OMG I swar it's the last for today

Critical QQ. He makes me giggle. ^.^

...and a Happy New Year

Damn it Destroy. He's got that damn Portal song stuck in my head.

So, hope everyone who had one had a very Awesometastic Christmas. I know Fio and I had a totally tubular one ^.^

Not only did we drive like crazies to Ohio and back, and we broke down and bought a 360 for some Mass Effect/Assassin's Creed, but, we got to see the Demonic Ponytail pre-taming. ^.^

All in all a very fun weekend. And what's even better? I got to post up the raid schedule for the next week. Hurray back to SSC! And our Raid Leader of Awesome also figured we'd head back over to TK and take another stab at VR. Which I am teh excited about ^.^

I'm just glad to be raiding again. Don't get me wrong, the break was nice, it let's me fart around in the game (and there fore keep my interest) but the constant raiding we were doing was wearing on me. That and it was refreshing to be away for a few days. Though, as you probably heard, total asshatery did commence and some jerk face hacked into one of my friends accounts. Freakin' turd. I swear... well, I did swear, a lot that night. Felt bad about calling Immy at 11:30 at night to say "ZOMG YOU'RE BEING HACKED DUDE CALL BLIZZ!" but at least we got it handled. Though I would have no problems putting that dickface's balls (or tits) into a meat grinder for pulling shit like this 2 days before Christmas. I hope Santa brought him a chainsaw anemia. /growl

Anywho, back to something a tad more pleasant, my guild of Awesome has put the feelers out there for some like minded friends to come raid with us. We did the O board forums post and TJ, Kitty, and Doom were all nice enough to post threads in their blog. I like the page Kitty did the most with Fio's little addendum on the bottom, so I'm going to link to it here. So far we've had some awesome people come and apply and we even got a healy priesty to come play. He's pretty kick butt, nice guy and has a funny sense of humor. Bonus ^.^ Now we just need a shadow priest to come and app *puppy dog eyes* so Kitty won't steal my DCoE away. He's a greedy wench sometimes.
;P

The meeting with new raiders and getting back together with the gang is something I'm really lookin' forward to. Excitement + Fun = the raiding I wanna do ^.^

OK, this whole post seems to meander all over the place. The next thing I wanted to mention was my Shadow Priest pet, Rakzha. I decided to stay in Azeroth long enough to get mining to 295 and then I booked it back to Outlands. I have... SO much fun with Outlands quests. They are just too awesome. And I did a bit of a marathon of Ramps/Blood Furnace for her and now she has pretty much everything a caster would want out of there sans the belt from BF. Oh, and the pants? You know, the EVIL PANTS. Totally didn't get them. I don't care that they're uber awesome in stats, blah blah blah. Nope. Not going to happen. I got the plate and sold them. /dusts off hands

I need to look at her spec again though. I think I went a little crazy with the shadow tree. But I'm putting it off for now. I'll definitely revisit it once she hits 70 though that's for sure. And now, I'm off. After finishing the Opera post and this, I think this is me trying to catch up XD
There should be a Gruul's post coming shortly, that's for sure. (Yea, shortly, like the Opera one, that took 2 months T.T)

Healing Opera: Figaro!

I had a really funny pic to go along with this post. But Bloggers picture thingies was down and then I lost the link.

Sad panda.

Anywho!

I know it's a long time coming(in fact, this has been in drafts for a loooong time now. Since October 17th to be exact...) Here be my experiences with the awesome Opera event in Karazhan.

Now, what's nifty about this event is that it has three different types of bosses. All three are big fairy tale rip offs, but that makes them even more amusing.
The three events you can get are The Big Bad Wolf (BBW), Romulo and Julianne (R&J) or Oz. All three have their quirks and this is by far, one of my most favorite fights in the instance.

So, I'll start with the "easiest" fight.

Big Bad Wolf

Firstly, about a minute before the fight starts, Fear Ward the tank. This way you have anout a minute into your cooldown into the fight and you might get another ward off during the fight.

