17th December Enbloggenations

So yeah, the first four Bosses in Icecrown: more challenging than the TotC bosses, but by no means impossible. Given the practise last week, and the fact that some of the encounters have been nerfed/fixed, I'm expecting a few one-or-two-shots when we go back in there tonight.

Apart from that, our only goal has been working on Anub'Arak Heroic. Our best attempt had him at about 15%, so I think there'll be a kill before too much longer. We've kinda neglected TotC heroic to focus on the Ulduar achievements for our Drake-hungry members, but folks are starting to accept we need a break from that particular hell-hole. A kill this week would be a nice way to finish the year.

Apart from that, I've just been working on Graysun's tanking gear with Emblems of Triumph. One of our Main Tanks has been flakier than normal recently and we may need a back-up until an appropriate replacement presents him/herself. On top of that, the difference between Dungeon Finder queue times as DPS and Tank are night and day. Gray can wait 5-7 minutes queued as DPS, compared to getting a raid straight after ticking that Tank box.

3.3: The headache begins!

Well if MMO-Champion is to be believed, we've got Patch 3.3 due next week. On the one hand "yay, new content!", but on the other hand, "erm we're not quite done with the present stuff."

On Smart Casual's to-do list at present is:

Algalon the Observer - The relative worth of the rewards from this are dropping all the time, but I'd still like to see him dead.

Glory of the Ulduar Raider - We need One Light in the Darkness done to make this a reality.

Anub'Arak Heroic - We still haven't managed to do this.

This, along with farming easy content (Onyxia, TotC10 normal, early Ulduar) to equip new members, is eating up most of our three 3-hour raids per week.

In 3.3 I think we'll be able to drop farm night. That'll give us a night to work on Icecrown. If we extend an Ulduar lockout, then we only need to spend one night a fortnight clearing to Yogg Saron, but it means we only get one hour per fortnight to train Algalon, and one night a fortnight on Trial of the Grand Crusader.

I'm currently considering pitching this as a schedule for the guild for 3.3:

Week 1, Day 1: Ulduar day #1 (Clear as far as you can, doing relevant hardmodes, try to do Firefighter)
Week 1, Day 2: Ulduar day #2 (Work on Ys +1, extend lockout if we fail)
week 1, Day 3: Icecrown 10
Week 2, Day 1: Trial of the Crusader HM
Week 2, Day 2: Icecrown 10
Week 2, Day 3: Ulduar (Try Algalon for an hour or skip him, then back to Yogg)

Managing a two-week schedule will, I anticipate, be a headache. The only other option is to try and persuade folks to do a fourth night a week.

So Why Bother?

So why am I blogging? I guess I'm blogging to talk about being a Blood-specced Death Knight and the Guildmaster of a 10-man guild. Within the limits of my knowledge of both.

I'm certainly not a "master" of the Death Knight class. Almost everything I've learned about the class has come from experienced players of my aquaintance and the theory monkeys over at Elitist Jerks. I've reached a level of gear and skill I'm comfortable with, but I can't pretend to know the ins and outs of it yet the way I do with Paladins and Tanking. I'm not even at a stage where I feel confident enough to comfortably guestimate useful stats beyond the normal Strength > AP > ArP > Crit > Haste priority.

Neither is my guild likely to be pulling a world (or even server) first out of it's arse any time soon. The core of my guild is some of the most skilled players I've been privileged to know in my time in WoW, but our dogged adhesion to 10-man content means we'll be continually pipped at the post by 25-man guilds who overgear the content and manage most 10-man hard modes and achievements by brute force.

What I know about Blood DPS is this:

*Big Numbers are cool. 11-12k crits make me happy and were something I never saw when Ulu went Ret.
*I can actually get excited about the presence of Armor Penetration on gear.
*Having a big two-hander is really really nice.
*Despite my fears, I don't feel like a budget Ret Paladin. The flavor is quite different.
*Death Knight Tier has been uniformly cool-looking since launch. The same cannot be said of Paladin Tier. (Alliance Tier 9 doesn't count for either class!)

What I know about managing a 10-man guild is this:

*It's easy for a core of exceptional players to shine.
*It's easy (and dangerous) to come to rely on that core. RL can and will sabotage every best-laid plan.
*There's a low effort-to-reward ratio. 10-man heroics will brutalise you in 10-man gear and offer loot comparable with 25-man normal modes.
*It can be demoralising to see people in 25-man gear steamrollering content that's kicking your arse.
*The victories are sweeter when you see 10 people lock in and perform an encounter flawlessly.

I dunno, does it sound worth it?

Introductulations!

Oh hai, some of you may know me as Ulushnar from the Maintankadin boards and from my old, semi-retired blog: Spacegoat: Note to Note.

I retired Ulu from raiding at the start of October this year. After two and a half years of playing a Protection Paladin, earning myself a maintank spot, I needed a break. As much as anything else, I really nothing left to prove with Ulu, going from the days of "lol, Pallies can't tank" to "LF Tank, must be Paladin". I needed a change, and given my guild had two Retribution Paladins and two Holy Paladins at the time, I looked elsewhere.

These days, I play Graysun, a DPS Death Knight, specced into Blood, and this blog will follow him, his trials, tribulations and the search for more DPS than the other guy. (I hate that guy!)