BRF Normal/Bindings Saga

Hope everyone had a good weekend! I built some engines and played some wow. Always fun =P

Sunday night we did Blackrock Foundry on normal. I did relatively well with bindings. Better than I thought I would. That is progress.

I got my 2pc bonus T17

2pc Bonus Tier 17

It is normal and I am replacing a heroic piece with a normal piece, but the bonus alone seems worth it.

We also almost cleared BRF normal. We left off on Blackhand. The encounter is definitely challenging, but so fun.

Blackhand

I will be posting some more strats as well as some highlights of the raid from my twitch stream.

/gg

FINALLY!!!

The odyssey begins. Technology has once again beat me on the battlefield. We have this love/hate relationship.

After much back and forth via e-mail, I finally was able to get an RMA. Almost shy of 1 yr of faulty functioning, the card has been giving me more frequent issues where it is affecting the computer's functions overall.

I do have to say, this will suck. I will have to settle for playing on the iMAC until it is returned to me.

WISH ME LUCK!

/gg

NEW User Interface & Loot!

Before I get into the topics I want to announce. I have some advise.

DO NOT....I repeat...DO NOT make any changes to your UI set up before a raid without having practiced with it or feeling comfortable with it enough so that it is second nature/automatic reflex to use everything on it. Seriously.

This unfortunately happened to me last night. I had changed my UI to what I thought would be optimal and efficient...and it looked good, so I was happy...But when raid started and things got crazy, I froze. 

So, I made some changes. And it worked. But not after I died twice and my healing was sub-par. Yeah. I'm bad. But you live and you learn. In the end it is these things that make you a better player, right? RIGHT! -_-

However, it doesn't end there. I have been getting some grief from certain people who shall remain nameless -_- about my using mouse binds (razer naga). So, naturally, I like to get ideas and advise on how to make my playstyle more efficient and better. So I looked up and read some info on mouseover keybindings....needless to say /mindblown.

Thanks to my buddy Dusky (who plays on WOW_GOD MODE) and his help and patience, I got some bindings and some new auras (also what triggered this need for new UI was the fact that my /WA strings were so huge they took up to 56 MB of memory while Loaded...yeah, WTF?!).

So last night I edited some more. and went on to do some dungeons. Well...all hell broke loose in Grim Rail Depot. While the bindings were working, my Blizz default frames totally disappeared from my screen, twitch viewers were as confused as I was....my /SUF were not working with the macros...it was a disaster. My apologies to the people in the dungeon. I apologized for the fail and left after the wipe. Trying to heal with no frames, and making up for it by healing hovering over the party players while moving and running around trying to dodge fire...that doesn't work so well! LOL

That got fixed. Blizz frames appeared again after I disabled /SUF and reloaded the UI. So perhaps using /SUF for player and target frames only conflics with party and raid frames since I disabled them on the /SUF addon??...That's probably it. 

This morning I did some more testing. Now I am fine tuning my keybindings and getting used to this whole new playstyle. It is definitely something new. Here's a screen shot of my new UI.

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Moving on. We ended up killing Flamebender and Operator Thogar last night on Heroic Mode. We tried Oregorger, but just got him to Phase II. The encounter is tough, for sure.

Flamebender's defeat was a matter getting the mechanics down, dodging stuff, getting out of fire, and stacking when needed. One thing though, about LAVA SLASH, dont wait till you have it on you. That shit happens so fast, you dont know what hit you..next thing you know you had it b/c you're dead. Expect it and be ready to MOVE. Like, always think that you're next.

Best thing about it is, I got my first T17 piece with a token roll and I didnt get gold!!! 

So, that was pretty amazing and a great start to the raid. Got to replace my 650 chest piece. It was great.

Operator Thogar was a pain in my butt. When the encounter started, I knew the fight...yet....those trains....THOSE TRAINS!!!  OH MY GOD...So many wipes. So many Deaths.

In the end I ended up getting ThogarHelper addon, This addon announces to the raid which markers to move to to avoid getting train wrecked! After that, we were a bit low on DPS...do the kill was pure luck. 89% of the raid was dead with him at around ~250K HP. Thank god to the DPS who were up, getting overrun by adds, just focused him and got him down before their impending deaths lol. It was definitely a fun and intense fight. The addon definitely had a lot to do with its "success".

So, I advise....GET IT if your group is having these same issues with the trains.

Here are the logs.

<Hit That Crit> Warcraft Logs

/gg

Quick Guide to FLAMEBENDER KA'GRAZ HEROIC MODE

WOW_HEAD FLAMEBENDER STRATEGY

FLAMEBENDER KA'GRAZ & AKNOR STEELBRINGER/ Pic Cred: WOWHEAD

OK, so...in a nutshell...all you have to do for this encounter is a couple of things and GG. EZ MODE!!!

