Hello! And Heroic Halls of Stone

Posolutely invited me to guest blog here, and while I don't have much to write about in WoW, occasionally I do feel the need to vent or chatter about specific events in the game.

First off... this is me --

Neshura. Dwarf, hunter, beastmaster, always and forever. I have a gorilla named Daffodil and a dino named Petunia. My pets are always named after either flowers or horrifying diseases. With that out of the way....

Tonight, we ran another heroic, new to me: Halls of Stone. Now I've only been to Halls of Stone on regular once before. This seemed just a touch more difficult. For one thing, the tank hadn't been there. Not Posolutely, but our guild's other tank, Balendin. I pounced on Balendin the moment he logged in and berated him til he agreed to come along. "But I haven't done heroic Halls of Stone!" Haha... "Neither have I! Neither has the healer! It'll be fun!"

I wouldn't say that I lied, as I was fully expecting that it would be fun.

IT.

WAS.

NOT.

We wiped at least 15 times if not more. We one-shotted the big rock boss, the Gruul's lookalike who does the shatter. The other bosses though.... ouch. 

Maiden put us all to sleep and then killed us, over and over. We finally got her down with just a few people still standing. Balendin worked the hokey-pokey trick of jumping into the black circles to get the dot that would cancel the sleep spell, and after he got the hang of it, it was just enough to get us through that boss.

At the Tribunal, I stood on the stairs and dropped frost traps to pull mobs into consecrates, but we still died. Wave after wave of angry short dudes pummeled me and Petunia -- we died a good bit, even though Bale was tanking and Iceravens was offtanking. Around the fifth or sixth try, we all died--again--right at the end of the last wave. The mobs went straight for Brann Bronzebeard, but he somehow managed to pull off his "computer hacking" and they despawned before they ever touched him. So, we finished that boss AND got the achievement -- even though everyone was dead. 

Our pug warlock had to leave at that point, so we headed out to summon a guildie mage. Aaaand... died in the respawns. Complete wipe.

We cleared the mobs, and headed for the last boss. Spell-stealing the lightning shield made a HUGE difference. The adds weren't easy, they had about 26k+ health each, but with a mage and a hunter both on add duty, we one-shotted the final boss.

It took about two hours, and it felt like it was twice as long. But we all learned the fights pretty well from doing them over and over. I do prefer the shorter instances offered by wrath -- a slog in Burning Crusade was a 3 or 4 hour affair. I can survive a 2 hour slog, but after that point, my eyes start to go crossed from too much time at the computer.

I was starting to feel like I was doing pretty well on getting starter-geared for raiding, until heroic Halls of Stone. Now, I feel like a n00b all over again. No loot for me tonight, but some loot for guildies, so yay.

Now, it's time to go do my evening meditation on "Why Do I Always Forget To Put Petunia Back on Passive".

The shortening of instances....

Is it just me, or are the instances shorter than they used to be?

The Nexus is the longest one I've encountered so far and its still very easily runnable in under an hour without pushing too hard. Heck, they even have a mechanism during one wing that makes you keep moving (the little flowers respawning)

Personally, I love it. I love being able to log on, find a group, get to the instance, and run it in under an hour.

Trash is less important. Its not as torturous, as unforgiving as it was in places like Shattered Halls, Shadow Labs and Steam Vaults -- if your tank didn't know how or where to pull it was royally difficult.

I don't find that to be the case this time. And... I am enjoying it much more. Its made things more social for me, and less stressful as a tank.

Admittedly, I'm still over geared, I wonder what its like for the less-geared tanking population....

So... Positive or negative?

The Nexus (Now With Spoilers)

Hidden away in the Coldarra, on the western edge of Borean Tundra, The Nexus is the 2nd instance in Northrend. I've only run it a couple of times now, and I think we were still overgeared for it and didn't bother with CC, aside from the first boss.

The theme of the route that I've taken both times, is "To the left, To the Left" Just stay left and you'll head around in a circle and get all the bosses down, get all your quests done, and get some uber loots our Kara/Badge geared pally healer got 2 upgrades I believe.

I'll spare you the major trash details on this one, aside from a few minor things... There are lots more healers in this instance than in Utgarde. Deal with them first, it will make your life easier. There's a book on the ground you can pick up to complete a quest en route.

Now, onto the First Boss.

The first boss, is one of those annoying mages. Her main attack is a small aoe Firebomb, which can be pretty annoying if you brought along more than 1 melee dps (and your healer is a Paladin). Then she tosses you around in the air, you will come back into melee range while she's tossing you around, so be spamming that Shield Slam button (or Devastate, or whatever else you may want to use).

Moving onto the second boss, within the trash you'll want to kill the Vortex's first when they are in your pulls.

Once you get to the second boss, the same thing applies, every 25% (I think) health he'll spawn a vortex, dps needs to switch over and kill it (not sit there pounding on the immune-to-damage boss like the Rogue in my first group did). Once the vortex is down, go back to the boss.

This is also where you complete one of the quests for the Nexus, so find the clicky item in your inventory and click it!

Moving onto the 3rd boss....

This trash the others are the dryads in the 3-4 pulls - they like to cast Tranquility, which should be interrupted asap. The big Tree's (which complete the 3rd quest here) hit hard. Really hard. Think Bog Lords in heroic Underbog. The little flower guys, they respawn every 90 seconds until the 3rd boss is down, so move quickly, and tell your casters to drink where you just killed, not 30 yards behind you.

The 3rd boss is a gigantic big huge rock guy. Kill him. Enjoy. Splat. Just don't stand on his wonderful little mountains he spawns all over, because they will shoot you way up in the air and you'll take a bunch of damage. (Think Ahune) No fun for anyone.

