Raz has a Sheeps!

Quick and adorable post. I mentioned in heroics on Friday night the story behind Raz and my overwhelming desire for an Elwynn Lamb to “complete” an aspect of the character’s RP story. It was a comment made in passing, with no real thought aside from the comedic value of the character (and several unfortunate incidents for poor Kirian and Raz at various intervals in Dalaran).

While I was running a heroic on my warlock tonight, our healer asked if I had checked my mail on Raz this evening and I admitted I hadn’t. She recommended I sign him on before logging for the night and check my inbox.

So I did…and as I stood in Dalaran, I saw a mail from a friendly and fun mage I had run with the night before. And inside the mail, there was a lovely note and a gift wrapped package. My curiosity was heightened as I collected the package from my mail, and my jaw fell open when I saw what it contained. Inside the gift wrap was an Elwynn Lamb, just for Raz. There may have been tears in my eyes at such a thoughtful gesture from a member of Lightninghoof”s RP community. She was promptly tackled in tells with more thank yous than I think she ever expected.

And tonight, I signed off from WoW with a smile on my face. Never forget the community–in your guild, or on your realm. There truly are great people out there!

Thank you again Derodra, your kindness and your quick memory have earned you a spot in my heart and on my friends list!

Sixth

Earlier this week I was tagged into a new blog meme called “Sixth” by Bulidar of Among the Elements and  Aralosseien of Achievements Ahoy! The meme was resurfaced by Gnomeaggedon on the 15th of February and I’m not gonna lie, I was sorta paranoid about what my “sixth” was.  But before I share my “sixth,” let me share the rules!

1. Go to your image folder
2. Open the sixth sub-folder and choose the sixth image
3. Publish the image! A few words to describe the picture couldn’t hurt!
4. Challenge six new bloggers
5. Link to them

Like, Bulidar and Aralosseien, I don’t have sub-folders in my images folder, so I selected the sixth image in my screenshots folder.

And without further adieu, I give you my sixth:

Should I be surprised that it’s Raz? Nope. Not in the least! I’m standing on the roof of Grommash Hold, the building that Garrosh Hellscream occupies in Orgrimmar. It was New Years Eve, and it was the first time since I’ve started playing WoW that I sat and watched the fireworks go off! I was later joined by a guildie, Ursal, for chitchat while we chilled. That week I had tanked ES’s first kill of Madness, and was in a generally mellow mood while I farmed satchels for mounts and pets.

Speaking of mounts. I’d like to point out that I finally got a mount from a satchel last night. I just happened to accidentally LOOT the damn thing from the satchel. What did I get you ask? Oh nothing great–just ANOTHER Green Proto. My anguished yell will echo in the hallways of my home for the near future.

Anyway, enough about my bad luck, let’s pick the next round of 6!

• @Mainfloortank of Dancing Runes
• @Boozekin of Boozekin
• @_Rades of Orcish Army Knife
• @_Vidyala of Manalicious
• @DrunkardRegalia (Dreämy) of Drunkard’s Regalia
• @Vitaemachina (Jadissa) of Yelling on the Internet

I’m eagerly awaiting to see what these folks have for their “Sixth!”

Miri’s Thoughts on Guilds – Recruitment

Like my previous post, Miri’s Thoughts on Guilds, this will be another running stream of consciousness about guild management, leadership, and development. None of this is ground-breaking (at least I hope it’s not), but what I think is “normal” has proven to be abstract to someone else. So, enjoy! ~Miri

Recruitment is a hot topic right now if you check on the forums. Like the end of every expansion, players are hitting burn out and stepping away, using the time between the final content patch (Blizzard has already announced that Dragon Soul is the last raid) and Mists of Pandaria to recharge. It’s a stressful time for guilds when they have to deal with a fluctuation of membership, especially so late in the game; during which they hope they can locate quality members to add to their teams. But how do you make your guild stand out above the rest for potential applicants?

Miri on Guild Recruitment

Recruitment isn’t easy. It can be a long (and arduous) process, truly dependent on how your Recruitment Officer handles things. There could be lengthy applications, interviews over a voice chat, possibly even cross realm grouping to see how well the player performs. It could take 24 hours, it could take 2 weeks. Either way, it needs to be a clearly explained process for any potential applicant. In the past I noted that a guild officer would respond within 48 hours to an application and that we would state then if we wanted to proceed further with the application process or if we chose to thank them for their interest but state our reason(s) for not continuing with them.

It’s not just hard on a guild looking for new players, it’s also hard on the applicants. Depending on the guild, you may have to defend your spec, your gemming, your enchanting, your reforging. You may have to explain your professions and your willingness (or lack thereof) to change them. You may have to explain boss fights and your role in them.

For many people, something has pushed them to change things. Maybe they want to progress faster than they currently are, maybe they want to see what a raid is like. Maybe there’s a personality clash or a time zone difference. But no matter what, you have to leave a comfort zone and venture into the great beyond.

I was recruited into my Wrath guild from a Trade channel conversation. When I look back on the entire chain of events, it was rather amusing. I was leveling fishing in Orgrimmar and was being sassy in Trade. It caught the eye of one of the guild’s officers and we struck up a conversation in whispers. It was a great talk and he told me they were looking for a healer and asked if I’d be interested in applying and checking out the guild via some heroics. I agreed and spent all of T7 with them. My guilds for T8 and T10 were me joining up with real life friends for short periods of time before I settled back on my “home” realm and had relaxed fun in PuGs.

Cataclysm saw me join a friend from Twitter towards the end of T11. I remained with them through almost all of T12, only moving on due to time zones killing my sleep patterns. I moved on to another guild that fit my time zone requirements perfectly, and joined a group of people that I knew via Twitter and real life.

Each time I made a move, I had to learn new personalities, I had to get to know new people. I had to learn who was the guild gossip, the guild drunk, the guild freak. Some people are afraid of interacting with strangers and it keeps them in a situation they are unhappy with, or it keeps them from joining a guild at all. Sometimes they they think they’ve found a good place, but later discover it’s not as they get to know the guild’s members.

One of the things I like is on our “About” page for my current guild: not only does it talk about some of the guild’s past achievements, but it speaks to some of the guild personalities. I kept a running “Introduce Yourself” thread on my guild forums where people could post a picture (if they so chose–and surprisingly, I think everyone did!) and talk about their hobbies outside of WoW. Making a thread like that public (viewable only, no posting) to non-members gives them a chance to discover if it’s a guild full of hash smokers or alcoholics or if it’s players who are just enjoying the game and all it’s offerings.

The ability to do cross realm grouping with RealID and the future implementation of BattleTags will make engaging with potential applicants even easier. Not only can you now group with an applicant cross-realm (thus saving them the transfer fee and discovering they hate you, your guild, or your realm), invite them into voice chat, and allow them to truly experience some of the guild in their natural element. Recruitment no longer needs to be a “blind” process in which you hope you got lucky and that the good experiences will outweigh the bad.

It sounds corny, but a guild is a home to me. And I’d prefer to stay there as long as I possibly can.

Why Guilds Recruit

I previously wrote that a guild is like a business, and that a successful guild will operate as such. Every business needs employees to operate. They may be your managers, they may stock the shelves or greet the customers. The employees each fulfill a specific role for the team.

A guild may recruit for their rated BGs team, or their raid group, or maybe just social members. Some guilds prefer to remain small and their recruitment list shows that. A guild may only recruit for their PvE or PvP related aspects. Other guilds may like to have a large roster and will look for people who are interested in socializing in addition to the PvE and PvP play styles. It is truly dependent on the whims of the GM and the guild’s officers to shape the direction that the guild goes.

In the Burning Crusade, a player would join a guild because it was a means of getting into raids, getting regular groups for heroics, and to avoid some of the crafting fees. This is in addition to being able to play with people who you (hopefully) enjoyed playing with. In Wrath, players joined guilds for many of the same reasons, but as the expansion progressed, guilds became less necessary as the content became more and more pugged. In fact, I pugged both of my Lich King kills via Trade because my tiny little guild didn’t have enough geared players to do our own raids.

