Thursday, February 10, 2011

Conclave

Three bosses on three connected platforms make up the encounter. You'll be switching between at least two of them throughout the fight.

Anshal
Anshal is preferable to Rohash for Moonkins despite him generally being the 'melee platform'. We gain more from the multi-target nature platform than the single-target wind boss. You definitely want to have your RL place you with Anshal, along with any other strong multi-dotting ranged classes. This is different than a 'strong AoE class' since the adds should all be killed separately by dps here, not grouped up as they provide stacking debuffs if close together.
Ideally, place yourself in a Solar Eclipse for the add spawns. Being able to double-DoT each add as it spawns will spike you extremely high. Any haste procs you have available are best used here before applying DoTs to add extra ticks (Nature's Grace, Heart of Ignacious, Power Infusion, etc). Just make sure you calculate which you need to reach the extra haste breakpoints for IS and MF/SF.
Starfall should be saved to finish the adds. This allows all other dps to establish threat on them so you aren't insta-tanking all of them. Just in case you still pull threat on many if not all of the adds, use this to your advantage by placing a Mushroom pack at your location before the fight starts. As they reach you, back up and detonate for a massive-damage global.
They'll quickly be cleaned up in time to transfer to Nezir's platform before an ultimate where you can begin a single-target rotation. If you get an instant Starsurge, the Shooting Stars proc was increased to 12 sec, so you can afford to save one while moving from one platform to another.

Rohash
If you're not lucky enough to be assigned to Anshal, then Rohash still can be done well. He isn't tanked and stays in place, allowing you to start the fights with a Mushroom pack already in place, waiting for a Solar Eclipse to detonate.
Keeping your damage up while moving to avoid the Wind Blast will be key to maintaining high dps. If you've already burst your shrooms, you have enough time to replace a triple stack while avoiding the clockwise blast. Remember the closer to Rohash you are, the less you'll have to move to avoid a Blast but the more you'll have to move to avoid Tornados.
After the first ultimate ability is finished, you should be wanting to return to Rohash from Nezir's platform. It's important here to watch the timer for Wind Blast. You don't want to jump back only to arrive into an unavoidable Blast. It's preferable to wait until this CD is over before returning the first time. The timer is more forgiving on the second return and you should have ample time to get back and prepare for an incoming Wind Blast.
Lastly, have not only travel form close by, but a Cat Form-Dash macro for switching platforms the first time. If your raid dps is slow, you'll have it up again for the final switch to Nezir. If you're on Rohash, you'll likely have a long run to reach Nezir since he should be tanked close to the Anshal side of his platform to accommodate the switching healers' ranges.

Nezir
You'll want to plan accordingly to have cooldowns ready to stack on the ending burn on Nezir. This is where Bloodlust/Heroism is ideally spent and Nezir will have a full complement of raid debuffs on him. If he has enough health left to get use of a full duration of Volcanic Potion, then that's a wonderful use of your second dps potion for the fight. If he's too low and will die significantly sooner than the 25-second duration, you might want to use the in-combat potion during the second spawning of Anshal's adds.

Update

I'll be starting to post again after a long break but the focus will be shifting.

I've reached every gold goal I've set for myself with ease and it's lost it's luster. I'm currently at 3.2 million net profit and 1.7 million liquid. I gave away ~800,000 to guild members the night before Cataclysm's launch to help facilitate getting for raids quickly. Then I spent another ~700,000 on gearing my toon and others, maxing people's professions and random giveaways and prizes to guild members since December.

I've been noticing a significant lack of Balance Druid(me) fight-specific tips in this content so I thought I'd use this existing space to post some guides.

Stress is the fertilizer of Creativity and our raid's dps core definitely can put the pressure on each other to compete at very high levels. We consistently have our top 5 on a night ranking on WoL. This environment has contributed to learning the fights in minute detail to maximize numbers.

So look for incoming guides on the first 14 raid bosses of Cataclysm.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Fallout

I've been a bit preoccupied since hitting my goal of one million gold. The earnings have still continued though. In fact, by this point the process is so streamlined, the gold makes itself. However, there were some humorous and interesting results of the million that are worthy of mentioning.

The popular news site WoW.com wrote a piece on me which led to some wonderfully insightful and hilariously ignorant conversation.


The real value came in the follow up article written by their Insider Trader columnist. He was a little quick to judgement and didn't review the facts before publishing. He got called out by his readership in what turned out to be a locked column that reached its flaming capacity at twenty-two pages.


There's some really well written arguments back and forth for anyone wanting to take some time and read them on a Tuesday maintenance.



New Goals
I'm now well past the 1.2 million mark and going strong. Looking at my g/week rate, I won't have time to hit two million before Cataclysm but I will see how high I can get before the expansion. The server transfer method would easily work but I only wanted to do it once as a test for its potential.

The readership here grew significantly because of the exposure gained on reaching my goal. Awareness on my own server has spiked as well. Because of this, I plan on continuing to write and publish as often as my schedule allows. I have many half-finished pieces that were never completed on my way to a million.

Once Cataclysm does hit, I have a gold reward system in place for my guild. The coin will all be used to power level raiders in small teams to 85 as quickly as possible. There will be bonuses in place for each date of completion. The earlier the date, the larger the bonus. With unlimited funds, there is no need to loot bodies, no reason to return to towns or leave the dungeon grind. XP gain is king.

Once at the level cap, the crafting professions will all be maxed and the best available epic crafted gear will be handed out. Raiding will commence as soon as 10 and 25man teams are available. With Cataclysm's release, this blog will shift from a focus on gold to highlight this race for server firsts.

Once that first hectic week is past us, I'll be focusing on the new economy and all of its glorious flaws, advantages and opportunities.