I got the coaster from Direbrew. It is very nice. I have done a lot of the other Brewfest stuff, but not everything. There’s plenty of time, after all.
I actually like the faction champions fight. It it frantic and unpredictable and requires using (or at least being ready to use) almost all of your class abilities. Every other boss fight is so predictable. You kill them 3 or 4 times and you can reasonably expect to kill them every time after a while, not so with faction champions. Its a challenge every time.
It would be pretty cool to have a DK tank with 400K HP, heck it’d be cool to have a warlock tank with 400K HP.
The only healer we have been killing early is the druid. I’ll try your way one time to see how it goes but how do you keep the Druid locked down?
Why wouldn’t you want to keep your tree around? I generally run around the middle of the arena Hotting everyone with Rejuvenation and LB and Wild Growth and casting Swiftmend and only stand still when someone is being focus fired on. Maybe its just my ego but I think the a druid healer is almost indispensable in faction champs.
Warlock rotates Banish and Fear. If they ever both go into DR then he calls it out and someone does something… I think our Boomkin Cyclones. It’s inevitable that a few HoTs will get through - that’s why I constantly Tranq Shot our current burn target and the Shaman dispells it as well. The HoT must be removed - it ticks for a ridiculous amount.
We initially tried to kill the Resto Druid first and just never could get it down before the Enhancement Shaman, Warrior, Rogue, etc. just destroyed our raid. The bump is that second DPS - once you get them down they don’t have enough juice to focus fire any of you down.
One other thing to note is the Felpuppy if you have a Warlock opponent - they should be killed early too (maybe as soon as the second target - spell lockouts are no fun).
Mainly because the Boomkin has better CC - Cyclone is pretty badass for this fight. And a Disc Priest can PW:S, etc. the focus-fire target and keep them up till the Champs switch targets - if the Druid doesn’t get the HoTs rolling fast enough it’s game over for whoever got targeted. The Champs have pretty crazy burst DPS when they’re all up.
I’m not saying Resto Druids are bad for this fight, just that for us a Disc Priest/Boomkin combo worked better even though we normally use SPriest/Tree from those two toons.
Oh, and we also brought in a mage in place of our DK tank (same player, different toons) for the sheep and frost nova (so much for bring the player not the class, eh Blizz?).
So that’s what happened – sorry to hear about the implosion. 
I hope you and yours can find a good place to be.
We’ve had our own share of guild drama with egos, people leaving for raiding, and whatnot getting into the mix since the last time I posted. Right now, I’m not particularly pleased to be an officer due to the combination of pressure from different directions, let us say. Oy vey with a side of gevalt. :smack:
On the bright side, I did manage to successfully run my group of regulars (only 1 had done it before other than me) through H Oc including the Eregos fight. We wiped on him a few times while we got the coordination and strat down, but accepted it as the price of learning which I always appreciate. I’m probably sick in the head but I like that particular instance because it’s different and the boss fight requires more coordination than just balls to the wall DPS. Plus, you can’t beat surprise mammoths. XD
I agree that the Brewfest ram barrel racing quest really wasn’t thought out well at all and is buggy to boot. I didn’t always get a barrel thrown to me or was unable to throw it to the guy at the end. 
With all the CC, interrupts, dispells, etc. you need for this fight, it’s a big shit on the head of their alleged BTPNTC philosophy, that’s for damn sure.
I have a long-winded possibly nonsensical rant.
They’ve been slowly opening up Paladin and Shaman all around, but I have to admit the foot-dragging is kind of irritating, and here’s why.
First, these are two popular classes, and for once they are popular healing classes. Having played other MMO’s, I can say honestly that healers in other games are usually extremely painful to play - or no good at healing. WoW isn’t like that. Apparently some people like the Druid, and btoh the Paladin and the Shaman are quite popular. They’re hybrids with multi-role capability, so even if you like healing, you can do other things are not helpless in PvP. Even priests can party around a bit.
But darn it, they need to open up more Paladin for Horde and Shaman for Alliance. Yes, I know both sides are getting their second available of that class, but it’s kinda slow. God knows when/if they’ll take another step forward on this. And I don’t expect every race to have both classes. Still, it makes sense to open up more. Worgen, Nelfs, and Humans should be Shaman. I could see a small order of Orc Paladins, and people have wanted some Forsaken could return to Paladinhood for a while.
Besides, I want my Worgen Shaman. (With dual-claws, of course! 
) Sure, they have a lot of classes, but those make sense and the Belfs still will have one more in Cataclysm.
