I’m going to deal with the big news first. As you surely known, BRK, possibly the biggest and most loved WoW blogger of all time, has announced that he’ll be taking a three month break from WoW and blogging… Hopefully, this will not be the end of BRK,  but I’ll admit that it seems likely.

BRK is the second huge blogger (after Phaelia) to have left the blogosphere in the past couple of months. Both of them have good reason for doing so, and it’s absolutely the right thing to do… but I can’t help but feel a sense of dread, wondering who will be next to go. Perhaps this is a sign that WoW has reached it’s plateau – players and bloggers are beginning to drop off a bit. I really hope this isn’t the case, and we’ve just had a double dose of Real Life recently.

Anyway, this is getting a bit bleak, so I’m going to stop here. There have been many other bloggers who have wished him farewell far better than I could hope to. I echo their sentiments, and I must say that without BRK, I wouldn’t be half the hunter I am today. (Pike provides the other half of my lack of total Huntardness. -nod-)

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On a happier note, I dinged level 80 on Ellaria tonight! My train of thought is kinda wrecked right now, so I’ll do my usual Ellaria milestone RP post at a later date.

Second level 80, way hey!

I then spent 520g on spells. Eugh. That’s what you get when you skip totems and shocks that aren’t of any use for leveling.

-glares pointedly at Faulsey-

You’ve done what this week? Killed nine bosses in Naxx and cooked three pieces of worg meat? Well, doesn’t that just sound fascinating. You’ve been languishing in Dalaran whilst I have been working my ass off saving Gods, fighting the Scourge, and building flying machines?

Lazy bastard. As usual, it falls to me to get things done. -grumble- I ought to set his bed on fire, see how he likes that!

Ahem. Yes. Unlike other Draenei I could name, I’ve been busy this week.

I spent quite some time in the shattered troll metropolis of Zul’Drak, assisting the gorgeous Snow Leopard Goddess, Har’Koa.

The Snow Leopard Goddess

Unfortunately, we were too late to save the rest of the Troll Gods from their demented prophets, but they were avenged. Oh yes, I made sure of that…

Silly Prophet, Mojo is for Gods!

I was rather shaken by the whole experience, so I took a little break in the Sholazar Basin, joining Nessingwary’s hunting expedition. Naturally, I won many a wager against the other members of the expedition… they seem to think a “frail” Draenei lass incapable of hunting! Hah! I was of a mind to “augment” some of the local wildlife with some Saronite Bombs, give the hunters a little treat, but something tells me Ilthiran wouldn’t have approved of that. -sweet smile-

After I’d finished with the Sholazar Hunt, I felt I was a seasoned enough adventurer to be able to fly in the harsh winds of Northrend. Of course, I had to learn how to control swift mounts, too, which set me back about two thousand gold… -sigh-

Hmm? What’s that, Faulsey dear? Something about you paying four thousand gold towards my training? Oh fine, whatever. Yes, yes, Faulsey paid for most of my tuition… It’s not like that money was being used for anything else, you lazy oaf! -eyeroll-

Anyway, to make use of my new skills, I had to upgrade my Flying Machine. It took a lot of work, tinkering with various Outlandish parts, but in the end I built myself a very impressive Turbo Flying Machine.

Isn't it a beauty?

I thought the paint was a little garish, but my fellow Goblineers assured me it looked awesome. Now I’ll be getting around Northrend in style! Who needs a personal Red Drake when you have one of these, eh? I’m sure Faulsey is green with envy.

Oh, and you know another awesome thing about this machine? Internether connection and auto pilot! I’m typing this little update en route to visiting the Dragon Queen, Alexstrasza… Ah, and there’s Wyrmrest Temple coming into view now. I’d better go, I have a Crusader to save from undeath.

Until next time!

Thanks to that most regal of ladies, Jess, I am proud to receive the following award!

“This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

-proceeds to Faulsey- (It’s my verb, I can be a hypocrite and use it all I want! -raspberry-)

Unfortunately, I don’t get a little naked man made of gold to display proudly. Instead, I get a list of responsibilities that must be fulfilled!

The Rules are thus!

1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Ok, so I’ve done part one!

I’ll skip to part three first, for the sake of being logical.

Ten Honest things about me?

1. I do not, in fact, panic all that often. Really! Honest! Just for big things like my first raid or omgwtf being mentioned on TNB -nodnod-

2. I have a ridiculously thick Scottish accent, that combined with a rapid fire speech pattern means that I am totally incomprehensible to foreigners. -grin- Or so I am told!

3. I am going to do an engineering course at University, yet I am crap at Maths. Lolwut?

4. I have far, far too much time on my hands, due to the world going to shit on my gap year. Yay 8 hour work week leaving far too much time for WoW! -sigh-

5. If you call me “English”, I let the first offense slide. The second I kill you. I have nothing against the English, but I am no more English than a Texan is a New Yorker. (Is that even the right term? ) Right nation, wrong state, as it were.

