EoC for 8800g?

I received nothing but, "are you crazy?" whilst considering [Etched Signet of the Kirin Tor] for 8800g (count on guildies to tell it like it is).

So how many emblems is that at the best possible price? 352. Hmmm, maybe they were right.

Marketwatch(tm) with Borgthor

Inspired to turn your excess [Emblem of Conquest]s into cold, hard coin? Allow me to guide the way.

	Emblems	MBO		Avg
iLvl 213 Bracers	60	1100	18.33	1500	25.00
Dreadstone	10	169	16.90	179	17.90
Eye of Zul	10	149	14.90	150	15.00
Ametrine	10	135	13.50	145	14.50
Runed Orb	18	235	13.06	270	15.00
King's Amber	20	178	8.90	181	9.05
Cardinal Ruby	20	165	8.25	169	8.45
Majestic Zircon	20	151	7.55	152	7.60
Frozen Orb	10	28	2.80	50	5.00

MBO = minimum buy out today, on the AH
Avg = 7 day average price on Dath'Remar

The iLvl 213 BoE bracers have jumped in price again, now that everyone has better things to do with their higher level emblems. Of course, they are the hardest thing to offload on the list, given competing BoE items (espeically higher level [Combustion Bracers] for cloth... but if you can find a buyer at 1500g, it just can't be beat.

The next tip is to make sure you're getting your primary colour gems (Red, Blue, Yellow) transmuted by an alchemist, or purchased with Honor to free up your emblems for the combo gems (Purple, Green, Orange).

I was a little surprised just how far down the list [Runed Orb]s are, but considering the best in slot craftables are now competing with iLvl 232 items from normal TotC10 and your [Emblem of Triumph] pick list the demand for these has slowed up too.

What to do with 8800g?

Zenborg often feels a little neglected (unlike my other alts who are completely shunned at this point). He doesn't get borgruns(tm) through heroics, he doesn't get to do progression raiding with the guild... and the memories of pugging sometimes haunt his often Zen-like existence.

So I'm convinced if I throw gold at the problem, he'll feel appreciated (amirite, ladies?).

Here's the plan:

[Signet of the Kirin Tor] - 6800g
[Inscribed Signet of the Kirin Tor] - 1000g
[Etched Signet of the Kirin Tor] - 1000g

Buying happiness? Priceless.

I'm pretty much posting this so I can be talked out of it. 8800g seems to be way too much to spend on a ring. Does anyone know if there are plans to release a iLvl 245 upgrade? In your opinion, what should I be spending 8800g on?

Trial of the Crusader (10) Cleared!

We cleared Trial of the Crusader on 10 man on the weekend, in the first week that Anub'Arak was available, and best of all we one shot him. Anub'Arak's downfall inspired this new spirit of posting as events unfold rather than as a one liner in a "lets get caught up" post.


We were so excited at the one shot, that even getting severely pwned by the heroic mode couldn't dampen our spirits. It did however, send me the the combat log to come up with the following analysis of the impale mechanic:

• can't be avoided or blocked
• on impale you get hit hard (17k (also scaling with number of snobolds out))
• it ticks every 2 seconds, scaling with the number of stacks (probably also scaling with snobolds), rough numbers below
  

• 1 stack - 2k
• 2 stacks - 5k
• 3 stacks - 9k

• Damage scaling as expected on both tanks (no unusual difference between pally and warrior tanks)
• Gormok is immune to Disarm on heroic mode (you're always going to get impaled)

So with our great healers, and a disarm to reduce impale stacks... we could afford to be quite sloppy on how we dealt with it on normal mode... not so on heroic.


This week we also got Auriaya in Ulduar 25, making 3 new bosses over our first two weeks of getting a Ulduar 25 raid up and running for two nights. As usual, I'm caught between making further progress into the keepers, or trying out TotC25 and getting some trophies into the guild.

We also got a new VoA boss, Koralon the Flame Watcher. I really should have made a prediction on which element was next, but I missed the chance. I'm assuming water is next, and predicting that we port down through the crossroads between all three for that one.

I managed to get the boss down in 10 and 25 man on both Borg and Zen, with a pleasing one shot 25 man for Zenborg. It was fantastic to get a guild group for the 10 man, which ensures any useful loot that drops stays in the guild. I missed out on lewt altogether, but Jondy was very excited with [Malfurion's Leggings of Triumph]. Zen's 25 man dropped a total of 0 (yes, zero) PvE pieces, which was met by delightful screams about injustice. Remember people, that luck is just probability taken personally.

There's lots more to talk about and share, but since the frequency of posts seems to be inversely proportional to the effort expended on each post... I'd better stop there. I've convinced myself that I'll do some special "scrapbook from the past" posts to cover those special things I've missed... I guess time will tell.

Raid Buffs and Debuffs

I couldn't find a resource that was a nice check list of raid buffs/debuffs as a guide for raid leaders who wanted to balance raid groups, so I decided to create one myself. I've tried to keep it very simple, as it's designed to be a usable resource while putting a raid together.

The main function this serves for me, is a guide to what I want to recruit to add that little extra to our 25 man raiding team. I am a huge fan of bring the player, not the class... but if you are going looking for new players, you might as well pick up the buff/debuff you're after at the same time!