Usually our MT tanks Wolfie in a corner, and all your ranged DPS is going to be grouped in another corner. You're going to want to start, as always, with your handy dandy Frisbee, and sometimes, BBW will start the fight with a Little Red and a Fear, so be on your toes. The Little Red Riding Hood Debuff he does is SO. MUCH. FUN. Srsly. I luff's it. You turn into this cute little gnome in red clothing, your armor is reduced to zero, but your running speed gets a boost. When the debuff happens and its not you, prepare to shield/frisbee/heal the bejesus outta the Little Red.

Depending on how many hit points the victim is and how well their "OMG I'M THE GNOME!" running technique is, they may need it. Also, while there's not much of an aggro table while he's running after Red, keep in mind that he resumes normal aggro after the debuff wears off. The debuff lasts about and a half runs around the stage or until Red gets clobbered. So still, watch your aggro. And re Frisbee the tank as soon as you can.

Otherwise, it's just your standard fair of Frisbee/Renew/GHeal on the tank. Due to the new fear rules, if you miss out on a Fear during the fight, don't worry too much, just make sure your Renew is still going since, well, you can't heal when you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off for 3 seconds.

Oh and btw, when YOU get to be little Red, don't panic. Just Shield while running, slap a Renew on yourself juuuuuust in case, and make sure you hug the wall. Don't take any short cuts while you're running along the wall, because Wolfie will catch up to you (he cheats.)
And once the bugger is dead, he'll have a nice cloak waiting for you (RIGHT?!)
Red Riding Hood's Cloak


Romulo and Julianne

This fight is pretty gimmicky, but it's also fairly simple to heal. We've always done this fight with two tanks, though I've heard one tank can do it too. There are two bosses and the idea is this:

The fight starts with Julianne and she has some fairly standard abilities: she heals, she has a holy DoT she'll randomly toss on people and she's got a buff on her that makes her cast faster.

Usually you put whatever spell interrupters you can on her, because that heal is annoying and possibly fight breaking (you'll see why in a sec.) During this part, if you're assigned to heal this tank, it's pretty smooth sailing with your Renew/Frisbee combo, though be prepared to toss a Renew out to your raid members since that DoT does a good chunk of initial damage and DoT.

Once she's kissing floor board, Romulo spawns. (Keep in mind, these guys are UNTAUNTABLE, so try to time your Renew if possible. Romulo one shots clothies T.T)
So ok, once you've stopped giggling at how flaming Rom sounds, just keep in mind he's all melee. He has a buff that makes him attack faster, he'll fling any DPS that's directly behind him waaay across the room and he has a Poison that stacks on the tank that decreases their stats by a %.
That poison is nasty, and hopefully you have a Druid/Shammy/Pally to get rid of it. Not much we priesty types can do about poison. This tank will be getting hit a bit harder because Rom's all... muscle... (we guess XD) but he also dies fairly quickly and simply.

Now the fun part. Once Rom's down, Julianne rises from the dead (again) and rez's Rom.
Now you have both up and here's the kicker: they both have to die within ten seconds from each other, or else the living one rez's the other. Here's where Juli's heal becomes extremely annoying. But otherwise, it's a repeat of healing techniques, just watch out for the raid since Juli's going to be DoTing away at her hearts content at them. If you have the interrupts, you could see if they could use one or two on those DoTs, but priority goes to killing her heal. Also, the Buffs (Devotion on Juli, Daring on Rom) can be spell stolen and Dispel'd. So if it's needed, you can dispel those buffs so that they aren't going all super speedy.

It's a bonus, swarz.
And once they're both in eternal slumber, you can hope to nab the Masquerade Gown from Julianne (Rom's got nothing for healy types.)

