A Dangerous Boss…

Your party careful approaches the sleeping beast. Its heavy snores manage to deafen the sound of your footsteps, crunching small twigs, remnants perhaps of its great nest. But, oh, one of your … less than agile comrades has trodden on something… It makes a sharp CRACK. The offending person lifts his boots, seeing a yellowy substance on it. Smelled like breakfast.

But it was too late to attempt to flee. No chance to escape. The beast lifts its head; feathers ruffle, as it opens its beak and roars…

Enter the Moonkin.

Moonkin

Boss Abilities:

Insect Swarm Applies a swarm if insects that bite its target. Target takes 3000 damage every 2 seconds for 16 seconds, and chance to hit is reduced by 10%.

Moonfire A beam of Moonfire strike the target, causing 4000 damage, and an additional 3500 every 3 seconds for 12 seconds.

Barkskin The Moonkin’s skin becomes tough as bark. Reduces all damage by 50% for 10 seconds. Spell effect cannot be dispelled while this is active.

Starfall A swarm of stars falls upon the Moonkin’s enemies. Each Star does 3250 damage, and an additional 950 to all within 10 yards of the primary target. Lasts 10 seconds.

Typhoon A blast of wind hits all enemies in front of the moonkin, up to 25 yards. Enemies hit will take 6,000 damage, be knocked back 20 yards, and will be dazed for 5 seconds.

Entangling Roots Causes roots to form around a target and all within 15 yards, causing 1000 damage every second for 8 seconds, and immobilising the targets. Is cast directly after Typhoon.

Thorns Thorns protrude from the Moonkin, dealing 500 damage to enemies that attack it. Lasts for 10 seconds.

Force of Nature Summons 3 Treants to attack the target, dealing damage and reducing healing by 15%.

Owlkin Frenzy Attacks against the Moonkin have a 2% chance to cause Frenzy, increasing damage by the Moonkin by 15%.

Savage Claw Strikes the target, causing 25,000 damage. Damage increased by 25% if Moonfire or Insect Swarm is present on the target. Reduces healing by 3%, stacking up to 10 times.

Rejuvenation The Moonkin heals for 15,000 every 3 seconds for 21 seconds.

So yeah… you try THAT as a raid boss, I dare ya!

I know who you are…

Yes this is about the RealID/forums news. Namely (if you’ve been living under a rock): The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it.

Wow… just wow…

I haven’t bought into the RealID thing, because, well, I do not have any RL friends who play WoW. I was happy enough that it would remain up to the user to decide whether to opt in or not. And so RealID seemed a good idea.

But now Blizz drops this bomb, this gigantic Class A Atom bomb on our heads. Reiterate: IF YOU POST ON THE OFFICIAL WOW FORUMS, YOUR REAL NAME WILL BE VISIBLE TO EVERYONE WHO READS YOUR POST.

I have a question, Blizzard: Why, oh WHY would I ever post on the WoW forums in the future?

The internet is a dangerous place. We are forever being warned to keep ourselves safe, to hide personal details. But now, if I was to ask a question about, say, some class mechanic, any old Joe can see that I am Sue Donym (duh, placeholder name :P).
If someone chose to, why, they could find out lotsa details about me. I do not want that!

I come on the net, and I suppose most people do, to operate in privacy. I’ll tell you this: never will I post on the WoW forums if this goes live.

Now, many are saying, why the big fuss? This is going to stop trolling. Blah blah blah. This isn’t going to change the game, you don’t have to post if you don’t want to.

I got news for you. WoW is more than a game.

It is a community. And forums form a solid backdrop to such a community. With the fear of absolutley zero privacy, I foresee many people simply not posting at all. Or shifting to fansite forums. In either case, the community as a whole will suffer. If an MMO has a community that to too afraid to speak to each other through a forum, something is seriously wrong.

Blizz’s recent decision is not just a fumble; it is a dangerous descent into anarchy.

Guy’s seriously, rethink this proposal. There are other, better options out there.

The Ice Stone has melted!

The Ice Stone
The Ice Stone
The Ice Stone has melted
The Ice Stone
The Ice Stone
The Ice Stone has melted
We don’t need no Ice Stone
Let the motherf* melt
Melt motherf*
MEEEELLLLT

Hey, just be thankful I didn’t dive into a rendition of Ice Ice BABY!

Now, there’s a reason for this, and here it is: I firmly believe the Ahune is the bestest 5 man boss in the game (sorry, Volazj… I do love your insanity tho).

