Mordigg's first Ulduar

Ragar: Last night the guild did another one of its 10-man Ulduar excursions. This time they requested Mordigg instead of Solannis. Well, technically it was "send whoever you want", but when I mentioned that I'd like to come, it's "anyone other than you". You can almost feel the love.

Mordigg: Yes, nothing to do with the fact that every other tank your guild has is a warrior. It's all out of spite.

Ragar: Yeah, yeah, you and your logic. I'm well aware that from a tactical perspective, it makes sense to mix up the tanking classes. I'd just like a break from doing paperwork. That's enough about me though. How was your first trip into Ulduar?

Mordigg: It went fairly well - cleared the first floor and Kologarn in under two hours. We wiped a few times on Assembly of Iron for some reason. The raid leader called it after that and we'll reconvene during the weekend to finish up. There was one other issue where I wanted to strangle -

Ragar: That's normal.

Mordigg: But I didn't even say who.

Ragar: You don't have to. There are people Sol, Med, and I tune out, but there's only one person for whom "strangle" comes to mind.

Mordigg: Okay, just making sure it's not just me. It's always a little bit of a concern when thoughts like that come up as a death knight.

Ragar: So out of curiosity, what'd the loudmouth do this time?

Mordigg: Well, first off he questioned whether I was crittable after the first Kologarn atttempt. That's just flat out insulting, especially from someone who thinks they know tanking because they know a guy that tanks Naxxramas once in a blue moon. Kologarn is a giant whose hands are taller than I am and who puts a stacking -25% armor debuff on the tank. I'm going to get hit really hard, especially if the other tank's busy with the Rubble and can't taunt off of me when I get a second stack.

Ragar: Yeah, -25% armor hurts, especially since high armor is kinda your thing along with druids.

Mordigg: The other major thing was during Assembly of Iron. When you're fighting Steelbreaker, the other tank has the two other guys off in a corner. Every now and then, the middle one, Runemaster Molgeim, will put a Rune of Power on the ground that bumps up the damage done by anyone standing on it by 50%. Great for us, bad when they're standing in it. Occasionally he'll put one underneath Steelbreaker so I'll have to move him. No big deal, right? First one shows up and loudmouth starts yelling, "MOVE HIM! MOVE HIM! MOVE HIM!" I'll admit I could've handled it a little more tactfully than yelling back, "I can $&*#ing see!"

Ragar: Alright, you've had your first taste of Ulduar and now Sol and I know you're still sorta normal based on the fact that you can still be angry. Any other notes?

Mordigg: Well, there was one point during an Assembly attempt where a feral druid pulled aggro off of me near the beginning. After talking to the other tank, he said, "Yeah, he's kind of a beast. I usually put Vigilance on him, but I forgot." How does Sol deal with that?

Ragar: Don't ask Sol about building threat. His survivability build is the same as his threat build. Infinite Divine Plea made his threat generation kinda ridiculous.

Mordigg: Yeah, well that's not the case for me. My Frost tanking build has decent enough survivability, but threat's always been the thing that it's been weak about. For trash pulls, it's fine - Howling Blast is awesome for stuff like that. For bosses, it's always been a little too dependant upon Rune Strike, which keeps me from using Frost Strike as much as I should. There's always the concern that I'll accidentally use the runic power before Rune Strike goes off and I'll lose a good chunk of threat from that. Not to mention the fact that the changes to Blade Barrier makes Rune Strike come up less already.

Ragar: Yeah, I can see that being an issue, what with your heavy threat attack being the weird love child of Heroic Strike and Revenge.

Mordigg: Regardless it should be less of an issue with the new spec, though I still need to field test it.

Ragar: Okay, walk me through the spec. What's the theory behind it?

Mordigg: Well, it's less runic power dependant than my Frost build, so there's less likelihood of clipping my Rune Strikes. As Unholy I'll be using Scourge Strike instead of Obliterate or Howling Blast for my double-rune attack. Since it's shadow damage, it'll ignore armor and in theory deal more damage than using Obliterate on bosses like I've been doing. The glyph also gives me the potential to refresh diseases on the target, which would let me get a few more Scourge Strikes in before having to refresh diseases.

I still need to see if it's got better or worse AoE threat than my Frost build. Frost has Howling Blast with the occasional one being free, whereas this build has Unholy Blight, Wandering Plague, and Corpse Explosion. Both have the Death & Decay glyph and reduced cooldown, so that's not a consideration.

Ragar: Corpse Explosion?

