The joys of pugging ICC 25

See that blue flame... gently glowing. Take your time. Finally proof that size really doesn't matter... is the [Frozen Bonespike]. How Zenborg had pined for this weapon... how he had rolled and rolled. Even his hideous protector was starting to develop a complex about how superfluous he was.

Finally today was the day, in a last minute Tuesday ICC 25 pug.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I finally produced a decent roll. Today's effort was 8. However, my new druid buddy withdrew his roll hoping to win something else (which unfortunately didn't materialise) and I got my new spike.

Unfortunately, despite what looked like a promising group... even with the 15% buff we were unable to down Festergut since some people were a little new to the concept of spores and some sub-tank DPS efforts. I also learnt a new trick (which /facepalm for not figuring this out already) which was that shadow priests can just ignore the spores, since a dispersion is always available for the pungent blight. So my new /cancelaura Dispersion macro is getting a nice workout recently.

All in all, a fun run though... since it's always a nice surprise to find people from your friends list in the group.

Here's the World of Logs.

Dreamwalker 25 Saved!

On Saturday night saved Valithria Dreamwalker in 25 man ICC. For about the sixth week in a row Saturday rolled around with an incomplete roster on the sign up sheet. However, the tactic of leaving loot pinatas Festergut and Rotface alive proved itself, and we were able to attract the couple of extra toons required to fill the raid with the promise of farm bosses and a shot at the object.

Suspend reality while I tell you this isn't a catch up post and attempt not to shatter my segue straight into Borgthor DPSing Festergut using [Shadow's Edge]!

So... that's not quite Festergut, but people celebrate getting their brand new perfectly itemised epic weapons in different ways. Shadow's Edge is part slow, part ArP, part crit and all awesome, and has been a huge boost to my offspec since I decided to go the ArP hard cap route. I still have some way to go but 83% isn't a bad start... now for that trinket.

Back to Saturday, Festergut went down comfortably and I was pleased that even doing the same DPS two weeks ago, my offspec was pushed down substantially on the damage ranking. Rotface was good fun as always, and I particularly enjoy kiting the Oozes (and then hearing on my alts pugs about how warriors can't do it).

Dreamwalker was a hectic fight, but we managed to save her on our third attempt for the evening. We ran three tanks which might be a little superfluous, but I had fun running from side to side help out. I think next time I'll either run two (although I would have felt a little guilty consuming all those souls on a progression boss for a first time) or assign two tanks one side and overload the DPS slightly with the single tank to make picking mobs up a little more linear. Our healing team did a great job in the portals, and held us up against a never ending wave of mobs long enough to get the job done.

Blood Queen is our next challenge for the 25 man team (SPREAD OUT!), and hopefully getting two nights of raiding up and a new progression boss will give us some momentum for next week.

Rise of the long lost alt

My original engineer, Wrathborg finally got some play time recently and put together his very own helicopter. I didn't make one on Borgelmir, because a Death Knight in a helicopter didn't seem quite right to me after splurging on a mount that flew with just bones for wings.

I have really enjoyed my leveling mutilate spec, and after dual speccing into combat I'm not to sure what all the fuss is about. Yes, there's some fantasmal cooldowns and some AoE in combat, but how much quicker can things actually die when you're decked out in heirlooms and specs. Mutilate just feels more like I think a rogue should: shadowy, discrete and a powerful arsenal of poisons. What dual spec does however, is add some extra variety in the leveling experience and getting a chance to get a feel for both specs before 80 is a lot of fun.


Lock picking has proved both fun and frustrating. Today I spent some time in Zangarmarsh hunting for the elusive wicker chest to pick. So a couple of tips for rogues out there... Not everything is a footlocker...


... and some people don't just leave their locked goodies strewn around their camp. From 300 - 325 lock picking there's no better place than Feralfen village.

A Poke in the Eye

So after another dismal attempt to convince people to come along to 10 man Yogg+1, we settled on the weekly raid, Eye of Eternity.

Since I hadn't got the 8 man achievement, I thought it might be nice to grab that while we were at it. (Spoiler Alert: my secret gnome warlock got this same achievement the day he hit 80 as part of Champ in a Day(tm)).

Pugging was absolutely excruciating. The number of inexperienced toons, the lack of any useful information provided voluntarily to help find a match (my eyes were almost bleeding after looking at so many missing gems and enchants in the armory). In the end I mistook arrogance for competence and took a Ret Pally / Hunter pair that could have been easily replaced by one decent player for a 7 man attempt.

In any case, we managed to have a pick of 3 main spec tanks for our 1 tank spot, so I got to DPS. I bet you can guess what achievement came next!