Cataclysm saw a re-emergence of guild growth, but probably for the wrong reasons. It was even commented about last night while I was running heroics with a player from another guild on realm. Players join guilds now for their perks. I mean, who doesn’t want to run back faster from a wipe? Or have reduced repair fees? The ability to mass rez your group in a Heroic, or summon a friend to you for questing? Being a level 25 guild early on in Cataclysm had huge perks–some guilds were even taking any player who wanted to leech perks as long as they were helping the guild push to level  25.  Some guilds stuck to their guns and the guild leveled via the guild roster–and whenever they hit 25, they were good with it.

In some ways, a level 25 guild is a perk that can be used to draw players in via various recruitment methods, in others, it’s a crutch that inhibits guild growth.

Using Perks to Drive Recruitment

In between trash pack pulls in Well of Eternity, I learned a bit about the player we had pulled in to help us cap the weekly guild heroics.

Our healer commented that he had never seen her guild tag before and she stated that they were a new guild with a small roster. We asked what the guild’s goals were and she informed us that at some point, they hoped to raid. She continued the discussion by sharing that it was really hard to recruit to fill out their roster–simply because of their guild level.

The leveling of guilds, while a great concept to unlock perks, makes it hard for any group who reforms (or forms) to get traction in the server community. People don’t want to have to re-level a guild. People want to join and have the guild be level 25 already. I cringe at thinking about ever losing my level 25 perks. It makes leveling a crafter (or a gatherer) even more painful. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just that I prefer the quality of life benefits that a level 25 guild offers.

There was one night, months ago, that I sat in voice chat with friends and we were discussing recruitment. And a question was posed that has stuck with me since that night. It had such an impact on me that it was the basis for this post.

What perks do we have to offer to a potential recruit?

It is a simple, yet honest, question. Guilds sometimes lock themselves into the mindset of “well, I recruited you and gave you a slot on my Rated BGs/Raid/Arena team. That’s all you need.” But people who are looking for guilds are looking for more than that. They may or may not admit it, but they want to know what guilds can offer them besides a slot on a team.

Here’s where we go back to the discussion of a guild being a business. When I was getting ready to graduate from college, I began job hunting in earnest. I knew the mindset that I wanted my employer to have (work hard, play hard), but I didn’t want to find a job where there weren’t “perks.” Perks in the business world could be a lot of things: 401(k), health care, dental, and even child care. It could be a large amount of vacation time, it could be a Starbucks in your building lobby. It could be a company car or “Beer and Cookies Fridays.” Business perks can be all the things listed in the benefits package, but they can also be things that define the culture of the company you work for.

My previous employer had a great cafeteria that I could grab breakfast from in the mornings. There was a 1st class gym in our basement that I could use free of charge. We could have our laundry picked up and delivered to one of our campuses. We could have our oil changed and cars detailed while we worked. Once a month our VPs hosted a party on the front lawn with beer, wine, and a ton of food and music.

Those “perks” were in addition to a great health care plan, vacation packages, and the ability to have a flexible work schedule. The perks were great and even though I’ve moved on, I’ve had nice things to say about my previous place of employment.

Let’s be honest, the perks and the culture (that’s another post for another time) of the guild are what will attract players. As I looked at the Guild Recruitment forums earlier this week, I saw some great examples of guilds listing their “benefits” to try and woo players into applying to their ranks.

Some things I saw:

• “Core” raid slots – this is usually a big deal for raiders who don’t want to have to have a raid team rotation
• Guild Repairs
• Flasks for raids
• Feasts/Food
• Gemming (gems and cuts)
• Enchanting (mats)

Core raid slots, flasks and feasts are usually more raid specific than anything. If you were a PvPer looking for a guild, having repairs or the guild providing the gems and enchants you need for your newest piece of Conquest gear is a pretty nice deal. The list above was compiled from raiding guilds recruiting and it addresses basically anything a raider could need! The only thing that a player would be expected to do with these perks is 1/ know how to play their class and 2/ research the boss fights. The farming, the AH fees, the general “cost” of raiding has been absorbed by the guild, leaving the potential recruit the ability to spend their personal gold as they see fit.

Using Activities to Drive Recruitment

Activities show that the guild is active in other avenues and is a great way to engage players outside of the typical raid (or PvP) setting.

If your guild is primarily PvE based yet members have shown an interest in trying out PvP, schedule a fun PvP night weekly for players to get together and learn how to play each BG in a low stress environment. If your roster boasts some strong PvPers, see if they are willing to coordinate the teams and be a teacher–when you fight in mid, what the objectives are of the battle, etc. It’s supposed to be fun and a good team-building exercise, so the coordinators shouldn’t be prone to fits if a loss happens or something goes wrong. PvP is also great for raid teams to learn to work with limited communication while working with a team of 1-2 people while holding an objective.

Another idea could be an alt night. It could be for any level of alts, but members could help with dungeon boosting or crafting (I’m sure if I had a big and brawny level 85 out killing mobs for me to skin, I’d never fear leveling Leatherworking again!). Each week the “host” changes, so they can get time to get assistance with their alt(s).

I’ve seen groups who do “old school” raid nights. Whether it be for Transmog runs or achievements, assembling a team of willing guildies to go and run old content can be fun for everyone. It could be vanilla raids, or even TK for a chance at the Ashes of Al’ar. It could even be more current content, like T11 or T12 where people want to finish up achievements.

I often see people looking for a player to group up with for “2s for points.” What if you could keep that within your guild? Some players don’t care what their Arena ranking is, but they would like to be able to pick up new PvP gear. Maybe there’s a set night each week that people who want to try and cap their Conquest can sign on and teams are divvied up to get their points.

An interesting thing I saw done in Wrath was “physical” guild meetings in game. My guild meetings in BC were done over Ventrilo, but a social guild that I joined picked a spot each month to meet in the WoW universe. The “meeting” was conducted in both a raid group and in Vent, and throughout the discussion there were door prizes. The prizes were donated by officers and the “leads” of the various groups that made up the guild. A bit of backstory here: there was a small RP aspect to the guild and members were “assigned” to one of four houses, a la Harry Potter. Each “house” had a leader who a player could go to with their problems or questions. The leader may or may not be an officer, but it was someone who was aware of guild policy and was respected by the members. The night that I was “announced” to my house, my leader told me to pick one “wish” I would like granted by the guild. It could be an epic BoE crafted or purchased, it could be help leveling a profession or even my character! The prizes were 22-slot bags (pretty pricey in Wrath!), rare pets, and even 1K gold! It was a fun way to engage new (and old) members in the guild!

These are things that can be driven at the officer level, or can be handed off to other members of the guild who are interested in playing an active role that benefits many. They can be advertised on the guild website, put on the guild calendar, and should definitely be included in a recruitment post! Let people know that your guild does more than raid or PvP! Let them know that there are reasons to sign on outside of a raid or a rated BG. By having events to keep the guild active, more players on your server will see your guild tag actively, see more people on when they do a /who, and may be interested in joining your fun!

In Conclusion…

An active guild is usually a happy guild. The more people who are on at any given time means that more people are seeing your guild tag on realm. An active guild website/forums shows an applicant that there is stuff regularly happening within the guild. Activities mean that there’s a reason to get involved. Perks show that the officers are interested in supporting and retaining their member base.

Our first impressions usually come from looking–a concise yet interesting recruitment post, a polished and organized website containing application forms relevant to the content and an explanation of guild policies.

Let applicants get into voice chat and into runs with members they would regularly be interacting with. Allow those moments to be unfiltered so that an applicant and get to truly experience the people that they are going to be PvPing or raiding with. Let them truly get to know the guild and it’s regular players so they can determine if they are making the right choice–and so your guild can decide as well.

