The Bear and the Lock....

Once upon a time in a universe far away, there was a handsome bear who liked to help rid the world of evil and would get right up in their face doing it. Well, Ylee was really a druid who shapeshifts, but really, he thought of himself mainly as a bear. And on this day, he choose to go to free slaves and kill evil undead in a place called Pit of Saron......

He chose some of his best friends who had seen him through many dark and dangerous places.

Two warriors, Gargle and Vagrant; his wife who is also a druid in the form of a tree, Splinter; and a warlock, Zanex.

So the group meets up at the opening of the cave to defeat this new evil. Ylee checks to make sure that everyone is ready and they proceed in.

"Wow there are a lot of undead here" Ylee mutters. "I guess it is a good thing they are all mindless or we could be in trouble".

Gargle and Vagrant are looking the undead over and discussing how to kill them the best. Splinter is making sure her leaves are in place so her healing spells are most powerful in case they need them. Zanex is cackling quietly to his imp minion while straightening his robes.

The group starts forward to the first group of undead and Ylee says "Well, you all know the drill, give me a couple of seconds to round them all up so they don't hurt you guys." Ylee prides himself on keeping his friends safe from harm while they do most of the damage and kill the undead minions of the Lich King. And so Ylee roars and charges ahead to get the monsters in the first pack to attack him so his friends would be safe when they started damaging the undead. All goes as planned and the first group dies quickly.

The next group is tricky because if Ylee and his friends aren't careful, they could accidentlly attract the attention of another two groups of nearby undead and drakes and their riders.

"Let me try and grab these guys and bring them back to y'all" Ylee says. Gargle and Vagrant think that this sounds like the best idea. So Ylee runs up and attacks the main guy on the drake and begins to run back to the group but somehow, the rider starts running directly for Zanex. Ylee notices this and starts running toward the rider with all the other evils trailing behind him but before he can growl menacingly at the rider, Zanex gives a howl of fear and creatures start running around in different directions.

Ylee angrily growls and then the worst thing happens, several of the scattering creatures run into the other two groups, so now instead of 2 creatures to try and kill, the group has over 10. Ylee frantically runs around trying to gather up the evil creatures to save his friends. Splinter is casting healing spells so fast you can barely see her branches move and Gargle and Vagrant are running behind Ylee trying to kill the creatures as quick as they can. During this time Zanex recovers and is also casting spells killing things.

Miraculously, the group survives but none quite know how.

As soon as all the creatures are dead again, Ylee runs over to Zanex and pushes him over and stands on top of him pinning him to the ground.

"I told you never to cast that spell in a place like this" Ylee yells at Zanex with saliva dripping onto Zanex's face. "You almost killed us! If you have a death wish, let us know now cause Splinter and I don't want to die and I don't want to have to tell Moppy that Gargle died or Mayhem that you died. You can just go home if that is the case!"

Ylee is continuing to stand over Zanex huffing into his face when Zanex whines "But it was coming after me!"

Angrily Ylee responds, "That is because you didn't wait for me to get them into position and truly command their attention. I know you like to brag about your number of kills after a run like this, but I've told you before if you get any of us killed, what good is your number of kills?"

Ylee steps off of Zanex and allows him to stand while saying "The most important thing is that we do our part to rid the world of these undead minions. The number of kills we each get is meaningless if we die in the process only to be resurrected by the Lich King. We work as a team, remember! Try to remember that next time instead of worrying about how many you kill."

Both Gargle and Vagrant stare angrily at Zanex while Splinter is tending to Ylee's wounds.

"Sorry" says Zanex, "I will wait longer next time. I don't want us all to die."

And with this the group continues to kill the undead minions in this place so that hopefully soon, they can make their way to the Lich King and kill him once and for all.

Lord Marrowgar and Lady Deathwhisper

Lord Marrowgar went down in one shot last night. I have heard thru the grapevine that he was dealing 25 man damage in 10 man mode. That would sort of explain why he was hitting so damn hard.

We also made a couple of attempts at Lady Deathwhisper (LD) but since it was late and none of us had actually read up on the fight too much in advance, it didn't go that smoothly. We only got to phase 2 once out of like 3 tries.

But I have since researched it and I'm going to put down what I know and what we found out in easy terms that I hope I can remember and might help someone else. Everything is for 10 man normal mode. Note: LD has a 10 minute hard enrage timer.

Phase 1

LD has a mana shield up with 3.3 million mana. You have to burn thru that to get to the point where you can damage her. She has no aggro table at this phase so no tank needed. She does cast shadowbolts and death and decay. Everyone should know the main rule of raiding by this point, which is "Don't Stand in Shit" so when you see the green area on the ground, run out of it.

