Waldonnis

STAY ALIVE!!!!!!! That is all...

*whistles innocently* Hehehe... Count me in, of course Jaryndis or any of my personal army would be happy to lend a hand (or paw, as needed).

One other note... We're working further to optimise the group composition for better "stacking", so be prepared for the possibility of some different groupmates at times. Certain fights in BT will be much easier with specific group tweaking as well, so if you get shuffled around group-wise for a specific fight, don't be alarmed.

I cannot emphasise this enough. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read up on Archimonde's abilities, as the knowledge will likely save you some repairs. This is one case where it's not about healing or healthstones as much as it is about using the Tear at the right moment and making sure you don't run the fire all over your raidmates (read up and you'll understand ). We're addressing this, actually, and a few of us suspected it would be a problem....it was more a matter of seeing just how bad it was before being able to figure out what to do about it. We have a few ideas and assignments to try out regarding the DGs which we'll cover before we start the trash, so pay close attention for the changes Positioning (or really range) for the ranged dps and healers will be crucial in the future Azgalor attempts as well, since he has a limited range for rain of fire. Stay at max range and you should never get rained on (with the exception of Marrania...we're weighing the options for you). For warlocks, I want all of us between Azgalor and Holyssa...this should give us maximum time to cast our soulstones since everyone has to run through our entire range to get to Holyssa. We'll talk more about the rest and soulstone assignments/rotation when we're prepping for the fight, but I'm confident that we're not far from seeing that big demon die. Other notes from tonight: * Warlocks (including myself) need to be a bit more spot-on with the soulwells...drop em early and often. * Lots of people stood in bad stuff and died or required a ton of healing. Lesson we should know by now after all that we've seen: don't stand in bad stuff * PLEASE for the love of Thrall, watch your debuffs and raid warning announcements instead of waiting for Cal to say your name on TS for things like infernals. TS has an inherent delay and it's YOUR responsibility to watch that, not his. Rule of thumb: if the skull is over your head, you probably have to do something different and quickly. * Trinket use during Rage's icebolts is definitely better...keep up the good work Looking forward, we've got some fun fights ahead of us but our persistance and coordination that we learned against Vashj and Kael'thas will pay off big-time. I'm happy to put Kael in our rearview mirror (although I still personally love the Vashj and Kael fights) and am confident we'll see some of the upcoming traditional "roadblock" bosses laying dead on the floor before long

I can also make both (Kelani can make one, Hoofie can make the other), so feel free to ply me for some crafting whenever The Friday Karazhan group has now seen the last of Medivh's Tower, and it's on to Zul'aman next Friday eve! Great job on the final run, with clear time of just under three hours Wish we had seen some better stuffs drop, but at least we all got some badges and the few upgrades that we did see went to people who could really use them (especially the hammer for Jiris!). I'm also quite happy to have gotten the last of the new badge gear that I wanted for Jaryndis with that final run (chest, ring, and pants are now mine) For those who have never stepped into Zul'aman, do some reading about the bosses and trash mobs in there if you can before the run. I'm confident that we'll be able to start getting a timed chest or two within a few runs and there's some fantastic stuff in there for all classes and specs

The Wristguards of Tranquil Thought on the badge vendor (35 badges) are pretty nice and there's still one more shot at the Bands of Indwelling from the Maiden left. Worst case, we can probably run Magister's Terrace on normal a few times for the Bracers of Divine Infusion.

Working on it! Hold, please!

We haven't seen the pattern drop yet in Hyjal, but if one of us gets it, I'll let ya know. Bear in mind, that pattern requires four Hearts of Darkness, which only drop in Hyjal or Black Temple and aren't frequently found on the AH (even if you do find them, they're often around 450g each). They're fantastic bracers, but the cost is pretty daunting.

