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[Updated] Blood Pact: Warlock tips for Naxx-10 part 1
The time for Blood Pact has come again! This week, we delve into the dread citadel itself, the very stronghold of mighty Kel'Thuzad's power: Naxxramas! Following meekly behind the rest of the group, documenting his experiences for your entertainment, is Nick Whelan. With Ulduar getting closer every day, I thought this would be a perfectly inappropriate time to write up some helpful hints for all the Warlocks out there who are clad primarily in pre-raiding gear, and would like to start moving forward with their progression. This post is aimed toward helping Warlocks who haven't done much raiding in the past, and would like to try it out now that Blizz has made it so much more accessible. Furthermore, since it's unlikely that such a person has a spot waiting for them in a group which full clears weekly, I also assume in this post that the rest of the people in the raid are similarly geared. By using these tips, new raiders will be doing their part to ensure that their group gets a full clear as soon as possible. This guide isn't meant as a substitute to an overall Naxx guide. For something like that, be sure to take a look at Ready Check. Rather, this guide is intended to cover the information specific to Warlocks which won't be included in the raid leader's pre-boss explanations. As such, some of this information might be difficult to decipher if you've never participated in the fight before. I would recommend reading Ready Check's Naxx guides first, or even just referencing this page right before the start of a boss fight.
Spiritual Guidance: Controlling heroic Razuvious
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Need help with heroic Razuvious? Matt's here to help! I've received a lot of emails and requests for help regarding the heroic Razuvious encounter. It's a unique encounter in that Priests have to mind control mobs in order to to tank successfully.
WoW Insider Show live today at 3:30pm Eastern
Oh yes, the official podcast of WoW Insider is back on the air today at 3:30pm Eastern (which is April 4, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); -- like what we did there?), and it's going to be a blast. Not only will Turpster be on with us, and I believe Michael "Belfaire" Sacco should also be in attendance, but we're welcoming one of the newest writers on WoW Insider, Mr. Nick Whelan. Nick originally wrote about Warlocks at his blog, Curse of Senility (and still does), but we've recently recruited him to start writing our Blood Pact column, and so today on the show we'll be talking Warlocks: where they are now, where they'll be in 3.1, and where they want to be in general. And we'll also talk about all the most popular posts for the past week, including the April Fools news, the latest on the next big content patch, and where 25-man gear should sit in relation to the 10-man loot.And of course we'll answer your emails, which you can still send to us at theshow@wow.com. Should be fun. Tune in over on the Ustream page (or just in the second half of this post -- you'll find an embed there) at the time listed above this afternoon, and sit back and let the soothing sounds of WoW Insider raid your ears like so many groups through Naxx. The only epic loot we drop... is knowledge.
Learning to dance with WoW
I'm learning to dance. By which I mean, I'm learning various semi-ballroom or formal dances that are not characteristic of my native and well-honed ability to flop around on the dance floor like a seizing fish out of water. My fundamental problem with dancing is that I don't have any rhythm. None, nada, zip, zilch. I can notice a "beat" if it's being hammered on a drum, without any distracting vocals or "music" being played on top of it. But if that beat disappears for a millisecond, I instantly return to trampling my partner's feet.As a result, learning to dance has been a challenge. It's a little crazy, actually. There I was, struggling with the box-steps for a Waltz when a subtle inspiration hit me and my Draenei fiancee. For the box step, you kind of move around in a box. (It's not just a clever name.) But it's done on a three count. Very similarly to how you might call out Heigan's Safety Dance."Section 1.""Section 2.""Section 3.""Teleport."And, blushing fiercely as possible, I realized I had the steps. Yup, nailed 'em perfect every time, just by chanting that "Section 3 . . . Section 4 . . . Back to 3 . . . " The beat really was about exactly the same, and I didn't have any trouble after that.Things didn't get any better for me when we had to do "hesitation" side-steps. Basically, you take two or three steps with the beat, then omg hurry up and take two steps for one beat! And, in the grand tradition of dorks everywhere, I was struggling to do it gracefully. And then my Draenei fiancee impishly started muttering "omigod adds. . . amigod adds. . . omigod adds. . . amigod adds. . ." (Think Noth or Kel'Thuzad.)Yup, nailed the step right away again. So, while this may not be a direct buff from the Great Crab of Blue, Naxxramas may have helped me get my ballroom dancing right. I guess raiding makes dance steps more accessible?I will admit, though. I'm probably not ready for the Dance Battle.
