Plagueworks – First Run

My guild does not have official raid nights on Tuesday nights, but there were enough people interested to see the new content that we were able to put together 2 ten man raids.  At first look, it appears that the Plagueworks is a decent step up in difficulty from the Lower Spire.

Let’s start with the trash.  The Valkyries flying around the first room in ICC spawn lots of adds so be ready for them.  After you deal with the Valkyries, there will be two Abominations at the entrance to the Plagueworks.  Be sure to pull them away from the entrance or you will get agro from a wandering band of mobs.  We found this out the hard way.  After the abominations, there are a couple undead mobs that spawn bombs.  These bombs must be killed before they explode or your raid will take massive damage.  We also found this out the hard way.  Eventually you will come to a three way split.  To the left is Festergut’s room.  Rotface’s room is on the right and I can only guess that Professor Putricide is inside the center room that is blocked.

Each of the paths are guarded by the bosses’ pets Precious and Stinky  One of the pets has a constant AE damage pulse while the other spawns a ton of adds.  They both have a nasty ability called Devastate that lowers your whole raid down to a sliver of health.  The pets roam the hallways so make sure to pull the one you are fighting out far enough that it doesn’t agro the other.

After killing the pets, we went down the left tunnel to Festergut.  It tooks us a couple looks, but we knocked him out on the third pull.  The pre-release guides are pretty accurate.  They key to this fight is getting everyone three stacks of Innoculate and doing lots of DPS.  Warning: The enrage timer is indeed 5 minutes.  So people will need to bring their “A” game.

After killing Festergut, we proceeded to Rotface.  In the pre-release  information Rotface definitely sounded like the easier of the two fights.  He’s not!  Again, the pre-release guides are fairly accurate.  The major issue with Rotface is once he gets to 30% he seems to soft-enrage.  During this time he rapidly increases the rate at which he diseases people which creates a very difficult to manage amount of slimes.  The team I was on was not able to get Rotface down.  I believe the best we did was 9%.  Our other team was able to beat him after several attempts, but I got the impression that it was pure chaos in the end.

It was refreshing to have some new things to work on.  After I see these fights on 25 man, I plan to write up fairly detailed guides.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if Rotface gets tuned down a little bit.  We wiped on Rotface long enough that the trash respawned.  It appears the pet’s are tied to their masters though as only Rotface’s pet respawned.

As always, feel free to leave any questions or comments.

1/5 Changes

There were a few other changes announced today.  It appears that Lady Deathwhisper got a pretty large nerf.  HoR and PoS also got a little bit easier.  I’m a little bit sad about HoR as that was about the only challenging heroic in the game.

Blizzard also announced today that next wing of Icecrown Citadel, the Crimson Hall will open up in two weeks.

Source

Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.

1/5/10

• The Lady Deathwhisper encounter has seen the following changes in the 25 player normal version: mana pool has been reduced, the health on all adds has been reduced, and Adherents will wait a little longer after spawning before they start casting.
• Interrupting a fireball being cast by the Ymirjar Flamebearers in normal and heroic Pit of Saron will no longer make them instantly cast Hellfire.
• The ghost waves at the beginning of both normal and heroic Halls of Reflection have undergone several changes that should make them easier to defeat such as preventing 2 mages or 2 mercenaries from spawning in the 5 mob pulls, a shorter duration of the spectral footman’s shield bash, and the spectral mage’s flamestrike having a longer cast time, shorter duration, and (in heroic) doing less damage.

I personally don’t think these changes were necessary, but it does stay with Blizzard’s theme of keeping the game accessible to all.

Occulus Loot Enhancement

In an effort to keep people from instantly leaving the group when they draw Occulus from the random queue, Blizzard is going to provide a loot bonus.  Here is what they had to say about it.  Source

To encourage players not to shy away from the many invigorating adventures to be had in The Oculus, we have applied a change to enhance the rewards players are provided when selected for this dungeon via the Random Heroic option in the Dungeon Finder. Once Ley-Guardian Eregos is defeated, one loot bag per character will be provided in his chest in addition to the current rewards. Each loot bag will offer players rare gems, two additional Emblems of Triumph, and a chance of being rewarded the Reins of the Blue Drake. These fine treasures could be yours should you honor your fellow party members by besting the challenges contained within The Oculus! Keep in mind, however, that these extra loot bags will only be awarded to each party member if Oculus is selected by the Dungeon Finder when players choose the Random Heroic option.

