Ulduar BIS and How to Get It

I know I said about a week ago that I was going to post my picks for BIS, but there had been a lot of talk about the Moonkin 4piece set bonus on T8 being fixed, so I waited a little bit. If Blizzard really was going to fix our set bonus to be viable, of course 2 slots of our gear would change because even though other pieces might be better as straight dps, the 4set bonus would be the way to go.

Long story short - it's fixed and the majority of the moonkin community agrees that it's now worth it to pick up 4 pieces of T8. With this change, my picks for BIS are pretty much the same as Graylo's. His list is here and here. But if you're lazy like me and don't feel like clicking, here's the list and where they drop from. (Unless otherwise noted, all drops are from heroic raids.)

Head - Conqueror's Nightsong Cover (Thorim or 58 Emblems of Conquest)
Neck - Pendant of the Shallow Grave (10man Thorim Hard Mode)
Shoulder - Conqueror's Nightsong Mantle (Yogg - Saron)
Back - Drape of Mortal Downfall (Iron Council Hard Mode)
Chest - Conqueror's Nightsong Vestments (Hodir or 58 Emblems of Conquest)
Wrist - Grasps of Reason (Deconstructor Hard Mode)
Hands - Conqueror's Nightsong Gloves (Mimiron)
Waist - Belt of Arctic Life (LW Crafted Rare Drop Pattern)
Legs - Leggings of the Enslaved Idol (Freya Hard Mode)
Feet - Boots of Fiery Resolution (Flame Leviathan Hard Mode)
Ring 1 - Conductive Seal (Mimiron Hard Mode)
Ring 2 - Signet of the Manifested Pain (Kel'Thuzad)
Trinket 1 - Flare of the Heavens (General Vezax Hard Mode)
Trinket 2 - Illustration of the Dragon Soul (Sartharion)
Weapon - Staff of Endless Winter (Hodir Hard Mode)
Idol - Idol of the Shooting Star (Instructor Razuvious/Valor Badge Vendor)

And there you have it. The only arguable piece I see so far is the waist. The Cord of White Dawn is the tailoring rare drop pattern and has crit instead of haste and slightly less spirit. I think this piece is more up to the player and what stat they want more on this slot.

Due to the nature of raiding as it is now, the best gear not only drops from heroic raids, but hard mode in those raids. I'm a bit of a realist (or a pessimist, however you want to say it), so I realize that a lot of the non-tier gear pieces on the BIS list will be out of reach for a lot of my fellow boomkins. This probably goes for me as well. Joint Chiefs is a very capable guild, and we're slowly moving through Ulduar. I have no doubt that we'll be able to accomplish some of the hard modes, but it's going to take us a while before we even start attempting them. As such, I've also put together what I like to call a "Realistic BIS" list that consists of no hard mode gear and things that you'll likely come across as you progress through heroic Ulduar. As you'll see, the tier gear is basically the same.

Head - Collar of the Wyrmhunter
~ Drops from Razorscale and, from what I've seen, drops a lot. It has less hit than the T8 piece, but a lot more haste.

Neck - Unblinking Eye
~ Drops from Iron Council. Because it has quite a bit of spirit and crit, be prepared to fight healers for it. Wyrmrest Necklace of Power is still not a bad alternative if your guild is still clearing Naxx or if you're currently wearing this.

Shoulder - Conqueror's Nightsong Mantle (Yogg - Saron)

Chest - Conqueror's Nightsong Vestments (Hodir or 58 Emblems of Conquest)
~ Small note on this one. Robes of the Umbral Brute is the better piece here, but you'll still want to take the chest for the set bonus. Alternately, you can get the robes and use the T8 helm. The dps difference between which piece you drop and which piece you pick up for the set bonus is very minimal. If you ask me, since both of these pieces are also sold by the badge vendor for the same amount, it comes down to whether you want the full t8 look and a mage-looking helm or the full t8 look and a warlock-looking robe. :D

Back - Pennant Cloak
~ Still BIS until you can't do Iron Council hard mode. If you don't have this already, Sarth 2D is not incredibly difficult if you're able to get Ulduar gear.

Wrist - Unsullied Cuffs
~ Same as above.

Hands - Conqueror's Nightsong Gloves (Mimiron)

Waist - Belt of Arctic Life (LW Crafted Rare Drop Pattern)

Legs - Conqueror's Nightsong Trousers (Freya)

Feet - Boots of Wintry Endurance (LW Crafted Rare Drop Pattern)
~ Because this is a rare pattern drop and requires 6 Runed Orbs and because Leviathan is probably going to be one of the hard modes that your guild will try first, this slot really depends on your guild and wether they want to give you the runed orbs for an upgrade that's not the best piece of gear for that slot.

Ring 1 - Pyrelight Circle (Ignis)

Ring 2 - Signet of the Manifested Pain (Kel'Thuzad)
~ These two rings have exactly the same dps stats except for the signet has a bit more intellect, which is why it remains BIS.

Trinket 1 - Living Flame (Razorscale)
~ Arguable, Dying Curse still belongs in this slot. It all depends on your preference with procs.

