Just a reminder. Blizzcon tickets are going on sale at 10:00AM PDT today, so be sure to have your Battle.Net account set up and that F5 key ready for when the store comes up!

~Aenorn

This is a guest post from Sargeras over at Coffee with Sargeras, enjoy!

Howdy, friends! My name is Sargeras. I am the Supreme Lord of The Burning Legion, the High Sultan of Entropy, and generally the manifest nexus of all evil in the universe.

You may have heard of me.

But enough about me, let's talk about you. What if I told you that your guild could become even better at raiding than Ensidia, just by reading this post? Impossible, you say?

Not at all. Because I'm going to tell you how to defeat...me.

Of course, I am not a fightable boss currently. Heck, they haven't even made Arthas available yet, so I can only imagine how long it'll be before my turn comes up! But when I do, you'll be prepared, and you can rush in and get it done before any of the top-ranking guilds that waste all their time raiding instead of reading my nuggets of wisdom.

So. Battle of the Ages. Here's how it'll go down:

INTRO

I have a wicked cut scene where I bust out of the Nether and land on a mountaintop all shrouded in flames and everything. It's totally badass. I'm like "WHO DARES DISTURB MY SLUMBER OF AEONS?" Actually I rarely slumber for more than one aeon at a time, but if a final boss fight isn't the moment for hyperbole, I don't know what is.

BATTLE: PHASE 1

Straight off I cast "Burning Explosion of Molten Burning Fire (With Burning)", which kills everyone no matter what. Fortunately the blast is so powerful that it bends the space-time continuum back on itself, so everyone comes back to life. So um, I guess the first phase is pretty easy actually?

BATTLE: PHASE 2

Realizing that I need to tone it down a bit, I cast my third-most powerful spell, "Burning Explosion of Molten Lukewarm Fire." This will kill about 2/3 of your party, however, it is critical that you do not attempt to heal anyone. If anyone tries to heal after this spell, they will trigger the HealPlox Curse, which causes everyone who gets healed to whine about slow healing through the rest of the fight. This will quickly become unbearable.

BATTLE: INTERLUDE

I become tired and sit down for a while. I take out my harmonica and wistfully begin to play "Down and Out in the Twisting Nether." Under no circumstances should you attack me at this time, despite my seeming vulnerability, as I will simply beat you down with my harmonica, taking care of course to time my beatings with the rhythm of my song for a pleasing musical effect.

BATTLE: PHASE 3

Finally, a chance to attack! I cast "Twist and Shout" which is instantly deadly UNLESS you immediately have your character begin dancing. Every time I pause to take a breath, attack! This phase lasts about ten minutes so you should have plenty of time to destroy my armor, which will lead to...

BATTLE: FINAL PHASE

...in which I shift into my ultimate form, "GRAND FUNK RAILROAD" and cast the attack "Down with the Man!" This will destroy all male members in the party.

As this is my only spell in my final form, the remaining members of the party may attack me at their leisure. I promise not to enjoy it...much. ;-)

Well, there you have it...the foolproof strategy for downing the biggest baddie of them all! Best start practicing now.

Don't say I never gave ya nothin'.

My apologies for the lack of posts the past few days, as I just hit 80 and joined a great new guild I've been running Heroics and healing my brains out! Tomorrow there will be a guest post by Sargeras from Coffee with Sargeras and after that I'll be jumpin' back in! Expect some heavy readin'! :D

~Aenorn

Just hit level 80 on my Paladin, now it's time for bigger and better things with him. Healing Naxx, and Ulduar. Winning Wintergrasp battles, etc. I'm extremely excited about adding this chapter to Unholy Hands. Now I'm able to bring even more to you readers. Thank you all for keeping this blog alive!

~Aenorn

Yes, folks. The in game item for Blizzcon 2009 has been announced. It was put up on MMO-Champion yesterday afternoon, as well as WoW Insider. Later that night Blizzard released the official announcement of the non-combat pet. First and foremost I'd just like to state that this pet is made of pure win.