In light of this change, the Reins of the Azure Drake will now have a chance of dropping in both 10- and 25-player versions of The Eye of Eternity.

They also raised the gear requirements for Halls of Reflection so hopeful less people will get thrown in there unprepared.

Plagueworks – Overview

Now that the holidays are officially over, I plan to get back to my normal posting schedule.  As you all know, things have been a little slow the last couple weeks content and news wise in WoW.  However, with the Plagueworks due to be released Tuesday, that is about to change.

According to WoWwiki, the Plagueworks is an area inside the west side of Icecrown Citadel.  It is connected to the rest of the instance by the spire surrounding the Frozen Throne in the middle of the zone.

The Plagueworks is a laboratory for creation of potions, vials and containers of the Plague of Undeath and blight slimes.  It is also the factory where several Abominations and horrific scourge creations are made.  Professor Putricide is the leader of the Plagueworks.

In this post, I am going to give a very brief overview of each of the encounters located in the Plagueworks.  I will give more detailed guides of the encounters in the near future.

Festergut – Festergut is one of the two Abomination fights in the Plagueworks.  This fight primarily revolves around various gases.

Essentially, there are two main types of gases to worry about.  First, there is Vile Gas this causes damage to those around you, so make sure to get away from the rest of the raid.  The second type of gas is Gas Spores.  Gas Spores explode and infect people around you with Blighted Spores. This is a good thing.  Blighted Spores give you an inoculated buff.  This buff stacks up to three times and it necessary to survive the Pungent Blight damage ability the boss performs.  If not inoculated you will take 50k damage and die.

This fight is also a major DPS check.  Festergut has a 5 minute enrage timer.  According to WoWwiki, it will take 145,000 raid DPS to kill him in time, or about 7,500 per DPS class assuming a tank doing 3k DPS.

Rotface – Rotface is the other Abomination fight in the Plagueworks.  This fight revolves around the management of oozes.

There are several different types of oozes. A quarter of the room will be covered by Flood Ooze. This will change to different areas throughout the fight and will need to be avoided.

Throughout the fight, raid members random raid members will get a Mutated Infection. This infection causes a small ooze to spawn from the infected member when clensed.  This person will need to run to the add tank before they are clensed.  This cycle will repeat numerious times.

Management of the oozes is the primary mechanic of the fight.  The ooze mechanic works as follows.  Two small oozes will merge to create a Big Ooze. The Big Ooze will need to be kited.  When the Big Ooze merges with 5 Small Oozes it will become an Unstable Ooze. The Unstable Ooze explodes into different areas of the room causing around 10k damage to each area affected.

The last ability to note in this fight is Slime Spray. He will pick a random member of the raid and shoot a cone AoE at them.  This person will need to run to the other side of Rotface.

Professor Putricide – Professor Putricide is the boss of the Plagueworks.  One very important thing to note is that you only get 10 tries per week on him.  There isn’t a ton of information on this fight as it was bugged on the PTR.

Putricide sounds like a cross between Rotface and Festergut.  You have both oozes and gasses to worry about.  Also, one (or more?) person in the raid will also drink a potion from Putricide’s table.  This will turn the person into a Muted Abomination.  The Abomination is key to controlling the oozes by eating slimes and throwing them up on the oozes.

I know that this isn’t a lot of information on any of the fights, but I hope it at least gives you some idea of what to expect.  I plan to provide more detailed guides after later in the week.  Best of luck to you all!

K’s Pretentious Blogging Meme

It’s a somewhat slow time and I’ve been having some issues coming up with fresh topics so I figured I would take my shot at K’s Blogging meme.

