Four down... 9 More to go.

So my 19 man downed the first 4 bosses in Ulduar last weekend.  It was a lot of fun!  And we got two of the three bosses down for the Iron Council so I know we will get it down this weekend.

We got Flame Leviathan, Razorscale and XT down on Thursday.  Then Sunday we came back and got Ignis and worked on the Iron Council.  

One little hint that may be helpful for Razor is that there are two types of balls of fire that fall from the sky.  Blue balls and Orange/Blue balls.  Now, we all know there are certain things in life you don't want, and this continues to be true.  IF YOU SEE THE BLUE BALLS COMING YOUR WAY, MOVE!  The Blue balls put the blue flame on the ground and kill you if you stand in it.  The Orange/Blue Balls are the fireballs and while they deal damage, they aren't as big a deal.  So, please notice Blue balls = bad, not that you probably didn't already know that!  ;)

What I did learn on XT was that every little bit helps.  I used my Tranquility during the second Tympanic Tantrum and that really helped with the healing for my group.  And I was still top DPS with 5100 so I was happy I could help heal the group and put out the dps.  Also, if you don't know, there is now trash in XT's room that you can pull before you engage XT.  This helps a lot! 

And on Ignis, when you are in the pot, use your healthstones, potions, and lifeblood if you have them.  This will make things much easier on your healers.

Currently I am full cat spec and running with Glyph of Rip, Glyph of Shred and Glyph of Savage Roar.   I am really enjoying cat right now but I also enjoy tanking.  I'm not so fond of healing, but I know that my guild runs short of healers occassionally so I can't just make my two specs bear/cat but I think it would be lots of fun. 

Ulduar

So my guild normally runs 25 man raids, but before we do that, most of us like to run the 10 man versions to get an idea of how things work.  We do this because we are a casual guild and we don't just invite the best of the best for raids.  That being said, we have composed 2 10 man raids and are giving it one heck of a go.  

My groups name is Short Bus All-Stars (SBAS) and we have been running 10 man Naxx together for months now.  The other group is He-Man Woman Haters (HMWH).  Yes, we are odd with our names.

Last Thursday, SBAS went into Ulduar for the first time missing a few of our regulars so we picked up a couple of other folks.  Well, Flame Leviathan is a lot of fun and we downed him pretty quickly.  We then moved on to the trash outside Ignis and I got 1 shot.  Needless to say, I was a bit shocked but we tried a couple of times, but we just didn't have the dps.  So we decided to give Razorscale a go.  That fight is pretty simple and fun also but again, we didn't have the dps for it and a couple of people had to go so we called it a night.

We went back in on Sunday and started with Razorscale.  That was a lot of fun and we were able to get it pretty quickly and he went down!  Yeah!  Then we cleared all the trash in front of Ignis and gave him a go several times, but we had trouble coordinating the iron constructs, we would get them molten and I would take them into the water, but then couldn't get the damage needed to for them to explode.  So the trash ended up respawning before we got him so we moved on to XT.  Now this was an interesting fight since we only had 1 ranged dps.  So to compensate, Steaky respecced to Boomkin and our Pally started healing.  Still, I think this fight would have gone much better had we had more ranged dps to get the adds down quickly.  That was our biggest problem.  On one of our attempts we got him down to 40% with 3 minutes and 40 seconds left, but then the adds just got too much.  Hopefully our ranged dps folks can make it this week.

Overall, some things I learned were:

1.  On Razorscale, keep moving, don't stop.  I seemed to die every time I stopped moving for some reason and it wasn't just the blue flames on the ground.

2.  On the trash outside Ignis, the flame tornado mobs need to be tanked on either side of the wall and be prepared to move away from the tornados they spawn.

3.  Scorch hurts. Don't stand in it longer than you have to.  

4.  Kitty dps on the heart of XT rocks, but keep a lookout for pummelers.

and most of all,

5.  Get a motorcycle for FL, that is way too much fun!!!

P.S.  Got my Glyph of Savage Roar.  Ouch!  But my priest finally got a Book of Glyph Mastery and learned Glyph of Penance.  Now if only she was 80.

It's Hereeeeeee........

Well, Patch 3.1 is here and I'm happy about that.  

However, I'm pissed as hell at Curse and Wow Interface.  I don't ever click on the damn ads, I never even look at them.  All I want is a nice easy way to update my addons regularly.  And when I tried the Curse one, all it did was not update things and give me errors.  I DON'T want that damn thing.  So now I'm back to manually doing it. 

Growl, I am not a happy bear.

Glyphs

From the 3.1 Official Patchnotes : 

Applying a glyph no longer requires a Lexicon of Power. The same rules for switching between dual talent specializations now apply to switching glyphs and cannot be performed while in combat, Battlegrounds (except when Preparation is up), or Arenas (no exceptions).