6. I have this strange obsession with female fronted Power/Symphonic Metal bands. I do not know why, beyond the fact such bands are made of win.

7. I’m a complete sap. As much as possible, I try to avoid conflict. My Aunt once said “Never talk Religion or Politics with someone who doesn’t share your views”*, and this is something I’ve extended to everything that I feel could cause offense. It makes me somewhat boring, as I probably won’t argue with you unless you really piss me off.

8. I deliberately use Scots words to confuse people. It amuses me. Usually not in the blog, but certainly on Twitter and in BA chat.

9. I am running out of steam as far as honest things are concerned.

10. Oh, I live in one of the most beautiful areas in the world, in my opinion. Cities can kiss my ass. Loch Lomond <3

Well, that was harder than expected. Now, the fun part! Tagging!

1. Klinderas at Slow Wolf – Writes consistently amusing and informative articles. Two thumbs up!

2. Pike at Aspect of the Hare – C’mon! It’s Pike! One of the most newbie friendly blogs out there, I wouldn’t be half the hunter I am today without her blog.

3. Anea at Holy Discipline – Everyone’s favourite Calimari priestess! Always a pleasure to tweet to, and maintains an excellent blog.

4. Brajana at Mend Pet – (I’m on my blog, taggin’ urs agen! ) It would be froword to find anything wrong with her blog!

5. Syrana of Sideshow and Syrana – A great blog, with a cool ongoing RP story – if you haven’t already read it, I strongly suggest you do so now.

6. Cait of One Among Many – Kudos for taking the gargantuan effort required to put together the biggest blogroll in the history of ever!

7. Softi of A Little Space for me – Not technically a WoW blog, but the post that started all this wasn’t from a WoW blog, so I’m returning it to it’s original habitat! Softi writes a cool little RL blog that’s a nice change of pace when the rest of the blogs I read are WoW based!

*Unless they start it first, then you are free to unleash all hell if their views are offensive. -nod-

I haven’t had anything interesting to write about recently and since Klinderas, in his traditional dastardly way, tagged all of his readers to do a meme, I’m going to do it. This time, it’s what character names mean. I have quite a few characters, but I’m going to limit myself to four for this post.

Faulsey:

This one is mostly based on my surname, which is Faulds (BA Chatters: That’s why I was called Fauldsey when first we met.) When I was really young, at primary school, no one could pronounce it – they always skipped the D, so they said it as False. After a while I earned the nickname Falsey, which isn’t a particularly nice sounding name, so I stuck the U in there to make it more like my real name.

That was probably about 10 years ago I first came up with it, and it’s sort of stuck with me accross the internet for years. I’m usually the only Faulsey about, so it’s pretty unique, which I like.

Ellaria:

This is one of those “off the top of my head” ones. It just came to me when I got too attached to a Tiger I’d tamed to learn Dash (Oh, back in the day!), and when I made my Shammy, I thought it would be a good name to revive.

Turns out it’s not quite so unique – there are loads of Ellarias listed on the Armory!

Ilthiran:

Again, an off the top of my head name. This one wasn’t originally from WoW though – I had a character called Ilthiran years ago on a small MMO I played called Tibia. Like Faulsey, I’ve sort of carried this name with me through to WoW.

Ilthiran didn’t start with the name – he was previously called Nulinator, which was the name of my druid on Tibia. I really hated the name though, so I had it changed.

Numinator: (Spoilery if you are a fan of Ian Irvine. Skip if you are and haven’t read second book of Song of the Tears series.)

Needs moar business card, when I can get a good 1h sword and Kazume to pose.

This name is a bit of an “Oops…” one. I first saw it in one of the books in Ian Irvine’s “The Well of Echoes” series. (Yes, I like me some cheesy fantasy-ish books. It’s my one other geekish vice beyond video games.) At the time, very little information was given about the character, but I liked the sound of the name, and I picked it up as another name for game characters – first Tibia, then WoW.

Of course, last year, the second book in the follow up series “Song of the Tears” it’s revealed that the Numinator is a woman. I suppose you could argue that since my paladin is a male Blood Elf, he’s not far off a woman. -halo-

Spoilery stuff done.

So, there you have it – where my character names come from. Not the most exciting post, but I was in dire need of an update.

Though Klin has technically tagged everyone, I’m going to specifically tag Sarai of Spirit Bond, Brajana of Mend Pet and Harii of Ctrl-Alt-ELITE! to tell us all where their names came from!

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Oh, and as you may have noticed, Ilthiran now has a “business card” picture. I liked the idea enough that I’m still aiming to do one for all of my characters. Ilthiran’s and Ellariana’s are rough drafts, but they are there, at least!

My About and Characters pages have been updated slightly – About has more up to date info, and character bios have been added for Ilthiran and Ellariana, with Ellaria’s being brought up to date, too.

Second full Naxx clear last night!

