Thorim Down!

Hey peeps! Wow! Isn't the weather just lovely? Shame I'm cooped up at work all day!

Finally Rage managed to down Thorim last night after a couple of hours of tries.

We went into Ulduar last night with Freya in our sights first. It was a messy start to the raid with a couple of wipes on trash, nerves were frayed, but we pulled together and took her down after 3/4 tries.

After joking about going to Mimiron next (which was hilarious as almost the entire raid bombarded our GM with "NOOESS!! We cant go Mimiron they're nerfing him tomorrowz!!!" much to his annoyance) we move to Thorim.

We did 5 tries where I was out in the main trash room. After the 2 tries I asked to be made raid assist and was then marking the healer types with a raid mark - to assist the dps. This made a huge difference in nuking down the evokers. I really recommend if you're having problems with this to get someone competent to do this. It really helps when all you can see is a mash of players and NPC's and AOE affects going off all around you.

After the first batch of tries I was asked to move into the gauntlet. 3 tries later Thorim was down.

Lets break down the fight:

Phase 1 - the raid run into the room and clear the combatants and the giant worm. As soon as the last mob is down the lever to the left of the room will be activated leading to...

Phase 2 - gather 2 healers 1 tank, 2 CC'ers and 2 more dps.

Our Gauntlet group consisted of;

Resto shaman - Healer/CC
Resto Druid - Healer
2x Ret Paladins - DPS
1x Prot Warrior - Tank
1x Mage - DPS/CC

This was what we found to be optimal for us - this may not be the case, but should be a good guide of what to do.

People on the gauntlet have to run down the corridor and fight there way to Thorim. They will face;

Pull 1 - 1 Healer, and 3 DPS NPC's - CC 2 of the DPS NPC's and nuke the healer, then kill adds.

Pull 2 - -1 Healer and 3 DPS NPC's - CC 2 of the DPS NPC's and nuke the healer, then kill adds.

Pull 3 - Giant War Golem - This guy will be firing fireballs(ish) at the party right up to the point you engage him - AVOID THESE AT ALL COSTS.

Pull 4 - 2 Healer NPC's and 2 DPS and 1 Stone Iron Giant. This can be really tricky to pull off - we CC'd the healer types - cleared the smaller NPC's then the Giant, then returned to kill the last 2 CC'd Mobs.

Then the group runs to Thorim and jumps down to join the rest of the raid.

While the gauntlet group is doing its thing (the faster the better) the rest of the raid will be dealing with wave after wave of dwarves. With each wave there will be a Dark Run Evoker - this guy is a seriously good healer and needs to be nuked down as a priority. Assign a group of people specifically for this task (and if possible get one of them to mark the mob) It really helps if you have a target macro to help you find him.

There are some larger mobs that have to be tanked away from the raid due to AOE whirlwind he does that can kill a clothie pretty quick. Melee should stay away from these.

Phase 3 starts when Thorim jumps down once the gauntlet team have cleared the gauntlet. This phase is pretty much a tank and spank with 1 exception. Thorim will occasionally turn and run a small electrical charge to a ranged member of the raid - shortly there after he does a Cone-Effect Chain Lightning with roughly a 60 degree radius.
This starts off not doing very much damage, but as the fight progresses gets higher and higher. (I was hit once by a 26k charge, one of our rogues was hit for 54k the same fight later on) Don't let yourself get caught in the chain lightning. Its a real pain and will wipe the raid.

So there you go - once you've gotten into the rhythm its easy as pie - but there are lots of things that can generally cause a wipe. If anyone is killed during phase 2 - especially if its one of the tanks - its a wipe. If either the tank or one of the healers is killed in the gauntlet team its a wipe.

So be safe, work hard and you got him!

Good luck!

Thorim has Rage on Farm

Hey peeps!

As Doxa was kind enough to enquire as to our guilds progress on Thorim I thought I'd make a quick post to answer him!

Well as the title suggests we're having a few problems on getting that dude down! Quite literally.

Getting him down off that pedestal is a real job! Either the guys going through the gauntlet wipe or the group outside cant keep up with the number of mobs spawning and wipe just as the last mob is pulled by the gauntlet.

We've tried lots of different combo's here - from putting more people in the gauntlet to putting more people outside.

I've been in both sides of the tries - starting with staying in the main room and fighting off the hordes of iron dwarves that come - it can be very overwhelming at times - and woweee the chaos that can ensue as people are just running around like blue-ass-flies trying to stay in control.... and its not much more fun in the Gauntlet room. Pull aggro off the tanks and you're dead! Thankfully hand of Salvation is a real godsend here! The gauntlet itself is not terribly difficult to start off with but when you get to those stairs...oh my god...you really need to be with a fearless tank who is able to take more than his fair share of punishment.

