Killing Ponies

Okay, so this isn't exactly breaking news. Heck, you can find all of these strategies out on Bosskillers or probably a dozen other raid strat. sites. But I'm going to talk about it anyway.

The fight is the Four Horseman. They basically all have to be "tanked" or have somebody in their aggro range or they'll do mass damage to all players in the room, essentially causing a wipe. I'm not giving details here, so if you want the actual strategy, go check out on the Internet. Another "basic" of the fight is that you can't stay near one of the Horseman for too long because they give you these marks that will cause damage and they stack. Generally you want to have no more than 4 marks. "Switches" seem to begin at about 3.

So... the strategy that we've been using is essentially have 3 people "tanking" Lady Blaumeux and Sir Zeleik in the back while the rest of the raid splits to tank Baron Rivendare and Thane Korth'azz with traditional tanking. The 2 Horseman in the back will stay in the same spots throughout the entire fight. These are the two you have to worry about mass wiping the raid if nobody's back there. The two in the front are punks, but of the two, Thane is more dangerous with his Meteor spell. Like I said, we split the raid and took out those two first, the continued on to the back 2. This strategy is pretty much the essential strategy for beginning Naxx, or lower raid DPS.

Primogeniture doesn't have low raid DPS.

For some reason, we kept having issues with this fight. Generally, it was 1, then 2, then all 3 of the "tanks" in the back. (Generally 3 healers.) Maybe we just left them back there too long, I don't know.

So, we changed to 1 tank and one healer on Rivendare (didn't we kill that guy enough when farming our blues back at 60?), the 3 in the back, and then the rest of the raid on Thane, basically making his Meteor kind of tickle and nothing more. (~52k damage split between 20 people is only about 2600 damage.) Pop all cooldowns including Heroism (or Bloodlust), and kill him before you get too many marks. I think we killed him just before 4 marks. Then head over to Rivendare, slap him upside the head, and then head to the back to finish them. Maybe it's just me, but somehow, that was way easier.

Morale of the story: if you have the raid DPS, focus, kill one at a time, and then the 4 Horseman are easy mode. This is, of course, assuming you're not going for the achievement. If that's your goal, go check out somebody else's post. (link is 10-man version)

Guild Leadership Appreciation Day - April 9th

I can hardly believe that it's been a whole year since last Guild Leadership Appreciation Day. But here we are. April 9th will be the first full moon in April, so we will declare it Guild Leadership Appreciation Day. As was the case last year, it will be celebrated over 3 days: April 9th, 10th, and 11th. (Once again, pushing it in to the weekend to hopefully give you time to see your Guild Leadership.)

I'll spread the word over at Wow Insider on Monday so that we can get more people to know about it. Hopefully they won't mis-report it up like they did last year. It's Guild Leadership, not just Guildleader as they published. So, that includes the Guild Leader, Raid Leaders, Class Officers, etc. (Although I guess I only have myself to blame since I didn't report it to them myself.)

At any rate, here's the details (basically reposted from last year):

WHY SHOULD WE HAVE THIS HOLIDAY?
Think of this as the RL Boss's Day, but for Wow. I think a lot of times, people don't realize the work and effort that goes in to leading a guild. Guild leadership has to organize groups for raids, determine when to move on from instances, where to go next for bosses, study strategies, determine which strategies would work best for the group they have, establish and enforce guidelines or rules for the guild, deal with personnel issues, manage officers, motivate people/keep morale up... ... and perform their role in the raid as well. All of that, and I'm sure I could come up with a dozen more if I really wanted to spend time on it. So, with all they do, how often does the "typical" member say Thank You? There's some people that are quite good at doing that on a regular basis, but this holiday will give everyone the opportunity to do so.

WHY THIS SCHEDULE? WHY THE FULL MOON THING?
Oh come on... full moon's always make people do crazy things, right? So, I thought it was fitting to have this fun holiday on a "crazy" day.

HOW DO I CELEBRATE GUILD LEADERSHIP APPRECIATION DAY?
It's pretty simple really. You simply tell members of your guild leadership that you appreciate that they take the time to do everything that they do. You can do so in a whisper, mail, e-mail, phone, vent, showing up at their front door step (stalker much?), or on your guild forums. You can send gifts if you'd like, but it's not necessary.

THREE DAYS? ISN'T THAT ONLY RESERVED FOR REALLY CRAZY HOLIDAYS LIKE MARDI GRAS?
Most guilds probably don't get together every single day. This 3-day span will mean that you're probably raiding or together with your Guild Leadership on at least one of those 3 days. Like I said, the official day this year is April 20th, but you can celebrate it on any of the days before and after the date as well. (If you want to celebrate all 3 days, you can do that as well.)

