Raiding Siege - Week 11

I'm glad to say that we have killed both Nazgrim and Malkorok last Thursday! It was a great night, two progression bosses and I may or may not have distracted everyone by acting like my nutty self mid Malkorok pull...we wiped, but it was great. Looking forward to another great night this evening.

Blizzcon was this past weekend and there was a lot of information pouring out to those who didn't purchase the virtual ticket. My last post covers the majority of changes.

I'm not sure how I feel about a lot of the changes right now, I am glad that my character's race will be showcased by visiting one of their home worlds but I'm hoping everything else doesn't ruin that for me at this point. Will have to wait and see, they hope to have the expansion out before this coming summer so it won't be too long a wait before we get some more information.

Blizzcon Recap!

So Blizzcon was this weekend and here's my quicknotes:

Storyline (spoilers!)
- Garrosh escapes before his judgement and somehow manages to travel to an alternate dimension/timeline to go into the past without screwing up the present. 
- He finds his father (Grommash/Grom Hellscream) and tries to prevent the orcs from drinking the Blood of Mannoroth, thus stopping the chain of events that would lead up to current events. Garrosh uses future technology to create the "Iron Horde".
- Garrosh is not the main villan despite the fact that he started this expansion, his story will end one way or another.
- What are we doing? Entering the new version of the Dark Portal and stopping him and his allied Orc clans of course, at least in the beginning....*I don't really understand this, if it is indeed a parallel timeline like they are speaking of and it shouldn't effect our timeline, why not just let him go?  He must take all the purples with him*

Features:
- Improved models of every race up to Goblin/Worgen (they're hoping to have them finished in time).
- Level 100.
- New talents, you can view what they have planned for them currently here: http://www.wowdb.com/talent-calculator-wod
- The ability to boost one character up to level 90.
- 2 new raids, 7 new dungeons at launch including UBRS making a comeback.
- Change in raid makeup/difficulty (refer to Jungle's post). Raids will be able to be consisted of 10-25 people, like Flex is now except when it comes to what is now Heroic difficulty - renamed Mystic. That will be for 20 man groups only and will not adjust depending on the amount of people. Raid groups will need to progress through three difficulties instead of two, Normal (approx current Flex difficulty), Heroic (approx current Normal difficulty) and Mystic (approx current Heroic difficulty).
- New Arena ladder system that is supposed to help with queue times and finding exploiters.
- Adventure guide to help players identify what raids they are ready for and what content they should be doing.
- New bag features: Heirlooms, toys and possibly tabards using the same feature as mounts and pets. Quest items will no longer take up bag space (about time!). You can craft directly from your bank.
- Garrisons - Personal bases with followers, a mine and a fishing pool. Followers can be hired and sent on quests or raids (if you have enough) to collect things for you. WoW's version of housing.
- New zone, Draenor. Technically Outland prior to it being destroyed. The current area named Netherstorm will be added in a future patch. Alliance's main city will be at what is currently the Black Temple (Karabor). Horde are somewhere that I don't care..I mean at Bladespire Citadel in Frostfire Ridge.
- Removal of dodge, parry, hit, expertise, reforging, some gem slots, meta gems, and some enchanting slots will be removed (ex: all glove enchants).
- As mentioned here earlier, gear will change depending on your spec, say for example on my shaman the gear would switch between agility and intellect.
- Item squish, no more big numbers!
- Bonus valor for completing things with friends, aww <3
- 10 billion dailies each day is supposed to be a thing of the past!

A ton of information to look at, next up last weeks raid!

Raiding Siege, Week 10

Well, I've slacked off again, because you know..I never do that!

On week 10 on raiding Siege right now, downed 7 bosses thus far and keeping things together! We're working on #8 this evening, General Nazgrim and if we're able to get timing down for his 10% phase we'll be golden I think; crossing my fingers to see Malkorok tonight!

So, since Siege came out and I found out about the Dark Shaman transmogrification set for Shamans I've wanted it; that's one sexy set! Tuesday night on the last pull of the evening we killed the Dark Shamans for the third time and guess what dropped?! The chest with the Dark Shaman gear in it of course. I adore the set, I think it will be something my character will be wearing for a long time yet. Finally a helm I don't feel embarrassed wearing this expansion!


Honorary mention for Epicism's other team (named Anger Management) here, they're 13/14 and have been doing progression on Garrosh for the past few raid nights. Crossing my fingers they'll get their kill very soon! Currently I am not streaming my own raid until I get better equipment to do so (FPS drops too much while fighting), but they've been doing so at Bitingcold's stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/bitingcold. Linking for you know, that one person that looks at my blog! <3 my fan! Good music, I have the stream open for every raid.

Next time, hopefully I'll have General Nazgrim and Malkorok on my belt; cross your fingers for me!

