For all you Rogues and Druids that have banked up honor points, Season 5 is finally here! Officially it started on Dec 16th, and i can see a flurry of people on my server putting teams together.
I enjoy the PVP aspect of the game and have a bunch of points saved, but the questions is, what is the first thing i buy?! We're all worried that what we buy with our valuable points will be obsoleted way to quickly, and why the heck are there 3 different sets of PVP armor?!
Well first off, i would say from a PVP perspective you can't go wrong with buying the new PVP trinket, in my case the Medallion of the Alliance but i'm sure some of you will be purchasing the Horde one.
After that you need to decide how badly do you want the PVP gear and if your willing to wait, 3 sets of PVP gear were released
Savage Gladiator - blue pvp set
Hateful Gladiator - epic pvp set
Deadly Gladiator - even better epic pvp set
I would really advise skipping the blue set altogether, the Deadly Gladiator pieces require personal ratings to purchase while the Hateful pieces do not. If your good in the arena and you find getting a good rating comes easily, you'll probably end up skipping the Hateful set, if your an average player, you will probably need to start buying Hateful pieces to be able to get some sort of rating that will let you purchase the low end pieces.
Arena is a great alternative to PVE for gearing up, even if your losing 10 games a week you'll still some epics.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Soloing Anzu as a Druid with any spec and gear
Jitsuk at elitepvpers.de has found an easy way for a druid of any spec and gear to solo Anzu for the mount.
Here is the original article
http://www.elitepvpers.de/forum/wow-guides-templates/192023-guide-get-raven-lords-mount-easily-solo-druid.html
He says his method is an exploit, so i urge people trying this to beware the consequences.
First off you must be able to summon Anzu, and he says you must be 80 (not really sure why this would be the case)
Stealth through to Anzu's room, of course the first boss can see through stealth, so if you stealth around the edges he won't be able to detect you due to the level different. I've also heard Night Elves can run straight through to the other side aggroing the boss, once you get through the doorway Night Elves can Shadowmeld to drop agro, similiar to the way Rogues used to vanish back in TBC.
(Note if you find you die often attempting Anzu or clearing the room, you may want to kill the final boss Ikiss as that locks you into the instance and opens the back door shortcut into the final boss's room)
In Anzu's room you need to clear enough trash to not get agro when fighting Anzu.
He recommends clearing the pack on the left hand side of the room, pull the mobs behind the crypt in order to LoS other pats and mobs.
When your ready summon Anzu, and stand next to the crypt on the south west side of the room, just in range of the Eagle Spirit but out of range of Anzu. The Eagle Spirit is the bird to the east.
When you summon Anzu for some reason he doesn't engage and just sits there, you must keep HoTs on the Eagle Spirit at all times, the Eagle Spirit will do 300 damage a second to Anzu, and when Anzu gets really low you must finish him with one spell, (i'm guessing winding up a starfire would be the safest) If you don't finish him with your spell and the Eagle Spirit does suppposedly Anzu is unlootable.
If you mess up and miss HoTs or dps Anzu, supposedly he agroes and all his birds come out and and he tries to the wipe the floor with you.
Since the Eagle spirit only does 300 dmg a second and Anzu has 236k HP, this will take a while.
So good luck in getting your Druid mount, the drop rate has been reported as being 1%
Here is the original article
http://www.elitepvpers.de/forum/wow-guides-templates/192023-guide-get-raven-lords-mount-easily-solo-druid.html
He says his method is an exploit, so i urge people trying this to beware the consequences.
First off you must be able to summon Anzu, and he says you must be 80 (not really sure why this would be the case)
Stealth through to Anzu's room, of course the first boss can see through stealth, so if you stealth around the edges he won't be able to detect you due to the level different. I've also heard Night Elves can run straight through to the other side aggroing the boss, once you get through the doorway Night Elves can Shadowmeld to drop agro, similiar to the way Rogues used to vanish back in TBC.
(Note if you find you die often attempting Anzu or clearing the room, you may want to kill the final boss Ikiss as that locks you into the instance and opens the back door shortcut into the final boss's room)
In Anzu's room you need to clear enough trash to not get agro when fighting Anzu.
He recommends clearing the pack on the left hand side of the room, pull the mobs behind the crypt in order to LoS other pats and mobs.
When your ready summon Anzu, and stand next to the crypt on the south west side of the room, just in range of the Eagle Spirit but out of range of Anzu. The Eagle Spirit is the bird to the east.
When you summon Anzu for some reason he doesn't engage and just sits there, you must keep HoTs on the Eagle Spirit at all times, the Eagle Spirit will do 300 damage a second to Anzu, and when Anzu gets really low you must finish him with one spell, (i'm guessing winding up a starfire would be the safest) If you don't finish him with your spell and the Eagle Spirit does suppposedly Anzu is unlootable.
If you mess up and miss HoTs or dps Anzu, supposedly he agroes and all his birds come out and and he tries to the wipe the floor with you.
Since the Eagle spirit only does 300 dmg a second and Anzu has 236k HP, this will take a while.
So good luck in getting your Druid mount, the drop rate has been reported as being 1%
Friday, December 12, 2008
Resto Druid Solos Anzu
Well i've only been 80 for a few days now, so i'm slowly making my way into groups and running heroics. I've not yet started stealthing instances yet, as i want to see what the actual instances look like. When i run an instance, i always take mental notes if the instance looks stealthable or not, i guess it's a habit of doing so many stealth runs in TBC and Vanilla WoW.
But this post is not about stealthing, well i guess it could be, as Druids would most likely be stealthing to Anzu for farming the mount.
As you know, many Feral Druids are already solo farming Anzu, which makes sense, as i think Feral is out best soloing spec. Non mana dps, which means you can dps forever, shifting into Bear for extra tankiness or Kitty for extra dps, being a feral you'll naturally have lots of dodge to have a lot of damage avoidance, and with talents you can even improve your healing power slightly. With the changes coming in, Ferals will very soon be shifting for a very cheap cost to mana, that with free heals from ILOTP means ferals have a lot going for them in soloing.
Not all of us Druids are Feral though, there is a smattering of Resto's and Balance Druids out there, and we're also interested in that ooh so sexy epeen Druid mount.
Well i'm happy to say that Resto's are now claiming to have solo'd Anzu, i'm not sure of their gear level, but i'd be guessing they're at least geared with the new heroic goodies, supposedly the strat is to keep themselves healed while hotting the Eagle totem (it does 300 dmg per second while hotted) so although this could take a while, a few resto Druids are claiming to have done it.
Only one problem, because the totem does the majority of the damage, Anzu becomes unlootable....
I'd say a resto Druid that is able to balance their dps with the Eagle totems DPS will be able to down Anzu and loot him soon enough, it's still early days of Wrath and we're only just gearing up now.
Now i'm just waiting for a Balance Druid to claim doing this, i'm keen to give it a go myself, but my gear is still quite lacking.
But this post is not about stealthing, well i guess it could be, as Druids would most likely be stealthing to Anzu for farming the mount.
As you know, many Feral Druids are already solo farming Anzu, which makes sense, as i think Feral is out best soloing spec. Non mana dps, which means you can dps forever, shifting into Bear for extra tankiness or Kitty for extra dps, being a feral you'll naturally have lots of dodge to have a lot of damage avoidance, and with talents you can even improve your healing power slightly. With the changes coming in, Ferals will very soon be shifting for a very cheap cost to mana, that with free heals from ILOTP means ferals have a lot going for them in soloing.
Not all of us Druids are Feral though, there is a smattering of Resto's and Balance Druids out there, and we're also interested in that ooh so sexy epeen Druid mount.
Well i'm happy to say that Resto's are now claiming to have solo'd Anzu, i'm not sure of their gear level, but i'd be guessing they're at least geared with the new heroic goodies, supposedly the strat is to keep themselves healed while hotting the Eagle totem (it does 300 dmg per second while hotted) so although this could take a while, a few resto Druids are claiming to have done it.
Only one problem, because the totem does the majority of the damage, Anzu becomes unlootable....
I'd say a resto Druid that is able to balance their dps with the Eagle totems DPS will be able to down Anzu and loot him soon enough, it's still early days of Wrath and we're only just gearing up now.
Now i'm just waiting for a Balance Druid to claim doing this, i'm keen to give it a go myself, but my gear is still quite lacking.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Mages Mirror Image knocking Rogues and Druids out of stealth
Well a few months back we had all that fuss about starfall taking stealthers out of stealth.
Seems we have the same situation again, but this time with Mages Mirror Image.
Is this a bug? Well people reckon it is, but only time will tell until (if) Blizz fix this.
So why is this so bad compared to other Mages AoE that can knock us stealthers out of stealth, supposedly the range of this is huge, at least with a Mages AoE search for a stealther, they can only choose a localised area to try to catch us, Mirror Image (like Starfall) seems to out us in a very large area. Rogues have complained of been outed from 50 yards away, i haven't tested this myself, but even if it's outing us at a 30 yard radius, that is a big unfair advantage they have against us.
Seems we have the same situation again, but this time with Mages Mirror Image.
Is this a bug? Well people reckon it is, but only time will tell until (if) Blizz fix this.
So why is this so bad compared to other Mages AoE that can knock us stealthers out of stealth, supposedly the range of this is huge, at least with a Mages AoE search for a stealther, they can only choose a localised area to try to catch us, Mirror Image (like Starfall) seems to out us in a very large area. Rogues have complained of been outed from 50 yards away, i haven't tested this myself, but even if it's outing us at a 30 yard radius, that is a big unfair advantage they have against us.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Anzu soloable for mount
Since i'm not yet 80, and have been working on leveling i haven't had the chance to do any stealth runs in Wrath, i'm almost 80, and keen to start stealth running again and soloing some old instances.
People have been soloing, Ony, ZG and the old Heroics.
One boss i'm particularly keen to try is Anzu, as of patch 3.0.2 it's been reported the mount still drops and Feral Druids are able to solo him.
I have grown quite fond of my old cat mount, but with the new stables feature, i think it's time to add some more mounts to the collection.
People have been soloing, Ony, ZG and the old Heroics.
One boss i'm particularly keen to try is Anzu, as of patch 3.0.2 it's been reported the mount still drops and Feral Druids are able to solo him.
I have grown quite fond of my old cat mount, but with the new stables feature, i think it's time to add some more mounts to the collection.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
No more FAP for Ferals!! Reduction in Druid armor!
Well i must admit, when i hear the word FAP i have a laugh, as it has been known to mean other things. In this case i am referring to Feral Attack Power, Blizz is changing the way Feral Druids use weaps, instead of FAP they will have Druid Feral attack power (AP) scale based on the DPS of the item.
Link here
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/12891010295-upcoming-feral-changes-part-ii.html
Also in this post it mentions Bears will lose armor, now i've heard this news before, but i guess i haven't written about it yet.
Blizz has stated that Bears will no longer get the multiplier for bonus armor items such as weaps, trinkets, rings, necks and cloaks. The multiplier will only affect cloth and leather items.
Blizz are compenstating Ferals by improving the Survival of the Fittest Talent to increase armor contribution from items by 22%/33%/66% making it quite similiar to the current armor bonus.
Is this a good thing? Well i think it depends on how they implement these multiplier bonuses to Tree and Moonkin form, will Moonkin and Tree get multiplier bonuses from these items? I haven't seen a post stating it either way yet.
In general, i think it's a good thing as it does give Bears more options in what tanking trinkets, rings, cloaks and weaps to use (although i haven't seen an armor necklace yet)
Since vanilla WoW tank Druids have been pigeonholed into using certain items (The Warden Staff springs to mind), those Druids that mistakenly didn't choose Mark of Tyranny back when doing Blackrock Spire quests kicked themselves for years when wanting to maximise their tanking abilities until new trinkets came out in TBC.
This change will give Bear Tanks a lot more options when choosing tanking gear.
With Blizz trying to balance the stats between all the classes, i'm sure this will eventually work out, but as with all changes that are made, there will be teething problems.
Link here
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/12891010295-upcoming-feral-changes-part-ii.html
Also in this post it mentions Bears will lose armor, now i've heard this news before, but i guess i haven't written about it yet.
Blizz has stated that Bears will no longer get the multiplier for bonus armor items such as weaps, trinkets, rings, necks and cloaks. The multiplier will only affect cloth and leather items.
Blizz are compenstating Ferals by improving the Survival of the Fittest Talent to increase armor contribution from items by 22%/33%/66% making it quite similiar to the current armor bonus.
Is this a good thing? Well i think it depends on how they implement these multiplier bonuses to Tree and Moonkin form, will Moonkin and Tree get multiplier bonuses from these items? I haven't seen a post stating it either way yet.
In general, i think it's a good thing as it does give Bears more options in what tanking trinkets, rings, cloaks and weaps to use (although i haven't seen an armor necklace yet)
Since vanilla WoW tank Druids have been pigeonholed into using certain items (The Warden Staff springs to mind), those Druids that mistakenly didn't choose Mark of Tyranny back when doing Blackrock Spire quests kicked themselves for years when wanting to maximise their tanking abilities until new trinkets came out in TBC.
This change will give Bear Tanks a lot more options when choosing tanking gear.
With Blizz trying to balance the stats between all the classes, i'm sure this will eventually work out, but as with all changes that are made, there will be teething problems.
Ony and ZG Soloable at 80!
OK not exactly stealth running material, but since i'm not 80 yet and haven't had the chance to stealth the new instances and write up guides, i thought it would be useful to post news for Druids and Rogues, obviously since my main is a Druid my posts will probably have a Druid bias, but i am working on my Rogue (albeit a lot slower then i would like)
Found an interesting post on the official WoW forums by a level 80 Feral Druid that has managed to Solo Onyxia easily, 12 minutes of work netted him 177g + T2 epics and blues.
Original Post
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12890945951&sid=1
I know how the official WoW forums likes to swallow posts so i will summarise.
He's downed the following bosses in ZG
Raptor
Snake
Tiger
Panther
Spider
Hakaar
(Been a long time since i did ZG myself, so i can't remember if all these are correct)
And he's downed Onyxia in Cat form.
For Ony he uses mangle a lot, phase 2, he goes bear and swipes, then back to cat in phase 3.
I'm looking forward to 80 myself, i also like to dostupid fun stuff.
Found an interesting post on the official WoW forums by a level 80 Feral Druid that has managed to Solo Onyxia easily, 12 minutes of work netted him 177g + T2 epics and blues.
Original Post
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12890945951&sid=1
I know how the official WoW forums likes to swallow posts so i will summarise.
He's downed the following bosses in ZG
Raptor
Snake
Tiger
Panther
Spider
Hakaar
(Been a long time since i did ZG myself, so i can't remember if all these are correct)
And he's downed Onyxia in Cat form.
For Ony he uses mangle a lot, phase 2, he goes bear and swipes, then back to cat in phase 3.
I'm looking forward to 80 myself, i also like to do
More AoE for Rogues and Kitties
With the increased amount of AoE needed in current instances, Blizz has thrown Rogues and Kitties a bone by increasing their AoE abilities.
Rogues will no longer have a CD for Fan of Knives (currently 10 seconds), and they're re-doing the way damage is calculated to make it a little more effective.
Kitties will be given a new swipe ability as a base ability.
Here's the link to the Blue post in the official WoW forums.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12891294995&sid=1
(coming in a minor content patch if your too lazy to click on the link, should be on the PTR soonish)
I'm not sure how useful these abilities will be in leveling. (If your not 80 yet)
Druid Balance specs have been given amazing AoE in WOTLK, i'm a slow quester myself, and i've heard the first Druid to hit 80 actually did a ton of AoE farming, from what i read some people that AoE level say they can clear 250-350k per hour of XP unrested.
I decided to give it a go myself in Dragonblight for an hour and only managed to do about 400k WITH RESTED. Not too horrible (and definitely faster than my questing abilities) but still not as high as i would of liked.
So for those that don't know the numbers, for me (and a few people i've spoken to) it takes us about 7 hours of played time to do a level, with my the AoE grind (provided i have rested XP) i should be able to clear a level in about 3-4 hours.
At the moment it's about 1.5 million XP per level, mind you i'm only level 74 still (i know i know hurry up and get to 80 so i can post some guides)
I doubt Kitty swipe will be as effective as Moonkin (and possibly) Resto grinding, but Fan of Knives definitely looks like it may have some prospects, i'll have to work on my Rogue some more to know for sure.
Rogues will no longer have a CD for Fan of Knives (currently 10 seconds), and they're re-doing the way damage is calculated to make it a little more effective.
Kitties will be given a new swipe ability as a base ability.
Here's the link to the Blue post in the official WoW forums.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12891294995&sid=1
(coming in a minor content patch if your too lazy to click on the link, should be on the PTR soonish)
I'm not sure how useful these abilities will be in leveling. (If your not 80 yet)
Druid Balance specs have been given amazing AoE in WOTLK, i'm a slow quester myself, and i've heard the first Druid to hit 80 actually did a ton of AoE farming, from what i read some people that AoE level say they can clear 250-350k per hour of XP unrested.
I decided to give it a go myself in Dragonblight for an hour and only managed to do about 400k WITH RESTED. Not too horrible (and definitely faster than my questing abilities) but still not as high as i would of liked.
So for those that don't know the numbers, for me (and a few people i've spoken to) it takes us about 7 hours of played time to do a level, with my the AoE grind (provided i have rested XP) i should be able to clear a level in about 3-4 hours.
At the moment it's about 1.5 million XP per level, mind you i'm only level 74 still (i know i know hurry up and get to 80 so i can post some guides)
I doubt Kitty swipe will be as effective as Moonkin (and possibly) Resto grinding, but Fan of Knives definitely looks like it may have some prospects, i'll have to work on my Rogue some more to know for sure.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
New Stealth Enchant
WOTLK has introduced a new stealth enchant into our stealthing arsenal
Enchant Cloak - Shadow Armor
5 sec cast
Tools:
Runed Titanium Rod
Reagents:
Infinite Dust (20), Greater Cosmic Essence (12), Abyss Crystal
Permanently enchant a cloak to increase stealth slightly and Agility by 10. Requires a level 60 or higher item.
The recipe is sold by Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran and you need to be a level 440 enchanter to cast it.
Unfortunately i can't dig up any info on the effectiveness of the stealth portion of the enchant, but i would assume it to be no powerful then the classic Enchant Cloak - Stealth
For most stealthers we use a low level BOE cloak that we swap out when it's time to fight.
Unless the stealth portion of this enchant is better then the existing enchant i don't see many stealthers taking this option since this enchant looks expensive (at least at the time being)
This enchant looks more suitable to PVPers who need the extra edge in getting the jump over their competition.
