As we’re progressing steadily on Archimonde, and knocking out other Hyjal-ish bosses, Annorah has picked up a few really tasty upgrades - several that are best in slot (pre Sunwell, which… well, I won’t be seeing).  Unfortunately every single one of them clashes.  Not just with her previous gear, but with each other.

I give you Annorah - the rodeo clown:

From head to toe -

• Yellow and green goggles
• Flaming volcano shoulders
• Blue and silver shield
• Green, Aqua, and Gold weapon
• Electric blue and grey gloves
• Black and gold tabard
• Neon green and blue pants, with purple accents
• Brown boots

I don’t have her cape showing, but it’s apparently blue and pink - I’m not a fan of the way capes drape over Annorah’s adorable Draenei tail.  Also, you can’t really see just how electric blue the gloves are in that shot.

I prefer the look of a tabard over pants (I want my kilt back!)- especially since her chestpiece is red and gold.  My guild tabard is also red and gold.  The Aldor tabard is pink and purple… maybe I could wear that and be even worse?   I’ve tried an Illidari tabard, but unfortunately I have the purple one, not the green one, so it doesn’t match either.

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Matchy Shaman isn’t Matchy

One of the points she brings up is something that’s rather close to me personally - that being the issue of gamers who are red-green colorblind.  Numbers that I can find suggest that between 5 and 8 percent of men and 0.5% of women have some form of colorblindness - the most prominent of which (99%) are the two forms of red-green colorblindness.

What does that matter to me?  Well, I play sitting next to a red-green colorblind gamer.  Who also happens to be a fantastic tank.  One of the fights that most tanks have to contend with is Netherspite.  (DARGON WITH LAZERS)  Ever notice that of Netherspite’s three beams, one is green and one is red?

When we’re in Karazhan, doing that fight, I frequently get asked which beam is the red one.

Could they just as easily have made one red, one blue, and one yellow?  Probably.  Is it game breaking?  No, not really - other people that I know with this particular visual anomaly have used everything from vent commands to various raid-target icons to keep from having problems.  But its certainly something that I think game designers should be more aware of.

Colorblindness is probably one of the least “impairing” of all the things discussed in DwarfPriest’s article, especially because to most people with the anomaly, life goes on as usual.  But it is something that *does* affect a large number of people (particularly men) - and isn’t too terribly hard to watch out for on large items like boss fights.

For the rest of the internet, there are programs that adjust images - like Daltonizing them - to make the various colors of red and green look different to those people whose eyes can’t differentiate them.  There are also similar programs where you can plug in your website to see what a red-green colorblind person would see, looking at your page.  Keep in mind that there’s a pretty good variation in severity of colorblindness, and some people can see more difference than others, but statistically about 5% of the people that would see a webpage would see it more like the vischeck image than the “normal” one.

Anyway - food for thought on your Thursday morning.

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Red light, Green light

Previous guides for Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, SSC, TK: The Eye, and other tier 6 guys can be found here.

Congratulations on getting past Winterchill!  You’ve probably got the hang of how the trash works now, and are ready to tackle Boss #2 in the Human Camp.  Anetheron is a dreadlord, or Nathrezim, an intelligent and cunning demon acting as a tactician and lieutenant for the Burning Legion.  These guys are tricksy, and Anetheron is definitely a step above Winterchill in difficulty.

