Merry christmas!

So you remember my death knight got a vacation because of burnout issue? So, to relax before his ship to Northrend arrive he bought a ticket for the Brawler Guild. He actually had a blast early in the morning, there was nobody there and he had time to reaching rank 6 with a mix of blood tanking and frost dpsings. There is monk heirloom, pets and titles to get! Only thirty minutes before departure, his beeper ring: Prince Anduin was in trouble again! So he had to get back to Pandaria and rescue Anduin from Garrosh and his crazy scheme and barely made it to catch his ship. Year 2013 will be a busy year with the Thunder king and Garrosh to take care of, so he will be glad to take some time off.

Anyway, on the eve of christmas, my death knight and my army of alts wanted to tell you: Merry christmas and happy new year!

Update: If you want your christmas presents, that might contains various recipes and pets, and the linked Feat of strenght you'll need to do the daily You're a Mean One.

Death knight brooding in Pandaria

So my death knight has lapsed back into depression after months of campaneering in Pandaria. At first, he tought that the excitement of a military life will give him a new purpose in life. He scouted Pandaria and acted as diplomats for numerous factions. He tanked for masses of ungrateful, ninja'ing pug's in dungeons across the continent. He repelled waves of Mogus attacks and hunted them down in Mogushan Vaults, killed the Empress of the Mantids in the Heart of Fear and pursued the Sha of fear to the Terrace of Endless Springs. He lead the landing of the Alliance on the beach of Karasang, mounting countless attacks against the Horde. He acquired a legendary sha-touched weapon guided by a new shady leader. And then what? More grinding against pitiful and weak foes. But one particular event pushed him over the edge. While performing administrative duty (mostly spying) for Prince Anduin, one of his superiors questionned his new outfit, wondering if it was fit for a death knight officer. Maybe my death knight spent too much time in the Black Temple frolicking with warlocks and it's other demonic inhabitants.

Anyway, he asked for a release from the army but his superior refused and told him to take a couple of weeks off instead. But now he has heard the calling of home again while aiding fellow guildies acquiring the legendary Shadowmourne. He now dreams of replacing Bolvar Fordragon as king of the Icecrown Citadel and as ruler of Northrend

As for my paladin, as soon as he got to max level, he rushed back to his camp in Blackrock mountain. He is happy for now fighting against hordes of fire elementals, dragons, orcs and evil dwarfs. And he won't be able to rest until all evil has been purged from the mountain (or until he gets all the cool transmog and that pesky legendary drop).

While those two heroes of the Alliance are off chasing dreams and pursuing evil, my horde hunter is eager to join the fray and will take the opportunity to explore Pandaria. There is rare pets to tame and tons of hunter weapons to acquire!

Soloing Blackwing Lair

In the last post I mentionned that I tried to solo Blackwing Lair on my pally but after a couple of tries I asked a friend for help. This week my buddy wasn't online and guildies were busy so I realized I was on my own. So I clenched my teeth and decided to venture in there alone.

The first fight in Blackwing lair is against Razorgore. You need to control the boss by clicking an orb and destroy all the eggs in the room using his abilities. The tricky parts to that fight is that there tons of adds that will attack Razorgore and if he dies, he blow up the raid (that means you). But while browsing the web for tips I found a video made by a guy named Swunt who told exactly how to do this. The trick is that since he is friendly while you control him, you have the time to cast one instant heal, it will break the control and make him hostile again but he will be healed. I only had to use Lay on hand halfway through the fight and it gave me enough time to destroy all the eggs. When like five or so adds are on Razorgore I stopped using the controlling orb (to interrupt control I used the simple macro /dance) and cleared some adds so he wouldn't get overhelmed. After the boss destroy all the eggs, he will get back to full health, about 500 k, and you can put him down once for all (until the weekly reset).

The second boss, Vaelastrasz, is a dps race because he inflicts a debuff, called Burning Adrenaline, that reduce max health by 5% every second, so you have 20 second to down him. The debuff didn't seem to be dispellable so if you down him you'll probably have to corpse run.

After this, you'll have to kill some annoying thrash. First there is some dragonkin that will sent you in the air dealing some fall damage that could take out a careless level 90. Then, it's the supressor room that reduce movement and attack speed, meaning a long walk while aggroing tons of annoying whelpings. The third boss, Broodlord Lashlayer, has nothing special so just bash his head in and be done with him.