Now I'd like to get into my thoughts on all of this. I think this was a bit unprofessional of both WoW Insider and MMO-Champion. I love both sites, and they have the right to publicize what they find, but Blizzard has stated (and I quote) on the official Blizzcon forums:

"We will likely talk about a goodie bag in-game item in the future (though there are no guarantees of course), but based on the past we don't do this until after the ticket sales and we are much closer to the con happening. Tickets first. :)"

On most things, I wouldn't mind at all. However, this was really Blizzards announcement to make. They probably thought that releasing information on said item before ticket sales would heighten the number of Ebayers and Scalpers who will be buying up tickets only to sell them at higher prices, or those that are just going to sell the code for the pet for 10 times more than the ticket cost.

Blizzard has officially announced it though. This has happened after it started popping up all over the internet. I don't know if they planned it today, but if so they certainly had convenient timing.

This isn't anything huge but it has the possibility of hindering ticket sales to Blizzcon. I know that last year the very first thing I saw when I went to pick up my badge at the box office was a scalper, and an enormous amount of Blizzcon Bears being sold on Ebay.

Those are just my thoughts on the matter. Overall I'm incredibly excited about Blizzcon 2009 and this pet is just another plus!

Yup, Ensidia took yet another world first! Congrats to these guys!

On a side note, Fusion just got the US first for Hard Mode General Vezax! Go go US! :D

This is one of the funniest WoW videos I've ever seen, so I thought I'd share it with you all. Enjoy!

Guild drama, and lots of it! I was listening to the archive of Blue Plz last night, and an interesting topic came up on the show that I can relate with. TotalBiscuit, who will be appearing on The Rawrcast Show on the 30th, brought up the topic of choosing between easy modes, hard modes, or 'medium modes' in Ulduar.

Now, this is interesting because I've heard a lot of guilds say that they want linear progression. Straight forward, you know what you have to do next. I know that one of the top end guilds lost a lot of world firsts because they tried to start on hard modes. I mean think about it, we've come from having to progress straight through an instance, knowing which boss to kill next, to picking and choosing which bosses we want to do, and now we're all the way to not only picking and choosing bosses, but the difficulty of those bosses as well.

TotalBiscuit noted that his guild was having a large amount of arguments as to how they should do Flame Leviathan. Whether they should leave 1 tower up, 2 towers up, or just blow through him to get to the rest of the instance. This is a perfect example of one reason linear raid instances should be brought back into play. There shouldn't be fighting in the raid over what boss they should do next, and how they should do it.

The way I'd like to see instances mapped out is this: The first time you kill a boss you can only kill the regular mode. Once you kill the regular mode of that boss the hard mode becomes available the next raid reset. Add to all of this a straight instance progression from boss to boss and you have a better style of instance. Of course there's issues that arrive with this, but nothing that can't be easily handled.

Having expressed how I feel about how you progress through instances, I'd like to note that I love raiding no matter the size or shape of it. Now, difficulty is another matter all together. I'll be happy with whatever Blizzard implements as long as it poses a challenge. Ulduar was on a higher difficulty level than Naxxramas, not much higher, but they're getting there. Hopefully Blizzard is learning from all this, and maybe eventually we'll see some Sunwell level raids that actually pose a threat. Until then, I'll be sitting in Ulduar deciding if we should try hard mode on the next boss.

~Aenorn

Aha, finally something useful on this blog other than a bunch of rants and rambles right? Yes, folks! It's time for the Unholy Hands raid checklist! Helping you look prepared in front of your GM! Let's jump right in!

Potions/Flasks - A very important aspect to the raiding experience! One health or mana potion can make the difference between life and death, and the same goes for healing/tanking/DPS enhancement flasks.

Food - Don't blow off buying/making food because you think you have a mage or cook coming. Better safe than sorry, plus if you grab the right stuff you can get a nice boost to your stats, and when your mage backs out at the last second you get to be the always prepared hero that saves the day with his amazingly tasteful food of awesomeness!