For the raiding min/maxers i would expect them to get Enchant Cloak - Major Agility or Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed over this one
Enchant Cloak - Shadow Armor
5 sec cast
Tools:
Runed Titanium Rod
Reagents:
Infinite Dust (20), Greater Cosmic Essence (12), Abyss Crystal
Permanently enchant a cloak to increase stealth slightly and Agility by 10. Requires a level 60 or higher item.
The recipe is sold by Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran and you need to be a level 440 enchanter to cast it.
Unfortunately i can't dig up any info on the effectiveness of the stealth portion of the enchant, but i would assume it to be no powerful then the classic Enchant Cloak - Stealth
For most stealthers we use a low level BOE cloak that we swap out when it's time to fight.
Unless the stealth portion of this enchant is better then the existing enchant i don't see many stealthers taking this option since this enchant looks expensive (at least at the time being)
This enchant looks more suitable to PVPers who need the extra edge in getting the jump over their competition.
For the raiding min/maxers i would expect them to get Enchant Cloak - Major Agility or Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed over this one
Monday, November 17, 2008
Night Elves still have increased stealth
Well the Shadowmeld tooltip no longers states it increases a Night Elf's stealth level, because it doesn't. This led me to believe that Night Elves lost their increased stealth racial. (I was wrong)
What Blizz has done is they've taken the increased stealth out of the shadowmeld racial and given it a new Night Elf racial name Elusiveness.
Elusiveness
Reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Shadowmelded or Stealthed.
This is a passive effect that works anytime you are stealthed, prowled or shadowmelded.
As before it gives you +5 stealth levels (that's 1 character level) of stealth and this change was introduced in 3.0.2
(so pretty much nothing has changed)
What Blizz has done is they've taken the increased stealth out of the shadowmeld racial and given it a new Night Elf racial name Elusiveness.
Elusiveness
Reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Shadowmelded or Stealthed.
This is a passive effect that works anytime you are stealthed, prowled or shadowmelded.
As before it gives you +5 stealth levels (that's 1 character level) of stealth and this change was introduced in 3.0.2
(so pretty much nothing has changed)
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Boots of Displacement no longer available :(
Well with 3.0.2 came the new Naxx, unfortunately this means old Naxx has been removed and with it the best stealthing boots in the game are no longer available :(
People who are already the proud owners of a pair of Boots of Displacement will be able to wear them around proudly like a kid wearing a pair of mint Air Jordans
I only had a very few chances to run Naxx myself, so was never able to pick up a pair which is dissapointing.
Rogues don't have to worry as much Darkmantle Boots (a rogue only item) are still available and also provide the same stealth level.
The rest of us will have to stick with our +5 stealth booties (Boots of Displacement and Darkmantle boots both give +8 stealth)
People who are already the proud owners of a pair of Boots of Displacement will be able to wear them around proudly like a kid wearing a pair of mint Air Jordans
I only had a very few chances to run Naxx myself, so was never able to pick up a pair which is dissapointing.
Rogues don't have to worry as much Darkmantle Boots (a rogue only item) are still available and also provide the same stealth level.
The rest of us will have to stick with our +5 stealth booties (Boots of Displacement and Darkmantle boots both give +8 stealth)
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Wrath of the Lich King Live!
As i'm sure you all know by now, Wrath of the Lich King is now live!!
It's only been 2 days yet there are already lvl 80 characters on my realm and Deathknights in the 70's!
I can see a lot of people have come back to the game as my server has queues of over 2 hours during peak times :(
I've been slow with the levelling myself, only having just dinged 71 after 2 days, but i did get the opportunity to run Utgarde Keep (unfortuantely not stealthed)
It was very easy, as i'm sure it's built for people in greens, and i was able to heal it as a balance spec. Our group had some decently geared people.
On the plus side, when i run an instance i always look at the stealth side of things, and I would say from the layout it looks easy enough to stealth.
Of course only time will tell, as i didn't check if any of the mobs had stealth seeing abilities.
Enjoy the expansion, i'm keen to get to 80 and start stealth running again, but i admit i suck at quests, so it could be a little while before i get some new guides up.
It's only been 2 days yet there are already lvl 80 characters on my realm and Deathknights in the 70's!
I can see a lot of people have come back to the game as my server has queues of over 2 hours during peak times :(
I've been slow with the levelling myself, only having just dinged 71 after 2 days, but i did get the opportunity to run Utgarde Keep (unfortuantely not stealthed)
It was very easy, as i'm sure it's built for people in greens, and i was able to heal it as a balance spec. Our group had some decently geared people.
On the plus side, when i run an instance i always look at the stealth side of things, and I would say from the layout it looks easy enough to stealth.
Of course only time will tell, as i didn't check if any of the mobs had stealth seeing abilities.
Enjoy the expansion, i'm keen to get to 80 and start stealth running again, but i admit i suck at quests, so it could be a little while before i get some new guides up.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Shadowmeld in World PVP
As an Alliance Druid I'm quite enjoying the new Shadowmeld, I never really realised how much I ate/drank Shadowmelded, until after the patch came out and Shadowmeld always cancelled my drinking. So since it's nerfed my Shadowmeld drinking I have to learn to take advantage of new ways it can be used.
Getting used to using the new Shadowmeld in combat has been a bit slow for me, having a new utility ability is very cool, but sometimes I just forget to take advantage of it.
So reading various forums, someone mentioned they could make 500g an hour AoE farming the Blood Elves at the Ruins of Karabor, I didn't believe this, but I wanted to check it out anyway.
So I went their and started AoE farming with Starfall and Hurricanes to see what I could do. This is the first time I had been AoE farming, as previously this was not so efficient before the 3.0.2 patch. I found I could pull a lot of mobs, and just Hurricane them all down, with the mana recovery nerf I did have to spend some time drinking, but I was doing this more for curiousity sake then any belief I was gonna make a ton of gold out of it.
The posts I read, another Moonkin Druid said he could pull 8 mobs at a time, in semi decent PVP gear myself, I found I was pulling a lot more mobs than that and easily mowing them down, I'd get to 50% health or less and no mana, so I would have to drink back up again.
During one of my AoE's a Horde Pally rode by, I was wary, so I targeted him to see what he was doing, and sure enough, he started attacking me, he was probably undergeared, or a noob, (or possibly not ret, but what pally in their right mind wouldn't be ret right now!) because I didn't die in 3 hits and I had about 5-6 mobs still wacking on me.
As a typical reaction I Cycloned the Pally first then started to kite away with mobs on me, weighing up my options I remembered to Shadowmeld, and sure enough I lost the mobs aggro, the funny thing is, they started towards the Pally who was Cycloned. I'm not sure if it was because he was the only other player there, or if when he came at me he did an AoE attack that did some damage to them. Before the Pally came out of the Cyclone I started charging up a Starfire, of course this took me back out of Shadowmeld, but the mobs stayed on the Pally, my Starfire hit the Pally, and the mobs beat on him some more.
After killing the Pally, I did what all rightously vengeful farmers do, I went and hid in the corner and started drinking/eating to restore my HP and Mana, the Pally quickly rez'd and tried to gank me while I was having my meal, I ran and accidently aggroed some mobs, so with some NPC's and a Horde Pally chasing my ass I Shadowmelded again, and once again the mobs went straight for the Pally.
I thought Shadowmeld was meant to restore agro when you came out of it, so I'm not sure if this is a broken mechanic, or just the way it works when your farming solo, but it was definitely fun training mobs onto the Horde Pally.
Hunters and Rogues have probably enjoyed being able to do this since release, but for the rest of us Night Elves the fun is just beginning, I wonder if this will get nerfed.
Overall I spent about an hour at the Ruins of Karabor and probably made less than 30g, I got some gold, some trash, and a bunch of Sunfury Signets and a couple of Arcane Tomes, in the old days when Signets and Tomes were worth something this might have been a good farm spot, but now, well let's be honest, 30g an hour sux. Sure I probably spent half of that time playing with a Pally, but still 60g an hour sux.
Getting used to using the new Shadowmeld in combat has been a bit slow for me, having a new utility ability is very cool, but sometimes I just forget to take advantage of it.
So reading various forums, someone mentioned they could make 500g an hour AoE farming the Blood Elves at the Ruins of Karabor, I didn't believe this, but I wanted to check it out anyway.
So I went their and started AoE farming with Starfall and Hurricanes to see what I could do. This is the first time I had been AoE farming, as previously this was not so efficient before the 3.0.2 patch. I found I could pull a lot of mobs, and just Hurricane them all down, with the mana recovery nerf I did have to spend some time drinking, but I was doing this more for curiousity sake then any belief I was gonna make a ton of gold out of it.
The posts I read, another Moonkin Druid said he could pull 8 mobs at a time, in semi decent PVP gear myself, I found I was pulling a lot more mobs than that and easily mowing them down, I'd get to 50% health or less and no mana, so I would have to drink back up again.
During one of my AoE's a Horde Pally rode by, I was wary, so I targeted him to see what he was doing, and sure enough, he started attacking me, he was probably undergeared, or a noob, (or possibly not ret, but what pally in their right mind wouldn't be ret right now!) because I didn't die in 3 hits and I had about 5-6 mobs still wacking on me.
As a typical reaction I Cycloned the Pally first then started to kite away with mobs on me, weighing up my options I remembered to Shadowmeld, and sure enough I lost the mobs aggro, the funny thing is, they started towards the Pally who was Cycloned. I'm not sure if it was because he was the only other player there, or if when he came at me he did an AoE attack that did some damage to them. Before the Pally came out of the Cyclone I started charging up a Starfire, of course this took me back out of Shadowmeld, but the mobs stayed on the Pally, my Starfire hit the Pally, and the mobs beat on him some more.
After killing the Pally, I did what all rightously vengeful farmers do, I went and hid in the corner and started drinking/eating to restore my HP and Mana, the Pally quickly rez'd and tried to gank me while I was having my meal, I ran and accidently aggroed some mobs, so with some NPC's and a Horde Pally chasing my ass I Shadowmelded again, and once again the mobs went straight for the Pally.
I thought Shadowmeld was meant to restore agro when you came out of it, so I'm not sure if this is a broken mechanic, or just the way it works when your farming solo, but it was definitely fun training mobs onto the Horde Pally.
Hunters and Rogues have probably enjoyed being able to do this since release, but for the rest of us Night Elves the fun is just beginning, I wonder if this will get nerfed.
Overall I spent about an hour at the Ruins of Karabor and probably made less than 30g, I got some gold, some trash, and a bunch of Sunfury Signets and a couple of Arcane Tomes, in the old days when Signets and Tomes were worth something this might have been a good farm spot, but now, well let's be honest, 30g an hour sux. Sure I probably spent half of that time playing with a Pally, but still 60g an hour sux.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Shadowmeld OP or not OP?
For many years, Night Elves have lauded shadowmeld as being the worst racial in the game. I admit, as a NE Druid I have drooled over having a Tauren warstomp, or an Undeads will of the forsaken or in recent times a Humans perception has been called OP (Over Powered) as Arena's popularity (and gear)increased.
But how bad was it? Thinking back at the multiple way's it's been used, shadowmeld was never THAT bad to begin with.
Hunter's (ab)used shadowmeld with aimed shot (you used to come out of shadowmeld when the spell was cast, now you come out of shadowmeld when you start casting the spell)
There was the get out of combat, drink and shadowmeld to hide while pvping.
This was especially popular with Night Elf Hunters that could drop out of combat anytime with , fall dead, eat/drink, shadowmeld.
Night Elves could hide at the start of Arena, some would sit in the starting area, while others would quickly run behind a pillar, or up on the bridge and meld, giving the appearance of 2 stealthers.
So admittedly, while shadowmeld was not as bad as Night Elves have complained about, many Night Elves definitely had race envy.
So what does the new shadowmeld do?
Shadowmeld (Racial)
Instant cast
Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect.
And why are people complaining about it all of a sudden?
Well first let's compare the negatives about the new shadowmeld compared to the old one.
It no longer says it gives +1 level of stealth on the tooltip, so i will assume they took this out, although i've seen a few people comment that it still does (out of ignorance i guess)
Can no longer eat/drink then shadowmeld
2 minute CD
Ok, now for the positives
Can shadowmeld while in combat
Drops threat while melded
Although there are only 2 positives, they far outweigh the negatives, especially for us stealthers. As of patch 3.0.2 kitties can now eat then stealth! (rogues already knew they could do this)
Shadowmeld is like an additional vanish for rogues, taking them out of combat allowing them to stealth, and is like a vanish for druids.
If a Night Elf tank makes a bad pull, he can quickly meld to drop agro.
It lets Night Elf healers drop agro long enough for the tank to pick up the loose mob.
And for those Night Elves with instant broomstick mounts from Halloween, you can shadowmeld (drop combat) instant broomstick and get the hell out of their.
Pretty slick when most of us weren't expecting a racial change.
There are now a lot of people crying nerf! (seems like their is a lot of cry babies in this game) we'll see how Blizz handles it.
But how bad was it? Thinking back at the multiple way's it's been used, shadowmeld was never THAT bad to begin with.
Hunter's (ab)used shadowmeld with aimed shot (you used to come out of shadowmeld when the spell was cast, now you come out of shadowmeld when you start casting the spell)
There was the get out of combat, drink and shadowmeld to hide while pvping.
This was especially popular with Night Elf Hunters that could drop out of combat anytime with , fall dead, eat/drink, shadowmeld.
Night Elves could hide at the start of Arena, some would sit in the starting area, while others would quickly run behind a pillar, or up on the bridge and meld, giving the appearance of 2 stealthers.
So admittedly, while shadowmeld was not as bad as Night Elves have complained about, many Night Elves definitely had race envy.
So what does the new shadowmeld do?
Shadowmeld (Racial)
Instant cast
Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect.
And why are people complaining about it all of a sudden?
Well first let's compare the negatives about the new shadowmeld compared to the old one.
It no longer says it gives +1 level of stealth on the tooltip, so i will assume they took this out, although i've seen a few people comment that it still does (out of ignorance i guess)
Can no longer eat/drink then shadowmeld
2 minute CD
Ok, now for the positives
Can shadowmeld while in combat
Drops threat while melded
Although there are only 2 positives, they far outweigh the negatives, especially for us stealthers. As of patch 3.0.2 kitties can now eat then stealth! (rogues already knew they could do this)
Shadowmeld is like an additional vanish for rogues, taking them out of combat allowing them to stealth, and is like a vanish for druids.
If a Night Elf tank makes a bad pull, he can quickly meld to drop agro.
It lets Night Elf healers drop agro long enough for the tank to pick up the loose mob.
And for those Night Elves with instant broomstick mounts from Halloween, you can shadowmeld (drop combat) instant broomstick and get the hell out of their.
Pretty slick when most of us weren't expecting a racial change.
There are now a lot of people crying nerf! (seems like their is a lot of cry babies in this game) we'll see how Blizz handles it.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Starfall Nerfed against stealthers!
Well for the PVPers out there, most stealthers will rejoice (only the moonkins may cry) as Starfall has been nerfed.
WTH is Starfall some people may be asking?
Starfall is a 51 point talent in the druid balance tree.
Starfall
Instant cast
30 yd range 35% of base mana
You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yards of the caster, each doing X Arcane damage, and an additional Y Arcane damage to all nearby targets within 5 yards. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 sec.
With talents some druids had extended the range of this spell to 36 yards.
Why was it so good?
Well in PVP, this spell hit stealthed characters, and arena being such a popular part of the game, it was very easy for a druid to stealth to the centre and pop starfall. Arena's being so small, you were bound to pull stealthers out of stealth, and vanish wouldn't help as the effect lasted 10 seconds and could easily pull them back out of stealth again.
A lot of crying went on in the WoW forums, and finally after the patch last Tuesday Starfall was stealth nerfed! (forgive the pun) i didn't read anything in the patch notes about the changes to starfall, but various people have posted about the change.
I guess this is as official as it gets with a blue response
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12368278145&sid=1
So it can still possiblly get a druid or rogue out of stealth if they're standing next to a non stealthed character, but overall, a lot of people are saying starfall is absolute trash now.
Here's a link to the QQ posts on starfall, before and after
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12065154945&sid=1&pageNo=1
WTH is Starfall some people may be asking?
Starfall is a 51 point talent in the druid balance tree.
Starfall
Instant cast
30 yd range 35% of base mana
You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yards of the caster, each doing X Arcane damage, and an additional Y Arcane damage to all nearby targets within 5 yards. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 sec.
With talents some druids had extended the range of this spell to 36 yards.
Why was it so good?
Well in PVP, this spell hit stealthed characters, and arena being such a popular part of the game, it was very easy for a druid to stealth to the centre and pop starfall. Arena's being so small, you were bound to pull stealthers out of stealth, and vanish wouldn't help as the effect lasted 10 seconds and could easily pull them back out of stealth again.
A lot of crying went on in the WoW forums, and finally after the patch last Tuesday Starfall was stealth nerfed! (forgive the pun) i didn't read anything in the patch notes about the changes to starfall, but various people have posted about the change.
I guess this is as official as it gets with a blue response
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12368278145&sid=1
So it can still possiblly get a druid or rogue out of stealth if they're standing next to a non stealthed character, but overall, a lot of people are saying starfall is absolute trash now.
Here's a link to the QQ posts on starfall, before and after
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12065154945&sid=1&pageNo=1
Friday, October 17, 2008
3.0.2 is here
Well as i'm sure you all know by now, the latest patch 3.0.2 is here, the prelude to Wrath of the Lich King which should be out in less than a month.
The changes to the game are wide and sweeping, and i don't remember the game play feeling so different when vanilla WoW went to TBC.
Ret Paladins once known as Loladins are absolute BS now, with crits coming out left right and centre, so powerful that Blizz nerfed them within days of release and people are still complaining they are too powerful.
Obviously your not here to read about the sweeping changes in the game, just how they affect stealthing, i've played with my druid a little, but haven't taken the opportunity to do any stealth running yet, from playing, looking at the patch notes, chatting to friends and checking out other more informative websites, here are the immediate changes i can see that will affect stealth running.
Huge changes to damage!!
Seems that either the mobs have been toned down, or all the DPS has been tuned way to high for current content, my friend a feral druid soloed all of Sethek Halls in normal mode, not just the bosses, but doing the 5 pulls, he didn't have to shift out and heal at all, just smacked all the mobs around in bear.
Besides the huge damage changes
Druids
Druids and Shaman can now use items while shapeshifted.
This will help Kitties and Bears eat HP pots and Health Stones while in form
Entangling Roots: Can now be used indoors.
Real CC Besides just SAP and blind will make multi pulls even easier
Feral Swiftness: The movement speed buff can now be used indoors.
Faster stealthing for ferals
Nature's Grasp (Balance): Can now be used and can proc indoors. This is now a base ability at level 11 and has a 100% chance to proc.