I admit, maybe they don’t want to rush things. Blizzard never does. They might want to build up to it in the lore. But it’s hardly a crazy request and its the bloody direction they acknowledged they wanted well before BC came out, dammit!
If I want an unperdictable fight I queue for a pug battleground. If I want to perdictable fight where learning and planning take the fore, I raid. It may just be me, but my favorite raid was SwP, titantic fights, amazing lore, and it felt right. Ulduar gets the feel right mostly, but the Keepers are a bit disjointed, and the fights are a little to jerky and chaotic. ToC feels out of place (the whole Argent Tourney does, really), the fights go from dull to chaos and then back to dull. There’s nothing interesting in there, just something made chaotic and hard to plan for to make it feel difficult.
The Faction Champions aren’t a boss fight. They’re an overly complex trash pull with really good loot.
We kill the tree first. If you don’t you can use a combination of banish and fear to keep the druid busy. I also use my felhunter to keep either the shadow priest or mage occupied.
We can kill faction champs every time on 10s. We’ve only killed them once on 25s.
It was a royal pain in the ass, but I managed to get Drunken Stupor on my human pally. It took many tries, but I finally got it by floating my Flying Carpet slightly higher than one of the bridges in Shattrath, then dismissing the carpet. Multiple attempts resulted in survival but no achievement because I wasn’t high enough. Three deaths from being too high. Finally got it just right.
I hate to ask, but why didn’t you use Divine Shield?
Er, I was too drunk to think of that? 
But I have some “Quasi-Questions”?
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Do different warrior trainers offer different training? I go to Lyria DuLac in Goldshire, because that guy in SW is just too hard for me to find sometimes, and I trained up, but couldn’t get Mortal Strike rank one, even though it only requires a 48…
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I bought the glyph of Devastate in AH, but it’s not letting me load it in the glyph circle. Do I need to remove one of the other major glyphs and replace it with that one? It’s a level 50 requirement?
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I got to 50 by grinding. I asked for group help for Altar of Zu’l but no one was available. and so we got killed.
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I seem to have lost my “in-game friend” Amberale, and I was wondering if someone could look Wolkenlaufre up in the armory and guide us a little?
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I have a “thrown” weapon. Am I now at a level where I can be trained for its use?
Thanks as always!
Quasi
Lyria only trains up to lvl 10, I think. You really need to go to the warrior trainer in Stormwind at your level.
You want to go to Bixi Wobblebonk in Ironforge. She’s the thrown weapon trainer for Alliance. You know how to use the Tram between Stormwind and Ironforge, right? When you come out of the tram station in Ironforge, turn left. Go through the Military Ward…keep an eye on the outer edge of the circle, to your left. There should be a sign for Timberline Arms a little over halfway through. Go up in there and Bixi should be there.
This is getting completely ridiculous. My shaman (level 30! air totem!) hit the AH again, looking for a helm, and still can’t find anything less than 75g! This for green-text hats with stats like +3 Str, +3 Sta.
Great googly-moogly!
At least I’ve got one waiting in the guild bank when I hit level 32.
Also, I am convinced that Ghost Wolf form is faster than that lumbering basic elekk.
Also also, flying on air down from the mountain peak to the entrance of the Exodar was freakin’ awesome.
Sorry, jayjay, but Bixi can’t train me, and the warrior trainer in SW won’t give me mortal strike either.
But something bad happened to Wolkie.
He drank some Noggenfogger elixir and it turned him into a skeleton, and then he drank more (I thought it would reverse itself?) and then he turned into a TINY skeleton. Will that wear off? It said “DRINK ME”?:smack:
Thanks
Q
ETA: never mind about the elixir. I see it does wear off in 8 minutes.
It will wear off, eventually. Don’t worry…it doesn’t affect your fighting, I don’t think. You just look funny for a while.
If Bixi can’t train you, then you already have Thrown. Have you equipped your thrown weapon?
Mortal Strike Rank 1 is a Talent. You need to open your talent point window and put talent points into it. You can’t train later ranks unless you have points in the Talent.
ETA: Just checked Wolkie on the Armory. Mortal Strike is an Arms talent, and you have all of your points in Protection right now. The only way to really get Mortal Strike is to redo your talent points, and unless you have a really good reason to do so, I wouldn’t do that right now.
jayjay,
Yes the darts are equipped and they are part of my action bar, but I Wolkie cannot seem to throw them.
I understand about Mortal Strike, and I appreciate your armory check too!
Thanks
Q