🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 29 Jun 2013 23:10:56 -0500, Cryptoengineer
<treif...@gmail.com> wrote:

>This is part of the Black Prince Legendary quest line.
>
>Finally got to it, but am having a *lot* of trouble. Part of the issue is 
>that my DPS spec (Ret pally) is my offspec, and I neither play it 
>particularly well, nor is it very well geared. 6866 on wow-heroes, compared 
>to 7526 for my main, Holy spec. I've gemmed and enchanted my gear, and 
>brought my average DPS up from ~2500 to ~3500, but it doesn't seem to help 
>(at least I can now get through the trash at the start).
>
>Another part of the problem is not fully groking the mechanics - some posts 
>on wowhead suggest popping all the anvils when the final phase is entered, 
>but that seems not to help.
>
>Any suggestions from others on the quest line?

Haven't done it, but I've heard it can be done in any spec, so...
would it be worth trying in your Holy spec (and better gear) and
letting Wrathion tank or however it works for healers? I flippin' well
hope it works for healers anyway, given I have two healing specs and
not the foggiest idea how to play as shadow :-P

Den 30-06-2013 06:10, Cryptoengineer skrev:
> This is part of the Black Prince Legendary quest line.
>
> Finally got to it, but am having a *lot* of trouble. Part of the issue is
> that my DPS spec (Ret pally) is my offspec, and I neither play it
> particularly well, nor is it very well geared. 6866 on wow-heroes, compared
> to 7526 for my main, Holy spec. I've gemmed and enchanted my gear, and
> brought my average DPS up from ~2500 to ~3500, but it doesn't seem to help
> (at least I can now get through the trash at the start).
>
> Another part of the problem is not fully groking the mechanics - some posts
> on wowhead suggest popping all the anvils when the final phase is entered,
> but that seems not to help.
>
> Any suggestions from others on the quest line?

I had at _least_ 40 attempts on this boss when I did it on my mage...  I 
know that as I spent exactly 2 stacks of healing pots! ^^

Stay near an unused anvil or keep track of the unused and used anvils so 
you can click one when the boss casts his insanity.  Watch his castbar 
as his insanity has a 5 sec cast time or such.  My experience is that 
even if you click an anvil he still could cast Insanity.  It happened 
rarely though, but I guess it was a latency issue.
Kill the small add asap when it appears or it will take out your helper 
for a time in the fight.  Meanwhile you have to nuke him hard even when 
youre avoiding his rain etc...  Spend all your CDs at start.
When he is about 20% or a little less you have to click the spear or 
whatever it is and throw it asap!

Maybe a raid flask or two will help you.  Also you may have to check 
your talents for this fight.  I had to use other talents which I wasnt 
familiar with (casting while I'm on the move etc).

Btw.  when youre dead you have to resurrect as close as possible to the 
door so you dont automatically start the fight when you res again.  That 
gives you time to heal up etc. :)  If you have a warlock in the guild 
then please get three health stones from him before you enter the 
scenario again and save them for the boss.  Use scrolls of 
stamina/anything, pots, whatever that will make the fight easier.

Worst mini boss in history if I may be honest.  I have done it on two 
chars and I wont do it again unless Blizzard nerfs him.

-- 
Peter T.

 From Wowhead:

For any healers trying to do this, you don't need to respec for it. In 
fact, I'd argue it's even easier to do as a healer than as a dps. How? 
Well, in the first phase, the thunder forge will throw out orbs that 
will give you the Overcharged buff, which mimics any healing you do as 
damage to the nearest target. The mechanics here make sure the Shado-pan 
assisting you will almost always have spare health to heal, so just let 
them take aggro, stand near a mob, and heal them.

In the second and third phases, the Celestial Defender has a buff on him 
that increases his damage in proportion to his remaining health. At 100% 
health, he gets a 300% damage buff (compared to what he does at zero 
health). As long as you keep him healed up, you'll have enough damage 
being done to get through. He isn't perfect at keeping aggro off of the 
Celestial Blacksmith, though, so you'll have to heal it as well. In the 
second phase, I recommend you don't use the anvils - they immediately 
reduce the Defender to half health (where he does half as much damage as 
he does at full health). Watch for the Lethargy debuff on the Defender, 
which decreases its damage, and dispel it whenever you see it up.

In the third phase, just keep the Defender healed up, kite the Sha 
during banish, and dispel any debuffs that are put on the Defender. One 
decreases its haste by 50%, and the other stuns it. Both are bad, but it 
shouldn't be hard to keep them dispelled. Overall, this phase tends to 
be easier than the second phase, though, as it's a lot less hectic. Just 
avoid the Sha's attacks and be ready to use an anvil during each casting 
of Insanity.

On 6/30/2013 7:57 AM, Peter T. wrote:
> Den 30-06-2013 06:10, Cryptoengineer skrev:
>> This is part of the Black Prince Legendary quest line.
>>
>> Finally got to it, but am having a *lot* of trouble. Part of the issue is
>> that my DPS spec (Ret pally) is my offspec, and I neither play it
>> particularly well, nor is it very well geared. 6866 on wow-heroes,
>> compared
>> to 7526 for my main, Holy spec. I've gemmed and enchanted my gear, and
>> brought my average DPS up from ~2500 to ~3500, but it doesn't seem to
>> help
>> (at least I can now get through the trash at the start).
>>
>> Another part of the problem is not fully groking the mechanics - some
>> posts
>> on wowhead suggest popping all the anvils when the final phase is
>> entered,
>> but that seems not to help.
>>
>> Any suggestions from others on the quest line?
>
> I had at _least_ 40 attempts on this boss when I did it on my mage...  I
> know that as I spent exactly 2 stacks of healing pots! ^^
>
> Stay near an unused anvil or keep track of the unused and used anvils so
> you can click one when the boss casts his insanity.  Watch his castbar
> as his insanity has a 5 sec cast time or such.  My experience is that
> even if you click an anvil he still could cast Insanity.  It happened
> rarely though, but I guess it was a latency issue.
> Kill the small add asap when it appears or it will take out your helper
> for a time in the fight.  Meanwhile you have to nuke him hard even when
> youre avoiding his rain etc...  Spend all your CDs at start.
> When he is about 20% or a little less you have to click the spear or
> whatever it is and throw it asap!
>
> Maybe a raid flask or two will help you.  Also you may have to check
> your talents for this fight.  I had to use other talents which I wasnt
> familiar with (casting while I'm on the move etc).
>
> Btw.  when youre dead you have to resurrect as close as possible to the
> door so you dont automatically start the fight when you res again.  That
> gives you time to heal up etc. :)  If you have a warlock in the guild
> then please get three health stones from him before you enter the
> scenario again and save them for the boss.  Use scrolls of
> stamina/anything, pots, whatever that will make the fight easier.
>
> Worst mini boss in history if I may be honest.  I have done it on two
> chars and I wont do it again unless Blizzard nerfs him.
>