Guildwatch: A kinder, gentler GW
Something really amazing happened the other day -- Jalabharxo, as you can see in the chat above, asked for some help in the Trade chat. But unlike what usually happens (someone insults his mother or people make fun of his lack of knowledge by calling him a noob), the unthinkable took place: someone respectfully answered his question. He couldn't believe it, and even though he sent us the screenshot, neither could we.Because of this crazy change to the way the game is played (People helping each other? Who'da thunk it?), we've decided to change up the format of Guildwatch. Usually we cover downed and recruiting news from guilds around the realms, as well as all of the crazy guild drama. But the drama is always so vicious, and no one ever seems to like it too much, so from now on, we're going to be covering a different side of the game: guild goodness. We're sure you'll love this change -- the new GW starts right after the break. And as always, you can send us news of your guild or anyone elses at wowguildwatch@gmail.com.
Ask a Lore Nerd: Fallout
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition. I apologize for the grim picture accompanying today's column, but I found it fitting. You know, even if it does have an artificial grain filter thrown over it to make it extra creepy. Chernobyl is creepy enough as it is without the filter, but I happened to like this particular shot. It's relevant, too! I promise!Sal asked..."Why don't the level 80 gnomes take back their home and clean up the toxic in it? We're able to run through at level 24 or so and clear the place, but a bunch of level 80's can't?"
Ready Check: Ulduar and Burnout
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Naxxramas-10 or Naxxramas-25, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we look at people who are leaving raiding despite Ulduar being imminent.It's that time of year again. We're hardly as jaded by farming tier 7 content as we were back in the days of Black Temple and Hyjal, but burnout has been rearing its ugly head lately, putting raiding guilds in a difficult position. Ulduar approaching will obviously put a stop to the problem - but for how long?When all the 25-man content is cleared in a handful of hours, nobody has any reason to run 10-mans and the drop-of-a-hat PTR testing schedule means we're entirely at Blizzard's whim as to when we can poke new content, it's no wonder people are becoming bored. Arguably, it's better that we don't get more than a few limited hours a week on the PTR, in order that the content is fresh when it actually hits. However, the actual effect of this drip-feeding has seemed to dampen enthusiasm for Ulduar rather than heighten it, especially as one of the most available bosses is unfortunately Flame Leviathan.
Phat Loot Phriday: Demise
Name: Demise (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDigger)Type: Epic Two-hand MaceDamage/Speed: 522 - 784 / 3.50 (186.6 DPS)Attributes: +90 Strength, +103 Stamina Improves hit rating by 49, which is excellent -- melee can almost always benefit from more hit And improves haste rating by 89 %Gallery-33600%
Guildwatch: Ninja tested, GM approved
This isn't guild drama, but what a move -- Kokor of Draka convinced a PuG to help him through a second run of Gun'drak just so he could ding level 80. And take a guess what he did as soon as he dinged -- yup, split off to Naxx, leaving the PuG, who'd just helped him level the last few points, in the lurch. The jerk store called, and they just ran out of Kokor.More stories of drama in this week's Guildwatch below, including a prodigal son that isn't so welcome. Plus, we've got downed and recruiting news from around the realms -- if you want to know what the guilds are up to on your server, it's in here. And don't forget, send your tips on drama, downed and recruiting news to wowguildwatch@gmail.com, and you'll see them right here in the future.
Spiritual Guidance: The Undying experience of a Priest
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week Matt offers some tips and insights for the Priest aiming to go after the Undying title! I wanted to share some thoughts and tips this week on a successful Undying run I participated in with my guild. It continues to be one of the most challenging achievements in the game. To put it bluntly your entire raid group must navigate and clear out every encounter in Naxxramas without dying to any of the bosses. The amount of coordination, luck and skill needed is high. Remember that dying on trash is perfectly okay. It's the bosses where you can't afford to lose players on. But I want to let you all in on a secret. There's a trick to earning the Undying.