1. How long have you been blogging? What made you start? Who inspired you? I am still pretty new to blogging.  I just started back in early October.  I thought it would be fun to document my return to the game and the blog sort of grew from there.  Phaelia was definitely my biggest inspiration to start blogging.
2. About how many hours a week would you estimate you spend on your blog? Probably around 2 to 3 hours.
3. What kind of experience or background do you have with writing? I have very little experience in creative writing.  I do some technical writing in my real life job.
4. Talk about how you come up with blog topics. Where do you get your ideas? What or who inspires you? Where and/or how do your brainstorming? This is all over the place.  Many times my topics come from in game raids.  A lot of topics come from reading other blogs.  An officer in my guild is also a resto druid blogger and its fun to talk with her about Druidy things in game.  She has inspired a topic or two.
5. Do you have any blogging rules or guidelines you follow? Is there anything you will not blog about? I don’t really have any specific rules, but I do try to avoid speaking about anything that could potentially cause unnecessary drama in my guild.
6. Do you have any sort of a publishing schedule in terms of day of week or topic? Where do you do your writing? I try to publish a new post Monday-Friday at 9:00AM CST.  Most of my writing is done on my lunch hours.
7. How many drafts of potential blog posts do you have right now? In what medium do you draft your posts? How often do you completely scratch or delete drafts or blog post ideas? I usually have a couple drafts, but currently I have zero.  Most of the time I just draft my posts right in WordPress.  I scrap posts once I start on them fairly frequently.
8. If you had to leave your blog in your will to another blogger, who would you choose? To ask this in a slightly less morbid way, are there other blogs that you feel are similar to yours in content, style, or voice? This is somewhat difficult.  I really respect both Keeva and Beru, but I think my blog is quite a bit different from either of their blogs content wise.  I will have to think about this one some more.
9. Has anything surprised you since you started blogging? It’s been a little bit easier for me to stick with it then I thought it would be.  It has also been much more fun.
10. What are your goals or plans for your blog going forward? Any specific goals or plans for your blog in 2010? I don’t have any specific plans other than to try to provide more meaningful raid information to up and coming druids in the future.  When I started my blog, I was in an ultra casual 10 man guild that didn’t have a set raid schedule.  I am now in a fairly hardcore 25 man guild that raids the highest end content.  Hopefully, I will be able to provide more relevant information to people now.

Holiday Update

Its been pretty slow WoW wise over the break.  I now have a raid spot with my new guild, but we are off from raiding until Jan. 3rd.  Since we aren’t raiding, I’ve been working on some side projects.  Mostly trying to level up my new baby priest and build my gold reserves back up.

I am excited for the rest of ICC and looking forward to the next three fights.  They all sound fairly interesting and it will be nice to add something new to the routine.

Criticism

I was discussing the subject of constructive criticism with someone last night and thought that this could make a nice blog post.

I think we can all agree that no one is perfect and that everyone makes mistakes.  How these mistakes are handled by the person, the guild, and the guild officers is very important for the morale and success of both the player and the guild.

I have been in guilds on both end of the spectrum in this regard.  For instance, I was recently in a guild that met all mistakes by its members with name calling and ridicule.  Yeah, it wasn’t a very fun guild.   The guild that I am in now handles mistakes in a vastly different manner.  While you can tell that the officers get frustrated when someone makes a mistake, they point out what that mistake was and how they can correct it.  I don’t think there is any question which method is more productive.

It has been my experience both in game and in real life that the first method described above is largely ineffective.  It creates a hostile, poisonous atmosphere and severely damages the confidence of the target it question.  While some people respond better to the more direct types of criticism, mindless ranting is a lot more likely to yield negative results rather than positive .  It creates an atmosphere of fear.  This is a bad thing!  When most people make obvious mistakes they will already feel bad.  There is no reason to pile on.  You will just cause them to stop showing up or leave all together.

On the other hand, the more subtle method has several positive results.  First, it identifies the mistake and lets the person know what they can do correct the problem.  It’s important to remember that people tend to learn more from mistakes.  This method of criticism assists that process.  I also think it creates a much more positive atmosphere.  Instead of not wanting to make a mistake because you will be ridiculed, you just don’t want to let the team down.  I personally take my mistakes very hard for that reason.

In closing, treat people how you want to be treated.  It is okay to get angry and raise your voice, but at least let the person that made the mistake know what you expect from them.  If they continue to make the same mistakes go ahead and replace them, but make sure they know why they were replaced and what corrective action they can take in the future to get their spot back.  While the “stick” has its place, most of the time the “carrot” yields better results.

Add-on Hightlight – Move Anything!

