I have the coolest friends...

No updates for a while, means another super sonic catch up post... going backwards this time.

The I Have the Coolest Friends achievement from keeping all the NPCs up on Hodir 10 man was a nice surprise at the end of our first successful attempt, and really capped off a great night of raiding. We condensed our recent two night forays into Ulduar into a single night, and got a new boss, and saw our first (Hunter) tier token. Add in the achievements for A Quick Shave and Nerf Gravity Bombs, it made for a great night.

Ulduar 10: 8/14

I have the coolest friends also sums up how I'm feeling about my guild of late. We're a social guild, so we're not blazing trails through new content, and there's always more to do than we can fit in the schedule... but I've really enjoyed raid leading recently with some polished performances, and having master looting (and DKP allocation) being taken off my hands. We've settled into the DKP loot system, we've added decay, and toons have been pleasantly surprised with the amount of loot that ends up in the hands of first time raiders and new alts (as was I when only one toon rolled on
Surplus Limb).

Next up, we got Malygos down in 25 man mode on 23rd May on our first night working on the boss. I'm not sure if people actually expected us too, since we had more toons sign up for one Ulduar 10 man group, than our Malygos attempt. The less than stellar attendance was a blessing in disguise however, with some diligant pugging, we picked up some of our top DPS for the evening, including some stellar performers on the drakes. As a nice reward, the massive DKP Helly and I sunk into the Key turned into a fantastic neck piece at the end of the night.

Malygos 25: 1/1

The Ancients defeated Heroic Naxxramas on 25th April, shortly after patch 3.1 was released. Since then we have cleared another couple of times (on a fortnightly schedule) and dished out a lot of nice loot. I have been lucky enough to get [Wall of Terror] and [Last Laugh] already, which with a couple of drops from Ulduar 10 man, has me geared out for tier 7, and I finally got the Epic achievement (I believe I owe a certain fellow tank a new gun). I had great fun with our most recent clear, which saw 11 bosses drop in 3 hours flat on our first night, which left us plenty of time to get into Ulduar 25 on the second night of raiding to beat down Flame Leviathan and have a quick look at Razorscale.

Naxxramas 25: 15/15
Ulduar 25: 1/14

So that catches me up on the raiding of late. Since patch 3.1 I've been regularly pugging Emalon, and even helping to gain control over Wintergrasp, although I'm not sold on this whole PvP thing... I'm told I have enough honor to get 'something good' but it just seems like too much work to make space in my bank to store yet another set of gear. Having said that, it could do with a good clean out! Borgthor is my main, so only he has this problem of keeping sentimental gear, holiday bits and pieces and a massive shield collection. Does anyone else have this problem? To give you an idea how bad it is, I still have the full imperial plate set sitting in there.

Borg's DPS gear is coming along, and to my total surprise picked up two (yes TWO) plate DPS pieces in Naxx25 on the offset roll. I have traded in the [Collosal Skull-Clad Cleaver] for [Relentless Edge] which adds an element of awesome to the set, and while the 3.2 speed isn't optimal for ARMS, it was another welcome upgrade! Today's 4% haste buff to ARMS will be interesting to test out... maybe on something more exciting than a test dummy. /hint hint

While I remember... I have to get this down in writing so someone can hold me to it. Getting [Last Laugh] from KT25 gives me the perfect excuse to try out a UA spec on a a few bosses next time we go into Naxxramas!

My DK, Borgelmir (who I haven't formally introduced) is sitting at 71 just doing JC dailies... but might have some motivation to level with alts of friends, my wife, and with Obe returning for at least a little while all having toons within cooeee of his level. I have maxed out JC, but still need some help deciding on a second profession. I'm leaning towards Engineering (BS would be good too but it's out) and Alchemy looked attractive for a while (see next paragraph for why it's not)... What profession do you think my DK should level next?