Reagents - There's nothing more annoying than having a druid not be able to Battle Res because he doesn't have any seeds. Consider this situation: You just wiped on Algalon at 1% and you have enough time for one more try that week if you (in this example you're a shaman) can self-res fast enough, and res the rest of the raid. You're out of reagents. Your guild leader breaks his headset and kicks everyone from vent. The guild falls apart never to be heard from again and everyone quits the game. You'll never forget your reagents again will you?

Your Gear - Gear? Why would I forget my gear? Well, if you're dual specced you likely have 2 sets of gear, and could easily leave one in the bank. There's nothing more embarrassing than being asked to heal for a fight then having to admit you forgot your healing set.

Entertainment - Very important! Whether it be Papa Hummel's Old Fashioned Pet Biscuits or a toy train. They're incredibly useful during bathroom breaks, and at points where some raid members have to head back into town because they forgot their reagents or their gear!

Know the strategies - You have a general idea of who you're going to be trying to down before the raid starts, and if you don't then ask your GM. Read up on the strategies and make sure you know what your doing, random movement doesn't play out well.

Being prepared not only impresses your guild leader, but it makes your fellow members want to do the same so they don't look like morons. Overall, it's obvious that it's best to be ready for every instance. Who knows, maybe you'll end up an officer? No point in playing if ya aint gonna play right.. right?

Good luck!

~Aenorn

Well, if you have a lot of free time on your hands and tend to sit in Dalaran waiting for something to do then you've read the right post! If you don't have time to raid, or have too much time and there aren't any raids going on I figure I might as well give you a few things to do. We don't want anyone getting bored now do we?

Farm mounts - The Deathcharger Reins from Baron Rivendare, The Swift Zulian TIger or Swift Razzashi Raptor from Zul'Gurub. Grab a few people and throw in a Druid and try to get the Reins of the Raven Lord from Heroic Sethekk Halls. Maybe grind some rep with your favorite faction or just do the Argent Tournament dailies. There are plenty of things you can do to get some shiny mounts!

Go Fishing - Not one of my personal favorites, but it can be fun! You can also get some nice rewards from it too. Sea Turtle, for example.

Battlegrounds - I'm not a big PvPer but every now and again I'll hop into the battlegrounds. It's pretty fun when you don't have an arena rating on the line and you aren't really trying to get gear.

Achievements - You knew it was coming. You can always find an achievement to do. Theres probably some title or tabard that you haven't gotten yet.

Non-Combat Pets - I'm a large collector of these. I now have over 70, my favorite being the Hippogryph Hatchling. Theres a lot of pets out there that are just too cute not to collect! Hop on the AH, or grind some rep. Heck, you could even kill some Whelps! If you want to get more into the hobby of collecting these pets head on over to Warcraft Pets! They're incredibly friendly and helpful over there.

Role Play - Yes, it's generally hard to find any role play on non-RP servers, and even tough to find it on some RP servers, but it can be pretty darn fun!

Run heroics - Even if you don't need to. Maybe help a guildie get some badges or an extra piece of gear, or just join a PuG to kill some time till the raid.

Level Alts - I personally HATE leveling alts, even though I've done it 4 times now >_> But it's fun to some people and can be rewarding having characters of all different classes.

Enjoy the scenery - I've mentioned this before. Stop and enjoy some of the views and take a screenshot or 2.

Be Raid Ready - Stock up on Potions, Flasks, Bandages, Arrows, Bullets, Shards, Spell Regeants, Food, Water. Whatever you need to have for the raid be sure you got it!

It's nice to have things to do during raid downtime, and don't forget that raiding isn't the only fun thing to do!

.. Just the MOST fun thing to do ~_^

~Aenorn

No, really. It is. If you've been following MMO-Champion (who isn't?) you know that items from Algalon the Observer, the constellation that feeds on your tears, the hard mode only boss that has yet to be killed, have been added to the Hard Mode loot table of other hard mode bosses.