Oz

By far, the most awesome and fun of the three events in Opera. Few things of note:
Dorothee's aggro table is random - she just shoots frost bolts at whoever and she's usually the first to die.
Tito spawns mid fight and is a tank and spank. Just make sure Dorothee's dead before you kill him or else she enrages and things get ugly.
Strawman does an AoE fear/stun but he can be pretty much solo'd by a lock/firemage/flaming shammy. Fire spells keep him confused and do uber damage to him. And no, Holy Fire doesn't count T.T (I tried).
Roar hits pretty hard, but he can be kept feared by either a lock, your Psychic scream, or a hunter's Fear Beast and it lasts a bit longer than normal, because he's weak to fear. He's usually the third to go down after Dorothee and Tito.
Tinhead hits like a truck and is usually given to the MT to kite around the room. You see, after like 15 seconds, he starts getting this debuff called Rust and it slows him down. So as long as the tank has his attention, he's pretty much the last one to die in the melee (before Crone.)
The Crone doesn't spawn until all the others are dead. She does a chain lightening, doesn't hit all that hard, and separate from here there's a Cyclone whizzing around on stage. Just avoid it, otherwise it knocks you into the air (you can still cast instant spells, like Levitate ^.^) and then you fall to the ground and take a bunch of falling damage if you happen to be out of Light Feathers >.>

Try and have an OT tank Tito, Roar and Strawman, and watch the raid's health with Dorothee's crazy frost bolts. Renew is probably going to be the biggest thing you do in the fight. Though, when Tinhead comes into the fray and your MT picks him up, toss a few Frisbee's the MT's way to solidify his aggro on him. Otherwise, watch your butt around Strawman (that aoe fear thing sucks) and keep everyone healed.

Don't worry too much about going low on mana if you do: if you keep Tinhead till last and you have a pally in the group /cheer. Have them toss up a Judgement of Wisdom? (the one to get mana back) and just level your weapon skill. Tinhead has a lot of HP, and make sure ranged and melee don't attack him during this. It's a great way to refresh the raids mana pool for the Crone.
Once she spawns, MT picks up, watch out for the Cyclone, and stay behind and away from her. That Chain Lightening isn't a pleasant feeling. Frisbee/Renew/GHeal and then... LEWT!
The biggest thing for the healy priesty here is the Blue Diamond Witchwand. Rejoice in your lewtness! ^.^

Ok, there was one item that can potentially drop from all three fights that I skipped and thats the Ribbon of Sacrifice. I have it. I've used it before in Kara... but I find it lacking. The use trinkets really aren't all that optimal for priest types because a lot of our heal strategy is based on burst/planned healing. Renew and the Frisbee are really good maintainers, but we don't spam GHeal or FHeal unless we want to go OOM very quickly. It's a good OH SH!T button, but from what I've heard it's a better for 25 mans... I'll try and get back to you guys on that, but for now, I've just stuck with my Scarab of the Infinite Cycle and (Pre Gruul) Bangle of Endless Blessings.

I love snow

So, as the title implies, fat falling flakes of precipitation is the only reason why I love living in the Northeast.

The crappy response by RI state officials non withstanding, I still love the snow. There's just something about it that makes me feel like I'm 10 years old again, outside sledding or rolling aorund in it, tosses snowballs at my brother/father and or making a snowy mess.

Like so:




Enjoy my masterpiece. He is Carlos, Man of ... horns?

Ok, so maybe not, but I had to toss something on him.

What does this have to do with WoW? Not a terrible amount really. But, suffice to say, WoW still goes, my guild of awesome is taking a raiding break for the holidays, we're pugging Karazhan on alts and anxiously awaiting the new year when we can really start working on progress in SSC. That place looks like tons of fun. Like seriously, oodles of it.

I'm going to be gone for the rest of the week visiting the parents in Ohio (yea, we're driving there, pray that the Snow waits until I'm off the road XD) and then driving back home to see Fio's parents on Christmas day. Granted, his parents live in the same state as us... but yea. I'm teh uber excited to see my family after not seeing my brother for ages and my parents since summer.