8 people from Nautilus, with a pugged healer and DPS.

We one shot all of the Military and Plague wings, and much to my joy, I survived the entirety of the fight with Heigan!

Look! I live! ... Ok, Erethia didn't...

And that is because Heigan has a ridiculously sized hit box. Large enough that Erethia happily sits inside the previous safe zone whilst she claws at him, which results in death. D: But hey, I lived! I was so pleased with myself. (Though a lot of credit must be given to Mcitra, our uber tree, who was dancing like a pro and slapping HoTs on me when I did eat an eruption.)

We also tore through the Arachnid Wing with ease, aiming for the achievement there. We managed to get that with about a minute remaining on the clock… despite our mage being webbed out of the room entirely. Oops.

:D

We were aiming for Make Quick Werk of him, too, but we didn’t really have the DPS to pull that one off. I think we missed that by well over a minute. Grobbulus was our only wipe in the place, mostly due to starting the fight when a couple of people were AFK, and getting overwhelmed with slimes. Gluth and Thaddius went down without any real problems.

Nabbed the Hundred Club achievement from Sapphiron, who also yielded my sole piece of loot from the entire run; Key to the Focusing Iris. There’d been a Bow drop earlier, which was inferior to my crossbow, and the Claymore dropped again, but that was it for Hunter drops. The vast majority of stuff was cloth… and we had one clothie. D: Most of it ended up in the Paladins mountainous off spec pile.

An exclusive club, with absolutely no members benefits! D:

KT was… embarrassingly funny. I was a bit too close to a healer, and one of us got frozen… and it caught the other. Obviously, healer was more valuable, so they got the saving heals, and I died. Recieved a battle res from a druid, and continued on my merry pewpewing way…

Until the OT /w’d (no vent.) me, asking if I could MD the adds onto him when they spawned. In the couple of seconds it took for me to reply OK, I got hit with the first Shadow Fissure that’d been targeted at me on either of the two runs, and died. Again. -mortified- I spent the rest of the fight on the floor watching health and mana bars to pass the time.

Was good fun, though given about half the loot was basically useless to any of us, it wasn’t the most rewarding run. Wondering about possibility of Sartharion (Plus a drake. maybe?) or Malygos this week… though I’m not sure I have the gear for Maly. -ponderponder-

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Me and Kazura have also kind of dusted off our blood elf duo (Prot Paladin and Shadow Priest). Whilst she was making her way to Thousand Needles (I’d already arrived), I suggested she just jump off the lift and I’d bubble her before she hit the bottom, just for a fun shortcut. It… didn’t quite work the first time. Oh, I bubbled her. The instant she hit the ground. Used up my bubble, and she still died. We found this hilarious, so gave it another go.

Achievement incidental to original plan.

Heh. Silly blood elf fun ftw!

Some testing of Cobra Strikes, to get a rough estimate of how much DPS it gives me.

Test 1: 5 Minutes, 27 Cobra Strikes procs, 29.23% crit. Rake Off.

Cobra Procs: 5.4 PPM.

Claw damage, average: 299

Claw Crit Damage, average: 589

Claw Crit Bonus, average: 290

Claw Crits from Cobra: 54.

DPS from Cobra Claw Crits: 52.2 DPS.

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Test 2: 5 mins, 25 Cobra Strike Procs, 29.23% crit. Rake off.

Cobra Procs: 5 PPM.

Claw damage, average: 297

Claw Crit Damage, average: 605

Craw Crit Bonus, average: 308

Claw Crits from Cobra: 50

DPS from Cobra Claw Crits: 51.3 DPS.

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So, two longish but still fairly short tests, to give a better idea of how much Cobra Strikes is worth atm. Average DPS gain is 51.75 DPS. Via Shark Attack next patch, when factoring in the 5% DPS loss to ferocity pets (due to averaging of pet family stats), we’re looking at 1% extra damage, so that should be around 52.3 DPS. (Though my maths is probably wonky)

The DPS gain will probably be slightly lower or higher depending on your pets family skill. I had rake off here, because it does pretty low damage on the intial hit, but rakes will slip in that use up cobra procs before Claw does. However, other families have skills that do higher damage than their focus dump, which would mean even more benefit from Cobra Strikes.

This is also not including Bestial Wrath, which would give a whopping 50% damage boost to any damage done whilst it’s up – sure to milk even more from Cobra Strikes, depending on your luck!

I’d originally said, last post, to keep Wild Hunt in consideration too – but it will also make use of any Extra AP you’d gain from dropping hit, so that’s a bit fuzzy.

Anyway, what we’re looking at here is around 50 DPS from Cobra Strikes.

Next patch, if I was to drop the points in Cobra and put two of them into FA, I’d have 2% less hit to gear and gem for. If I’m reading the iLevel calculations on WoW Wiki correctly, 1 Point of Hit Rating costs the same as 1 point of Crit Rating. You can have two points of attack power per point of hit rating.