Keep your guild recruitment activities up-to-date for your members–they may know of people who can fill slots that you have open! Keep them involved in the recruitment process! One of the best changes I ever made was dropping the officer control on my guild recruitment in BC. The officers and I agreed that we shouldn’t be the only ones making the calls about applicants, though our decision was the final one. We allowed our members to review applications, pose questions and feedback (examples of “Oh, you were the person that trade blew up because you ninja’d a ton of stuff from your guild bank and sold it on the AH” was a legitimate response) about the player. Officers are unable to be all-seeing, no matter how many times we tried to be–so utilize your membership to help fill you in!

Hopefully some of these observations will help guilds grow and enable people looking for new guilds to ask questions that may have never sprung to mind in their application process! Best of luck to everyone recruiting for the end of Cataclysm and the launch of Mists!

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Dragon Soul Tanking – 10M Warmaster Blackhorn

Warmaster Blackhorn and Goriona

Though once vast in number, only a few dozen twilight dragons now remain. Astride these hardened survivors are the last vestiges of the Twilight’s Hammer army: the elite drake riders of Deathwing’s personal escort. Led by the insidious Warmaster Blackhorn, they move with unholy purpose, driven to protect their dark master. ~Dungeon Journal

Many players will refer to the Warmaster Blackhorn fight as this expansion’s Gunship. The only accurate part of this statement is that there is a gunship involved. Blackhorn is no where near as easy as ICC’s gunship battle was, and the fight requires heightened awareness by all players in the raid.

The fight has two phases that require a raid to be mobile and attentive to their surroundings.

Phase 1

Phase 1 requires your raid team to break up into teams to handle different aspects of the fight. Melee will be focusing on the Twilight Elite Dreadblades, the Twilight Elite Slayers, and the Twilight Sappers. Ranged will be working on the Twilight Assault Drakes, the Twilight Sappers, and assisting the the Elites when there are no drakes to target.

So let’s take a look at adds:

• Twilight Assault Drakes – These drakes deliver the Dreadblades and Slayers onto the ship, but hang around shooting small purple circles on the deck called Twilight Barrage (Shadow). Twilight Barrage deals 200K damage, which is split between each person within a 5 yard radius of the circle and the ship. Your goal is to have at least 3 members of your raid soak one of these circles, which reduces the amount of damage that the gunship takes. If a player solo soaks a circle, they will probably die unless a cooldown is used. After depositing their riders, the drakes will  be snared  by NPCs using the harpoon guns mounted on the ship and should be focused down by the ranged DPS. The drakes will manage to break away from the ship and will fly off. Once the guns are reloaded, the gunners will recollect the adds for the ranged to resume DPS on.
• Twilight Elite Dreadblade – The first mob to drop onto the deck each time. Dreadblades cast Degeneration (Shadow) in a frontal cone, so the mob must be tanked facing away from the raid. Degeneration deals roughly40K damage each hit, and deals 3K shadow damage every 2 seconds for 1 minute. The debuff stacks and this add should always die first. The Dreadblades also will perform Blade Rush, a charge that will inflict roughly 100K damage on anyone in his path. The target of Blade Rush and the path the Dreadblade will take are clearly shown on the surface of the ship. This gives players a moment to check their surroundings and completely avoid the damage inflicted by the charge if they are aware. Not avoiding this simple mechanic causes a lot of mana waste for healers and, if the target is already at low health, can kill them. This is also the easiest way to get your raid leader into a frenzied rage if players fail to avoid this visible attack.
• Twilight Elite Slayer – Like the Dreadblade, the Slayer will also perform Blade Rush on random players in the raid. Unlike the Dreadblade, the Slayer’s attack, Brutal Strike (Physical), is not a conal attack, and this mob can be pulled around the deck for circle soaking without concern for stacked raiders. Brutal Strike deals 150% weapon damage and causes the target tank to suffer 3K damage every 2 seconds for a minute.
• Twilight Sapper – The Sappers are tiny little Goblins who will drop down on the deck and cloak themselves with a smoke bomb before reappearing and making a mad dash (in a straight line) for the ship’s main cabin. Once inside, they will Detonate their massive load of explosives, causing roughly 250K fire damage to players within 8 yards, causing the gunship to lose 20% of it’s health instantly, and killing the Sapper. Sappers can be slowed, stunned, and Death Gripped back to the front of the ship as the DPS burns them down. When a Sapper spawns, all DPS should immediately switch to him to ensure a timely death.

While you’re fighting the 3 waves of adds that comprise Phase 1, Warmaster Blackhorn is flying around above you on Goriona, waiting to pounce. Goriona is spending this time making your raid’s life a bit more difficult, choosing to cast Twilight Onslaught (Shadow) on the deck of the Skyfire. Twilight Onslaught deals 800K damage which is split between all players within a 10 yard radius. Goriona’s Onslaught is the most deadly and your raid must all move to soak the circle. The only reason a player should remain out of the circle is if a Dreadblade is still active on the deck, and in that case the tank with the Dreadblade should be attempting to solo soak a Twilight Barrage (if one is up).

Tanks should be swapping their adds each time they drop. If a tank picks up the first Dreadblade, they should be getting a Slayer on the 2nd round of adds and then another Dreadblade on the 3rd.

Once all the Twilight Assault Drakes have been dispatched, your raid team has killed 3 waves of Deadblades and Slayers, and the Sappers haven’t destroyed your ship, you’re into Phase 2!

A quick pick of how we (roughly) do positioning. Many thanks to my raid team for running off the ship when I asked them to so I could snap this SS!

Phase 2

Phase 2 is fairly short in length in comparison to Phase 1. There are only 2 mobs in play for this phase and the first can be taken out relatively quickly.

• Goriona is still around and instead of dropping Onslaughts for the raid team to soak, she is casting Twilight Flames, large circles of purple that you don’t want to stand in. The focus of the ranged (and any melee who have ranged abilities) is to get Goriona out of the picture as soon as possible. Once she reaches 25% health, she will abandon Blackhorn and your raid team can focus fire the boss.

Blackhorn has several things that the raid team should be looking out for:

• Devastate Physical - Each stack of Devastate lowers the targeted tank’s armor by 20% in addition to damage each time it applies. The debuff lasts 30 seconds. Tanks should be swapping every 2-3 stacks, depending on comfort level.
• Disrupting Roar Physical - Disrupting Roar causes roughly 50K damage to all raiders and silences anyone standing within 10 yards of him for 8 seconds. Casters and healers will want to position themselves closely to avoid Blackhorn’s Shockwave, but no closer than the 10 yard range.
• Shockwave Physical - A conal attack that Blackhorn will cast on a random target. Shockwave has a graphical representation on the ground and is the reason that the casters should be fairly close to Blackhorn for their attacks. Anyone who is caught in Shockwave when it hits (the spell has a 2.5 second cast) will take about 100K damage and be stunned for 4 seconds.
• Vengeance – For every percentage of his missing health, Blackhorn hits your tanks for 1% more damage.

Tanks should save their cooldowns for the end of the fight and rotate them in order to survive the increased damage from Vengeance.

Paladin Pointers

• Mirror of Broken Images can be used for solo soaking Twilight Barrages.
• I use Divine Protection, glyphed, for soaking Twilight Barrages.
• Use raidwall as much as you can on Twilight Onslaughts. If you can, rotate raidwall with several other raid CDs to help out on damage (Spirit Link, AM, PW: B, AMZ), depending on your raid comp.
• Save as many of your personal CDs for the end of Phase 2.

Glyphing Thoughts

These are my picks, YMMV.

• Prime: Seal of Truth, Shield of the Righteous

Final option is a bit flexible, depending on your gearing and raid. My thoughts:

• Crusader Strike: Valid for fact that fight is a single mob fight. Increased crit results in more damage and a slightly faster boss death.
• Judgement: Totally dependent on if you have the 2pc T13 bonus which grants you an absorb shield each time you judge. Basically you get a larger absorb, which helps to reduce healing required, but I haven’t looked to see how much of a bonus you get. Probably not worth it in the long run, but every little bit helps.