Might help a druid that accidently agroes
New Spell: Revive - Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead target to life with health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. (Ranks 1-7 added)
This is a huge change!! most of our rez's were through Battle Rez's and jumpers, this gives druids a real rez, less graveyard running
Soothe Animal can now be used on Dragonkin as well as Beasts.
People may laugh about this spell, but us stealthers know it's power on beasts
Soothe Animal is now instant cast.
Well this won't really affect the run but i thought i'd mention it.
Rogues
Elusiveness (Subtlety) moved to Tier 3, now reduces cooldown of Vanish and Blind by 30/60 sec and Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 sec.
Let's rogues screw up a little more with their safety net vanish on a shorter CD
Evasion, Sprint and Vanish cooldowns reduced to 3 min.
Quicker to stealth to bosses, and more changes to speed up, also gives the chance to vanish more often
Master of Deception (Subtlety) reduced to 3 ranks.
Bout time they thinned this talent down on par with druids
Disarm Trap range increased to 20 yards, cast time reduced, now requires stealth.
Sounds good, although to be honest, i can't remember much opportunity to do this in a stealth run, maybe in future instances
Pick Lock and Disarm Trap no longer require Thieve's Tools.
Less crap to carry around is a good thing
Vanish no longer requires the reagent Flash Powder.
Same reason as the one above, bags just get full!
Night Elves
Shadowmeld
Shadowmade seems amazingly strong now, being able to shadowmeld while in combat and it getting rid of your agro until you come out of shadowmeld.
One melded you can wait to get out of combat then restealth, unfortunately it now has a 2 minute CD, doesn't give you +1 level of stealth anymore, and you can no longer eat and drink while melded
I'm sure there's quite a few other things that will affect runs, and who knows how much of a nerf bat Blizz may swing to try and level the playing field, all i can say is can't wait for Wotlk new instances to learn to stealth :)
p.s. Bobo it's time to come back
The changes to the game are wide and sweeping, and i don't remember the game play feeling so different when vanilla WoW went to TBC.
Ret Paladins once known as Loladins are absolute BS now, with crits coming out left right and centre, so powerful that Blizz nerfed them within days of release and people are still complaining they are too powerful.
Obviously your not here to read about the sweeping changes in the game, just how they affect stealthing, i've played with my druid a little, but haven't taken the opportunity to do any stealth running yet, from playing, looking at the patch notes, chatting to friends and checking out other more informative websites, here are the immediate changes i can see that will affect stealth running.
Huge changes to damage!!
Seems that either the mobs have been toned down, or all the DPS has been tuned way to high for current content, my friend a feral druid soloed all of Sethek Halls in normal mode, not just the bosses, but doing the 5 pulls, he didn't have to shift out and heal at all, just smacked all the mobs around in bear.
Besides the huge damage changes
Druids
Druids and Shaman can now use items while shapeshifted.
This will help Kitties and Bears eat HP pots and Health Stones while in form
Entangling Roots: Can now be used indoors.
Real CC Besides just SAP and blind will make multi pulls even easier
Feral Swiftness: The movement speed buff can now be used indoors.
Faster stealthing for ferals
Nature's Grasp (Balance): Can now be used and can proc indoors. This is now a base ability at level 11 and has a 100% chance to proc.
Might help a druid that accidently agroes
New Spell: Revive - Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead target to life with health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. (Ranks 1-7 added)
This is a huge change!! most of our rez's were through Battle Rez's and jumpers, this gives druids a real rez, less graveyard running
Soothe Animal can now be used on Dragonkin as well as Beasts.
People may laugh about this spell, but us stealthers know it's power on beasts
Soothe Animal is now instant cast.
Well this won't really affect the run but i thought i'd mention it.
Rogues
Elusiveness (Subtlety) moved to Tier 3, now reduces cooldown of Vanish and Blind by 30/60 sec and Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 sec.
Let's rogues screw up a little more with their safety net vanish on a shorter CD
Evasion, Sprint and Vanish cooldowns reduced to 3 min.
Quicker to stealth to bosses, and more changes to speed up, also gives the chance to vanish more often
Master of Deception (Subtlety) reduced to 3 ranks.
Bout time they thinned this talent down on par with druids
Disarm Trap range increased to 20 yards, cast time reduced, now requires stealth.
Sounds good, although to be honest, i can't remember much opportunity to do this in a stealth run, maybe in future instances
Pick Lock and Disarm Trap no longer require Thieve's Tools.
Less crap to carry around is a good thing
Vanish no longer requires the reagent Flash Powder.
Same reason as the one above, bags just get full!
Night Elves
Shadowmeld
Shadowmade seems amazingly strong now, being able to shadowmeld while in combat and it getting rid of your agro until you come out of shadowmeld.
One melded you can wait to get out of combat then restealth, unfortunately it now has a 2 minute CD, doesn't give you +1 level of stealth anymore, and you can no longer eat and drink while melded
I'm sure there's quite a few other things that will affect runs, and who knows how much of a nerf bat Blizz may swing to try and level the playing field, all i can say is can't wait for Wotlk new instances to learn to stealth :)
p.s. Bobo it's time to come back
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Stealthing Heroic Slave Pens with a Hunter
I had the pleasure of doing a Heroic Slave Pens stealth run with a hunter in the group.
It was pretty cool to watch, and he was able to run up to the bosses a lot quicker than i thought, he fell dead a lot less times than i thought he would, and being a Night Elf hunter, he was able to shadowmeld in some places to wait for pats to walk past.
Since we had a rogue in the group, it made it a little quicker as a rogue can sap some mobs for him to run past, however without the rogue, the hunter could easily kite some mobs away with his pet, and run past and fall dead.
I wasn't at all surprised when my friend offered to bring his hunter, as i have done a partial stealth run with a hunter years ago (LBRS) and if you've seen the Hunter VS World video's you know Hunters are op! (Hunter solo's Heroic SP)
So here's the basics of how he did it.
When you enter Heroic SP, you see the bogstrocks path around the pool, wait till they run past and run up the other side, pause a moment to see where the other pack of bogstrocks is, and then you can run up the right hand side behind the cages, you should be able to shadowmeld behind them until the slave handler paths past.
Run into the tunnel there wil be 2 Coilfang Champions that patrol, run up to them and fall dead, wait till they path past, then run to the end of tunnel.
We sapped the Coilfang Slavehandler that paths on his own, waited for the patrol of Coilfang Champion and 2 Coilfang Enchantress's to path away, then ran up to them and fall dead.
Run to the right, watch the patrols, and you should be able to shadowmeld and wait for a patrol to path away.
Run along the waters edge towards the 2 Coilfang Champions and wait for the druid tank to pull. Our hunter said he can run past here, just get his pet to kite them away, but as with our normal stealth runs we kill these mobs, just in case someone dies or screws up the jump, so they can stealth back later.
Getting to the first boss (Mennu the Betrayer) is easy enough, just wait for the pats to path away, and the hunter can safely run under the bridge.
Once the first boss is pulled, he's pretty cake as you know.
Getting up to the second boss is easy (Rokmarr the Crackler), the hunter runs up the bridge, waits to see which side the pats are on, and runs up the other side. If you have 2 rogues, you can sap both Coilfang Observers, if you have one, the hunter has to run up and fall dead until they pass.
Once up to the top of the bridge, just wait for the 2 pats (Coilfang Champions i think) to path to the other side and drop down the gap.
Jump to the side the second boss is on, and he's cake.
Getting to the third boss Quag was a little harder, the hunter jumped back into the water to avoid the bogs near the second boss, and ran all the way into the tunnel up past the first boss again, this time he jumped down the other way (used to be the normal way) a rogue sapped the Coilfang Champion and the hunter could run past.
The hunter runs along the waters edge up to the first group that usually consists of a mix of different Coilfang mobs. We had our rogue sap the Coilfang Observer and a druid slept the beast.
Our hunter easily ran in between the gap to the side with the cages, we're it's safe for him to run up to the ramp that goes into the cave.
Now our hunter used his pet to kite a group of mobs into the water, as the mobs pathed away, the hunter used this to his advantage and ran into the cave, a quick fall dead in the case in front of the last group of Coilfang Mobs, means he only has to get past the 2 groups of bogstroks to get to Quagg.
Timing the pathing of the Bogstrokks was easier than expected, he ran up, shadowmelded near the edge of the pool behind the cages and then was able to run up the side of the pool towards the back of the cave.
It was a lot of fun doing a stealth run with a slightly different group makeup.
Given WoTLK is just around the corner and the 3.0.2 patch is tonight, it should shake things up a bit, druid rez's, new shadowmeld abilities should make stealth running slightly more interesting in the very very near future.
It was pretty cool to watch, and he was able to run up to the bosses a lot quicker than i thought, he fell dead a lot less times than i thought he would, and being a Night Elf hunter, he was able to shadowmeld in some places to wait for pats to walk past.
Since we had a rogue in the group, it made it a little quicker as a rogue can sap some mobs for him to run past, however without the rogue, the hunter could easily kite some mobs away with his pet, and run past and fall dead.
I wasn't at all surprised when my friend offered to bring his hunter, as i have done a partial stealth run with a hunter years ago (LBRS) and if you've seen the Hunter VS World video's you know Hunters are op! (Hunter solo's Heroic SP)
So here's the basics of how he did it.
When you enter Heroic SP, you see the bogstrocks path around the pool, wait till they run past and run up the other side, pause a moment to see where the other pack of bogstrocks is, and then you can run up the right hand side behind the cages, you should be able to shadowmeld behind them until the slave handler paths past.
Run into the tunnel there wil be 2 Coilfang Champions that patrol, run up to them and fall dead, wait till they path past, then run to the end of tunnel.
We sapped the Coilfang Slavehandler that paths on his own, waited for the patrol of Coilfang Champion and 2 Coilfang Enchantress's to path away, then ran up to them and fall dead.
Run to the right, watch the patrols, and you should be able to shadowmeld and wait for a patrol to path away.
Run along the waters edge towards the 2 Coilfang Champions and wait for the druid tank to pull. Our hunter said he can run past here, just get his pet to kite them away, but as with our normal stealth runs we kill these mobs, just in case someone dies or screws up the jump, so they can stealth back later.
Getting to the first boss (Mennu the Betrayer) is easy enough, just wait for the pats to path away, and the hunter can safely run under the bridge.
Once the first boss is pulled, he's pretty cake as you know.
Getting up to the second boss is easy (Rokmarr the Crackler), the hunter runs up the bridge, waits to see which side the pats are on, and runs up the other side. If you have 2 rogues, you can sap both Coilfang Observers, if you have one, the hunter has to run up and fall dead until they pass.
Once up to the top of the bridge, just wait for the 2 pats (Coilfang Champions i think) to path to the other side and drop down the gap.
Jump to the side the second boss is on, and he's cake.
Getting to the third boss Quag was a little harder, the hunter jumped back into the water to avoid the bogs near the second boss, and ran all the way into the tunnel up past the first boss again, this time he jumped down the other way (used to be the normal way) a rogue sapped the Coilfang Champion and the hunter could run past.
The hunter runs along the waters edge up to the first group that usually consists of a mix of different Coilfang mobs. We had our rogue sap the Coilfang Observer and a druid slept the beast.
Our hunter easily ran in between the gap to the side with the cages, we're it's safe for him to run up to the ramp that goes into the cave.
Now our hunter used his pet to kite a group of mobs into the water, as the mobs pathed away, the hunter used this to his advantage and ran into the cave, a quick fall dead in the case in front of the last group of Coilfang Mobs, means he only has to get past the 2 groups of bogstroks to get to Quagg.
Timing the pathing of the Bogstrokks was easier than expected, he ran up, shadowmelded near the edge of the pool behind the cages and then was able to run up the side of the pool towards the back of the cave.
It was a lot of fun doing a stealth run with a slightly different group makeup.
Given WoTLK is just around the corner and the 3.0.2 patch is tonight, it should shake things up a bit, druid rez's, new shadowmeld abilities should make stealth running slightly more interesting in the very very near future.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Perception Nerf
It's time for all non human rogues and druids to rejoice, perception was nerfed big time in WOTLK.
news here
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9658356014&sid=2000&pageNo=5#97
Human
- Perception: changed to a passive, now grants one character level of passive stealth detection
Well this sux big time for humans, 1 passive level increase of stealth detection is like 5 points, while perception gives 50 points of stealth detection.
I wear an eng hat sometimes when i arena, and honestly, that 5 points it gives me does squat most of the time....
So my druid rejoices, but the human rogue i'm leveling is going to cry herself to sleep knowing that she will only have a short time of the godly ability of perception before it get's nerfed to the ground.
Well WOTLK will bring much more interesting changes, so who knows how the balance of things will change.
news here
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9658356014&sid=2000&pageNo=5#97
Human
- Perception: changed to a passive, now grants one character level of passive stealth detection
Well this sux big time for humans, 1 passive level increase of stealth detection is like 5 points, while perception gives 50 points of stealth detection.
I wear an eng hat sometimes when i arena, and honestly, that 5 points it gives me does squat most of the time....
So my druid rejoices, but the human rogue i'm leveling is going to cry herself to sleep knowing that she will only have a short time of the godly ability of perception before it get's nerfed to the ground.
Well WOTLK will bring much more interesting changes, so who knows how the balance of things will change.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Stealthing Heroic Hellfire Ramparts
Well it's about time i posted this guide, had it written for a long time, but been a bit lazy to polish it and post, still unpolished, but i thought it better to post, then just sit on my hard disk.
Definitely a tough one, and only for people that like a challenge.
Heroic Hellfire Ramparts
Hellfire Ramparts is definitely a challenge in stealthing, it is probably one of the hardest heroic instances I have stealthed through.
I think I spent about 8 hours in this instance over 2 separate occasions stealthing to the final boss, yes I know, 8 hours with no bosses down, I could of done it normally 8 times over, but the game has hit a point where no new content is coming out until Wotlk, so we're always looking for challenges.
The first 3 mobs in the instance should be taken out, the pat on the bridge (Bonechewer Ravener) can see through stealth, so in order to take him out safely we gotta kill the 2 Bonechewer Hungerers guarding the bridge.
Once past the bridge, stealth to the left, stick to the wall and stealth past the barrels, crates and other obstacles, you will see a patrol, 2 dogs and a orc (Shattered Hand Warhound and Bonchewer Ravenger). It's easier if you mark them up, so you can see them through the crates you are stealthing past.
Wait till the patrol is pathing away, then stealth up, you will come to a corner in the wall, wait there until the patrol stealths back past you towards the entrance, a dog may pause here for a while, but he will eventually wander off.
If you stick to the left side, you should easily stealth past the stealth detection dogs that are parked on the right wall.
Continue stealthing up the left side, you will see a wagon of sorts and some crates stacked up. Jump on these to get past the mobs and when your past it stay in the corner until the patrol passes (wait where the chain of the wagon is against the wall), when the patrol passes (heading towards the entrance) you can stealth over to the right wall, behind the fire, watch out for the single orc pat (Bonechewer Ravenger) that has stealth detect, he wanders around and sometimes stops at an anvil for some hammer action.
Stick to the right wall and stealth past the little tent looking structures, you will see a couple of dogs and a orc near a camp fire.
You should be directly behind one of these dogs, and you will see on the far side 2 stealth detection dogs and an orc.
There is space in between these 2 different sets of mobs, that looks like it might possibly be stealthable.
It is! Kind of!
This is where I spent most of my time wiping, each wipe will take about 5+ minutes to get back to this point, so you can see, we had many attempts.
Timing is everything, if you sit and wait you will notice 2 orcs that patrol on their own, it's best to mark these 2 guys up to see them path easily.
You must wait till both of these orcs are in a good position to stealth past, whether they're both on the far right, or if one is on the far right and one has stealthed over to the far left.
For Druids, with your back as close to the wall as possible, unstealth wait 10 seconds and use a soothe animal on the closest dog (near the fire) restealth quickly, and now you should be able to stealth through the gap of 2 groups of dogs, of course being slightly closer to the soothed dog, this may take some practice to gauge the range.
For Rogue, you should be able to do a distract to get past these dogs, of course rogues also have the advantage of vanish as well.
When you get past the dogs, you have to be careful of the stealth detect mobs on the right hand side, I find it much safer to stealth closer to the normal mobs to the left.
(Now for people having an impossible time of getting past this bit, an easier out, is to all gather at the chain of the wagon, wait for all the stealth pats to path away, then take out the 1 orc and dogs on the left and quickly restealth)
Stealth past the boss, and into the entrance of the staircase.
Here you can take out the 2 guards of the staircase, and wait for the boss to path back to fight him in the doorway.
I found stealthing up to the second boss quite easy, but I do know of fellow stealthers that have a bit of trouble with the timing of the stealth detect dog patrol.
Wait until the dog patrol stealths past the entrance to the second boss room, you should easily be able to stealth past the guards and into the room.
You can stealth past the 2 orc casters that are at the end of the hallway, to the far side of the room, be careful not to drop off the edge, that sends you out of the instance.
Kill boss
Stealth back over to the last boss.
Again I've found some of my stealthers have troubles doing this, if they agro the dogs, get them to run up the ramp a small ways as that is a safely rezzable area.
To stealth past them, wait till the patrol dogs walk past the entrance to the 2nd boss, and follow them as they wander up to the 3rd bosses ramp.
Make sure you don't follow too closely and don't walk that close to the dogs on the right.
As the patrol turns left you should be able to slip in between them and the dogs that are stationary on the right.
Set off the event by killing the 2 guards at the bottom of the ramp.
Kill the boss and grab your badges.
Definitely a tough one, and only for people that like a challenge.
Heroic Hellfire Ramparts
Hellfire Ramparts is definitely a challenge in stealthing, it is probably one of the hardest heroic instances I have stealthed through.
I think I spent about 8 hours in this instance over 2 separate occasions stealthing to the final boss, yes I know, 8 hours with no bosses down, I could of done it normally 8 times over, but the game has hit a point where no new content is coming out until Wotlk, so we're always looking for challenges.
The first 3 mobs in the instance should be taken out, the pat on the bridge (Bonechewer Ravener) can see through stealth, so in order to take him out safely we gotta kill the 2 Bonechewer Hungerers guarding the bridge.
Once past the bridge, stealth to the left, stick to the wall and stealth past the barrels, crates and other obstacles, you will see a patrol, 2 dogs and a orc (Shattered Hand Warhound and Bonchewer Ravenger). It's easier if you mark them up, so you can see them through the crates you are stealthing past.
Wait till the patrol is pathing away, then stealth up, you will come to a corner in the wall, wait there until the patrol stealths back past you towards the entrance, a dog may pause here for a while, but he will eventually wander off.
If you stick to the left side, you should easily stealth past the stealth detection dogs that are parked on the right wall.
