Achievements, the modern crack
I am getting closer to getting my Northrend Heroic Dungeonmaster achievement. Two left to go, but I am not looking forward to either: Ahn’kahet and Oculus. I have heard horrible stories from one of the better tanks I know about Ahn’kahet, and yet gaze in envy at his shiny bracers he got there first try. Oculus was my least favorite instance in Northrend, I didn’t enjoy any of the bosses, and I am not looking forward to the Eregos fight whatsoever. Though I possibly hated Mage-Lord Urom more, in a heavy melee DPS group.
I am happy I got Halls of Lightning done, and actually didn’t think it was so bad. I had some booboos because of my G13, but it got a lot smoother further in. Of course we had the obligatory Loken wipes, because our healer just couldn’t run out, but eventually she managed and we got the achievement for killing him in under 2 minutes. Our ret pally does insane, nutso damage, and she’s inspired me to level my own.
On Sunday, we had our second Sartharion raid, which was a bit rocky, with one wipe on the big guy, but the second attempt was pretty awesome, people moved, and as I was on OT healing duty on my shaman, I was bored to tears. So far I actually prefer healing heroics, in raids I don’t get this feeling of urgency. My favorite moment was actually when we tried to kill one of the roaming pats awfully close to Shadron, someone facepulled him and when the portal went up, one of the other healers and a DPS hopped into the portal, though the tanks were awfully busy tanking the pat + Shadron as well. They died inside the portal and from that point on I was OT and raid healer, huzzah! I actually had something to do, yay. See, this never happens with tanking, but healing can get boring when there’s little to do.
After Sartharion, we hit H CoS as one of our warriors would like to have the shield from there. We decided to try for the drake run, which I have never successfully done before, and bam, we did it, with 2 minutes to spare. I was so stoked! I didn’t win the drake, but that’s fine, I’d rather have it on Kadomi anyway.
Saturday we’ll start Naxx. I am excited. I have done a lot of prep work, much reading, lots of videos, and I think we have a good shot at making good progress quickly. It looks like I’ll have to heal on the first day, but the second scheduled day I will get to tank, which makes me just giddy. It’s going to rock. I definitely want to have spider wing cleared on Saturday, maybe we can clear Plague as well. Wish me luck!
I keep mentioning achievements here and there. Who else thinks they’re like crack? I mean, there is no point to the score, it’s not as if I can buy anything with my 3.5k points, and still, I want more. I am currently working on the coins fishing achievement in Dalaran. Nutso!
I managed to complete the Lunar Festival achievements and got my Elder title, and got tons of rep out of the whole deal, bringing my kodo closer to reality. As I leveled to 60 in vanilla WoW, my horde rep is pitifully low. Thank you, Lunar Festival!
Then I started Valentine’s achievements, and before I knew what was going on, I tried to get my title. Like a ton of people out there, I didn’t actually make it because I only got the candy bag once. If I should really be so nuts and try for the drake, it should be easy next year. And thus Blizzard binds us, like slaves. One game to rule them all.
Oh, I am working on the Chef title as well, but can’t get Stormchops as reward, it’s driving me mad. That’s just about the only thing keeping me from completing it. Madness, I say, madness.
Three Car Garage (10 player)
Volazj's Quick Demise
Storming the Citadel (10 player)
I've Gone and Made a Mess (10 player)
Nerf Gravity Bombs (10 player)
Oculus and Old Kingdom isn’t too bad. Just bring a good healer for Old Kingdom and Good DPS for Oculus.
Sartharion, once people stop dying for stupid reasons, try with Tenebron up. It does wonders for boredom, and changes the fight entirely.
For Naxx, make sure you get detect invisibility from a lock, it can save lives. Are you doing 10 or 25 man naxx?
Achievements are like crack, because I keep trying to catch up in Achievement points to Bukki. Almost there.
Finally, I feel your pain on stormchops. Doing both Dalaran and Shattrath cooking daily every day, still no chops.
Wukki´s last blog post..Malygos 25 Finally Down
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admin Reply:
February 17th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
We’re only doing 10-mans, we don’t have enough people for 25-mans, and that’s fine by me. We will definitely have a lock for Spider Wing, so we can see the ghosts in that last stretch.
One of my co-workers told me that you need like 3k individual DPS to do Sarth+1, and we’re not anywhere close to that. We have a 2.7k DPS ret paladin, the others are all between 1.5 and 2k DPS. Otherwise I would give it a shot, because seriously, it’s boring to heal it.
Hear you on the cooking dailies, I am doing the Shattrath one as well. Bah humbug, I say!
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Wukki Reply:
February 17th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
You don’t need to do 3k DPS. One drake up is basically a fight where you test your healers mana, and where you get your dps’ers adjusted to the fight.
You only have to worry about how much DPS your raid does when you start doing 2 or more.