Pick whichever one you feel most comfortable with! I typically glyph for threat over survivability, but it’s personal preference.

• Major: Divine Protection, Focused Shield, Lay on Hands

My logic: Focused Shield because it’s a single mob fight. Lay on Hands for the shorter duration (survivability again, but there’s really nothing stopping you from having a shorter CD on this “save your ass” spell). Divine Protection for the magic damage reduction.

Dragon Soul Tanking – 10M Ultraxion

Ultraxion

More an abomination of dark energy than a dragon, Ultraxion has spent his short life absorbing the essence of captured nether dragons. Ultraxion is the only twilight dragon Deathwing has praised, and his arrogance is overshadowed only by the crackling energies surging through his twisted form. Loyal to his master, Ultraxion swears to bring about the fall of Wyrmrest Temple. ~Dungeon Journal

Ultraxion is a fairly boring fight as long as you can manage to use CDs and click a button at the correct times. For me, the trash prior to the fight is pretty mind-numbing as well–all I do is run around and taunt and my co-tank picks up the adds off me and pulls them into the center circle for the DPS to kill.

Ultraxion Mechanics

Ultraxion is basically a 1 phase fight, so let’s talk mechanics.

• Twilight Shift (Raid) – Announces the beginning of the encounter. The fight is done in the Twilight Realm, and only by clicking a button, Heroic Will, can you leave the realm of twilight.
• Heroic Will (Raid) – Used by the raid team for avoiding death to Fading Light and Hour of Twilight. By timing the click correctly, the player is pulled out of the Twilight realm for 5 seconds, but they are unable to attack for those 5 seconds. The more comfortable you become with the fight (and your lag), you can time button usage in the last seconds of the Fading Light debuff or the Hour of Twilight cast, so you only remain outside of the Twilight Realm for a split second.
• Unstable Monstrosity (Raid) Shadow - An arcing attack that hits the raid for 300K damage, spread across all players in the Twilight realm, every 6 seconds. This mechanic is one of the reasons you stack for the fight. Every minute that Ultraxion remains in combat results in 1 second shaved off his cast time of the spell.
• Fading Light (Current tank and 1 DPS) – Cast on the tank currently tanking Ultraxion and one DPS (this is NEVER cast on a healer). Tanks will need to taunt swap and use their Heroic Will button to leave the Twilight Realm to survive. Failure to leave the Twilight Realm when Fading Light times out will result in instant death on the player. Failure to taunt swap results in some poor DPS getting killed due to Ultraxion resetting his threat.
• Hour of Twilight (Raid) Shadow – A single 300K damage burst to each player remaining in the Twilight Realm when the spell is finished casting. In 10M Normal mode, only 1 player needs to eat the cast and survive it. Tanks can swap off on this duty (1 tank take evens, 1 take odds), but make sure you don’t miss your soak. If both tanks use Heroic Will and there is no one to absorb the damage of Hour of Twilight, the Aspects will die and the raid will wipe.
• Twilight Eruption (Raid) – If 6 minutes pass without a kill, Ultraxion explodes and wipes the raid.
• Twilight Burst (Raid) Shadow - If the raid is not within melee range, Ultraxion will cast Twilight Burst which hits each raid member with roughly 75K in shadow damage every second. In addition to the attack being unable to be resisted, it also increases magic damage taking by 50% for 6 seconds and stacks.

If you have a custom UI that may hide the Heroic Will button, you can create your own by opening your macros pane and creating a macro with /click ExtraActionButton1 as the text. Stick it on your bars are you are good to go.

Aspect Buffs

Each aspect will grant members of the raid with a certain buff. The tanks and the raid do not need to seek out their buffs (Last Defender of Azeroth and Timeloop, respectively), but the healers will need to be aware of their buff spawn timers in order to grab crystals.

• Last Defender of Azeroth – Gifted to the tanks by Thrall, it reduces the CD on defensive cooldowns by 50% and increases their duration by 100%. Thrall casts this spell at the very beginning of the fight.
• Gift of Life (Red) – Cast 1.5 minutes into the fight, Alexstraza will buff 1 healer with a spell that increases all healing done by 100%.
• Essence of Dreams (Green) – Cast 2.5 minutes into the fight, Ysera will buff 1 healer with a spell that causes each heal cast by that healer to be mirrored and distributed across all members of the raid.
• Source of Magic (Blue) – Cast 3.5 minutes into the fight, Kalecgos will buff 1 healer with a spell that reduces the mana cost of all spells by 75% and boosts spell haste by 100%.
• Timeloop - Cast 5 minutes into the fight, Nozdormu buffs your raid with the ability to die, once. The first blow that a player receives that will kill them will instead heal them to 100% of their health, but remove the Timeloop buff.

Icy Veins recommends the healing buffs go as follows:

• Gift of Life – Restoration Druids, Restoration Shamans, Holy Priests
• Essence of Dreams – Taken by healers who heal for the largest amount (gear/ability)
• Source of Magic – Holy Paladins

2/1 Ultrax WoL Spell Usage

Paladin Pointers

• Mirror of Broken Images is still in play for this–use it every time it is up to reduce the damage taken from at least 2 Unstable Monstrosity casts at the beginning (remember that these will get quicker as you go).
• Keep Divine Protection glyphed for when you are eating Hour of Twilight. Chain it with another CD so your health doesn’t dip too low (I usually try to go for Ardent Defender, but don’t forget Guardian of Ancient Kings).
• You can cast raidwall every minute with the 4pc bonus. Put it to good use!

Glyphing Thoughts

These are my picks, YMMV.

• Prime: Seal of Truth, Shield of the Righteous

Final option is a bit flexible, depending on your gearing and raid. My thoughts:

• Crusader Strike: Valid for fact that fight is a single mob fight. Increased crit results in more damage and a slightly faster boss death.
• Judgement: Totally dependent on if you have the 2pc T13 bonus which grants you an absorb shield each time you judge. Basically you get a larger absorb, which helps to reduce healing required, but I haven’t looked to see how much of a bonus you get. Probably not worth it in the long run, but every little bit helps.

Pick whichever one you feel most comfortable with! I typically glyph for threat over survivability, but it’s personal preference.

• Major: Divine Protection, Focused Shield, Lay on Hands

My logic: Focused Shield because it’s a single mob fight. Lay on Hands for the shorter duration (survivability again, but there’s really nothing stopping you from having a shorter CD on this “save your ass” spell). Divine Protection for the magic damage reduction.

Miri’s Thoughts on Guilds

It was a simple enough question, posed on Twitter Thursday morning while I made my morning commute. Rewt, of HearthCast, asked “What does being a Guild Leader mean to you?” I told Rewt that I could write a novel on the topic, and thus this blog post was born. Once again, this post will be a running steam of my consciousness that I hope to be able to tie into a tidy package when I’m done.

While I am not a GM currently, I have worn the hat in previous years. I ran a fairly successful raiding guild in my BC days and incorporated much of my business background into how I ran my guild. So let’s start there.

Miri’s Past as a GM

As I’ve mentioned, I was the GM of a raiding guild in BC. I set up a medium sized officer core (There were 7 in guild leadership, yes, I just had to pause and count): 1 GM, 2 Raid Leaders, and 4 Officers who each wore a different hat. 2 were in charge of recruitment. 1 was responsible for strat planning and illustrating positioning for fights, and 1 was responsible for dealing with guild drama. The raid leaders were responsible for setting the raid team each week and I, the GM, was responsible for our loot system (EPGP), forums access, guild website updating, and paying the bills each month. My expectation was that my officers would represent the guild well and that we would meet weekly as an officer team to review issues, applicants, the roster, and any other topics of discussion.