I've been going crazy on the AH again (with a secret inscribing toon) which had me in the habit of a project I'd wanted to get underway for a long time. Flasks for All! With the subsidised Abyss Crystal trade from raiding, and some sizable "I'm leaving WoW" donations from guildies, The Ancients guild bank had a healthy bank balance to start the project. So as Jondy puts it, I ... "just went nuts". I've turned over about 10k gold in getting the guild bank stocked with flasks, including herbs, vials and even flasks themselves when they are cheap enough. To start with, I would have sessions with Jondayla at the guild bank to churn out flasks, but had totally overlooked our resident elixir masters in the guild! Now with Helly churning out flasks with an impressive proc rate, we can off flasks to our gulidies at between 10 - 30% less than market price as a sustainable process. I've been excited to see how quickly they disappear, and even more excited by the strike rate of guild bank deposits to match.

Well, I think that's me all caught up, happy now Obe? Yes, Obe's return to WoW was the precursor to this post... but to look at the comments section, you'd think the readership for this blog was just me (and my wife (please direct all editing comments to Jondayla)). So... you want updates? Say so via your comments here! ... and help me decide on a second profession for my DK while you're at it!

Nobel Garden

Seriously, kid... stay away from my eggs.

Zenborg does it again...

... with Denyin' the Scion, Zenborg yet again pulled the rug out from under Borg for another achievement I was hoping to get on my main. I was lucky enough to get into a PuG that two shot Malygos, and had enough DPS to get into the last phase with 4m left on the enrage timer. Zen's gear has come a long way since running EoE with the guild, so I managed to top the DPS going into the third phase. The raid leader was a Hunter, who dealt with the sparks solo, and with some coordination with the MT, managed to stack a couple each attempt.

Zenborg's Wild Ride

When you're the guild master, raid lead and main tank - it pays to have an alt that is care free. That is Zen. A mercinary damage dealer that can holy nova in the spotlight, or quickly disperse into the shadows. Who can macro, 'no, I'm not a healer' just because I don't feel like it today.

Being Zen has it's bennefits, and here's how we found life as a level 80 shadow priest.

08/03 - Ding! Level 80.

• First Emblem of Heroism from Heroic Nexus, and even the Needy achievement!
• First Emblem of Valor in Heroic Archavon
  

10/03 - 25 Emblems of Herosim collected in Normal Obsidian Sanctum

• Split Personality and Chaos Theory in Heroic Nexus were great fun!
  

14/03 - Clear Naxxrams 10 Man ... as a Healer

• I found a fantastic PuG that swapped over a handful of toons throughout the single session run, and had a ball CoHing my way through the instance.
  

19/03 - The Eye of Eternity

• My first raid with the guild and it's the big one. We had a couple of very capable tanks that really wanted to get in on the raid, so I jumped onto the spriest for pew pew. Fortunately whlie my DPS in the first two phases was 'acceptable' I managed to kick it up several notches on the drakes for the last phase to pwn the spellweaver. As the only DPS caster in the group, [Gown of the Spell-Weaver] was a fantastic reward.

20/03 - Heroic Obsidian Sanctum - had a fantastic time AOEing the little fiery critters
21/03 - Heroic Halls of Stone, my last Heroic for the Champion of the Frozen Wastes title
09/04 - Heroic Naxxramas Down

• My second run with the guild of one of my favourite hunters. Due to the Razuvious MC mechanic, Shadow Priests are in demand not only for their pew pew (now with AoE) but their singular responsibility in this fight.

I've really enjoyed the outlet that is Zenborg, and while pugging has a whole different set of frustrations to guild and raid leading, the headset of 'turn up, stay out of the fire and pew pew' makes for a refreshing change of pace. I've even had a blast healing, and now that dual specs are here, I'm sure to see much more in the future.

Chef Borgthor

Hail to the Chef! Oh, so many days, weeks and months I toiled over a hot stove... well campfire. I took flint and tinder and stocked up on simple wood. I traded in my flint and tinder for a gnomish army knife, threw away the simple wood... and finally with so much cooking - could make campfires appear as by magic!

I started in Outlands performing my cooking daily with tenacious vigour. I kicked it up a notch in Northrend, over catering events (you really need all 12 chilled meats for this convention?) and adding string after string to my gormet bow. I had even stocked the guild bank with enough Captain Rumsey's Larger to get Nat Pagle hammered!