Why? Because the Big frosty one uses raid boss mechanics. There are very few 5 man bosses who can as easily prepare you for the raiding scene as can Ahune. Let’s go through his repertoire of skillz, shall we?

Ahune’s Shield

While surfaced, all damage to Ahune is reduced by 75%. This means you cannot just throw everything you can and get an insta kill. This couples with a later Phase…

Summons: Ahunite Hailstone

Chilling Aura applies Hailstone Chill dealing 300 frost damage every 3 seconds and stacks up to 10 times. Pulverize attack, 2 sec stun, 6 sec cooldown. Obviously, this needs to be tanked, and will result in requiring the healer to deal with the passive frost damage.

Summons: Ahunite Frostwind

Wind Buffet: Pulls a random party members to itself. Lightning Shield: deals 140-160 nature damage. An annoying add that needs to simply be killed, and…

Summons: Ahunite Coldwave

Another simple add. Easy to kill, but if Phase 2 does not result in Ahune’s death, then more and more adds will spawn, making the fight quite tricky. These adds will likely make their way to the healer if not aggro’ed immediately.

That’s Phase 1. Now, in Phase 2:

Submerges, disabling melee range attacks and Ahune’s Shield, exposing his Frozen Core. Lasts 30 seconds.

Burn phase, a’la XT. Kill him here, else he resurfaces with more adds for you to play with. Translation, soft enrage.

AND… all thru the fight, he will cast:

Ice Spear

1500 frost damage, knock up effect (Up to 12% HP in fall damage), animation starts under a random party member.

This makes a small blue circle under a Player. Move outta the fire, mon! Or, in this case, outta the ice! Outta the swirly thing on the ground, anyways.

And another small thing: if you stand on Ice, you can be stunned for a few seconds.

Let’s put it all together. We have: Add Management, Add Priority Kills, Burn Phase, Enrage (Soft) to avoid, Threat Management Stay-Outta-the-Swirly-Thing-On-The_Ground.

All of which combine to give an encounter far closer to a raid than any other 5 man boss I am aware of.

I want more of these. Come Cata, I do hope 5 mans offer a little bit more than just a badge run. I hope we have to think about our kills. I hope we get an instance that really truly feels like a practice raid.

Hm. This probably deserves its own post, but here’s an idea: In raids, it is EXTREMELY common to perform Tank Swaps, that is, swapping aggro to manage some kind of stacking debuff. However, you will NEVER have a chance to test this out until you are actually in a raid.

How about having a 5 man that tests just this? Sure, it may require an extra tank, but I believe that the practice will be worth it for tanks stumbling into raids. Much the same as the Tribunal in HOS was for testing add management.

The Safety First Boomkin

Okay, so there’s a new post over at BBB.

Seems like he’s issued a challenge for bloggers to explain how to manage aggro/utilize class tools for helping your pug-group out. Fine, I accept!

Single Targeting

A chicken, played carelessly, is a terribad aggro whore of the worst kind. See, we have this lovely talent called Eclipse. Spam Wrath enough, and you’re gonna have a chain of super sexy Starfire crits. Me, I’m fairly decently geared, and usually pump out, say, 18k-ish Starfires under Eclipse. Pummel a mob with this, and you’re going to have a monster charging your ass ready to eat some juicy lazerchicken.

Watch your Omen, or whatever threat monitor you choose to utilize; Once you start heading towards the tank in threat, perhaps consider changing back to the lightweight Wrath, or, and this can take a little skill, use some of your supercharged boomage on a mob that: a: has a good chunk of health still left, and b: that has a lot of aggro on the tank. What this does is not only saves you from being a tasty BBQ treat, but also utilizes your damage, and speeds up the kill just a bit more. Don’t, for the love of all that is feathered, continue your Starfire spammage, hoping the tank will pull off you; do your job, and the group will be the better for it.

AOE Wonderland

Now that our Starfall is the ubermench that all AOE spells aspire to be, I see it being used a hellava lot more in dungeons. Unfortunately, this also takes some practise and skill to utilize properly.

Firstly: If you are going to use Starfall, stop and look at what it is going to hit!

That means, can you see mobs? If so, there’s a good change they’re going to be aggroed. Solution: WAIT until the tank has picked them up. You already knew that, right? Well, that’s not enough. Wait even longer; cast a few DoTs, throw a Wrath or two, then start your rampage!