Each row in this list should stack with everything else on the list. If there are any corrections, additions or advice, please leave a comment on this post (and remember to tell me who you are if you're leaving an anonymous comment too).

Debuffs

Description	Primary	Details	Secondary
Minor Armor Reduction	(Feral / Moonkin) Druid	%5 Armor Reduction
Major Armor Reduction	Protection Warrior	%20 Armor Reduction	Rogue (Arms / Fury) Warrior
Attack Speed Decrease	Protection Warrior Protection Paladin Death Knight	%20 Attack Speed decrease - improved Icy Talons	Feral Druid (%10)
Attack Power Decrease	(Arms / Fury) Warrior Feral (Bear) Druid	~-410 Attack Power (untalented) ~-574 Attack Power (talented)	Protection Warrior Warlock
Cast Time Increase	Arcane Mage Rogue (MN Poison) Warlock	30% Cast Time Increase
Crit Chance (general)	Retribution Paladin Elemental Shaman	+3% Crit Chance
Crit Chance (spell)	Frost Mage Fire Mage Warlock (imp SB)	+5% Spell Crit Chance
Increase Bleed Damage	Feral Druid Arms Warrior	+30% Bleed Damage
Magic Damage Increase	Unholy Death Knight Balance Druid	+13% Magic Damage	Warlock
Physical Damage Increase	Combat Rogue Arms Warrior	+4% Physical Damage
Healing Decrease	Arms Warrior Fury Warrior Marksmanship Hunter Rogue (Wound Poison)	-50% Healing taken	Shadow Priest (-20%)
Hit Chance Decrease	Hunter Balance Druid	-3% Chance to Hit
Hit Chance Increase	Shadow Priest Balance Druid	+3% Chance to Hit with spells

Buffs

Type	Primary	Details	Secondary
Attack Power %	Hunter Enhancement Shaman Blood Death Knight	10% Attack Power Increase
Attack Power	Paladin	~685 AP (talented)	Warrior
Armor and Stats	Druid	1050 Armor +52 All Stats
Armor	Protection Paladin	1150 - 2008 Armor	Paladin Shaman
Kings	Paladin	+10% all stats
Agility and Strenth	Enhancement Shaman	155 - 178 Str and Agi	Death Knight Shaman
Intellect	Mage	+60 Intelect	Warlock (48)
Spirit	Priest	+80 Spirit	Warlock (64)
Stamina	Priest	+165 Stamina
Physical Crit Chance	Feral Druid Fury Warrior	+5% ranged and melee crit chance
Spell Crit Chance	Balance Druid Elemental Shaman	+5% spell crit chance
Damage Increase	Retribution Paladin	+3% damage increase
Haste Increase	Balance Druid (45yd)	+3% haste	Retribution Paladin (30yd)
Haste, Melee	Frost Death Knight Enhancement Shaman	+20% melee haste	Shaman (16%)
Haste, Spell	Shaman	+5% spell haste
Healing Improvement	Restoration Druid Protection Paladin	+6% healing recieved
Health	Warrior (talented)	+2818 Health	Warrior (2285) Warlock (Imp)
Mp5	Paladin	+109.5 Mp5 (talented)	Shaman
Replenishment	Survival Hunter Frost Mage Retribution Paladin Shadow Priest Destruction Warlock	+1% of maximum mana per 5 sec
Spell Power	Elemental Shaman	+280 Spell Power	Balance Druid (15% spirit) Shaman (144 - 165.6) Demonology Warlock (10% SP on crit)
Hit Chance	Draenei (race)	+1% chance to hit

Best in Slot Unhittable (Warrior)

It's been a while... a long while. I have been very busy in game, working on beefing up the guild for both 10 and 25 man progression. We have had a fantastic influx of new members, and balancing the raid schedule for a casual guild that wants it all has been a terrific mind puzzle.

In any case, we're 12/14 Ulduar 10, 6/14 Ulduar 25 and 4/4 TotC 10 (with the final boss still to come). Now that we're caught up (not really, but I'm sure there'll be more of that to come) onto the inspiration for this post.

Wowhead. Is there nothing they can't do?

The wowhead profiler should have itself warranted a post, just to promote their aesthetic which blows all other armory tools away... but at least it got a plug on the guild website.

Unhittable. It's a fairly useless concept to a protection warrior, but a fun one none the less. The idea is that any time you are attacked with melee, at worst the mob is going to attempt to break through your shield to get at you.... Block, Dodge, Parry, Miss. That's it. I've been having a look at BiS unhittable lists over at tankspot.com, but what if you want to put a set together that's the best of the stuff from your bag and bank? (Prot warriors don't vendor gear, they just sublet yet another commercial shipping container)

Wowhead's "create a weight scale" tool to the rescue. Plug in weighted values for block, parry, dodge and defense for mitigation (not avoidance) and bam:

Ranked list of best unhittable pieces for a Protection Warrior.

It doesn't take diminishing returns into account, particularly regarding the benefits of dodge vs. parry... but it gives you a fantastic guide to where the best pieces are!

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!