Unreal Realities

Tonight, Team Massive have down Sindragosa! Bring on the Lich King wipes now that we’re 11/12 and just one kill away from becoming King Slayers! I love it.

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Pirates managed to knock off Sindragosa Heroic Ten this week and it was awesome. I’m not going to go into to much detail, I’ll leave that for Nasi, but in celebration I thought I’d post the top 5 raid kills I’ve been a part of. So far….

5. Illidan Stormrage

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Well now, what to say. Spain truly deserved that win. They kept to their style and played a cleaner game than the Dutch. With Arjen Robben missing a prime one-on-one opportunity and Ramos mistiming his header from a beautifully given corner kick, match winning goals could have ended the game there and then. But the 90 minute whistle went and both sides advanced into extra time at nil-nil. Then it was Fabregas for Spain to have a one-on-one with the Dutch keeper and then Mathijsen missing with a header having a reversal double opportunities missed from both sides. Then some nice passing ended with Navas having a great opportunity deflected into the side netting. And it was Fabregas looking deadly with some near misses, before Iniesta found the back of the net, after some very poor defending by the Dutch resulting a nice chip pass to the Spaniard who struck it cleanly across the goalkeeper into the back corner.
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Well, incase you haven’t heard, Spain beat ze Germans in an epic 1-0 game. Which means the FIFA World Cup Final is between the Dutch and the Spaniards! Both are fighting for their first title. Both are strong and capable sides, and knowing the strengths of both teams, this should be an amazing game!

Now, with surprise guests and hangovers out of the way, it’s time I tell the tale of Spain’s journey to the final stage. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of the 4-year cycle again that excites me more than anything! Kicking off at 4.30 am AEST on Monday the 12th of July, we’ll see the Netherlands through to another epic fight for the FIFA World Cup Trophy. So let me take you through the journey both sides have taken in the lead up to this powerhouse showdown. With Spain and Germany playing their semi-final 4.30 am AEST tomorrow, I’ll start with team I hope to see take the trophy, Netherlands.

The Netherlands

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Carrying on from the other day, this is the top ten raid encounters 5-1, as seen by me. A quick note going forward. You’ll note that no Vanilla WoW encounters made the top ten. There are two reasons for this – one, I didn’t raid then. Two, Naxx was often said to be the greatest raid zone in the game, including over all of TBC raids. I’ve done Naxx now and it’s crap. If that was the best Vanilla had to offer, then they wouldn’t have made it regardless.

Also, all encounters are based around progressing through them, not on farm and out gearing them. We’re talking your first two or three kills, not going back when you out gear the encounter by a couple of tiers.

Anyway, here they are: Read the rest of this entry »

The blog-well has been running a little dry lately as, like a lot of people, I’m just killing time until Cataclysm comes out. So, thinks Vok, how can I get some decent blogs up when there is nothing really to blog about? Then it strikes me – lists! Everyone loves lists! And now, without further ado, here is list number one!

Top Ten Raid Encounters: 10 – 6

10. Valithria Dreamwalker

I’m a pretty big fan of this encounter, not least because Heals Per Second is important for once. The adds pacing is excellent, increasing at what feels like an almost perfect rate, keeping the tanks and DPS busy while the healers do the real work. Healing the Dragon itself it awesome and it a great change to watch a green bar go up instead of a red on down.

If I had a criticism of this fight it would be the portals. I would have liked Dreamwalker’s health to be such that we didn’t need healing/MP5 buffs to get the job done. Still, an outstanding fight and hopefully not the last in this vein. Read the rest of this entry »

Mimiron was one of my favorite encounters in Ulduar. It was certainly one of the most complex, with three completely different phases to the fight before coming together for the final phase. That was nothing compared to Firefighter though.

Firefighter is the hard mode for Mimiron and hard is the word. Activated by simply pressing a button behind Mimiron, the self destruct button no less, it upped the difficulty significantly. Whilw there was a health boost to Mimiron, the real kicker was the fire. It appeared everywhere.

I’m not going to go through the details of the encounter – with three vastly different Phases, before a final phase combining the other three, now with added fire, water bombs/robots – because that would be a massive blog in it’s own right. If you do not know the mechanics of the fight you can have a read here or watch this lovely video someone else prepared earlier.

Our strategy was nothing special. We kited the fire anti-clockwise in phase one, using each third of the room in turn. It worked well, although occasionally someone would stand in the one spot for a touch long and get a little toasty from the fires. Healing our tank through the Plasma Blast was tricky but certainly not overly stressful – although more than one wipe occurred because one of us wasn’t paying quiet enough attention at one time or another. Read the rest of this entry »

There is that moment of panic, just before the first person is given the Shadow of Death debuff.  Please, please, please don’t let me be the first.  Second, fine, third, no worries, just not the first.  Not when I have to kill the adds alone, where everyone will know if I fail, please not me!

“Shadow of Death on Vok.” Shit

Gorefiend was, for me, by far the most terrifying fight I’ve done thus far in WoW.  While we were progressing, getting Ghosted damn near became a phobia.  You can’t carry people through it and you can’t make sure everyone practices, you have to just keep plugging away at it until you get it right.

There were really only two mechanics of note in the Gorefiend fight – an AoE spell which increases in damage output over time, and the Shadow of Death debuff.

The AoE damage I loved, for me it was the first time Resto Shaman really started to shine.  Mashing chain heal had never been so fun, nor so useful and it was great to really be able to see what a Shaman could do. It’s one of those fights where you trying to hit the button harder, hoping it will make the heal go off quicker.

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There are some great encounters in The Caverns of Time : Mount Hyjal, but I feel that the raid a sa while fits nicely in to the Epic Encounters theme. Back in The Burning Crusade days Obsolete spent a whole lot of time in Hyjal and it was a hell of a lot of fun. For those that do not know the importance of Mount Hyjal, check out this blog. Mount Hyjal, the raid, was a reenactment of the final battle of Warcraft Three, Archimonde’s accent and destruction.

In the raid there are five encounters, the first four of which are reached after defeating numerous timed waves of trash. Upon entering the zone you stand shoulder to shoulder with the lovely Jaina Proudmoore and the brave Alliance defenders. Once you talk to Jaina the waves of undead start pouring down the hill towards you and the defenders. The NPC’s where a pretty keen bunch, helping to mow down the seemingly endless tide of scourge – you do have to take a care, however, that Jaina (and later Thrall) doesn’t die, because that would equal an instant wipe.