I really like my UI, but there was one thing that was bugging the heck out of me.  Every time the “Loot Roll” window would come up it would cover up my Grid.  With the addition of the new LFG system along with people’s tendency to loot while in combat, you can imagine why this may be a problem.

I did some looking around and eventually ran across Move Anything! It is an incredibly easy add-on to use.  You simply bring up the UI by typing /move.  Then select the item you want to move and just drag it to where you want it.  You can also use this addon to hide UI elements.  Here is a brief look at the menu:

It really is that easy!  In the case of the roll window, there are 4 different “boxes” that you will need to drag.  This accounts for the times when multiple pieces of loot drops that needs to be rolled on.

Leap of Faith

When I originally started up this blog, it was to document my progress as I got my character “raid ready”.  I had just came back to the game and started back in a guild that a real life friend ran.  It was filled with a lot of great people and I had a lot of fun with this guild, but over time it just became apparent that I wanted to raid more than they did.

After I left my friend’s guild, I had a bit of an issue finding something that fit.  I joined one of the harder core raid guilds on Lightbringer, but that particular one was a miserable experience.  It was a very immature, hostile atmosphere.  I left this bunch after one day.

The horde raid guild scene on Lightbringer doesn’t provide a lot of choices.  After I left the “hostile” guild, I joined a PST guild.  I live in CST, but I thought I could handle the difference.  I couldn’t.  So I began looking for a better fit.

My goal was to find an adult raiding guild that raided during my prime time hours.  I did not confine my search to Lightbringer.  After doing quite a bit of research, I found a guild on Llane that seemed to have what I was looking for.  I spoke to one of their officers and she told me that their roster was full on Druids, but they would could give me a Friends and Family spot.  I made the decision that if this guild was really what I was looking for, it would be worth the wait for a raid spot, so I took a leap of faith and transferred over.

After spending a week with them, it appears that the guild is exactly what I thought it would be.  It is a well run, relatively mature guild that focuses on high end raiding.  It has a few warts, but that can be said about every guild.  The positives far outweigh the negatives.

I’ve actually gotten in quite a bit more raid time than I figured I would.  Probably due to the holidays.  They run much more structured raids than I have been exposed to in the past, so there is a little bit of an adjustment that I’m still going through.

However, my biggest adjustment is not having a regular raid spot.  Their officer was completely upfront about this beforehand.  It just sucks having to hope someone leaves the guild and opens up a permanent raid spot or that people no show to a raid so that I can get in for that particular night.  I hate thinking like that it sounds incredibly selfish.   I am definitely grateful for the raid time they have given me so far!

After a week, it looks like I made a good decision.  I have found a friendly, organized, adult raiding guild.  I’ve been able to see some content that I thought I may never get to see (Algalon, etc.).

At this point, I still don’t have many friends on Llane so it gets a little lonely at times, but I’m sure that will change over time.  So, I’ve very happy with my “Leap of Faith” and I hope the days ahead are as good as my first week.

Favorites of 2009

This is my answer to Larisa’s favorites of 2009 post. Since I was MIA for a decent chunk of 2009, I feel semi-unqualified to fill this out.  There were a few that I had absolutely no idea, so i left them off.

• Best raid instance – Ulduar.  The place was really well done and the fights were very interesting and challenging.

• Least successful raid instance – ToC.  The fights are relatively fun and challenging, but it comes across as filler content.  Never thought zero trash would be a bad thing.  After running through this place 100 times, it is.

• Silliest gold sink – I’m constantly poor so I don’t have it, but I think the Tundra Mammoth qualifies.

• Most longed for instance – Icecrown Citadel.  This was an easy one for me since everything else had already been released when I came back from break.

• Biggest addition to the game – LFG System.  This is a game changing feature.

• Best quest – Icecrown Citadel series.  These were really engaging and interesting.

• Ugliest tabard – Wyrmkin

• Favourite non combat pet – Corehound Pet

• Best podcast – Don’t really listen to them.

• Biggest blog facelift – Tree Bark Jacket

• Most memorable blog post – Miss Medicina’s Healing Survey

• Most noticed blogger breakthrough – Miss Medicina

• Most solid content provider – Keeva at Tree Bark Jacket