Anetheron Basics

• First - a moment about the trash.  All of the trash in Hyjal is done gauntlet style.  You have between 90 seconds and 3 minutes (depending on the wave) to complete each of 8 waves before each boss.  The waves of trash get harder as you get closer to the boss, and as you progress deeper into Hyjal.  If you wipe on the trash OR the boss, you start the entire event over again.  (The only exception to this is Archimonde, who has no trash, and therefore resets like any other boss)
• As soon as you kill the last mob in wave 8, the boss will spawn.  He can be distracted (by Rogues) to keep him away from the raid for a few moments in order to buy healers more time to drink/etc.
• Anetheron has a 10  minute enrage timer.
• Also similar to Winterchill, this fight has only one phase - it’s the same from beginning to end.
• He hits pretty hard, usually between 3 and 6 thousand damage per hit on plate.  Healing is the crux of this one.
• Aside from his other various abilities, Anetheron will summon, on a random raid member, a Towering Infernal.  This stuns them for 2 seconds.
  • These Infernals must be tanked away from the raid, usually by a tank wearing some amount of fire-resistance gear (probably whatever tank you use for Kael’s Phoenix Hatchlings).  A paladin is a good choice, for the use of Exorcism and Avenger’s Shield.  If the tank has FR gear, only one healer is needed for this job.
  • Both the healer and the tank for this job should be far away from Anetheron - we usually put them over by the Ballista in the human camp.  This keeps them from getting carrion swarm or sleep, both of which can be devastating.  It also gets Jaina involved in killing the Infernals (which your ranged DPS should be helping with as well).
  • Any raid member that gets Inferno’d needs to RUN IMMEDIATELY to the Infernal Tank, avoiding (if possible) other raid members.  The Infernals are kind of like the ones from Prince - they do an 8 yard fire AOE that hits for 3-4K Fire damage every 2 seconds.  ow!
• He also has a Vampiric Aura, which heals him for the damage he does in melee.  Rogues should keep wound poison up, or warriors keep mortal strike up at all times.
• The two biggest issues for healers in this fight are the remaining two boss abilities:
  • Sleep: 55 yard range, randomly selects 3 targets and stuns them for 10 seconds.  This can not be cleansed, trinketed out of, Will-of-the-Forsakened, PVP trinketed, or removed by Tremor Totem.  It is *crucial* that the Infernal tank healer not get slept, so they must stand far away from Anetheron.
  • Carrion Swarm. 60 yard range, random direction, cone shaped debuff.  This does 3-6K shadow damage and causes a 20 second debuff that reduces healing DONE (not healing taken) by 75%.  That includes potions, bandages, hearthstones, and healing stream totem.  He’ll cast this ability every 15 seconds.
  • Any healer that gets Swarmed is essentially rendered useless for 20 seconds.  To avoid this, your healers MUST SPREAD OUT in a circle all the way around the boss.  That way, ideally, no more than 2 healers will get swarmed at a time.
• Fortunately both of these two abilities can be negated with a modest amount of shadow resist gear.  I usually wear around 150 SR (3 pieces of gear plus buffs) and have noticed a LOT of resists, both of the sleep and of carrion swarm.

Group Considerations: Nothing special.  If you don’t have a paladin to tank the Infernals (with Fire Resist Aura), consider being in the Infernal Tank group to drop a FR totem.

totems, Totems, TOTEMS: Nothing special here either, other than the fire resist thing mentioned above.

Heroism/Bloodlust?: When called for, or in the last 25% of the fight (particularly in a group with fire mages).

Don’t stand in the… Infernal AOE.  Also, don’t stand so close to your healing friends that you all get swarmed and the raid wipes.

Shaman Friendly or Unfriendly? Rather unfriendly.  You can’t totem out of the sleep, you can’t cleanse the carrion swarm, everyone in the raid is spread out willy-nilly around the boss, and the melee aren’t taking much damage.  Unless they get an Infernal.

Other stuff:

• I highly recommend doing a “practice setup” for this fight, just before starting the Anetheron trash.  Nothing elaborate, but have the healers go stand around where they expect to be.  At least for the first time, this will help eliminate mass-swarm-debuffs until everyone gets used to the fight.
• I also highly recommend wearing some SR gear.  You’ll need it later in Black Temple anyway, and it makes a huge difference both on this fight AND the next two Hyjal fights.
• Whatever you do, when this fight is over, DO NOT talk to Jaina.  Talking to her will start the invasion of the human camp, and will destroy the raid.  Wait for loot to be distributed and for everyone to move up to the horde camp, and THEN have someone talk to Jaina.
• After Jaina retreats, gem nodes will open up on the path between the human and horde camps.  These are full of tasty epic gems.

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Resto Shaman vs. Anetheron - A Healing Guide

Inside the Pig and Whistle, three men and a dwarf sit, cloaked and hooded, huddled over a corner table covered with maps and beer mugs. Small curls of smoke rise from a carved pipe, hanging delicately in the cold air, far from the fire.  Only the dwarf’s sidelong glance at a young mage coming down the stairs suggests that they notice her presence.  She approaches Reese, the half-deaf barkeep, and asks him, loudly, about some food.

Two or three other tables hold inebriated occupants – the type that have nothing better to do than pass out at the inn and hope to wake up in a bed that doesn’t have lice or fleas. The barmaid, Elly, shuffles from table to table, smiling but not saying much as she refills the glasses time and time again.