Trinket 2 - Illustration of the Dragon Soul (Sartharion)

Weapon - The Lifebinder
~ Drop from Freya. This is the only Staff other than Endless Winter that I'm willing to transition from the MH/OH combo. If you want to stay with MH/OH, Soulscribe (Yogg-Saron) and Ironmender (Kologarn) is a nice combo.

Idol - Idol of the Shooting Star (Instructor Razuvious/Valor Badge Vendor)

Getting Settled and Catching Up

Hi all!!

*crickets chirp*

Yes... well... I've been away for a while because Leviathan has been in a kind of crisis since 3.1 hit. A bunch of our members left, and we were already having problems with attendance, so 25s on our own was out of the picture. We merged with one guild, and after it didn't work out came back to ours and tried doing Ulduar 25 as joint runs with other guilds. Eventually, people grew tired of trying to find other guilds to help us and progress came to a dead stop, sadly. So, our GM decided the best thing to do was disband, go our seperate ways, and try to find our own places on Dalvengyr, and I agreed with him. It was the best choice to end while it still had a semi-respectable rep instead of letting it fall into being known as a scrubby guild.

Unfortunately, some people server transfered and some went to other guilds, but most of us found our way into Joint Chiefs. I, personally, couldn't be happier. With my new guild, we're progressing steadily through Ulduar 25 (currently on Hodir, though we haven't downed Iron Council yet since we went straight to him from Auraiya), and the atmosphere is very nice. I'm making fast friends with my new guildies and finding myself falling right in with their hijinks in vent during raids. As sad as I am that some of the core people from Leviathan either couldn't get into Joint Chiefs or decided to go a more casual route and be guildless for a while, I'm excited and amazed and relieved that me and most of my friends have found this new home. I hope we all continue to progress and grow together. :)

So what have I been doing for the last month while I haven't been blogging? Besides keeping up with the boomkin news, I've been doing achievements of course!! Some ulduar, some pvp, some old heroics and rep, and the always-fun holidays. Here's the (very long) list:

Heroic: Staying Buffed All Winter, The Diplomat, Exalted with Timbermaw, Heroic: Nerf Gravity Bombs, Heroic: The Siege of Ulduar, Heroic: Shattered!, Heroic: Hot Pocket, Guardian of Cenarius, Exalted with Sha’tar, Outland Dungeon Hero, Heroic Opening the Dark Portal, Cenarion War Hippogryph, Exalted with Cenarion Expedition, Heroic Arcatraz, Heroic Mechanar, Heroic: Emalon the Storm Watcher, But I’m on Your Side, The Antechamber of Ulduar, Take Out Those Turrets!, Chaos Theory, Exalted Champion of the Alliance, Exalted Champion of Stormwind, 25 Exalted Reputations, Outland Dungeonmaster, Tower Defense, Stormy Assassin, Bound for Glory, The Perfect Storm, King’s Bane, The Incredible Hulk, Bloodthirsty Berserker, I Choose You, Stormcaller Brundir, The Siege of Ulduar, Me and the Cappin’ Make it Happen, Explosives Expert, Ancient Courtyard Protector, Exalted Champion of Ironforge, Supreme Defender, Not Even a Scratch, Alterac Grave Robber, Alterac Valley All-Star, Stormpike Battle Charger, For the Children, Exalted with Lower City, Exalted Champion of the Exodar, Emalon the Storm Watcher, Wrath of the Alliance, Noble Gardener, Exalted Champion of Gnomeregan, Classic Raider, Blackwing Lair, Hot Pocket, Nerf Engineering, Nerf Gravity Bombs, A Quick Shave, Got My Mind on My Money, Heroic: Make Quick Werk of Him, Chasing Marcia, Lance a Lot, It’s Just a Flesh Wound, Exalted Champion of Darnassus, Argent Valor, 10,000 Honorable Kills, Tilted!, Argent Aspiration

..... yeah.

I've also started a gallery here if anyone would like to see the screenshots of them for whatever reason.

That's all for now! I've recently been playing around with upgrades to try to figure out what I consider BIS. My next post will cover my picks. :)

Flame Leviathan Down!!

Surprisingly, for a guild who has lately had trouble getting 25 people together for raids (let alone be lucky enough to make a good composition out of those 25), we (slowly) jumped right into heroic Ulduar last night. Our server is EST, and the server didn't come up till about 7 or 8 server time, which is when we are supposed to be pulling our first mob. So, with everyone respeccing, changing glyphs and the like, we obviously had to start a little late.

Not only that, but despite our GM and most of our officers saying for the past few days that we would be going straight to 25man Ulduar, there were still people in Vault groups and even starting their own 10man Ulduar groups. It was a big mess.

