About
I'm a dedicated WoW player who play several alts, but I focus mainly on my Warlock. Since I have a lot of characters, on this site it's easiest that I'm simply known as Saga.
I'm a raider, guild officer and altoholic who loves chasing after new mounts and pets.
This site is where I ramble about my adventures and thoughts as I continue playing WoW.
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Monthly Archives: September 2011
The Tale of Two Raiders
Note: This was written before the nerfs, and so some things may not be entirely correct anymore – like mentioning the burning orbs on Staghelm, since those never show up before he’s dead anymore.
As I suspect everyone is aware of by now I raid in two different guilds on two different characters. It means I get to see every boss fight from two different perspectives, and I find it interesting how the same fight can seem almost like another entirely depending on what role you fill.
In this post, I will compare my feelings on the boss fights in Firelands depending on the role I fill.
The Raiders
My main character, and main raider, is my Warlock who obviously fill the dps role in raids. My main’s guild is Alliance and raid on Sundays and weekdays.
My raiding alt is a Paladin who fills the role of healer in raids. Her guild is Horde and raid on Saturdays and Sundays. This means that I only ever really raid with her on Saturdays (with the exception of if my main’s raid is cancelled early for some reason). On occasion we might hit BRD/BoT on a Friday as well.
Shannox
Warlock
As a dps on this fight your main focus is controlled dps on the correct targets throughout the encounter. It’s important not to kill something prematurely, or get the boss below 30% before both dogs are dead.
Other than that, you’re mainly just watching out for traps and making sure not to stand in the little fire patches.
It’s not a difficult fight for a ranged dps by any standards. As long as you dps the right target and don’t stand in traps there’s really nothing else to worry about. As a Warlock I enjoy it because I get nice numbers due to multi-dotting with Soul Swap. Though of course I have to pay a bit of extra attention to make sure my dots don’t get the boss below 30%.
Paladin
As a healer this fight is fairly straight forward. You don’t have to pay attention to the health of the adds other than to know when they die so that you can expect the increased damage taken by the tank.
You still have to watch out and not stand in traps of course, which if you’re busy looking at people’s health bars might be a tiny bit more work than it is as a dps. (Or at least I find.) But it’s still not difficult.
The most difficult part is probably when the tank you’re assigned to might decide to run off halfway across the map. Or if the dps are taking damage they shouldn’t. Tactics wise though, fairly straight forward healing and movement fight.
Beth’tilac
Warlock
I don’t like this fight on my Warlock. Not because it’s difficult, but rather because I feel that I’m not much good on it. Due to our raid composition I usually end up on the hanging spiders, and I can’t do any good dps when switching targets that often.
Perhaps this fight is more interesting if you’re the dps that get to go upstairs. At least then you get to look for when to jump down.
In my current role all I do is multi-dotting the hanging spiders. Dps the drone when all the spiders are dead, and then pop all my cooldowns once the final stage begins. On occasion I might help the dps on the tiny spiderlings with a Seed or two.
Paladin
I’ve been both upstairs and downstairs on this fight, but lately I mainly end up downstairs. This is because I’m the only healer with a taunt, and I use it to help get the hanging spiders off their web (they seem to do less damage then).
This means that I often spend my time between healing the drone tank and the dps downstairs, and seeing if I can nip off and do a taunt while still getting back in range of the tank before he dies.
Other than the taunting, it’s a fairly straight forward “heal anything” fight. I remember early on I used to be nearly oom by phase 2, but now that I’ve upgraded some gear it’s become pretty easy.
Lord Rhyolith
Warlock
Since I respecced Demonology for this fight it’s become a lot more fun. Not because it’s a difficult fight (after the nerfs, it really isn’t), but simply because I really enjoy running around and using Hellfire on the little adds.
What can I say, I enjoy running around burning things to cinders? All I have to watch out for are the lines on the floor and I’m good!
Paladin
The healing on this fight has gone from hectic (not difficult strategy wise, but people just used to take so much damage), to really quite managable after the nerfs. (Almost too much so.) This refers to the initial nerfs, and not the most recent ones.
I remember the first time we went there (pre-nerf) and we got into the final phase without warning from the dps that it was going to happen (since I usually don’t have time to check the boss health). Because we weren’t prepared for it the tank got one-shot the second Rhyolith showed his true self.