Of course, the most common AOE we have is Hurricane. Simply let the tank grab some aggro, and slap down that shiny green targeting reticule. Now, as far as AOE’s go, this is a good’un; not only does it do a bit o’ damage, but it gives an attack speed debuff to enemies. This can be very helpful to some tanks, as not all of them will necessarily be applying their own debuff. If you want to know a little trick though….

While the tank is gathering up mobs, lob a Wrath at one of em, preferably a tough one. THEN apply your Hurricane. Thanks to Earth and Moon, that mob is going to take 13% extra damage. Not a bad way to spend the time waiting for the mobs to get aggroed.

Now… I’ve mentioned two AOE’s here… And I bet some will wonder, hey, why don’t I use BOTH of them for super whacky crazy damage?

Well, that’s exactly the reason. Starfall followed up with a Hurricane is disgustingly powerful; as I said before, I’m well geared, and though I do get into groups with similarly geared tanks, if I cast those, it is a certainty that some mobs are gonna come running at me, clutching at my precious feathers. Safe version: Don’t do it. Alternate version: trust your tank and healer, and pray that they trust YOU. Otherwise, it ain’t just gonna be the mobs who will be clamoring for some tasty Boomkin-on-a-stick.

Typhoon

Don’t. Unless you’ve got it glyphed for some reason. The ONLY, SOLE exception is if you spot a mob rushing towards your healer, and you are too lazy to reach for your roots button. If you do, push the mobs away from the healer, do not push the mob back into the group he came from. Cos, you know, that’s still gonna knock back the tank’s mobs. Fun Fact: Along with Thunderstorm, Typhoon is a spell that actually generates threat against you to the tank. It be making em mad.

Other Tools

Roots: To be used if a mob is rushing your ranged/healer. Keep it somewhere easily accessible.

Cyclone: Can be used for the same reason as above, but is inferior; it lasts for a lot less. The main reason you want this bad boy available is that it is our only reliable interrupt at the moment. Yeah, I know, QQ and all. Useful in that some mobs decide to blatantly ignore the threat rules and cast spells of innocent ranged DPS’s or healers. Throwing this on is going to save your healers some time and mana.

Barkskin: Going to taking damage fer sho’? Whack this button. At. Any. Opportunity. 20% is a noice amount of resistance, again saving the healer some work.

Healing

Guess what? You’re a hybrid. Act like one. If the proverbial is about to hit the you know what, it’s time to slap on your healing hat. What’s great about Boomkin healing, as opposed to, say, Elemental Shaman healing, is that you do not typically need to spend much time to save the group from a potential splatterfest. A regrowth or two, a few rejuves, and you’ve given the group a gift the keeps on giving. Of course, if the healers actually decides to take a dirtnap, then, go ahead and heal the party. You’ll be thanked. Though possibly ignored by the dead healer.

One ‘Don’t’

Don’t switch to bear form to help out the tank. That’s a kitty’s option. You see, your gear has a limited amount of stam. Sure, popping into a big furrball raises this a bit, but it’s really not that much. Not only that, but you have NO other survivability skills. No crit immunity, even. And if you pull some aggro, well, then the healer is going to have to work overtime on TWO targets.

Chickens + Bears do not mix.

Okay, coming up to the thousand word mark now, so we’ll call it a post. Hope I haven’t missed anything!

…And it begins

Alrighty!

Now this is something I have been planning to do for oh so long now. What’s that, you ask? Why, simply writing about the World of Warcraft, that’s all!

I suppose this would be an apt place to explain briefly what this shindig is going to be all about.

For the record, I play a Druid as my Main character. He likes to boom with the best of em, but I am not going to focus on just that. Nor am I going to write solely about the druid class.

You see, like many, I suffer from acute altoholicism. My main will ALWAYS be my Druid; ain’t nothin’ gonna change that, pal. But as awesome as the Druid is, I sometimes get a hankering for a different class… a different experience, a different challenge. On the go at the moment is a Warlock (incidentally also my Banker), a resto Shaman, and….

Another druid. Yep, I’m addicted to the bastards, that’s for sure. Seeing as my Main is a Boom/Resto, this new one is going to be focused on ripping faces. Feral, to summarize in a single word.

I largely play as a PvE’er, but I do love dabbling in PvP… especially Battlegrounds. Doubtlessly I will make a fair few posts about that side of the game.

To summarize this summary…. I guess what I’m going to blabber on about…. is whatever the hell I feel like. I hope you can join me for the ride.