Continue stealthing up the left side, you will see a wagon of sorts and some crates stacked up. Jump on these to get past the mobs and when your past it stay in the corner until the patrol passes (wait where the chain of the wagon is against the wall), when the patrol passes (heading towards the entrance) you can stealth over to the right wall, behind the fire, watch out for the single orc pat (Bonechewer Ravenger) that has stealth detect, he wanders around and sometimes stops at an anvil for some hammer action.
Stick to the right wall and stealth past the little tent looking structures, you will see a couple of dogs and a orc near a camp fire.
You should be directly behind one of these dogs, and you will see on the far side 2 stealth detection dogs and an orc.
There is space in between these 2 different sets of mobs, that looks like it might possibly be stealthable.
It is! Kind of!
This is where I spent most of my time wiping, each wipe will take about 5+ minutes to get back to this point, so you can see, we had many attempts.
Timing is everything, if you sit and wait you will notice 2 orcs that patrol on their own, it's best to mark these 2 guys up to see them path easily.
You must wait till both of these orcs are in a good position to stealth past, whether they're both on the far right, or if one is on the far right and one has stealthed over to the far left.
For Druids, with your back as close to the wall as possible, unstealth wait 10 seconds and use a soothe animal on the closest dog (near the fire) restealth quickly, and now you should be able to stealth through the gap of 2 groups of dogs, of course being slightly closer to the soothed dog, this may take some practice to gauge the range.
For Rogue, you should be able to do a distract to get past these dogs, of course rogues also have the advantage of vanish as well.
When you get past the dogs, you have to be careful of the stealth detect mobs on the right hand side, I find it much safer to stealth closer to the normal mobs to the left.
(Now for people having an impossible time of getting past this bit, an easier out, is to all gather at the chain of the wagon, wait for all the stealth pats to path away, then take out the 1 orc and dogs on the left and quickly restealth)
Stealth past the boss, and into the entrance of the staircase.
Here you can take out the 2 guards of the staircase, and wait for the boss to path back to fight him in the doorway.
I found stealthing up to the second boss quite easy, but I do know of fellow stealthers that have a bit of trouble with the timing of the stealth detect dog patrol.
Wait until the dog patrol stealths past the entrance to the second boss room, you should easily be able to stealth past the guards and into the room.
You can stealth past the 2 orc casters that are at the end of the hallway, to the far side of the room, be careful not to drop off the edge, that sends you out of the instance.
Kill boss
Stealth back over to the last boss.
Again I've found some of my stealthers have troubles doing this, if they agro the dogs, get them to run up the ramp a small ways as that is a safely rezzable area.
To stealth past them, wait till the patrol dogs walk past the entrance to the 2nd boss, and follow them as they wander up to the 3rd bosses ramp.
Make sure you don't follow too closely and don't walk that close to the dogs on the right.
As the patrol turns left you should be able to slip in between them and the dogs that are stationary on the right.
Set off the event by killing the 2 guards at the bottom of the ramp.
Kill the boss and grab your badges.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Stealthing Arena - moonkin/rogue
Well i admit, i've been pretty lame lately with no blog entries, and this entry won't be much different as i haven't been doing many stealth runs lately.
I've tried exploration of Kara, but it was tough with only 3 of us, and we didn't spend that long, admittedly i haven't posted my Heroic Ramps guide yet, but with real life getting in the way, when i'm home i just want to relax, and play WoW.
I just wanted to direct your attention to one of the best (ok it's probably the best i've seen) arena vid of a stealth team that consists of a moonkin and a rogue, that's right folks a full moonkin and not a restokin.
The video is called Azoth imbalanced, and i highly recommend digging around for the commentary version.
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=74925
He gives commentary on high rated arena games vs various teams, and if your just starting out, or just want to improve your moonkin/rogue team, this video is pretty awesome.
On the other hand, for those that are interested, i have started leveling a rogue, finally hit level 30 (after months and months) and it's really tough getting a stealth team together for Scarlet Monastry (hard to get the right level chars that is), actually it's hard to get any group together to do the low level instances unless your getting your friends lvl 70 along
I've tried exploration of Kara, but it was tough with only 3 of us, and we didn't spend that long, admittedly i haven't posted my Heroic Ramps guide yet, but with real life getting in the way, when i'm home i just want to relax, and play WoW.
I just wanted to direct your attention to one of the best (ok it's probably the best i've seen) arena vid of a stealth team that consists of a moonkin and a rogue, that's right folks a full moonkin and not a restokin.
The video is called Azoth imbalanced, and i highly recommend digging around for the commentary version.
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=74925
He gives commentary on high rated arena games vs various teams, and if your just starting out, or just want to improve your moonkin/rogue team, this video is pretty awesome.
On the other hand, for those that are interested, i have started leveling a rogue, finally hit level 30 (after months and months) and it's really tough getting a stealth team together for Scarlet Monastry (hard to get the right level chars that is), actually it's hard to get any group together to do the low level instances unless your getting your friends lvl 70 along
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Stealth Detection
There are a list of items that help detect stealth, why is this relevant? To be honest, not so sure, but this is a stealth blog, and stealth wise, honestly, how many things are there to ramble about? Sure sure i know i haven't finished all the Heroic instances in stealth, but honestly not many are left, i have an almost complete Heroic Ramparts guide, which is was a real ..beach.. to learn.
Ok, so there are a bunch of items that can help you detect stealth (on the off chance you want to detect some stealthy mobs) and some of these are even useable in Arena. So at least you know what you may be up against, and of course, all this stuff is useable for world pvp.
p.s. yes i'm too lazy to learn how to do all the stuff to make nice tables and stuff
Engineering Hats! (well head gear)
Annihilator Holo-Gogs ------------ detection 5
Bloodvine Lens ------------------- detection 10
Catseye Ultra Goggles ------------ detection 18
Deathblow X11 Goggles ----------- detection 5
Destruction Holo-gogs ------------ detection 5
Furious Gizmatic Goggles --------- detection 5
Gadgetstorm Goggles ------------- detection 5
Hard Khorium Goggles ------------ detection 5
Hyper-Magnified Moon Specs ----- detection 5
Hyper-Vision Goggles ------------- detection 30
Justicebringer 2000 Specs -------- detection 5
Justicebringer 3000 Specs -------- detection 5
Lightning Etched Specs ------------ detection 5
Living Replicator Specs ------------ detection 5
Magnified Moon Specs -------------- detection 5
Mayhem Projection Goggles -------- detection 5
Powerheal 4000 Lens -------------- detection 5
Powerheal 9000 Lens -------------- detection 5
Primal-Attuned Goggles ------------ detection 5
Quad Deathblow X44 Goggles ------- detection 5
Surestrike Goggles v2.0 ------------- detection 5
Surestrike Goggles v3.0 ------------- detection 5
Tankatronic Goggles ---------------- detection 5
Wonderheal XT40 Shades ----------- detection 5
Wonderheal XT68 Shades ----------- detection 5
Other hats
The Night Watchman ---------------- detection 10
Consumables
Catseye Elixir ------------------------ detection 10
Distilled Stalker Sight ---------------- detection 15
Elixir of the Searching Eye ------------ detection 15
Gloves
Blood Guard's Dragonhide Grips ------ detection 10
General's Dragonhide Gloves ---------- detection 10
Knight-Liutenant's Dragonhide Grips -- detection 10
Marshal's Dragonhide Gauntlets ------- detection 10
Talents
Rogues
Heigtened Senses (rank 1) ------------- detection3
Heightened Senses (rank 2) ------------ detection 6
Hunters
Track Hidden -------------------------- detection 30
Flare (this takes stealthers out of stealth)
Warlocks
Felhunter's Paranoia ------------------- detection 30
Humans
Perception ----------------------------- detection 50
Arena
power-up (pretty lame name, but that's the only official name i can see, not sure on the detection amount)
Ok, so there are a bunch of items that can help you detect stealth (on the off chance you want to detect some stealthy mobs) and some of these are even useable in Arena. So at least you know what you may be up against, and of course, all this stuff is useable for world pvp.
p.s. yes i'm too lazy to learn how to do all the stuff to make nice tables and stuff
Engineering Hats! (well head gear)
Annihilator Holo-Gogs ------------ detection 5
Bloodvine Lens ------------------- detection 10
Catseye Ultra Goggles ------------ detection 18
Deathblow X11 Goggles ----------- detection 5
Destruction Holo-gogs ------------ detection 5
Furious Gizmatic Goggles --------- detection 5
Gadgetstorm Goggles ------------- detection 5
Hard Khorium Goggles ------------ detection 5
Hyper-Magnified Moon Specs ----- detection 5
Hyper-Vision Goggles ------------- detection 30
Justicebringer 2000 Specs -------- detection 5
Justicebringer 3000 Specs -------- detection 5
Lightning Etched Specs ------------ detection 5
Living Replicator Specs ------------ detection 5
Magnified Moon Specs -------------- detection 5
Mayhem Projection Goggles -------- detection 5
Powerheal 4000 Lens -------------- detection 5
Powerheal 9000 Lens -------------- detection 5
Primal-Attuned Goggles ------------ detection 5
Quad Deathblow X44 Goggles ------- detection 5
Surestrike Goggles v2.0 ------------- detection 5
Surestrike Goggles v3.0 ------------- detection 5
Tankatronic Goggles ---------------- detection 5
Wonderheal XT40 Shades ----------- detection 5
Wonderheal XT68 Shades ----------- detection 5
Other hats
The Night Watchman ---------------- detection 10
Consumables
Catseye Elixir ------------------------ detection 10
Distilled Stalker Sight ---------------- detection 15
Elixir of the Searching Eye ------------ detection 15
Gloves
Blood Guard's Dragonhide Grips ------ detection 10
General's Dragonhide Gloves ---------- detection 10
Knight-Liutenant's Dragonhide Grips -- detection 10
Marshal's Dragonhide Gauntlets ------- detection 10
Talents
Rogues
Heigtened Senses (rank 1) ------------- detection3
Heightened Senses (rank 2) ------------ detection 6
Hunters
Track Hidden -------------------------- detection 30
Flare (this takes stealthers out of stealth)
Warlocks
Felhunter's Paranoia ------------------- detection 30
Humans
Perception ----------------------------- detection 50
Arena
power-up (pretty lame name, but that's the only official name i can see, not sure on the detection amount)
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
10 Druid Kara
Well once people have all the heroics stealthed, it's obvious the next step is some of the 10 man raids. Although i haven't attempted this yet, it's amazing what youtube has on it, on it, it features some video's of a 10 druid karazan!
So yes it's possible, here are some links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_s_sZSpbTE
Hmm this says its a 10 druid China WoW server, but it looks more like a music clip!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2S7aRq7m0U
From the EU Server Shattered Hand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGhB5JSS-l0
One day i'll learn how to stick video's in my blog (i'm sure it's not hard, i'm just a bit lazy as you can see from the number of posts lately)
So yes it's possible, here are some links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_s_sZSpbTE
Hmm this says its a 10 druid China WoW server, but it looks more like a music clip!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2S7aRq7m0U
From the EU Server Shattered Hand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGhB5JSS-l0
One day i'll learn how to stick video's in my blog (i'm sure it's not hard, i'm just a bit lazy as you can see from the number of posts lately)
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Epic Gems in Heroics
The majority of people I stealth run with nowadays, are doing it purely for the badges, after all you can buy great gear with them, but a lot of people that raid are also farming badges for gems, 15 badges = 1 epic gem.
Gems being available for badges has dropped the prices of epic gems considerably, even so Epic Gems still cost a bunch of gold on my server, ranging from 300-700g.
One change they did put into place in patch 2.4 which I am taking full advantage of, was changing the epic gem drops in heroics to non unique.
As an avid stealthier I was keen to run those heroics that dropped epic gems, after all I was mainly doing it for the badge farm why not do heroics that would drop me a useful gem as well, by the time patch 2.4 rolled around I had over 30 epic gems ready to use.
Here's a list of epic gems from all heroic instances
Auchindoun
Auchenai Crypts
Champion’s Fire Opal +5 Str/+4 Def RY
Potent Fire Opal +6 sp dmg/+4 sp crit RY
Seer’s Chrysoprase +4 Int/+5 spi YB
Mana-Tombs
Enscribed Fire Opal +5str/+4 crit RY
Glistening Fire Opal +4 agi/+5 def RY
Timeless Chrysoprase +5 int/+6 sta YB
Sethekk Halls
Blessed Tanzanite +11 heal/+4 sp dmg/+6 sta RB
Pristine Fire Opal +10 ap/+4 hit RY
Stalwart Fire Opal +5 def/+4 dodge RY
Coilfang Reservoir
The Slave Pens
Respendant Fire Opal +5 str/+4 res RY
Royal Tanzanite +11 heal/+4 sp dmg/+2mp5 RB
Vivid Chrysophrase +5 sp hit/+6 sta YB
The Steamvault
Infused Fire Opal +6sp dmg/+4 int RY
Shifting Tanzanite +5agi/+6 sta RB
Sundered Chrysoprase +5 crit/+2mp5 YB
The Underbog
Lambent Chrysoprase +5 spell hit/2mp5 YB
Radiant Chrysoprase +5 spell crit/+5 sp pen YB
Spendid Fire Opal +5 parry/+4 res RY
Hellfire Citadel
The Blood Furnace
Beaming Fire Opal +5 dodge/+4 res RY
Fluorescent Tanzanite +6 sp dmg/+4 spi RB
Jagged Chrysoprase +6 sta/+5 crit YB
Hellfire Ramparts
Effulgent Chrysoprase +5 def/+2mp5 YB
Iridescent Fire Opal +11 heal/ +4 sp dmg/+4 sp crit RY
Steady Chrysoprase +6 sta/+5 res YB
The Shattered Halls
Luminour Fire Opal +11 Healing/+4 sp dmg/+4 int RY
Polished Chrysoprase +6 sta/+5 sp crit YB
Soverign Tanzanite +5 str/+6 sta RB
Tempest Keep
The Arcatraz
Deadly Fire Opal +8 ap/+5 crit RY
Durable Fire Opal +11 heal/+4 sp dmg/+4 res RY
Nimble Fire Opal +5 dodge/+4 hit RY
The Botanica
Brutal Tanzanite +10 ap/+6 sta RB
Imperial Tanzanite +5 spi/+9 heal/+3 sp dmg RB
Myserious Fire Opal +6 sp dmg/ +5 sp pen RY
The Mechanar
Assasin’s Fire Opal +6 crit/+5 dodge RY
Defenders Tanzanite +5 parry/6 sta RB
Shining Fire Opal +6 sp dmg/+5 sp hit RY
Happy Farming!
Gems being available for badges has dropped the prices of epic gems considerably, even so Epic Gems still cost a bunch of gold on my server, ranging from 300-700g.
One change they did put into place in patch 2.4 which I am taking full advantage of, was changing the epic gem drops in heroics to non unique.
As an avid stealthier I was keen to run those heroics that dropped epic gems, after all I was mainly doing it for the badge farm why not do heroics that would drop me a useful gem as well, by the time patch 2.4 rolled around I had over 30 epic gems ready to use.
Here's a list of epic gems from all heroic instances
Auchindoun
Auchenai Crypts
Champion’s Fire Opal +5 Str/+4 Def RY
Potent Fire Opal +6 sp dmg/+4 sp crit RY
Seer’s Chrysoprase +4 Int/+5 spi YB
Mana-Tombs
Enscribed Fire Opal +5str/+4 crit RY
Glistening Fire Opal +4 agi/+5 def RY
Timeless Chrysoprase +5 int/+6 sta YB
Sethekk Halls
Blessed Tanzanite +11 heal/+4 sp dmg/+6 sta RB
Pristine Fire Opal +10 ap/+4 hit RY
Stalwart Fire Opal +5 def/+4 dodge RY
Coilfang Reservoir
The Slave Pens
Respendant Fire Opal +5 str/+4 res RY
Royal Tanzanite +11 heal/+4 sp dmg/+2mp5 RB
Vivid Chrysophrase +5 sp hit/+6 sta YB
The Steamvault
Infused Fire Opal +6sp dmg/+4 int RY
Shifting Tanzanite +5agi/+6 sta RB
Sundered Chrysoprase +5 crit/+2mp5 YB
The Underbog
Lambent Chrysoprase +5 spell hit/2mp5 YB
Radiant Chrysoprase +5 spell crit/+5 sp pen YB
Spendid Fire Opal +5 parry/+4 res RY
Hellfire Citadel
The Blood Furnace
Beaming Fire Opal +5 dodge/+4 res RY
Fluorescent Tanzanite +6 sp dmg/+4 spi RB
Jagged Chrysoprase +6 sta/+5 crit YB
Hellfire Ramparts
Effulgent Chrysoprase +5 def/+2mp5 YB
Iridescent Fire Opal +11 heal/ +4 sp dmg/+4 sp crit RY
Steady Chrysoprase +6 sta/+5 res YB
The Shattered Halls
Luminour Fire Opal +11 Healing/+4 sp dmg/+4 int RY
Polished Chrysoprase +6 sta/+5 sp crit YB
Soverign Tanzanite +5 str/+6 sta RB
Tempest Keep
The Arcatraz
Deadly Fire Opal +8 ap/+5 crit RY
Durable Fire Opal +11 heal/+4 sp dmg/+4 res RY
Nimble Fire Opal +5 dodge/+4 hit RY
The Botanica
Brutal Tanzanite +10 ap/+6 sta RB
Imperial Tanzanite +5 spi/+9 heal/+3 sp dmg RB
Myserious Fire Opal +6 sp dmg/ +5 sp pen RY
The Mechanar
Assasin’s Fire Opal +6 crit/+5 dodge RY
Defenders Tanzanite +5 parry/6 sta RB
Shining Fire Opal +6 sp dmg/+5 sp hit RY
Happy Farming!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Stealth farming Enchant Boots - Dexterity recipe
If you’re an enchanter, and a stealther, and you want to farm for the +12 agi feet enchant you can!
Go into crypts in normal mode, stealth up to the stairs of the first boss Shirrak the Dead Watcher, so far so good right!
Well as we all know some patches way back they made his aura also unstealth us (:( blizzard)
Wait until the boss paths into the back position, the upstairs area you will see on each side of the boss there are 2 walls sticking out, stealth past the wall and stealth into the area between the 2 walls into the corner, you will be unstealthed bythe boss aura, due to the boss level, and your level (I'm assuming your 70 here, and if your not you will have a hell of a time killing the skellies that drop the enchant) you won't get agro!
Wait till the boss paths to the forward position, you can now restealth and walk into the skellie room. (Raging Skeletons)
Each group consists of approximately 4 skellies, if you bring a friend this is much easier, if your on your own, then good luck!
Rogues can sap 1, blind 1, kill 1 vanish etc
Druids can attempt to burst 1 down, barkskin heal etc.
I found doing this solo can suck, because if you kill a skellie, don’t get the chance to loot and die, sometimes when you run back from the graveyard it puts you in a brand new instance!
