I’ve been trying to get some raiding done before my account expires– gonna go out with a bang and all that!

10-man ICC is, I am very glad to say, not nearly as lag-erffic as the 25-man version. I did the first four bosses with Tawyn. I liked the Gunship Battle simply because it was airships and I like those (Pike’s Law: anything can always be made more awesome with airships), but the Saurfang battle directly afterwards made me even happier.

Cause I really wasn’t sure what to get and suddenly these adds came out and one was running toward me and without second thought I was Concussive Shot’ing, kiting, jump-shotting… oooh. It felt good. When was the last time we had to do that in a raid? Like… Gluth? (I hated kiting on Gluth by the way. Haaaaated. I always prodded the DKs into doing it.)

But yeah, it was awesome fun, and a great feeling.

Then yesterday I healed a 25man ToC with my Tree.

…apparently I’ve been using rank 13 Rejuvenation. For months. (15 is the max rank.)

I would like to thank the random PuG member with RankWatch for pointing this out. This explains a lot. *cries tree tears*

ToC got hilariously easy by the way, now that everyone pretty much overgears it. Aaaanyways.

I like healing. I’m gonna miss it. <3

Sooo I was chucked an invite to ICC25 today, for the first time ever. Originally I was asked to go healy on my druid, which sort of surprised me because my dear little Tree is still sporting at least two blues, but then we realized that we hardly had any hunters in the raid (for once) and I got to go on my hunter instead. (Five minutes after I logged onto my hunter, about three other hunters joined the raid group anyway, and we eventually wound up with a total of six. As opposed to two druids. Go figure.)

Now.

I’d like to sit here and tell you how awesome this raid was. I’d like to tell you that I was blown away by the fights and by the scenery and by the atmosphere. I’d like to give you all sorts of details on my thoughts on the fights from a huntery perspective. You know, the whole shebang. Unfortunately, I cannot.

Because from the moment I stepped into that raid until the moment I teleported out, I was never over 2fps.

…aaaand I frankly have no idea why.

I shut down all my other programs. I tried sans-Vent. I turned all my video effects down to zero (which meant that I could no longer see stuff on the ground). No dice. The second either a.) A boss or b.) more than one trash mob showed up on screen, I was essentially out of commission.

Now I know some of you guys are used to playing with poor computer setups and have learned to compensate for having a downright atrocious FPS, but I’m quite spoiled and I, well… haven’t. So at the end of every boss fight I’d pull up Recount, look at how absolutely horrific my performance was, and beg my guild to let me leave so they could replace me with someone who could actually contribute.

And my guild, bless their hearts, insisted that I come “see the new stuff” so they kept dragging my sorry butt all over the place.

We only did the first wing, for which I was grateful, because by that point I wanted to curl up in the fetal position somewhere and cry. Though, the Saurfang boss wasn’t too bad. Mostly because it was a Patchwerk-esque fight since I had a viable excuse to Not-Shoot-The-Adds (when you’re sitting at SUB-1-FRAME-PER-SECOND, you’re excused from shooting adds, I think.) So I was able to concentrate on my rotation, as much as I could for having, well, SUB-1-FRAME-PER-SECOND.

I gotta hand props to Wash here for picking up the slack. Lucky guy lives in the game world and doesn’t have to worry about this stuff. *mutters*

Needless to say I don’t think 25man ICC is gonna happen for me. It’s something in that dungeon, I’m quite sure, since I did an Ony25 just the other day with absolutely no issues.

Let’s hope 10-man is at least playable…

OH!

I got a new bow.

I haven’t used a bow since Valanos’ Longbow. Dead serious. The bow animation kind of weirds me out…

…bad joke is bad? Sorry >.>

I’m Pike: I keyboard-turn, I click (unless I am healing), and I get about 3fps max on 25mans. Didn’t stop this from being awesome, after a good few weeks of attempts:

(the music is all MegaMan 2 remixes. Whaaat?)

I was Beast Mastery in this fight. Since our ret paladin had to leave, Wash’s Ferocious Inspiration contributed 3% bonus damage to all DPS in the raid ^_^

…that this happened to somehone who isn’t me:

Still a hunter though. Bwahaha! We shall take over the world, soon enough.