Mordigg: I had a spare point I needed to spend to go further into Unholy and the other choices weren't that appealing. Besides, I'd heard that it was a little better these days. We'll see when I get the chance to test it.

Ragar: How about survivability? I know this is mainly a threat build, but does it have any extra tricks?

Mordigg: Actually it does. It's got Bone Shield and Anti-Magic Zone along with a better Anti-Magic Shell, so it's really more of an anti-caster survivability build than the other. I'll admit I'm not fond of losing the extra 3% miss from Frigid Dreadplate, but hopefully the mitigation from the glyphed Bone Shield should balance out in the end. We'll find out when the group starts back up this weekend.

Ragar: Well, you have fun with that and try not to kill the loudmouth. I'm not sure our contract covers that.

Mordigg: I make no promises.

Team Update: 5/5

Not much on the raiding front this week - the guild Solannis and I run with took a break from 25-man raiding this week while they recruited some extra members. That left us with 10-man Ulduar and whatever else people came up with to fill the time. Still plenty to do for us though, so we made due.

First up was the Children's Week festivities. I'm still not entirely sure why the matrons think it's a good idea to send children off with strangers who fight dragons, undead, and various other unpleasant things for a living. I can think of some cynical reasons, but I'd hope they're not quite that desperate for the extra space in the orphanage. Regardless, me, Sol, and Medeleth participated and ran around orphans to various parts of Azeroth and Outland. Med complained a bit about it being a "waste of his genius" or something like that, but he's really a big softy. One that toys with demonic forces, but a softy nonetheless. None of us have finished all of the achievements for the title, but I don't see that happening any time soon. The Utgarde Pinnacle run is no problem, but I've got no desire to step foot into a battleground as is, let alone with a kid trailing behind me. Oh well, no big deal. I'm perfectly happy with Chef Ragar and I think Sol's got another title in mind. Med doesn't seem to care all that much, so he'll probably stick with his Silvermoon title.

Speaking of the lock, he actually got a little raid time in this week. The first time was an Ulduar-10 swap: we were going after Hodir and Mimiron, so there was no need for a second tank. After last week's "ta-daa!" incident, Sol and I talked to the raid leader and explained that we have better options available when DPS is required. Admittedly though, Sol could've been a bit more diplomatic than saying, "My Ret gear is garbage. I have no intention of making it anything other than garbage. Grab the lock." Regardless, it worked and Med got another shot at raiding. I don't think we saved the meters from the run, but from what I recall, it seemed like a acceptable showing for someone with 90% crafted or AH gear and below hit cap.

Later in the week he had another shot in a 10-man Naxxramas group; some new people in the guild needed gear, so I talked them into taking Med along for the ride. A couple hours later, Med came out with two new pieces of gear (one that he can't put on till he gets more hit rating though) and enough Emblems of Heroism for a third. All in all, a fairly productive week for the lock.

Not a whole lot of news for the rest of the team (shammy's gone Elemental for the moment, Mordigg's mostly been herb farming), but our priest has been making pretty good progress as of late. He's still got eight more levels to go till he's caught up with the rest of us, but that shouldn't take too much longer. He said something about using a Discipline spec to level in Northrend. Personally I don't understand using that over Shadow, but considering me and Sol leveled as Protection, we're not really in a position to judge anyone. He's still got no idea how to heal though, so that'll be a fun learning curve once he starts instancing.

Sol should probably fix that at some point

Story from Solannis' 10-man Ulduar run last night:

Solannis: Hmm... according to what I'm reading, the only reason we would need an off-tank on General Vezax is if we don't kill the Saronite Crystals to make vapors. Are we going for that achievement?

Main Tank: No, just normal the first time.

Solannis: I should probably flip to my Ret spec then.

Main Tank: Yeah. Next time we come I'll bring my Fury gear so I can dps instead. I don't know how good your Ret gear is though.

Solannis: Okay, you see the gear I have on now?

Main Tank: Yeah, your tanking stuff. What about it?

Solannis: *switches to Jawbone* Ta-daa!

Rest of raid: *facepalm*

Believe it or not, that wasn't a recipe for spectacular DPS. Admittedly though, a good chunk of that was from the fact that Sol's: a) not hit-capped, and b) his weapon skill was apparently something like 365. I guess I'll have to have him start spending Emblems of Valor on Ret gear and the rest of us can start looking for crafted items and pieces on the AH for him.

