Naxxramas cleared
This weekend, we had our third raid ID for Naxxramas, and as the title suggests, it was very successful. We cleared 3 wings on the first day, and I actually had fun making a couple videos of boss fights. No Tankspot quality, but I might post them here for general amusement sometime, once I recover from the embarassment of my Commanding Shout upkeep fail on Anub’rekhan and such. I guess videos are very educational, you blatantly see all your mistakes. Noob, don’t run into the wall when kiting Anub’rekhan, it gets you six stacks of Locust Swarm. We one-shot everything but Anub’rekhan, due to kiting failure the first try.
The second day, I did not tank but heal instead. I don’t heal as much as I used to in early WotLK, so I was really really nervous. I am an overachiever and was pretty darn nervous. Overall I guess I did well, but our resto druid just creams everyone on healing anyway. There were points where I felt I was completely unnecessary as third healer, as she covered MT and raid heals, and my Chain Heals ended up being dramatic overheals. We one-shot everything but Grobbulus and Sapphiron, those needed two tries. I was complete and utter failure on Thaddius, where I was the only person who actually got confused about our running direction on polarity shifts and died. Time to drink from the humble cup, I tell ya.
Then it was time to work on Kel’thuzad. I have to say, I hate the RNG elements of this fight. At least three times our adds tank got iceblocked, insta-death, and then the crypt guardians ate the raid. In our fifth attempt, it happened again, but our feral druid picked up both adds, and we healed her through to the bitter end. It was pretty spiky and scary, but we made it. Our very first Naxx-clear, in only three IDs. I think we have every reason to be proud. 
Gear-wise, I got one upgrade for Kadomi, Minion Bracers, which makes me happy, because I was still wearing the ones from the Occulus quest. My shaman got new shoulders, a healing cloak and a cloak heavy on haste for her haste/elemental set.
I fell into the pug world of raids as well, off-tanking VoA-10 and healing VoA-25. VoA is so ridiculously short and easy that I have no problem pugging that.
We are adding an extra raid day now to change our raid schedule from every second weekend to every weekend. We have been steadily growing and have gotten an insane amount of high-level transfers lately. I think two 10-man groups might be on the horizon, but I don’t think we have the numbers for 25-mans anytime soon. That’s fine in my book, I vastly prefer 10-mans.
Because of me not being there as tank for KT, I don’t have the Naxx achievement yet, on either of my characters. I clearly have to switch up days next time, somehow.
So what’s in store for me now? I definitely want my Champion title, so I have KT, Malygos and H Occ left for that. H Occ is scheduled for Wednesday. I also finally got Stormchops from the Shattrath cooking quest, so once I hit cooking 450 and do the BGs for the feasts, Chef will be mine. I want to work more on videos, and will actually showcase my first one that I made for this blog very soon, likely tomorrow.
So what’s up with you guys?
Congrats!
This weekend I got to tank Naxx25 with 20 people next to our guild’s maintank. I didn’t do so bad at all, the only thing I just can’t max out is heroic striking. I have played many classes on max level but this is one of the most annoying mechanics out there. And I still haven’t found a good place to keybind HS to. Next raid I’ll try out HS macro’ed to pretty every ability and no-HS when pressed alt as modifier.
Apart from that I’m struggling a bit to not loose too much interest in the game. I guess for me 3.1 will be pretty important in terms of motivating myself to stay a raider, or just go casual and see if that will keep me in the game.
Hope to see that vid of yours soon.
drug´s last blog post..Sun vs. WoW
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I am green with envy!
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Congratulations! I just got my first naxx10 clear tonight as well! I have a bunch of Heroics (and EoE) to go before I can get my achievement though. What can I say, I prefer raiding lol
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Nice job
Get those videos hosted, want to see.
I’ve been at it with 25 mans as usual, in a fairly normal manner. I don’t feel that I’m missing out on much by not doing those awful raid achievements.
Well we did actually do 20 man Sartharion, but that was more because we lacked signups that anything else
Other than that.. Pvp, doing fair bit of arena trying both protection and fury specs. So far Prot stomps the other options in pretty much any situation.
Vads´s last blog post..Raiding, 3.1 and achievements.
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congratulations! i really got to think that killing kel thuzad is all about wiping untill the add-tank doesnt get iceblocked. at least thats how we roll :<
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admin Reply:
March 24th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
No kidding. In our kill we lucked out that our MT was able to pick up the adds and that us healers managed to actually heal her through tanking all mobs. Her healthbar was rather bouncy.
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$teele Reply:
March 24th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
probably the add tank died right after picking them up? those adds usually have way too much heal-agro on them for me to pick them up easily. they would just run after the healers and theres no way i can pick them up for longer then taunt / challenging shout lasts.
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Congradulations on KZ!
In all the kills we’ve done on him, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the add tanks get iceblocked. That is rough. It gets easier as it goes though, promise.
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Namthe Reply:
March 24th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Yeah, same.
I think the rules go something like:
You won’t be (directly) iceblocked or MCed (25-man only) if you have the most threat on /something/, be it an add or KT himself.
I’ve been MCed while tanking KT before because one person was riding very close to the “pull aggro” point.
Namthe´s last blog post..I am not perfect. Nor should you expect me to be.
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I also just finished Nax 10 on my Tank on our groups 3rd week.
Tank can’t be directly iceblocked. If your tank gets iceblocked it is becasue other melee is too close to him.
If your tank has the gear/skill and your group the DPS I would suggest you have the Tank pick up the adds and go without an OT. Or have the OT very quickly bring the adds to the MT so he can pick them up to avoid the OT getting ice blocked and losing the adds (more dangerous because the means bring a melee in close to the tank, which could allow an ice block chain).
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admin Reply:
March 24th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Our MT never got iceblocked. It is the add tank that got ice-blocked at least three times.
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It sounds like you have great healing in your raid, so if I may humbly suggest that instead of having an OT for the nerubian adds, just have your MT pick them up. We have any melee DPS back out once the adds show up and give the MT time to grab them, then the melee DPS return to their positions and resume the fight. It takes out the danger of the adds running wild if KT decides to block your OT, and since there is no real damage going to the adds, they stick to the tank with minimal effort. Then you can have your OT go as DPS or whatnot. Try it out, bet you’ll like it.
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admin Reply:
March 25th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Our healers are pretty awesome (our resto druid is like seriously OP) so we might just do that. That’s ultimately what happened in that fight for us after the OT bit it.
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Norm Reply:
March 25th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
More often than not, that seems to be what happens to the OT. Gets an unfortunate iceblock while trying to establish aggro, bugs eat healers, everyone dies. So frustrating!
I mentioned your overheal concerns with some of my shammy friends and they’re all very impressed that your overheal was as low as it was and say that’s a GREAT number to shoot for. HoT ticks that would be overheal don’t read, so I look like I’m overhealing less than I am. And Mad Skillz Disc Priest is healing more than the meters say she is, because wws doesn’t measure mitigation. Basically, heal meters are cr*p and we did awesome.
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I am so proud of our team! We’ve made great progress and had a blast while doing so.
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