I even had secret agents (so secret I didn't even know about it) scouring Azeroth for the secret to making Savory Deviate Delight, even going so far as to plant spys working deep in industrial espionage through the Barrens and Horde commercial centres.

But it was to no avail. As accomplished a cook as Borgthor was... one final challenge awaited. I almost believed that the chocolate cake was a lie!

Then one day. Just and ordinary day. After creating a super strain of wine for a special wine and cheese platter - it hit me... Mageroyal is the secret. Finally the cake was not a lie.


I gathered my good friends Joss and Kal, so they could share in the moment, and I could bake for them... finally as a qualified Chef!


The chocolate cake recipe unlocked the last four of my cooking achievements in one discovery:

• The Cake is Not a Lie
• Chef De Cusine
• The Outland Gourmet
• Hail to the Chef
  

Having a look at the chat log from the screenshots, I reminded Kal that he'd be MCing on Razuvious that night... and he must have done a great job :D

Want to earn the Safety Dance ...

... all it takes is The Dedicated Few!


Tonight, we rounded up a few of the gang, to 8 man Naxxramas. We had 1 Prot Warrior, a Ret Pally (who could tank as needed), Priest and Druid healing team, and 4 more DPS (Warlock, Hunter, Ret Pally and Feral Kitty).

We had a blast racing through spider wing, only seconds short of the Arachnaphobia achievement. Without a lot of lewt (although the lake of melee DPS drops almost brought me to tears) to worry about, we moved to group loot - making things a lot quicker.

I hadn't even thought about the Safety Dance achievement until it popped up, which really made my night. Subtraction on Thaddius was a bonus, but impossible to avoid when getting the Dedicated Few.

Four Horseman was a lot of fun with only 8, although it's not required for the Dedicated Few achievement. We had our Druid Healer (Jondayla) and Hunter at the back, Pally Tank and Feral Druid (healing) front right, and Borg tanking with priest healer, Ret Pally and Warlock front left. With only two dedicated DPS for the front two bosses, we needed to managed a few extra boss trades at the front, but evey one hung together to pwn the event and lewt the chest.

With the Dedicated Few completed with no gear from Ulduar, we signalled our readyness for the coming challenges... not least of all, putting and end to Kel'Thuzad with more than 3 times as many toons next week!

Sarth+1D 10 Man - Post 3.1

We attempted Sarth+1D tonight, and things were traveling very well, until Vesperon came out to play. It looks like he was berserking before he even engaged in the encounter.

We'd coped with the lava wave bug... as long as you catch a glimpse of it before firewall magically disappears, the gaps were in the same place as always. We'd even decided to forget about Vesperon, and zerg Sarth since the toons through the portal couldn't see the lava waves, but were getting hit. Sartharion was 'mostly dead' by that stage anyway.

Then Vesperon hit both tanks for around 30k a time (compared to Sarth's 7k on the MT)?!?!? I'd love to hear back from other people that have done this fight post 3.1 (yes, you're all probably off doing Ulduar) and see if the same thing is happening to them.

Although it's only going to link correctly for a couple of weeks... our WWS is here.

EDIT: Thanks so much to Allie, of WoWInsider who kindly replied to my query a great explanation for our problem. In order to prevent a full out zerg on Sartharion (you are supposed to kill the drakes you've left up) if you get Sartharion under 25% health with any drakes alive, they will gain berserk (as above) and wipe the raid.

With our great DPSers, and Vesperon coming into the fight a whole two minutes after engaging Sartharion, we would get Sartharion to 25% or under (especially when we popped heroism early) just as Vesperon was due to come out.

The solution is to take it easy on poor old Sarth during that first phase, getting down to 30% at most before Vesperon is out. Then just DPS down Vesperon, ignoring the portal (while our healers just heal through the extra damage) and finally return our attention to Sarth.

Since we were travelling so easily, it would be great to get the gang back together for another shot next week. Sarth+1D 10 Man is one of those things I wanted to get done before the patch, and at least before we're all decked out in drops from Ulduar.