MY GUILD LEADERSHIP IS A BUNCH OF JERKS. WHY SHOULD I DO THIS?
If your guild is completely inactive, I'll let you off the hook. But even the jerk GM's have a heart... somewhere. Let them know that they're appreciated. Who knows? It may actually soften them up a bit.

I'M A GM. HOW DO I CELEBRATE?
Oh no... you don't get to just bask in the glory and praise that your members will sure to pour all over you this weekend. You've got a responsibility for Guild Leadership Appreciation Day as well. First off, you have to be humble when receiving these praises. You can't respond by saying, "Yeah, I know I'm the best." If you can't think of anything humble to say, you can simply say, "Thank you for recognizing my efforts on Guild Leadership Appreciation Day." This first point going for all who will be receiving praise on this wonderful day(s). Next, as GM, you prepare a little speech. Let it be known on Vent, Guild Chat, Guild Forums... that you recognize that raiding is difficult, and that you couldn't get there without the entire guild. You're grateful that at least 24 other people are willing to work together to perform such amazing feats as say... taking down Hogger. (Insert Raid Boss Name Here.)

WOW. WHAT A GREAT IDEA, LEIANDRA. ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD DO?
Get the word out. There's only 13 days left until the start of Guild Leadership Appreciation Day. Let everyone know. Let's make this a true Holiday!

T-7 Mage Shoulders

Ok, ok... so I didn't post yesterday (car problems kind of forced me to stay home), or the day before (New Employee and Diversity training sessions), but I'm here today, right?

Today's topic has to do with a necessary nerf. There's a certain mage shoulder piece that has a very specific (but not totally unique) characteristic of produce little clouds of "smoke" as you're moving about. It is most obviously seen as you're, say... flying your epic carpet around. Yes, that's right. I'm looking at you Heroes' Frostfire Shoulderpads. This clearly puts the Valorous Frostfire Shoulderpads at a graphical disadvantage. And while the Heroe's set is only item level 200, the Valorous set is item level 213.

So I ask you: How can this be fair? Since I imagine it is much easier to petition a nerf than a buff, I'm starting the chant now: "Nerf Heroe's Frostfire Shoulderpads! Nerf Heroe's Frostfire Shoulderpads! Nerf Heroe's Frostfire Shoulderpads!" I may need to come up with a better slogan.

I'm gonna need banners, commerial funds, full internet coverage, the works! If we all unite together, we can get this change by 3.1, when nobody will care anymore!

-wait... I think I just defeated myself with that last sentance. Maybe we need to move even quicker. lol.

Blogging Again (and a bunch of excuses incoming)

There's been a number of things that have kept me from blogging lately. Mostly because I got a new job (same company) and it's kept me very busy. And then since we moved back in August, the +/- 2 hour commute (one-way) leaves me little time to try and squeeze blogging in if work time doesn't allow it.

But there's been a lot of things that have happened in Primogeniture that I really feel the need to comment about. A lot of them should apply to all people that play Wow, so I'll start working on that.

I'll settle in with the new job, and I'll start posting regularly again. Not that I've ever really cared about my web-site traffic numbers (just kinda fun bragging rights more than anything), but I'm hesitant to look at them now after my little unannounced break.

At any rate, I'll be back soon with actual "content".

DoT'ing for Fun (Living Bomb)

This may sound kind of funny, but I actually enjoy Living Bomb. And as you can probably guess, I enjoy it because it's a DoT. What does that mean exactly? Well... the basic basic is that it is a Damage Over Time spell. It's also an insta-cast spell; that means I can cast it while running. It's also a non-directional spell: I don't have to be facing my target to cast it. It provides a fair amount of DPS with even an AoE component if the target survives for 12 seconds. Heck! You can read the description. If you're following this blog, you probably know all this stuff already.

But, what makes it fun (or DoT's in general) is that I can help somebody out as I'm running by their target to hit my own.

Story time: Last night, I was questing in Sholozar Basin. (Getting the house back together after getting the kids down took a bit longer than normal; therfore, I was late to the raid and they filled my spot. Understandable.) Well, we're doing the quests where you have to kill basically everything in sight. So, my "independent" wife is killing one thing while I'm focusing on another. There wasn't really anyone around fighting for kills, but I still took it upon myself to tag as much as possible as fast as possible so that nobody would steal anything. Living Bomb her target while persuing the next one... and I don't even have to be facing my target! See? It's really the simple things in life that make me happy.

Yes, yes... I'm very well aware there's a whole class that's practically built around this concept of DoTs. And one of the staples of the shadow priest is also a DoT. But having a DoT on a mage after all this time of non-DoTs... well... it's just fun. :)