Bah, I don't think those dead Stormtroopers would consider being killed by Luke's lightsaber as being an act of love

One thing to note is just how many raids are skipping Kael and Vashj because of the difficulty vs. reward factor. It seems to them that getting into tier 6 content is a win all around, but what they miss out on are the lovely rings from Scale of the Sands...and most importantly, the opportunity to develop raid cohesion and coordination on complex boss fights (something they will NEED further into BT). I'm personally proud that we stuck it out and didn't succumb to the pressure of going the "easy route to epix". I think that learning these encounters taught us how to work together better and also stress us individually to improve. It says a ton about the people in the raid and the commitment to defeat the tougher fights, even in the face of the "easier (for now) path".

BM does bring quite a bit of damage...I'm still shocked at how much I'm doing after the respec and some retooling of my rotation. 1:1 steady/auto macros are definitely the way to go for BM and pop KC every time it's up (mine is part of my macro, but it does lock up sometimes, so use your judgement on whether or not to macro it). As Kailand said, though, survival really doesn't shine unless the group composition is right for it AND it's incredibly gear-dependent (most of the good stuff you don't really see until T5-6 content). Ultimately, it's more of a raid-buff-spec that brings some damage. My take: if you enjoy survival, stick with it and do as much testing with Dr. Boom as possible to work out latency/kinks in shot rotation (or even to weigh gearing options)....and don't expect to top BM hunters in most groups. If you decide to stick with BM, though, FI is wonderful and you'll find the haste from my spec really boosts personal dps with the right ranged weapons, with the trade-off of not giving the EW debuff loving to the melee

Good to hear! All is good in my little corner of the world...still loving my life of laziness

I'm no primal mooncloth specialist, but I have two timers that are always free to offer up. As for gear improvement suggestions, both Whitemend pieces are VERY nice (hood and pants). Essence Focuser, which you're using, is a good weapon until you can pick up something better (most likely the rep mace from Sha'tar, Battle-mace from regular Magister's, or staff from heroic Magister's). I'd probably avoid most main pieces of the PvP/Arena gear for priests, personally, since they totally lack any kind of mana regen. That being said, there are some superb off-pieces that would be good for you, namely the Vindicator necklace and both rings (Vindicator and Veterans). All three of those have a good amount of +heal and also pack a respectable amount of mp5 until you can get some jewelry that surpasses it (preferrably with some spirit). An option you should probably go for as well is the Bangle from Botanica and try it out as a replacement for the Scarab on mana-intensive fights. Really, your gear isn't bad at all (it's actually better than I expected for pre-Kara), so take the above as just options to consider depending on your healing style.

Read a few more responces from Blizzard about the complaints that Arena armour is too similar in appearance to tier sets...basically, it's by design and they actually like it that way, so we won't see any change there *sigh* And yes, as Baracko said, the only info we have so far on S4 is all data-mined or from PTR, which is known to be about as accurate as a hand grenade compared to live. Bear in mind that even the data mined screenshots have tooltips that are designed to only show certain things in some cases (in this case, they were probably looking to find personal ratings, so it doesn't show much else other than base item stuff). I know for a fact that the piece they showed in that screenshot has other stats, but it probably wasn't of interest since most of that can be calculated anyway based upon iLevel, base stats, and the itemisation scaling that Blizzard has already put forth season-wise.

No worries! Glad you are ok and it was just the connection Run went well with only a couple of problems on Netherspite (early deaths) and Nightbane (range issues and some luck)...but was the usual full clear