Encounter starts -BAM! Pull boss. (for more info visit Icy-Veins or WoW_Head)

ENCHANTED ARMAMENTS - Stay AWAY from these. They cause 95k to 105k dmg per every 3 seconds. DO NOT TOUCH. I know it may be quite irresistible since they are SHINY. But I promise, it's not worth it.

Enchanted Armaments/ Pic Cred: WOWHEAD

LAVA SLASH - This randomly targets a player. When you get this on you, run away. Make sure you dont run towards other players as it causes dmg to players 7yds away. make sure when you have this you dont run it all over the place. Run the slash in a straight line that does not obstruct movement on your other raid members.

Lava Slash/Pic Cred: WOWHEAD

MOLTEN TORRENT -This is a meteor of fucking molten lava that crashes on you. Unless you have a dmg mitigation cd, DO NOT take this alone. It will completely obliterate your soul!!!-or kill you. ONE SHOT Guaranteed! So, if you're range, RUN to melee. If you're melee, stay where you are. Damage is split between all other players within 8yd range. Another thing....healers...heal your hearts out b/c meteor torrents hurt and these happen every 15 seconds as long as boss has more than 25 energy.

Molten Torrent/ Pic Cred: WoW_Head

CINDER WOLVES - Raiders - KITE KITE KITE. Kite these little fuckers until the dps Kills them! They will fixate on you and follow you around to eat you!!!! The wolves need to die within 8 secs of one another or else they will heal to full due to rekindle and they need to die before boss reaches 100 energy

Cinder Wolves/Pic Cred: WoW_Head

@75 Molten Energy

BLAZING RADIANCE - RUN AWAY from group @least 10yd min.

@ZERO Molten Energy

MAGMA MONSOON - Lava is thrown at range. Stay out of the Danger Zone before they land! Zones of Danger are marked by a swirly circle on the ground.

Magma Monsoon/Pic Cred: WoW Head

/gg

TWITCH/TWITTER

I decided to join the fun and do Live streaming/tweeting. Im no expert, just a regular resto shaman healing things and sometimes standing on fire b/c fire is SHINY ^_^

Follow me!

Wandering Shammy Twitch TV

Mojofosho's Sweet Tweet_Life

BRF Raid #2

Tonight we raid again. Tuesday we got 3 bosses down. Tonight, I am hopeful, but not too hopeful. Our tanks are fairly undergeared, so it will definitely be a major challenge.

Looks like we will be trying out Flamebender Ka'graz, from then on, I have no clue. So I've been reading and watching lots of videos on all ecounters. Blast Furnance, Kromog, Thogar, Iron Maidens.

Here are some cool channels I like to follow to catch up on good streams/guides.

http://www.twitch.tv/rudeey

Method YouTube Channel

FatBossTV YouTube Channel

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Hans'gar & Franzok Heroic Mode

Hans'gar & Franzok

This encounter is fairly easy, but hard if your raid has issues with dodging mechanics. This is especially important because the platforms on which you stand move back and forth - they are conveyor belts. There is fire, moving platforms, crushing plates, searing/fired parts on the belts, abilities from the bosses, etc...
Honestly, this fight almost gave me a seizure. I got super dizzy. Optical perception /OVERDRIVE.

So, the encounter starts out fairly tame. Each tank pulls the bosses. Tank switch should happen when Shattered Vertebrae stacks get too high. This debuff increases physical dmg by 40%. So when Crippling Supplex takes place, use a cd.

Like always, dont get caught casting spells during Disrupting Roar . It will nature lock you/interrupt your spells. Healers especially, bc healing is critical.

During Body Slam move away from raid team. You want as little players as possible to get hit by this b/c it causes Shattered Vertebrae. After this happens Aftershock will cause raid wide dmg.

While this is all happening the belts begin to move. At first, slowly, then as the encounter progresses it will get faster and much more difficult b/c searing plates start to come out at an increased rate along with pulverized which are pressing plates crushing down on the searing plates.

This is pretty much the extent of the encounter. It is pretty repetitive. But we have to take into consideration that the floor (conveyor belts) will be moving and more searing plates and pulverized will be happening. Due to all this movement, one should lust at beginning of fight to get the most out of it.

Note: when running away from searing plates / pulverize, the spots who previously had a searing plate/pulverize on it, wont for one turn. So you can easily dodge them going back and forth. Use your class personal speed boosts during these last phases to run from them, and dont get caught up against the ends of the walls where the belts come out of. This causes a lot of dmg to the player due to Scorching Burns.

/gg