I've never been more scared to use Divine Storm in all my life!

Its just a frustrating thing - I guess many people will say we clearly don't have the DPS required yet to get past him. I guess there is always going to be a gear check with some bosses.

Good news though is all other bosses are on farm mode more or less aside from Hodir and Thorim (we've not tried Mimiron on 25-man yet but I heard he's a nightmare!!)

This weekend I'm going to try get me that Red Proto-Drake! I've wanted that bad boy for a while now and only need 7/8 more achievements to get it! 5 more Mounts left then all I need is the Tournament mounts to get my Mountain of Mounts reward of a very sexy Blue Dragonhawk!

So sadly Doxa we too are also headbutting the same wall as you!

Freya Down.

Hey peeps! I'm trying to post some more - need to get back into the swing of things after having nothing really to write about for ages.

So Wednesday Rage started again and cleared 6 bosses in Ulduar Heroic in 1 night (unfortunately I was not present as I was at the cinema seeing Star Trek for the 2nd time!!)

Last night we went and had tries on Freya, and at 11:30 Server time she finally went down.

The first half of the night I was on DPS, and we had problems with the 4 medium sized mobs that spawned being tanked, so I switched my gear out and activated my tank spec (go go gadget tank!) I was tasked with helping out with the tanking on those adds.

It was interesting for me, I had lots of fun doing that, and it was great finally getting her down. That fight is seriously harder on 25 man compared to 10 man.

Monday night we'll probably try Thorim and Hodir again. (first time on Thorim) Wish us luck!

Ulduar Progression

Hey guys! Hope all are well and still rocking the new content!

Rage's progression is as always slow and steady compared to some of you guys out there, but we're doing our best in the face of adversity.

Last night we cleared Auriaya and had a few good tries on Hodir in 25-man.

Auriaya is a bit of a nightmare and its all about the raid being able to keep mobile if the void zones spawn in rubbish places. This fight reminds me a bit of Prince in Karazhan with the infernals spawning all over the place.

Hodir on the other hand is best described in 1 word: Chaos.

Everyone has to keep moving all the time or they take frost damage, added to the fact you have to keep out of the runes on the floor in case you get knocked back by cave-ins. Its a real intensive fight and people have to be on the ball or its FAIL time. Also he's got 32 million Hit Points.....that's just unreasonable!! Damn you Blizzard!

So that's all the news from a raiding point of view. I've slowly been continuing my rep grind for the Insane title, but nothing massive to report there, other than hitting honored with Darkmoon Faire. I've started the Argent Tournament on my Druid - which is fun, and adds a nice source of income as well.

I'm planning on leveling another toon to 80 just so I can do these quests again maybe - it depends on what happens when 3.2 comes out.

I also managed to get my 75th non-combat pet in game and got my Fawn pet in the post, which was cool! Also last night in VoA Emalon was kind enough to drop the Grand Black War Mammoth!! Somehow I managed to win the roll as well!! /grin

That's my 85th mount in game - 15 to go for the Dragonhawk mount you get at 100.

Good Times!

Have any of you guys completed any WoW milestones with regards to content or achievements?

Ulduar Progression and Guild Changes.

Hey peeps! Been a while since I did a big update on here about raiding, but with going to Star Trek and being ill (no not swine flu!) I've not had much spare time.

Anyway Rage have been progressing quite nicely, not as fast as some people in the guild would like, but slow and steady always wins the race as they say.

In 10 man Ulduar we've cleared 9 bosses: Flame Leviathan, Ignis, Razorscale, XT-002, Iron Council, The big dude with the arms, Auraiya, Hodir, and Fraiya.

In 25 man Ulduar we're not so far, but getting there all the above aside from Auraiya, Hodir and Fraiya.

So far its been fun! I've loved all the fights - even given some of the wipe nights we've had.

I've been lucky here and there and managed to get some nice upgrades so far, the latest being this baby!!!!

Rune Edge
Two Hand Sword
632-949 Dmg Speed 3.40
(232.5 damage per second)
+121 Agility
+120 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 86.
Equip: Increases your attack power by 160.
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 70.

Lovely upgrade for my Betrayer, and finally nice to have a sword again. I hate having axe's. It always seems like such a waste of my nice expertise Bonus.

The Plate chest dropped too "Steelbreaker's Embrace" but I let that go to the other ret-paladin that joined us recently as i would loose a LOT of hit rating swapping out that. I'm saving my dkp for the tier 8.5 Chest. That way I'm not loosing too much Hit Rating.

The Iron Council is an annoying fight to be sure - the tanks take a lot of damage. Us paladins had to work out a rotation for Hand of Sacrifice if ever a tank wound up getting the boss in the rune that increases damage by 50%. We had almost 2 nights of wipes there - very frustrating stuff.