This change is a wonderful thing for Bearcats everywhere.  This means that if you truly need to be one or the other for a fight, you can swap glyphs in Ulduar and give that much more help to your raid.

Therefore, in my case, I can carry stacks of different glyphs:

Glyph of Maul

Glyph of Growl

Glyph of Savage Roar

Glyph of Shred

Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration

Glyph of Rip

Glyph of Mangle (situational, but I like it)

Most of the time I will choose glyphs so that I don't have to switch, but if my raid wipes a few times, it might be nice to give them a little extra help on my part.  Whether that be as bear or as cat, I want to do my best to kill that boss.

I will probably run with Glyph of Maul, Glyph of Savage Roar, and probably Glyph of Shred most of the time, but having the option to switch them out is very nice.

I personally have an Inscriptionist so I can make these much cheaper than you can buy them. I know that it will take me a while to learn all the new ones, but I will get them.  So ya'll should find yourself a nice Inscriptionist and see if you can trade them something worthwhile so they will hook you up!!  

Am I ready?

So I have been reading stuff on Ulduar as I'm sure most folks have at this point.  And I'm beginning to wonder if I'm all that ready or not.  Currently I usually have about 43K health with 34K - 36K armor and almost 50% dodge buffed.  Now, I know that I could have way more HP if I gemmed for stamina, and while a large health pool is nice, I still prefer to dodge when I can.  

So with the changes that they are making to bears, my armor and health will go down considerably, but I will have Savage Defense.  Well, normally my AP is close to 6K and I have almost 50% crit so it should be up quite a bit.  

I have most of the gear I could want for bear other than a drop or two from Sarth 2D but that is because of all the guild changes lately that we just haven't gotten everyone back up to that same skill level we had in January.  

And I'm actually considering stocking materials to make Flask of Stoneblood after the patch hits. Especially since it has now been buffed and my HP will be taking a hit.  I think this may be more useful than the Flask of Endless Rage since it would only add 45 to my shield.  

I also have about 25 Fish Feast to share and I have mats to make another 20.  I also have 18 Blackened Dragonfin and I'm going to go fishing to get the mats for more.  So I'm hoping to be ready to hit Ulduar when the patch hits.

I am going to make a bunch of the other foods too and put them in the guild bank.  Plus I regularly put all sorts of elixirs in there.  Since raiding is definately not a one person thing, I try to do what I can so my guildies can be ready also.

Overall, I think I have a few more things to get before Ulduar, but I think I'm close to ready.

Are You?

You want me to do what?

So last night it was time for 25 man Naxx again....  And I have convinced a friend to come back and play on our server and he was specced tank.  So I was going to roll Kitty.  But then the unspeakable happened.... We  Were  Short  Healers.... dun dun dun......

So I specced tree and tried to figure out what the hell was mapped where and who I was supposed to be healing.  As I have said before, this is normally my wife's job.  But I thought I would give it a shot since I have been collecting all of this gear for healing.

So 2 Trees, 2 Priests and a Pally walk into Naxx for some healing action......

So the Spider wing goes fine, no issues there.  

On to the Plague wing, starting Noth and people get cursed and I'm told to Remove Curse..... Shit I don't have that set up in Healbot or on my bar.....  And neither do the two mages...Wipe.  So we rez and go back and now I have Healbot set up and the mages have Decursive going...... and Noth goes down...Yeah!  However, I got Healbot set up for Remove Curse but forgot to check to make sure that my CTL button was mapped correctly on my speedpad.  Had to map that in the middle of the Noth fight..... thank goodness that the G13 let me do that!

Okay, onto Heigan and the dance.  I learned a VERY important lesson.  Screw everyone else, don't heal them, just dance.  Needless to say I was trying to heal and dance at the same time and I died, and I never die on the dance when I'm melee or tanking.  So, no healing while dancing...got it.

Moving on to Loethab.  We are all still buffing and getting ready and a couple of us were still in the hall when someone pulled.  So a hunter, mage and myself get locked out of the fight.  And I thought surely I could keep the three of us alive.  WRONG. Damn it I suck.  I hate the friggin' 3 second healing window!  All three of us died.  Argh.  Well at least the rest of the group got him down. 

So on to Patchwerk and I'm assigned to the MT, which is good since he will need less healing.  Yeah!!  But one of our priest healers and his mage wife had to go to bed, so we are down to 4 healers.  Yeah, we just didn't quite have the healing to get it done, but I don't think I sucked that bad!!  I was able to keep my tank up so I am happy about that.

Overall I think it was a good run, we went and did VoA pretty quick after we left Naxx.  Several times I had to ask her, "Honey, how exactly am I supposed to heal this?" or "What the hell am I supposed to do?"   Don't get me wrong, I'm really not one of those bears.....  but I just don't have her knowledge of the best way to heal a tank on Patchwerk or really anything else.  And I keep forgetting to use Lifebloom.  oops, maybe I really should stick to Bear!