Good luck! the drop rate has sucked for me :(
(on a sidenote, i have heard of a mage solo farming this before, but that was so long ago, i don't know if it was nerfed)
Go into crypts in normal mode, stealth up to the stairs of the first boss Shirrak the Dead Watcher, so far so good right!
Well as we all know some patches way back they made his aura also unstealth us (:( blizzard)
Wait until the boss paths into the back position, the upstairs area you will see on each side of the boss there are 2 walls sticking out, stealth past the wall and stealth into the area between the 2 walls into the corner, you will be unstealthed bythe boss aura, due to the boss level, and your level (I'm assuming your 70 here, and if your not you will have a hell of a time killing the skellies that drop the enchant) you won't get agro!
Wait till the boss paths to the forward position, you can now restealth and walk into the skellie room. (Raging Skeletons)
Each group consists of approximately 4 skellies, if you bring a friend this is much easier, if your on your own, then good luck!
Rogues can sap 1, blind 1, kill 1 vanish etc
Druids can attempt to burst 1 down, barkskin heal etc.
I found doing this solo can suck, because if you kill a skellie, don’t get the chance to loot and die, sometimes when you run back from the graveyard it puts you in a brand new instance!
Good luck! the drop rate has sucked for me :(
(on a sidenote, i have heard of a mage solo farming this before, but that was so long ago, i don't know if it was nerfed)
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
2 manning Sethek for profit (fun)
Well I used to 2 man Sethek a while ago when large prismatic shard prices were still at a premium, I guess it's not that profitable to do so now with void shatter recipe coming into place, and being on no cooldown no less, however, for the sake of people that like challenges, I thought 2 manning Sethek was something fun, especially 2 manning in Heroic.
I guess the title is a bit misleading, although we do 2 man Ikiss, we do skip the first boss Darkweaver Sith, and totally ignore the druid boss Anzu.
I'll start with normal.
Of course the better geared you are the easier this will be, and I don't advise people in greens trying this unless you like banging your head against a wall for hours.
You will need at least 1 druid for heals, and the other stealther can be a druid dps class or a rogue.
Stealth up to the first boss room (Darkweaver Sith), if you have a druid and a rogue, get the rogue to run in first, this will pull the boss, the druid should rush past to the other side and go through the entrance, when the druid is safely past the room, the rogue should vanish then also exit the opposite entrance.
If you have 2 druids doing this, one of you must suicide.One druid should pull the boss while the other safely runs past to the other side, they can go through the door then hide behind the door jam on the right, once that druid is through, the druid that pulled can also run through the door and hide in the door jam on the left, of course the boss will kill the druid here, then run back to reset.
Once the boss has reset, it is safe for the other druid to come out to rez.
Stealth all the way up to the last bosses room.
I've found this easier to do with a druid tank then a rogue tank, as a druid has the tools to taunt back, however, the rogue I tried this with was not very geared at the time, and then we were still able to down the boss.
This bosses physical damage is not as high as other bosses, most of his damage comes from the arcane aoe bolts.
If your druid is geared enough, they might be able to do this in cat form.
The healer should stay in human form.
The tank should open up and start dpsing the boss, Ikiss will sheep the 2nd highest threat target on the table, which will of course be the healer.
The healer should stay sheeped in order to get a free heal and conserve mana, hots should be running on the tank, so it really shouldn’t be an issue. Of course in those "oh shit" situations shift out and heal, but in general, stay sheeped.
Another technique is to play the los game when Ikiss tries to sheep you, generally you will have Ikiss in an FF frame mod so you know when he is casting, sheep takes 1.5s for him to cast so when you see him cast it duck behind a pillar, he will stop, when u duck out again, he will start to cast on you again.
Why is doing this good? Well he will constantly be trying to cast on you, so he won't be dpsing the tank at all. If you can do this consistently well, you will have long bouts of Ikiss not doing much of anything at all. Of course when you pop out from the pillar you can throw an instant hot on your tank if needed.
When Ikiss does his AoE remember this is an agro wipe, so try not to heal, and if the rogue has hots on him hew may lose agro.
This is the main problem I had running this with a rogue, sometimes he would lose agro, and I would end up heal/tank/kiting which is highly inefficient as the rogue would be sheeped for a lot of the time. Yes it would still be doable as long as I had mana, but essentially I would keep kiting between 2 pillars hotting myself, while the rogue would dps as much as possible in between sheeps. A druid would be able to taunt back in bear form.
Once you get this down pat it's fairly easy to kill Ikiss, and claim your 2 LPS.
When I was doing this frequently with a well geared feral druid I was able to do a run from start to end in 10 minutes, meaning I could do this 5 times an hour which is the instance limit, at the time it was not bad making 5 lps each per hour with some occasional other random drops and gold.
We found this so fun we decided to attempt Heroic Sethek!
And honestly we didn't find it that much harder.
I haven't tried heroic mode with anything other than a feral druid tanking, but I'm sure it's possible with a well geared rogue.
In normal mode the druid could tank the boss in cat in dps gear, in Heroic, we found the boss hits slightly harder so I had him tank in bear form wearing his dps gear.
It takes a little longer that normal, but of course you get better drops!
I guess the title is a bit misleading, although we do 2 man Ikiss, we do skip the first boss Darkweaver Sith, and totally ignore the druid boss Anzu.
I'll start with normal.
Of course the better geared you are the easier this will be, and I don't advise people in greens trying this unless you like banging your head against a wall for hours.
You will need at least 1 druid for heals, and the other stealther can be a druid dps class or a rogue.
Stealth up to the first boss room (Darkweaver Sith), if you have a druid and a rogue, get the rogue to run in first, this will pull the boss, the druid should rush past to the other side and go through the entrance, when the druid is safely past the room, the rogue should vanish then also exit the opposite entrance.
If you have 2 druids doing this, one of you must suicide.One druid should pull the boss while the other safely runs past to the other side, they can go through the door then hide behind the door jam on the right, once that druid is through, the druid that pulled can also run through the door and hide in the door jam on the left, of course the boss will kill the druid here, then run back to reset.
Once the boss has reset, it is safe for the other druid to come out to rez.
Stealth all the way up to the last bosses room.
I've found this easier to do with a druid tank then a rogue tank, as a druid has the tools to taunt back, however, the rogue I tried this with was not very geared at the time, and then we were still able to down the boss.
This bosses physical damage is not as high as other bosses, most of his damage comes from the arcane aoe bolts.
If your druid is geared enough, they might be able to do this in cat form.
The healer should stay in human form.
The tank should open up and start dpsing the boss, Ikiss will sheep the 2nd highest threat target on the table, which will of course be the healer.
The healer should stay sheeped in order to get a free heal and conserve mana, hots should be running on the tank, so it really shouldn’t be an issue. Of course in those "oh shit" situations shift out and heal, but in general, stay sheeped.
Another technique is to play the los game when Ikiss tries to sheep you, generally you will have Ikiss in an FF frame mod so you know when he is casting, sheep takes 1.5s for him to cast so when you see him cast it duck behind a pillar, he will stop, when u duck out again, he will start to cast on you again.
Why is doing this good? Well he will constantly be trying to cast on you, so he won't be dpsing the tank at all. If you can do this consistently well, you will have long bouts of Ikiss not doing much of anything at all. Of course when you pop out from the pillar you can throw an instant hot on your tank if needed.
When Ikiss does his AoE remember this is an agro wipe, so try not to heal, and if the rogue has hots on him hew may lose agro.
This is the main problem I had running this with a rogue, sometimes he would lose agro, and I would end up heal/tank/kiting which is highly inefficient as the rogue would be sheeped for a lot of the time. Yes it would still be doable as long as I had mana, but essentially I would keep kiting between 2 pillars hotting myself, while the rogue would dps as much as possible in between sheeps. A druid would be able to taunt back in bear form.
Once you get this down pat it's fairly easy to kill Ikiss, and claim your 2 LPS.
When I was doing this frequently with a well geared feral druid I was able to do a run from start to end in 10 minutes, meaning I could do this 5 times an hour which is the instance limit, at the time it was not bad making 5 lps each per hour with some occasional other random drops and gold.
We found this so fun we decided to attempt Heroic Sethek!
And honestly we didn't find it that much harder.
I haven't tried heroic mode with anything other than a feral druid tanking, but I'm sure it's possible with a well geared rogue.
In normal mode the druid could tank the boss in cat in dps gear, in Heroic, we found the boss hits slightly harder so I had him tank in bear form wearing his dps gear.
It takes a little longer that normal, but of course you get better drops!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Heroic Black Morass
Heroic Black Morass
Well let's be honest, there's absolutely no need to stealth Heroic Blacm Morass (H-BM), you might get away with clearing slightly less critters, but the time it takes you to stealth to the middle you may as well have ridden over on your mount.
I remember when this instance was considered hard, but as all the new easier to obtain badge gear, arena gear and pvp gear becomes available, this instance has become relatively easy.
So why include this instance in a stealth run blog? Well I'll assume people that are stealth running have their normal druid/rogue stealth run group, and let's be honest, you can only do Coilfang for X amount of time before it becomes boring, so this is just an alternative to your regular badge farming.
In the old days, people would always look for a "frost" mage, or whatever class, since they say clearing adds is difficult, these days, I saw it's entirely possible and easy to do it with a rogue druid group.
Because this instance is scripted, a rogue druid group doesn't actually make this instance faster, it takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.
I guess the role most people ask is who will be clearing the adds, and I'd just like to give you a rundown from my experience.
Playing as a moonkin, I've done adds, and I have to say it was easy, I was a little bit nervous going into it, but I read from laserchickens blog (laserchicken.blogspot.com) blog, that he'd done adds before and he has a small guide on it (http://laserchicken.blogspot.com/2007/12/handling-adds-in-black-morass-as.html), it had been a long time since I had done black morass, after all I ran it as a tank and healer many times to get exalted to get my trinket (which I no longer use) so after reading laser chickens entry as add clearer, I thought it would be interesting, also the fact that there is a chance at a 6dmg/6sta gem as well as the normal badge farm made it more appealing, and I did need a change from running the normal popular stealth instances.
As a moonkin with 1200 spell damage (1200 sp dmg sounds high, but its relatively easy to get now since the majority of my gear is s1 + s3 arena, pvp honor items, some badge gear and crafted gear), the adds are easy, sit yourself in between the portal and the shield, adds that comes out only have approximately 5-6k hp, since they're running for the shield and not you, this gives you ample time to open with a starfire, followed by a moonfire, then 2-3 wraths and they're down.
The dragonlings that come in 3's go down with a moonfire and insect swarm.
The only ones that you have to watch are the assasins, as they have a bit more hp and hit harder, I ususually open with a starfire, moonfire, root, then wind up another starfire and wraths.
Adds go down quick, so the majority of time I ignore using insect swarm, sometimes I ignore using moonfire, but moonfire can crit, and also proc's my trinket.
I found the adds so easy, I never had to bring treants out (which I thought I might need as a backup plan) I was also able to throw some dps at the portal bosses making it highly efficient for a moonkin to clear adds, of course the rest of the group does the classic, tank and spank the Rift Lords so it was quite easy.
So if you don't have a moonkin can you still do this? Absolutely.
I ran an instance, where for some reason the rogue wouldn't stop attacking the adds, I let him do this, and helped on the bosses, now of course the rogue is not the most efficient class for doing this, but I was surprised at how well he was able to do it, he had absolutely no troubles in the majority of portals, but towards the end, he needed a bit of help cleaning up when we got each boss down, also the healer needs to watch the rogue as he is not as self sufficient as a druid for doing this.
The rogue was dressed in Kara level gear with a couple of honor and arena items thrown in, I'm not talking about SSC + level but gear that casuals can easily get nowadays.
I'm sure an equally geared feral druid would be able to do the same, requiring the occasional heal and maybe a little help at the end of each portal.
Remember, although it's nice for the shield to be 100%, it really doesn't have to be, as long as you get the last boss down before the shield hits 0%, so if you need to, you can always let the shield tank for you.
So the general strategy is of course to have 1 person on adds, 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 other dps, helping on the portal bosses.
Clear each portal, the first boss Chrono Lord Deja is relatively easy, just a tank and spank fight, just watch out for his aoe.
With the second boss Temporus, this strategy seems the most popular depending on the groups gear level.
Because Temporus stacks healing debuffs, you really want to kill him as soon as possible.
Have all dps zerg the boss, and ignore adds, let the shield tank adds for the duration of this fight, if the tank has a dodge trinket (i.e. badge of tenacity, moroes pocket watch) they should save this for when they get so many healing debuffs they cannot get healed anymore)
Try not to pull the boss to far from the portal or he will leash back and his hp can reset.
Once the boss is down, everyone should rush over to kill adds quickly, if your groups dps is a bit low, you can also have someone use a Chrono-beacon]to summon a dragon to clear adds while you do the boss. Make sure you summon the dragon closer to the shield or Temporus can dispel him.
The general strategy we see nowadays with the Chrono Beacons is to pop them on the Rift Lords on the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th portals to ease into the final boss.
Aeonus
When the final boss shows up if everyone is not at full hp or mana yet, don't pull the boss, let the shield tank, it's perfectly capable of holding off for a period of time, you will be able to see a counter at the top of the screen that tells you what percentage strength the shield is at.
Once everyone is up to full go to work on the boss, he is relatively easy to take down, just make sure your tank has full hots at all time to live through the time stop, but besides that he shouldn't be considered hard anymore.
So there you have it, an additional 3 badges for 30 minutes work, sure it's not as efficient as Coilfang Resevoir or some of the other stealthable instances, but it's fun to do something slightly different, and it drops a few good gems
Glinting Fire Opal +5agi/+4hit
Glowing Tanazite +6sp dmg/+6sta
Glimmering Fire Opal +5parry/+4def (ok this is probably crap for druids/rogues)
Well let's be honest, there's absolutely no need to stealth Heroic Blacm Morass (H-BM), you might get away with clearing slightly less critters, but the time it takes you to stealth to the middle you may as well have ridden over on your mount.
I remember when this instance was considered hard, but as all the new easier to obtain badge gear, arena gear and pvp gear becomes available, this instance has become relatively easy.
So why include this instance in a stealth run blog? Well I'll assume people that are stealth running have their normal druid/rogue stealth run group, and let's be honest, you can only do Coilfang for X amount of time before it becomes boring, so this is just an alternative to your regular badge farming.
In the old days, people would always look for a "frost" mage, or whatever class, since they say clearing adds is difficult, these days, I saw it's entirely possible and easy to do it with a rogue druid group.
Because this instance is scripted, a rogue druid group doesn't actually make this instance faster, it takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.
I guess the role most people ask is who will be clearing the adds, and I'd just like to give you a rundown from my experience.
Playing as a moonkin, I've done adds, and I have to say it was easy, I was a little bit nervous going into it, but I read from laserchickens blog (laserchicken.blogspot.com) blog, that he'd done adds before and he has a small guide on it (http://laserchicken.blogspot.com/2007/12/handling-adds-in-black-morass-as.html), it had been a long time since I had done black morass, after all I ran it as a tank and healer many times to get exalted to get my trinket (which I no longer use) so after reading laser chickens entry as add clearer, I thought it would be interesting, also the fact that there is a chance at a 6dmg/6sta gem as well as the normal badge farm made it more appealing, and I did need a change from running the normal popular stealth instances.
As a moonkin with 1200 spell damage (1200 sp dmg sounds high, but its relatively easy to get now since the majority of my gear is s1 + s3 arena, pvp honor items, some badge gear and crafted gear), the adds are easy, sit yourself in between the portal and the shield, adds that comes out only have approximately 5-6k hp, since they're running for the shield and not you, this gives you ample time to open with a starfire, followed by a moonfire, then 2-3 wraths and they're down.
The dragonlings that come in 3's go down with a moonfire and insect swarm.
The only ones that you have to watch are the assasins, as they have a bit more hp and hit harder, I ususually open with a starfire, moonfire, root, then wind up another starfire and wraths.
Adds go down quick, so the majority of time I ignore using insect swarm, sometimes I ignore using moonfire, but moonfire can crit, and also proc's my trinket.
I found the adds so easy, I never had to bring treants out (which I thought I might need as a backup plan) I was also able to throw some dps at the portal bosses making it highly efficient for a moonkin to clear adds, of course the rest of the group does the classic, tank and spank the Rift Lords so it was quite easy.
So if you don't have a moonkin can you still do this? Absolutely.
I ran an instance, where for some reason the rogue wouldn't stop attacking the adds, I let him do this, and helped on the bosses, now of course the rogue is not the most efficient class for doing this, but I was surprised at how well he was able to do it, he had absolutely no troubles in the majority of portals, but towards the end, he needed a bit of help cleaning up when we got each boss down, also the healer needs to watch the rogue as he is not as self sufficient as a druid for doing this.
The rogue was dressed in Kara level gear with a couple of honor and arena items thrown in, I'm not talking about SSC + level but gear that casuals can easily get nowadays.
I'm sure an equally geared feral druid would be able to do the same, requiring the occasional heal and maybe a little help at the end of each portal.
Remember, although it's nice for the shield to be 100%, it really doesn't have to be, as long as you get the last boss down before the shield hits 0%, so if you need to, you can always let the shield tank for you.
So the general strategy is of course to have 1 person on adds, 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 other dps, helping on the portal bosses.
Clear each portal, the first boss Chrono Lord Deja is relatively easy, just a tank and spank fight, just watch out for his aoe.
With the second boss Temporus, this strategy seems the most popular depending on the groups gear level.
Because Temporus stacks healing debuffs, you really want to kill him as soon as possible.
Have all dps zerg the boss, and ignore adds, let the shield tank adds for the duration of this fight, if the tank has a dodge trinket (i.e. badge of tenacity, moroes pocket watch) they should save this for when they get so many healing debuffs they cannot get healed anymore)
Try not to pull the boss to far from the portal or he will leash back and his hp can reset.
Once the boss is down, everyone should rush over to kill adds quickly, if your groups dps is a bit low, you can also have someone use a Chrono-beacon]to summon a dragon to clear adds while you do the boss. Make sure you summon the dragon closer to the shield or Temporus can dispel him.
The general strategy we see nowadays with the Chrono Beacons is to pop them on the Rift Lords on the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th portals to ease into the final boss.
Aeonus
When the final boss shows up if everyone is not at full hp or mana yet, don't pull the boss, let the shield tank, it's perfectly capable of holding off for a period of time, you will be able to see a counter at the top of the screen that tells you what percentage strength the shield is at.
Once everyone is up to full go to work on the boss, he is relatively easy to take down, just make sure your tank has full hots at all time to live through the time stop, but besides that he shouldn't be considered hard anymore.