In all honesty, I have no idea why they've done this. They wanted to make a boss that won't be killed within a day, they did. As far as I've seen everyone was fine with this, they liked the challenge. What I don't understand is why they've added his loot to the bosses hard modes. If they can kill the hard modes, they should at least stand somewhat of a chance against Algalon anyway.

Even the blue post that announced this had "Casuals win again :(" written in it. Now as far as I'm concerned yes, the casuals are complaining and getting what they want. But from my point of view, if they're good enough to kill Hard Modes then they should eventually get Algalon down. This being said, if you can do that then you aren't casual. Casual is raiding 1 or 2 nights a week.

I was fine when Blizzard started nerfing the regular modes of Ulduar, though some of them I thought uncalled for. I still had hard modes, they were a challenge, but giving loot from Algalon, a boss who has yet to be killed by even the highest council of raiders, to players in the form of easier bosses makes absolutely no sense.

Now I don't plan on quitting the game any time soon, but Blizzard is going to lose some of their high end player base if they don't give them the content and rewards they deserve. I don't see anyone leaving the game because they can't kill a certain boss. Blizzard, i'm honestly starting to get upset at the fact that when people aren't good enough to clear content you nerf it so they can. Theres no such thing as "This boss is too hard" if it's been killed before! If it's killable it isn't too hard! You just aren't good enough!

I'll stop on that note, as I don't want to get into a frenzy. Give real raiders some real content.

Omen Threat Meter

This one pretty much explains itself. Omen Threat meter tracks the threat of everyone in your raid. Everyone should have this, as it helps with tank to tank agro during fights where you must switch back and forth between multiple tanks, as well as making sure no one rocks the dps so hard they pull agro from the tank.

Quick Mark

Quick mark is a great addon for tanks, and raid leaders. It helps move things along much quicker on trash pulls and can mean the difference between life and death on bosses. No more right clicking then trying to find the correct icon. It's all easily at your fingertips.

Boss Tactics

One of my absolute favorites. Boss tactics not only provides an easily readable strategy to the boss but also gives you an image showing where everyone should be standing and how they should move. I know before fights where we bring someone new in we have to explain the entire fight over again and it can really slow raids down. I suggest this be on any raiding guilds 'Must have X Addons to raid with us' list.

Deadly Boss Mods

Deadly Boss Mods is an asbolute must have. I can't stress this more, it makes every boss fight so much easier and keeps everyone in the know. It gives timers and raid warnings for boss abilities, and is without a doubt one of the most useful raiding addons out there.

Skada Damage Meter

Some might argue that damage meters aren't a necessity, they're a bragging right. I disagree. Every raid leader should have some sort of damage/healing meter. When you're trying for a boss that you know you'll need the absolute best in the guild on you want to know who that is right? You want to know who can push out the most damage and who can heal the greatest right? Definitely a must have.

A Customizable UI

The most important thing you can have. You need to be able to know where your spells are, where your own frame is, as well as where the rest of your raids frames are. My recommendations: Don't have a bunch of clutter and junk all over your screen. Keep it simple and to the point. Don't have your frame and your targets from half way across the screen from your raid frames. You need to be able to target and cast quickly. Bind your keys, make macros, do whatever you need to do to keep your UI as clear and straight forward as possible.

On that note, I bid Good Luck to you all!

~Aenorn

Blizzard just announced the dates that Blizzcon tickets will go on sale. Tickets will be bought through the Blizzard Storeusing a Battle.net account. Tickets will be $125 dollars a piece. (Up from $100 last year.) Blizzard has also set up a second date, May 30th, for those unable to purchase tickets on the 16th.

If you attended Blizzcon last year you understand how frustrating it was and how many issues kept arising. This year Blizzard has made upgrades to the Blizzard Store including a first-come, first-served queue system and a fixed time limit for completing purchases. You can read further details on the que system here.