Funny thing is, he *HAS* been nerfed..  :)

I did it pre-nerf on my mage.  Took about 15 attempts for me on my mage 
before switching from arcane to frost and then I got him in about 5.

I walked a guildie through 3-4 weeks ago on arcane and she got it on her 
3rd attempt.

The trash outside is standard.  IT gets tricky inside.  I only did it on 
my mage, but you basically wanna stay near the the blacksmith during the 
first part of charging the anvils.  Try to drag the big guys over to you 
so it keeps your celestial "tank' near you.  Pop AoE to pull the little 
guys off the blacksmith and aggro them.  Any big guys that come out, hit 
them and kite them around the room with the blacksmith.  Basically, you 
want you, Your celestial tank and the mobs standing next to the anvil 
being charged, so you can pull the new ones off him to you right away...

The next part sucks...lol.  But it's why I changed to frost to do it. 
Constant moving, moving moving...I almost could never get a AB in arcane 
off.  The time it took to cast, I would be getting hit.  But the 
suggestions given before by others are basically it.  Gotta use the 
anvils to interrupt his insanity, kite him around when your tank is 
"resting", and save any self heals (if your squishy) for that 
time....Good suggestion for the healthstones from a gulidie Warlock - 
Didn't think of that...

If you wipe a lot, and your durability is getting low and you want to 
repair, keep in mind that if you leave the instance, you have to start 
the whole thing over again.  So one other tip is if you have a repair 
mammoth,  you *can* mount him after a wipe if you back yourself against 
the gate after you come back in and repair...  If you are very fast as 
well, you can change specs if you want too, but you have to be fast, as 
the fight starts right away after you rez, but it's enough time to 
quickly change specs of mount your mammoth to repair...

Good Luck!  :)

Den 01-07-2013 13:29, IYM skrev:

> Funny thing is, he *HAS* been nerfed..  :)

Ouch!  Was that long time ago? :)

> The next part sucks...lol.  But it's why I changed to frost to do it.
> Constant moving, moving moving...I almost could never get a AB in arcane
> off.  The time it took to cast, I would be getting hit.  But the
> suggestions given before by others are basically it.  Gotta use the
> anvils to interrupt his insanity, kite him around when your tank is
> "resting", and save any self heals (if your squishy) for that
> time....

I did it as arcane.  Luckily I was well-geared so I did some fine 
overall damage when I had the time to blast him.  When I was running 
around it was nether tempest, missiles and barrage.  Nether tempest is 
quite proc-friendly so I almost always had 1-2 missiles ready when there 
was a very small break in the running.  I also respecced to the talent 
(cant remember the name of it) where you can cast AB while being on the 
move.  But the 6 secs buff is not much when you also have to avoid his 
aoe, LoS etc + all the interior in the room that blocks your sight. :)

> If you wipe a lot, and your durability is getting low and you want to
> repair, keep in mind that if you leave the instance, you have to start
> the whole thing over again.  So one other tip is if you have a repair
> mammoth,  you *can* mount him after a wipe if you back yourself against
> the gate after you come back in and repair...  If you are very fast as
> well, you can change specs if you want too, but you have to be fast, as
> the fight starts right away after you rez, but it's enough time to
> quickly change specs of mount your mammoth to repair...

If you res very close to the gate you will not start the fight before 
you walk a few steps into the room.

-- 
Peter T.

On 7/2/2013 5:41 AM, Peter T. wrote:
> Den 01-07-2013 13:29, IYM skrev:
>
>> Funny thing is, he *HAS* been nerfed..  :)
>
> Ouch!  Was that long time ago? :)

It was about 5 weeks ago if I recall, or right before 5.3 came out...

>
>> The next part sucks...lol.  But it's why I changed to frost to do it.
>> Constant moving, moving moving...I almost could never get a AB in arcane
>> off.  The time it took to cast, I would be getting hit.  But the
>> suggestions given before by others are basically it.  Gotta use the
>> anvils to interrupt his insanity, kite him around when your tank is
>> "resting", and save any self heals (if your squishy) for that
>> time....
>
> I did it as arcane.  Luckily I was well-geared so I did some fine
> overall damage when I had the time to blast him.  When I was running
> around it was nether tempest, missiles and barrage.  Nether tempest is
> quite proc-friendly so I almost always had 1-2 missiles ready when there
> was a very small break in the running.  I also respecced to the talent
> (cant remember the name of it) where you can cast AB while being on the
> move.  But the 6 secs buff is not much when you also have to avoid his
> aoe, LoS etc + all the interior in the room that blocks your sight. :)

Yea, not to mention when you get to the part where your celestial tank 
feels the need to sit down for a few to take a break, and you end up 
kiting /running your a$$ off to survive, you also have to do it so that 
your close enough to an anvil so you can hit it should he decide to cast 
insanity....And the room, as you said, is *not* blink friendly.  The 
anvils are placed oh-so perfectly around the large center forge where 
only 1, maybe 2 anvils are in los....and of course they are never the 
ones that are charged when you need them to be...lol

I also changed talents as frost to get me through...I added back the 
evocate talent that gave me back health, so I could sic my elemental on 
him (which lasted, oh a second or two), but it was enough of a 
distraction where I could evocate some health up.   Every trick I knew, 
I used.

