How to succeed at Cataclysm Heroics

So I was thinking about my previous post about how much bad luck I was having running heroics at the time and like usual my mind started wandering all over the place. I eventually thought up a few things that puggers can do to ensure that their group succeeds or at least so that their run doesn't end in total failure. Keep reading after the break to find out how you too can succeed in heroics!

Archaelogy is the DEVIL

As anyone who has leveled Archeology past 100 can tell you...its the Devil! Just like football, Ben Franklin, girls, and the robot Devil. It is a good source of supplemental experience while leveling but once you are 85 and have to fly all over the world repeatedly...it loses a little bit of it' fun. Stupid profession sending me from STV to EPL then BACK to STV! The bright side is that I have gotten the raptor mount and pet and both are very, very, very smexy. Now if only Tol'vir digsites would stop being such a tease and give me more locations I would be happy. Damn Kitty people keeping their canopic jars to themselves instead of filling them with dragon recipes for me to dig up!

Moving on from frustration to something a little better. Heroics! Guild has had a lot of people hit 85 so we've been running a lot of guild groups which are the best thing since sliced bread. Oh and to add to the list of the most obvious things ever: the sky is blue, wow is addicting, and pie is delicious. My mage is thankfully sporting a nice 340ish item level which would be higher except that I have been also running heroics on my shaman who is also sporting a 340ish item level. I think my warrior will hit 85 this weekend and then I'll have to get him up in item level so that I can get him some sexy gears.

Speaking of the Guild, we are currently at level 9 which is pretty awesome! We have gotten our first feast recipe from guild achievements (feast) and now that it is no longer bugged and giving out the wrong buff to people I'll be farming up more mats to make with the dropping them for groups. The lowering of the guild flask achievement was a very smooth move by blizzard. Before most guilds had no chance of getting 10k flasks made before they started raiding and actually needed them but now that it has been lowered to 1k and 3k it is a lot more doable. Woots for a development team that listens to us every now and then.

Well I've almost exhausted my extensive list of topics that I wanted to rant a little about so I think I will end this post now. Well before I do that I just wanted to say that I noticed that I started my blog in January of 2010. At the end of a month I will have spent a year rambling and ranting about random things that pop into my mind. I'll see about posting something special for the 25th which is the actual anniversary date. Anyone have any suggestions as to what I should write about?

My request of Heroic Puggers

So I dinged 85 on my mage on Wednesday of last week and since then I've grinded the gear that I needed to run heroics. Now as soon as I was able to run heroics I queued up and waited to get into a run. I have yet to down more then 2 bosses in a heroic and that was pure luck that I even got past one boss. In each heroic I have noticed the same things happening: tanks don't mark targets for CC and just rush in, people don't understand the fights clearly, CC'ed mobs are broken by non-tanks and the tank doesn't pick them up in time so someone dies, healer ignores the group and only focuses on healing the tank so dps dies, dps stands in bad stuff and die, healer doesn't heal himself then stands in bad stuff and then dies.

People don't understand that in heroics even though the boss looks the same, their abilities are stronger and not quite the same. My request is a simple request and it is that people realize that they are playing Cataclysm and not Wrath so you can't just steamroll through content like you previously could. Please mark for CC, please don't break said CC, please don't stand in bad stuff and expect healers to keep you alive, please don't go emo and leave a group after one wipe especially if you were the cause of said wipe. Also just remember that just because you didn't CC when you did the instance in regular and lived does not mean that you can do the same in heroic mode.

All I want for Christmas is to run a heroic at least once and down the final boss. I don't even care that I get loot from any bosses along the way. Yes that is how frustrated I am about this situation. WTB Guildees getting their item score up faster so that I can run in guild groups and not worry about fail pugs. So how is everyone else enjoying heroics?

Cataclysmed!

So it has been two days since we had our little digital world rocked. Two days of a brave new world to explore and reshape as we see fit. Two days and yet I've managed to play only a few hours on my mage :(. Why have I not been able to get past 81 you may wonder. Well Tuesday night I got the worst toothache that I have ever had in my entire life. I'm talking about a toothache that left me unable to do anything but close my eyes and try to shut the pain out. Thankfully my fiance managed to get me an appointment with a dentist early yesterday morning and I was able to get in and have a wisdom tooth taken out so that I could come back next week and get a root canal done. Yeah I was not a happy camper.