These days… Rhyolith seems to be dead seconds after he turns.
It’s a fairly straight forward fight. Just keep healing and avoid the lines on the floor. I often end up sticking to the melee on the legs to make sure they don’t go out of range for healing.
Baleroc
Warlock
Baleroc is a bit boring tactics wise. I pretty much just get to stand there and dps, only having to move a little now and then to do the shard tanking.
Paladin
I’ve only done this fight 2-3 times on my Paladin so far, and I still don’t feel comfortable doing it.
It’s not necessarily that it’s difficult tactics wise, but rather that I feel very rushed when healing the shard tanks and I often end up low on mana already after my first time on the shard tanks.
Perhaps with time this fight will feel less rushed and I’ll learn exactly how I have to heal on the shard tanks to build quick stacks AND not waste my mana completely.
Alysrazor
Warlock
I believe I can fly! I believe I can touch the skyy-yy…
Ok, so yes – I’m the “lucky” person who gets to fly on this boss. Now, I don’t know if that’s lucky or not. I’m sure some people love the flying, but I’m not all that fond of it.
Yes, it’s a different mechanic and something more than just standing around dpsing – but I always have a hard time moving and dpsing at the same time (due to my unfortunate way of moving). I do okay, but I suspect I could do a lot better.
Hitting those portals in the air sometimes can be a bit awkward. You’ll have one to the left, and the next one is off very far to the right. There’s a limited amount of time before you’ll fall out of the sky as well. Sometimes it looks on my screen as if I fly through the portal, but I obviously haven’t because a second later I’ll suddenly be sprawling on the ground in a bloody heap.
On the whole though, I suspect that flying is still a lot more fun than being on the ground and dealing with those hatchlings and adds. Someone correct me if I’m wrong…
Paladin
Tactics wise this fight is really easy as a healer. Yes, there’s a lot of healing needing to be done during the phase when the bird is down – but that’s not a difficult tactic, just lots of spamming.
I’m always responsible for one side of the field, and as long as people don’t step into the fires, that means I only really have to heal my assigned tank for the entire first phase.
This only gets difficult when your tank doesn’t call the hatchling’s enrage and hikes off to the other side of the field in search of a worm before you’re aware of them doing so. Fortunately we have the run speed increase and can generally catch up with our tanks in time.
It’s a healing intensive fight during some phases, but overall a fairly easy one when it comes to tactics. I find communication between tanks and healers to help a lot though. (Knowing that a tantrum is incoming really helps you not having to panic heal.)
Majordomo Staghelm
Warlock
I quite enjoy this fight on my Warlock, despite the fact that I don’t get to stand in and be lazy like the melee! (Yes, we let our melee all stay in during the cat phase.) The tactics are easy, but it’s one of those fights where not moving quickly enough can wipe your raid, which makes it interesting.
I usually get to “tank” the orbs as well, which means I have more to do in the final phase (tanking it and getting 3 cat jumps kind of sucks though!).
Paladin
The basics of the fight is the same on the Paladin, I move in and out at the exact same times as I do on the Warlock. However, as a healer I have to rotate my raid cooldowns with the other healers and make sure I hit them for the correct number of stacks on the scorpion phase.
Other than that though, it’s pretty much the same fight – just a lot of healing needing to be done, especially in the scorpion phase.
Ragnaros
Warlock
I would like to say that there’s a lot going on in this fight, but it’s actually not that much. There’s quite a bit of moving though. In phase one having to move away from the little “bombs” and the flame waves. In phase two we move from side to side as the little adds spawn before aoeing them down.
The main thing for me to think about as a dps on this fight is to minimise the damage that I take while dpsing the boss as hard as possible. Then try to kill the adds in the transition phases or stun them if I can.
Oh, and kiting meteors in the final phase. I hate kiting meteors!
Paladin
Being a paladin I usually spend most of my time making sure the tanks are staying alive, but I often try to toss out heals to help when we take the raid wide damage as well. I still have to dodge all avoidable damage, while trying to keep healing.
In the transition phases I’ve glyphed my Holy Wrath to do a stun so that I can help on the elementals. I also save my Hammer of Justice in case one seems to get too close to the hammer.
For the rest I’m usually trying to make sure no one dies while avoiding the flame waves and other nasty things.