In other news I'm now the Paladin Class Leader in Rage! Our last one has quit his paladin so concentrate on his Horde Hunter. Good luck to him! Cheers Rovell! So this is lots of veteran meetings and sorting out who's doing what and helping make guild decisions! Interesting to see the behind the scenes stuff in a Raid guild.

Other projects I'm working on at the moment, in case any of you have been nosing around on my Armory page are as follows:

I finished the Argent Tournament on Monday!! Crusader Firelight was my 27th Title!

I'm also working on "the Insane" title. Here's where I am with that:

Bloodsail Buccaneers -11999/12000 Honored - Completed
Ravenholdt - Currently Revered - Incomplete.
Shen'dralar - Currently Friendly - Incomplete.
Darkmoon Fair - Currently Friendly - Incomplete.
Steamwheedle Cartel - Currently 8000/36000 Hated with most - Very Incomplete!!

This is taking me a long time!! I've killed literally thousands of Syndicate mobs, Southsea Pirates and Wastewander Pirates, and I've got thousands more to kill!

I've been slowly buying all the Rogue/Swords/Mages decks from the Auction house and getting my darkmoon rep up that way but this is also very slow. Also been gathering items for libram hand ins for Shen'dralar rep. Its going to be expensive, and its going to take ages, but I want this title!! Wish me luck!

PS - I'll hit the exalted title in 2 rep factions time as well! (40 factions to exalted)

New Star Trek Movie

Hey guys, just wanted to make a quick post about the new Star Trek Movie!

Don't worry - no spoilers here!

Some friends and I drove to London last night to an IMAX Theatre to see the film.

My god.....this is without a doubt one of the best, if not THE best, film I've seen in years!

Seriously - even if you're not a Star Trek fan, go see this! Its just brilliant!

Worth Every Penny!

That's all!! More Warcraft next time!

Ulduar - XT-002 Deconstructor DOWN and explained!

Hey guys'n'gals! Hope all of you have managed to get your Noblegarden acheivements done in quite time as we all know childrens week starts on Friday!


Anyways on Rage's 2nd night of tries we managed to clear the Deconstructor - and pretty early on last night it has to be said! We almost had him the night before but had a few people DC in Greece - on of their ISP's dropped out for 20 minutes which pretty much ended the raid as it was late anyway.

Its quite a fun fight, and Deconstructor's voice is pretty funny, with 2 phases:

Phase 1 - The tank positions the boss with his back to the raid right infront of the stairs and after a few seconds to allow him time to get sufficient aggro the DPS set off and we're full swing into the fight. During the fight random people will be afflicted with either;

- Gravity Bomb - This nasty debuff doesnt have a DOT effect, but if you get it - move away from the raid as after a few seconds it pulls everyone within 10/15 feet of you to where you are - just intime for you to explode causing a lot of damage to you and them.

- Light Bomb - This even more nasty debuff does i think about 3.5k damage per tick to you and anyone within range of you. MOVE FAST---->

Phase 2 - Deconstructor decides to have a sleep and his heart pops out of his chest. His heart has 10 million HP and your damage is increased by 100% against the heart. Whatever health you take off the heart is removed directly from Deconstructor, so this is a really good time to pop all trinkets/cool downs and heroism etc. During this phase various robots come to attack the raid and have to be tanked - or they move to the boss and if they get to range they heal him for 60,000 HP. There are also Bomb Bots - ranged dps need to deal with these and stay at max range as they explode causing 16-20k damage on plate. Phase 1 then starts again.

We got deconstructor down with 3 phase 2's last night - obviously as our gear increases it will get quicker and quicker. We were popping heroism on the 3rd phase 2.

Something interesting happened as well - have any of you noticed how much Judgement of Light is healing for? On the try when we downed deconstructor I was 3rd dps overall and 1st on the healing meters!!! WTF? I guess blizzard got something right! (ok most of it was over healing, but hey its better than nothing) my Judgement was ticking for 850-1000 on everyone in the raid when they hit the boss! Crazy!

So as a reward the boss was kind enough to drop these for me:

Clockwork Legplates
Binds when picked up
Legs Plate
2054 Armor
+106 Strength
+169 Stamina
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Strength
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Equip: Improves hit rating by 57.
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 76.

So that's a nice bonus for me! Cost me though! 550 DKP! Damn those Death Knights!!

So far I've really enjoyed 3.1 - the Tournament is fun and I cant wait for the next phase to start, although from what I've read it wont be starting till the next major content patch. Ulduar is new and fresh, and feels way more of a challenge.

For me this is the first time we've had to work hard on downing any bosses since the pre-wrath patch came out and nerfed all the tier 6 raid content.