On a new beginning

Last night there was unknown drama in ICC10. I had skipped it because of being 15 mins late, so they were already wiping when I logged on. Whatever happened, an old mate from Lords of Midnight gquitted, for not having a spot or something of the sort, and today, our raid organizer gquitted too, and moved to a larger guild, that has already cleared ICC10 and need people for ICC25 and an extra ICC10 group. Well... I got an invite too and didn't say no, since all I was reading in our gchat was about disbanding. Enough is enough, casuals don't go well with purposeful raiders.

Anyway, I'm now in the Reset Gaming Clan guild in EU Chromaggus.

And I think with this one, I'm gonna kill Arthas !

And again.. I'm the top achiever. I need some competiton or it's not fun ;-)



On the horde side, I'm simply loving Clarabela as a healing shaman. I'm 74 and I have healed everything up to Violet Hold with no wipes. Healing orbs, Hots, chain heal, totems, and MP5 ftw. I'm nearly full blue and rocking so much, I've used all my rest time and I'm 74.5 questing only in Borean Tundra and sometimes in the Fjords :)

Can't wait to try Cornelius as a druid healer LOL !

On Marrowgar and Winter Veil revisited

Marrowgar is down ! After a few tries, he came down to 27% and then in the next one he was down for good. I died once, silly mistake, stayed in the middle when he ended.

TIP: I found a way to dps him during the whirlwind: Immolate is only 15 secs so it terminates before the whirlwind is over. During that time I can conflagrate him twice and while moving he'll proc Backlash at least twice. Use it to increase your dmg. Just stay the hell away when he ends the phase as the aggro table wipe will pull him to you if you're near the middle and/or you have a running dot.

He had time to visit Lady Deathwish but she pwned us.

As to the good and the bad: The good is that it dropped FROST NEEDLE FOR ME ! +657 Spell power yay ! The bad part is that I spotted a dumb lock with an equivalent sword (crit instead of my hit) and it was the Quel'derrar. So... the stupid epic heroic dungeon chain quest delivers a sword that matches the 10-raid one. A bit sad, but then again, Blizzard is going for this alternate ways of gearing..

On Marrowgar

I got a spot to go and raid Marrowgar. It's a very easy fight for DPS, not so for healers and less so for tanks. Tanks require precise coordination in order to escape de 30K+ hit the boss does to them after a whilrwind.
We tried with no druids, and boy, HoTs are very useful.
As to strategy, pretty basic. DPS until u see bone spikes, then turn to them, dps them down. Run away from the blue fire on the ground. When the boss whilrwinds/WW, run away, dont dot (may be 1 dot if in the beginning of the WW) because he clears aggro after the WW. Wait for tanks to position the boss again, and resume execution.
Can't get any easier. Still.. 12 wipes later, healers and tanks couldnt handle it.

Meanwhile, I turned to my hordes. Leveling Clarabela as Resto (!!! YAY !!!), I'm 72 atm, went to Utgarde and healed both a 69 pala tank and a rly good 71 warrior tank.

Having fun at WoW again, that's what matters.

On a late TOC25 finally done

Wee, yesterday I got a spot for a TOC25 together with another guild. They carried massive firepower and know what to do so, basically, it was a smooth run.

My dps...was good but not so good. My PC showed me he's aging. 2400+ AMD Dual core and a 9500GT are not able to cope with latest 25-men raids, although Ulduar was ok. But fights like the Faction Champions and Twin Valkyrs with all the bubbles flying around... it's just bad 10-15 fps, probably. So... looks like Christmas is gonna give me a new PC.

I did die at the Faction Champions (crap crap) and we wiped once on Anub'Arak as ppl were slacking on the scarabs, but otherwise it worked just fine.

After TOC25, we went ULD25 to do the weekly raid quest, as we now have Frost Emblems to farm... (farm farm farm it's all this game is about anyway).

So... guildies are having the will to go for it, that's good.

On the negative side.. guess what, I lost AGAIN the Blade of Tarasque (3rd time? or 4th?) after rolling 90+. This time I rolled a 92 and a shadowpriest (the only other roller) rolled 92. So we rerolled and.... I lost.

I continue to love the WAR method of rewarding ppl. The more you contribute to the killing, the more chance you have to get the item. Otherwise a plain unlucky bastard like me will NEVER get the item, although he delivers good DPS.

Oh well...

On how to win in Icecrown Citadel (ICC5)

Ok, some tips on the 3 Citadel 5-men. I did it from memory, to help myself, so help yourselves:

Forge of Souls (FoS)

Bronjahm: : VERY EASY
- Deals shadow dmg.
- Use shadow ward (and ask for priest/pala shadow prot buff/aura) and shaman tremor.
- When someone gets "corrupted soul", a fragment is created that heals the boss. Kite the fragment and destroy it asap.
- At 30%, the boss goes to the middle and generates a swirling AoE. Stay in the middle as much as possible

Devourer of Souls : VERY EASY
- Deals shadow dmg.
- Use shadow ward (and ask for priest/pala shadow prot buff/aura)
- When he casts Mirrored Soul, stop dps, as your dps damages those debuffed with it.
- When he casts Unleash Souls, lots of unkillable mobs are created. Kite them and teleport to escape their hits.
- When he casts Wailing Souls, don't stand in front of him.