First adds spawn at 15 seconds into the fight and every 40 seconds thereafter from either the right or the left side of the room. Right side group will have 2 adherents and 1 fanatic. Left side group will have 1 adherent and 2 fanatics. Adherents are casters and fanatics are melee. Only one side pops at at time so tanks pick up and melee burn them down. Sometimes LD will reanimate the adds and then they do a lot more damage.

Adherents are casters and when LD reanimates them, they become immune to magical damage, so make sure to have your physical damage tank (bears, warriors, blood DKs) pick them up and kite them around. Melee burn them down.

Fanatics are melee and when LD reanimates them, they become immune to physical damage, so make sure to have your spell damage tank (pallys, Frost DKs, Undead DKs) pick them up and kite them around. Ranged burn them down.

During most of phase 1, have your ranged dps wail on LD and only dps on the adds if you have a reanimated fanatic. Another job that needs to be done during this phase is when LD empowers the adds, someone needs to dispel it.

An adherent that is empowered will cast Shroud of the Occult so melee needs to burn that as quickly as possible to get the shroud down. Run away from everyone if you get the deathchill blast or you damage everyone around you.

A fanatic that is empowered will get Vampiric Might which will heal them to full and he will do more damage. Kite him around if you can't CC him while you wait for the debuff to go away. Tanks can taunt him back and forth while melee kills him. But remember to beware of his cleave as it really hurts.

If you have time between when you take down the groups of adds and the next wave, everyone should be on the boss doing as much dps as you can. Hopefully you will have her mana shield down in at most 6 minutes, to do this, you need at least 9,167 dps on her shield to get it done.

Phase 2

No more adds will spawn during this phase but she will keep casting her D&D. At the beginning of this phase is an aggro wipe so make sure someone announces she is about to start phase 2.

Have your MT pick her up and keep her until the MT gets 2-3 stacks of Touch of Insignificance then have the OT taunt her. Rinse repeat. Also you need to make sure that you have several people who can interrupt her Frostbolts cause they hit like a mac truck.

LD will also raise ghosts during this phase, and the shades will pick a random target and move towards them. If they get in melee range of the target KABOOM. So make sure to keep an eye out for the shades and move away from them until they despawn in a few seconds. Wowhead says that it is melee range of its target, but I can't confirm yet if it is any target in melee range or just the one it has targeted.

Well I hope this guide is helpful and helps you keep your fur clean and shiny!

OMG this rocks

So, I was reading BBB today and saw this

It was apparently done by Tesh and I must say he freaking rocks!

And while it is a NE druid in the picture, it totally captures the attitude correctly of what I have been thinking.

I love the fact I don't wear plate with all the other guys. I love tanking in the buff so to speak!

However, it is sort of tough in a raid environment because if you are a plate tank, you might have to roll against 1-2 other guys for plate gear. Me, I have to roll against the 5-6 rogues we currently are running with and the 5-6 people who want my weapons. That is the only thing I really hate about the new loot system. Plate tanks still don't have as much competition as us bears for gear. Plate tanks only roll against other plate tanks. Bears roll against rogues and cats. So I'm just saying it can be tough.....

Anyway, I just had to share the picture because it is too awesome!

Working Life....

Oh, and I found out yesterday morning that my company is going to be bought out by ExxonMobil.

Article

Ugh, I liked my smallish company. So who knows what will happen. I expect to have a job, but will I like it in the long run?

Sigh

Happy Holidays everyone.

ICC

So the patch has hit and everyone is excited. After my group cleared ToC10 last week, we went and tried ICC10.

Woah! Things didn't go all that well. Our best shot on Marrowgar was 54%. However, I think our biggest issue was we only have 1 ranged person. And for whatever reason, I can't seem to buy a ranged person. When we first walked in, my OT was right next to me and I was still getting 1 shot. Holy cow. I have 32K armor with 25% dodge (after the chill) with 50K health. I don't think that is chump change.

I wasn't expecting to just waltz in there and down him, but I sure wasn't expecting what I got.

And now, every blog I read and most sites talk about clearing the first 4 bosses. And all I can wonder is what have we done wrong that they did right?

Then, I went back on Sunday with my "Alt" group. Me on my Elemental Shammy for dps. And this time we had 3 ranged dps, 2 melee dps, 3 healers and 2 tanks. We ended up moving one of the melee to make a third tank and still the best we got was 38%.

I'm just frustrated. So, instead of running ToC10 this week, I have scheduled ToGC10. Just to try to push the limits of my raiders. But I wonder how much difference that will make. I have pretty decent gear and there aren't any upgrades from ToGC10 for me really. I could upgrade my staff one notch, but otherwise, there isn't much. Same for most of my group. So I know the gear is slightly better, but will it give us the edge to kill Marrowgar?

Anyone have any better suggestions?