Note: Cause I know someone’s gonna bring up all the Marksman stuff on my bars: I am experimenting with raiding as Marksman when there’s a ret pally in the group already bringing the 3% damage buff, since it overwrites Ferocious Inspiration anyway. I want to get good with Marksmanship, and then someday, I swear to you, I’ll be good at Survival too… maybe… /bangs head into wall

Phase One: Don’t stand behind her! Stand off to her side or something. Misdirect onto the tank. Pewpew!

Phase Two: Onyxia will be in the air, so you can keep shooting her, although your pet won’t be able to reach her. What I’ll typically do here is stick my pet on the “large adds” that show up every once and a while.

Whelps will show up every so often. Once the offtank has a firm grasp on them, Volley to your heart’s content. If your computer is slowish, do not look at the resulting AoE. (You’ll thank me later).

Every so often, Onyxia will do a Deep Breath. You’ll know cause it’ll say “Onxyia takes a deep breath…” This, roughly translated, means “Don’t stand in front of her or you will die.” I’ve found that your best bet here is usually to just get out of the middle and run to the side, as it is surprisingly difficult to keep track of where she is when she’s flying around.

Phase Three: Your pet can attack Onyxia again– yay! Back to a tank and spank, except that Onyxia has this annoying tendency to toss fears around like no tomorrow. Bestial Wrath (and presumably things like the PvP trinket, etc.) will get you out of it, but it won’t be off cooldown nearly enough to save you from all of them. Just grit your teeth and bear it, and don’t stand too close to the whelp caves on the side, lest you are feared into it.

Phase Four: Loots! Whee!

–

I got a gun out of Onyxia-10 a few days back, which means for the first time since Naxx10, I have a non-sucky ranged weapon. Still holding out for the 25-man version, but this will work nicely in the meantime. I think my favorite part about the new gun is how plain-looking it looks from a distance, although it has some nice little details on it if you zoom in. In the plainness is the beauty, I think. I rolled on some epic crossbow in ToC25 but I’m kind of glad I didn’t win it, my plain lil’ gun is better aesthetically. /huggles it

Color-coordinating Bears. It was cute. =D

This is the achievement I got after winning The Greatest Piece of Loot I Have Ever Won In Any Event Ever. To be fair, I used the trick where you just stick it in one trinket slot and then move it to the other, so really, I am still rolling with one non-qualifying trinket (Curse you, Mirror of Truth!)

In any event, I had a big night, and now I’m off to go lovingly cuddle my new trinket as I fall asleep~

*is not in any way obsessed with her new trinket*

*may not be telling the entire truth*

Have at ye! *wields cold medicine*

This is what I did today, in spite of having said persistent cough:

I got a ring out of it, which means for the first time in my entire WoW career, I am wearing all purples. Took long enough, dontcha think? =P I mean, I’ve only been playing the game for, I dunno, two and a half years at this point…

The fights were, for the most part, fun and interesting. I look forward to writing up a guide once I’ve ran through this joint a few more times.

Ah Onyxia, the classic. I’m kind of disappointed I never got around to solo’ing her before the change, but at least I do have the Sinew in my bank so I can theoretically still do the Rhok quest (if I can ever get into a Molten Core group without five or six other hunters who also want the Leaf). I am also glad to say that four of my best friends and myself took her on at 70. It was glorious. I made it a movie that can’t go on YouTube because it’s like thirty seconds too long.

Anyways, here’s a hint for the current Onyxia: if your computer can’t handle lots of things onscreen at one time, do not look at the whelps when they are being AoE’d. Trust me.

So a pretty darn nice polearm dropped. I won the roll, but then traded it to our bear tank afterward, because I know she really wanted it. Or at least the weapon that it turns into.

But then we found out something interesting.

See, when you turn it from the ranged-oriented weapon into the melee-oriented weapon, you keep the original weapon. So you basically have two polearms.

And that first one can be traded within that 2-hour period.

So, she kept the copy, and I got the original back.

I have no idea if this is intended or not and I’m half expecting Blizz to take it away during the next wave of rolling restarts, but until then, we are Polearm Buddies:

So yeah. This week shall be known from here on out as “Let’s see how many raids Pike can stuff herself into and still maintain her sanity.”

In other news, I’m come up with some super interesting Beast Mastery and pet related math on the online spreadsheet as of this latest patch. I’ll go into more detail on a later post, though, because the NyQuil is gonna knock me out in T minus ten… nine… eight… …

…but C’thun was the greatest Old God of all time! The greatest Old God of all time! Peace.

