A Weekend of Quickies

A random assortment of fun from this weekend, which included some WSG action, some alt leveling, my first stab at tanking level-appropriate content, and paying a visit to Black Morass, Lurker Below, and Prince Malchezedoodle (and his whole band of merrymen in that there tower).


Coordinated BGs: If given the choice between premade and pug WSG, I vote premade. One small example: Horde FC is hiding in the Horde base. He's a Paladin, and he has with him two additional paladins and a priest. In a PUG that equates to hellish nightmare turtle with allies running in one at a time, chipping off 1% of the pally FC's health, and then getting crushed. However, a coordinated surprise assault by 4 of our players focus fired on the priest (dead before he knew we were there, /assist macro FTW), faked a focus attack on one of the others (to distract the healers away from the FC), then slaughtered the FC.

The Fisherman Below: A couple of us wanted to go fish up Lurker for the achievement. SSC with 5 players is an interesting sight to see. Fun to remember how intimidating some of those trash pulls in between Hydross and Lurker were the first time we saw them at 70. Also fun to AOE them into the ground at 80.

Jumpshots with the Flag: Although this does not require a premade BG, it is substantially more fun when you are the flag carrier being protected by a pain train of friends on Vent. When you're the FC, your normal reaction is to run in a straight line towards your own base. As the situation allows, you sometimes might engage in combat. As a hunter FC, you're generally dropping frost traps, wyvern stinging healers that're in front or off to the side, using Aspect of Cheetah or Pack when there's no enemy around, and running like Forrest Gump. A new twist I stumbled upon this weekend. Jump shot the pursuit team with Concussive shots and/or Wyvern Sting. Keep running, jump and spin in the air, and nail them to keep them away while you continue forward progress. Such fun.

Back to the Future: Upon reaching level 68, my Druid became eligible to specialize her alchemy. Elixir spec requires collection of quest items in Black Morass. So Amava, the uber gf, and the druid-on-follow went off to caverns of time. Discovered you need to rescue Thrall before you can do BM. These are two of my favorite TBC instances, especially when we were at a gear level that made them hard. Anybody else remember how much fun being on add duty was in BM and trying to keep the shield at 100%?

Important Safety Note: the frenzy fish in SSC will one shot you if you're naked. It is inconvenient to learn this by having your two available rez'ers drop into the water before putting their clothes back on.

Freezing Arrow, FTW: Run into WSG flag room via the tunnel. See enemy defender standing by ramp. Shoot arrow, freeze him, grab flag, and GTFO. Either he has to blow his trinket, making him easy to take out on the way back to your base, or he sits there till he thaws, in which case you're at mid-field already. This also works for freezing people that're off to the side of your path when you're the FC, although (A) your traps are likely on cooldown from frost traps, and (B) it requires you to use your keyboard briefly for movement so you can use the mouse to target the trap aiming reticle or activate autorun for a moment.

When was the last time you went to Karazhan? After fishing up Lurker, somebody wanted to see if Moroes would drop Mongoose since its still a very viable enchant. Well, he didnt drop it, but we did go on to clear the entire place, including both dragons and illhoofy hoof. We were a pack of school girls having a pillow fight, giggling amongst clouds of feathers. It was awesome. Pull entire rooms of trash dinner guests. If it gets too tough for the Warrior (pansy), just Gorilla-tank everything you can get your thunderstomp on. Chess was the only boss fight that was hard, but with only a couple players and no official healer they were all chaotic enough, and definitely nostalgic enough, to make the run worth its weight in gold.

I can haz tank: There's probably too much to talk about on this one to call it a quicky, so go read the next post.

/shoo Nightbane: For anybody unfamiliar, he switches modes and flies up into the air every 25% of health. But you can continue to DPS him while he's up in the air. We were cackling with glee to burn a full 25% of his health while he's up in the air, and then watch him fly down to the ground to start a ground phase, only to instantly fly back up, touching his feet for less than a second.