2% Hit chance is 67 hit rating (Rounded up).

67 Crit Rating is 1.46% crit.

So, for the price of 2% hit, you get 1.46% crit.

Alternately, you can get 134 Attack Power.

Now, this is where I need someone with better maths. Looking at those, and especially keeping in mind crit does not transfer to my pet, I’m going to say I doubt that any combination of Crit or AP to replace the Hit would make up the 50 DPS I’d lose from dropping Cobra Strikes – especially not since when Bestial Wrath goes up, I gain 10% damage, yet my pet gains 50%, leading to more tasty Cobra goodness.

Another thing to consider would be dropping a point in Imp. Arcane shot, lowering the damage of that by 5%, to allow another point in FA, in turn allowing for 33 (I assume Blizzard rounds down) more Crit Rating (o.73%) or 67 AP.

Anyone with teh smarts, or better, access to the PTR and able to exhaustively test the difference, able to help me out here?

I generally will not min/max, it’s too much of a headache when it’s really not required at the moment, but this is something I now have a ridiculous amount of curiosity about.

“This” being having to learn all over again what stats I need and how much of them in 3.1!

This is the first time I’ve been at a level to care about how my gear and talents would be changing in a major content patch, and I’m finding it all a bit much.

At the moment, it seems ArPen is due to recieve a buff, given that it’s very much a stat people avoid like the plague where they can help it right now. I’m not sure of the exact figures (Lazy Faulsey is very lazy in the wee hours of the morning.), but it’s meant to be quite significant.

According to some early findings by Stoneybaby at Big Hit Box, Enhancement Shaman Gear (Which is largely similar to Hunter gear, beyond a preference for different Melee Weapons, and a need for Expertise) in Ulduar looks to be oozing with Armor Penetration, but lacking in Crit.

If that turns out to be the case, I’m kinda worried that Blizzard would be basically shoving armour penetration down our throats now that they’ve tweaked it – regardless of how good it is, I don’t like the idea of that. Hopefully, however, we will be seeing a nice balance of ArPen and Crit next patch.

Another change is Focused Aim is being going to affect pets, too. At the moment, it doesn’t do so, so taking the talent is more of a band aid fix to your own hit – especially for BM Hunters- until you can get more hit that will carry over to your pet. With the change, Hunters can effectively cut their Hit Cap down by 3%, freeing up a great deal of choice for more Crit/AP gear and gems. Assuming, of course, they have the points to do so.

This is my current Build . Cobra Strikes is not something I’m hugely keen on (I really, really wish I had the points to take that and Invigoration – talk about talent synergy! I’d be perpetually at 100% mana on Loatheb, which would be fun -grin-), but it works.

For next patch, I’m looking at this. It drops the three points in Cobra, returning one to Frenzy because A. I need it to get the 51 point talent and B. To ensure Frenzy stays up now that my pet won’t be gaining extra crits from Cobra. The thing with this, however, is it’s only two points in Focused Aim. As a Draenei, that still cuts my required hit from gear down to a mere 5%. I’m no good at the maths myself, so I’m going to wait and see whether dropping a point in Improved Arcane or Go For The Throat is worth it to lower my hit requirement by another %.*

Going that low may be totally unnecessary, depending on gear. I know that if I can get the 10 man T8 pieces I want for the four piece set bonus, I’ll have 2.84% hit, plus I generally enchant Icewalker, putting me at 3.20% hit, unless my maths is horribly wrong. So, surely 1.80% Hit from elsewhere shouldn’t be too hard, and won’t result in much of a DPS loss over only needing 0.80%. And after writing all that I realised that wasn’t taking in the 0.18% hit available from gem socked bonus. -mutter mutter-

Hmmm. We’ll see.

Incoherent ramblings are incoherent. Just writing this down for my own benefit, really. Kinda scared of 3.1 now, hah!

*Or, now that I think about it, worth it at all. -brain explosion- Could I make up the lost pet DPS myself just via Crit and AP replacing needless hit, or would it be more of a loss to drop Cobra for the hit? I sometimes forget just how much DPS my pet contributes – I’ve seen as high as 44% of my total DPS. Sigh, I’ll need to actually seriously read Elitist Jerks now… Hey, just because I recommended it doesn’t mean I do. I just pick up stuff from other blogs. -cough-

Alternately, assuming Ulduar continues the trend of being relatively lenient, I could forgo the min/maxing of my talents and save myself the brain frying. I know that is complete sacrilege, but if I don’t need to min/max, I’ll save myself the hassle, thanks.

Edit: Hmmm. I’m actually leaning towards -not- taking FA. With unbuffed Crit, Cobra is proccing an average of 7 times every 72 seconds, and that means two Claws with about 85% more damage, per cobra.

Very, very quick testing with rough calculations, where pet DPS was 30% of my own (fairly low amount compared to what it normally is, probably due to lack of using bestial wrath), the 14 claw crits that would give over 72 seconds amounted to 50DPS (counting only the damage over a normal claw, of course.)