Blizzard is also bringing back the coverage on DirecTV. Existing DirecTV customers will be able to purchase the Pay Per View coverage for $39.95. In addition, those who buy this will also be able to view the internet stream of the event coverage. Also, in the weeks ahead DirecTV will be promoting the Blizzcon coverage, allowing anyone who signs up for DirecTV that is not currently a customer to recieve all of this forfree. Those watching on DirecTV will also recieve the in-game item that will be announced at a later date.

Blizzcon is being held on August 21st, and 22nd at the Anaheim convention center in Anaheim, California.

I myself attended Blizzcon last year, and I must say that it's an absolutely amazing experience. Theres nothing like it, I certainly recommend going if you're able to. I plan to attend this year as well, and will likely provide coverage throughout.

Hope to see you all there!

~Aenorn

A question that's been haunting my mind. All of the full fledged, one role classes are able to do only 1 thing; DPS, while the rest of the player base are able to either tank, heal, or do all three roles. As I paid attention to the damage meters during my raids I never really saw a Hybrid do any great amount of DPS higher than a full fledged DPSer such as a Hunter, or a Mage, and vice versa. A Ret Paladin or a Fury Warrior are able to push out just as much damage as a Warlock or Rogue, but they're able to switch to a different role as they please.

Being a Tank, DPSer, and soon to be Healer, I didn't benefit nearly as much on my Hunter as I did on my Paladin, and he isn't even 80 yet. I didn't even bother dual speccing on my Hunter because either way I'll be doing the same thing. There seems to be no point other than switching between PvP and PvE specs, and I don't PvP. I could switch between two PvE specs but one will push out more damage than the other and it just doesn't make sense to switch to the lesser of the two.

Dual specs aren't the only thing that make Hybrids superior, as I stated above I don't really see a damage difference between the 2 class types. This means that a Druid with 2 sets of epic gear that's dual specced for DPS and Healing could likely be more useful than a Mage whom can either DPS or.. DPS.

Some complain that there seems to be nothing that makes up for the fact that one role classes have no advantage in that certain role over Hybrids, which can excel in everything. Every class has it's strength and weaknesses. For instance, you aren't going to get the CC with a Shadow Priest as you are with a Mage, and with Ulduar you can't just faceroll AoE everything anymore. Though you can argue that Hybrid DPS trees have their advantages as well, replenishment in the Retribution tree for instance. In the end I think everything 'somewhat' balances out.

I believe that right now Hybrids have an advantage over one role classes, and I'm sure it's challenging to balance this all out. It's more than just "Make this class hit more". It's complex mathematics and a lot of hard work. We've seen Blizzard Reps state that there won't be many more major class changes in wrath and I'm happy for that. I don't like having to replace all my talents every time a patch that changes them comes along.

Ending note: Make Ret Paladins take more than a quarter of the brain to play Blizz :)

~Aenorn

Yes, friends. Noblegarden is finally over. Whilst others were complaining about eggs being camped and all the 'Boink!' noises going around, I was enjoying this holiday. It may not have been as well thought out by Blizzard as some of the other Holidays, but I had fun nonetheless.

Blizzard has so much stuff that they need to do for this game that they just throw holidays in there for the joy of the players, though I gave up the quest for my Violet Proto-Drake a good while ago I still have fun participating. It takes a lot of stress out of having to get the achievements.

All in all I enjoyed the holiday as just that, a holiday. Not a competition for eggs. Look on the bright side people! You got to wear bunny ears!

~Aenorn

Fight Club is a weekly guide featuring a new instance or boss each Monday.

To enter the Eye of Eternity at least one person in your raid must have completed the quest from either the 10 or 25 man version of the Key to the Focusing Iris from Saphiron.

Malygos

Now, Malygos is a fairly tough fight. Compared to other instances, it's harder than Naxxramas, but easier than Ulduar. It can take some time to get down, but once you do it's a piece of cake.