Priestings! Rakzha is now in Outland. Thank you Blizz for that 2.3 patch! I leveled Rak from 45 to 53 over the weekend and have been hashing out more and more levels since. Being on Raiding break also helps with the leveling of alts, but I always seem to find time. Since I barely remember when I leveled Cay, I'm hoping that my 242 shadow damage at lvl 58 with pwn many Azeroth quests. I took Rak at level 40 something to do all the new quests in Dustwallow Marsh, and seriously, Blizz is pushing hardcore for people to level, cause I breezed through on this toon. Also, I did decide to just go with the Shadoweave gear into the Felcloth gear and let me tell you, so much fun. I'm having minimal drink time (Yay spirit Tap!) and much shadow pwnage. (Sorry gang, if you're looking for math, I'm not a great person at it. To me, its all about feel).

I'm very excited to start getting Rak into some parties and totally noobing up my role as a mana battery. Soon, I'll be trolling places like Kirk's and Apathy's to see how best to make the most of my shadow'ing dmg and mana efficiency outputs. Though since Fio is better at math than me, he's helping me along too. Doesn't know too much about priests, but knows enough about offensive casters to help me along.

So, as of right now, with another Outland quest for her wand and maybe one or two more for XP, Rak will go back to places like Burning Steppes (which, she hasn't touched yet btw), EPL, Winterspring and Silithus. All these places are virgin questing territory to her, and I like to finish up as much as I can in Azeroth so that it 1) puts me at about 60 going into Hellfire and B) gives me more Outland quests I can finish for money at 70.

Btw, when she gets her tailoring up there, I've already got all the mats for her Frozen Shadoweave Set and the Battlecast Set.

I know, I'm a noob.

I have too many alts... T.T

(Warlocks are fun!)

Ok, time to pack for the trip, but first, finding all the links I'll need for this post, so people don't have to guess wtf I'm talking about...

Now I'm rambling... ZOMG LATER! <3

SSC Awesomeness

Yup, as you've prolly heard, over and over again, Aetherial Circle 1 : Serpentshrine Cavern 0!

Well, at least for now ;)



Here's the kill vid, on Younoob for now, but I'm looking into throwing it up on Filefront or Warcraftmovies.com er something.

Color me excited ^.^

Srsly, it was such a fun fight. We would have had him last week if it wasn't for the damn fish.

Tonight, I take a break from raiding. I've been at it non stop since Saturday, and I needs me a break! Tomorrow too, but I'll be back at it with Cay on Saturday to (hopefully) get my tier4 hat, since OH! Yea, one of the drops in SSC last night?
Belt of the Long Road pattern = mine
/dance

Now I can like, bid on those Nether Vortex's. Wewtness ^.^

Ok, this good cheer of mine is much needed, 'specially since our previous two days had been total train wrecks. Murphy ran crazy stupid on our Gruul's run Monday. It was so bad, we didn't get him that night (though Maulgar bit it hard, he's always bent over since we first laid eyes on him, the slut ;P)
Tuesday night in Zul'Aman wasn't much better. We killed the Bear boss in under 20 minutes for the second time, attempted to go for the Eagle in the time frame but wiped mid way through the gauntlet. So we skipped Eagle and went straight for our Nemisis, that damn Dragonhawk.

We know the fight. We've gotten it down... we can do it. The game just won't let us.

But it's cool, we know and realize that it's a pretty decent gear check. Time to get more into SSC ^.^

I know this is kinda a hackney update, but it's here! And I'm really hungry, so I'm going to go gets some foodages. Makin' vid's is hungry work!

Oh! 'nother thing. I have the vid's from our Bear, Eagle and Lynx kills, but I'm going to do a bit of a colaberation vid on ZA, and I need the Dragonhawk kill before I post it. Plus, I'm experimenting/learning how to use Sony Vegas 8. Is Vegas 7 easier to figure out if you're not all rad with the media lingo? I dunno, but yea, I will be experimenting with that soon. ^.^

For now, FOOOOOD!