That’s a pretty fair amount. Now, given my pet DPS can be as high as 45% of my total DPS, would it actually be worth giving up Cobra Strikes for Focused Aim? Say I did the 2 points in FA – As a BM Hunter, I doubt the amount of extra AP and Crit I could get in place of 2% hit would result in 50DPS gain. For example, what is it they say… 14 AP is 1DPS? Consider replacing a 16 Hit (0.48% hit) with a 32 AP gem. That’s a touch over 2 DPS. If we do that four times, we gain 9DPS from AP gems that we took because we didn’t need the 2% Hit due to FA. That’s a loss of 41DPS.

It’s also important to note that Wild Hunt and Shark Attack will be giving yet more boosts to Claw damage – making Cobra worth even more DPS next patch. Yet, damage for the BM Hunter themself isn’t going to go up.

Certainly, for Survival and MM Hunters, who have much larger personal DPS gains, I’d say go for it. For BM? I think FA will remain a band-aid fix to not reaching the hit cap with gear.

As I’ve said, this is very quick and rough testing – I may do some more in depth tests when I’m more awake.

Finally! You’ve geared up, perfected your talent spec and addons, and know all about the boss encounters you’ll be facing. You’re now ready to do your first raid!

For the purposes of this guide your first raid will be Naxxramas, for a couple of reasons. First, it’s currently the only raid at the cap with more than one boss. Second, VoA is ridiculously easy regardless of gear or spec, and OS10 with no drakes isn’t particularly difficult beyond dodging flame waves.

Regardless of whether you are PUGing it, or going with your guild, make sure you are fully prepared.

Before you enter the raid: Bring your consumables (and repair)!

Before you enter the raid, there’s a few things you’ll need to make sure you have.

Repair

Whether your gear is at 10% or 90% durability, get it repaired before you go in. The last thing anyone needs is for someone to have to go repair after they died a couple of times, because they didn’t do so beforehand!

Food

A 20 stack of food – preferably made with the 400 skill cooking recipes. If you know your stats, as you should do at this point, you should know what foods you’ll want. For example, physical DPS should be using Attack Power, Strength, Agility or Crit Rating foods, as appropriate to your spec and stats. Hunters and Demonology Warlocks should also bring pet food in the form of Spiced Mammoth Treats or Kibler’s Bits. Warlocks talented into Dark Pact that are using their minion as a mana battery  may also want to consider Sporeling Snacks.

Don’t forget to bring standard food and drink too – if there are a few res spells going around, the healers probably don’t have time to heal your lazy backside – eat!

Potions

There are three types of concoctions in WoW; Potions, which are limited to one per battle (typical examples are Health and Mana potions), Elixirs (Which come in two flavours – Battle and Guardian – one of each can be active at a time) and Flasks (Count as both a Battle and Guardian Elixir, but lasts two hours and persists through death.) You’re going to want to bring a few of each.

Bring an ample supply of Runic Healing and Runic Mana (as appropriate to your class) potions – as a Hunter with Aspect of the Viper, I find myself chugging more Health potions than Mana, but your mileage may vary.

You’ll want to bring either or both of the following; 20 stack each of one Battle Elixir and one Guardian Elixir/3-5 Flasks. Again, you should know what you are looking for here. Some of the best, but by no means all of the Elixirs will be prefixed by Mighty. Flasks are harder to categorise, so I’ll just link the three I think are the most important – Endless Rage for Physical DPS, Frost Wyrm for casters, and Stoneblood for Tanks. The Flask of Pure Mojo may also be handy for certain classes.

The reason it’s a good idea to bring both Elixirs and Flasks is that, even on your first run, you may not actually die a whole lot – in which case, Elixirs provide both the best overall benefit, as well as being a whole lot cheaper than flasks. On the other hand, if you do find yourself dying a lot – which is likely, even if you know what you are doing – a Flask will be the best choice as it lasts through death and will end up cheaper after multiple wipes.

Ammunition

This is most important for Hunters, but Warrior tanks should usually have a stack or two of ammo to hand. Hunters, make sure your quivers are full. I try, though I often forget to switch (No one is perfect, ok?), to use the vendor quality level 75 ammo for trash, and use the much better quality, Engineer made ammunition for bosses.

Warlocks should also make sure to have an ample supply of their own form of “ammunition” in the form of Soul Shards. You’ll probably be able to grab a few whilst you clear trash, but be sure you have a large amount before you go in. Also, if you haven’t already, go kick Blizzard in the shins for not really taking steps to improve the shard situation.

Bandages

Hopefully you were keeping on top of your first aid whilst you leveled, and should bring a stack or two of Heavy Frostweave Bandages to the raid with you. If you haven’t, it’s not a huge issue, but I do recommend you go and work on your First Aid skill, just to be prepared.