It does seem a bit odd to go to all that trouble for a set of gear that he won't use that often and doesn't even want to use (his attitude towards Ret is about the same as mine towards Arms and Fury), but until I can start convincing the raid leader that we have a perfectly good warlock ready to swap in off the bench, it's our obligation as contractors to provide what is requested. Sigh, and I was just starting to make back that money from the lock's epic flyer too.

Close but no cigar

Ragar: During the weekend, Solannis and some of the guys from the guild decided to try out 10-man Ulduar. They made it pretty far, but unfortunately couldn't down Mimiron before calling it last night. Regardless no one was expecting to make it that far in the first week, so it was still a victory. No loot for Sol, but for the most part Ulduar-10 gear is a sidegrade unless you're taking down bosses in Hard Mode, so no one was really there for loot. Any notes or comments going into this new week of raiding, Sol?

Solannis: Well, for Mimiron in particular, I believe we've got the mechanics down. It's just a matter of execution and everyone surviving. You can't afford to have anyone fall during the first three phases of the fight, but I believe we've got that down for the most part. The fourth phase is everything combined, so that's just going to require some additional practice since we only tried it three times before calling it a night.

Ragar: How's the new spec holding out?

Solannis: So far so good. I did have the opportunity to actually try out my new Divine Sacrifice spell on Mimiron; the MT was trying to plan out cooldowns for phase 1's Plasma Blasts and someone mentioned Hand of Sacrifice, which made me remember that I had that and the upgraded talent version. Nothing in Naxxramas hit particularly hard, so I'd honestly forgotten that I had those abilities. I have noticed something in particular about my current spec/glyphs and our buffs to Divine Plea.

Ragar: Such as?

Solannis: When I'm off-tanking, I have to be really careful to not pull aggro off the main tank. I found that out the other day on the trash leading up to the new Vault boss. The MT asked why I taunted off of him and I said I didn't, which brought about a bit of a tirade. Something about perfect rotations and using every cooldown. Regardless, it means that I have to be a little more cautious. For example: during phase 1 of Mimiron, I can't have Righteous Fury on or I will pull off the MT. For the rest of the fight though, it's fine.

Ragar: Remember to get any pictures this time?

Solannis: As a matter of fact I did, though just two. I forgot to take pictures during the bosses since I was more concerned with living, but I did get a couple good shots on the way to Mimiron.

Tonight's more 25-man work, so hopefully we'll make some progress there. It'll feel a little off though going from Mimiron practice to XT-002 Deconstructor, but hopefully our smaller scale operations will make the 25-man work go that much smoother.

First Impressions of Ulduar and other new stuff

Ragar: Yesterday the doors to Ulduar finally opened up for treasure-hunting adventurers like ourselves. Per the request of the guild Sol and I contract for, he was our representative in their first foray into Ulduar. It was a short trip since everyone got a late start that day, so they only made a little bit of progress. Sol, how was the trip?

Solannis: It took us three or four tries to get Flame Leviathan down, so it wasn't too bad. Nice change from Naxxramas though since it didn't feel like there was a lot of room for errors on our part. I'm not sure that first attempt really counts though since we sorta made a mistake.

Ragar: Oh? What was the mistake?

Solannis: Apparently there are these towers up in the courtyard of Ulduar that do things like send fiery/icy/nature-y/physical doom at you from the sky. We sorta neglected to destroy those towers. That was apparently a mistake. We rectified the problem and after a couple of attempts, the giant doom tank was destroyed and we moved along to Ignis the Furnace Master where we encountered another couple of problems.

First problem, the Flame Ragers in front of Ignis. We received reports today that those are apparently supposed to be attacked primarily from ranged DPS, with melee waiting for the tornados to go away before moving in to attack, then ducking out before the next tornado. Our group? Heavy melee. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

Next was Ignis himself, and apparently there's some issue with the buff he was getting not going away when the Iron Constructs he summoned were heated, cooled, and shattered. It sounds like the issues been dealt with, but we'll have to wait and see on Thursday since we're not scheduled to go back until then.

Ragar: How was the Argent Tournament? I know you did everything available today and Medeleth's working on it, but I haven't had the chance to check it out yet.

Solannis: The mounted combat is a little strange, but after a bit you get the hang of it. Haven't dueled anyone yet though, so I can't vouch for that. As for the rest of the quests, they're fairly simple, but they require a bit of flying around, especially between Crystalsong and the tournament grounds. I'd imagine Medeleth isn't too happy about doing all of that on his flying machine.