Final Thoughts
To me the biggest difference in fights between playing a healer or dps is that when I’m dps I’m mainly concerned about myself and avoiding standing in the bad while still doing decent dps. When I’m healing I still have to make sure I dont’ stand in the bad, but I also have to keep an eye on everyone else in the raid so that I know when to heal them.
I see more of the fight as a dps possibly because a lot of times I am staring at the raidframes and am too busy healing to really look at my surroundings as a healer.
It’s a lot of fun though, because it often allows me to see more areas of a fight than before. Like on Beth’tilac I’m usually downstairs on the Warlock – but I’ve sometimes been upstairs on the Paladin, so I’ve gotten to see both sides.
I’ve been flying on Alysrazor, but I’ve also seen what they’re doing on the ground level.
When the healers are talking about their stacks on Baleroc and I’m dpsing, I actually know exactly what they’re talking about!
All in all, I enjoy playing two different roles in raids.
Are you raiding on more than one character or do you fill more than one role in raids? How do you like the two in comparison?
Posted in My Adventures/Characters, Random Ramblings
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Warlock Tier 13
A little while ago we finally got a look at the new tier set for Warlocks. I’ve liked most of the Warlock sets, even if there are sometimes details on them that I don’t appreciate.
This time, it’s the same. The thing is… the Warlock set would look awesome, if it didn’t have tentacles on it! I mean, really guys – tencales?
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like tentacles anywhere near my face. And you know what, I’d rather not have them anywhere else near me either.
I could blame this on a guildie of mine, he’s really into hentai you see, and the whole tentacle thing. Let’s just say that it’s a standing joke in the guild that he’s useless to us in the final phase of Cho’gall cause he’s too busy admiring the spawning tentacles.
Ignoring that though, I still feel uncomfortable about the idea of tentacles on my armour. I’m an evil mastermind who control the elements of shadow and flame… Why would I want tentacles?
Image taken from MMO-Champion.
What do you think about the Warlock tier set? What do you think about your own tier set, is it great or does it bother you like the Warlock one does me?
Posted in Random Ramblings, Warlock
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Vacation!!!
DECLINED, BABY!
Sooooo! Finally, after months and months of recruiting (done by my darling other half), we have a guild with enough Tanks, more than enough DPS and the right blend of Healers with two Permanent PUG’s to spare. What did I do to celebrate? I declined the next two raids, of course! Sure, we’re about to kill the weakened Raggy for the first time, but some things are just more important!
It’s all about BALANCE!
We talk a lot about balance in WoW. Balance of classes, PvP vs. PvE, balance of our gamer’s hobbies and the rest of the world. In the Zowy house we are all about balance. I’m calm and patient, Mr. Zowy is energetic and randomly spontaneous. Our Baby Goblin (now 13 months) is a perfect blend of us both!
We strive to balance WoW and our Family Life with mixed amounts of success. The deal Mr. Zowy and I made was: One of us raids Saturday, the other Sunday dependent on raid requirements and sign-ups. Looks good on paper but we can’t always factor in all the variables of life. Will Baby Goblin want Mama or Papa this evening? Are there any last second changes to the raid roster? Will Baby Goblin want Mama or Papa….that one is worth mentioning twice!
Where did all the healers go?
Our guild has been healer-starved for as far back as I can remember. As a result, I (a healer) end up reluctantly raiding both raid nights, while Mr. Zowy is sitting over my shoulder giving suggestions and chasing a very active smaller version of himself through the house. This leaves me feeling a bit begrudged because it isn’t my night to raid and Mr. Zowy more than a little miffed because he hasn’t seen the first 5 bosses in Firelands since our third run through. (Just when he got the tornado dance down too!)
Once Baby Gobs goes to sleep, Mr. Zowy is then able to join us but half the raid is over and it means a very kind and understanding DPS has to step out to make room for him. It’s not been easy, nor without discussions, but we’re making it work and when in doubt, I always choose to say good night and turn off the PC.
I don’t want to attend every single raid!
One part of me is happy raids have been happening and our progression has been steady for a while. A huge part of me wants to spend the evening with my Little Goblin (even though I get the other 5 in the week as well) and watch Mr. Z. enjoy himself raiding a full raid again.