The guild as a whole was responsible for reviewing applicants, commenting on their performance by reviewing their logs (I totally forget what WoL’s precursor was at this point), and helping supply the raid team.

We were raiding before guild banks even existed (gbanks went in with 2.3.0), but I remember the patch where guild banks were added into the game. And I hesitated at first, wondering how people would feel about a central repository for supplies. Would they feel like it was taking away from their own collections of mats, or would they embrace it completely and load it with stuff? And who would fund the creation of the bank and it’s tabs?

Amazingly, I didn’t have to worry about it. People threw gold at me to buy tabs. Which was incredible. Gold was hard to come by for raiders. We could  do a couple dailies (there was a low cap at this time), but people were trying to afford flying (and epic flying!), and pay repair bills and everything else. Gold wasn’t easy to come by back then, especially when there was no dual spec!

Within weeks we had 6 tabs and I was amazed! So then I had to wonder how we were going to keep them stocked…

And I sat with the officers and pondered it in one of our weekly meetings. How could we put the guild bank to good use? And the response was what was expected: “to supply the raid team!” And then I asked, “how do we do that?” And the response was as you could expect: “Enchanting mats (this was pre-scroll days)! Gems! Food! Herbs! Flasks!”

My next question was simple as well: “What could we do to make people want to gather supplies and possibly even give up their personal stocks to benefit the team?”

That night we devised an addition to our weekly EPGP calculations. Every item donated to the bank was assigned a value. Even money. We agreed on a set amount of EP that could be earned by guild bank donations and published it on the guild website under our guild FAQ.

But how did we get our social members to participate? They didn’t need to earn EP if they weren’t raiding. We agreed that anyone who donated would have the ability to be the recipient of items in the bank. BoEs, patterns that the raid team didn’t need, crafting supplies, etc. But they couldn’t receive if they didn’t donate.

All guild bank withdrawal requests were published to a special forum. Each requester had to make a case for the item. Flasks for raid that night. Primals for crafting resist gear. Whatever it may be, it was published for all to see with an approval or a reason for rejection published by the officers. And since we didn’t want to wait for our weekly meeting to get supplies to our team, a “majority” vote between 3 random officers could be performed at any time and the supplies granted.

All major guild decisions were socialized to the guild. I was very big on driving open lines of communication with my members. We held a guild “State of the Union” every month. Every member of the guild was invited into Ventrilo and we discussed our successes and our failures over the past month. We asked for membership feedback on what our strengths were and where we could improve.

One of the things outsiders thought was odd was how we handled our raiding decisions when Patch 2.4.0 hit (dropped all the attunement requirements for the raids). While all the raid team was attuned to the content we were progressing in, we hadn’ t downed Kael yet. We could create an artificial wall and not let ourselves move into Tier 6 content until we downed him, or we could begin to progress in the Tier 6 content while still working on downing Kael. Instead of the Raid Leaders or the officers making the call, we put our progression decision into the hands of the raid team. The final vote was surprising. The team was willing to make a push into Tier 6, but their priority was Kael dying. And then they became even more specific in that they were willing to step into Mount Hyjal. But Black Temple would have to wait until Tempest Keep was completely cleared. The decision surprised the officer team, but it was a majority decision. That night, after the meeting, we stepped into Mount Hyjal.

We never saw Black Temple as a guild. Kael was eventually our  guild killer, but we had progressed to 3/5 in Hyjal when we shut our doors. To this day I wonder if we should have broken our rule of skipping BT, but honestly? I’m glad we stuck to our decision. It was a raider decision, and we respected that until our dying breath as a casual progression guild.

A Guild is a Business

Think about it. Not from a money-making perspective, but a good guild will operate like a business. Let me explain.

Totally using the Apple store as an example for this–no, I am not an Apple employee and know nothing about their business practices, but having sold electronics, alcohol, firearms, and a good amount of other stuff in my life, it’s a fair basis for this discussion. –Miri

A store will have a Store Manager who oversees all the business that is performed there. They may be in charge of the raises, the bonuses, and they report back to a chain of command that in this case really doesn’t matter. They are probably largely responsible for the appearance of their store and make sure that signage is current, the product on display is in good working order, and that the employees are a good representation of their customer base.

That store manager probably has shift managers; people who are responsible for overseeing how the team operates and performs when the store manager is off or unavailable. They may handle assignments and tasking of the other employees, provide evaluations to the store manager, and be around to address any customer or team concerns.

You’ve got the Genius Bar employees. These employees are going to be much more skilled than the other floor workers as they have a particular focus. They spend time after work doing training, possibly responding to issues on a forum or traveling to train other teams. These employees are a small subset of all the employees in the store; a customer must book an appointment to get time with them.

Then you’ve got the regular store employees. These are the people who greet you at the door, ask if you have questions when you look at a product, ring up your purchases, refresh stock, and thank you for stopping by.

So why do I use Apple for this example? I’m not going to lie–my  best shopping experiences have been in an Apple store. They work as a team, represent their product well, and are efficient and effective in service and support. From a business perspective, they do it all right.

You know you’re walking by an Apple storefront because it’s uncluttered and welcoming. The products are sitting right out for anyone to touch. They supply the basics of information with each product in unobtrusive packaging. And if you have a question? Someone is quick to address your needs and concerns.

Pause and think about it.

Your Guild is a Business

That store manager? That’s your GM. They hold the power of guild repairs, promotions to officer status, the keys to the guild bank, and in all reality, the success of the guild rests on the shoulders of the Guild Master. If a GM doesn’t give their guild members (or a store manager their employees) the tools to succeed, then a guild will not succeed.

The shift managers are your officers. Your officers may wear different hats or may be aligned to specific causes. Some officers may be responsible for recruiting. Some may be the Raid Leaders, some may be tasked with the technical needs of the guild. But like the GM, the officers are responsible for making sure that the guild is a healthy place for growth and development of it’s members (just like a manager needs to help an employee grow professionally).

The Genius Bar? That’s probably your raid team. These are players who play a very specific role for the guild. They are your tanks, your healers, your DPS. They probably spend a lot of time outside of the game researching their classes, looking to improve themselves. They are reviewing data from previous raids, looking for weak points, studying boss fights, strategizing with fellow teammates. They probably devote more time outside of game to the game than they do in the game (or at least I hope they do. We’ve already established that I have a much higher level of expectation set for my raid teams than others do, but we won’t venture down that rabbit hole right now).

And the general employees? That’s probably your social core. They are the non-raiders, the friends and family. They may be trying to work their way up to the Genius Bar level, or maybe they are just content with signing on and playing for a couple hours. Maybe they have high aspirations. Maybe they don’t. But at their level, it doesn’t matter if they do or don’t, because there’s not a lot of responsibility foisted on this role.

And your storefront? That’s your guild webpage, that’s your guild tag in game. Most guilds have a web front that potential applicants can be directed to. It may host forums, a tally of boss kills, miscellaneous information about the guild, the application process, anything your mind can think of. A website that isn’t current or a forum that’s pretty inactive can lead an applicant to wonder if the guild is really as active as they claim to be.

Why You Should Run Your Guild Like a Business

A guild is only as strong as it’s officer team is. A weak (or largely inactive) leadership team will create a lot of tension in a guild environment. Ineffectual leadership will also have a toll on the member base. Guild leadership must prove that they can wear the hat(s) that they need to in order to help the guild succeed.

It sounds crazy, but think back to past employers, or even your current job. If you have a weak manager, you’re probably frustrated. They probably aren’t championing you for a promotion or a pay increase. You may feel that they are doing nothing for you but just enough for themselves to get a moment in the spotlight. Maybe you won that big deal or delivered ahead of schedule to a very demanding client. Was your success acknowledged? Did you benefit from the effort you put forth?