So there you have it, an additional 3 badges for 30 minutes work, sure it's not as efficient as Coilfang Resevoir or some of the other stealthable instances, but it's fun to do something slightly different, and it drops a few good gems
Glinting Fire Opal +5agi/+4hit
Glowing Tanazite +6sp dmg/+6sta
Glimmering Fire Opal +5parry/+4def (ok this is probably crap for druids/rogues)
Sunday, June 15, 2008
When you just have too many friends!
When i started stealth running again, i would just add the regular rogues and druids i would run with onto my friends list, that way when i wanted to do a run i could do a quick check to see who was on. With wow being out for quite a few years now, everyone man and his dog has alts (well except me) so then i was adding all the alts to my friends list.
Adding all the stealthers, there alts to my friends list with my normal friends i found i just didn't have enough space.
I even started adding names to notepad, to look up decent stealthers when i wanted to do a run, but really, that just sucked.
So I started a channel, called it stealthruns and invited all stealthers, to join the channel when they were on, either on their stealth chars or their alts, now the channel is regularly filled and we just ask in there to organise runs.
Pretty simple i know, and it may be obvious to some, but, it might not be obvious to others.
Adding all the stealthers, there alts to my friends list with my normal friends i found i just didn't have enough space.
I even started adding names to notepad, to look up decent stealthers when i wanted to do a run, but really, that just sucked.
So I started a channel, called it stealthruns and invited all stealthers, to join the channel when they were on, either on their stealth chars or their alts, now the channel is regularly filled and we just ask in there to organise runs.
Pretty simple i know, and it may be obvious to some, but, it might not be obvious to others.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Heroic Magisters Terrace
When Magisters Terrace first came out i was quite excited, it was a new instance to sink our stealth teeth into, we stealthed through normal to attune, then ran Heroic mode in stealth, 4 hours later we were still stuck on the 3rd boss....
It was tough, and we ended up calling it a night coming up to hour 5.
After some practice, we've managed to get this to under 1 hour for a run, but i'm sure we can get it going faster than that. Since some of my older stealthers have gone on a hiatus (come back bob!) I haven't run it much, if at all for a while, H MGT is not an instance i want to take new stealthers too, and after they have some experience, they really need to be on the better side of gear and playskill to do this instance.
Stealthing through Magisters Terrace is easy enough, however working out the strats for the fights without a mage, took a little time. I highly recommend taking geared characters with 10k hp for the 3rd boss Priestess Delrissa.
Well to start with, i'll say the easiest way to finish this instance, is to make sure you have an easy setup on the third boss, some people consider this cheating, but then some people consider stealth run cheating as well.
Since your all bound by the 5 instance per hour lockout, the best thing to do is to get everyone to go into the instance seperately, the person with the best group makeup on Delrissa starts the invites.
So whats the best group makeup? Pretty much anything without the Naga MS warrior, he's a real headache.
So how do you check? Stealth into the instance, and turn on nameplates, you will see that the entrance you actually stealth over the third bosses area on the bridge, check which friends Delrissa has with her, and something without the Naga is good, of course if you don't want to do it this way, you can kill the third boss with the Warrior, but it just makes it that much harder.
I'd say it's probably easier to do this instance with 2-3 rogues, sap just makes it that much easier.
So start the group and stealth up to the first bosses room, just outside the room you can unstealth and gear up drink etc.
There are a few groups inside, but they are easier enough to take out, sap 2-3, use cyclones effectively, and it shouldn't be an issue.
Selin Fireheart
Now of course make sure everyone is inside the room for this boss fight. Many people say it's like the final boss in SV, kill the crystals when he goes to them, but i've found for our stealthing groups we just zerg the boss.
The boss is easy enough and i'm sure you won't have an issue.
After you kill this boss, you must clear the worms in the next bosses room, we frequently have stupid deaths here as rogues start blade flurrying, and we all know druids aren't the best multi mob tanks.
As long as the dps focus fires, agro shouldn't be a problem, as generally the dps will kill a worm before it does significant damage, and the healer can keep up.
What i've seen some of our better tanks do is barkskin, aoe hurricane to get some initial agro on all the mobs before going into bear, this works well to stop initial healing agro.
Of course if you have a moonkin in the group, just get them to tank this bit, just make sure the healer knows, as i've had many excited ferals just start aoeing out of nowhere and be dead before i can get a regrowth off.
Vexallus
Vexallus summons balls of energy, these must be killed asap, assign rogues to kill them first, after killing 3 (and getting 3 debuffs) they should cloak of shadows the debuffs off them or it could become too much for the healer to handle.
When Vex reaches 10% he overloads and starts doing all sorts of damage, the dps should save there cooldowns for overload.
This boss isn't really that tough, and if a more detailed post is needed i'll do a more complete guide in the future.
Stealth up to the third boss, Priestess Delrissa and friends, this is really like an arena match and i always find it easier if people suit up in PVP gear, or at least in gear that gives them much more hp then the sometimes glass canons 7k hp i find some of my dps wearing.
A little clearing is needed in this room, we usually just clear out the front section and pull Delrissa and her friends into the front garden, of course some of her friends do fear, so if you choose to be safe you may want to clear the entire room.
Well the strats on this boss can differ, but here's the way we find the best to do this with an all stealth team.
I pretty much run this with 2 rogues, but 3 would be great for the saps.
We always take down the Priestess first as her heals can get out of hand, if the Naga warrior is there, we take him out 2nd, rogues usually blind there sap target to give more time to focus fire.
Hmm just thinking about the differnet combinations is giving me a headache, and i'm sure could be a post in itself.
If the Naga warrior is up, i get 1 druid to keep him cc'd, while priestess is being burst down, they can easily do this without taking much damage opening with a pounce stun, followed up by a maim, cyclone, cyclone feral charge etc.
Try to take out the pets early, they have little hp and can shell out some decent damage if left alone, besides that cc as much as possible, and try not to get feared into any uncleared groups.
Once you can get 1-2 guys down quickly, the rest should be easy to take down as they come out of sap since you'll be 5 vs 3ing them.
Kael'thas Sunstrider
Is the last boss, after a little clearing we get to his room.
I've found the best tactic with a stealth team is as follows.
4 DPS zerg the boss, the healer keeps everyone topped up and kites the phoenix, the boss should go down to 50% around the time the phoenix dies, the DPS should kill the egg straight away, then your into an easy phase 2.
Of course the dps and tank need to have decent gear, it doesnt have to be amazing gear, just decent, the tank has to be able to hold agro from the dps and the healer has to know how to kite, heal and not panic with a big fat bird chasing him around.
The rogues have to kick when Kael does his pyroblast, and of course everyone has to get out of his flamestrike.
At 50% the dps should fly near the door for easy healing and to get away from the bubbles in gravity lapse.
Heroic Magister's Terrace has some really great gear, and if you get a regular group, you should try to put this on your regular stealth run list.
It was tough, and we ended up calling it a night coming up to hour 5.
After some practice, we've managed to get this to under 1 hour for a run, but i'm sure we can get it going faster than that. Since some of my older stealthers have gone on a hiatus (come back bob!) I haven't run it much, if at all for a while, H MGT is not an instance i want to take new stealthers too, and after they have some experience, they really need to be on the better side of gear and playskill to do this instance.
Stealthing through Magisters Terrace is easy enough, however working out the strats for the fights without a mage, took a little time. I highly recommend taking geared characters with 10k hp for the 3rd boss Priestess Delrissa.
Well to start with, i'll say the easiest way to finish this instance, is to make sure you have an easy setup on the third boss, some people consider this cheating, but then some people consider stealth run cheating as well.
Since your all bound by the 5 instance per hour lockout, the best thing to do is to get everyone to go into the instance seperately, the person with the best group makeup on Delrissa starts the invites.
So whats the best group makeup? Pretty much anything without the Naga MS warrior, he's a real headache.
So how do you check? Stealth into the instance, and turn on nameplates, you will see that the entrance you actually stealth over the third bosses area on the bridge, check which friends Delrissa has with her, and something without the Naga is good, of course if you don't want to do it this way, you can kill the third boss with the Warrior, but it just makes it that much harder.
I'd say it's probably easier to do this instance with 2-3 rogues, sap just makes it that much easier.
So start the group and stealth up to the first bosses room, just outside the room you can unstealth and gear up drink etc.
There are a few groups inside, but they are easier enough to take out, sap 2-3, use cyclones effectively, and it shouldn't be an issue.
Selin Fireheart
Now of course make sure everyone is inside the room for this boss fight. Many people say it's like the final boss in SV, kill the crystals when he goes to them, but i've found for our stealthing groups we just zerg the boss.
The boss is easy enough and i'm sure you won't have an issue.
After you kill this boss, you must clear the worms in the next bosses room, we frequently have stupid deaths here as rogues start blade flurrying, and we all know druids aren't the best multi mob tanks.
As long as the dps focus fires, agro shouldn't be a problem, as generally the dps will kill a worm before it does significant damage, and the healer can keep up.
What i've seen some of our better tanks do is barkskin, aoe hurricane to get some initial agro on all the mobs before going into bear, this works well to stop initial healing agro.
Of course if you have a moonkin in the group, just get them to tank this bit, just make sure the healer knows, as i've had many excited ferals just start aoeing out of nowhere and be dead before i can get a regrowth off.
Vexallus
Vexallus summons balls of energy, these must be killed asap, assign rogues to kill them first, after killing 3 (and getting 3 debuffs) they should cloak of shadows the debuffs off them or it could become too much for the healer to handle.
When Vex reaches 10% he overloads and starts doing all sorts of damage, the dps should save there cooldowns for overload.
This boss isn't really that tough, and if a more detailed post is needed i'll do a more complete guide in the future.
Stealth up to the third boss, Priestess Delrissa and friends, this is really like an arena match and i always find it easier if people suit up in PVP gear, or at least in gear that gives them much more hp then the sometimes glass canons 7k hp i find some of my dps wearing.
A little clearing is needed in this room, we usually just clear out the front section and pull Delrissa and her friends into the front garden, of course some of her friends do fear, so if you choose to be safe you may want to clear the entire room.
Well the strats on this boss can differ, but here's the way we find the best to do this with an all stealth team.
I pretty much run this with 2 rogues, but 3 would be great for the saps.
We always take down the Priestess first as her heals can get out of hand, if the Naga warrior is there, we take him out 2nd, rogues usually blind there sap target to give more time to focus fire.
Hmm just thinking about the differnet combinations is giving me a headache, and i'm sure could be a post in itself.
If the Naga warrior is up, i get 1 druid to keep him cc'd, while priestess is being burst down, they can easily do this without taking much damage opening with a pounce stun, followed up by a maim, cyclone, cyclone feral charge etc.
Try to take out the pets early, they have little hp and can shell out some decent damage if left alone, besides that cc as much as possible, and try not to get feared into any uncleared groups.
Once you can get 1-2 guys down quickly, the rest should be easy to take down as they come out of sap since you'll be 5 vs 3ing them.
Kael'thas Sunstrider
Is the last boss, after a little clearing we get to his room.
I've found the best tactic with a stealth team is as follows.
4 DPS zerg the boss, the healer keeps everyone topped up and kites the phoenix, the boss should go down to 50% around the time the phoenix dies, the DPS should kill the egg straight away, then your into an easy phase 2.
Of course the dps and tank need to have decent gear, it doesnt have to be amazing gear, just decent, the tank has to be able to hold agro from the dps and the healer has to know how to kite, heal and not panic with a big fat bird chasing him around.
The rogues have to kick when Kael does his pyroblast, and of course everyone has to get out of his flamestrike.
At 50% the dps should fly near the door for easy healing and to get away from the bubbles in gravity lapse.
Heroic Magister's Terrace has some really great gear, and if you get a regular group, you should try to put this on your regular stealth run list.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Underbog Chest Removed
Well a favourite of my stealthers was the first chest in Underbog, it was very easy to open with 2 people, without having to kill any mobs.
If you having trouble remembering where it was, it was next to the water, in between the water and tree just as you came around the corner from the entrance.
Unfortunately this chest was removed, as the week before it was removed i had found a way to solo farm it.
So for old times sake i'll post the strat.
For rogues, you have to be an engineer, or have something that can be thrown at least 35 yards. (decapitator maybe?)
For druids, it's a lot easier if you have nature's reach, or of course you can also have some kind of engineering or other item.
Stealth all the way past the first boss, and circle above where the chest used to be.
If you stand on the edge, you could moonfire, or rocket launcher one of the mobs guarding the chest.
Let them run all the way up to you, and when they almost reach you, drop down, and run into the water (avoid the fishies) Being in the water for a short period of time will drop you out of combat, then you could go loot the chest.
Of course sometimes the chest could be locked, and your still limited to 5 instances per hour.
Unfortunately this was nerfed in the same week i found it, so i didn't get to run it very often, and now never again :(
If you having trouble remembering where it was, it was next to the water, in between the water and tree just as you came around the corner from the entrance.
Unfortunately this chest was removed, as the week before it was removed i had found a way to solo farm it.
So for old times sake i'll post the strat.
For rogues, you have to be an engineer, or have something that can be thrown at least 35 yards. (decapitator maybe?)
For druids, it's a lot easier if you have nature's reach, or of course you can also have some kind of engineering or other item.
Stealth all the way past the first boss, and circle above where the chest used to be.
If you stand on the edge, you could moonfire, or rocket launcher one of the mobs guarding the chest.
Let them run all the way up to you, and when they almost reach you, drop down, and run into the water (avoid the fishies) Being in the water for a short period of time will drop you out of combat, then you could go loot the chest.
Of course sometimes the chest could be locked, and your still limited to 5 instances per hour.
Unfortunately this was nerfed in the same week i found it, so i didn't get to run it very often, and now never again :(
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Heroic Steamvault! (minor update)
I have a minor update to the Heroic SV guide, it's minor but it does allow you to skip 2 sets of mobs, and of course, stealth running is about skipping as much content as possible to clear bosses!
The mobs skipped are the ones before the 2nd boss Mekgineer Steamrigger, rather than clear them, you can stealth over to the left side as you cover over the bridge, in the area there is a water mote (probably only engineers will notice this)
Easily done, i'm reposting the whole guide since i am in blog format, and i can't just update the old strat and write (New) next to the post like you'd see on a normal strategy site.
In the endeavor for badge gear the Coilfang instances have become the most popular as we can really speed run through them, our record for H SV is just under 15 minutes and this was before we skipped those 2 groups of mobs before the 2nd boss.
We've also been able to 4 man the last boss Warlord Kalithresh so as our gear improves our runs become easier.
Here's the slightly updated H SV guide
Heroic Steamvault
Coilfang Reservoir
requires Cenarion Expedition honored - Reservoir Key
Stealth to the first boss (Hydromancer Thespia) be aware that the Bog Giants in here have stealth detection, on the ramp outside her room, clear the patrol, it consists of 2 Coilfang Sirens and a Coilfang Warrior. I find it safest to Sap 1 Siren and the Warrior first, sap them a little more then halfway up the ramp as the Sirens can fear. Burst down the first Siren quickly making use of stunlocks and do the same on the 2nd Siren, finally killing off the Warrior.
Hydromancer Thespia is not a difficult fight, the main thing the group has to be aware of is getting out of her lightning cloud as it does a large amount of damage.
Hydromancer Thespia has 2 elemental adds, its best to mark the adds, have the tank get agro and the dps burst down one add then the other, the healer can also cyclone the 2nd add (after the tank gets some agro on it) to reduce the amount of damage, with a decent group I find the first add goes down quickly and can pick up the 2nd add just after it comes out of cyclone.
As long as the DPS know to get out of the lightning clouds asap (you can see them forming over your head before they start doing dmg) then the fight is easy. Remember to click on the console after the boss is down. DPS can then stealth to the 2nd boss, or swim.
There are 2 groups of gnomes before the 2nd boss, you can safely stealth past both groups and to the left side of the bridge, usually you will see a water mote floating around this area. The boss can safely be pulled to this area without pulling the 2 groups of gnomes.
Mekgineer Steamrigger has 4 gnome adds at the start. We usually assign all DPS to help kill the gnome adds at the start, once the adds are down, we assign one dpser to kill the additional adds that come out (usually the most geared rogue) leaving the rest of the dps to focus on the boss, if your DPS assigned to adds is not geared enough, have a 2nd DPSer give him support if needed. The boss doesn’t do a lot of damage, the main thing is managing the adds and making sure they don’t heal the boss. Remember to click on the console when the boss is down.
Warlord Kalithresh is the final boss in Steam Vaults and there is no need to clear out the adds in his room. Stealth to the back of the room, here you can safely eat/drink/buff. Remember in this fight to DPS the fish tanks as soon as they are up, a lot of guides say he enrages after 10 seconds of channeling from the tanks, but I’ve seen him turn red many times from the first second, not sure if this is a change, a bug, or he’s just turning red and not enraged, I also know if he does enrage, and the healer and tank have decent gear, the healer can keep the tank up. Warlord Kalithresh needs to be DPS’d down quite quickly, from experience there are 3 fish tanks he can go to without any problems, so the tank will need to position himself closer to those fishtanks, so the boss doesn’t go wandering off to a fishtank with mobs, I have had him go to a 4th fish tank without aggroing other mobs in the room before, but I would advise to dps him down as fast as possible
The mobs skipped are the ones before the 2nd boss Mekgineer Steamrigger, rather than clear them, you can stealth over to the left side as you cover over the bridge, in the area there is a water mote (probably only engineers will notice this)
Easily done, i'm reposting the whole guide since i am in blog format, and i can't just update the old strat and write (New) next to the post like you'd see on a normal strategy site.
In the endeavor for badge gear the Coilfang instances have become the most popular as we can really speed run through them, our record for H SV is just under 15 minutes and this was before we skipped those 2 groups of mobs before the 2nd boss.
We've also been able to 4 man the last boss Warlord Kalithresh so as our gear improves our runs become easier.
Here's the slightly updated H SV guide
Heroic Steamvault
Coilfang Reservoir
requires Cenarion Expedition honored - Reservoir Key
Stealth to the first boss (Hydromancer Thespia) be aware that the Bog Giants in here have stealth detection, on the ramp outside her room, clear the patrol, it consists of 2 Coilfang Sirens and a Coilfang Warrior. I find it safest to Sap 1 Siren and the Warrior first, sap them a little more then halfway up the ramp as the Sirens can fear. Burst down the first Siren quickly making use of stunlocks and do the same on the 2nd Siren, finally killing off the Warrior.
Hydromancer Thespia is not a difficult fight, the main thing the group has to be aware of is getting out of her lightning cloud as it does a large amount of damage.
Hydromancer Thespia has 2 elemental adds, its best to mark the adds, have the tank get agro and the dps burst down one add then the other, the healer can also cyclone the 2nd add (after the tank gets some agro on it) to reduce the amount of damage, with a decent group I find the first add goes down quickly and can pick up the 2nd add just after it comes out of cyclone.