House of Nerds
My father was one of the original nerds! Being an electronic engineer before laptops were invented, we had an Atari 2000 when I was very young and I remember spending hours with him playing PacMan, Salmon Run and Breakout. It was relevant to his work, was his argument, much to my mother’s frustration. He also taught me to program some basic Basic on that thing. It was inevitable I should meet and fall in love with a gamer, written in the binary code of my life!
Because we are both gamers, in the same small casual guild, sometimes shit happens. On rare, occasions, we’ve raided together, juggling Baby Gobs between us, until his bedtime. One sits out on trash to give him the attention he needs then hurries back to the raid to kill a boss while our pride and joy cheers us on from his play box. 15-20 min break is called after a couple boss kills to put babies to bed, get a drink, stretch legs, call distant relatives, or anything else you’ve been meaning to do for a while. Sometimes, it’s good to be the Raid Leader!
Lucky for us, our guild mates are of the most understanding sort. We aren’t the only parents in the guild but we are the only parenting couple. They don’t seem to mind us taking our time as long as we offer our excuses and lots of chocolate brownies. (guys love chocolate brownies, girls!) Thanks to them, my guilt is minimized!
Plan for this weekend
Due to low sign-ups and an utter lack of a third (fourth?) healer, we managed only 6/7 pre-nerf with one-half of one evening trying to kill Raggy. This weekend we have the sign-ups, the proper classes and the determination to make it all happen! This weekend, I expect Raggy to be down 3 hours into the raid after clearing the instance first! I jokingly told the guys I’d give them 2. Instead of laughing, they roared and shouted it shall be done! haha!
There will be a small twinge at not being in that all important First Kill Photo, but I expect I’ll be cheering too loudly to care too much about it. 
Posted in Guild Leader's Guide
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Thursday Musings
I normally do Monday Musings now and then, but this week I’ve not gotten around to it, so here’s some Thursday Musings instead.
On Real Life
While this might not interest you at all, and you’re welcome to skip to the next part, I wanted to mention that you may have noticed me being a bit slow on updates at times. This is because I’ve been busy fretting about that horrible Real Life thing going on and the fact that in just over a week I’m out of a job.
WoW has been a bit on the backburner other than showing up for raids, but I’ve got posts in the works – and will continue on them as soon as I can.
On Raiding
My guild isn’t a server first guild, or even a heroic guild. We have attendance problems and a lot of times it takes us a while to get going when new content is released. It’s frustrating, but we deal with it.
Our goal this expansion has been to clear content on normal before the nerfbat hits. When Blizzard announced the 4.2 nerfs we had only just reached Ragnaros, and they gave us all of two remaining raid nights after their announcement to work on him.
I’m happy to say that we finally got him down on Tuesday night (with the patch hitting Wednesday in Europe), so we beat the nerfbat by mere hours. But we did it.
Last night we went back in to see how the raid looked after the nerfs. And boy is it nerfed. I suspect that a lot of the fights we have previously 3 healed we can now (and probably should) switch to 2 healing.
Beth’tilac
We did it with our normal setup of 2 tanks and 3 healers, but I suspect we could easily have 2 healed it (we have done before). Nothing hits as hard anymore and the adds die quicker. There were times when all adds were dead and we were actually standing around waiting for the next wave of spinners to drop down off the web.
Shannox
Okay, we ended up doing this on Heroic (our first one) and it still took us a few tries to get him down. I’m sure it would have taken quite a few more tries had the nerfs not hit. You will still wipe on Heroic if you don’t get the trapping right, but everything does less damage and the boss has less health so you burn him down quicker.
Lord Rhyolith
At first we thought there were less of the little adds, but they were just dying quicker. Again, everything was just dying quicker and doing less damage to us.
Alysrazor
We started out as normal, 2 tanks, 2 healers and 1 person flying. But we soon realised that the adds and hatchlings died really quite fast, and our shadow priest soon was soaring up in the air with me.
The caster adds don’t do their Fieroblast nearly as often, and they die fast. The whirlwinds are ridiculously slow. You never have to switch direction. Alysrazor died quickly as well. She was dead before we had a second whirlwind phase.
Baleroc
We did it with 3 healers, but I know 2 would have worked. The crystals didn’t seem to do so much damage and people could eat more stacks than before. The melee swings of the boss are really slow and he just went down quickly.