It did feel good to get him though pre-nerf....  :)

On Monday, July 1, 2013 5:52:10 AM UTC-4, Polarhound wrote:
> From Wowhead:
> 
> For any healers trying to do this, you don't need to respec for it. In 
> fact, I'd argue it's even easier to do as a healer than as a dps. [...]

I also found the cited guide last night, and am finally making progress. I only tend to do 5 or six tries before I get frustrated and quit.

The key things I've found doing this as a Holy Pally are (1) Keep the Celestial Defender fully healed up, and (2) dispell his debuffs. If you do this, he can pretty easily handle the first phase around the forge, without triggering anvils. I made sure he and the Blacksmith appeared in my raid frames (Grid+Clique), which made their status easy to see, and greatly simplified casting heals on them. I Beaconed myself.

During the first run, there's enough time between when the CD turns up, and the trash appearing, to heal the CD up to max. Once there, it's relatively easy to keep him up. It's much harder/impossible to do this when restarting the final phase after a wipe. This is one of the reasons I get frustrated and quit - second and subsequent tries are at a big disadvantage.

In the final phase, I got him down to under 50% last night. I may be able to get this....

pt

On 7/2/2013 8:38 AM, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, July 1, 2013 5:52:10 AM UTC-4, Polarhound wrote:
>>  From Wowhead:
>>
>> For any healers trying to do this, you don't need to respec for it. In
>> fact, I'd argue it's even easier to do as a healer than as a dps. [...]
>
> I also found the cited guide last night, and am finally making progress. I only tend to do 5 or six tries before I get frustrated and quit.
>
> The key things I've found doing this as a Holy Pally are (1) Keep the Celestial Defender fully healed up, and (2) dispell his debuffs. If you do this, he can pretty easily handle the first phase around the forge, without triggering anvils. I made sure he and the Blacksmith appeared in my raid frames (Grid+Clique), which made their status easy to see, and greatly simplified casting heals on them. I Beaconed myself.
>
> During the first run, there's enough time between when the CD turns up, and the trash appearing, to heal the CD up to max. Once there, it's relatively easy to keep him up. It's much harder/impossible to do this when restarting the final phase after a wipe. This is one of the reasons I get frustrated and quit - second and subsequent tries are at a big disadvantage.
>
> In the final phase, I got him down to under 50% last night. I may be able to get this....
>
> pt
>

My buddy had a hell of a time pre-nerf with his pally.  He's 
tank/heals....He tried both and said tank spec was a lost cause.  He 
made it through after 50+ wipes as heals...

Oh - btw to all working on this...Keep in mind that you don't actually 
have to get him to 0% health...the fight stops at about 8%, when 
wraithon (who has been playing around at the forge during your fight) 
chimes in and says more or less that the lance is ready.  This was the 
part of the fight that reaaaally pissed me off on my last wipe as I had 
gotten him there and could not find the lance and click it in time, and 
died.  Got him the next attempt.....

...at around 10% be ready for wraithon to say the lance is ready.  Look 
for it when he says it is, because you will have to click on it (will 
have gear symbol when you mouse hover over it).  When you click it, 
fights over as the forged lance kills the boss....

When I downed him, the lance was finally ready and he was only a few 
seconds from casting insanity, and I was out of anvils....made it 
through with the skin of my teeth back then....

On Tue, 2 Jul 2013 05:38:40 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:

>On Monday, July 1, 2013 5:52:10 AM UTC-4, Polarhound wrote:
>> From Wowhead:
>> 
>> For any healers trying to do this, you don't need to respec for it. In 
>> fact, I'd argue it's even easier to do as a healer than as a dps. [...]
>
>I also found the cited guide last night, and am finally making progress. I only tend to do 5 or six tries before I get frustrated and quit.
>
>The key things I've found doing this as a Holy Pally are (1) Keep the Celestial Defender fully healed up, and (2) dispell his debuffs. If you do this, he can pretty easily handle the first phase around the forge, without triggering anvils. I made sure he and the Blacksmith appeared in my raid frames (Grid+Clique), which made their status easy to see, and greatly simplified casting heals on them. I Beaconed myself.
>
>During the first run, there's enough time between when the CD turns up, and the trash appearing, to heal the CD up to max. Once there, it's relatively easy to keep him up. It's much harder/impossible to do this when restarting the final phase after a wipe. This is one of the reasons I get frustrated and quit - second and subsequent tries are at a big disadvantage.
>
>In the final phase, I got him down to under 50% last night. I may be able to get this....

I'm probably going to sound horribly smug here... just got it on the
4th try :-O Can't believe it tbh, thought it'd take me dozens of tries
after reading the posts on ehre about it!

First try, blacksmith died in phase 2 (oops), decided trying to be
Disc and dps/Atonement heal wasn't gonna work well enough, switched to
holy and all out healing.

2nd try, died to the meteor shower (oops).

3rd try, was going alright but ran out of first mana, then anvils,
however I had him down pretty low so figured it was close and better
execution would get it (knew I'd made a few mistakes).

