I look forward to catching up and having some fun with the best bunch of people you could ever be lucky enough to play with.

Roll on release and the beginning of a new chapter!!!

Target Dummies throw up a couple of BIG issues when doing dps testing

1) Frost mage dps on a dummy will never be anywhere near the dps they can produce on a boss due to the fact that the dummies are stunnable so Deep Freeze just gives you an extra couple of Fingers of Frost shots rather than a huge burst of damage.

2) Marksman hunters have a talent that increases their crit chance against mobs over 80% health, since the dummies are always above 80% health this makes any sort of DPS comparison involving Marksman Hunters invalid.

3) Many classes have an “execute phase” bonus to their dps which kicks in when the mob is below 35% health, again this means that their true dps capability cannot be tested on a Target Dummy.

Basically without “live” data to use for testing from raid encounters any figures I could produce would be invalid either due to extra damage that would not happen on a true boss fight or lack of damage that would happen on a true boss fight.

My desire to play World of Warcraft has taken a pretty big knock in the last 2 weeks, changes are about to happen and I cannot see myself raiding again at least untill Cataclysm has hit and I can pug some of the content there.

If anyone is interested in the specs / glyphs I am running with currently you can check out my hunter and mage on the armory
Hunter – Bytorsnowdog on Jubei’thos

Mage – Snowdog on Jubei’thos

Expect to see some posts in the coming days with the talent builds I have been experimenting with along with shot / spell rotations and all the usual stuff.

Can’t wait to get home and start the download and get my theorycrafting hat on!

Kingslayer Baby!

I was using a frostfire spec I cobbled together to give me decent damage but adding in impact for an emergency attempt to stun a val’kyr in Phase 2 as well as Dragon’s Breath and Blast Wave to give me instant cast melee range abilities for that little extra potential daze.
I want to take a moment to thank my raid team, Paranoid from the Pants on Head Guild and especially our Raid Leader Teo. He has been a calm and stable leader through the good times and the bad and to him I would like to say a huge thank you for putting together such a good group of people to stay up till 3am raiding with.
As I have said before, Paranoid went through a rebuilding phase after our initial attempts on Arthas back in May. The people who have come in and joined us deserve some appreciation given that we could not have rebuilt our team and done this without them.

A special mention must go out to Rubb and Lyte, 2 key members of our group who for real life issues had to miss out on our first Arthas kill. We will get him again soon for you guys! Lyte in particular deserves a lot of thanks from us all for his assistance with optimising our toons, his extensive raiding knowledge and the insane dps that he puts out on his shaman. Sadly he missed out on the Arthas kill in his old guild in a very similar fashion so I hope when we go back and kick the Lich King’s butt again in the future he is there and gets some nice shiny loots for his troubles!

After our triumph against Arthas we had 30 mins and then the Guild 25man ICC run was starting. We did heroic Gunship and I was lucky enough to win the Heroic Amulet of the Silent Eulogy. A best in slot neck piece and an Arthas kill in one night!

Now for some more sleep, the 3 hours I got after the 25man ICC run will not last me through the day….

News

I now have a level 80 rogue that I am using for some silly PvP adventures which I am finding quite enjoyable most of the time (when not being one-shot in Wintergrasp from mages with 90k health or the like due to the wonderful idea that is tenacity)

I am levelling an affliction warlock, lots of fun and you get a succubus to follow you around and crack her whip at you, who couldn’t love that!

My Hunter and Paladin have come to something of a standstill, I took the Paladin into ICC a couple of weeks back to get the last 3k rep he needed to hit exalted with the Ashen Verdict, but I have no real plans to tank anything in the near future. The Hunter will most likely become my main again come Cataclysm and I don’t really see the point in trying to gear him up further as my Mage is my main raiding toon at the moment.
The mage has undergone something of a change, he is no longer a Blood Elf and is now a Troll!

The mage is also rocking his fire spec in ICC (gotta love ignite double dipping into the buff) and I can’t see me raiding as arcane again. I still have a PvE frost spec which I use for dailies and the like and if it was competitive DPS wise would raid with it as well. Hopefully come Cataclysm frost will get some much needed love and attention from Blizzard and I can raid with my squirty companion by my side again.

Our Raid team has gone through something of a rebuilding phase, a number of people left due to real life changes and we have now worked our way back to Arthas and are progressing well on the encounter, making it into Phase 3 a number of times and I believe we are just about there. One good attempt (a perfect storm if you will) and we will have our Kingslayer titles.

Lastly I have a new PC, I ordered a gaming machine from a supplier here in the UK and WoW looks like a completely different game on Ultra graphics settings! As much as I love my mac mini, it’s not built for playing games on and it will most likely become a media centre.

This weekend we have a guild 25man ICC and more attempts on Arthas, hopefully I will soon be able to post some screenshots of me standing over Arthas’ dead body!

Below is my latest “work in progress” UI

The Recount window only shows out of combat, when in combat it is replaced with Omen instead.

Below my main action bars is where my Quartz cast bar is set, along with the buff and debuff timers that come along with it.

As I said it’s a work in progress and the raid / group frames still need a bit of work. I will post raid images at the weekend when I get a chance to try it out “in anger”

That is all.

Enough RP type stuff, basically we went in there and after a couple of tries with a new strategy we got the big dragon on her side, mouth open and loots coming out!