The Oculus

The number one Instance that most people always seem to drop once they see the loading screen on random heroics and drop group before they even get to the instance. Just amazing.

Anyway just a reminder after killing Eregos the last boss to make sure to actually loot the chest for your extra loot bag of goodies which contain the 2 extra Emblems, gems and a chance at a Azure Drake.

Some people drop and leave group so fast after the last boss is down they completely miss out on their extra bag of loot. Allot of people seem completely unaware that there is even a extra bag in the chest they have to loot for the goodies. I was in a group earlier that didn't even know that there was a extra loot bag to loot from the chest. Make sure to loot yours!

Speed Runs & The Resto Shaman

Well Heroics are always the story of my life usually. Its the thing I seem to do most more than anything else. I'm not in a raiding guild so I can't talk about raiding Kara, SSC and beyond much unless I'm there. But on my server we do have one interesting character, a Resto Shaman! A ubar Resto Shaman that is who happens to be in the #1 Guild on my server wearing T5+. See guild name on WoW Jutsu below.

Anyway I'm not sure I quite understand what drives this one Resto Shaman. But he happens to be a friend that I met in Heroics on a PuG a few weeks back. However I'm not sure how much this players sleeps or breaks from WoW. He's fairly well known in Trade on the server I would say as well if not a character himself. Saying that this person is a character to me is an understatement in my view. He is a Character! And he can heal his ass off as far as I can tell and he might need something to calm him down more than half the time. I mean Really! He's like a energizer bunny, he can barely sit still in one place.

On most days (Nights) when he's not raiding the Black Temple you can clearly see him forming or asking for bodies to run Speed Heroics one after the other. And I mean a lot of them. Then when he's done with that he's off to Kara and ZA. ZA most often it seems. Ive even gotten a few invites to run ZA though I've graciously declined while he taunts me with whatever purple that drops there. It can get real funny at times. But I'm not sure what drives this one Resto Shaman or make him quite tick. I just know he can heal his ass off.

So yesterday my friend the Resto Shaman /w and ask if I'm up for Heroics. Yeah sure, why not. Had Tank, got a Warlock friend of mine who also needs to get plenty of Badges of Justice. I invited another friend I knew and we found another PuG DPS and off we went. In less than 3 hrs I had 13 Badges of Justice from Heroics running SH, BoT, SP. Quite a few Prismatic Shards as everything was sharded and void Crystal or two. After that somehow the Resto got worn out and logged off for food and such. Later that day he was back to his old ways again Speed Running Heroics and more. That got me calculating Badges a bit. Imagine how fast Badges of Justice racks up when you can average them at 13 or more a day in less than 3hrs over a week or two.

So I had to Inquire while on one of our runs just why the Resto runs soo many Heroics? What gives? Well when the Gem Vendor gets unlocked the Badges he collects buys more Epic Gems for his T5+ gear other than whatever he already gets there and well as selling the Gems. He has Leatherworking and has lots of Epic patterns it seems and uses the Nether's since he collects allot of them for crafting at his progression level. He crafts the Leather gear with the other mats into Epic gear with his patterns of various kinda and promote them in Trade selling his Items. On most days you can see him promoting something in Trade of Epic quality. From what he says he makes around 1000-1300g or so on his pieces. Seems he sold one or two pieces while we were waiting on him to run Heroics SH. So that's part of what I'm told that partially drives this ubar Resto Shaman. I don't know the rest of the story though.

But we did run Heroics SH last of the 3 Heroics we got to and after he sold his stuff and whatever the real story is with this one Resto Shaman is that SH rocked. We had fun, I collected ever badge and even got the rescue done. We ran the guantlet with no deaths and only stopped 3-4 times to kill the patrols all way up to the boss. You know I really need to do the Title thing for Adal for Heroics and just have him as healer if can with a few friends. But you know this Resto Shaman needs a Tank to make his runs happen with Heroics. I need Badges of Justice for my few remaining Badge pieces and a Warlock friend that needs tons of Badges. If you ask me that's a relationship that's works. All needed is 2 more DPS thats crazy enough to do runs like that. But that's the story of this one Resto Shaman and Speed Heroics.

All I have to say is that this guy can heal his ass off beyond that I don't know. I can recall on all 3 Heroics umm we had no CC whatsoever. Nope, none. I just consecrated everything. Afterall I had a ubar Resto Shaman Healer. For SH run we had another Elemental Shaman and that was crazy it itself with DPS and weapons proc. And you know that guy never ran out of mana either. Are Resto Shamans really that ubar?