(Okay, so really I just wanted an excuse to make that joke. Sorry. D= )

So yeah, I have now officially seen every boss inside Ulduar, and killed them all except Yoggy*, whom we wiped on a couple times and then we started doing really well before suddenly everybody had to leave (myself included, sadly.)

I have to admit I’ve been feeling some compunctions about raiding and my aptitude at it lately; it feels like 50% of my boss kills and achievements happen with me facedown on the floor, and while there are times where my DPS shines, it also seems like as time goes on and I get into harder content and as my fellows acquire better and better gear, my position on Recount just seems to be slipping. It is probably partially because I cling to a less-than-ideal spec, but also I think because I just really stink at climbing the raid boss learning curve. I really don’t want to be Donald from Dark Legacy Comics, but sometimes I worry I am turning into him. >.>

Hopefully it is just a phase and will pass as I get more practice. It just takes me a little bit of extra time to learn what stuff my pet shouldn’t be hitting (Giant Tentacles and Freya Mario Party minigames, I’m looking at you), or what I should and should not be standing in (Vezax can DIAF). I may not be Ensidia or Death & Taxes material, but hopefully I will at least be halfway competent with a little more practice.

I am signed up for ToC25 and Ulduar25 this week, and Ulduar10 seems to be in the cards as well… holycrap, does this make me a real raider? It seems so surreal! x_x I hope my poor alts don’t feel too neglected… D=

—

* And that one guy who I’m never going to see ever

1. Your pet dies
2. Your pet dies again
3. Your pet dies, yet again
4. Is your pet dead? No? GOTO 1
5. Watch your pet die as he stands next to you
6. Watch your pet die while you spam Mend Pet
7. Be content that your pet is at 100% health, glance the other way for two seconds, glance back and notice your pet is dead
8. Forget about your pet and switch to your Marksmanship dual spec
9. Get the Power Rangers theme song* stuck in your head…

10. Stare into the pretty laser beam coming out of the guy’s face… and die.

—

* I swear to you, when I figure this fight out I am going to FRAPS it and set it to the Power Rangers theme song. Cross my heart, hope to Feign Death.

As a DPS, I normally don’t feel under the same pressure that I do on say, my healer (or as I imagine a tank would feel, though I haven’t tanked so I can’t say.) I mean sure, we’re sort of fighting against this nebulous “enrage timer” but for the most part, “DPS faster” or “DPS more” just means I’m gonna… press my buttons a little harder and hope it somehow turns into more DPS. It doesn’t really feel like I’m contributing something tangible, so much.

Enter “Iron Council Medium Mode”.

See, today I logged on, went to go do Icecrown dailies, and received a whisper from someone I hadn’t heard of it in a long time. It was my old Naxx group. The one I went to Naxx10 with every week for a good few months earlier this year. They invited me to a 10-man Ulduar. I had nothing better to do and I was excited to see some people I hadn’t played with in a while, so I accepted.

…so…

…so, in the time between us struggling our way through Naxx10 and now, they got good. And also got some friends in high places. We were smashing through achievements left and right with tanks who had close to 50,000 HP.

Anyways, Iron Council, aka Falcon Punch. Apparently the order you kill the guys in determines how difficult your encounter will be. We opted to go for a “Medium Mode”, which involves little elementals that spawn every ten seconds or so and must be AoE’d and slowed and kited and pretty much killed immediately, or Bad Things Happen.

Due to group makeup, it was pretty much up to me, a warlock, and a mage.

…and I dunno if I’ve ever felt like so much depended on me as a DPS. If we died, it wasn’t cause the tanks failed or the heals failed or because of something passive like a lack of gear. No, this time, if we died, it was all on the heads of the DPSers.

As a hunter on this, your job is a.) keep your pet on the boss, b.) Keep an eye out for the purple circles, c.) lay down Frost Traps as available, d.) Volley the heck out of the purple circle, e.) pick off any stragglers that snuck past the AoE, f.) avoid the crap on the ground, and g.) somehow manage to keep your mana up throughout all of this (curse you Volley, you mana-sucker you.)

It was not easy.

But man it felt good afterwards.

Warlock, mage, and I all got specifically thanked by name afterwards for our work.

DPS frequently feels like a thankless job, but I felt good today. Kudos to Blizz for (perhaps finally) making an encounter where it feels like all depends on you and your active efforts, my fellow PewPew-ers.