4th try, grabbed a spirit elixir, spam healed the defender to try to
boost his dmg as much as possible, actually remembered to use
mindbender on cd, stood right on top of the anvils (so didn't let
insanity cast get off this time) and paid enough attention to the
meteors to not need to waste much mana on myself! A bit shocked it
worked but quite pleased :-)

On 7/24/2013 8:15 PM, Catriona R wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2 Jul 2013 05:38:40 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> On Monday, July 1, 2013 5:52:10 AM UTC-4, Polarhound wrote:
>>>  From Wowhead:
>>>
>>> For any healers trying to do this, you don't need to respec for it. In
>>> fact, I'd argue it's even easier to do as a healer than as a dps. [...]
>>
>> I also found the cited guide last night, and am finally making progress. I only tend to do 5 or six tries before I get frustrated and quit.
>>
>> The key things I've found doing this as a Holy Pally are (1) Keep the Celestial Defender fully healed up, and (2) dispell his debuffs. If you do this, he can pretty easily handle the first phase around the forge, without triggering anvils. I made sure he and the Blacksmith appeared in my raid frames (Grid+Clique), which made their status easy to see, and greatly simplified casting heals on them. I Beaconed myself.
>>
>> During the first run, there's enough time between when the CD turns up, and the trash appearing, to heal the CD up to max. Once there, it's relatively easy to keep him up. It's much harder/impossible to do this when restarting the final phase after a wipe. This is one of the reasons I get frustrated and quit - second and subsequent tries are at a big disadvantage.
>>
>> In the final phase, I got him down to under 50% last night. I may be able to get this....
>
> I'm probably going to sound horribly smug here... just got it on the
> 4th try :-O Can't believe it tbh, thought it'd take me dozens of tries
> after reading the posts on ehre about it!
>
> First try, blacksmith died in phase 2 (oops), decided trying to be
> Disc and dps/Atonement heal wasn't gonna work well enough, switched to
> holy and all out healing.
>
> 2nd try, died to the meteor shower (oops).
>
> 3rd try, was going alright but ran out of first mana, then anvils,
> however I had him down pretty low so figured it was close and better
> execution would get it (knew I'd made a few mistakes).
>
> 4th try, grabbed a spirit elixir, spam healed the defender to try to
> boost his dmg as much as possible, actually remembered to use
> mindbender on cd, stood right on top of the anvils (so didn't let
> insanity cast get off this time) and paid enough attention to the
> meteors to not need to waste much mana on myself! A bit shocked it
> worked but quite pleased :-)
>

It's ok to be smug - Congrats!!!!  :)

I will have to take some of the wind out of your sails and remind you it 
was nerfed...lol.  However, I ironically did it last night as well on my 
resto druid and while easier, it still is not just a walk though.

I had an advantage in that it was my second toon through that, so I knew 
what to expect.  However, I will say that it was so much easier than 
when I last did it on my mage pre-nerf.  I didn't know what changes they 
had done until last night, but they pretty much took the damage down by 
a lot that the adds in the 2nd phase did as well as the main boss.  They 
also kicked down the final bosses damage and kicked up the celestial 
tank damage.  One big thing they did was significantly reduce the adds 
on the final boss.  He occasionally comes after you and there seemed to 
be only one sha add to deal with each time, where there used to be about 
4-5 of them you had to deal with, which took time (as a dps) away from 
damage you could be doing on the boss unless they were timed to die with 
an anvil strike.  Now I could ignore the one pretty much.  A lot had to 
do with being a healer and just heal stuff.    I was concerned before I 
started about healing portrait style and was ecstatic that upon entering 
the scenario, the shadow pan warriors and the celestial tank all 
appeared as a group and were picked up by my Vuhdoo healing add-on.  I 
only had to specifically pick the blacksmith during that phase and 
designate him what Vuhdoo calls a "private tank" and then I could heal 
him as a party of three....very nice.

All in all, I got it on my second attempt.  I screwed up while running 
from meteor shower in that I was on the other side of the room trying to 
get back to an charged anvil for insanity and didn't make it...

I almost wiped on the second attempt as just like on my mage, I was 
panicking as I could not find/see the damn lance to click.  I still had 
one anvil left but I still was in a panic until I saw it...lol

I then got depressed in that I knew I had not seen anyone doing Nalak on 
my realm in a long time.  So on a whim, I went over to see if anyone was 
standing around and behold! - I could not believe my eyes!  The Horde 
had a small group of 10 fighting him!  What luck!!  I went in, clicked 
my lance, dragged the add through their fight, healed myself and as soon 
as the add died, my lance was charged and quest complete, I got the hell 
out of the area and was done.  I was in total shock that I was able to 
do that right away.  Thought I was going to have to stake out Nalak for 
a week or so until I found a group killing him....

Anyway - congrats once again!!  Now onto another toon to collect Titan 
stones from....erg.

On Thu, 25 Jul 2013 08:08:02 -0400, IYM <nor...@whitehouse.gov>
wrote:

>It's ok to be smug - Congrats!!!!  :)
>
>I will have to take some of the wind out of your sails and remind you it 
>was nerfed...lol.  However, I ironically did it last night as well on my 
>resto druid and while easier, it still is not just a walk though.

I knew it was nerfed but had the impression some at least of the
comments on here were post-nerf, even if not, I still expected more
attempts tbh, so I'm pleased with myself anyway ;-)

>I had an advantage in that it was my second toon through that, so I knew 
>what to expect.  However, I will say that it was so much easier than 
>when I last did it on my mage pre-nerf.  I didn't know what changes they 
>had done until last night, but they pretty much took the damage down by 
>a lot that the adds in the 2nd phase did as well as the main boss.  They 
>also kicked down the final bosses damage and kicked up the celestial 
>tank damage.  One big thing they did was significantly reduce the adds 
>on the final boss.  He occasionally comes after you and there seemed to 
>be only one sha add to deal with each time, where there used to be about 
>4-5 of them you had to deal with, which took time (as a dps) away from 
>damage you could be doing on the boss unless they were timed to die with 
>an anvil strike.  Now I could ignore the one pretty much.  

Yikes, sounds like pretty heavy nerfs then, I'm rather glad I did it
now!