When we got everyone together and got our vehicles, it didn't go all that bad considering the problems we had with people getting used to Stage 3 on Malygos before. We demolished towers, and then someone pulled Leviathan before we had destroyed them all. With 2 towers up, all the adds that came with him, and half the raid being locked out of the fight, it was a total disaster. XD 2nd pull was much better after we downed the towers. 3rd time was a charm for us though. As you can see, half the raid died, including me, but me and my driver would have lived if I hadn't blown the shield cooldown on our tank vehicle b/c we were getting rammed without being his target, so it was on CD when we actually were his target. Overcharged Fuel Rod dropped, which was a minor upgrade, but since I just got Surplus Limb not too many weeks ago and it was BIS before Ulduar, I didn't mind it going to someone else.

It's a good thing we downed him too. We all joked how it was going to be sad if didn't down the Leviathan in Ulduar. Haha.

We went to Razorscale, but we didn't really have the healers for a successful try. The officers have decided that we will be doing 10man to get used to the fights before we attempt 25 again. Wish us luck! :)

In other news, I'm pretty excited about the Argent Tournament and new quest tracking stuff. I got Argent Aspiration, mastered the jousting attacks and won a duel to get Tilted!, and started on my questline to represent what will probably be Darnassus. Hooray for new dailys! Got the Jeweled Fishing Pole from my first fishing daily. So... despite the drama with the Ulduar group, it was a pretty good patch day. ^_^v

Get to da Choppa!!

Yes, ppl!! I finally got my Chopper!! I've been saving money for a while, but between all the mounts I bought for myself and buying epic flying for my DK, it took a little longer than I would have liked. Hethertic, my DK friend in the sidecar pitched in the last few hundred I needed and helped me get the titansteel and made it for me a few days ago! I've been riding it around everywhere except for when I'm pvp'ing. Hard to get out of the thing to hit someone or heal yourself. I'll be glad when they're just regular mounts instead of vehicles. I think I heard something about that in 3.1.

In other news, turns out there will be no merger for our guild, but lately we've been recruiting more people, so maybe raid attendance will perk up. We STILL haven't done Maly or OS this week b/c we can't get people to show up for anything but Naxx. -_-

In other achievement news, we finally got past the Twin Emperors in AQ40 and downed C'Thun!! As you can see, I died, and early too. It was my first time fighting him, so I was just focused on killing the tentacles and completely forgot about his circling death ray. Hit me head on and all I could do was ping the map when I saw tentacles from my dead body. :( Oh well... still got the achievement!! It was a random pug group too, so I didn't get another Battle Tank mount. T_T Some warlock who went with us got EVERY color, including the rare red one. Grrr.

New Achievements!!

One achievement I was actually really excited about is the heroic scion one from Malygos. I like going up on the little disks, but because I'm ranged and usually solo one or two from the ground anyways, I pass on it so things can go faster. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but my guild is melee heavy, so having one of them on the ground so I can go up isn't exactly ideal. But... (un?)fortunately our guild was kind of slacking on Maly last night (maybe they were bummed that we didn't start out the week with Naxx as usual?), and a lot of people kept dropping fast in phase 2. A disk was down, and it was probably a wipe since we either wouldn't have enough dps for phase 3 or wouldn't beat the enrage timer. Either way, I saw the opportunity and got my achievement!

In other news, the Surplus Limb finally dropped of Patches again, and even though I already had Accursed Spine and some of the casters were still wearing the badge offhand, the loot council graciously gave it to me. I guess having no life so I can be online all the time pays off occasionally. XD

I'm also continuing to do old skool heroics for Outland Dungeon Hero.

And I'm starting to level a Paladin. One of my guild mates told me about this great little addon that works with QuestHelper called TourGuide, and it's made leveling SO much faster. :)

Tales of Old

Today, all we did was old skool raids. It started with BT, but we got stuck on Bloodboil and the Reliquary of Souls b/c we only had 10 people, 2 of which were heals and one of them had just hit 80. Ha ha. Then we hit up Kara, did the mount bosses in ZG, and then did AQ20 and 40. But we got stuck on the Twin Emperors in 40 and called it a night. Some of us did our daily Heroic MGT run to farm for the mount and pet, but the whole day came up dry for us. I did get a lot of rep though, and a few raid achievements I hadn't picked up yet. :)

Oh, and as you can see above, I got a Blue Qiraji Battle Tank!! WOOT! Another one towards Mountain o' Mounts.

Here's the shots:

PVP'in it Up

We still have noone-shows-up-itis in my guild, so even the BT and Sunwell runs are falling through because we don't even have enough people on to do those. Well... those of us who are usually on always manage to do something. Last night it was PVP. For whatever reason, my guildies like WSG and AB like crack, so we usually just do those. One particular AB was going well for us, and my guildies agreed to let me cap some flags. I thought I might as well work on the assaulting and defending achievements. After I had done one of each, I thought I might as well try for All Star. And then when I managed that... I thought I maybe could get Overly Agressive and Defensive if things went my way. And they did!! 3 achievements not only in one night, but in one BG. WOOT!



This post is sort of late b/c I've been busy with my computer updates. The screens above were taken while I was on my new setup with my new awesome video card and improved processor/ram. FPS isn't an issue anymore. And today we went and got me a new monitor for it too. Setup looks nice now. From now on, the screens will be in widescreen. :)