Majordomo Staghelm
Things just do less damage, and with his lower health he was dead before we even entered the phase with the Burning Orbs.
Ragnaros
I’m so glad we got him the night before, because we went back in with 3 minutes left on our raid time and figured we’d just do one try – and one shot him. This being the boss we’d spent 3-4 nights on. The adds die really quick now – I was Demonology for our first kill for the extra stun on adds – but last night I went in as Affliction and the adds posed no problem.
I’d like to say that we just knew the fight so well after our first kill, but let’s be honest – he’s just nerfed to the ground.
The good thing I guess is that until 4.3 hits we can get away with raiding one night a week and clear all of Firelands. We might do an extra night a week and clear some more Heroic modes to gear up before 4.3
How are you finding the nerfed content?
On Project Ten
Nothing much is happening with levelling due to the aforementioned reasons. I’m not playing all that much outside of raids right now, but I’m still planning to get back to this.
The few changes:
The Shaman has gone from 80 to 82.
The Druid has gone from 58 to 75.
And I’ve started my baby DK who’s not part of the challenge, and so not really something I should work on (but she’s fun!) and she’s currently 66, but sitting tight for now.
Extra
My friend and the Guild Master of my Paladin alt’s Horde guild has started blogging. You should go say hi to her!
Posted in My Adventures/Characters, Random Ramblings
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Yaaar!
Pirates Day!
Ok, so it’s come and gone….a few short hours of piratey fun! I talked with the woman and got my *bling!* 10 Nerd Points! and as a bonus, got to run around as a pirate for an hour 
I don’t know much about Pirates Day but we did have fun!
Pirate Kim comes home to BB!
Demon joins Kim! She never knew he was a closet pirate!
Wait, where did your bird go? What's going on, Demon?
She knew it!!! He shall always be a shaman at heart! *cry*
Ok, that’s it for my goofyness today! We did have good mini fun.
Now, on to BREWFEST BABY!
Posted in World Events
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Letting Go: Updated
Scratch everything written below!
Why??
Sure the guild is doing great, I’m proud of them and 99% of everyone is pleased. Unfortunately, one officer is not. Now, for what ever reason, he’s felt it’s his responsibility to be the wet blanket in our happy picnic of a guild.
Small Ventilation Process: that’s what these things are for, right?
Last Saturday, I skipped a raid. Since I’m also raid leader, and have lots of little conversations the whole week long regarding the raid, I thought it would be handy to make a message on the officer’s forums to communicate all the information I had; then wished the, then one and only, officer luck in getting things started.
When I logged in around 22:00, I was bombarded with whispers and rather abusive language in officer’s chat. He was offended that I should have the audacity to think he wanted to know what was going on to make it easier for both himself and the rest of the guild! How dare I ask him to take a member who’d not seen the beginning FL content because he’s been busy every Sat. for the past three months?! In sharing my communications and ideas for the raid I was taking “This Queen Bee Thing” to far and if I “didn’t realize the GL title was purely cosmetic with no meaning to it what so ever” he would ask for demotion! (this isn’t the first or second or third time he’s threatened me to step down from being an officer)
How did I handle this? Two sides to every story, right? Well, I forced myself to stay calm. Asked the raid what had happened with the officer. They gave me their side. He didn’t want to work out a rotation so he begrudgingly stepped out of the raid and suffered till I came online at which point he vented. I told him we would talk tomorrow, that I think I must have written something wrong and unintentional in my post to him. I would re-read it and was sorry for the miss communication.
The Next Day it all became clear!
He was still furious. Refusing to speak rationally or even without swearing. It all came down to one line I’d written in the post. After reading that one line, he saw red and didn’t even bother reading the rest. I had assigned two other moderators as this officer has a tendency to show up 5 mins before raid invites. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have time to organize who was going and do invites on time. One moderator was to look for PuG’s if needed, the other was to do invites and give assistance to those who needed it and do healing assignments. The officer was to raid lead, be loot master and (here comes the horrible thing I said) “be the voice of reason 
” . I thought the wink made it obvious that it was a tongue in cheek joke but he went mental, completely missing the point. *sigh*
“Be the voice of reason” is apparently one of the most offensive things you can say to this particular person. Odd, since we joke about how that’s all I am around here and the key to keeping things running smoothly. Maybe he thinks I’ve done nothing while he logs in twice a week and doesn’t even greet people. I guess the guild started raiding and having fun all by it’s self.
