Healing Heroic ToC, a guide.

I'm sure this guide is a little late, since most everyone has gotten their fill of ToC by now but here goes anyway.

Phase one: Dumb. Hate it. The only redeeming quality is it is pretty quick. Don't bother buffing before you mount up as it doesn't matter anyway, and most groups run out of the instance to reset it before engaging the 3 bosses. The biggest advice I have for you here is make sure someone is on trample duty, and running down the dismounted bosses before the remount. If you do not do this you will have to knock the bosses off their mounts until you have them all down at the same time. Also make sure you pick a target and kill it as a group. Makes things much faster.

Once the bosses are all dismounted run out of the arena so the bosses reset and you can control aggro from the start. Makes things so much easier. You need to establish a kill order and stick to it. These bosses hit pretty hard, have some nasty AOE and if you don't focus fire and follow the tanks lead you will not make it.

You will get a random mix of any of the three classes Warrior, Mage, Shaman, Hunter or Rogue. Basically here if you get the Shaman, kill him first, or he heals everyone else then Warrior. The other three classes are a piece of cake, and kill order doesn't really matter. Then there is the ever important "DON'T STAND IN THE POOLS OF DEATH". Other than that this encounter is a piece of cake.

The second boss is very much a loot pinata. You will get one of two bosses Eadric the Pure Argent Confessor Paleteress. Eadric is basically tank-n-spank. If you are healing turn your back on the boss or you will get stunned. The magic of being a healer is you do not have to be looking at your target to heal, so there is no reason to ever get caught in the stun. Paleteress, is a little harder (it is all relative) when she hits 25% she will summon a previous boss you have fought. But they are all the same. They have an AOE fear, tremor totem FTW! When the add is dead, engage Paleteress again, kill her.

The Instance is done.


But wait! It is the Black Knight come to crash the party, you are not done yet!

The Black Knight has three phases. Phase one, basic tank-n-spank with one ghoul add, the former arena announcer. As the healer I often kill the add while the rest of the DPS is working on the Black knight. He doesn't hit very hard on this phase and Earth Shield and Riptide should be enough to keep the rest of the party alive while you deal with the ghoul.

Phase two, he is dead, and pissed. He pope Army of the Dead at the start of this phase, and uses Corpse Explosion on all the ghouls you kill. This phase can be tricks. Make sure you stack on the tank so he can get aggro on all the adds, then move out and kill the adds one at a time and move before they explode. Also try to keep out of the Death and Decay. Once all the adds are down, the Black Knight should be almost dead.

Phase three, he is really dead now, and really pissed. To be honest I do not really know what he does here. I have always spent phase three running around like a three year old kid amped up on redbull and vodka casting Chain Heal, Riptide and generally trying not to die.

After that you have spent about 30 minutes, collected three emblems of conquest and hopefully five pieces of epic loot that won't be sharded!

Should I be offended?

Over the weekend I hopped on early Sunday morning while the house was quiet, the wife and kid were sleeping and I could get some uninterrupted WoW quality time. I did a few of the daily's that I still do, like the fishing, cooking and a few tournament ones. Then hopped in the LFG channel while in Dalaran.

I was chatting whit some friends and futzing around when I see LF Healer H ToC then GtG, and others. I think "I'm a healer, I haven't done ToC or others. They are looking for me!

I send a tell, stating as much.

He responds I'm at the north bank, come here I want to inspect you before we invite you.

I want to preface this next paragraph with a bit of a disclamer...I am not a ginormous epeen, nor do I have a giant ego. I run a lot of PuGs. I think running PuGs is one of the best way to learn your class, because there are not that many "oh Shit!" moments in guild runs and raids, as if you are raiding you probably know what you are doing.

I was kind of taken aback! I understand that on a server you can't possibly know every level 80. But I like to think I have kind made a name for myself as an extremely competent healer. Nine times out of ten when joining a PuG I know at least 1 other member. I run A LOT of PuGs I love them. I run them whenever I do not have something going on in guild. But i was kind of offended when he wanted to inspect me just to join his PuG.

