Words of Replicant Jesus

Well Ulduar is a great place I really like it; finally got to Yogg-Saron last night in the normal version and still stuck on Mimiron in the heroic version. I expect to have Mimiron down soon and hopefully plowing through the General and onto Yoggy in the heroic version soon.

The raid instance is well done and I have main tanked every encounter in there besides Yoggy which I have only seen Phase 2 briefly. But we are pushing Hard Modes as we go and did Heartbreaker in normal and chose Runemaster last in both heroic and normal. Freya +1 and did Flame Leviathan +2 as well.

Overall this instance is well tuned and I like it.

We got Thorim down last nigh and the night before it was Freya on the hit list; so things are trucking along quite well. I am impressed with the Ulduar raid zone and the variety and difficulty of the fights. Mimiron is definitely a challenge and I like the complexity to the fight. This week our challenge is to get past Mimiron and clear all the keepers so we can get down to some business with the General and ol’ Yoggy.

Going to be a fun time.

I should be studying for a Java programming exam but I have some time to kill to talk about my experiences in Ulduar.  I will break the overview up into three parts, each section pertaining to a subzone of the raid instance.  This only covers the content I have cleared or experienced and should not be taken as gospel but just a collection of my experiences.  Breakdown of Part 1 after the break.

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Ulduar progression continues unabated for Taurential Reign, just cleared Auriya and Assembly of Iron in Heroic Mode last night.  I maintanked both encounters last night, well on the Assembly I was on Steelbreaker and the interrupt duty on Stormcaller Brundir.  Fairly easy encounter tanking wise for a paladin just remember to dispell the Fusion Punch if you are not GCD locked.  I tended to save a cooldown just for that reducing my threat but hopefully saving myself with a Cleanse.  The other thing to watch out for is to move the boss out of the blue rune/void zone, Rune of Power, so he does not get extra damage output.

The Auriya encounter is all about the pull, the tanking part is relatively simple.  The most dificult part is to make sure she is turned in a direction that is advantageous to the raid after the fear.  If you are fear warded, resist the fear, or break it quickly then this is not an issue and you hould probably just stand there and have the raid run back.  If not just use your judgement and base where you face her on where the majority of the raid is feared to.  Move her as needed away from the void zones and push out as much damage as possible.

As far as Noblegarden is concerned I really hate this holiday, it encourages camping and doing unfun things.  I do like that alot of the items are able to be bought but the camping part and the static nature of the spawns lends the holiday a no-fun feel.  Worse then the Love Fool achievement in my opinion and I hope they rehaul this holiday next year and do soemthing better with it or just make it like it was a one day event with no attachment to the meta-achievement

for the mount.

Easily my least favorite holiday.

Up to four bosses tonight in Ulduar, we didn’t get Ignis this run but we will soon.

New upgrades as well: Dragonslayer’s Brace & Signet of the Earthshaker

Ulduar is awesome

I have no updated in a while; truth be told I was a little bored with doing this content over and over. I have not followed Ulduar changes a closely as I used to so it will be a little bit of a surprise but not much. The tank changes will hopefully ad parity at the high end and we won’t have a situation where Deathknights followed by Druids are the best tanks for the extreme damaging content. Although since I was usually add duty or drake duty on Sartharion +3 I was rarely bored.

I find add tanking to probably be the most difficult and thankless role. Even more so in then ten-man version. We finally got the ten-man Undying achievement and still trying to get the 25-man achievement. I hope we can knock it out before Ulduar but if not there are other achievements to get and I won’t feel too bad about it. I really should update more often and will strive to get a post up at least weekly if not sooner.

In other news with all this extra time not playing I have taken to reading and enjoying my Changeling: The Lost books, if I am not doing one nerd thing it is another.

Oh and Happy Birthday to my girlfriend.

Patch 3.1 is shaping up to be a very interesting overhaul of the classes.  Eyonix listed some of the changes coming and they are at least on paper, amazing.

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