>A lot had to 
>do with being a healer and just heal stuff.    I was concerned before I 
>started about healing portrait style and was ecstatic that upon entering 
>the scenario, the shadow pan warriors and the celestial tank all 
>appeared as a group and were picked up by my Vuhdoo healing add-on.  I 
>only had to specifically pick the blacksmith during that phase and 
>designate him what Vuhdoo calls a "private tank" and then I could heal 
>him as a party of three....very nice.

Yeah, that's a big help, although I found it a bit glitchy with my
abilities, Prayer of Mending simply won't bounce between me and the
NPCs which sucks, when it's a major part of my healing setup (I
*really* hope they get that working for proving grounds...), also
Atonement didn't seem to heal as well as it should; I got through the
first bit as Disc but found that while it dealt with big chunks of
dmg, it would never top off the last 4-5%, instead it'd overheal on me
instead, sigh. However  in the main it worked well, and showing on
Vuhdo properly was a massive help, especially for dispels, I was
expecting that to be a huge headache, even with using focus to put the
defender in my private tanks.

>All in all, I got it on my second attempt.  I screwed up while running 
>from meteor shower in that I was on the other side of the room trying to 
>get back to an charged anvil for insanity and didn't make it...

Oops :-) I tended to run in circles around my anvil during showers, or
at least never far away from it, thankfully it worked out on my
successful run.

>I almost wiped on the second attempt as just like on my mage, I was 
>panicking as I could not find/see the damn lance to click.  I still had 
>one anvil left but I still was in a panic until I saw it...lol

Heh yeah, I was thinking "it's ready, now where is it, erm... I left
Wrathion over there, let's head that way", thankfully it's actually
pretty obvious when you get to the right side of the room!

>I then got depressed in that I knew I had not seen anyone doing Nalak on 
>my realm in a long time.  So on a whim, I went over to see if anyone was 
>standing around and behold! - I could not believe my eyes!  The Horde 
>had a small group of 10 fighting him!  What luck!!  I went in, clicked 
>my lance, dragged the add through their fight, healed myself and as soon 
>as the add died, my lance was charged and quest complete, I got the hell 
>out of the area and was done.  I was in total shock that I was able to 
>do that right away.  Thought I was going to have to stake out Nalak for 
>a week or so until I found a group killing him....

Nice one! Must be a heck of a difference in realm pops between my
server and yours lol, Nalak died on respawn all day on Wednesaday and
pretty often the rest of the week on mine, only had to wait 10-15 mins
for a group to form at 11am today! Now, if it required it to be your
faction doing it for the quest, and I was Alliance, then it'd be a
very very long wait, but Horde at least kill him very often here.

>Anyway - congrats once again!!  Now onto another toon to collect Titan 
>stones from....erg.

Hehe my first time collecting those, I'm glad that at the very least
there's one a week from Lei Shen, so at worst it's 12 weeks to go for
me... :-P

On 7/25/2013 2:25 PM, Catriona R wrote:
>
> On Thu, 25 Jul 2013 08:08:02 -0400, IYM <nor...@whitehouse.gov>
> wrote:
>
>> It's ok to be smug - Congrats!!!!  :)
>>
>> I will have to take some of the wind out of your sails and remind you it
>> was nerfed...lol.  However, I ironically did it last night as well on my
>> resto druid and while easier, it still is not just a walk though.
>
> I knew it was nerfed but had the impression some at least of the
> comments on here were post-nerf, even if not, I still expected more
> attempts tbh, so I'm pleased with myself anyway ;-)

Some of the comments were post nerf, however I had no frame of reference 
until last night as I only had done it pre-nerf... All in all, it still 
is a decent challenge, more so with some classes than others.  The resto 
druid was very simple with it's instant running dot healing...


>
>> I then got depressed in that I knew I had not seen anyone doing Nalak on
>> my realm in a long time.  So on a whim, I went over to see if anyone was
>> standing around and behold! - I could not believe my eyes!  The Horde
>> had a small group of 10 fighting him!  What luck!!  I went in, clicked
>> my lance, dragged the add through their fight, healed myself and as soon
>> as the add died, my lance was charged and quest complete, I got the hell
>> out of the area and was done.  I was in total shock that I was able to
>> do that right away.  Thought I was going to have to stake out Nalak for
>> a week or so until I found a group killing him....
>
> Nice one! Must be a heck of a difference in realm pops between my
> server and yours lol, Nalak died on respawn all day on Wednesaday and
> pretty often the rest of the week on mine, only had to wait 10-15 mins
> for a group to form at 11am today! Now, if it required it to be your
> faction doing it for the quest, and I was Alliance, then it'd be a
> very very long wait, but Horde at least kill him very often here.

I looked at my realm and Bliz classifies it as a "Medium", not low 
population.  But this realm is actually very Ally heavy, so to find the 
Horde doing it (which was taking them forever) was a stroke of luck. 
I looked at one of those  high and full realms and just for kicks 
decided to log into one.  The "full" one stated my log on position and 
that I'd be able to play in about 30 minutes.  I said "screw that!".  If 
you deal with that every day, your nuts.  lol

>
>> Anyway - congrats once again!!  Now onto another toon to collect Titan
>> stones from....erg.
>
> Hehe my first time collecting those, I'm glad that at the very least
> there's one a week from Lei Shen, so at worst it's 12 weeks to go for
> me... :-P
>

Yep - Or you could be lucky and get them all in 2 weeks....I'll expect 
them to maybe raise to drop rate after the next patch to let people 
catch up...But then again, I don't think they did with the secrets or 
sigals, so who knows...