Phat Loot Phriday: Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians
Not only is this wand purty, but the damage it pushes out is purty good, too.Name: Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoW-Arsenal)Type: Epic Wand (Shadow damage)Damage/Speed: 362 - 674 / 1.80 (287.8 DPS)Abilities: +27 Stamina, +22 Intellect Improves hit rating by 18, haste rating by 22, and spell power by 37 %Gallery-33600%
Breakfast Topic: It's gotta happen sometime
Whitney over on WoW Ladies LJ has a story that's so improbable it must be true. Not only did her guild pick up an epic on command in Naxxramas, and not only did they pick up two of the exact same epic item in a row, but they actually got three of the exact same item in the same room. As you regular readers know, I'm horrible at math, so I'm not sure how unlikely that is (you'd probably have to figure how much trash you actually kill every Naxx run and combine how likely it is for each of them to drop the item), but I'm guessing very. Still, given that every drop is randomly generated when a mob spawns (in other words, when you walk into an instance), it's still possible. Even a flipped coin can come up heads 100 times in a row.So yes, even though we don't think about it much, it's totally possible to get Mr. Pinchy on the first try, or pick up three epics in three pulls. Ever just been really, really lucky? I've had the opposite happen, too -- I go for an hour without seeing a drop, check all of the databases to make sure I'm in the right place, and then just before I quit, sure enough, whatever I was looking for drops.Got any stories of the random number generator (RNG) being really random?
Breakfast Topic: To talk or not to talk on Ventrilo
I like Ambrosyne's Vent chart, even if it is a little harsh. It's true, when you're not part of the raid leadership (and especially when you're a talker like me), it's sometimes a little hard to tell whether it's ok to try and crack a joke in the middle of the raid on Vent or not. Usually: no. I've learned the same thing by my own experience -- no matter how easy the fights are or how your guild is doing, the raidleader probably won't appreciate you trying to play some "Safety Dance" over Vent during Heigan's dance-off.However, in my experience, there usually is a place for joking during raids, and it's the guild chat channel. Actually, that's where I do most of my communicating -- I leave the Vent chat open for raidleaders to address the whole raid with the actually important stuff, and the rest of us hang around in the peanut gallery of raid chat, grats'ing each other on good loot and slipping in some commentary for the raid. You've got to have fun, right?Raidleaders, are there any good times to open up Vent and let everybody talk? And everybody else: have there been problems in your raids thanks to an unwanted Vent outburst, or does your guild pretty much understand that silence is golden?
Naxxramas gear by type
Tobold has a post up with an interesting analysis of all the epic loot that drops in the ten-man version of Naxxramas, broken down by armor type and by broad stat type (tank, melee, caster). At the top of this post is a chart I made from his armor type breakdown ("Other" is anything that's not cloth, leather, mail, or plate, i.e. weapons, off-hands, shields, jewelry, and cloaks). As Tobold mentions, this confirms that there is significantly more plate than anything else, about 50% more, even though there are the same number of plate classes as cloth classes. My guess is that this is because they expected an influx of DKs bumping up the plate numbers. As far as stat types, leather and mail are both split half-and-half for caster vs melee. This is a little iffy. In both cases, there are two caster specs (Balance and Resto Druid, Elemental and Resto Shaman) out of six total specs (Druids and Rogues, Shamans and Hunters), so it seems a 33/66 split would make more sense, but maybe they just wanted to keep it simple. The case that really bothers me is plate, which is split evenly between caster, tank, and DPS (see right). The only plate spec that wants caster gear is the Holy Paladin. That's one of three specs from one of three plate-wearing classes, and yet it gets a third of the plate gear. I'm sorry, my plate-clad healing brethren, but that's just not an equitable proportion. Mostly it just means that our prot pallies have full healing sets and we're still disenchanting a good chunk of the plate every week. Here's hoping we see less caster leather, mail, and especially plate in Ulduar.