Week 2 and 3 of raiding Siege

Had some fun and productive weeks these past two, got a total of 3 more bosses down! We encountered some dps issues on Norushen, but we got past that just last night. We are lesser geared then the other team so I'm not totally surprised that we encountered that, but I didn't think we'd see it that early on. Main thing is we killed bosses and had a bunch of fun while we were at it :).  Had one of the people we had come in that hadn't raided with the guild prior tell me this morning I did a great job leading and that I achieved my goal of having a fun loving group that can get down to business when we need to. That made me feel pretty good about myself and my abilities as a raid lead. It's hard to believe some times that it was just a few months ago that I was unsure that I could do it. I can't take all of the credit, if I didn't have the team and the support that I had, I don't think I'd be saying that I am still raid leading right now.

Crossing my fingers that we'll be able to clear through Sha again this coming week, I'd really like to see Galakras before next week is out. Myself and one of my tanks already killed it with the other group last Sunday when they needed fill ins so we already know what's going on, it gives us a leg up on that fight in my opinion!

Week one of raiding 5.4

This week my guild started tackling Siege of Orgrimmar and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed what I'm seeing from Blizzard in terms of fight mechanics, I haven't seen alot of "mechanic recycling" thus far. Our first team made it through the first four bosses, putting our guild at #1 alliance side (you guys and gals rock!). My team made it to the second boss and at this point I think the majority of the issue is that we weren't entirely prepared for the content, even though we had a few days to catch up for day #2. Crossing my fingers for some improvement from them this week. We tried Flex raiding this week as well, interesting concept with increasing or decreasing difficulty depending on the amount of people. It was great for us, when people felt too tired they could just leave and not feel guilty as as long as we had 11 people we were good to keep continuing without searching for more people to join us. Made it up to Norushen in that difficulty and got some quality time with my guildies, we haven't done much of that for the past while!

Big thing that came out this week, Legendary cloaks! I worked on that as soon as I possibly could and the last step was fairly easy and quick to get, took me a whole hour! (sarcasm intended) The addition of the legendary seems to be getting some of my group members into gear to get it, I've known that there are some that haven't put in alot of time outside of raiding and I'm glad to see that they are now trying their best to get caught up to the rest of us.

Almost a year...

Wow, I can't believe it is coming up on a year since I've posted anything; time has flown! It's almost like another lifetime ago.

Alot has gone on in my WoW career. I've become a raid lead, I've been reinstated as an officer of my guild in April and also I've changed which role I play when I'm raiding, I've gone from being a Restoration Shaman to Enhancement (it's a melee dps class for those that aren't familiar).

I've celebrated my two year anniversary with Epicism this past March and am I glad I stuck it out after last year, it's almost like I've become a different person in the meantime. Some may say that I "got my head out of my a**" or that I've grown up, it may be either one but I like to think that with everything I've gone through in my personal and WoW lives that I've finally become capable of dealing with the stress of things a little better, not perfect mind you but a little bit at a time.

For those that have read the rest of my posts you may ask, what happened? Well, to keep things at a TLDR level I'll keep it as simplified as I can! Prior to 5.2 coming out I was given the opportunity to become a raid lead, it was either that or I wouldn't have a full time raiding spot. I didn't enjoy the team I was raiding with for Mogushan Vaults, Heart of Fear and Terrace of the Endless Spring anymore and I really felt that there needed to be a change to see if I still enjoyed the raiding aspect of WoW. This is a game after all, I play for my enjoyment! And so, with the raid lead position taken up there was only a space for an Enhancement Shaman, a spec I've played on a casual basis when it was needed since I've created the toon in Wrath. That was all in February.

By the time April came around, we didn't have a whole lot of active officers. The majority of them quit the game or raiding for the time being to have more time with their non-gaming lives. That left a bit of a predicament for the guild, with one officer left there was alot of burden for them. By default since I was a raid lead and starting to chip in on the work that the guild needed done I was offered to have an officer's position again, which of course I accepted. I like to think that I'm doing pretty well with handling it so far, I just take it easy instead of seeing it as a job like I did in the past. It really helps.

For the most part, that's what has happened this past year. The guild has also gotten a new Guild Master since the other was inactive and we promoted some others to complete our officer core. Wondering how my raid team ended up doing with 5.2 Throne of Thunder? We did pretty well considering I've never raid leaded when people listened to me instead of trying to overpower. We cleared out 12 out of 12 bosses in normal mode, it was an incredible journey and my goal for the tier was completed so I am extremely pleased. We had our ups and our downs, but I feel we've become a better team in the end of this tier. I'm confident we'll perform even better this coming one.

September 10th is the date 5.4 is supposed to be going onto the live servers, with the Siege of Orgrimmar raid being included....meaning Garrosh Hellscream better be prepared to meet his doom! It's almost time for another round of racing with the other guild group and the server, crossing my fingers for my WoW luck to continue and having another great tier!