Wukki´s last blog post..Malygos 25 Finally Down
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Norm Reply:
February 17th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
T –
For what it’s worth, I also find 0D kind of boring to heal. You’d have to discuss it with the priests but I’d be happy to try with 6 DPS, if we’re going to be a while before leaving up drakes.
I was kind of hoping we’d get a dps warrior/pally through the portal to OT, so we could burn down the Disciple before the debuff wiped everyone, but it was not, in retrospect, good split second triage. Glad you enjoyed my death so much though!
And I’m very excited to start Naxx10 with the guild.
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admin Reply:
February 17th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Don’t hope, announce on Vent, that’s what it’s there for. I am sure Skaze or Julez could have hopped through.
However, the wiser decision would just have been to stay behind until the mess was defused.
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Norm Reply:
February 17th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Oh, we were long dead before I could have communicated that one to Vent, plus you folks clearly had a handle on the situation. I overestimated how much damage the Disciple would do if left alone. Definitely not a prudent decision in retrospect!
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I totally understand your oculus-hatred, it’s an instance I’ve done all in there is to do (killing Eregos as Daily Hero, that is), and will only go back when we’re horribly overgeared to get all those achievements bringing me closer to the red proto drake.
That being said, if you don’t like Ahn’Kahet, wait until it’s Daily Hero and do it then. Even if you have to go back for more heroic achievements, at least you’ll be closer to one meta.
Oh, by the way, achievements ARE crack. My very last candy on the very last day before the end of the event, I got the lovefool-title. So onlny until next halloween for the meta there – if the weird PvP-related stuff for children’s week plays out, that is (“kill 10 members of the opposing faction while their child is watching” – this is as sadistic to achive as it is to think of in the first place)
Talldar´s last blog post..A short best-of inbetween
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admin Reply:
February 17th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Oh wow, I hadn’t looked at those achievements yet. I can just imagine the discussions about WoW ethics starting again. There was quite a bit of discussion why people would do torture quests, so I can only imagine what waves this will cause.
I dislike PvP, so I am not a fan of the one required PvP achievement per in-game event.
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Good luck in Naxx! If everyone your with is as prepared as you, you’ll get further then you can Imagine!
And don’t make the same mistake that I did for collecting Shat. Cooking Dailies – I did them for a month looking for two elusive recipes, which I had already learned and forgotten about/missed : P
Yakra´s last blog post..OS+3 Details
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admin Reply:
February 17th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Been there, done that. Kept doing the old fishing daily for the Captain Rumsey recipe, but I already had it.
I have checked and double-checked, no Stormchops yet.
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Good luck with the heroics and naxx. For OK, make sure you kill the spell flingers trash mobs first, and during madness on the final boss, every group should kill their healer first! Occulus I’ve become more fond of now – took us a while to get the final boss, but we’re pretty reliable these days. Also it gives you some conceptual practice for phase3 of Malygos, which is an absolutely beautiful instance imo. Let us know when you’re going in there, and I’ll share some hot tips too.
I’m sure you’ll do great in naxx, but good luck anyway. Its all about the strategy… I wouldn’t worry about the gear level of your raiders. The nicest thing about spider wing is the very small amount of trash between bosses. Lots of good feelings of progression very quickly. And lots of epics too yay!
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Wukki Reply:
February 17th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I actually advise against killing the spell flingers first.
Why?
Because as a Warrior, we can spell reflect it and watch them kill themselves.
Wukki´s last blog post..Malygos 25 Finally Down
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When I went to H Occulus, it was my 2nd trip into it (did it once on normal), and the tank, healer, and at least one of the other DPS’s first time in it *ever*. It took us a while to figure out Eregos, but once we did it wasn’t too bad. It was mess, and painful, and I really don’t like the drake-mount gimmick. The first boss was ickier, though – we just couldn’t get the pattern down to do it cleanly.
H Old Kingdom really isn’t too bad compared to H Occulus. The first time I was in there, we managed both the daily and the mushroom boss. O.O
Good luck in Naxx! It’s definitely not nearly as bad as parts of Karazhan. (No tears-inducing Moroes-like fights, anyway.)
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Hooray for Naxx! Good luck and hope you guys have fun (and kill lots of bosses and get some phat purpz).
Heroic Occulus is hell, my best advice is don’t pug it, take some guildies!
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I’m not sure where you got the 3k dps requirement per member on Sarth with drakes from, Kadomi, but it would probably be more in line progress wise if you wait with it until you get some Naxx gear on your raiders. But as Wukki says, that fight will be a lot more interesting once you throw in an extra drake or two! The guild I am in just tried one extra drake on 25 man the other day and the added chaos it threw into the fight was.. delicious *grin*
More onto the subject of your post though, if you found heroic HoL doable you will sail through heroic Oculus. If you want to make it easy, go light on melee dps (although its perfectly doable too), although I would second that you should go with people you know, that are hopefully somewhat awake for the last bloke
Best of luck in Naxxramas, hope you’ll get to unleash your tank in there, its a fun instance.