As you might have guessed, Malygos is the only boss in this instance. To begin the fight click on the crystal ball that's on the platform your raid is on. Malygos has a 10 minute enrage timer.

Phase one

During phase one, the tank should simply keep Malygos in the center of the platform. Don't forget, Malygos is a dragon. This means you should never stand in front or behind him because of his tail whip and arcane breaths. He hits hard but slow, so make sure to keep the tank topped off in case of Arcane Breath.

Throughout phase one Malygos will spawn power sparks. They're large balls of lightning that start at random sides of the platform and move toward Malygos. If these are allowed to reach him his Arcane Breath will likely 1 shot your tank. Ranged DPS should bring these sparks down to around 10% and them let them move nearer to Malygos. Once they're where most of your raid is they MUST DIE. They drop an electric cloud that gives a 50% boost to damage to everyone in it. This is absolutely needed to beat the enrage timer. Stuns and Death Grip work on Power Sparks if you're in a sticky situation.

The other part of phase one is his Tornado. What this dose is throws everyone up into the air, dealing damage to them all. Once it's over everyone will take fall damage, and Malygos will immediately use Arcane Breath most likely killing everyone in front of him. (Except the tank.) Instant cast healing and ranged spells are usable during his Tornado, and sometimes melee attacks as well.

Once Malygos reaches 50% he will begin phase 2. He will slowly take off, so keep nuking him until he is out of range.

Phase Two

During Phase Two Malygos himself can't actually be targeted, instead you'll be dealing with his adds. However, throughout this phase he will cast Deep Breath. This deals 4,000 Damage per second unless you are in one of his anti-magic zones. These are the purple bubbles. Your raid members should ALWAYS be under these. They shrink over time so you must make sure to keep everyone moving to the newest one.

The main part of this phase is killing the Lords and Scions. The Lords come down to the platform and must be tanked, they'll one shot anyone who isn't a tank. Once a Lord dies it will drop a disk, one player can then mount on that disk and fly into the air to kill the Scions (Which don't come down) The suggested order for the disks is melee and then ranged. Also note that the Scions will cast arcane blast on a random target on the platform, it's mitigated by the Anti-Magic Zone but be sure to watch everyones health.

After every NPC is dead phase 3 will begin. Before it starts you will have another chance to burn a good 5-10% of his health . Phase 3 begins with Malygos breaking the platform and everyone falling onto Dragons.

Phase Three

Phae Three is completed on Dragons using a vehicle system. The way I prefer to do it is to have 2 groups of people. One in the east and one in the south, flying left to avoid Malygos' cloud attack. Also, make sure that no one get's in melee range of Malygos.

Use however many healers you feel is necessary here, same goes for DPS. Remember, anyone can heal and anyone can DPS here no matter there spec or class. Healers should HoT raid members up with Revivify and use Life Burst just before it's out of ticks.

The 2 attacks you should use as a DPSer are Flame Spike (this builds combo points) and Engulf in Flames (This is a finishing move) The recommended rotation for this is:

2 Flame Spikes -> Engulf in Flames (Repeat)

The reason for this is that with 5 combo points the Engulf in Flames lasts longer but does little extra damage.

Flame Shield is a finishing move, so if Malygos focuses on you make sure to have at least one combo point up, preferably more. It's also said that you can outrun his attack with the 500% speed boost ability.

Just burn him down until Alexstrasza comes in and finishes the fight. Recieve your loot from Alexstraszas Gift, then exit through the portal.

I've created a few shirts for Unholy Hands so if you have cash to burn.. get one!

Hardcore vs. Casual Shirt



Unholy Hands Shirt

I'm sure you all know that recently a new boss has been added to the Vault of Archavon instance going by the name of Emalon the Storm Watcher. He's a tier higher than Archavon, meaning he drops Tier 8 in 10 man, and 8.5 in 25 man. He also drops whatever the new PvP gear is, but I don't PvP often enough to know what that's called :X

Now Vault of Archavon in general I've always had an issue with. The main problem was simply this: It doesn't make sense. A ton of issues arise when you actually think about VoA.