If you answered no, you’re probably unhappy in your current job. If you could transpose words about raiding (gonna be honest, singling out raiding here because being a non-raider in a guild is pretty much a foreign concept to me) into that sentence, you could possibly make it relate to your guild or your progression (YMMV).

So how do you supply benefits to your raid team to make them keep showing up week after week and wiping as the team learns content? Well, Blizzard created guild repairs, funding that comes from the guild bank. The basis of guild perks also allows for additional gold to be skimmed off bosses and even mobs killed while questing (aka, basically free money)! Guildies can also help add additional funds by helping cap the guild’s weekly heroics requirement.

Repairs can be funded by the guild. Feasts can be cooked and dropped before a boss fight (fish either purchased or gathered by the raid team members or even by others who want to help the raid team out). Cauldrons can be dropped for flasks (and once again the mats can be gathered or purchased). Some guilds go so far as to pay for gemming or enchanting supplies as well.

As odd as it may sound, those sort of things being supplied to a raid team are a lot like “spot awards” or bonuses to employees. They get some benefit for their efforts.

A funny side story. A few years ago, my employer decided to remove all the soda machines from our break rooms. We had full access to every Coke and Pepsi product on the planet, and kept nice and cool in chillers. We had bottles of water, we had fruit juices, we had everything. And it was all free. It was a perk that made people not mind working 10-15 hour days–they could wander right down the hall and grab a drink before heading back to their desk. They never had to leave the building. And then they vanished. And honestly? It was the beginning of the morale dip that has had a major impact on our output and in my mind, our quality. Some can sit there and scoff and say “it’s a fucking soda, Miri” and they would  be right. But it was a part of the culture. It was something that made you feel like you were a valued employee. It wasn’t a bonus, it wasn’t extra cash you had to pay taxes on, but it was a small thing that made you feel wanted. Food for thought…

If your raiders are supplying a large majority of their supplies, then assist them with tips for crafting fees, access to the bank for repairs, etc. It may seem like a tiny and meaningless gesture, but it’s probably appreciated and shows that you value the contribution that they make to the guild or the raid team.

Side note, a guild that I have an alt in turns on guild repairs for even the lowest ranks. I will admit that I was amazed when I went to repair on a lowbie and could use the guild funds for that! It wasn’t a large amount (probably no more than 3g a day), but the gesture was incredible.

In Conclusion…

Being a guild leader isn’t easy work. Well, it can be. It truly depends on the team that supports you. A good guild leader is easily accessible, whether it be in game, or on the forums, or some chat program (people are big on Skype and AIM and even texting nowadays–we didn’t do that stuff when I was a GM!), your members can always drop you a note. It’s about being able to make the hard decisions, and knowing which decisions you need to propose for vote. It’s about making sure your guild management reflects what the guild is about and that it represents players from all avenues. It’s not for the faint of heart!

A good business has a passionate leader and management team. A good guild will be built on the same premise.

And like a good business, a good guild will continue to grow and expand.

Dragon Soul Tanking – 10M Hagara the Stormbinder

Hagara the Stormbinder

Hagara, one of the first students of arcane magic under the Forsaken, showed surprising potential for one who had started learning so late in life. But in her undisciplined attempts to bind elementals into servitude, she was ensnared and twisted by the Windlord, Al’Akir. Now fiercely loyal to the Twilight’s Hammer, Hagara binds others for her elemental masters to torment. ~Dungeon Journal

Hagara is another solo tank fight in Dragon Soul. If your raid team is REALLY bored (or lacking in DPS), the first 4 fights of the raid can be solo tanked (but that’s another post).

Hargara has roughly 3 phases: Ice, Lightning, and her “primary” phase. Each phase lasts 50 seconds (minus the first primary phase you start in, which is 30 seconds in length). The phase you start with depends on the weapon imbue she has when she spawns, but each ice and lightning phase has a “normal” phase between them. So let’s look at phases!

Primary Phase

Generally a more aware tank and spank, the notable things a raid should be looking out for are as follows:

• Focused Assault (Tank) Physical – The only thing a tank will need to worry about during the primary phase. Focused Assault is cast every 15 seconds (twice when you start the fight and then roughly 3 times for every other primary phase you enter) and simply requires the tank to run through Hagara, strafe, or step backwards. Hagara will not move when casting Focused Assault, so it is very easy to avoid. She deals 50% of her melee damage every half a second for 5 seconds.
• Ice Lance (Ranged/Healers) Frost – Ice lance is cast twice per phase and the ranged DPS and healers need to be on the lookout for beams. The spell will focus on 3 random players and will cast once a second for 15 seconds, dealing 15K damage to the recipient and any other player within a 3-yard radius. The spell also applies an attack speed debuff of 25% but not a casting speed debuff. Due to the close positioning of melee with a tank, the splash damage can escalate (and all the melee want their attack speed to remain the same), but the 3 beams of ice can be interrupted by any ranged DPS or healer. If you have an ability to reduce your damage taken while “soaking” the ice lance, use it to help out your healers.
• Ice Tomb (DPS/Healers) Frost – Just thinking of this spell gives me flashbacks back to Wrath! The plus side of this attack is that it doesn’t chain–but that’s about the only plus side. Ice tomb is cast once per phase and will “freeze” 2 players in ice blocks that need to be DPS’d down to free the players. The entombed party members will be unable to receive healing and take 7K damage each second from the spell. The faster they can be broken out, the better. Targets are identified with a small blue arrow over their heads (looks exactly like the arrow that bounces over a tank’s head on Madness for the impale) and it is recommended that they stack on an assigned side of Hagara to be AoE’d down. Affected raiders have 7 seconds to get into position before they are frozen. It is worth noting that the ice tombs create an LoS issue for healers so try to position them on the opposite side of Hagara from your ranged team. Anyone can be entombed, except for the tank, and there is a distinct possibility that 2 healers can be frozen at once. Plan accordingly.
• Shattered Ice (All) Frost – A large spike of damage that deals 78K damage to a single random target in the raid. Movement is also slowed for 4 seconds. According to Icy Veins the spell is cast right before or right after Focused Assault.

Based on Hagara’s weapon imbue, you’ll either be given the Lightning Phase or the Ice Phase 30 seconds after the fight starts. Neither are hard to deal with and your phase order will always go as follows: Primary Phase (30 sec) > Lightning/Ice (until you beat mechanic) > Primary (50 sec) > Lightning/Ice (until you beat the mechanic) > Primary (50 sec) > etc., etc., etc.

When Hagara transitions, she will put up a shield that makes her immune to damage. The shield will drop as soon as you complete the objective set forth in the Ice or Lightning phase!

Lightning Phase

Unlike 25M, where the Bound Lightning Elemental spawns right next to one of the Crystal Conductors, the add is slightly North(east?) on the map. The add will always spawn in the same location, so there should be no issues for your team finding the add.

The tank needs to pick up the add (be forewarned that Army of the Dead will able to taunt this add, which can sometimes make positioning difficult) and drag it over to one of the nearby Crystal Conductors. Kill the add and chain the resulting lightning to the 3 other Conductors to end this phase.

Lightning Storm is cast every 2-3 seconds and will target 3-4 random players in the raid with 15K damage. Each time they are hit by Lightning Storm, they gain a stacking debuff that increase the Nature damage they take by 5%. Any resistance buffs that can be run should be popped during this phase (meaning, unlike what you’ve seen in LFR, hunters should run Aspect of the Wild instead of that joyous Aspect of the Daze).

Once you complete the objective of the Lightning phase (activating all 4 conductors), Hagara’s shield drops and she becomes stunned (thanks to Feedback) and takes 100% increased damage for 15  seconds. This is usually a great point to pop Bloodlust (timing is totally dependent on your raid leader and which phase you choose to burst her down in). Once the stun falls off, you are put back into the Primary phase.

