Honor's Code

WoW has been something of a haven for me this past week as my life in the real world has been fairly chaotic. Thursday night, we started on Kromog. After much discussion on Twitter and Maintankadin, we found a suggestion that the first tank on Kromog only take one stack of Warped Armor and then the second tank would pick him up and get two stacks. Then we would rotate as stacks cleared. It was a good plan and with me starting initially, my stacks were cleared by the time the 'hands' phase was over. I only had to remember to taunt him to make sure my co-Tank didn't get his third stack. We still had to deal with three stacks from time to time and we used external cooldowns to help him through. I continued to use "Stupid Paladin Tricks" to avoid the 'rune' phase completely. The first 'rune' phase, when the Runes of Grasping Earth are showing up, make sure you are NOT in a rune. Yes, that's right, don't be in a rune. When Kromog is about ...

Progression. It is like oxygen to the raid guild. Sometimes progression is taking down a new boss, but sometimes progression takes another form as Dirty Casuals learned on Tuesday night. The night started on a positive note as a new Hunter, Savvy Mark, joined the raid. I always think of Jack Sparrow when I see his name, savvy? Mark responded to my recruitment post and it was great to have him aboard. I loved that he played the night as Beast Mastery. When I mained my hunter for a while at the beginning of Cataclysm, Beast Mastery was my favorite spec. I really need to go level that guy again. Ah well, one day. We've anchored ourselves in Blackrock Foundry for a while. The Bosses of Highmaul had begged for mercy. Steel and I took the tanking duties. A one shot of Gruul made for a great start. We headed over to Oregorger already set to four healers. We are getting better about watching how much ore he has already gorged and we moved into position a little faster. The attempt wen...

Sometimes you'll hear a commentator on a baseball talking about how the starting pitcher just doesn't "have their stuff" on a particular day. It must be weird being a profession baseball pitcher and knowing some days you will just not have it. That's sort of how I felt on raid night. I just didn't have it. I don't know if I was tired or what and I was having a little bit of lag. My ping was around 230ms where usually its sub 100ms. That extra quarter second delay made everything feel off. I thought that maybe the lag was caused by the new patch and I turned off as many addons as I could spare as well as the new Twitter integration. That seemed to help a little bit. There wasn't any discussion this time, I simply showed up Prot spec and we went to town. Gruul went down fairly quickly without any heroics needed. We banged our head on Oregorger for a bit. People were really starting to get frustrated. The positioning is so key, especially as everyone ...

The Dirty Casual Nation INFO: We are an Adult GAMING GROUP (18 and up) that is currently recruiting for our Warcraft Branch on Hyjal US Horde Side AND our Twink Guild on Burning Blade Alliance! We play multiple games together, have a closed facebook page, and are currently progressive raiding Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 9:30pm EST. CONTACT INFO: For More information and easy contact info Tweet us @TDCasuals or go to www.TheDirtyCasuals.com Contact EsmeraldaSky, Kreelix, Byjaxx, Tachinori In game on Hyjal US HORDE for more info!  Apply quickly on the forums to join the gaming group  WHISPER any Guild Member for an invite! WHO ARE WE? We are a gaming group for DIRTY CASUALS! (or dirty casuals disguised as hard-core's or hard-cores disguised as dirty casuals....) WHAT DO WE VALUE? A sense of humor. A sense of community. Gaming with like minded people! RECRUITING: Guild : " DIRTY CASUALS NATION" US, Hyjal Horde Progressive Raid Team : We ar...

This post will cover Gruul, Oregorger, Hans'gor and Franz'gar, Beast Lord Darmac, and Flamebender Kagraz. I'll do another on the other bosses once I get some more experience with them. This is based upon my experiences in Normal Blackrock Foundry. If there's stuff on higher difficulties that would alter the choices I've made here let me know in the comments and I'll edit the entry (and credit you). If you think there are better choices, let me know and we can discuss it. I'm always ready to learn. I also wanted to address the idea of 'its Normal mode, do whatever you want.' We all have our own experiences and its easy to think that our experience is the typical one. It leads to comments like the one I saw on Twitter recently "Oh the ilvl 645 and lower things? Do they even matter?" Yes, they do matter. Plenty of people are still LFR 640 geared or worse and the 645 tokens represent a small or maybe even a large upgrade. In the same way, the...

We decided to continue our efforts in Blackrock Foundry. Our officers want everyone to hit the threshold of 15 bosses so that when the new Blackrock Foundry Garrison missions come out, we will be able to get Heroic gear from them. I'm not sure if its 15 or 21. Highmaul had 14 bosses and that's where people are getting the 15. I don't know if its higher because BRF has more bosses. When I got invited to the raid, the game labeled me as a Tank since I was in my Prot spec. I typically run around with my Prot spec on. It's my favorite spec and if I'm not in a raid or heading out to do a daily or something, it doesn't matter what spec I'm in. In addition, having the shield on my back gives me one more open bag space. I wonder how it works with Gladiator Warriors. I guess it is smart enough to know they are in Gladiator stance and label them correctly. I saw that both of our regular tanks, who I will call Mr. G and Mr. S, were on and in the raid so as soon a...

Update: Dr. Theck has published his " How to Prot in 6.1 ". It's fantastic and well worth the read. I'll do a summary post on it tomorrow. When I logged on Tuesday night, I got a Facebook notification from the guild. Our guild communicates mostly through a closed Facebook group. We do have public facing website with forums but they aren't used nearly to the extent the Facebook group is. While I resisted the idea at first, I really like the Facebook group as a way of communicating within the guild especially one like ours that spans many games. You see people's real names, real faces and often their profile pictures contain family members. It helps translate our fellow guild mates from pixels to people. The only problem is learning to connect the real person to their in game persona. I usually tag my posts with 'Honors' so people know who I am. Its also great for those times when players change their focus. One of our DPS Warriors really got into Se...