Two men come inside from the chilly air, warming themselves by the fire for a few moments, their voices low and secretive.  Gold changes hands between them, and a small parcel, and then they leave, each in a different direction.

A Stormwind Guard pokes his head inside, waving at the bartender and flashing him a gap-toothed grin.

“Everything alright?”

“Yep, just the usual, same as before.”

Elly scutters over to him, refilling both his flask and a thermos of coffee.  He takes a swig of both, promises to check back again in an hour or so, gives Elly a familiar swat, and disappears again into the blackness, the first white flurries of snow sticking to his blue cloak.

The mage sits close to the fire, eating a bowl of the day’s Undermine Clam Chowder with a small lump of cornbread and some of the tavern’s brown ale.

Half an hour or so later, Reese and one of his men begin sweeping up the tables and drunken men. The far table picks themselves and their maps up, vanishing up the stairs and leaving nothing behind but a few scattered scraps of paper amidst the empty mugs. The scents of pipe tobacco and some strange and far away place linger in the air.

One of the bar’s patrons falls out of his chair, knocking it over.

The mage, startled by the sudden movement, gets up, stands for a moment by the open doorway peering out into the black, snowy night, and then makes her way up the stairs with a small bottle of sparkling water and some muffins.

The downstairs clock rings twice, followed shortly by the deep chimes of the Cathedral tower, the peals hollow and dark against the soft whisper of falling snow.

A lone shadowed figure lowers itself out of one of the upstairs windows and disappears into the shadows…

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Scenic View: The Pig and Whistle Tavern, 2am

Monday:  Overslept; pet ran away; I’m out of Bug-Be-Gon, and I have 43 glowing stinger bites.  Black Stalker is PMSing.  Gods, I hate Mondays.

Tuesday:  Grew some more lichen and mushrooms.  Still itchy.

Wednesday:  Fed unruly servants to the hydra.

Thursday:  I have a new pet!  A Bear!  This one seems smarter than the other ones, perhaps I’ll keep him around for awhile.

Friday:  Missing another loaf of bread and some of those tasty little blue mushrooms that Hungarfen grows.  I swear when I find that druid, I’m going to feed him to the hydra.

*My thanks to a typo in the TRI chat channel for the idea (and Wednesday and Thursday’s entries!).  Hopefully Swamplord Musel’ek doesn’t mind my putting words in his mouth too much.

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Heroic Underblogging, Anna Style!

I plugged a few of the wowbloggers into the system and this is what happened:

Too Many Annas:

(I particularly like the “HealersGood” part!)

Need More Rage

(hee!  “befreakers!”)

Big Bear Butt Blogger

World of Matticus

Big Red Kitty

(FOSHIZZLES!)

This is a post from: Too Many Annas, a World of Warcraft blog.
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Wordle!

The idea is to pick a character (or one of your characters) and see how they would answer the questions.  Let your imagination go, and let the characters talk for themselves sometimes too.

Feel free to comment your answers (or turn them into a blog post of your own!).  If you’re unsure of some of the logistics - I highly suggest starting with www.wowwiki.com - you’ll be surprised how much AWESOME lore there is to be found.  (And no, not all questions will require any kind of lore-related background).  Don’t get too hung up on the details - these are for thinking, and there are no wrong answers!

Anywho!  On to this week’s Friday Five!

• • When is your character’s birthday?  Does he/she know?
  • What is your character’s favorite place in the world?  Why?
  • What kind of sense of humor does your character have (if any)?
  • Is your character introverted or extroverted?
  • What just irritates the hell out of your character?

This week, Aelflaed is going to step up to the plate to answer this set!

1. Aelflaed’s birthday is May 4, and she is 28 years old.  She knows her birthday, but doesn’t really care either way.
2. Aerie Peak, in The Hinterlands.  It most reminds her of where she grew up (the lands outside Stratholme, where her dad was a miner), and she enjoys the cooler temperatures and huge pine trees there.
3. Rediculous.  Aelflaed, of all my characters, is the most prone to outbursts of silliness and/or playing pranks/tricks on people.  She loves to laugh and tell stories.
4. Very extroverted.  She’ll sit and chat with anyone, especially where ale is involved.  (Double points if there’s food involved too)
5. Stuffed-shirt, pompous, holier-than thou types.  She’s too full of energy and general optimism to put up with that stuff.  While she’s definitely a paladin, and a strong supporter of the Light, she’s not one to be preachy, and she’d rather be out looking for trouble than sit around discussing theology.

