Monday, December 8, 2008

First Raids

So we went on our first two raids this weekend. Both were alot of fun and successful.

Naxxramas

Patchwerk was owned. We essentially one shot him, he was pulled in error first without knowing all of the trash would blast us back into the Outlands. We learned the hard way that all of the trash comes with Patchwerk, so we cleared the trash and put down the ugly construct.

Grobbulus was also beat down. It took us 4 or so tries to really get it down. He is a very interesting and fun fight. This instantly became one of my top 5 boss fights in the game.

We failed on the 3rd boss in the construct wing, the dog. He really was not too ridiculously hard, it is going to come down to our kiters learning the fight and getting their timing down on the zombies.

Obsidian Sanctum

What a fun, quick raid. This was by far one of the easiest raids I have been on. Sartharion was a joke, just run away from the flame wall and tank and spank him and the adds. Grats on t7 gloves. Beautiful raid environment to boot.

More success and interesting encounters to come!

Friday, December 5, 2008

Updated Heroic Hatred

After running more heroics I thought it was valid to update my hate list. Thus far it includes the Snake boss in Gundrak, Loken in Halls of Lightning, and lets not forget Blackhaus in the Old Kingdom.

I have an update, I now HATE Arthas in the Culling of Stratholme. We are plugging along relatively nicely for the shot at the additional boss.. we down the second boss with 7 minutes left, and boom.. we wait over 2 minutes for Arthas to arrive at the next point. Then he blows at least another minute or longer on his bullshit dialogue. Without his ridiculous timing we would have had an excellent shot at smoking that optional boss and getting a bronze drake.

Heroic Hate List:

  • Sladran in Gundrak
  • Loken in Halls of Lightning
  • Blackhaus in the Old Kingdom (Spec shadow next time? mmk??)
  • Arthas in the Culling of Strat (Hurry your soon to be epic incarnation of death ass up!)

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Staring at My Coffee Mug

I believe things will all workout in Heroes, Inc. People will hit the level cap and run instances with other people, these things tend to happen in an MMO. Some people may have to spec differently for a while (like me probably going resto).

I understand the goals in Heroes are focused more on the "journey" and not the end of the line, more on community than min/maxing a raid to conquer a particular encounter. All of that is fine, its great, in fact I would not want it any other way.

With that said, some people have expectations that are very very streamlined and in my opinion unrealistic. Wanting a group for every quest and every xp point is the same for me as others have issues with "hand holding" in instances. I like the challenge of busting out levels, sure I read the major storyline, I follow the quests. But I like grouping, and in my opinion the real grouping truly starts at 80.

One issue with me is the whole "instance challenge" situation. I understand wanting a challenging encounter. And trust me, at this stage and the forseeable future, EVERY other heroic boss is a definite challenge regardless of who is in the group. Most of the achievements in heroics are very challenging, in fact some are outright ridiculous and will require months of raiding to get properly geared to complete them. If it is a challenge that is being sought, believe me, for a casual guild like Heroes it could take 8 months to a YEAR, yes a year to get them done.

I will say this, I am very excited to group with all of heroes. I even plan on speccing resto so I can get in as many groups with my friends as possible.

As for raiding, I believe Lakini is exactly right, no matter when raiding starts, stops, blows up, vanishes, or whatever, not everyone will be happy. Bottom line as I see it, no one is in a ridiculous rush to get into Naxx, but everyone is ready and excited to group together! See ya in-game.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Heroic Blue

So far we have ran almost every heroic encounter in the game. Here are just a few snippets from my heroic experiences, pardon my spelling on the instance titles.

Drak Theron-Last boss is a major gimmick fight and difficult.

Utgarde-Easiest heroic thus far.

Gundrak-Several bosses have difficult mechanics (I hate you now Snake man!)

Halls of Stone- Easy except for the "event," this is a hectic mad dash to save a smack talking dwarf.

Halls of Lightning- Not too bad, except for the last boss (I hate you LOKEN, HATE!) which I nubbed it up on twice in a row.

Azerol Nerub- Probably the most difficult heroic thus far, the last boss literally seemed impossible for us, this will be an interesting challenge.

Ahnkatet The Old Kingdom- Alot of fun along with alot of challenge. Three of the four bosses are really tough. I will add another name to the hate list BLACKHAUS, he was impossible to down.

Violet Hold- Somewhat challenging every time since you never really know what boss your going to get, but this is probably the "Badge Farm" instance due to its duration and being right in Dalaran.

The Nexus-TBA

The Occulus-TBA

Utgarde Pinnacle-TBA

Culling of Strat-TBA

Favorite Encounter- Probably Halls of Stone "Event" or the final boss in the Old Kingdom.

Updated Hate list for Heroic instances:

  • The snake boss in Gundrak
  • Loken in Halls of Lightning
  • Blackhaus in the Old Kingdom

Lots of fun with friends and interesting places.