Consumable Summary

You’ll need a 20 stack of food, another 20 stack of pet food if your class requires, normal food and drink for out of combat healing, either 20/20 Battle/Guardian Elixir or 3-5 Flasks, an ample supply of Healing/Mana Potions, and enough Ammunition to cover the raid, plus bandages if you are capable of using them. Unfortunately, this is going to run you quite a bit of gold – such is the price of raiding. A large portion of this can be covered if you pick up Cooking – everyone can take it, and it’s actually not that hard to level from scratch, with a bit of patience.

Before you begin the raid: prepare yourself.

Before the raid starts, you’ll want to do a few common sense things. Go to the toilet, get yourself a drink, and make yourself comfortable at the computer. You shouldn’t be going throughout the whole raid without a rest, but you should be able to clear a wing in one sitting.

Make sure you are fully awake, and try and relax. Since this is your first Naxx run, you’ll probably be more than a little intimidated. Don’t worry about it – you’re well prepared by now, you can handle it.

If your class can provide a raid wide buff, then do so. Make sure you summon tables and healthstones as required and (here’s my hunter bias coming through) buff the Hunter’s pet if you are a Paladin – especially if the Hunter is BM specced. Pets count as Warriors, so if there’s one in your group, the Greater Blessing should also reach the pet.

Before a Boss Fight: Double check

So, you’re standing before a boss – now is the time to double check everything. Do you have all the buffs you should? Do you have the right gear on? (Ammo, additional Hit Rating gear?) Are you clear on what to do?

Hopefully, you’ll have read the strats and watched the videos, and you should have a good idea of what you are meant to be doing – but you aren’t a robot. There’s a lot of info to remember for various bosses, and if you are at all unsure about a certain boss, ask. All it may take is a few words to jog your memory with regards to that boss.

During the boss fight: Stay calm, stay alive.

Now you’ve engaged the boss, and it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty. Keep an eye on your threat meter – make sure you aren’t overtaking the tank, or if you are the tank, make sure none of those pesky DPS are catching up to you. Stay aware of your surroundings – you’ll probably need to avoid various bits of nastiness. Watch your boss mod – is the Grand Widow coming up for a Frenzy? Get ready to Embrace her. Watch out for others – if you are a sturdy DPS, get that spawned add off the healer and the other squishies!

Hopefully you’ll make it through the fight – if you do die, try not to worry about it. It happens. If a mistake leads to a wipe, hopefully your group is made up of decent people who remember they were new once, too. Just make sure you remember what you did wrong, and take steps to avoid it again.

You cannot be perfect, especially not on your first run. Something will probably go wrong – it’s not the end of the world, and it can be pretty funny sometimes. I mean, look what I did on Thaddius and Heigan!

After the boss fight: gathering your phat lewts.

When the boss is dead, it’s time to divide up the loot. First, remember to grab your Emblem! Then, have a look at what else dropped. If there’s nothing for you, don’t get disheartened – you can’t get something every time. If there is, you may end up competing with a few people for it.

This is where things can turn nasty, depending on loot system, but you should accept whatever the outcome is gracefully. You simply can’t win ‘em all – and there’s fourteen other bosses in Naxx that could drop something else for you! If you did win it, congratulations on one of your first pieces of Raid gear! Make sure you enchant and socket it as appropriate when you get a chance.

Press on, brave adventurer!

Be prepared to spend a lot of time on one run in Naxx. Depending on how fast you are getting through the place, it could take a couple of nights for a full clear. Eventually, you’ll finish the place, and have your first full raid clear! Congratulations! You’ve come a long way from that level 10 scrub who had no idea what they were doing with their talent point, or where to go next!

I’ve beaten Naxxramas! … Now what?

Now, be prepared to do it all again. In order to progress, you’re going to need more gear. Hopefully, you’ll continue to enjoy raiding – the raid itself should be fun, and the gear should only be a way of advancing onto other raids, or as a symbol of your achievements. The day raiding becomes solely about the gear, and not the fun, you’re doing it wrong.

In conculusion…

As of the time of posting, this is basically where I am now – just cleared Naxx for the first time.  Since I clearly wasn’t a total failure, I thought, hey, why not share this with other new raiders? I hope you’ve all found this series to be helpful and enjoyable. I certainly had fun writing it, and I hope at least a few people out there see it and put it to good use.

Lengthy Thanks

This is not something I really figured I’d put in, but this guide has kind of exploded in popularity, and I’d like to thank people for that.

This little guide seems to have become pretty popular – mostly due to Dan O’Halloran at WoW Insider linking to these posts (Thanks! ). I’m hoping that got it out to people who could use it.

Aside from the obvious huge amount of hits from WoW Insider itself, I’ve been gathering numerous smaller hits from guild forums all over the place. One particular post that just made me smile was a brazillian guild forum – I babelfished it to get the gist of what it said, and it was awesome to know that even people who aren’t great at English have found this useful.

