gets hatched but not usually on heroic.

And that was my random heroic two days in a row now, I can only hope it won't be three days in a row. I am ready for one of the easier ones now like Halls of Origination or Lost City of the Tol'vir.

Survival Hunter

I have been playing my Survival Hunter Brieanna more lately. The reason I wasn't playing her as much was the queue time. It takes a lot longer to queue as DPS than it does to queue as a healer on my Priest Brieonna. DPS takes me anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes where Heals takes me up to 2 minutes to queue on the average.

When I first started playing my Hunter again my DPS was a little low because I was out of practice. I was hitting around 8-9k average on her when I first started and now am averaging around 11k and had a personal best of 15.9k dps on one of the boss fights. The more I play her the better it gets. I have been doing my random daily heroic on her every day lately too to get Valor points. I am over 900 now and will be getting my first piece of Valor gear soon. I am not sure if I will be getting the cloak or a trinket first, I will jump off that bridge when I get there.

I am going to try and split my time between my Hunter and Priest now so I can stay in practice on both and DPS or Heal as needed. It is a lot of fun playing a hunter, I just wish the queues were shorter. To fill in the time while I am waiting for the queue I do my Tol Barad daily's, going for the trink there, or just kill stuff and skin it for leather.

I traded my gun for a bow and am using that now. The only problem I had with the gun was all the noise it made. I know I can turn the volume off when playing to eliminate that problem but there are audible warnings in the game I didn't want to miss so this was a simple solution. It is so much nicer and quieter now :).

Bracers of Some Consequence

After running heroic Stonecore and heroic Deadmines every day for 5 days in a row my bracers finally dropped.

The pair I finally got, Bracers of Some Consequence, dropped off Vanessa VanCleef. The other pair, Elementium Scale Bracers, drops off Ozruk in heroic Stonecore.

They replaced my item level 333 bracers, I got from a quest in Grim Batol, bringing my overall item level up to 348. That also makes 346 my minimum equipped item level piece again.

Now it is time to start raiding for more 359 gear.

Cataclysm Dungeon Hero

I got the Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achievement on my Hunter Brieanna yesterday after completing heroic Stonecore. You earn this achievement for completing all the Cataclysm dungeons at the heroic level.

Recently I replaced my item level 352 PvP bracers with a pair of item level 333 PvE bracers because PvP gear is just no good in dungeons. In doing that I lost a point off my item level but my dungeon score on WoW Heroes went up. Now I am running heroic Deadmines and heroic Stonecore every day, as well as my random daily heroic, to try and get the 346 bracers that drop in there. That will bring my minimum item level back up to 346.

I ran each one yesterday but had no luck, I will try again today when I get on later. I have around a 30 minute queue time with my DPS toons compared to a up to 2 minute wait on my healer. That gives me time to get my Tol Barad daily's done on my DPS toons while I am waiting for the queue to pop.

More Heroic Cata Dungeons

I have been doing heroic dungeon runs with my guild. If you have at least 3 people from your guild in the same run you get guild experience. So far I have healed all but two of the heroic Cata dungeons on my Priest Brieonna. Some are pretty rough and some are not too bad.

It seems we end up in heroic Deadmines a lot more than I would like to. At first it was brutally hard but it does seem to get easier each time. We usually don't have a problem until we are on the boat. Ripsnarl can be pretty tough when the fog rolls in. Cookie I thought was tough at first but the secret there is to eat the food he throws at you to keep your area clear of poison. Then you have the nightmare with Vanessa Van Cleef. The secret to that is to start moving as soon as you find yourself back in the smelting area. Some people have a hard time getting past the laser beams. They say having good Mario skills helps out there but I never played Mario so I just stay to the right hand side and keep my eyes open. One thing you want to remember about Vanessa is she is going to light off a keg of gun powder right as she dies, get away from her, it will kill you.

So far I have healed Blackrock Caverns, The Stonecore, Lost City of the Tol'vir, Shadowfang Keep, Throne of Tides, Halls of Origination and Deadmines on heroic. The two I haven't healed on heroic yet are Grim Batol and Vortex Pinnacle. I am not worried about Vortex Pinnacle but Grim Batol is brutal, I have done that one on my hunter Brieanna.

I guess I will keep plugging along and doing randoms and sooner or later the 2 I haven't done yet will come into the rotation. I run a lot of normal dungeons for loot I can sell to make gold and make quite a bit doing that.

Don't Stand In The Fire

When you are in a dungeon, don't stand in anything. I am not going to go into a lot of detail because, as I have been told, it goes without saying.

If you are in a dungeon and you are standing in something that is killing you, move. It's as simple as that. Move. I can not get over the number of people that will just stand in something that is hitting them for 8-10k plus damage (Normal Dungeon) a second EVERY SECOND. A few steps in any direction and they could be out of it. There are very few instances where you need to stand in something that is killing you in a normal or even heroic 5 man dungeon. The last boss in Halls of Origination, Rahj, is one of the exceptions.

Now when I start healing a dungeon on my Priest Brieonna, the first thing I say is "Don't stand in anything". That is my disclaimer. Someone will always say "That goes without saying", and it should go without saying. After that if someone is standing in something I will throw them a couple heals to give them time to get out of it, and if they don't move I let them die. I am a healer, not a babysitter. It's even in the loading tips at startup: Don't stand in the fire!