Well yesterday was mostly spent eating soft crackers, soup, and drinking lots of water. When I felt up to it I played a little and got my mage up to 81 in between sleep breaks, pill breaks, and random world spinning headache breaks. I have managed to replace a large chunk of the my icc10 gear with greens and a few blues. My spell power and mastery have gone up while most of my other stats have gone down. So far I am loving this expansion! I know that I have already seen it in the beta and all but it is still fun and being able to play with my guildees makes it even more fun. I should hopefully be 85 by the end of the weekend but if I'm not then I'm not. I am going to take my time and enjoy this expansion and all of the awesome wonderful things that it has brought us.

Bring out the gnomes

I am going to start out this post with a truth: Gnomes are awesome! This weekend was spent doing two things, eating and playing a lot of WoW. I leveled my gnome priest Wellesley to 49 and I also got suckered into rolling a feral druid with my fiance, which I got to 29. Questing in the old world was very fun and most quests are not as boring as they used to be. Punching Deathwing in the face is...epic. With under a week to go, Cataclysm can not get here fast enough! I know I wont be able to hit 80 on my priest in a week...at least not without taking some serious time off of work.

The Blizzard developers have done an amazing job with the old world changes and I honestly cant wait to get into the new zones on my mage. I've decided that I am going to level in Vash'jr, or however its spelled, instead of Hyjal. The reason for this? Two words. Sea Horse. Riding around on my seahorse in the beta was awesome! Also awesome was the underwater running animation. It was like I was on the moon and I took huge strides when I would run anywhere.

I have also decided that my little druid is going to be race changed to a Worgen as soon as it is enabled because a wolf that can turn into a cat is pretty hilarious to me. I also still plan on rolling a Worgen rogue so I can experience the Gilnean starting zone. I did enjoy it during the beta but it was still missing cinematics at the time so it felt incomplete. I'll probably make a goblin somewhere along the way to check out the goblin starting zone since I never got a chance to see it in the beta. Seriously though, Cataclysm can not come soon enough! Stupid work making me take time out of my WoW playing to do silly things like my job.Don't these people know that I have digital monsters to slay and gold to loot?!

I have been Shattered!

So the Shattering is among us! I thankfully was at work all day yesterday when 4.0.3a was pushed through the servers so I did not have to sit staring at my computer wondering why the servers hate me so much that they refuse to come back up. I instead sat at my computer at work and wondered how long it would be until I could go home and stare at my computer. Luckily for me servers started coming back to life about 45 minutes to quitting time for me so I could start playing in the new Azeroth as soon as I got home.

First thing I did was log into my mage and run around Stormwind and see some of the devastation. The city looks at nice as it did on the beta. After sight seeing I went and did the cooking daily so that when Cata hits I'll have a nice amount of cooking recipes ready. Then I took a gryphon to the Hinterlands and ran over to Hillsbrad so I could do the famous Plants vs Zombies game although in game its called Peacebloom vs Zombies. I gotta tell you that the last two levels of it are tricky as hell! I had a hard time on it and then I decided to finish it later and I made a Gnome Priest.

Now I spent all of yesterday trying to come up with a good name for both my Gnome Priest and my Dwarf Shaman. I finally came up with a name for both and... both of my picks for my shammy were unavailable! Well I spent a few more minutes coming up with a suitable replacement name and thankfully it was available! Welcome to Azeroth Wellesley the Gnome Priest and Moltke the Dwarf Shaman! For anyone who gets the two names...yes I am a huge history nerd for picking those two names but I don't care! I leveled my Gnome through the starting zone and it is pretty fun, especially compared to the old starter zone that Gnomes and Dwarves shared. I ended the night with my Gnome at level 14 and a half and spec'ed as Disc(Penance is OP). My goal is to get him as high a level as I can before Cata because I'll be really busy leveling to 85 then. So what did you do last night in the post shattered world?

The Shattering

I have a little bit of time this morning so I'm gonna post a quick blog. According to those in the know tomorrow the famous 4.0.3a patch, also known as "The Shattering" patch, is going to be launched. What does this mean for you? Well it means that you will be able to:
Play as new race/class combos like Dwarf shaman, Troll druid, Gnome Priest, Tauren Pally, etc.
Explore the newly shattered old world.
Do all of the new and awesome quests in the old world like the Plants vs. Zombies chain.
Experience the newly retuned 1-60 instances.
See the new Cataclysm log in cinematic/log in screen.

Now I don't know about you but I am REALLY looking forward to this patch because I got the opportunity to play a Gnome priest in the beta and I loved it. The coolest thing about this patch being released tomorrow is that I get a nice long weekend to play in the new world because of the Thanksgiving holiday. While I would LOVE to have the expansion already this patch will go a long way to keeping me occupied until then.

Now...what am I going to name all the characters that I am going to create tomorrow???