Pit of Saron (PoS) - ah the great outdoors

Forgemaster Garfrost: VERY EASY
- Tank+spank with a few twitches
- Deals frost dmg => Ask for palading frost aura.
- When he hurls a massive saronite boulder at you, move from spot.
- Every time he does his AoE thingies, go behind the saronite boulder to block LoS.
- Don't stay in front of him, he does some cone based dmg.

Krick and Ick: VERY EASY
- Hit Krick until Hick shows up. Then hit Hick.
- Use the "Big Bad Wolf" or "Leviathan" methods to stay as far away as possible from Ick and ready to run, when he starts "chasing you".
- Move away from poison clouds.
I did most of the fight with only 1 dps (me) and it was doable. Just becareful on the righ side, there's a corridor made of wood, you can go inside but Ick will hit you from outside, so you die. I did.


Scourgelord Tyrannus: SO EASY I BARELY REMEMBER IT
I know there was a wyrm, but we smashed it too fast, can't really remember details, and don't want to use Wiki for spoils, at least for now.
EDIT: Now I remember a bit. The wyrm drops icy patches that the tank has to go with Tyranus, otherwise he heals(?). Also, when he is empowered, the tank just has to stay on a patch and wait for the empowerment to be over. But casterwise.. it's tank+spank.
EDIT2: When the boss buffs Overlord's Brand on you, stop dps for the buff duration, as every damage you do to the boss is reflected to the tank.

Halls of Reflection (HoR)

- The hard parts of the dungeon are not the bosses but the waves and the quickness the gauntlet starts after a boss kill. So loot, eat, drink, fast.
- Always go for Priest --> Mage --> Hallucination --> Rifleman --> Melee. Kill them in this order and you got no problems. Stay away fom Hallucination. It explodes.
- If you've got plenty of food/mage, eat between waves. You have 2-5 secs if you're fast.
- In the LK gauntlet, keep walking, AoE kill the non-Elites first (let them all come as they take a bit of time to arrive after being thrown by the LK).
- Kill the abominations and Witch Doctors in this order (?). Use Shadow ward/prot.

Falric: EASY
- Tank+Spank.
- He fears => tremor totem and fear ward tank.
- Deals shadow dmg. Use shadow ward (and ask for priest/pala shadow prot buff/aura)
- He gets an increasing dmg reduction buff, so keep pounding him. Dot a lot for fears. I think Curse of Agony is better in the last stage then Curse of Elements. Affliction spec. will probably rock here.


Marwyn: VERY EASY
- Tank+Spank
- Deals shadow dmg. Use shadow ward (and ask for priest/pala shadow prot buff/aura)
- Move away from Corruption wells.

On the Ashen Verdict

Paused WoW for a few days. I'd pause until after Xmas, but 3.3.0 caught up with me.

Let's see if me and my guild are up to the task. I want to have some fun killing Arthas. And don't feel like doing much to move server etc.

On terminAION

One month has passed with me playing AION, and...it didn't feel great. It felt harder than WOW in solo PVE, although I remember WOW to be that hard in the beginning, before Blizzard decided to give us a hand and allow everyone to solo 2 or more mobs with nearly no HP loss.
My account terminated today, I leveled a 13 Asmo chanter and a Elyos 18 sorceror. The sorceror is immensely more fun to play, has a lot of crowd-control abilities and defenses.
I never reached the Abyss and its PVP, but from the look, feel and movement of toons, it won't be as polished as WoW, that's for sure.


Now, back to WoW. Searching for a new place. Last night there was a joint TOC25 run with another guild, I joined and waited, but was not invitated. Instead, some others that weren't even online got a reserve spot. Enough said, this behaviour has nothing to do with the Lords of Midnight and its spirit. It was bad already with the heroic mode problems, now it became unbearable.


Chromaggus is dead, so I'm able to go anywhere. If anyone knows of a mature raiding guild where experience, respect, skill and a desire for progress and achievements can make a difference, let me know.

I found a guild on Frostmane, with mature ppl, willing to raid 22-24h game time, which suits me fine. I also found out that the ppl I disliked in Frostmane's Portucale left to Burning Steppes, so Portucale would again be a possibility... I have no idea if they would accept me after 2 years. Probably not.

I also found a guild on Kor'gall, http://www.csguild.eu/ . It has exactly the same kind of goals I'm going for. Let's see.

LFGUILD !