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Friday Five RP - August 29

Warcraft has been a lot of different games over it’s course - and it’s fun to look back at how things “used to be”.  Loronar talked about the generation gaps in WoW and how they affect the way that we play now.  It’s fun to think about the first days of playing, and remembering the silly things I did leveling up.  I started playing this game just before patch 1.5 (when the first battlegrounds were released) - before Blackwing Lair was introduced, though I’ll admit to being more interested at the time in the Darkmoon Faire than the 40 man, tier 2 raid.

I remember particularly when a very good friend (and the person who taught me how to be a hunter) found out that I’d never been to Rachet, and rounded me up with a pile of Cherry Grog and we went and got drunk and danced with level 10 Taurens in the inn.  Also, cliff jumping in Ferelas!

Was everything perfect and rosy back then?  Of course not.  Are things perfect and rosy now?  Not really.  That doesn’t make things any less fun.  The game is getting ready to change again - and it won’t be perfect and rosy then either.  But I think, regardless, it’ll be fun - good people, good characters, and crazy adventures that make all of our heads spin.

What are the things you most remember about being a new player in Warcraft?  Do any of those memories stand out?  What “wow generation” are you a part of?

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Nostalgia and Warm Fuzzies

It’s very important to care for your healers properly, as burnout and irritation may cause them to lose interest in raiding, wither, have attention problems, pick up strange diseases like “altitis” and “real life”, and potentially, in extreme cases, disappear altogether.  Supplying them with tasty food and a comfortable environment are the two best ways to care for your newly acquired healers.

Remember, though, that each healer will have his or her own preferences for food.  Some healers like blackened sporefish, while others prefer golden fish sticks.  Still others, usually of the paladin persuasion, prefer the much more expensive Skullfish Soup.  If you are the caretaker of a large group of paladins, you may want to reserve the more rare Skullfish Soup for treats and special occasions, providing the more readily available sporefish and fish sticks for everyday raid food.

Generally, it’s best to feed your healers on a steady diet of any of the above fish species - the fish is good for them, being high in protein and low in fat, and supports a strong constitution for resistance against wipes, people with addons calling out for healing, and rogues that pull aggro*.

The high concentration of healthful fatty acids, like omega-3,  found in fish oils are especially good for shaman healers, who use the oils to help keep their friends heart-healthy and foot-light, especially over water and when swimming.  All healers benefit from these fish oils though, as it helps to prevent heart attacks and high blood pressure caused by tanks who are not yet uncrushable*.

Should one of your healers seem to be having problems with near death experiences, you may wish to provide them with some Spicy Crawdads or perhaps a Fisherman’s Feast.  Both of these tasty seafood delights have good effects on healer survivability.

Remember always to get your fish from a sustainable and reputable source.  Though not possible for all raids, fishing these tasty morsels up yourselves is both practical and environmentally friendly.  It provides an opportunity for socialization and team-building, as well as taking away some of the market for the mass-fishing operations (or worse, fish farms) usually sold in auction houses and various trading venues.

These mass fishing operations are prone to high levels of undesirable metals which, if consumed over an extended period of time, may cause healing performance to decrease*.  Overfishing by these operations is also detrimental to the natural environments of these fish, and they often have sat in the storehouses for longer than is optimal for consumption.  Fresh fish is best!

We here at the Too Many Annas healer care department hope that you find nothing but raiding success, good LootFu, and strong, competent healers through good care and conscientious leadership.

*these statements not confirmed by the Azerothian Food and Drug Administration; No healthcare regimens should be undertaken without the care of a properly trained dietary specialist or physician.

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Care and Feeding of Healers

Previous guides for Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, SSC, and TK: The Eye can be found here.

Welcome to Mount Hyjal - where the bosses are bad and the trash is… different.  Your raid has likely killed 3/4 and 5/6 in tier 5 - possibly even downed Kael and Vashj as well.  Likely, Rage Winterchill will be your first steps into tier 6 content.

Winterchill is a Lich - a powerful undead sorcerer corrupted from a previously living body - often a necromancer.  This fight will be as much about learning to manage the trash as it will be about actually working on the boss, so be prepared to be patient.

