However, bloggers and tweeters are not necessarily indicative of how the average WoW player reacts to the game. Even though I in no way consider myself a hardcore raider, just the fact that I write a blog means that I'm probably more hardcore about the game than the average player. I tend to read a lot and think a lot about the game.
So what does the non-blogger, non-twitterer think?
Well, there really is no way to know for sure. But we do have a way to see what people are asking the search engines, or at least see what questions are leading people here.
Here are some of the Search queries that have lead people to Battle Medic since the First Impressions post:
Clearly, this is an issue that is on the mind of a lot of people. The proof, as it were, is in the Search Terms.
- dragon soul easiest raid ever
- dragon soul easy -demon
- dragon soul raid boss encounters
- dragon soul sared lot
- random ride drop in dragonsoul
- zandalari heroics harder than dragon soul
As well, I thought I would share this one because it gave me a chuckle:
I would really like to know what he said to get a Beacon of Light in the face. We may never know. I bet it hurt, though.
- a beacon of light hit my face when i say welcome to th
UPDATE: Upon closer inspection of my Google Analytics, I managed to find the full search term from above:
I'm still completely mystified as to why someone would type that into Google or what they were hoping to find, but in the event that this suddenly turns into the new, fashionable search-term de jour, I am at the top of the results. Go me!
- a beacon of light hit my face when i say welcome to the dwarf race!
2ND NIGHT IMPRESSIONS OF DRAGON SOUL
We went back to Dragon Soul last night to see how far we could get. As I suspected, our Raid Night was cut short again by Real Life issues. All told, over the two nights that we raided this week we managed a mere 4 1/2 hours total. Still, we got a fourth boss down last night and despite some add-on issues managed a few good pulls on Ultraxion.
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| Ultraxion (Image courtesy wowpedia.org) |
Our average pace in Firelands before the nerfs was to get one new boss down per week, excepting the first and last kills which took longer. Getting half of the new raid down in half the time it took us to kill one boss in the previous tier is a little alarming.
It's not as if we overgear the new raid, either. We're not loaded up with heroic Firelands gear; most of our raid team have 378 gear, and a few have even less than that. This week I was asked to bring my Shaman instead of my Paladin main in order to help with raid healing. My Shaman has a grand total of 3 raid kills to her name and wasn't even eligible for Looking For Raid based on the item level of her gear - not to mention that I don't have a lot of experience healing with her. At least two others in the group have a similar level of gear.
However, the level of difficulty does seem to climb as we get into the second part of the raid. Ultraxion is no joke. Timing is tricky, DPS requirements are high and everyone - particularly the healers - needs to know exactly what they're doing in order to get him down. And that trash before him is quite brutal in an oh-my-gawd-why-won't-this-end kind of way.
I'm actually glad that we encountered some resistance. I still think we'll be through Normal Modes very quickly, but at least a few of these bosses have some fight in them so as to make it interesting.
I just wish we could get a raid group together for a decent amount of time in a night.
Frankly, a gradual incline in difficulty is far better than the wall that was pre-Nerf Firelands. ICC was quite popular to PUG, but most PUGs only got through the first 4 bosses. By having a wing that's easier than the other, with a smoother difficulty curve it allows for more people to attempt the normal mode raids.
ReplyDeleteAlso think about a guild that's 6/7 or 7/7 Firelands, that was one hell of a wall for many guilds, and so to ensure that Dragon Soul is more accessible, some bosses will need to be easier than the early Firelands bosses by necessity. But because its accessible, anyone skilled enough to finish Firelands will breeze through the first few encounters.
I would get your paladin for Ultraxion. I would say that once you get Heroic will covered, he's a tank&spank gear check and you really want to maximimize your HPS output for the 6th minute when he AoEs for 300k DPS.
ReplyDeleteSounds promising :)
ReplyDeleteNice writeup Fannon :) I should ask you what the oddest search term you have seen that led to your blog was? I was twittering it earlier - someone googled Draenei sex and somehow ended up my blog... a Horde Tauren druid blog... go figure :P
ReplyDeleteRegarding the swap to a shaman, your raid is stuck in pre-4.3 thinking. Assuming someone else is covering the tanks, there's a unique confluence of events going on right now.
ReplyDeleteDragon Soul has a lot of raid damage. Dragon Soul also encourages stacking the raid for a lot of that raid damage. Holy Paladins have two AoE heals: Light of Dawn and the updated Holy Radiance.
Step 1: rotate Holy Radiance casts onto different people in the stack to avoid overwriting your HoT.
Step 2: weave Holy Shock or even Crusader Strike into the mix to generate cheap Holy Power.
Step 3: Cast Light of Dawn.
Step 4: Repeat until you're topping the meters and making Druids cry.
From a guildie: http://joeego.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=348
@Navimie: I've been meaning to do a search terms post for a long time, but have never gotten around to it.
ReplyDelete@JoeEgo: I agree with you; I think that a Paladin is perfectly capable of contributing a lot in terms of raid healing as of 4.3. There are other reasons that I took the Shaman instead of the Pally though, not the least of which is that the other two healers in the raid group were also Paladins and I was the only raider who had a geared healer alt who was ready to go. Besides, who wants all that competition for Tier Tokens? :)
Ok your search terms were amusing... I was thinking of doing a post about it later when I've had some more unusual ones. However today there's been 'what is beepbeepexpressmail' which is a little worrying as I had 2 spam comments with that email/web address over the last day or so.
ReplyDeleteYou're top on the shorter version, "a beacon of light hit", too:)
ReplyDelete