Since Saturday, we’ve appointed another officer to the ranks and I have made it perfectly clear that I have taken enough whispered abuse from this particular hot head and shall suffer no more. One final chance till he blows up again (which I’m sure he will), at which point, I’ll be hunting for an officer again *sigh*. Some may ask why I don’t demote or kick him now? Well, I believe in trying all avenues before giving up. If I didn’t, this guild would have fallen apart ages ago *raises glass* Here’s to hoping he’ll surprise me!
Why am I writing this all here??? Who cares about guild behind-the-scenes drama?
Why? When we agreed to take on a new officer and with this decision, the first officer deleted all our posts in which we had conflicts in.
Why am I letting you all read this? Saga forced me!
Posted in Guild Leader's Guide
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Letting Go
I became a Guild Leader by inheritance, not because I created the guild. Our guild was created by a good friend of mine who I’ve known for some time outside of WoW. Because of some personal complications, she asked me to hold onto the guild until she returned. She knew I would uphold the original values she laid out: Maturity, Respect, Real Life > Any Game! I asked her about how long she thought it would take. ”1 month +/-” was her reassuring reply. 6 months later, I was still the GL and she still wasn’t close to being ready to return.
We were lucky as a guild. When she first left, raiding pretty much ceased. In all those months, only one newer member decided to leave and was really sorry to do so. We didn’t blame him, but it says a lot for the community we created. People preferred to stay with us, not raiding, than take their chances on some other guild who was. After 6 months, I had an argument with my officers (they were becoming pessimistic) and something awoke inside me. I had to turn this guild around, get raids going again, the guys deserved a strong leader. Looking around for one, I realized, with horror, it would have to be me!
Now, I’d have difficulty leading a horse to water, and I can barely manage my shopping list much less a raiding guild, but I had to do something. So I stopped talking things over with the officers, who had become distant and almost bitter for various reasons, and took action. I called in favors from non-officer guildies and other guilds, met people in BH runs and made a point to remember the nice ones. I made decisions and posted events in the calendar. Didn’t have enough sign-ups? We PUG’ed the spots to the best of our ability. The raids would go on! Once we had 7 PUG’s! Hardly a guild run but it still felt great.
Slowly, but surely, things picked up! More of our afk members began returning. People were signing up for raids. We were getting applications from some of those guys we met in BH! There was a pivotal point when we could have relaxed our standards for the sake of raiding, but we didn’t. We stuck it out and have raided every week since 2 weeks into 4.2. I look around me now with a sense of pride in my guild mates for all their hard work and loyalty to the guild.
So, what’s the problem? Surely there must be a hook here. Well, tonight, I won’t be in the raid. We’re busy and taking the night off to visit family. By taking so much upon myself and being involved in every aspect, from Guild Leading, Raid Leading to Voice of Reason, I just realized a small part of me is afraid things won’t run as smoothly without me there. I soften the sharp edges of some members and explain in more detail parts of a fight to others. There are 100 little things I do each raid to ensure our guys have a good time. For someone who didn’t want the roll to begin with (and someone who’s been saying she doesn’t want to raid every single raid anymore), I’m surprised to have this twinge of sadness. My guild has grown up. It doesn’t need me anymore!
Still, I couldn’t be more proud of my guys and gals!
Posted in Guild Leader's Guide
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Through a Glass, Darkly – a Warlock How-To
I’m writing this guide to explain how I went about to complete the Through Glass, Darkly quest in the Legendary quest line. It’s not meant to be the end-all, be-all guide, but just how I did it and what worked for me. I’m sure there are many ways that work, but this might give you some tips on how to complete it.
I will not discuss the lore of the quest, but if you don’t want to know what happens beforehand, you may not want to read this post, just in case.
The Scene
You’ve collected your 25 eternal embers from Firelands bosses, bought your 3 sands of time and turned the quest in to Anachronos. He will then send you to Coldarra (which will be phased) where you will meet Tarecgosa. You will meet up with her in a special version of The Nexus.
This version of The Nexus you have to do alone, so no guild members or friends can help you out. Tarecgosa however will be with you for most of it.
