Back For The Moment

It's been ages since I wrote on this, and I'm bored, so :P

Well, Zul'Aman is kinda old news, I've now cleared it fully twice, and successfully tanked Zul'Jin. With my current gear, Halazzi really doesn't hit as hard as he used to, and Zul'Jin is a breeze. Yet to get my shield, head or trinket from ZA (got the Heroic chest) :(

The Claw is going through a rough patch atm, with Slicedice, the force behind most of the guild raids, leaving to join Anvil of Crom. Daika and Pikkumjes have left as well, among others. I've practically given up raiding. I farmed heroics heavily to earn 300 or so badges so I could buy the 2H weapon, chest and ring from the Isle of Quel'Danas vendor, but kinda relaxed my play schedule due to A Levels. My last exam is on Wednesday, opening up alot of WoW opportunity in summer, but I'll be focusing more on maximising the other type of play :P

I've been focusing mostly on arena, hitting 1740 with a new druid, Cabamarula, Maiav's alt. I'm hoping to get the S3 mace (1850 personal rating requirement) before Arena Season 4 comes out on June 25th. I've realised that the key to the MS warrior in arena is interrupts - in the past, i just beat on healers until they went OOM, but interrupts increases the healing pressure tenfold. Also, swapping targets and pet killing is crucial. My druid just got the S3 helm, giving her a total of 3 Vengeful, so I'm hoping my rating will hit 1800 this weekend.








In preparation for S4, I've farmed 60k Honour so far ad have 4.4k arena points. I'll be points and honour maxed by the 25th, and I have the required marks already. This will hopefully mean we can make a strong start in S4. I'm looking forward to running into teams like Hjelar/Skerv before they hit 2k again :P

I'll be mainly focusing this guide on my arena experiences and the lessons I've learnt from now on.

Today we got super lucky - we played a fully veng hunter/druid, and killed the pet three times, so I'm never letting hunters out of my sight ever again. We won because the druid glitched up and couldn't run, allowing me to kill her.

We played a fully veng druid/rogue, and won as I managed to solo the rogue without the opposing druid landing a single heal - amazing feeling.

The current rating is 1719, and the game to bring the 1700 up was versus a fully veng warr/pala. I sat on pala whole game, ran him OOM, but spent a good ten minutes failing to kill him due to bubbles. Not sure how to resolve this. We won by me swapping to warr and hitting Death Wish and raping him.

Finally, we played fully vengeful Warrior & Shaman, and lost badly. I rate myself vs. Shamans, but these guys were good. The shammy DPS'd the druid. I tried to handle totems and sunder and interrupt the shammy, but only got him to 60% before he hit Ghost Wolf and kited. Caba says the warr nuked me and drew my nuke to allow the shammy to drink.

Major things to remember:

LoS Beast Within and Heroism. Didn't realise till today the use of Heroism as a defensive option - a Shammy hitting it to try to heal himself out of shit.

Play smart-sword and board.

Zul'Aman Loot Guide

I've been browsing the internet for a guide to the timed Zul'Aman loot, but I've had no luck so far. Then, inspiration struck, and I asked myself, 'Why not make my own one?'. So here it is :)

There seems to be some argument over what exactly each saved captive gives you. The general consensus is that the first saved NPC gives you a piece of armour, the next a weapon, the third a ring and the fourth provides one lucky customer with the bear mount. Some people claim that they've had weapons drop from the armour chest, however.

I seriously doubt the accuracy of the drops below, but they make sense if the belief above holds true.


Tanzar's Trunk:
Mantle of Ill Intent
Pauldrons of Stone Resolve
Shadowhunter's Treads
Cord of Braided Troll Hair
Life-Step Belt

Harkor's Satchel:
Trollbane
Rage
Staff of Dark Mending
Tuskbreaker
Amani Diving Staff
Umbral Shiv

Kraz's Package:
Signet of the Last Defender
Signet of the Quiet Forest
Mana Attuned Band
Signet of Primal Wrath

Final Chest:
Amani War Bear

Quite a Feat! (and sweet rewards)

In today's raid to ZA, I didn't have very high expectations. I was bringing what I'd term a 'second string' raid-two of the healers and two of the DPS were essentially first timers. However, I decided to go for a timed kill of Nalorakk anyhow. We scraped it with about a minute to spare :) Very exciting stuff. The Pauldrons of Stone Resolve dropped, and I finally got rid of my terrible Warchief's Mantle (the other tank was kind enough to pass, as he had Warbringer Shoulderguards).

Some might not agree, but I quite like the look:




We then went on to one shot Akil'Zon and Halazzi, which was completely unexpected. Strangely, we got exactly the same loot as the last time, with Brooch of Nature's Mercy and Skullshatter Warboots dropping. I was particularly impressed by our Halazzi kill, which showed I don't need a hunter to tranquilising shot him :)

Unfortunately, things went downhill after this amazing start. We wiped about six times on Jan'Alai and called it a day. The main guild raid downed him a few hours after we stopped.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. The instance resets on Sunday morning, so we're going to have back to back runs Saturday and Sunday, hopefully providing a combined total of 12 epics (assuming we can get the first two bosses down in time). I'm hoping to bring the best raid possible, and put Jan'Alai to sleep at last.

The Sweetest Thing

With the advent of Season 3, I'm sure alot of players are sporting cool new looks. However, everyone will pale in comparison to what I look like now. I purchased Vengeful Gladiator's Plate Chestpiece and Gladiator's Plate Helm and was completely blown away by my new look.

New Stuff!

Just a quick update.

I've added a Zul'Aman reset calendar at the bottom of the page. The colours have blurred slightly as Paint sucks, but oh well.

I've also added new item links throughout the blog, courtesy of Thottbot. They are very cool, in my humble opinion.

I've decided to save up for the Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian. It costs 75 Badges of Justice, I have 40 at the moment.
The breastplate is much, much better than my Vindicator's Hauberk and I can't see the Panzar'Thar Breastplate dropping off Nightbane any time soon, as I've seen it twice already in about eight kills. First time, I transferred it to the other tank out of guilt, as I'd won the King's Defender already that night. Second time, I lost to a new recruit on his first raid for us :(

I hope to eventually replace it with Chestguard of the Warlord from Zul'Jin, but that could take several weeks.

I do realise it has spell damage on it, but the 500 more health it provides makes it a worthwhile investment. I am ready to take some abuse for wearing it, but that's life :P

And yes, I am overusing the item links :)