Ragar: Hey, if he wants an epic flyer, then he can finish getting that last thousand gold himself. Most of the team's funds have gone into getting dual spec training and even that's not really enough. You, me, and Mordigg have enough, but the shaman's gonna have to wait or start doing dailies like the rest of us.

Solannis: Yeah, he could use the exercise anyway since he doesn't get a lot of instance work. Oh, and I did pick up that other thing we were waiting for. I couldn't get it until I finished today's daily and I'm still working on the rest of the achievements, but I at least have this.

Ragar: Excellent! We'll have to work on the achievements later, but that'll do. Folks, I'm sure we'll have more later this week like on what our specs are or more Ulduar impressions, but until then we'd like to close on this note:

Pretty sure the dragon was supposed to come after the heroics, not before

I finally managed to line Medeleth up with some Emblem of Heroism level work. The catch? It was Malygos, the guy you're supposed to work your way up to through heroic 5-man dungeons and 10-man Obsidian Sanctum and Naxxramas. Med, however, hasn't seen a heroic since Outland. All of the gear he's got is either stuff the team crafted, stuff we bought off the AH or with spare tokens, and a couple of quest drops. His rotation was based off of notes we pulled from a research site and mostly untested (hard to get into a rotation while doing dailies when everything dies in 3-5 hits). I'll admit it - I thought it was going to be a pretty ugly showing on Med's part, but my guildies wanted a ranged DPS and it was either him or I play hunter with my tanking gun.

I suppose I should've given the lock a bit more credit than I did. For someone with no heroic experience, third place isn't too shabby. Admittedly though, that number is inflated a bit by the fact that warlocks can cheat a bit at the fight by teleporting out of the vortexes, but considering that Med didn't have enough health to consistently survive those, I'll let that one slide. Shame there wasn't another warlock in that run though. It would've been helpful to have someone with an Affliction spec to compare Destruction against.

No lock loot from the run, though a resto shaman friend of ours finally got her healing mace, so that's a plus. Med did get his two achievements though and his first two Emblems of Heroism after being 80 for about a month. At this rate he should get his first piece of Emblem gear sometime this fall.

All that work for three little cards

For the last few months, Mordigg's been flying circles around Sholazar Basin to pick weeds. Months of milling herbs to make ink, swearing at the small amount of Icy Pigment that came out of those herbs, and swearing even more at all of the Chaos cards and Eight of Prisms that were made (they say it's random, but Mord's doubtful). Finally though, they're all finished and turned in.

For Medeleth and the shammy, there's Darkmoon Card: Illusion. Far from a best-in-slot for either of them, but considering that Daikaja's only been to two heroics and the lock's hasn't seen a heroic since Outland, it's better than quest rewards.

Mordigg though got the best of the lot - Darkmoon Card: Greatness. While primarily a DPS trinket, it's also a very nice threat-generation trinket for tanks. It's 180 attack power (more if he was Unholy but he's not), 0.46% parry from Forceful Deflection, and the proc will give another 300 Strength for 600 AP and 75 parry rating for 15 seconds. That parry rating will take a bit of a hit from diminishing returns, but this is primarily a threat trinket; the extra avoidance is a happy side-effect.

I'd still like to set Mord up with a heroic Azjol-Nerub run one of these days to get his Essence of Gossamer for an effective health trinket, but this trinket does a better job of filling in a gap he's reported from the field. While improvements in Strength, hit rating, and expertise in his other equipment have improved his threat output overall, Mord says that his primary weakness right now is opening threat. Due to the disease-reliant nature of his abilities, particularly Howling Blast's current dependence on targets having Frost Fever for maximum damage, it can take a full rotation to really grab onto AoE pulls. This problem is further compounded by missing with abilities, but that's another matter. The main issue is that there's no real burst threat from the beginning for Mordigg, so if someone gets trigger-happy before Death and Decay have had a chance to tick once or twice or before he's finished with Icy Touch/Pestilence/Howling Blast, targets can get pulled away in an AoE pull. There's also Rune Strike, but while it's a good chunk of burst threat, it's "on next swing" and doesn't go off if you switch targets so it's unreliable as an opening burst.

We've heard word that Howling Blast is going to start hitting harder regardless of the presence of Frost Fever (apparently it takes longer to recharge though), so that'll definitely help. In the meantime though, adding a bit more oomph to Mord's attacks with the card will have some effect on his threat generation. It doesn't quite deal with the "overzealous DPS that blows cooldowns on one or two targets" problem, but that's what taunts are for (that and letting them die if they keep it up).