I'll get the 12 titans in 14 weeks.  How?  Because I figure that's my 
luck...Lei Shen will commit suicide and jump before he suffers defeat 
and then will not respawn until the reset day for two of my weeks....lmao

On Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:54:05 -0400, IYM <nor...@whitehouse.gov>
wrote:

>On 7/25/2013 2:25 PM, Catriona R wrote:
>> I knew it was nerfed but had the impression some at least of the
>> comments on here were post-nerf, even if not, I still expected more
>> attempts tbh, so I'm pleased with myself anyway ;-)
>
>Some of the comments were post nerf, however I had no frame of reference 
>until last night as I only had done it pre-nerf... All in all, it still 
>is a decent challenge, more so with some classes than others.  The resto 
>druid was very simple with it's instant running dot healing...

Lucky, my main instant cast spell didn't work, so I didn't manage to
keep up much healing during meteor storms... I'm highly jealous of
druid healing for that fight!

>> Nice one! Must be a heck of a difference in realm pops between my
>> server and yours lol, Nalak died on respawn all day on Wednesaday and
>> pretty often the rest of the week on mine, only had to wait 10-15 mins
>> for a group to form at 11am today! Now, if it required it to be your
>> faction doing it for the quest, and I was Alliance, then it'd be a
>> very very long wait, but Horde at least kill him very often here.
>
>I looked at my realm and Bliz classifies it as a "Medium", not low 
>population.  But this realm is actually very Ally heavy, so to find the 
>Horde doing it (which was taking them forever) was a stroke of luck. 
>I looked at one of those  high and full realms and just for kicks 
>decided to log into one.  The "full" one stated my log on position and 
>that I'd be able to play in about 30 minutes.  I said "screw that!".  If 
>you deal with that every day, your nuts.  lol

That's like my server for about a month after each patch lol, it's
only queued on Wednesday and sometimes Saturday nights now,
thankfully, can still nearly crash the server against worldbosses
every Wednesday though (by doing /who race/class queries I reckoned
there were minimum 250 people waiting for Oon yesterday, crazy
lag...). Gets annoying if I forget to log on before the crowds do, but
I don't really want to move, as I've been there since vanilla days,
and while most my old friends don't play any more, I still like to be
able to run into them on the odd occasion they come back for a bit.
Plus it's just "home" for me, I have alts on other servers but it
always feels wrong.

>>> Anyway - congrats once again!!  Now onto another toon to collect Titan
>>> stones from....erg.
>>
>> Hehe my first time collecting those, I'm glad that at the very least
>> there's one a week from Lei Shen, so at worst it's 12 weeks to go for
>> me... :-P
>
>Yep - Or you could be lucky and get them all in 2 weeks....I'll expect 
>them to maybe raise to drop rate after the next patch to let people 
>catch up...But then again, I don't think they did with the secrets or 
>sigals, so who knows...
>
>I'll get the 12 titans in 14 weeks.  How?  Because I figure that's my 
>luck...Lei Shen will commit suicide and jump before he suffers defeat 
>and then will not respawn until the reset day for two of my weeks....lmao

Haha :-D Well I'm hoping for some decent luck to get it in, say, 6
weeks or so but we'll see, at least the longer it takes the more rep I
get with SPA!

> >On 7/25/2013 2:25 PM, Catriona R wrote:
> >> I knew it was nerfed but had the impression some at least of the
> >> comments on here were post-nerf, even if not, I still expected more
> >> attempts tbh, so I'm pleased with myself anyway ;-)

Major congrats - I still haven't completed it, but haven't been trying too hard. One thing that bugs me is the amount of work needed to just get to final phase; the site is in the back of beyond, and you have to deal with some pretty nasty trash to get in, and then complete the first phase in the room. The only saving grace is the doorstep, where you can repair and recuperate between tries. 

My main is now in the BiS he can have without doing real (ie, not LFR) raids, and in 3 weeks every item will have been upgraded 2/2. 

One thing I'm curious about; anyone have an opinion on the LFR token gear for a Holy Pally vs the 522 vendor gear? It's not clear to me which is superior.

pt

Den 28-07-2013 23:09, pete...@gmail.com skrev:

> One thing I'm curious about; anyone have an opinion on the LFR token
> gear for a Holy Pally vs the 522 vendor gear? It's not clear to me
> which is superior.

You talk about the 502 Tier 15 gear from LFRs versus 522 gear from the 
shadopan vendor?
If you talk about ordinary 502 non-tier gear from LFRs you should go for 
522 gear all the way where possible.  Get your 502s from LFRs, but save 
your VPs for the 522 gear + upgrades for those.  The difference is huge 
because the output (healing, dps, whatever) scales logarithmic with raid 
buffs.
BUT!  You also have to do Nalak every week.  He drops the 522 versions 
of the T15 panties and gloves.  So save a coin for this worldboss. 
Oondasta drops some neat 522 non-tier items too.

-- 
Peter T.

<https://elite.frontier.co.uk/>

On Sunday, July 28, 2013 5:31:54 PM UTC-4, Peter T. wrote:
> Den 28-07-2013 23:09, pete...@gmail.com skrev:
>
> > One thing I'm curious about; anyone have an opinion on the LFR token
> > gear for a Holy Pally vs the 522 vendor gear? It's not clear to me
> > which is superior.
> 
> You talk about the 502 Tier 15 gear from LFRs versus 522 gear from the 
> shadopan vendor?

Yes, that's it. I'm comparing the T15 LFR gear (ilvl 502) vs vendor 522s.
 
> If you talk about ordinary 502 non-tier gear from LFRs you should go for 
> 522 gear all the way where possible.  Get your 502s from LFRs, but save 
> your VPs for the 522 gear + upgrades for those.  The difference is huge 
> because the output (healing, dps, whatever) scales logarithmic with raid 
> buffs.
> 
> BUT!  You also have to do Nalak every week.  He drops the 522 versions 
> of the T15 panties and gloves.  So save a coin for this worldboss.  
> Oondasta drops some neat 522 non-tier items too.

I'll check into that. Getting the 2 item bonus may well make that worthwhile.

ATM, the only gear I have < 522 is: weapon, shield, 1 ring, and 1 trinket. Most of the 522s are upgraded. Overall ilvl is 522.