Personal Raid Herp Derp

Ice Phase

The ice phase is a great moment to determine which of your raid team is prone to herp derp. I am guilty of totally doing stupid crap during this phase and dying like a fail. More fun (as pictured on the right), is when all 3 healers bite it and then the tanks zone out (I pulled with little to no warning to my co-tank and he didn’t have time to spec swap) and die together as well. I’d like to point out that all the DPS is alive and they managed to finish the fight without half the team >.> I may have also died last night while healing along with my co-tank again! Moral of the story is: watch out for the ice! –Miri

Just like the Lightning phase, there are 4 pillars that need to be dealt with–in this case they are Frozen Binding Crystals.

When the phase starts, Hargara generates another shield to protect herself with,  but this one comes with a deadly debuff: Watery Entrenchment. The debuff drops a player’s health by 15% every second and slows their movement speed by 50%. It is wise to have the raid in motion towards the outer edges before this phase officially starts.

When the transition occurs, the 4 crystals drop into place and can be immediately DPS’d by the raid team. Once these 4 crystals are brought down, the phase ends.

Between each crystal spawn point (slice the platform into 4 wedges, spin the pie 45° and do another 4 wedges. The first 4 are your crystals, the second 4 are your ice waves), an Ice Wave will spawn. Ice waves result in an instant 200K damage and will usually 1-shot every player that they touch. If the wave manages to not kill you, touching it will result in a 50% increase in frost damage taken for the next 2.5 seconds. The best way to handle movement with the Ice Waves is to remain as close to the bubble as you can, without touching it, to make sure you have enough time to move from the wave: The further out on the circle you are, the more time it takes you to move versus a person who is running on the inside of the platform.

While DPSing Crystals and dodging Ice Waves, you’re also on the lookout of Icicles. If you’ve run The Deadmines, during the first dream sequence in the Foundry, there are circles that spawn on the ground before ice falls. Exact same concept on this fight: the circle will spawn on the ground, make sure you remember where it was and move accordingly, as the circle will vanish after 4 seconds before the ice lands 1 second later. Icy Veins notes that anyone within a 7-yard radius will be damaged for 100K.

Avoid the circles, outrun the waves, and kill the crystals to push your team back into the the Primary phase. Rinse and repeat until Hagara dies!

Paladin Pointers

• If you usually derp on Focused Assaults, it might be worth popping a CD right before one lands so you don’t eat the damage. It’s worth noting that I have timed movement just right on this fight and managed to cancel out a Focused Assault that she only cast for a split second. It took some really good timing and some fast movement, but it can be done!
• Pop Mirror of Broken Images when you’re running for the Lightning phase.
• Another option is to use Divine Protection (should still have this glyphed) while running the Lightning phase when Mirror drops off.

Glyphing Thoughts

These are my picks, YMMV.

• Prime: Seal of Truth, Shield of the Righteous

Final option is a bit flexible, depending on your gearing and raid. My thoughts:

• Crusader Strike: Valid for fact that fight is a single mob fight. Increased crit results in more damage and a slightly faster boss death.
• Judgement: Totally dependent on if you have the 2pc T13 bonus which grants you an absorb shield each time you judge. Basically you get a larger absorb, which helps to reduce healing required, but I haven’t looked to see how much of a bonus you get. Probably not worth it in the long run, but every little bit helps.

Pick whichever one you feel most comfortable with! I typically glyph for threat over survivability, but it’s personal preference.

• Major: Divine Protection, Focused Shield, Lay on Hands

My logic: Focused Shield because it’s a single mob fight. Lay on Hands for the shorter duration (survivability again, but there’s really nothing stopping you from having a shorter CD on this “save your ass” spell). Divine Protection for the magic damage reduction.

Dragon Soul Tanking – 10M Warlord Zon’ozz

Warlord Zon'ozz

Countless ages ago, Warlord Zon’ozz and his soldiers waged endless war against the forces of C’Thun and Yogg-Saron. Millennia have passed, but the warlord still serves the chaotic might of the Old God N’Zoth. Deathwing has now unleashed this legendary faceless one to crush the defenders of Wyrmrest Temple. ~Dungeon Journal

Warlord Zon’ozz was the biggest PITA at the launch of Dragon Soul. The orb he spawns would bounce off just about everything. Or so it seemed. It could have also been people not moving when they were told to. Anyway. Much rage was had over Zon’ozz and I finally now feel like I can do a legitimate post on him without putting myself into an incoherent rage.

The fight is comprised of 2 phases that alternate. Phase 1 lasts as long as the raid chooses to let it, and Phase 2 has a set length before Zon’ozz reverts back to phase 1. Zon’ozz is a solo tank fight, due to one of his mechanics (explained below).

Zon’ozz

Phase 1, also known as Pong, requires your raid team to separate into 2 teams and act as the “paddles” in pong to bounce a summoned orb between the groups.

During Phase 1, the following abilities are in play:

• Focused Anger (tank) Physical – Focused Anger is a stacking buff that Zon’ozz gains every 6 seconds, causing him to deal 10% increased physical damage and increases his attack speed by 10%. The higher the stacks go, the more damage the tank takes.
• Psychic Drain (tank/healers) Shadow - a 30° frontal cone that hits whomever is standing in front of the mob with 120K shadow damage every 20 seconds. Psychic Drain also heals Zon’ozz for 10 times the amount of damage he deals with the spell. Your raid will need to be very aware  of their positioning and the heal is why you solo tank this fight. No need to heal the boss for any more than you have to!
• Disrupting Shadows (healers/DPS) Shadow – A DoT that is cast on 3 members of the raid team (never the tank) that must be dispelled before it kills it’s target. The challenge: the DoT deals 30K damage every 2 seconds (for up to 20 seconds) and when dispelled deals another 60K to the target. In addition, the dispelled target is knocked back. Healers will need to make sure health pools are above 60K before dispelling, and DPS will need to make sure that the knock back won’t send them flying into the Void of the Unmaking.

While your tank is trying to use CDs, and the healers are trying to dispell and keep the tank alive, the DPS are playing a fun game of ball bouncing.

We usually choose to put 2 healers with the melee group. One to focus on the tank and another to dispell and heal the melee group. A third healer remains with the ranged group and has full responsibility for that team.

It it worth noting that the  orb has a 5 second ICD that it can’t be bounced. This will lead to situations where the ball will pass through the melee and (usually) 1-shot the tank. An easy check to determine if your ranged and melee groups can be done as such: If the ranged healer can heal the tank, the groups are too close.

When the orb is bounced, Void Diffusion occurs, which deals 180K shadow damage evenly amongst the team that bounces it. This fight is a good reason as to why you should bring an even spread of melee and ranged–you need at least 3 to reduce the damage split down to 60K a player for the ranged group.

Zon’ozz has a chance to spawn an orb roughly every 90 seconds. The 2nd phase of the fight lasts approximately 30 seconds, so your raid team will have to plan accordingly on how many times your team will bounce the orb before triggering Phase 2.

Black Blood of Go’rath – AKA, the pre-Ultraxion PC test

Phase 2 begins when Zon’ozz absorbs the orb that the DPS team has been dutifully bouncing between the melee and ranged. The orb will reset all stacks of Focused Anger and Zon’ozz will take increased damage from the raid for 30 seconds. The amount of damage Zon’ozz takes is dictated by the number of times the raid bounced the orb. For each bounce, Zon’ozz takes an additional 5% damage (we choose to bounce the orb 5 times each phase 1, which means Zon’ozz will take 25% more damage when we enter phase 2).

Over the course of the phase, Zon’ozz will cast Black Blood of Go’rath, which causes about 14K damage to each raider every second for 30 seconds (so go for a group hug and stack on Zon’ozz’s butt!). This phase is a great time to use CDs like PW:B, raidwall, AM, Tranq, and AMZ. Depending on your raid makeup, you may be able to use 1-2 CDs a phase. Also save Bloodlust for a black blood phase so you can do faster (and more) damage!