Preparations
Initially I went in without respeccing, but after a couple of tries I realised that my Felhunter kept dying, and so I respecced my Affliction spec to give me 2/2 Fel Synergy. While I was respeccing I also took 2/2 Demonic Aegis.
I also switched my Shadowbolt glyph for the Felhunter glyph.
I’d suggest bringing a health potion, something which I personally forgot. You definitely want to have a health stone ready, even if you have a potion.
The Hallways
As you enter The Nexus Tarecgosa is with you. The first mob she will make you invisible and you don’t have to worry about it.
After that you get to a room with a big sentinel and two dogs. Now, I was Demonology for this part, but I’m sure it works just as well as Affliction or Destruction. I killed the two dogs first, letting Tarecgosa tank the big sentinel. Just set my demon on them and dotted them up. Make sure to move out of the fire patches that the sentinel puts on the ground and you’ll be fine. Once the dogs were dead, it was an easy job killing the sentinel.
You’ll now start walking down the path towards where the first boss normally is. Watch out for the frost walls coming out of the sides, you have to pace yourself. It’s pretty much the same as the hallway in Icecrown Citadel if you remember it.
You’ll meet another couple of big dudes, but Tarecgosa will keep you safe. Then, however, she will run off and leave you alone to deal with 3 dogs. It’s no worries really, just set your demon on them and dot them all up. Use Drain Life to keep yourself alive if you need to.
Now there’s the hallway leading up to the landing before where Grand Magus Telestra can normally be found. This is a bit of a gauntlet event with lots of small adds who will keep re-spawning if you’re not quick enough.
I just powered my way through it with Hellfire and my Felguard using Felstorm. I’m sure as any other spec it can be done as well, just make sure you keep moving. Use Drain Life to stay alive if needed. I killed one set of adds (they sort of spawn in packs), then ran up to the next one.. killed it.. and so on.
When you get to the top, keep moving forward to Telestra’s room, or you might risk pulling the pack at the top when it respawns. In Telestra’s room you’ll see Tarecgosa frozen by two sentinels. They won’t aggro you though, so you have time to regain mana/health before you attack them.
I just burned them down one at a time (you seem to only aggro the one you attack, so you can take a break for mana/health in between if needed), while remembering to move out of the freezing ground ability.
After this Tarecgosa will run down the next hallway where a big wall of ice will be blocking the way. She will work on breaking it down while asking you to watch her back. A named, big dog will appear. He’s easy though – just keep your pet on him and dps him as usual while moving away from the shadowflame he will breathe towards you.
The Platforms
Once the ice wall is down you will see the old room with the ramps and platforms, only now there are only floating little platforms there. On each platform is a dragonkin. There’s a little disc in front of you which you will have to jump onto, and it will float you towards the closest dragonkin.
Your pet will bug out at this point and not join you, so you’re on your own. Make sure you’re at full health and mana before you jump onto the disc.
The dragonkin will cast shadowbolts, so use your Shadow Ward liberally. There are also floating orbs at the edge of his platform (a total of 4 I believe). Make sure you always use one before he does his big shadow damage move (you’ll see a warning that he’s powering it up).
Be careful no to cast anything after clicking the orb until you see a protective shield around yourself. I’ve heard that it can bug out/delay if you’re casting.
After the big add is down, jump onto his platform. Don’t jump any further yet because two small adds will appear and you’ll have to kill them. Once they’re dead, make sure you get health/mana back before jumping onto one of their discs to get to the next platform.
Rinse and repeat until you land safely on the other side of the chasm.
Don’t worry about the many adds here, Tarecgosa will appear and nuke them all for you. Quickly make sure you have your pet, get mana and health back, and run up the platform to where Anomalus usually is.
The Boss
Now you will be facing the boss himself, a Twilight Dragon named Thyrinar. He does some abilities that you need to be aware of.
Ability 1: Twilight Blast
Use your Felhunter to silence it as much as possible. Shadow Ward on cooldown.
Ability 2: Twisting Twilight
A beam of shadow that follows you and puts shadowflame on the ground. Make sure you kite it around the edges of the room. Don’t get hit – you’ll die!
Ability 3: Twilight Restoration
This is a big self-heal buff and also makes him take 50% less damage. Make sure you use your Felhunter to Devour it!