Heroics Instance, Once a Day Only.

It occured to me today that you can only successfully run a Heroic Instance once a day or until it resets once you've killed the boss. Yeah that sucks for racking up Badges of Justice for your favorite Instances. Ahh Bummer! However ran Heroic Botanica today again for the Server Daily Heroics and we ran it with relative ease and got 7 Badges for the Fun. 5 Bosses and 2 for the quest. Was mostly a early morning guild run of me, Shadow Priest, Warlock, Mage, Holy Paladin. Smooth run one or two people died here and there but was good run. So up to 38 Badges of Justice. WTB more Badges of Justice.

Got asked to run Heroic Botanica again for another group. Wasn't sure how the Instance reset worked on Heroics no one in group did. So not too soon noticed when we got to the boss that "Hey No Boss". Duhh!! Became apparent then. So group had to reset and find another tank. Yeah Sucks!! Seems you can only run a Heroic once a day as you become saved to the instance after the first boss kill. Looked it up on Wowwiki and found out that the Instances reset at 10am server time daily. Hey wasn't aware of that either. Always kept wondering how that timer worked and started counting when I entered Heroics and different Heroics on the same day. Well now I know.

However did notice running Heroic Botanica with 1 Warlock is fun, 2 Warlocks rocks for CC/AoE with a Tankadin. Many mobs are CC immune. 2 Warlocks with either a Shadow Priest/Hunter/Mage for DPS rocks just as much and works well. I've run with all those combinations as just works out well. Running with a Heavy Melee group in Heroic Botanica, at least for me and my experience never works out that well. I've run it with 2 Rogues for DPS and that just never works as great.

So far for Heroics I'm running the Instances I'm really familiar with and good at that being All Colifang Heroics, Mech and Botanica. I'm really good at Arcatraz on regular, but I've never tried that place on Heroic mode, imagine it can be rough there. SH on Heroics haven't done as yet. Auchindoum Instances on Heroics can just about rot in Hell can't say I ever wish to go there. As for now until raiding Kara starts next month a goal of 3 Heroic a day is all cool if can find groups/time to do either Heroic Botanica , Mech, UB, SP, SV daily. Maby I'm nuts but that would be at least 12 Badges of Justice a day. Imagine if I could pull that off everyday be allot of Badges of Justice. Yeah Nuts! But I'm good for it.

Tales from Heroics: Problem Healing

Ran Heroic Mech tonight for some more badges and picked up three more so up to 31 Badges of Justice. I've ran Heroic Mech before quite a few times and it can be a short good fairly smooth run. Mostly I've had a Shaman or Priest or healer. Can't recall ever running with any other Healer, but a guildmate wanted to do Heroic Mech and I went along and we had 2 DPS from PuG's a Mage I knew well and a Holy Paladin I somewhat knew so rest was me a Warlock, Hunter (survival).

We did fine clearing everything with little problem, with exception of every so often I end up going face down before either the Tempest Forge Destroyer died or Boss died. That happened at least 5 times on the Tempest Forge Destroyers, once before the Mechano Boss and 4 times on the 2nd Destroyer in Nethermancer Sepethrea's room. That was damn frustrating to say the least. Almost seem we got stuck on that one Trash Destroyer. Enough that the Warlock dropped out and we picked up another Mage for his DPS spot. Popped a Greater Stoneshield Potion and we got him down in no time and seem like a piece of cake them. So I though what gives? I'm in my high block gear and at 491 defense, 13k armor and 323 blocking. I also died on Mechano-Lord Capacitus about 8 sec before he eventually died by the rest of the group. On every death me being the tank I was the one that died. One thing I can really say its a complete waste of consumables in elixirs totally. Can't say how much of those got wasted even though I'm a Alchemist and it don't cost me that much but it was still a waste all the same.

But anyway we got the last boss and the Sun Eater never dropped. I've never seen that thing ever drop ever. A few plate pieces dropped and a Epic legging piece I passed and let the Holy paladin pick it up. After the group wanted go back and try the Fire boss. I was a bit reluctant but if they wanted to give it a go, i'm for it. So we did. In the process both Mages died in the process and the Hunter got disconnected or something like that but was back a while after. So I ended up kiting the boss around and around in circles down to less that 10k health with the healer and eventually died. That was the best attempt especially considering the other dps died early, actually best attempt ever. We tried 2 more attempts again and just did not work. We called it at that point especially since I needed to repair with about 8% durability.