The WoW Twitterati, who urged me to go ahead with the idea, and some of whom corrected some stuff here and there, you guys get a huge thumbs up. Everyone who’s commented me about the guide, or who passed it on to their friends and guilds, thanks.

I hope everyone who’s read this has found it useful, and that at least some of you continue to come back to the blog in the future. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to top this, but hopefully you’ll enjoy the silly stories I tell.

What do you mean too sappy? ^.~; I’m a small blogger! I’m allowed to be excited people liked this!

I’m finally going to shut up now…

If there’s anything you wish to ask me about, or corrections/suggestions you wish to make, feel free to contact me via the details on the sidebar, or in the comments.

For now, good luck and happy raiding.

Faulsey’s Newbie Raiding Guide:

Part 1 : Gearing Up

Part 2 : Research – Talents, Strats and Addons

Part 3 : Your first raid

No, not the seige weapon!

Feral Druid!

Feral Charge - Cat is made of so much awesome. (It can be used when stealthed!)

Mrrreeeow! -Hissss-

I know, I said I wanted to try Boomkin on my Druid. I did! … For a level. I think, perhaps, the best idea would have been to level feral, THEN go Boomkin for a while. As it is, I bored myself of Balance, and didn’t really play my druid beyond the occasional login to /dance. I’d been toying with the idea of going back to Feral for a while, but hadn’t wanted to do it.

I caved today, and 100g worth of relatively budget gear later, I’m Ferlol! And it feels gooood. See, Balance is a downtime spec. Feral doesn’t have downtime. You claw some stuff to death, you pop a couple HoTs, go cat again, and when you next need healed, you’re at full mana! I can’t play specs with downtime. I’m spoiled by having two classes where it’s easy to regen mana. On Faulsey, when I need mana, I just dip into Aspect of the Viper. On Ellaria, I use Shamanistic Rage, and in 12 seconds, I’m up to full mana. So playing a class where I had to stop and, eugh, drink, was unbearable.

But really, I just missed RIPPING FACE! Bwahahahaha!

Ahem.

It’s fun, but I’m not particularly good at it yet. My previous ferlol was level 31 when I abandoned him, so I’ve had 10 levels of new abilities that I haven’t learned how to use. Give me a couple of levels and I’ll have it down pat!

Oh, and when I said “budget” gear earlier, I meant budget…

It's not just women who get the revealing gear!

I presume the idea of keeping the nipples out is in case I require to cut glass with them in a cold area. Utility nipples*, go!

-

And since it’s been a while since I posted anything truly random, I’d like to share this with you.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho7gIb91Jc0&hl=en&fs=1]

This is an advert that was on TV when I was really young, but the memory of it has stuck with me. It is, quite simply, the best piece of advertising in the history of ever. It was also the height of amusement for me, apparently. My mum swears I used to laugh and clap when it came on.

Enjoy!

*Batman has utility nipples. They are provided by penguins. They steal them as they slide down the stairs in your house. Beware! (A fuller version of this story, complete with sound effects and snatching hands, was told to me on a train in the early hours of the morning, sometime in January. I laughed so hard I cried… … Ok, maybe you had to have been there.)

In the first part of this series, I discussed gearing up to a raid worthy level. You may now think you’re ready to charge right into raiding.

Just you wait, hot shot!

Before you dive into a raid, you’re going to need to do some research on Talent Specs and Boss Strats, as well as get ahold of the right addons.

Speccing for fun; How do you play?

You might think that once you’ve gotten to 80, your messing around with talent points is complete. Not so. The spec that may have served you very well for leveling may not serve you quite so well in a raid setting – or even a heroic instance setting, for that matter.

So, you’re going to have to do some research on Talent Specs. For a Hybrid class like Paladins, your spec defines your role, so you don’t have to chose between DPS specs. For other Hybrids like Shamans and Warriors, and the “pure” DPS Classes, who have two or three separate DPS specs, you need to figure out how you prefer to play your class. Do you prefer to do top DPS? Go for whatever the classes current top DPS spec is. Or, like me, is your spec choice based on the play style of the spec? Spec for what you enjoy playing the most.

At the moment, at least for most normal guilds, you should not have to spec your classes “spec du jour” to raid. All DPS specs are more than capable of putting out excellent DPS with a skilled player behind them. The difference between specs is small enough that it shouldn’t be an issue with the current (3.0) raids.

Speccing for success; how to choose your talents.

Now that you’ve decided on what your main spec shall be, you need to pick the right talents. While there are plenty of “cookie cutter” specs out there that will work perfectly well, I suggest that instead of just blindly following one of them, that you research exactly what talents you must take, and then spend the rest of your points to suit yourself.

Each spec is going to be different, but all will have a certain core of talents that are absolutely, 100% necessary for raiding. As before, you will want to consult sites like Elitist Jerks, or blogs relating to your class to find out what these are.