I've watched a number of Kael'thas videos from various perspectives at this point and as an overall tactical/encounter familiarity video, Tamzin's is by far the best...I highly recommend watching it a few times since there's so much info to process. If you'd like to see videos from various perspectives (tanking, casters, healing, etc), there are numerous videos out there that are quite well done and show things like healthbars and incoming damage. Personally, I like to watch the ones that will help me understand what special info may be needed from a warlock perspective (such as "nether protection for the warlock tank is bad" ). That being said, I cannot stress enough just how important it is to know about this fight in advance. Vashj is a tough fight to plan for and obviously was a pain to execute...as is this one, but probably the hardest thing about Kael'thas is explaining it to people before a pull (which also takes entirely too much time if they're completely unfamiliar). Do yourself and the rest of us a favour and don't walk in without knowing what's coming and what you might have to do role-wise. One other thing...we have a fairly short window to loot the legendary weapons during the fight, so PLEASE don't park your character on top of one of them when that time comes. Macros help for targetting and looting, but trying to get in range to loot can be problematic when there's a big fat Tauren on top of the weapon you're going to need. Get in, loot your weapon, and get to your positions immediately afterwards. Oh, and some of those weapons have a "Use" ability...read up on the weapon you'll likely have and what situations its ability will be useful for. After watching our execution on Vashj, I have a ton of confidence that we can perform as well against Kael'thas

I doubt it'll come back to bite them. Arena seems to be heavily participated in (albeit not at the upper echelon), so they'll likely just scale the gear and requirements once the level cap is raised. I do have to laugh as well, though, that some of the better items available for some classes from S3 have no personal rating, while the shoulders continue to. While I choose not to do any Arena at all, I do wish they would come up with some new graphics for the armour instead of continuing to replicate existing tier set graphics (only some of which are recoloured)...is it honestly THAT much work to make the two sets visually different?

Waldonnis could use the rep as well, but will generally help with any of me.

Count me in for any role you need So long as it's Wednesday or Saturday, I'm game for anything.

So much has been said that I agree with. We are not solely or even formally an RP-heavy guild. What we have is what I like to term "RP flavour". We prefer guildchat to be RP, but as long as it remains what I call "lol-free", little is frowned upon. When it comes to RP events or really any activity (PvP, Arena, raiding, etc), it's our job as leadership to support those activites and playstyles...not necessarily be the sole instigators of such. I know that I have donated many prize items and devoted some farming hours towards making past RP events more rewarding and interesting, but I've never been an event organiser myself (had my fill of this as a dancer in SWG). I think you'll find similar sentiments from many in the guild, e.g. they're happy to attend and help with planning or supplying things, but have their own schedule confines and interests as well. It's easy to look at the situation from an RP standpoint and say "RP should be mandatory", but I ask that you look at it from the other facets of the game as well and ask if the same should/would apply. Should we force people to PvP? Raid? The obvious answer is no, we should not and I feel that the same can be said about RP events. Ultimately, we need to understand and support all of our Clanmates' individual interests, even if they're not our own. This may seem bleak from an RP standpoint, but I think what you'll find is that if you go to the trouble of putting together and advertising an RP party or contest, quite a few more people than you would expect will *want* to attend and participate. Also, from past experience, I've found that regular (read: weekly) events tend to be lightly attended, but holiday or seasonal ones garner quite a bit of interest for many reasons. On a side note, my personal preference RP-wise is usually spontaneous RP rather than "scheduled RP sessions". I often pop my picnic basket and pony keg outside of a town and sit down, greeting passers-by during off-hours. Some choose to stop and RP, others don't, but the variety of stories and levels of participation are fun for me since I never know what to expect and I don't have to put much thought into a theme in advance. There are many scheduled events that happen frequently, often put together by friends of the guild (such as Rajuul, Zebgora, etc) also. If you'd like to find out more about what's out there, I could help direct you to some people to chat with Oh, one more thing. "Family" is frequently thrown around without any real clarification as to what people mean when they say it. My personal definition of family isn't the "we all sit down at the table every night"...but rather "we care about each other and try to be supportive of each other, even if we can't be there". I live 2,000 miles from my immediate family and am horrible about calling, but I still love them and they know I'm just that way. I like to think of the Clan in the same light - we try to see each other frequently and do what we can, but if some people have activities planned, we understand and enjoy the times we do have with each other when they come.

Waldonnis can do the spellpower enchant, so just let me know when you're ready

We'll miss ya, Ky, but I know that it's what you need to do for you right now. *big huggles* You know where we all are if you need anything P.S. Get MSN installed again, silly Happy Birthday!