This is Vamoose, on Misha-US, if you want to look him up. 

pt

On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:09:40 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:

>
>> >On 7/25/2013 2:25 PM, Catriona R wrote:
>> >> I knew it was nerfed but had the impression some at least of the
>> >> comments on here were post-nerf, even if not, I still expected more
>> >> attempts tbh, so I'm pleased with myself anyway ;-)
>
>Major congrats - I still haven't completed it, but haven't been trying too hard. One thing that bugs me is the amount of work needed to just get to final phase; the site is in the back of beyond, and you have to deal with some pretty nasty trash to get in, and then complete the first phase in the room. The only saving grace is the doorstep, where you can repair and recuperate between tries. 

Wow, I'm surprised tbh, you got there so long before me! I reckon you
should manage ok tbh, your gear's ahead of mine, just go flat out on
big heals. Don't think there's much a priest has that healps in that
fight which a pally doesn't, except maybe some more instant cast
heals, which I admit are handy when you're running from meteors
(although one of mine doesn't work on npcs, and your word of glory
probably compares well enough with my holy word serenity)

If you're reaching the site through the caves (which I agree is a
pain), try going the other way - head towards Nalak, turn left at the
crossroads right before him, then right at Lu-Ban's room, and the next
left is where I found Wrathion. It's a bitch if somebody's fighting
one of the named mobs at the time, but clear otherwise :-)

>My main is now in the BiS he can have without doing real (ie, not LFR) raids, and in 3 weeks every item will have been upgraded 2/2. 

Nice one! I'm at 502+ in all but 3 slots, 522 in most which have
possible drops or purchases, excepting head/chest/shoulder while I
figure out tier setbonuses (see below). Only got 3 pieces upgraded
though, that's next up, but tbh it doesn't seem so worthwhile now the
next patch is ever advancing in development, may just save my valor.
Not too happy with the ilvl of LFR gear next patch, 528 seems
pointless for slots you're wearing 530 (upgraded).... like, oh, yeah,
here's a new item, now spend 500 valor to make it any kind of upgrade
at all. So that's kinda putting me off buying too!

>One thing I'm curious about; anyone have an opinion on the LFR token gear for a Holy Pally vs the 522 vendor gear? It's not clear to me which is superior.

Can't comment on pally but if anyone has an opinion on priest gear,
same question. However, I think I'm the only priest here these days...
;-) I've got 522 tier for gloves and legs, but wondering whether to go
for 4-piece setbonues or buy 522s for 2 more slots. Currently I have
chest token but am wearing non-set because a healy spec chest has no
spirit on (*sigh*), am hoping for luck on shoulder/head drops, but
equally I'm sick of wearing a 496 head. But I'll be unhappy to spend
that valor only to ditch it in favour of a 502 tier piece so, hmm.

On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 17:01:26 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:

>On Sunday, July 28, 2013 5:31:54 PM UTC-4, Peter T. wrote:
>> BUT!  You also have to do Nalak every week.  He drops the 522 versions 
>> of the T15 panties and gloves.  So save a coin for this worldboss.  
>> Oondasta drops some neat 522 non-tier items too.
>
>I'll check into that. Getting the 2 item bonus may well make that worthwhile.

It's very worth it, they drop pretty often in my experience too (I've
only had four pairs of tier legs so far...!), I had the two pretty
fast on both my 90s. Oon also is good, I've had 4 rings off him (well
two but one three times) and a couple of belts, far cheaper than
spending tons of valor too :-) 

>ATM, the only gear I have < 522 is: weapon, shield, 1 ring, and 1 trinket. Most of the 522s are upgraded. Overall ilvl is 522.

Wow, I'm at 513 ilvl, thought I was doing alright till I read that.
I'm not much good at farming valor though, so not surprising I'm
behind!

Den 29-07-2013 02:23, Catriona R skrev:

> It's very worth it, they drop pretty often in my experience too (I've
> only had four pairs of tier legs so far...!), I had the two pretty
> fast on both my 90s. Oon also is good, I've had 4 rings off him (well
> two but one three times) and a couple of belts, far cheaper than
> spending tons of valor too :-)

WOW!  The actual droprate should be 15% no matter the gear.  I stopped 
doing Oondasta long time ago as I never got anything useful from him. 
And Nalak...  Well.  Ask my warlock.  He still grrrrrs at him. :)

>> ATM, the only gear I have < 522 is: weapon, shield, 1 ring, and 1 trinket. Most of the 522s are upgraded. Overall ilvl is 522.
>
> Wow, I'm at 513 ilvl, thought I was doing alright till I read that.
> I'm not much good at farming valor though, so not surprising I'm
> behind!

Behind what?  This is a pure guess, but maybe 80% (or higher?) of the 
active player pool is below 510 and maybe 505. :)

-- 
Peter T.

<https://elite.frontier.co.uk/>

Den 29-07-2013 02:01, pete...@gmail.com skrev:

>> You talk about the 502 Tier 15 gear from LFRs versus 522 gear from the
>> shadopan vendor?
>
> Yes, that's it. I'm comparing the T15 LFR gear (ilvl 502) vs vendor 522s.

Honestly I dont know.  I hope other peeps can answer your question.
But I have a 516 head piece and 522 shoulder piece (from vendor) in my 
main's bank.  But I'm using the LFR T15 head and shoulder (not the 
shampoo!) pieces (upgraded) and Im at 530.6 overall atm topping every 
DPS chart clearly in any LFR. *bragging*  So I dont see reason to swap 
to my ordinary 516/522 items.
I have been stuck at the same question, but I decided to not care about 
it and enjoy the benefits and bonus from a 4T15 set.  If you find some 
sort of a website that enlightens you please let us know. :)

-- 
Peter T.