On checking Recount to see why I died noticed something. On every encounter in which I died that Recount showed I died from not enough healing or not being healed fast enough. The only heals I saw recorded was Holy Light heals. In a 12 sec period of time on several encounters I went from 12-13k health to 0 with one and no more than 2 Holy Light heal. Often It was just one heal I noticed on every death. At no time did I ever notice a Flash of Light heal and I can't say I noticed any of them either as they were all big heals thus my spiky healing. The Holy Paladin is for the most part a raiding Holy Paladin. Personally I hate going face down and especially repeatedly for the same thing. I've noticed this on the entire run that my healing at best was pretty damn spiky. Made me blew my Lay of Hands right at the start of Heroic Instance on the first Destroyer due to spiky heals with less than 200hp. Now I've never done any instance healing. But as the tank I've had many healers Priests, Shamans and to a lesser extend Druids just a few times. But I'm like where the hell is the Flash heals? Every heal the Holy Paladin threw was what seemed like a Holy Light heal and that ended up costing me a total of 8 deaths and 92% durability on armor when I left the instance.

I've being having this problem before not with ALL but with many of the Holy Paladin healers I've had in Heroics when I'm getting hit like a asteroid. I can honestly say I'm not a big fan running with a Holy Paladin in Heroics as my first choice. Yet I know there are some good Holy Paladin healers out there, but what the hell gives when ALL your getting on the tank is Holy Light heals. I'm waiting forever to get healed at deaths door. Every time I died the healer had way more than 3/4 bar full of mana and he had over 10k mana at that. I'm dead in the time it takes to get healed in situations like this. Frustrating to me it is. Healing efficiency my ass it aren't no good when the damn tank is dead waiting forever to get healed. And it don't look well the next time I think about doing Heroics when I see its a Plate Healer because I will always have my doubts of how long will it be before I'm face down when I'm doing my damn best to stay alive. So what gives with healing like that?

Tales from Heroics: Botanica

Heroics are fun and can be fun with the right people or group. I've being hitting up the Heroic circuit for Badges of Justice and running with the new guildmates through the instances. Yesterday I did Heroic SP, UB, SV. Today we had Heroic Botanica and hadn't been to Botanica in a while either let alone on Heroic mode. So was me (Tank), 2 Warlocks, Hunter, Holy Paladin from the guild. Run went well other than once we wiped on Trash adds but I was Soul Stoned and another time we had one or two in party died. We one shot all 4 bosses no problem so picked up a few more Badges of Justice so now up to 28 Badges.

Most the bosses are all the same just hit much harder. First boss Sarannis just hits you with lots of Arcane damage and debuff. Rest just seem to hit much harder that's about it. Boss Laj on normal usually just fight him up on the platform he's at. On Heroics I just kited him back to the hallway and room before the room he's in and works well in controlling the adds and barely having adds at all, but seem a much slower fight as he TP back to his platform and then back again to group in the other room, but barely had adds. Warp Splinter just does more damage. So we had a good fast run with a few minor hiccups.

Taking a while getting used to working with my guildies on runs. For the run I just changed into my max block gear set which has 330 Blocking a little different to my regular tanking set which has around 290 or so blocking. Makes a lot of difference wearing a higher block set for taking all the hits. Once time I died was due to none the mobs marked for CC not getting any CC or CC in time just before Boss Laj room. I did notice one thing though being that the Holy Paladin didn't cast a single Greater Blessing the whole time. I had to ask for rebuffs many times of 10 min blessings. At one point the Holy Paladin completely ran OOM on the first boss I think it was and I had to blow LoH to save my hide and from a wipe. What was not funny was watching him go completely out of mana and wondering why he not use a mana pot. Otherwise he did ok. The other time a few people died due to adds going to second boss the Botonist. Was a good run for the most part. But in the end I'll be honest to say in 5 man and Heroics of all the runs I've done and all the healers I've had, though I've had various some being excellent and some being ok healers my favorite healers are the more versatile healers in a 5 man Instance in my experience for versatility especially in Heroics and they doesn't wear plate.

As for gear picked up Gauntlets of Dissension for alternative gear set.