Winterchill Basics

• First - a moment about the trash.  All of the trash in Hyjal is done gauntlet style.  You have between 90 seconds and 3 minutes (depending on the wave) to complete each of 8 waves before each boss.  The waves of trash get harder as you get closer to the boss, and as you progress deeper into Hyjal.  If you wipe on the trash OR the boss, you start the entire event over again.  (The only exception to this is Archimonde, who has no trash, and therefore resets like any other boss)
• As soon as you kill the last mob in wave 8, the boss will spawn.
• The Winterchill fight has only one phase - it will be consistent from beginning to end.
• Rage has a 10 minute enrage timer - this fight is technically a DPS race - can you kill him before he picks off too many of your raid members to go on?
• As expected for a powerful sorcerer, his melee attacks aren’t too scary ( around 3K on plate), but his spell attacks are NASTY
• There are two major attacks that you’ll need to watch out for:
  • Icebolt - instant cast on a random target, hits for 5K or more, and has a freeze debuff that ticks at 2500 damage per second for 4 seconds.  This. Thing. Hurts.  Healers with a fast cast time spell (paladin flash of light, priest flash heal, shaman lesser healing wave) will be assigned to target Winterchill and watch who HE’s targeting like a hawk.  Just before he icebolts, he’ll briefly target the player intended for the spell, and the bolt-healers will then spam quick heals on that player.
  • Death and Decay - 10 second, 20 yard AOE centered on a random raid member.  It deals 15% of max health as damage every second to any player in range.  Yes - that means 150% of max health over 10 seconds.  If you stand in it, YOU WILL DIE.  It looks like little patches of faint red mist on the ground (you may have to turn spell effects/distance up to see it).  Because of this ability, the raid must be spread out to minimize the number of people affected by Death and Decay at any time.
• He also does a frost nova that will hit melee.  It’s pretty trivial.

Group Considerations: Nothing special on this one.  Go with your standard group - but be aware of totem range.  Hyjal is a BIG place, and Death and Decay means people will be scrambling.

totems, Totems, TOTEMS!: a Frost Resistance totem is nice to help with the Icebolt damage, otherwise, whatever is appropriate for your group

Earthshield: The tank.

Heroism/Bloodlust?: Either when called for or at 25(ish)%.  There is some validity to using heroism early on in this fight, if your raid has a tendency to lose people to Icebolts and your tank doesn’t have a TPS problem.

Don’t stand in the: Death and Decay.  Really.  Don’t stand in it.  It can be hard to see, so watch out for it (raid warnings are good!).  If you see it, don’t finish casting.  Don’t drop a totem.  Pick up your shiny blue arse (or your brown/green one, if you’re a horde sort) and MOVE.

Shaman Friendly or Unfriendly: I’m going to go with unfriendly on this one.  Lesser Healing Wave is mana intensive and not very healing efficient, making it the least good choice for an icebolt healer - but shamans also often start having some haste gear around this time (through gems and Z’A gear), which can help your LHW be the first heal to hit an icebolted person.  Chain heal is nice for taking care of frost-nova’d melee, but that’s not going to be a big issue.  Because of Death and Decay, you’ll have a hard time keeping everyone in your group in range of the totems, and you’ll have a hard time using chain heal effectively.

Fortunately, he drops some tasty mail healing bracers.  Woo!

Other stuff:

• This boss, like the other bosses in Hyjal (except Archimonde) is linked to the trash.  If you wipe on the boss, you get to do the trash again.
• If you die on the trash waves, and it’s earlier than wave 6, you can run back from the graveyard and save some healer-mana in between pulls.
• Be very careful with healing aggro before your AOE tank has a chance to really nail down the mobs.  If you drop a big chain heal that hits three people, you may have an abomination in your face.
• If you have a PVP trinket, it WILL remove the Icebolt debuff, as will a paladin bubble.
• Watch for Death and Decay on the melee - he will do it, and chain heal is really nice for keeping them alive until it goes away.
• Winterchill also drops the Time-Phased Phylactery, a quest item in the Black Temple Attunement chain, which you should do, even if you don’t need the attunement, for the Medallion of Karabor - Shadow Resistance is VERRA NICE in some of the later Hyjal fights, and absolutely *essential* in Black Temple.

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Resto Shaman vs Rage Winterchill - A Healing Guide