I’m going to draw upon my own tree for an example of how you would go about speccing, though as this is a general guide, I won’t be listing the talents – just the number of points.

As a BM Hunter, there 42 talents in the BM tree you must* take, and 18 points in the MM tree. That leaves 11 points to use roughly as you wish, though 8 of those points must be spent at various points in the BM tree to allow you to access some of the key talents (fillers). Basically, this gives you 8 points that you can spend however you like within a certain area of the tree, and 3 points you can truly spend freely. It doesn’t seem like there’s much room for customisation, but even a couple of points shifted from here to there can make a major difference.

I can’t speak for other classes, but BM is a sort of extreme case – you need those points in MM. I believe mages are in a similar position with Torment the Weak in the Arcane Tree, but beyond that, I think there should be more options open to other classes than there were for me.

*In my opinion and experience.

Now, hopefully you’ve specced yourself to your satisfaction; taken your key talents, plus spent filler and free talents to improve further upon your strengths, or help with your weak spots. Surely by now you can raid? Well… you now have the gear and the talents to raid, but you are still lacking the knowledge.

Know thy enemy; learn the strategies!

This is where I’m going to admit a slight elitist leaning – there’s nothing I find more frustrating than spending 10-15 minutes before a boss whilst it is explained using the inadequate tool of text, and text alone. Such explanations are not always going to be enough for you to understand, so I cannot recommend it enough that you read the strategies, and even better, watch the videos.

Personally, I used the written strategies at Bosskillers and the videos at TankSpot to help me understand the fights. At first, this is going to seem like a lot of information – an impossible amount to fit into your head! Don’t worry – just do it a bit at a time.

For example, set aside half an hour-forty five minutes of time, and do a wing of Naxxramas. Read the strategy, and watch the video, on a boss per boss basis. If you think you’ve got that wing sussed, success! Do the same for another wing whenever you’ve got the time, until you’ve worked your way through the entire raid. If there’s anything you aren’t clear on, give it another go over – it’s not as hard as it looks to start with!

Learning the strategies before you even go in is really the best way to go about it. If you are anything like me, you will be petrified when you see your first boss. Having seen the fight before can make it a lot less stressful.

Know thy enemy, know thyself, and know thy raid; addons to augment your awareness.

By 80, you’ve probably downloaded and installed a few addons. Maybe you downloaded Auctioneer to help make a bit of cash, or SexyMap to bring some colour to the otherwise bland Blizzard UI. But, now that you will soon be going into your first raid, there’s a few addons you’ll need.

Threat Meter

This is essential, especially for trigger happy DPS – you do not want to be pulling aggro from your tanks in a raid – you will die, and you will die horribly, and in a lot of cases, wipe the raid, or at least lead to a chain of deaths. A threat meter lets you know exactly how your threat compares to the tanks, so that you know when you need to throttle the DPS for a bit, or when you can blow everything for a massive burst.

Personally, I use Omen, and I haven’t actually heard of anyone using anything else – it’s got a monopoly on the threat meter front. Download it, learn to use it, learn to love it.

A Boss Mod

These keep you notified of when you can expect a nasty ability from a boss. This can be especially important for healers and tanks, who need to know when a big hit is coming, so they can take appropriate countermeasures. It’s almost as important for DPS, too – you don’t want to let a decimate slip by with you happily continuing to pewpew Gluth!

The two most common mods are Deadly Boss Mods and BigWigs. I have used both, and they both do the job well. Choosing between them is mostly a matter of preference on the part of yourself or your guild. BigWigs is slightly less spammy, so I’ve found I prefer that.

Other addons

I’d say those are the two essential addons for every raider. There are, however, others that will help to greater or lesser degrees.

Recount: DPS and Healing meters. Handy for letting you know if you need to improve, just try not to get caught up in the epeen swinging DPS competition.

Unit Frame Addons: The default Blizz unit frames (Health/Mana/Portrait displays for yourself, party and raid members) can be somewhat lacking, functionally and aesthetically, so feel free to tweak those with addons.

Action Bar Addons: Again, the default Blizz action bars are a bit lacking in functionality, so a bar mod can be a worthwhile download. Personally, I use Bartender4. It offers a huge amount of options for moving and shaping your action bars, plus an easy way to set keybinds.

Oh, and this isn’t addon related, but I’m going to throw it in: I recommend that if you currently use the arrow keys or WASD to move, that you at the very least familiarize yourself with mouse movement. It’s a lot quicker and more precise than keyboard movement, and I can’t imagine doing Heigan whilst using the keyboard to turn.

Faulsey! Surely, after all this work, I’m ready now?

By now, you’ve got the Gear, the Talents, and the Knowledge to raid. With those, you are all set for your first raid. In the next installment, I’ll be talking about what to do and expect from your first raid.

Faulsey’s Newbie Raiding Guide:

Part 1 : Gearing Up

Part 2 : Research – Talents, Strats and Addons

Part 3 : Your first raid