After 30 seconds, Zon’ozz reverts to phase 1 and you rinse and repeat until he dies!

Paladin Pointers

• CDs are your friends, but save them as stacks of Focused Anger ramp up as the orb is bounced. I usually try to chain my CDs off of Psychic Drain, trying to mitigate as much of the shadow damage as I can.
• Another fight where you can make use of Mirror of Broken Images. If you don’t have this trinket after it being a god for 3 tiers, I’m gonna smack you.
• If you are bored for the 15 seconds between the orb absorption and half of the Black Blood of Go’rath phase, you can Holy Radiance. It’s pitiful, but it’s something to do while you’re not getting melee’d.

Glyphing Thoughts

These are my picks, YMMV.

• Prime: Seal of Truth, Shield of the Righteous

Final option is a bit flexible, depending on your gearing and raid. My thoughts:

• Crusader Strike: Valid for fact that fight is a single mob fight. Increased crit results in more damage and a slightly faster boss death.
• Word of Glory: Situational at best–depends on how much faith you have in your healers =) It’s helpful if your healers are juggling dispells or DPS that don’t stack and are requiring extra healing.
• Judgement: Totally dependent on if you have the 2pc T13 bonus which grants you an absorb shield each time you judge. Basically you get a larger absorb, which helps to reduce healing required, but I haven’t looked to see how much of a bonus you get. Probably not worth it in the long run, but every little bit helps.

Pick whichever one you feel most comfortable with! I typically glyph for threat over survivability, but it’s personal preference.

• Major: Divine Protection, Focused Shield, Lay on Hands

My logic: Focused Shield because it’s a single mob fight. Lay on Hands for the shorter duration (survivability again, but there’s really nothing stopping you from having a shorter CD on this “save your ass” spell). Divine Protection for the magic damage reduction.

Dragon Soul Tanking – 10M Yor’sahj the Unsleeping

Yor'sahj the Unsleeping

Since the fall of the Bastion of Twilight, Yor’sahj the Unsleeping has eagerly assisted Deathwing, providing the Destroyer with the means to release more faceless ones from their prisons deep beneath the earth. Their numbers are endless and their power is beyond reckoning, and Yor’sahj intends to reap a grim reward for his faithful service. ~Dungeon Journal

Yor’sahj, while a simplistic fight in regards to mechanics, is all about quick thinking and solid executing by the involved parties.

Let’s discuss what Yor’sahj will do before we look at the oozes do.

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Yor’sahj

The boss itself is not complex for a tank team to deal with. Yor’sahj only has one ability, Void Bolt. Simplistic enough on the ability count list, the Void Bolt does a significant amount of damage and is cast at an irregular rate while applying a shadow damage DoT to the tank currently at the top of his threat list. The DoT ticks for roughly 5K every 2 seconds, and your tank team can decide if they want to tank swap or solo tank this fight.

Yor’sahj also has a melee ability that he uses every 2.5 seconds on the tank which deals some damage as well.

Every 75 seconds, Yor’sahj will summon three oozes into play. Since Yor’sahj is not attacking a tank during the summons, a tank can logistically drop their stacks of the Void Bolt DoT and continue to tank him once the summon is finished. Yor’sahj can still continue to be attacked while he is summoning, so make sure that your ranged are making good use of the time getting to the oozes by doing additional DPS.

The goal of the DPS is to burn the ooze identified by the Raid Leader, which will cancel out Yor’sahj receiving that buff. The remaining oozes become immune and will be absorbed by Yor’sahj and distributed back out onto the raid.

Oozes – Taste the Rainbow!

It’s worth noting that every globule provides some form of magic damage (minus blue because it just sucks your healers and casters dry), so plan appropriately.

• Shadowed Globule (Purple) Shadow - The Shadowed Globule applies Deep Corruption, which causes a large amount of Shadow Damage on the raid (46K roughly) for each fifth heal or absorb that a player receives. Should you not choose to kill the Shadowed Globule, you’ll want to put a healer with large heals on the tank currently tanking Yor’sahj in order to reduce the amount of healing spells that are output. Other healers should be assigned to heal the raid if the other color combinations are green (Acidic) or red (Crimson), but your goal is to do as little healing as possible with the Shadowed Globule out.
• Acidic Globule (Green) Nature – The Acidic Globule applies Digestive Acid, which causes damage (60K) to a random member of the raid and all players within 4 yards of them. This ooze is the only one which will cause the raid to spread instead of stack.
• Glowing Globule (Yellow) Shadow – The Glowing Globule applies the Glowing Blood of Shu’ma, which allows Yor’sahj to attach your tank 50% faster and casts Void Bolt twice as often. The Glowing Globule also results in the Void Bolt having an AoE effect that hits everyone the raid while the DoT is still applied to the tank. The raid is expected to stack and soak the AoE healing that the healers will put out. Tanks will need to be aware that stacks are applied at a quickly increasing rate and should be ready to use CDs and taunt on a much quicker basis if you choose to 2 tank this fight.
• Dark Globule (Black) Shadow Damage Adds – The Dark Globule spawns a large number of Forgotten Ones which fixate on random raid members and cast Psychic Slice for 35K damage. The raid should quickly stack in preparation for large amounts of AoE to kill the adds and heal the raid.
• Crimson Globule (Red) Fire – The Crimson Globule applies Searing Blood, which looks a lot like a fiery chain heal (our shaman all want this ability). The spell jumps between 3 players and the damage increases the further out from the boss that the raid member is standing. The raid is expected to stack on the boss and continue to DPS until Yor’sahj loses the buff.
• Cobalt Globule (Blue) – The bane of the casters, the Cobalt Globule spawns a Mana Void which drains the mana pool of all your casters/healers. Once all mana pools are drained, casters can resume regenerating their mana slowly and resume casting. When the Mana Void dies, the mana is distributed evenly to all casters within 30 yards of it’s death location. When the Mana Void spawns, all DPS want to switch to it so that the healers can resume healing the tanks and the casters can resume DPS on the boss.

The TLDR stack vs. spread of the globules can be found here:

• Stack – Shadowed, Glowing, Dark, Crimson, Cobalt
• Spread – Acidic

ES ooze kill order:

• Purple > Green > Yellow

This fight simply repeats until the boss dies!

Paladin Pointers

• Be prepared to raidwall through through the Acidic Globule, Glowing Globule, and maybe the Dark Globule. Acidic and Glowing take priority though.
• If you are solo tanking, save CDs for Glowing. You’re going to be taking a TON of hits, so as many as you can reduce the better off you are and the more mana your healers have to heal you. This will especially get ugly if you  have a combination that results in both a Glowing and Cobalt globule being absorbed by Yor’sahj. Your healers are going to be drained of mana and you’re going to be getting owned. Here’s your chance to shine with all your lovely CDs!
• Mirror of Broken Images. AKA, the tanking legendary. Use it.

Glyphing Thoughts

These are my picks, YMMV.

• Prime: Seal of Truth, Shield of the Righteous

Final option is a bit flexible, depending on your gearing and raid. My thoughts:

• Crusader Strike: Valid for fact that fight is a single mob fight. Increased crit results in more damage and a slightly faster boss death.
• Word of Glory: Situational at best. I would probably lean on this if I was solo tanking the fight, just because being able to get a quick WoG up when you’re low on health on something like Glowing is good.
• Judgement: Totally dependent on if you have the 2pc T13 bonus which grants you an absorb shield each time you judge. Basically you get a larger absorb, which helps to reduce healing required, but I haven’t looked to see how much of a bonus you get. Probably not worth it in the long run, but every little bit helps.

Pick whichever one you feel most comfortable with!

• Major: Divine Protection, Focused Shield, Lay on Hands

My logic: Focused Shield because it’s a single mob fight. Lay on Hands for the shorter duration (survivability again, but there’s really nothing stopping you from having a shorter CD on this “save your ass” spell). Divine Protection for the magic damage reduction.