I responded "I am geared to heal (or DPS for that matter) any encounter we could possibly see today up to and including Ulduar. I am not going to waste my time or your time for a parade of my gear. If you need a healer I am available otherwise I will go back to my daily's.

I guess he had a discussion with his group and a few minutes later I got an invite. We went on to one shot ToC, HoL and even Occulus (which I hate btw). The group was fun we cleared 3 heroics in just over an hour and a half. With only the occasional death and no wipes.

So the question is I guess. Should I be offended, or am I the ass hole for not cooperating and showing off my gear before the run?

Impossible Achievements

Hello everybody, my name is Skraps and I'm an Achievement Whore. There I have said it. it is the first step in the road to recovery. Even thought I love the achievements and i love seeing them flash on my screen there are plenty of other people with more than me. My problem lies in the fact that when one achievement pops up, I have the compulsive need to complete all other related achievements until I get the title, reward, tabard, or pet associated with it.

As I was perusing the achievement list this morning I came across one that I think must be the most difficult achievement in the game. Incredibly difficult in 25 man, and I'm pretty sure impossible in 10 man.

Earth, Wind & Fire.

How in the hell can that achievement be done?

Blizzcon 2009

I was unable to get myself tickets for Blizzcon this year. I did like the new ticket que system, I think it was a little more fair than last year. I did not get tickets on the first Saturday, and forgot the second Saturday, so I guess that is my bad.

In lieu of going to Blizzcon this year, I choose to buy the Direct TV stream. I am at work all day today, the boss is out at training, and I finished all my pressing projects. I am going to go hide in the server room and watch the stream from one of the servers that I am "Performing maintenance" on.

For all of you out there that got tickets and are going, enjoy the show. If you get close enough, stare creepily at Felicia Day for me. As I think I would seriously consider leaving my wife if she gave me the chance, and I'm pretty sure my wife would be ok with that.

Have you seen my face?

Because Green Day rocked it off last night! As I said before I am not a huge Green Day fan, but after last night they have climbed up the ladder quite a few rungs. Now in my younger days I went to shows almost every weekend, and growing up in the Bay Area I had the opportunity to see a young Green Day, as well as a lot of other post punk bands. I have seen well over 100 bands come through the Bay Area, and this may be the best show I have ever been to. The set list built on itself quite well. They started off rocking and kept it up for just over 3 hours.

Memorable moments were:

1. The 9 year old kid brought on stage from the pit for a evangelical revival during East Jesus Nowhere

2. The high school girl brought on stage to sing Longview while Billy Joe played. This girl, aside from being really nervous rocked.

3. (Quite possibly my all time favorite rock show memory) Started by Billy Joe asking who in the crowd can play guitar, then when he found someone "Can you play Jesus of Suburbia?" You better be able to...cause if you can't we are going to kick your ass!" Well the kid could play it, and he rocked it like he has been playing with Green Day since he was 5!

I am not sure how many more shows they have on this tour, I do know they are playing in Sacramento next week. If you can see them, make the effort, you won't be disappointed!

Green Day Tonight.

Yesterday was my son's first day of high school, yup I'm getting old. To celebrate my aging status I managed to score two tickets to tonight's Green Day show in San Jose, CA. Now I like Green Day, and I think American Idiot is by far the best album (see I'm old, they are still called albums) of the decade. But Green Day is my son's favorite band, like he has been rockin the green day on his CD player/iPod nano since he was 6. I am picking him up from school in about 20 minutes, and taking him to the show. It is a surprise, and he is completely unaware of the fact that I have tickets. Am I a good dad or what?

And now for your listening pleasure...GREEN DAY!

Looking for an artist.

Well I think I have reached that point where I think it is time to do something dramatic. I am tired of the plain default blogger heading. I am looking for an artist that can do a full color image for my to head my blog. Something in a banner format with my Orc Shaman on the left and Troll hunter on the right. Personal tastes lean closer to comic bookie over anime. Not sure what the going rate for something like this would be, but i am willing to pay as well as put a perma-link to the artists work in my side bar. If you are interested or know an artist that may be interested please drop be an email with samples, I will send screen shots of both Shaman and Hunter for reference. Send emails to johnthediver at gmail.com

Thanks