He will also summon adds that do a Fire Nova ability. Try never to be close to the adds. Let the pet tank them, and fear them if they get too close to you.
Tactic:
Put your pet on Passive, because if he attacks the boss he will bug out (due to the boss flying). Make sure your pet is always in range to dispel the healing buff, and silence as many twilight blasts as possible.
When the boss summons an add (it will come running up the ramp), set your pet on it. Put an instant dot or two on it. I didn’t always do this, and the pet seemed to kill it anyway. However, I did notice that without 2/2 Fel Synergy the pet died (probably because I used Soul Link).
Just keep all your DoTs on the boss, use Drain Life as your filler (you’ll need it!) instead of Shadowbolt. The Felhunter glyph will help with health as well any time you dispel the self-heal.
You will spend most of the fight putting up DoTs, using Drain Life and silencing and purging the boss. Remember to put your pet on the add and kite the beam around the edges (make sure your pet doesn’t stand in it though!). Don’t forget to use Shadow Ward every cooldown as well, since he casts the Twilight Blast almost constantly, and your pet’s silence can’t get nearly as many as we’d like.
It took me a few tries to get him down, but it wasn’t nearly as hard as I had expected. The changes to Fel Synergy and the Felhunter glyph made a huge difference!
To help with the silencing and purging (and you’ll want this done as reliably as possible), I set the boss as my Focus target and keybound the following two macros.
#showtooltip Devour Magic
/cast [@focus] Devour Magic
#showtooltip Spell Lock
/cast [@focus] Spell Lock
Good luck with your quest!
Posted in Tips, Warlock
26 Comments
Post no. 2
The most important thing to getting a good blog off the ground (for me that is), is liking the look of it. Themes, backgrounds, layouts. I feel this is going to take some time before I’m truly happy.
Last night I had a bit of time after the Baby Goblin went to sleep to log in and play a bit. Lately, I’ve been having difficulty deciding what to do so I gathered up a couple guildies and jumped into Random Battle Grounds!!!! With my uber 1300 resiliance, I was a force to be reckoned with! (Or maybe just a squishy decoy while my properly geared mates picked them off one by one)
When I first started PvP, I insisted Holy was in fact better than disco for BG’s! Why? Because I knew how to play it. Because I’ve recently learned how to play Disco for a couple fights in Firelands, I’ve decided to try my hand at it in BG’s as well. I still stand behind my statement. Holy is better if you know how to play it properly, and I love the daze/disarm ability, but I’m starting to see the strength of Disco. Bubbles are nice, Penance is loverly, and my survivability is much stronger….but I really do miss some other form of CC or interrupt! More and proper testing is required!
Builders are still in my house. Today, they are doing the tiled floor! Soon, we’ll have our bathroom back and everything will return to normal! *dreams of LONG hot shower*
Posted in Random Ramblings
3 Comments
Good morning!
So, I’m sitting here in my living room, with builders in the house renovating our bathroom, wondering what I should do today. My long-time friend’s voice, who is an avid blogger, echo’s in my head, “You should have your own blog!”. But what should the title be? What should I blog about? Well, WoW of course! But what angle?
Who am I?
I’m a mother and spouse who plays WoW. I’m also the GM of a casual raiding guild. I’m the partner to a gamer, a hobby we both share. We met through WoW about 2.5 years ago and now have a 12 month old son together. Interesting enough? No? I didn’t think so either.
WoW history in very short summery:
For years and years I was a restoration shaman, chain healing my way through TBC and loving every minute of it. In Wrath I went hunter. Pew pew an purdy pets was my thing! Then the Focus mechanic came and I just couldn’t make the adjustment so I went back to healing in Cata. Unfortunately, the shaman lost it’s spark for me so I looked for a challenge. ”Level a Priest” my self-punishing side said! So, being someone who always listens to the voices in her head, I did and have been in love with the class ever since! (disclaimer: I don’t really listen to the voices in my head. I pretend like they aren’t there like everyone else)
Since leveling a priest has traditionally been the most difficult class to raise to greatness, and because I must have started 20 priests and quit before lvl 45 each and every time, I now feel like the little engine that could, hence the blog name.
So here it begins!
Posted in Random Ramblings
6 Comments
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