Guildwatch: The dreaded 0% wipe
So close, and yet so far. The screenshot you see above? It was a wipe. The whole guild died off on Kel'Thuzad... at 9.5k health, low enough for the mod above to list it at 0%. Yes, Benediction on EU Turalyon experienced the dreaded 0% wipe -- we hope you never have to see it, and we hope, just like them, that victory comes soon after if you do. They downed him on the attempt right after that one.Lots more downed news after the break in this week's Guildwatch. To submit your tips (we do have a backlog currently, so it may take a week or two to get them in), send them off to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. And there are so many ninjas on the realms lately that unless they're exceptional or otherwise guild-related, we probably won't be listing them here. So if some random dude stole a blue out of your 5-man PuG, you'll have to look for vengeance elsewhere (the forums, maybe?). Enjoy the column!
15 Minutes of Fame: Solo healing Naxx 10
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about."I realise that I'm not the first person to do this, but I figured it was worth a post regardless," Prrancer begins his recent post on the EU Priest forums, "mostly because I keep seeing people insisting that it's impossible without an offhealer. So here it is: I solo healed the entire Naxxramas without anyone helping on any fight. "Okay, that's a lie. We had Vampiric Embrace, and we used Judgement of Light on Sapphiron -- only Sapphiron, though. But neither our Boomkin, Enhancement Shaman or Shadowpriest cast a heal at any point during combat. The Protection Paladin did use LoH twice, although he didn't have to. (He just forgets to use Lightwell.)"Thus begins the story of Prrancer of Liquid Courage on Jaedenar-EU (H). This is a player who likes to push the limits – and from the looks of things, he's doing a darn fine job of it.
Phat Loot Phriday: Armageddon
Spellpower maces and wands and bows are cute and all. But sometimes you just want a big sword.Name: Armageddon (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDigger)Type: Epic Two-hand SwordDamage/Speed: 554-831 / 3.40 (203.7 DPS)Attributes: First, just look at that thing. This is clearly a sword that, when swung in an arcward manner, brings all sorts of death and destruction. +101 Strength, and +108 Stamina, which is (definitely not the first weapon ever, but) the first weapon I've seen that has two triple-digit buffs. %Gallery-33600%
Immortal is the toughest raiding achievement in the game
This is extremely interesting. Guildox is a site that tracks raiding progression solely based on earned raiding achievements -- they check the Armory entry of your guild, and then add them to a list of who's toppled which instances and when. But they recently sent us a note about some overall data, and it's fascinating. Below the pulldown bar of the achievement listings on their site, you'll find an "achievement rate" stat. That is the percentage of guilds who've completed the selected achievement as compared to the number of guilds in their system who've completed any of the 10 or 25-man raiding achievements.In essence, that's the percentage of guilds raiding who've completed that achievement. And the toughest achievement in the game right now is The Immortal, which requires you to get 25 people through Naxx without dying once. Only about 1.5% of guilds raiding have finished that one. After that, it's Heroic: You Don't Have an Eternity (take out Malygos in six minutes), and Heroic: Shocking! (bring down Thaddius without crossing charges). The hardest 10-man achievement is the non-Heroic version of the Malygos timed achievement -- The Undying actually isn't too bad, with almost 20% of guilds having attained it.More after the break, including information on the easiest raiding achievements.
Guildwatch: "Ninja-ing mount, sry"
We don't really know how or why you would make an intro movie for a raiding guild, but there you go. That's the intro for Goon of Kil'jaeden, who are apparently currently working on Sarth 3D. I like the music, although as a trailer, it doesn't really work that well. Exactly what is coming soon?Looking for your fix of guild drama, downed and recruiting news for the week? It's right here in GW. If you've got a tip about any guild from around the realms, feel free to send it in to us at wowguildwatch@gmail.com (we've got tons of tips coming in lately, so if you don't see your guild here this week, it'll probably be in next week). Click the link below to read on.
The Queue: Ulduar progression and more
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Ah, maintenance day. The day where I finally get to go out into the world and suck some sunshine into my pallid flesh. I may even pick up some groceries! One can only order crates of Ramen off of the internet so many times before life starts to get a little bland. ...Wait, but if I leave the house... who will write The Queue!? Oh man, forget it, I'll get some sunlight next year. Maybe I can order some Pringles to add a little flavor to my noodles.Fargostar5000 asked... Don't know if anyone has asked this yet, but are groups going able to run Ulduar-1o successfully using only the gear from tbe other 10-mans thus far, or will heroic level raid gear be necessary/recommended?