Let's talk about Archavon specifically for a second. As long as you control Wintergrasp you can fight him once a week, and your faction WILL control Wintergrasp at least once a week. Now, Archavon is an incredibly easy boss. I know it, you know it, we all know it. An incredibly easy boss that drops great loot. Tier 7 and 7.5 and whatever that PvP gear is. Blizzard said that if you had trouble getting a piece or 2 of your tier gear that they would allow you to buy it with badges, so that kicks that excuse out of the running as to why his loot is so great.

Now let's focus on Emalon, the tier 8 boss. He's harder than Archavon. What I want to emphasize there is hardER. He is not Hard, he's in fact VERY easy if both sides of your brain are working, and Blizzard thinks that he should have the same level of loot that Ulduar has? Ulduar IS Hard, it's finely tuned, sure there are some nerfs here and there but all in all it's challenging. It just absolutely does not make sense for players to be able to recieve loot because they can't clear the harder content that drops it.

Basically Blizzard is awarding players for being bad at the game. I'm sorry, but it's true. What they're saying is "Oh you can't clear this 14 boss dungeon that's great in design and tuned correectly? Oh well here ya go then, you can have the loot anyway."

All this applies to PvP gear as well. I never PvP, and honestly I'm bad at it, but I could easily walk into VoA and grab some gear that I really don't deserve. I'm sure all that gear has rating requirements that I wouldn't dream of meeting. That's what it boils down to, Emalon and Archavon are Blizzards way of giving players gear that they don't deserve.

In the end, I hope Blizzard gets their head together before Icecrown. They say they want everyone to be able to see the content they release, yet they release content and then give away all the reasons for seeing it anyway. Heres a thought: Make real raids (such as Ulduar) on a higher tier level than VoA. That way players can still be content because they get purples, but players that have actually cleared the hard content will have their own, better set of gear. You could say they've done this with 10 and 25 mans, but they haven't. 25 mans aren't harder they just require more people. You could also say they've done this with Hard modes, and that's a closer step toward it, but it isn't a higher tier of armor, it's just some extra epics. Tier gear should be the end all be all of armor in this game and it's being handed out like free samples at Walmart.

My final thoughts: Sunwell was a real achievement, and I hope to God that in the end of Wrath Blizzard won't be handing out gear from Arthas like they do with their current content.

Sorry for the lack of a post today, me and my family were moving to a new house so I didn't have any time to do anything but tweet every now and then, tomorrow shouldn't be as busy so look forward to a nice shiny new post!

Yes, at 2:33 AM I am finally finished. There may be a few tweaks I need to work out here and there but for the most part I'm really glad with it!

Tomorrow I'll be entirely overhauling the look of Unholy Hands so if you see the page one way and come back later to a different look don't worry, it's just me messing things up! :)

 

So let's get to know you a bit first, how long have you been playing WoW?

I've been playing WoW since January of 2008

Was Rogue your first choice or did you mess around with other classes then finally decide to land where you are now?

Rogue was absolutely my first choice (and is any just about any game I play), I've played around with other classes since then but never seriously

What's the name of your guild?
Axiom

So how far has your guild gotten into Ulduar in both 10 and 25 man?

We've gotten to Mimiron on 10 man and Thorim on 25

Do you like or dislike using vehicles at all in a raid instance?

  I'm not really a fan of the vehicle use in Malygos but I think that has more to do with the mechanics of that phase than the fact that we're using vehicles, clumping up and spinning in a circle just doesn't do it for me.  Now Flame Leviathan, that fight is the most fun I've had in a long time.  It's easy but I love it.

Have you completed any Hard modes yet?

As of yet, no.  Gotta give the instance a few clears before we try that.  I'm thinking (hoping) we'll have it cleared next week.

What boss has been the most challenging so far?