Once he's down, head due south (notice, you're all the way on the north end of the instance now), and you'll have 2 or 3 pulls before you're back in the middle of the zone.

Walk to the center and you'll see the dragon there. Kill the pat that's wandering around her, and you're onto the final fight.

She is a movement fight, to the point where if you stand still you get a damaging debuff that stacks. So, its shoot, move, shoot, move... for everyone in the party. Yes, even you Mr Hunter.

Cleanse is huge in this fight, as people get trapped in ice chains which does a lot of damage as well as applying the debuff.

I tend to kite her in a circle around the middle platform, so her head is always facing outward a bit, that leaves the space in the middle for the ranged to go and move around in, as well as a smaller circle for the melee to stay and beat on her (her tail also does a swipe, so they want to be on the side of her)

EDIT: I learned something new about her. You can JUMP to clear the debuff. So, yes, fire up some House of Pain, and Jump Around between your casts/actions/swings.

And that, my friends... is the Nexus! Anyone else have any tips? Ideas? Love?

Utgarde Keep -- Spoiler Filled Guide

So, this is my own personal Utgarde Keep guide. I'm sure there will be other guides, and I'm sure you can find the info elsewhere, but hopefully, I can help you out and get you ready for the Keep.

First and foremost, my initial impressions: I love the spacing of the instance. This relies less on pulling skill and more on group skill. You won't get too many mobs unless you try to get too many mobs. The instance in itself is absolutely beautiful. Just gorgeous. I cannot say this enough. Blizz has hit a home run with Wrath. Its better than I could've imagined.

Now, there's two quests you can complete in Utgarde, which are very easy to get. There's a guy just north of town on a small hill who tells you to go meet up with a guy just outside the instance, who gives you two easy quests to complete. Don't worry if everyone in your group has the Weapons quest, there's plenty throughout the instance, enough for all 5 of you to get 5 weapons each.

Onto the guide...

The first room is a large circular room, where the mobs come in packs of 3 or 4. Personally, I decided to down the casters first, and go with no CC. If you do choose to CC, the casters are probably the best target. The annoyances tanking these initial packs are caused mostly by the spear throwers. They love to stand just out of melee range and toss spears at you. Not a big deal, until they start throwing spears at the healer or the warlock. What I did was charge the caster, then walk the mobs over to the spear thrower, thunderclap, and shockwave. Worked very well, and after that, our aoe crew could open up at will.

The second set of mobs are the proto drakes and their trainers. These drakes have a pretty nasty frontal-cone aoe, so don't pull them next to your healer and ranged and aim them that way (unless, of course, you love torturing your healers....) I had issues with seeing the trainers as they sort of were eaten up by the Drake's model, and the drake's have a really small hit box for something so big.

Then you come to the room with the first boss. Things you don't want to do here?

Charge one of the 5 mobs in the room (which includes the boss). You can pull the 4 separately, deal with them, and then engage the first boss.... which I didn't do the first time, because I was just marking and rolling along, talking about how much I enjoyed the instance and it didn't really register in my head that the named was a boss....

The first boss is an interesting one. She periodically summons mummies to beat on everyone, they have very low hitpoints, and for me, a quick thunderclap and they were glued to me and beat themselves dead on my damage shield. The other thing the boss did was entomb one player in an ice block (similar to Demon Chains from Illhoof). To combat this, our ranged would switch over, and if it was our healer, I would charge the ice tomb and hit it a few times (shield slam is nice here), and then go back to the boss.

Moving forward from the first boss, there was a set of undeads tell your casters to hold back, because the little geists can make quick work of a clothie, even though they hardly have any hitpoints.

Keep on rolling through more 4-5 pulls and you'll soon be upon the second boss. This might be my new favorite fight, and as a warrior you can really make it a lot easier on your group.

Now, what happens? The two mobs need to die within a few seconds of each other, or else they will rez and you need to start all over (think Romulo and Julianne, you Kara vets). I had my groups beat down the melee mob to about 25% or so, and then switch over to the caster (I was tab targetting to interrupt the caster from casting while we beat the melee down). Burn the caster down, and the melee should've beaten himself almost dead on your damage shield, and finish him off. Baddabing, baddaboom... phat lewtz.

(Wow this is getting long)

More trash, of the same variety, eventually you get to one new mob, a Drake with a mounted rider (reminded me of the Bears in Zul'aman) just before the last boss.

The last boss is... well... a challenge if you aren't Kara geared (at least). He has a few skills: A spell called Smash, which does 6-7k on plate to anyone within melee range (run out Rogues, Ret paladins, fury warriors, save your healers the mana), and an aoe silence (so have your last stand and shield wall ready, just in case). Once he dies, he ressurcets to an undead zombified version of himself, and proceeds to beat you down with even more of a can of whoopass. He has two aoe's which get stronger (3-4k with a big range, and 8-9k for those in melee range).

So, this is a healer fight, love them, hug them, squeeze them if you survive it.

Posting this now, will (hopefully) add pictures, and corrections later on today!

Five Spoiler Free Wrath Impressions

1) Being Alliance, I decided Howling Fjord was the place for me. Why? the 9,000 people waiting for the Stormwind boat made my decision for me.

2) Everything feels epic. Big. Beautiful. Amazing.

3) There's a gnome named McGoyver. I laughed. I got excited. I love it. I've taken his flight 3 times just to take it.

4) Training = expensive but not needing green upgrades makes it way easier to make money back, all those quest rewards sell well.

5) I created a DK. He's a gnome. I was disappointed in the movie intro for them, but, I'm excited to complete the quests. Thats where the story seems to be told.

I'm excited to check out the instances. Tonight. A full on Utgarde guide will be coming tomorrow. Also, soon, I'll be taking some time to revamp the blog a bit and add a blog roll, hit counter, and other such nonsense.