<https://elite.frontier.co.uk/>

On Sunday, July 28, 2013 8:19:26 PM UTC-4, Catriona R wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:09:40 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:

> >Major congrats - I still haven't completed it, but haven't been trying too hard. One thing that bugs me is the amount of work needed to just get to final phase; the site is in the back of beyond, and you have to deal with some pretty nasty trash to get in, and then complete the first phase in the room. The only saving grace is the doorstep, where you can repair and recuperate between tries. 
> 
> Wow, I'm surprised tbh, you got there so long before me! I reckon you
> should manage ok tbh, your gear's ahead of mine, just go flat out on
> big heals. Don't think there's much a priest has that healps in that
> fight which a pally doesn't, except maybe some more instant cast
> heals, which I admit are handy when you're running from meteors
> (although one of mine doesn't work on npcs, and your word of glory
> probably compares well enough with my holy word serenity)

I've never been top of the healing charts in real raids. I am occasionally so in LFR, but I suspect my rotation is quite sub-optimal. However, I do have the persistence needed to outgear most other players (I've been maxing out VP every week for months). 

It's things like this that force me to sit down and re-evaluate how I play. I expect I'll get it eventually, and then be able to carry those skills into multi-player.

> If you're reaching the site through the caves (which I agree is a
> pain), try going the other way - head towards Nalak, turn left at the
> crossroads right before him, then right at Lu-Ban's room, and the next
> left is where I found Wrathion. It's a bitch if somebody's fighting
> one of the named mobs at the time, but clear otherwise :-)

Yes, that's how I've always done it - up the stairs, left before Nalak. It's still a royal PITA, and is followed by a rather painful set of trash, then the annoying first phase. But by the time I've failed 2-3 times, I start losing patience and eventually hearth out.

pt

On Tue, 30 Jul 2013 13:37:45 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:

>On Sunday, July 28, 2013 8:19:26 PM UTC-4, Catriona R wrote:
>> On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:09:40 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> >Major congrats - I still haven't completed it, but haven't been trying too hard. One thing that bugs me is the amount of work needed to just get to final phase; the site is in the back of beyond, and you have to deal with some pretty nasty trash to get in, and then complete the first phase in the room. The only saving grace is the doorstep, where you can repair and recuperate between tries. 
>> 
>> Wow, I'm surprised tbh, you got there so long before me! I reckon you
>> should manage ok tbh, your gear's ahead of mine, just go flat out on
>> big heals. Don't think there's much a priest has that healps in that
>> fight which a pally doesn't, except maybe some more instant cast
>> heals, which I admit are handy when you're running from meteors
>> (although one of mine doesn't work on npcs, and your word of glory
>> probably compares well enough with my holy word serenity)
>
>I've never been top of the healing charts in real raids. I am occasionally so in LFR, but I suspect my rotation is quite sub-optimal. However, I do have the persistence needed to outgear most other players (I've been maxing out VP every week for months). 

Tbh there's never a "rotation" as such for healing, just practice (and
sometimes looking at what other people do) to learn the best spell for
each situation. Maximise output, minimse mana wastage is my tactic :-)
Can't make much suggestions for LFR as your toolkit will be very
different to mine (my approach to most situations in LFR is "hit a
smart aoe heal" :-P), but for this fight, it's single target so fairly
simple. For me it was, keep renew up, spam greater heal and holy word
serenity, and attempt to take a breather for mana when I actually get
the defender to 100%.

>It's things like this that force me to sit down and re-evaluate how I play. I expect I'll get it eventually, and then be able to carry those skills into multi-player.

I guess this will be like the upcoming proving grounds as a learning
experience, then. I'm hoping proving grounds eventually expands to
include raid-size groups rather than only 5-mans, as it looks a great
way to experiement with different spells and see how trying new things
works out, without annoying 4/9/24 other people when it doesn't quite
work as I hoped!

>> If you're reaching the site through the caves (which I agree is a
>> pain), try going the other way - head towards Nalak, turn left at the
>> crossroads right before him, then right at Lu-Ban's room, and the next
>> left is where I found Wrathion. It's a bitch if somebody's fighting
>> one of the named mobs at the time, but clear otherwise :-)
>
>Yes, that's how I've always done it - up the stairs, left before Nalak. It's still a royal PITA, and is followed by a rather painful set of trash, then the annoying first phase. But by the time I've failed 2-3 times, I start losing patience and eventually hearth out.

Ouch, I don't blame you tbh, but given how annoying it is to get
there, I'd be inclined to give it a few more tries when you eventually
do! Stack up on buffs and dedicate an hour or two would be my approach
I think - if I managed it I'm sure you can too with a few goes
together for maximum learning :-)

On Mon, 29 Jul 2013 01:19:26 +0100, Catriona R
<catrion...@totalise.co.uk> wrote:

>On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:09:40 -0700 (PDT), pete...@gmail.com wrote:
>>One thing I'm curious about; anyone have an opinion on the LFR token gear for a Holy Pally vs the 522 vendor gear? It's not clear to me which is superior.
>
>Can't comment on pally but if anyone has an opinion on priest gear,
>same question. However, I think I'm the only priest here these days...
>;-) I've got 522 tier for gloves and legs, but wondering whether to go
>for 4-piece setbonues or buy 522s for 2 more slots. Currently I have
>chest token but am wearing non-set because a healy spec chest has no
>spirit on (*sigh*), am hoping for luck on shoulder/head drops, but
>equally I'm sick of wearing a 496 head. But I'll be unhappy to spend
>that valor only to ditch it in favour of a 502 tier piece so, hmm.

Well, decision made for me, shoulder dropped tonight so I can try out
my 4-piece bonus now :-) I'll hope for head next week, but if not,
I'll have the valor to buy a 522 one instead very soon, see how it
goes; ideally I'd rather take valor chest and tier head, as I'll come
out better statswise that way (silly non-spirit tier pieces), but I
doubt luck will be so kind!