I believe that Razerscale gave us the most trouble at first but I think that had more to do with us getting back in the swing of raiding content that's brand new and hasn't been on farm for what feels like forever.  Also, once we realized that the devouring flames target the closest person it was cake.  Delicious chocolate cake.

How would you rate compare the difficulty level of Ulduar to Naxxramas?

On a scale of one to ten.  With Sunwell being a 10 and killing critters being a 1, I would say Naxx is a 3 with Ulduar being an 8, probably peaking towards 9 on the hard modes.

Do you agree with the nerfing of regular modes Blizzard is introducing?

Some of them needed nerfing (Ignis was a terror but that was probably had more to do with bugs) but I definately think they over did it.  XT is a completely joke now.  Adding another minute to the enrage timer seems ok but I felt like trantrum was at the right level of difficulty already.

How about the buffing of Hard modes?

  I'm all for this, I love an encounter than can kick my butt.
Does being able to dual spec benefit your raid greatly or is it something you find yourself and guild mates rarely using in Ulduar?
(and if being used often) does it effect the way your guild distributes items?

Does being able to dual spec benefit your raid greatly or is it something you find yourself and guild mates rarely using in Ulduar?Does it effect the way your guild distributes items?

I haven't seen anyone use their dual spec for a raid yet.  It's not a requirement in our guild, most of us are using it for PvP.  I know that no one would have a problem switching for a fight if we needed them to.  As for loot, we use a very awesome loot list system and dual spec hasn't (and can't really) effect that

Have any Shards of Val'anyr dropped yet?

  Yes, I believe we have 4 or 5

How is your guild distributing them?

  I wasn't involved in the decision, that was something the officers and the healers worked out (despite how good I am with bandages I wasn't invited).  I believe they had a roll off

How do you feel about only being able to fight Algalon one hour per week?

I think it's a cool idea.  Help shape up those guilds with terrible wipe recovery (like us)

On a scale of 1 to 10 how well do you think Blizzard is tuning raid content in Wrath?

  If I had only seen Naxx, I'd say 5 but now, having seen Ulduar I get exactly what they're going for (a nice steady progression) so I'd say 7.5

Is your guild still doing Naxx or is it strictly Ulduar right now as far as time consuming instances?

Nope, it's Ulduar and Ulduar only now.

Do you have any tips for any raiders out there?

Wake up.  No seriously, I had to turn my A game back on for Ulduar.  But for an actual legitimate tip, I'd say work on your UI.  I'm a strong proponent of organizing your UI in order to keep the most relevant information in the middle of the screen for easy access while keeping your situational awareness high.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with me!

Anytime

Be sure to check out Zaltu’s Blog, One Rogues Journey!

That's right, folks! Ensidia just killed Mimiron hard mode, which makes them to first guild to reach Algalon on 25-man. Let's see how long it'll take to get him down ~_^

Grats to Ensidia!

Yay! Children's week is finally here! We can all run those little brats around the entire World of Warcraft for some achievements and a title. Fun right? Well, The past few years it may have been, but this year I'm just not 'feeling it'.

As far as I can tell there are no Children's Week quests in Northrend. This saddens me greatly. I was looking forward to having to run a Tuskaar kid all around Northrend and maybe get a baby seal to club as a reward! Instead, it's going back to Stormwind and Shattrath, going to the same places. I feel cheated in a sense, I thought Blizzard would make a tradition about adding new Children's Week quests every expansion.

This is the first time Children's Week has had achievements, and everyones likely to be going crazy over them because you'll need to complete them all to continue your quest toward the 310% Violet Proto-Drake. I was determined to get this when achievements came out, but sadly with the loss of my account I was knocked out of the running of having it any time within the first year, so I pretty much just gave up. I can live without it, heck I don't even know if I'll get my epic flyer on my Paladin.

Speaking of my Paladin! He's well on his way to level 76 now and I suspect he'll be 80 in no time.

That's all I got for today, good luck to you all! (And your orphans too)