Then come more thrash, only one add is worth mentionning: Blackwing spellbinder, who are apparently immune to spells, so you'll have to beat on them the old fashioned way. While fighting this thrash you will also encounter three patrolling drakes that are considered bosses: Flameroc, Firemaw and Ebonroc. Only the last one gave me trouble, he puts a debuff, called Shadow of Ebonroc, that when he hits you also heals him up for 25k. I didn't knew that when I encountered him so I just outdpsed his healing but it took me a couple of minutes. Some of the tips I've seen would be to dispell the debuff, put on tanking gear with high mitigation so you don't get hit as often, get high shadow resistance so the debuff has less chance to be applied or just kite him.

The seventh boss is Chromaggus, it can be a challenge for some class that can't dispel. He will put five different affliction (debuff) on you, a magic, a curse, a poison, a disease and another one that can be cured with Hourglass Sand. If you have the five debuff, you will be mind controlled for five minutes, so try to avoid this. I didn't realize I could Cleanse the debuff when I did it, so I just spammed Hourglass Sand when I got the Bronze affliction and I blew all my DPS cooldown to down him as fast as I could and it worked. After the fight, I also removed all debuff with Divine Shield, so it could also have helped during the encounter. For classes who cannot cleanse, you could try to get some potions that can cleanse like Purification potion.

And finally, the last boss: Nefarian. After all you've been through this fight is ridiculously easy. Kill a metric tons of adds and switch to Nefarian when he is in dragon form. Among some of the cool things that dropped from him is what is considered by some to be the coolest 2-handed sword in the game: Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood (wich apparently belonged to Andui Lothar, one of the most famous heroe of Azeroth). So I hope you'll have fun soloing Blackwing lair. Good hunting!

Patch 5.1: First impression

The first content patch since the launch of the expansion two months ago was released last week. There is no new raids in this patch, akin to 4.1 Rise of the Zandalari but instead of introducing new dungeons, this time it's three new scenarios, with two of them that are faction specific.

One of the major feature of this patch is two new factions, Operation: Shieldwall for Alliance and Dominance Offensive for Horde, with new sets of dailies. Both armies have landed on Karasang Wilds beach. As your hero knows the way of the land better then anyone else, you participate in the landing of the military forces. You'll meet a couple of familiar faces, clashes with the opposing faction and stroll around two brand new military bases (Alliance and Horde). After a short questline, dailies are unlocked. I bought a nice looking trinket from the quartermaster, even tough it was ilvl 458 Mr. Robot told me it was better then what I had. Doing the dailies will also nets you reputation for Wrathion, and it's linked to his legendary quest line. But I still have to collect a couple of sigil of wisdom to unlock the new quests from him.

After I reached friendly with that new faction, a new quest appeared that sent me back to Stormwind to re-enlist a retired spy who was hiding out in a mysterious place, Bizmo Brawlpub. This place houses the Brawler's guild that organize one-on-one fight against various opponents and beasts. Everybody can hang out there but to participate you need to get a Blood-Soaked invitation either from the Black auction house in the Veiled stairs or from certain mobs of the opposite faction in Karasang Wilds. That's one thing I'd like to try eventually.

One quality of life improvement, especially for people like me who are behind in their dailies, is the new Grand commendation that you can buy from quartermaster of the pandaria faction once you reach revered. Those commendation double the amount of experience you can get from dailies.

Another quality of life improvement of this patch is that you no longer need to be in a raid to enter the older raids, plus they nerfed some boss that were impossible (or very difficult) to solo. As an incentive, new pets drops from some bosses of the vanilla wow raids (all the level 60 raids plus Naxrammas who was originally in Eastern Plaguelands before reappearing in Northrend). So I headed to Blackwing lair with my pally, a place I don't go often because the first boss, Razorgore, needs more then one person to down. But that raid contains the famous Tier 2 pieces paladin set wich I'm collecting (plus Sulfuron ingot needed for the Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker legendary quest).

For those who haven't been there (or if it's been a long time), Razorgore is a boss that must be mind controlled to destroy dragons eggs while tons of adds try to kill him and the one controlling him. If he dies before all the eggs are destroyed, everyone in the room die. But now he has more health points and the damage done to the person controlling the boss no longer break concentration. So I tried soloing him with my pally but the boss kept dying from the adds. Hopefully, one of my friend logged on and offered to help. There is one or two bosses that might be tough to solo like Vaelastrasz (he puts a debuff that can kill a level 90) and Chromagus (when you got five different debuff you are controlled for five minutes).

So there is a lot of exciting things to do in the new patch. Good hunting!