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 :)

Jan'Alai-Our Next Big Obstacle

I took a raid to Jan'Alai for a couple of hours today. We dropped by Zungam to complete our quest first. He is in the hut to the right as you face the entrance to Halazzi's area. We had to clear two extra packs and two single mobs to get to him. Just right click on the metal ball he's chained to in order to release him. He thanks you and walks to the entrance of the hut, and only then allows you to complete the quest. Finishing it netted me a nice Charmed Amani Jewel. I'm going to save it for a new item.

Confusingly, the path to Jan'Alai begins at Nalorakk's platform. The trash on the way to him was as irritating as I'd read it would be. Amani Scouts rush towards the nearest drum when they catch sight of you. If they manage to reach it, they summon two elite Amani Reinforcements from the nearest hut. We wiped early on, but got the hang of it and progressed through the area, admittedly rather slowly. The Amani Guardians dispel Crowd Controls such as Polymorph, so it's crucial to keep reapplying the CC or tank the mobs further away. Mages should spellsteal the Flame Casters' buff, as it gives them a much faster casting speed.

We eventually reached the unattractive Dragonhawk Avatar. We decided to give the 'let him call his adds at 35%, we don't care' strategy a try, but the stream of adds quickly slaughtered our DPSers. After a few tries of this, we attempted a more cautious strategy-when the two hatchers spawned, we allowed one to reach the eggs and hatch three times, rather than killing both of them. However, certain raid members couldn't manage the flame ball minigame, and we didn't manage as strong a try as I wished.

The two elements of this fight which must be emphasised to the raid are the flame bombs and the hatchers. When he teleports the raid into the centre (every 30 seconds), everyone must move to a safe spot so they don't get blown up. When the hatchers spawn, DPS should quickly dispatch one of them and DPS down the other to 20% or so. We had people ignoring the hatchers and DPSing the bosses, which disappointed me.

Wowsa!! Akil'Zon and Halazzi down!

WoW!! Took Akil'zon down at last, after two wipes, then took Halazzi on our fourth try!! It was a really fun and productive raid. Our shadowpriest Liorna was pretty useful for Mind Control, and having a slightly better geared Offtank helped out a bunch (Sofara).

We one shot Nalorakk, and our Paladin Bormus got his hands on the Mask of Introspection, a very nice healing helm:

I used the two group idea from WoWWiki for Akil'Zon, and it worked a treat. Everyone was able to survive the storms, and we had only one stupid wipe. Akil'zon dropped a very powerful healing necklace, Brooch of Nature's Mercy, which our newly recruited Paladin Hellnexx won.

Halazzi was even more dangerous than I expected him to be. Twice we wiped with me getting wtfsmashed for 17.5k damage, after Sofara our offtank died. So, I think it's important to stress to any raid the importance of keeping the offtank above 60% health so they can survive the 8.5k split Saberlash damage.

The fight was as exhausting as I've read it is, with Alithia our priest saying 'I've never been more OOM' in my life. This guy hits like a warship; serious tanking is required. Shield block up at all times is an absolute must. I blew all my cooldowns at 8% as the healers were OOM, and we just about took him down. He dropped the Skullshatter Warboots, which Sofara won .

It's absolutely crucial to deal with the totems as soon as they appear. On our successful try, we tanked the lynx quite near Halazzi so that our rogue could destroy the totems in a flash. It worked well.

All in all, a highly charged and exciting raid (I'm still shaking). We will go to Jan'Alai the final avatar tomorrow, so let's cross our fingers and see what happens.

Akil'Zon: Fight or Flight

Our Akil'Zon problem is concerning me. On Saturday we 2 shot Nalorakk and got Akil'Zon to 20%. On Sunday, after some painful wipes on Nalorakk before killing him, we spent two hours with the birdie and got him to 19%. To quote one of my raiders, it seems we lack that last bit of DPS and healing to finish him off.

On Sunday we had a Shaman instead of a Mage, which I thought would be useful for handling adds. We used our usual strategy of keeping adds under control for a few tries, then decided to go for all out DPS, ignoring adds. Both had similar (negative) outcomes. I've decided that this weekend I'll have our Warlock solely on adds and throwing the occasional DoT on the boss.

During Sunday's raid I had Aspect of the Wild and some Nature Res gear which I thought would make the difference, but we still wiped :( To add to my woes, I lost the roll for the Panzar'thar Breastplate on Monday :(

In general news, we downed High King Maulgar, Gruul and The Lurker Below on Sunday night. It seems Claw raiding is taking off again. Unfortunately, I only survived the Lurker, died during the other two fights. I've also realised I need to work on upping my threat during boss fights, I normally focus on surviving. Maybe it'll help at Akil'Zon, as the DPSers can do more damage before I die.

My plan for this weekend is for all the casters to collapse on to one caster (who will be standing at one corner of the square) when we get the warning 'Storm Soon'. This should stop us being ganked by Static Disruption with everyone crowding around the tank (the DBM timer seems to be very off). Stole this 'alternate strategy' from WoWWiki by the way :)

If we wipe four or five times, I'll probably head to Halazzi, the Lynx boss. I've heard (or rather read) that he is a huge pain in the ass and amazing healing is required, but it's worth heading there for the experience. The trash to Dragonhawk seems very annoying, so I plan to leave him until last.

First Sighting of Bear Mount on Deathwing!

Title says it all, the notorious Zul'Aman bear mount has been spotted, in the hands of one very lucky (and skilled) orc.

The Amani War Bear is a timed reward, for downing Nalorakk within twenty minutes of starting the instance. Pretty cool, in my humble opinion. This raises the question, how hard IS it to get this mount? Not quite on the same scale as Baron Rivendare's mount, it seems. I'll be looking to grab one of these as soon as we're comfortably downing Nalorakk (wiped four times on Sunday before getting him, but we did have a little brother playing our Paladin).