Vads´s last blog post..Heroic Strike, the Warrior’s worst friend
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admin Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I’ll never listen to my co-worker again. He’s currently working on Sarth+3, so I thought he had a clue.
I definitely want some Naxx gear on our raiders before we try with one drake up, so in a couple of weeks.
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I think Stormchops was one of the very first rewards I got from the cooking daily back in Shattrath. Of course, I did that stupid fishing daily forever as well and never once got a baby croc or that nice gem that everyone else got.
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admin Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I never got the gem either, but got a croc. Not that I wanted one, all I wanted at the time was the gem, heh.
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Honestly, a lot of fights are going to be suuuper boring to heal once you do them a couple times (or even the first time for a couple lol). Sarth gets better when you start adding drakes, though. Naxx can also be a snooze, which is when I start adding in the “I am going to obliterate you on the dispell meter” and “How low can the tank go?” and “I’m going to show off my jump-turning trick during the boss fight” games. Possibly dangerous, perhaps, but considerably more exciting, definitely. I still think Naxx is really fun though when it wants to be, and some of the fights are really cool compared to BC’s entry-level content. As a shaman healer you’ll get loved on for a lot of it, too, both fight and drop-wise. And achievements in there are a nice challenge once your group gets to that point.
Ahn’kahet can be a breeze with a good tank/healer combo, although it does take a lot more attention than most of the other heroics, and the only really terrible thing about Oculus is the last fight. Green drake healing, never again… ugh. D:
But, good luck in Naxx! You guys’ll do awesome.
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admin Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I hope so! And hey, if you ever want to look over my shaman to provide advice, please do.
I still miss you, Veti!
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When going into An Kahet, theres a daily at the portstone. After killing the first two spiders you get their body or something in your inventory. The debuff displayed doesnt work correctly, if you die it will be rest ALTHOUGH the item in your bag wont be! So check the item in your bag if you want to be sure about the time left… and go from the 2nd boss directly to the last one, you can kill the other 2 extra after turning in the daily just behind the herold guy. Shield-reflecting the spellflingers is funny but dangerous, i dont recommend it. The hardest part of the instance is probably the first boss, after that it gets more relaxing, even though the trash in ahn kahet is possibly the worst in any hero ive seen, you shouldnt go brain-afk there. cheers and good luck with naxx.
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I still don’t understand achievements. If I really have nothing to do in game I log off and read a book or something rather than run around and explore every inch of the world map.
I think it is fun to have that shiny achievement bar pop up from time to time, but otherwise the achievement bug hasn’t bitten me yet.
And from a gamer standpoint: I think achievements are bad design and just useless timesinks. Many games have similar mechanics: Do a level in less time or find every power up item and you get an even more powerful weapon. I see that some people might like that, but I prefer a good story, nice gameplay or whatever makes a game fantastic. And for me in WoW that is raiding. So please give me Ulduar.
drug´s last blog post..Back with no Plan
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Bent Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I am not much of an avchiving person myself either. Pretty much I just don’t really care about fluff just raw stats and skill I guess, lol.
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Achievements are my crack of WoW. Up to 6475 after completing Heroic: Glory of the Raider last night. I need to start working on the Battleground ones someday, but I hate pvp.
OK isn’t that bad of an instance really. For the 2nd boss, the best way to do it is to just have everyone stand on top of him, so when he calls flame spheres, they move away from people. For Herald, it gots a lot easier after a person or two dies (hint, hint to healer). Just hope your dps can kill some insanity people quick.
For Oculus, I have always found 2 red, 2 bronze, 1 green to be the best combo for Eregos. Other than that, just have to make sure people aren’t running around like crazy aggroing extra drakes.
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Oh, and an easy way to kill the first boss in OK, is to pull him all the way to the beginning of the instance. Burn heroism and you can kill him before any watchers get to him, which will give you the Heroic Achievement.
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admin Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
This was fixed with the last patch, he enrages now when you pull him outside of his room, one-shotting everyone in the party.
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Cery Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Ouch, I didn’t know that. Hmm, that achievement is interesting then, since you can’t kill the Guardians, yet they make him immune.
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Yep I have one Title, the explorer..I guess I am behind the times!
RJK´s last blog post..Dagger! For a Tank?
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Achievements just don’t do it for me. Self Challenge is one thing, but I’ve never been a very competitive person.
That said, Achievements are a permanent record of your skill and ability to work with others, particularly the raid achievements. Given the relative ease of getting epic gear at the moment, it is far more effective to look at someone’s achievement pane than their gear level.
That might change, however, as Ulduar introduces more unique gear rewards for “hard mode” encounters.
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Good god is Ocullus on heroic horrible. Took me an hour and a half I think (2 hours? It felt like forever) the one and only time I did it.
A’K was not so bad. I am sure you will kick butt through there.
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