Twitchie Day(tm) - Part 1 - Northrend Dungeon Hero

Introducing Twitchie (the Gnome Warlock), my not so secret Warlock, and my latest level 80 toon.

For level 80, I wanted to do something special and tear through content that blizzard had decided to make obsolete. So the idea was hatched for Champ In a Day(tm).

Champ in a Day is all about getting the Champion of the Frozen Wastes achievement and title in the first 24 hours of dinging 80. It consists of all the regular heroic dungeons, Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum and Eye of Eternity. While you only need to defeat the last boss of each instance for the achievement, I was going to do this properly, and clear ALL bosses in any of the content I attempted.

To document this on the fly, I signed up for twitter on Twitchie. You can follow his adventures through teeny 140 character snippets at http://twitter.com/twitchietgw .

Twitchie logged off before maintenance at level 79, with 1797 spell power, 109 Hit, 8.58% Crit and 12.11% haste. Quite reasonable stats, including heirloom items which made flying through normal instances a lot of fun.


When I woke up just before 4am and logged on, I was delighted to find Oddox and Therepoman already online and rearing to go. By 0409 I had dinged, and 0414 had trained up, added talent points, an extra glyph and got the superior achievement. My bank was a marvel of craftables, spare gems and enchant scrolls. Twitchie's fresh 80 wowhead profile gives you an idea of the step up in stats, including the superior achievement.

The oven was on, preheating for Croissants for breakfast... The kettle was boiled for coffee... There was a 24 pack of pepsi max cans in the fridge. Twitchie Day(tm) is declared OPEN!

Phase One - Northrend Dungeon Hero

• 0416 - Violet Hold - seed of corruption mayhem, but no drain soul ticks since bosses are just getting NUKED.
• 0430 - The Culling of Stratholme - 13k drain soul tick on Salramm, and from memory I think I picked up the drake for good measure.
• 0452 - Gundrak - achievements aplenty
• 0510 - Utgarde Pinnacle
  
• 0525 - Halls of Lightning -
  
• 0540 - The Nexus - Hellyonz (Moordenar) is up early, on his priest Ademar and joins in the fun. We even did a post nerf Chaos Theory, which was a whole new kind of easy.
  
• 0600 - Violet Hold - (again) but I'm joined by my wife Jondy on her baby kitty, so we have a full guild group! Hellyonz is toon switching like mad, soaking up those delicious frosties.
  
• 0615 - Gun'drak - (again) but Helly is on Xarik, so more frosties flow. Share the Love took a full five minutes, and Oddox grabbed his last achievement for Glory of the Hero!
• 0630 - Drak'tharon Keep - between eating croissants (thanks honey!), skinning and tweeting, this instance is a breeze ;)
• 0652 - after amassing 92 EoTs (some from regular dailies post 70) I upgrade to [Helm of Fiery Aftermath]!
• 0700 - Azjol-Nerub - I snaffle [Rod of the Fallen Monarch]
• 0715 - Utgarde Keep - queued for this specifically, since there aren't many left to go
• 0730 - Halls of Stone - Jondy has started on work while I grab another quick run.
• Work time
• 0938 - Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom - Twitchie turns a little red when his melee swing is dodged by a healthy mushroom.
• 1000 - The Oculus - lucky last for Northrend Dungeon Hero, and a well earned upgrade: [Pauldrons of Revered Mortality].
• 1020 - The Forge of Souls - into bonus material already, and starting on dungeons an affliction lock can really sink their teeth into.
• 1040 - After chaining dungeons all morning, Oddox and Repo head off for a well earned break.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Twitchie Day(tm) where Twitchie will start moving and shaking in his very first raid!

Sindragosa goes down!

After a fantastic first night in ICC 10, getting 10 bosses in 3 hours... our second night was all about Sindragosa. After some previous attempts where the ground and air phases were cake, but the last phase nightmarish, we added some additional frost resistance gear. FR gear allowed us some slack in execution while we perfected the dance all the way to the enrage timer. With a little less FR and some fine tuning, we downed the dragon on our last attempt of the evening (I'm thinking I should start raids at 10:20pm from this point).

By way of catch up, are 11/12 ICC 10 and 7/12 ICC 25. I was very pleased with our 25 man progress, having gotten Festergut during the 5% buff, one shotting Rotface on the night we got him, and getting down Blood Princes nice and early. However, through some attendance / recruitment issues and a hole in the last 5 DPS positions... we've been struggling for the last few weeks. Adding to the frustration is Rotface's insides being the only thing between me and a new toy.

Revenge and 3.3.3

Thanks for the buff Blizz, I just wish you hadn't have added a cleave effect. This was from the Anub in H AH, so it could have been anything that I hit, but still first heroic and a 12.9k crit? That's not too bad.