As long as the DPS know to get out of the lightning clouds asap (you can see them forming over your head before they start doing dmg) then the fight is easy. Remember to click on the console after the boss is down. DPS can then stealth to the 2nd boss, or swim.
There are 2 groups of gnomes before the 2nd boss, you can safely stealth past both groups and to the left side of the bridge, usually you will see a water mote floating around this area. The boss can safely be pulled to this area without pulling the 2 groups of gnomes.
Mekgineer Steamrigger has 4 gnome adds at the start. We usually assign all DPS to help kill the gnome adds at the start, once the adds are down, we assign one dpser to kill the additional adds that come out (usually the most geared rogue) leaving the rest of the dps to focus on the boss, if your DPS assigned to adds is not geared enough, have a 2nd DPSer give him support if needed. The boss doesn’t do a lot of damage, the main thing is managing the adds and making sure they don’t heal the boss. Remember to click on the console when the boss is down.
Warlord Kalithresh is the final boss in Steam Vaults and there is no need to clear out the adds in his room. Stealth to the back of the room, here you can safely eat/drink/buff. Remember in this fight to DPS the fish tanks as soon as they are up, a lot of guides say he enrages after 10 seconds of channeling from the tanks, but I’ve seen him turn red many times from the first second, not sure if this is a change, a bug, or he’s just turning red and not enraged, I also know if he does enrage, and the healer and tank have decent gear, the healer can keep the tank up. Warlord Kalithresh needs to be DPS’d down quite quickly, from experience there are 3 fish tanks he can go to without any problems, so the tank will need to position himself closer to those fishtanks, so the boss doesn’t go wandering off to a fishtank with mobs, I have had him go to a 4th fish tank without aggroing other mobs in the room before, but I would advise to dps him down as fast as possible
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Solo Onyxia
Well i know my blog is meant to be about stealth running, but for me stealth running started because i wanted to do things solo or in small groups with other druids and rogues. Since i came across this video of a druid soloing Onyxia of course i found it interesting.
In my endeavor to blog more frequently, i thought it best if i post more often small bits of information, rather than trying to finish an instance guide or some such.
So i came across this video today, i have not had the chance to watch it yet, but it's no surprise it was done by the World Famous Serennia (Self proclaimed best warrior in the world) on a druid.
It's interesting to see that our characters have progressed to the point where it's possible to solo 40 man instances from level 60 content. As someone who enjoys challenges and attempting to solo content or at least doing it in small groups i found this post fascinating. A fellow stealth runner suggested to 2 man Onyxia a few months back as the gold farming from this is meant to be quite lucrative.
I'm sure when WoTLK comes out many of us old timers will go back to attempt older content, I know many people have already gone back and soloed level 60 content, the surprising thing nowadays is some level 70's have already been able to solo Heroic instances.
Here's the links to the post.
from the WoW forums
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=6762238991&sid=1
I will paste the contents of the post below, as we all know the internet loves to swallow links.
Posted by Serennia, guild V A N Q U I S H on the Cho'gall server
0. [Video] Onyxia solo'd by a resto druid 05/25/2008 02:03:09 PM PDT
Hybrid resto spec, no FR gear, different strat than Ted, oh my: http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=76343 My WCM description:
Q u o t e:As the movie title indicates, this is a video showing what most thought to be as impossible: Soloing Onyxia. Before watching it, please keep in mind that the feat is not anywhere as easy as most might think. In fact, our group of 3 was the one to set the record for the lowest amount of people to kill Onyxia before Burning Crusade started. That video can be found here if you're interested in reminiscing:
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=34385
The record was not broken until a paladin and warlock eventually 2-manned her months after BC came out. Knowing this, I recently found myself plagued with boredome bewteen raiding offdays and arena monotony, so I sought out the challenge to break the 2-man record, and thus, I present this video.
I was attempting this for a bit now (long before Ted from EU released his solo attempt) playing as a guildmate's restoration druid, thinking it would be a fairly straight-forward fight; however, it was far from it. I had to form the perfect gear outfit to sustain the healing, the perfect strategy for phase two and three, and of course, the perfect execution to make it all happen. Thus, after finishing Sunwell one night, I decided to give it another shot and it turns out all I needed was one shot.
As anyone that has ever done Onyxia with a low amount of people knows, there is a bug in the encounter that existed even pre-BC that causes one of her warder patrols to aggro during the second phase if she happens to be flying over the south end of her lair at the same time that the patrol is there. To combat this bug, and to allow a guildmate to spectate, I brought in a hunter from our guild that would immediately suicide at the start and remain dead unless this bug happened to occur. In the event that the warder would aggro, I would combat rez him so that he would help kill the warder, and then immediately die again without any further assistance in the fight. Most would agree that this is still considered a solo feat despite having to do this to combat Blizzard's design flaw.
If you watched Ted's solo attempt movie, he states that fire resistance gear and certain talents/strategies are required, which as you can see from this, that it is not. The only real requirement to do this is to make sure you have -5.6% crit reduction, which is around 226 resilience. This should hopefully encourage other people seeking a challenge to attempt a solo Onyxia. Ted also stated in his movie description the following:
"If this never gets patched - and chances are good it never will - then this is as close as you will ever get to see One Man vs Onyxia - pre WotLK"
Well Ted, this one is for you! As usual, I highly recommend downloading the full, high-quality, version rather than streaming it for better immersion. That said, I hope everyone enjoys it and all feedback is welcome.
Please note that I am aware of the "barkskin" typo in the movie and there is also one part where it loops for a few seconds to a previous point during phase one out of a mistake in editing. Time stamps and game clock can be used to establish legitimacy if it were needed for some reason. I also didn't realize I was using the wrong weapon oil until Phase 3 :(
Talents and gear used (unbuffed stats):
35/0/26
233 resilience
557 mp5 not casting, 277 while casting
2172 healing
-Serennia of VANQUISH
http://www.vqguild.net/
Shout outs to the original 3-man crew for setting the pre-bc record and still showing that you're among the best this game has to offer:
Malican of Dissonance on Ner'zhul server
Tsuaxesis of Deus Vox on Laughing Skull server
And to my arena partner that will never let me forget how bad PvE is:
Neilyo of Merciless on Tichondrius server
Spec used: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0xzrdicsxhZZAVczcq
All feedback/criticism welcome here, etc. Enjoy.
In my endeavor to blog more frequently, i thought it best if i post more often small bits of information, rather than trying to finish an instance guide or some such.
So i came across this video today, i have not had the chance to watch it yet, but it's no surprise it was done by the World Famous Serennia (Self proclaimed best warrior in the world) on a druid.
It's interesting to see that our characters have progressed to the point where it's possible to solo 40 man instances from level 60 content. As someone who enjoys challenges and attempting to solo content or at least doing it in small groups i found this post fascinating. A fellow stealth runner suggested to 2 man Onyxia a few months back as the gold farming from this is meant to be quite lucrative.
I'm sure when WoTLK comes out many of us old timers will go back to attempt older content, I know many people have already gone back and soloed level 60 content, the surprising thing nowadays is some level 70's have already been able to solo Heroic instances.
Here's the links to the post.
from the WoW forums
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=6762238991&sid=1
I will paste the contents of the post below, as we all know the internet loves to swallow links.
Posted by Serennia, guild V A N Q U I S H on the Cho'gall server
0. [Video] Onyxia solo'd by a resto druid 05/25/2008 02:03:09 PM PDT
Hybrid resto spec, no FR gear, different strat than Ted, oh my: http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=76343 My WCM description:
Q u o t e:As the movie title indicates, this is a video showing what most thought to be as impossible: Soloing Onyxia. Before watching it, please keep in mind that the feat is not anywhere as easy as most might think. In fact, our group of 3 was the one to set the record for the lowest amount of people to kill Onyxia before Burning Crusade started. That video can be found here if you're interested in reminiscing:
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=34385
The record was not broken until a paladin and warlock eventually 2-manned her months after BC came out. Knowing this, I recently found myself plagued with boredome bewteen raiding offdays and arena monotony, so I sought out the challenge to break the 2-man record, and thus, I present this video.
I was attempting this for a bit now (long before Ted from EU released his solo attempt) playing as a guildmate's restoration druid, thinking it would be a fairly straight-forward fight; however, it was far from it. I had to form the perfect gear outfit to sustain the healing, the perfect strategy for phase two and three, and of course, the perfect execution to make it all happen. Thus, after finishing Sunwell one night, I decided to give it another shot and it turns out all I needed was one shot.
As anyone that has ever done Onyxia with a low amount of people knows, there is a bug in the encounter that existed even pre-BC that causes one of her warder patrols to aggro during the second phase if she happens to be flying over the south end of her lair at the same time that the patrol is there. To combat this bug, and to allow a guildmate to spectate, I brought in a hunter from our guild that would immediately suicide at the start and remain dead unless this bug happened to occur. In the event that the warder would aggro, I would combat rez him so that he would help kill the warder, and then immediately die again without any further assistance in the fight. Most would agree that this is still considered a solo feat despite having to do this to combat Blizzard's design flaw.
If you watched Ted's solo attempt movie, he states that fire resistance gear and certain talents/strategies are required, which as you can see from this, that it is not. The only real requirement to do this is to make sure you have -5.6% crit reduction, which is around 226 resilience. This should hopefully encourage other people seeking a challenge to attempt a solo Onyxia. Ted also stated in his movie description the following:
"If this never gets patched - and chances are good it never will - then this is as close as you will ever get to see One Man vs Onyxia - pre WotLK"
Well Ted, this one is for you! As usual, I highly recommend downloading the full, high-quality, version rather than streaming it for better immersion. That said, I hope everyone enjoys it and all feedback is welcome.
Please note that I am aware of the "barkskin" typo in the movie and there is also one part where it loops for a few seconds to a previous point during phase one out of a mistake in editing. Time stamps and game clock can be used to establish legitimacy if it were needed for some reason. I also didn't realize I was using the wrong weapon oil until Phase 3 :(
Talents and gear used (unbuffed stats):
35/0/26
233 resilience
557 mp5 not casting, 277 while casting
2172 healing
-Serennia of VANQUISH
http://www.vqguild.net/
Shout outs to the original 3-man crew for setting the pre-bc record and still showing that you're among the best this game has to offer:
Malican of Dissonance on Ner'zhul server
Tsuaxesis of Deus Vox on Laughing Skull server
And to my arena partner that will never let me forget how bad PvE is:
Neilyo of Merciless on Tichondrius server
Spec used: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0xzrdicsxhZZAVczcq
All feedback/criticism welcome here, etc. Enjoy.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Heroic Blood Furnace
Blood Furnace
Hellfire Citadel
Requires Thrallmar or Honor Hold reputation honored – Flamewrought key
It is possible to stealth all the way up to the first boss The Maker, just be careful when you go up that first large flight of stairs, as there are a few stealthed adds on them, they don’t have stealth detect, and I have almost walked through one before, but he didn’t agro.
The Maker
In the first boss’s room, be careful of the group (2 mobs) that patrol around the room, they have stealth detect, and it is possible to agro them if your not careful with your positioning on the first boss.
Stealth all the way to the gate, and be as close to the gate as possible when you pull the boss.
He is not hard, his most nasty spell is mind control, so be ready to cc the mind controlled player (blind or cyclone) as they can do more burst damage then the boss.
I know there are a few video’s of people soloing the first boss, so that should indicate how hard he is.
Broggok
Unfortunately Broggok’s room must be cleared, Broggok is not hard himself, but the event can be tough for a non geared group.
4 waves of 4 Orcs come out and with blinds being on a 3 minute cooldown and cyclone being too short to be used as a reliable CC we used the following strat.
The tank will pick up 3 Orcs, we’ve found 3 to be our sweet spot in terms of the tank being able to grab agro, and in terms of how much damage the healer can heal through, I’m sure highly skilled/geared tanks/healers will be able to pick up all 4 Orcs, but in our case, we found that 3 Orcs, is about the number we want the tank and healer to deal with.
1 of the DPS will be assigned as the offtank/kiter, if you have 3 rogues as DPS, you may need to assign a rotation as I’m not sure how easy it would be for a rogue to kite/tank without all their CD’s
The tank will pick up the 3 Orcs and tank them in the middle of the room, he will mark up one for DPS, so you can burn down the Orcs as quickly as possible, the off tank will pick up one Orc, (feral or high ac moonkin) if the healer or off tanks are not geared enough the kiting method may have to be used. Generally the off tank is not as geared as the main tank, so it can be wise to burn down the off tanks add first, this gives the main tank time to pick up agro on the 3 Orcs, the rogues can stunlock down a Orc, to put less strain on the healer.
Kiting method
If the off tank is not geared enough, or there are 3 rogues, rather than tanking the extra mob, the DPS can kite the mob.
As the cage opens, the DPS will pull a mob from range, (I’m assuming that a rogues ranged weap should do enough damage to pull the mob)
Pull from range, and kite to the end of the hall, when the mob gets close cyclone/stun/blind the mob then sprint to the other side, movement augementing effects can help in the kite, dash, sprint, shadowstep, feral charge, boot enchant etc.
When sprinting to the end of the room Broggok is on, if you get to close, he can bug and come through the closed door (we’ve had this happen a few times )
If possible the healer should throw some hots on the kiter as he runs past.
If it’s a rogue doing the kiting and they really need their CD’s (blind) then you may have to use a rotation.
When Broggok comes out, he really is not hard, just get out of the poison gas, if you finish the last group down the far side of the room, it will give you the opportunity to Battle Rez, any dead dps.
Keli’dan the Breaker
Mark up the kill order on the Warlocks surrounding Keli’dan, sap the last few in the kill order (depending on how many rogues you have) then focus fire them down one by one.
Once the locks are dead, it’s the typical tank and spank like you would normally do this boss. Just remember to run out after he sucks you in, this boss is cake, compared to doing the 2nd boss event with a rogue/druid group.
Hellfire Citadel
Requires Thrallmar or Honor Hold reputation honored – Flamewrought key
It is possible to stealth all the way up to the first boss The Maker, just be careful when you go up that first large flight of stairs, as there are a few stealthed adds on them, they don’t have stealth detect, and I have almost walked through one before, but he didn’t agro.
The Maker
In the first boss’s room, be careful of the group (2 mobs) that patrol around the room, they have stealth detect, and it is possible to agro them if your not careful with your positioning on the first boss.
Stealth all the way to the gate, and be as close to the gate as possible when you pull the boss.
He is not hard, his most nasty spell is mind control, so be ready to cc the mind controlled player (blind or cyclone) as they can do more burst damage then the boss.
I know there are a few video’s of people soloing the first boss, so that should indicate how hard he is.
Broggok
Unfortunately Broggok’s room must be cleared, Broggok is not hard himself, but the event can be tough for a non geared group.
4 waves of 4 Orcs come out and with blinds being on a 3 minute cooldown and cyclone being too short to be used as a reliable CC we used the following strat.
The tank will pick up 3 Orcs, we’ve found 3 to be our sweet spot in terms of the tank being able to grab agro, and in terms of how much damage the healer can heal through, I’m sure highly skilled/geared tanks/healers will be able to pick up all 4 Orcs, but in our case, we found that 3 Orcs, is about the number we want the tank and healer to deal with.
1 of the DPS will be assigned as the offtank/kiter, if you have 3 rogues as DPS, you may need to assign a rotation as I’m not sure how easy it would be for a rogue to kite/tank without all their CD’s
The tank will pick up the 3 Orcs and tank them in the middle of the room, he will mark up one for DPS, so you can burn down the Orcs as quickly as possible, the off tank will pick up one Orc, (feral or high ac moonkin) if the healer or off tanks are not geared enough the kiting method may have to be used. Generally the off tank is not as geared as the main tank, so it can be wise to burn down the off tanks add first, this gives the main tank time to pick up agro on the 3 Orcs, the rogues can stunlock down a Orc, to put less strain on the healer.
Kiting method
If the off tank is not geared enough, or there are 3 rogues, rather than tanking the extra mob, the DPS can kite the mob.
As the cage opens, the DPS will pull a mob from range, (I’m assuming that a rogues ranged weap should do enough damage to pull the mob)
Pull from range, and kite to the end of the hall, when the mob gets close cyclone/stun/blind the mob then sprint to the other side, movement augementing effects can help in the kite, dash, sprint, shadowstep, feral charge, boot enchant etc.
When sprinting to the end of the room Broggok is on, if you get to close, he can bug and come through the closed door (we’ve had this happen a few times )
If possible the healer should throw some hots on the kiter as he runs past.
If it’s a rogue doing the kiting and they really need their CD’s (blind) then you may have to use a rotation.
When Broggok comes out, he really is not hard, just get out of the poison gas, if you finish the last group down the far side of the room, it will give you the opportunity to Battle Rez, any dead dps.
Keli’dan the Breaker
Mark up the kill order on the Warlocks surrounding Keli’dan, sap the last few in the kill order (depending on how many rogues you have) then focus fire them down one by one.
Once the locks are dead, it’s the typical tank and spank like you would normally do this boss. Just remember to run out after he sucks you in, this boss is cake, compared to doing the 2nd boss event with a rogue/druid group.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Heroic Botanica
Heroic Botanica
Tempest Keep
Requires Sha’tar honored – Warpforged Key
Although it is possible to stealth all the way to the final boss with only 2 stealth level bonus, the walk is long, and I’ve seen many stealthers dismally fail at stealthing.
This instance is definitely not for impatient stealthers, but for those of you who like a stealth challenge, or are actually clearing out Auchindon and Coilfang instances and need new places to stealth then this could be the challenge your looking for.
You definitely need stealth modifiers for this instance, whether it be by talent points or gear, as I said before I have lead a moonkin druid to the final boss before, and all he had was a cloak I lent him and him being a night elf (+10 stealth bonus) he did wipe once or twice, but he got there in the end.
I have however seen other stealthers with the same level of stealth points and not able to make it past the first doorway….
I honestly highly doubt they were doing anything wrong, as its not that hard to try to stealth right down the middle, but he had no luck whatsoever, seemed those mobs just liked him too much. I’ve seen a few mobs be a bit glitchy and like certain chars, even though they have the same stealth levels as someone who can get past easily.
Stealthing Botanica is challenging as there are a few patrols in tight area’s, once you get up to the first boss, stealthing to the end should be easy.
Of course if you have a rogue in the group helping sap and distract, this can make a stealth nightmare a smooth run.
Stealth up to the first boss Commander Sarannis, wait till she paths all the way out to the end of the bridge and talks to one of the NPC’s
Now that she’s off to the side, you can stealth past easily to the other end of the bridge, here you can gear up, buff quickly and drink before she paths back. Night Elfs, can also shadowmeld here safely in the corner.
Now I have to admit, I’ve only run this with a decently geared group, Kara level gear or above, with some stealthers with a couple pieces of S3 gear or a few pieces of the latest badge gear.
