Return to Raiding, Ulduar

I took a break from raiding short after my guilds first KT kill and 2 drake Sarth kill, which was roughly a week after release. After raiding SSC/TK/BT week after week(guild far apart before I could do much of SWP but I got to go with some other guilds once or twice)the current WotLK raids were not too interesting. An argument can be made that Blizzard finally perfected the concept of an entry-level raid, and I totally understand that many casual raiders liked the fact that they could see loot fairly easily and not bang their heads too much, but unfortunately I like banging my head against the wall to a degree.

So I was pretty excited to come back to Ulduar on the first week to find that the encounters were pretty enjoyable. By no means were they insanely difficult, but they required some decent coordination and straight up dps. Fights like Freya and Mimiron required people to pay attention and you couldn't accidentally dps your way to a boss kill.

And then they nerfed everything - even TRASH! - barely weeks after the gates of Ulduar were opened.

I do not understand Blizzard's insistence to make everything accessible. My guild killed most of the bosses early on, before the nerfs, and I thought the normal mode fights were tuned fairly well. Auriaya required some sort of a plan to pull, and required tanks to pick up stuff fast, Freya required people to pay attention and switch targets (OMG there's something new) and each wave was finished off right before the next came out if we were dpsing hard enough -- the transitions felt right. Now the fights are a joke.

Blizz, is there something fundamentally wrong with having to work on killing a boss?

Rant from a Bear

Took a quick break to run Halls of Lightning on my feral tank. It was a pretty crappy run!

It would seem like common sense, but here are some tips to make your tanks happy.

Top five tips to keep your tank happy and not get you kicked from a pug:

5. Heal your tank. (Topping him off is nice too.)

4. If your tank uses a different strat than you're used to, go with his unless it's retarded. Adapt! If the strat is not working, constructively suggest a better way to do it.

3. Don't link meters after every pull. Goes without saying. The people who care probably have Recount up already.

2. Run out of the fire! One of the golden rules of raiding. Run outta whirlwinds, run out of ominous dark spots on the ground, run AWAY when the boss or mob with a ginormous axe is spinning around like a tornado. Yeah, a lot of times healers can heal through it, but if you're pugging, make things easy.

1. KILL THE MARKED MOBS FIRST. There's a reason why that big skull is up there.

/rant

Warlock Specs

It seems like there is no consensus on the optimum lock spec for raiding 25s right now, as long as its not a sac spec. (Thank goodness. My 2 key gets a break.)

I'm currently running a 41/30 FG/Emberstorm spec that has proven to be pretty competitive with all of the other specs so far that I've tried, and I've been respeccing and testing specs nonstop lately. It seems that mainly locks are going with either a Haunt spec or demonology variant. Until I get better gear, I don't think I can support a 20/51 Chaosbolt spec, but as gear improves and locks become less reliant on the crit/spell damage buffs from demo, I think that will be a popular spec.

As to whether affliction or demo specs are better, I'd say that it's pretty close. The extra mobility and slight healing makes an affliction spec nice, but when things get hectic it can be easy to screw up your dotting priorities. I've seen really good affliction locks and really horrible ones.

FG/Emberstorm is slightly less chaotic, but slightly more crit reliant. It's gonna shine with full caster raid buffs, and full melee buffs on the pet.

From what I've seen from the EJ forums, in a strict numbers/spreadsheet sense affliction should come out on top, albeit slightly. The added simplicity of the demo rotation, however, may yield better results, especially if you have trouble monitoring your dottimer, your pet, and the raid.

I'm still working out how to fully maximize my dps. Especially when learning new bosses, and wiping or hitting enrages at 1%, a lot of times its the little extra damage you can squeeze that will mean the difference between looting your badges, not to mention all of those purple shinies.

Anyone that wants to discuss specs/playstyle/optimizing dps more, you know what to do! Leave me a comment or something.

First!

First post!

For this entry post I'd like to introduce myself.

My name is Gravesong, I play an undead warlock on the Destromath server. In my current guild , Cuties Only, (not to be confused with the Kiljaeden guild) we are working on current tier 7 raid progression. Currently we have up to Naxx 25 on farm, and are working on Malygos.

I have no real focus for this blog, other than to discuss WoW related things pertaining to locks, or just the game in general.

Also, my girlfriend has a frequently updated priest blog here where she talks about all things priesty and more. Check it out!