We’ve always been able to just burn her down asap without giving her the chance to summon her adds. I’ve had restokins able to heal through this with no deaths, and a tree druid with just under 1500 heals able to heal this with no problems.
Once again I think it comes down to the dps, but if you’ve been clearing out Coilfang Resevoir instances regularly (since it only take about an hour to do all 3), you should have collected enough badges for your group to get some decent badge gear.
Stealth up to the second boss High Botanist Freywinn
The mobs on the end of the bridge must be cleared, just be careful there is a pat that patrols a little close.
With a mixture of saps, and tanking the mobs at the end of the bridge are quite easy to take down, as with Botanist, do her like you would do her on a non stealth run, DPS her, when she turns into a tree, pull the saplings to the side and dps them down.
Once again just be careful there is a pat that will patrol closely, so make sure you don’t accidently pull it when your doing the boss.
Stealth up to Thorngrin, unfortunately, the stealth groups I have been with haven’t wanted to put in the effort to do him, since doing him here is just like doing him in a non stealth run, pulling pats, then doing the boss.
When stealthing past Thorngrin’s area be careful, there are 2 stealthed patrols, I find sticking closer to the right wall to be safer, of course if you have humans in the group with perception, or rogues with talent points to detect stealthers, they should lead the way.
Since Laj and Warp Splinter are so close to each other, we usually do Warp Splinter first, if we accidently wipe to Laj, group is generally to lazy to stealth all that way again for 1 badge.
At Warp Splinter, clear the tree mobs on both sides, I’m not sure what it is about boomkins, or just druids that see a group of mobs, but they just want to AoE with hurricane.
I’ve seen ferals pop out and just start hurricaning, and then get overrun by the mobs, as the healer wasn’t ready for it, it’s safest to focus fire the mobs down with the tank getting agro, or if a moonkin is going to do this, let the healer know before hand.
The easiest way to kill Warp Splinter is to have the tank, tank the boss just before the end of the path, healers and ranged dps should stand near the entrance just over the bridge, this gives them the chance to reset just in case something goes wrong, healers and ranged dps, should be at max range, so they don’t get the AoE stun. Standing close to the entrance means the treants, will not do much damage as they have further to run and most will get blown away to heal the boss before they even reach the heaer/ranged position.
Rogues should apply the MS type debuff woud poison, so Warp Splinter will get less benefit from the heals.
The group should have decent dps, and focus fire on the boss and ignore the treants, with a decent geared group Warp Splinter will go down fairly quick.
Now clear Laj’s room, assign 2 dps to the lasher type mobs, and have them dps the lashers asap, the switch to Laj when lashers are down.
It’s easiest to tank Laj where he stands, so there is no chasing around if he teleports.
I did this in a non stealth run recently, and it took 1hr 15 mins, which I would say is an average time, as I had guildies also doing a non stealth run, and they did it in about this time, and bunch of them are T6 geared.
In a stealth group, unpracticed in this instance, it took us 40 minutes to down 4 out of 5 bosses. Mind you I’ve been in here with new stealthers that have taken that amount of time to just stealth to the end.
Tempest Keep
Requires Sha’tar honored – Warpforged Key
Although it is possible to stealth all the way to the final boss with only 2 stealth level bonus, the walk is long, and I’ve seen many stealthers dismally fail at stealthing.
This instance is definitely not for impatient stealthers, but for those of you who like a stealth challenge, or are actually clearing out Auchindon and Coilfang instances and need new places to stealth then this could be the challenge your looking for.
You definitely need stealth modifiers for this instance, whether it be by talent points or gear, as I said before I have lead a moonkin druid to the final boss before, and all he had was a cloak I lent him and him being a night elf (+10 stealth bonus) he did wipe once or twice, but he got there in the end.
I have however seen other stealthers with the same level of stealth points and not able to make it past the first doorway….
I honestly highly doubt they were doing anything wrong, as its not that hard to try to stealth right down the middle, but he had no luck whatsoever, seemed those mobs just liked him too much. I’ve seen a few mobs be a bit glitchy and like certain chars, even though they have the same stealth levels as someone who can get past easily.
Stealthing Botanica is challenging as there are a few patrols in tight area’s, once you get up to the first boss, stealthing to the end should be easy.
Of course if you have a rogue in the group helping sap and distract, this can make a stealth nightmare a smooth run.
Stealth up to the first boss Commander Sarannis, wait till she paths all the way out to the end of the bridge and talks to one of the NPC’s
Now that she’s off to the side, you can stealth past easily to the other end of the bridge, here you can gear up, buff quickly and drink before she paths back. Night Elfs, can also shadowmeld here safely in the corner.
Now I have to admit, I’ve only run this with a decently geared group, Kara level gear or above, with some stealthers with a couple pieces of S3 gear or a few pieces of the latest badge gear.
We’ve always been able to just burn her down asap without giving her the chance to summon her adds. I’ve had restokins able to heal through this with no deaths, and a tree druid with just under 1500 heals able to heal this with no problems.
Once again I think it comes down to the dps, but if you’ve been clearing out Coilfang Resevoir instances regularly (since it only take about an hour to do all 3), you should have collected enough badges for your group to get some decent badge gear.
Stealth up to the second boss High Botanist Freywinn
The mobs on the end of the bridge must be cleared, just be careful there is a pat that patrols a little close.
With a mixture of saps, and tanking the mobs at the end of the bridge are quite easy to take down, as with Botanist, do her like you would do her on a non stealth run, DPS her, when she turns into a tree, pull the saplings to the side and dps them down.
Once again just be careful there is a pat that will patrol closely, so make sure you don’t accidently pull it when your doing the boss.
Stealth up to Thorngrin, unfortunately, the stealth groups I have been with haven’t wanted to put in the effort to do him, since doing him here is just like doing him in a non stealth run, pulling pats, then doing the boss.
When stealthing past Thorngrin’s area be careful, there are 2 stealthed patrols, I find sticking closer to the right wall to be safer, of course if you have humans in the group with perception, or rogues with talent points to detect stealthers, they should lead the way.
Since Laj and Warp Splinter are so close to each other, we usually do Warp Splinter first, if we accidently wipe to Laj, group is generally to lazy to stealth all that way again for 1 badge.
At Warp Splinter, clear the tree mobs on both sides, I’m not sure what it is about boomkins, or just druids that see a group of mobs, but they just want to AoE with hurricane.
I’ve seen ferals pop out and just start hurricaning, and then get overrun by the mobs, as the healer wasn’t ready for it, it’s safest to focus fire the mobs down with the tank getting agro, or if a moonkin is going to do this, let the healer know before hand.
The easiest way to kill Warp Splinter is to have the tank, tank the boss just before the end of the path, healers and ranged dps should stand near the entrance just over the bridge, this gives them the chance to reset just in case something goes wrong, healers and ranged dps, should be at max range, so they don’t get the AoE stun. Standing close to the entrance means the treants, will not do much damage as they have further to run and most will get blown away to heal the boss before they even reach the heaer/ranged position.
Rogues should apply the MS type debuff woud poison, so Warp Splinter will get less benefit from the heals.
The group should have decent dps, and focus fire on the boss and ignore the treants, with a decent geared group Warp Splinter will go down fairly quick.
Now clear Laj’s room, assign 2 dps to the lasher type mobs, and have them dps the lashers asap, the switch to Laj when lashers are down.
It’s easiest to tank Laj where he stands, so there is no chasing around if he teleports.
I did this in a non stealth run recently, and it took 1hr 15 mins, which I would say is an average time, as I had guildies also doing a non stealth run, and they did it in about this time, and bunch of them are T6 geared.
In a stealth group, unpracticed in this instance, it took us 40 minutes to down 4 out of 5 bosses. Mind you I’ve been in here with new stealthers that have taken that amount of time to just stealth to the end.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Heroic Steamvault
Heroic Steamvault
Coilfang Reservoir
requires Cenarion Expedition honored - Reservoir Key
Heroic Steamvault can be a little bit of a gear check as the last boss Warlord Kalithresh
must be finished within 3 tanks, however as far as gear goes, Kara standard is fine, since most servers are quite progressed now, this really shouldn’t be an issue being so late into Season 3 Arena, Season 1 Arena gear being available for honor and there being so many badge rewards available now, however I do know there are lots of people with alts, it was only last week I attempted a pug MGT (non heroic) and had people in majority greens…
Stealth to the first boss (Hydromancer Thespia) be aware that the Bog Giants in here have stealth detection, on the ramp outside her room, clear the patrol, it consists of 2 Coilfang Sirens and a Coilfang Warrior. I find it safest to Sap 1 Siren and the Warrior first, sap them a little more than halfway up the ramp as the Sirens can fear. Burst down the first Siren quickly making use of stunlocks and do the same on the 2nd Siren, finally killing off the Warrior.
Hydromancer Thespia is not a difficult fight, the main things the group has to be aware of is getting out of her lightning cloud as it does a large amount of damage.
Hydromancer Thespia has 2 elemental adds, its best to mark the adds, have the tank get agro and the dps burst down one add then the other, the healer can also cyclone the 2nd add (after the tank gets some agro on it) to reduce the amount of damage, with a decent group I find the first add goes down quickly and can pick up the 2nd add just after it comes out of cyclone.
As long as the DPS know to get out of the lightning clouds asap (you can see them forming over your head before they start doing dmg) then the fight is easy.
Remember to click on the console after the boss is down.
DPS can then stealth to the 2nd boss, or swim.
There are 2 groups of gnomes to clear before you can pull the 2nd boss, but they should be quite easy to take down.
Mekgineer Steamrigger has 4 gnome adds at the start.
We usually assign all DPS to help kill the gnome adds at the start, once the adds are down, we assign one dpser to kill the additional adds that come out (usually the most geared rogue) leaving the rest of the dps to focus on the boss, if your DPS assigned to adds is not geared enough, have a 2nd DPSer give him support if needed.
The boss doesn’t do a lot of damage, the main thing is managing the adds and making sure they don’t heal the boss.
Remember to click on the console when the boss is down.
Warlord Kalithresh is the final boss in Steam Vaults and there is no need to clear out the adds in his room.
Stealth to the back of the room, here you can safely eat/drink/buff as I said earlier this fight can be a bit of a gear check, but we have managed to do this with 4 stealthers before, but a lot of my regular stealth runners have better than Kara gear.
Remember in this fight to DPS the fish tanks as soon as they are up, a lot of guides say he enrages after 10 seconds of channeling from the tanks, but I’ve seen many times turn red from the first second, not sure if this is a change, a bug, or he’s just turning red and not enraged, I also know if he does enrage, and the healer and tank have decent gear, the healer can keep the boss up
Warlord Kalithresh needs to be DPS’d down quite quickly, from experience there are 3 fish tanks he can go to without any problems, so the tank will need to position himself closer to those fishtanks, so the boss doesn’t go wandering off to a fishtank with mobs, I have had him go to a 4th fish tank without aggroing other mobs in the room before, but I would advise to dps him down as fast as possible.
Coilfang Reservoir
requires Cenarion Expedition honored - Reservoir Key
Heroic Steamvault can be a little bit of a gear check as the last boss Warlord Kalithresh
must be finished within 3 tanks, however as far as gear goes, Kara standard is fine, since most servers are quite progressed now, this really shouldn’t be an issue being so late into Season 3 Arena, Season 1 Arena gear being available for honor and there being so many badge rewards available now, however I do know there are lots of people with alts, it was only last week I attempted a pug MGT (non heroic) and had people in majority greens…
Stealth to the first boss (Hydromancer Thespia) be aware that the Bog Giants in here have stealth detection, on the ramp outside her room, clear the patrol, it consists of 2 Coilfang Sirens and a Coilfang Warrior. I find it safest to Sap 1 Siren and the Warrior first, sap them a little more than halfway up the ramp as the Sirens can fear. Burst down the first Siren quickly making use of stunlocks and do the same on the 2nd Siren, finally killing off the Warrior.
Hydromancer Thespia is not a difficult fight, the main things the group has to be aware of is getting out of her lightning cloud as it does a large amount of damage.
Hydromancer Thespia has 2 elemental adds, its best to mark the adds, have the tank get agro and the dps burst down one add then the other, the healer can also cyclone the 2nd add (after the tank gets some agro on it) to reduce the amount of damage, with a decent group I find the first add goes down quickly and can pick up the 2nd add just after it comes out of cyclone.
As long as the DPS know to get out of the lightning clouds asap (you can see them forming over your head before they start doing dmg) then the fight is easy.
Remember to click on the console after the boss is down.
DPS can then stealth to the 2nd boss, or swim.
There are 2 groups of gnomes to clear before you can pull the 2nd boss, but they should be quite easy to take down.
Mekgineer Steamrigger has 4 gnome adds at the start.
We usually assign all DPS to help kill the gnome adds at the start, once the adds are down, we assign one dpser to kill the additional adds that come out (usually the most geared rogue) leaving the rest of the dps to focus on the boss, if your DPS assigned to adds is not geared enough, have a 2nd DPSer give him support if needed.
The boss doesn’t do a lot of damage, the main thing is managing the adds and making sure they don’t heal the boss.
Remember to click on the console when the boss is down.
Warlord Kalithresh is the final boss in Steam Vaults and there is no need to clear out the adds in his room.
Stealth to the back of the room, here you can safely eat/drink/buff as I said earlier this fight can be a bit of a gear check, but we have managed to do this with 4 stealthers before, but a lot of my regular stealth runners have better than Kara gear.
Remember in this fight to DPS the fish tanks as soon as they are up, a lot of guides say he enrages after 10 seconds of channeling from the tanks, but I’ve seen many times turn red from the first second, not sure if this is a change, a bug, or he’s just turning red and not enraged, I also know if he does enrage, and the healer and tank have decent gear, the healer can keep the boss up
Warlord Kalithresh needs to be DPS’d down quite quickly, from experience there are 3 fish tanks he can go to without any problems, so the tank will need to position himself closer to those fishtanks, so the boss doesn’t go wandering off to a fishtank with mobs, I have had him go to a 4th fish tank without aggroing other mobs in the room before, but I would advise to dps him down as fast as possible.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Heroic Underbog
Heroic Underbog
Coilfang Reservoir
requires Cenarion Expedition honored - Reservoir Key
Stealth to the first boss (Hungarfen), the difficulty in stealthing in Underbog is there are a lot of mobs that path around, the best way is to stealth beside the water (do not step into the water as the fish have stealth detection) and up the ramp, in between the 2 guards and to the back corner near the bridge.
Hungarfen can be pulled to the back without agroing the 2 guards, however the tank must be careful when positioning the boss during the fight to avoid mushroom dmg, and to not go to close to agro the guards.
At 15%-20% Hungarfen shields himself with a a wall of roots, causing all melee attacks to heal Hungarfen of 5% of his maximum health, so melee should back off until the wall comes off.
Stealth across the bridge and over to the next bridge.
You will see a bog giant at the bottom of the bridge, 2 pats on the bridge and 2 stealth detection guards at the entrance.
At the bottom tank the bog giant, right on the edge, so that you don’t accidently pull agro off the bridge or the other bog giant that paths, kill the 2 pats on the bridge, then kill the 2 guards.
Stealth up to the circular platform where the second boss Ghaz’an, paths around, the tank puts his back to the wall and tanks the boss, the melee should dps Ghaz’an on his side and not at his tail, as his tail lashes out and can kick you off the platform, which usually means death, as the fishes get to you.
Ranged and healders should try to stand at max range, to avoid tail lashing, Ghaz’an also does a poison AoE, so ranged DPS should make sure they are in heal range.
Stealth all the way up to the last boss (The Black Stalker) and to the back tunnel near the exit, it is safe to unstealth and buff here. (skip Swamplord Musel’ek for now)
Get all dps to focus on the boss and ignore the adds, the healer should be able to heal through all the damage, and the boss should drop quite quickly.
The only thing to be wary of is if the healer gets levitated out of boss range, otherwise, the boss can be zerged. Healer should also remember to heal himself heavily as they will get healing agro from the pats.
The safest way to do Swamplord Musel’ek is to clear the 2 Underbog Lords on the way back.
When you fight Swamplord Musel’ek, make sure you put your backs to the walls, as the bear can do a knockback, that can knock you into the insect mobs.
The 2 basic strategies on this boss are as follows.
zerg the boss down, and have your healer heal through bear dmg.
have one of the dps pull agro on the bear, and pull him back towards the last bosses room, when Swamlord gets low, pull the bear back to be finished off by the group.
Coilfang Reservoir
requires Cenarion Expedition honored - Reservoir Key
Stealth to the first boss (Hungarfen), the difficulty in stealthing in Underbog is there are a lot of mobs that path around, the best way is to stealth beside the water (do not step into the water as the fish have stealth detection) and up the ramp, in between the 2 guards and to the back corner near the bridge.
Hungarfen can be pulled to the back without agroing the 2 guards, however the tank must be careful when positioning the boss during the fight to avoid mushroom dmg, and to not go to close to agro the guards.
At 15%-20% Hungarfen shields himself with a a wall of roots, causing all melee attacks to heal Hungarfen of 5% of his maximum health, so melee should back off until the wall comes off.
Stealth across the bridge and over to the next bridge.
You will see a bog giant at the bottom of the bridge, 2 pats on the bridge and 2 stealth detection guards at the entrance.
At the bottom tank the bog giant, right on the edge, so that you don’t accidently pull agro off the bridge or the other bog giant that paths, kill the 2 pats on the bridge, then kill the 2 guards.
Stealth up to the circular platform where the second boss Ghaz’an, paths around, the tank puts his back to the wall and tanks the boss, the melee should dps Ghaz’an on his side and not at his tail, as his tail lashes out and can kick you off the platform, which usually means death, as the fishes get to you.
Ranged and healders should try to stand at max range, to avoid tail lashing, Ghaz’an also does a poison AoE, so ranged DPS should make sure they are in heal range.
Stealth all the way up to the last boss (The Black Stalker) and to the back tunnel near the exit, it is safe to unstealth and buff here. (skip Swamplord Musel’ek for now)
Get all dps to focus on the boss and ignore the adds, the healer should be able to heal through all the damage, and the boss should drop quite quickly.
The only thing to be wary of is if the healer gets levitated out of boss range, otherwise, the boss can be zerged. Healer should also remember to heal himself heavily as they will get healing agro from the pats.
The safest way to do Swamplord Musel’ek is to clear the 2 Underbog Lords on the way back.
When you fight Swamplord Musel’ek, make sure you put your backs to the walls, as the bear can do a knockback, that can knock you into the insect mobs.
The 2 basic strategies on this boss are as follows.
zerg the boss down, and have your healer heal through bear dmg.
have one of the dps pull agro on the bear, and pull him back towards the last bosses room, when Swamlord gets low, pull the bear back to be finished off by the group.
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