I have several pet peeves with the Unholy tree. I played a hunter for a long time and I hated the damned pet. Pet controls in WoW are pretty simple: attack, stay there, follow me, and a special button for whatever class of pet you have (ours is a stun), plus seven other buttons that do basically the same thing or turn on/off special attacks. They lack the nuance required to make pets anything other than a passive dot with yet another cooldown I have to watch. What I really want instead of giving me a pet to run in and out of fire is a button called "Ghoul Sickness" that does whatever damage over time Blizzard wants me to have for my pet and another button for the stun. This allows me to remove a hot bar from my screen, ignore the other 8 buttons on the damned thing, and focus on what I really care about: making my deathknight work right. Unfortunately, there is not really a dps alternative in the unholy tree at present for replacing the ghoul. He's not a nice little addon in the first four tiers of the unholy tree that any DK can get if they so choose to avoid bladed armor or killing machine and want to play a pet class. It's ~30% of the damage in the unholy tree and a very un-fun ~30%, in my opinion. Step into the arena and you get to run a crazy scheme resembling: ghoul in, chains, PS, feared, give chase, death coil, ghoul jump, get rooted, zombie stun, ss, ss, dc, get over here, ss. dc. The guys with really high arena ratings, especially 2v2, that run unholy with ghoul have my respect. Running the pet with the necessary control to arena successfully is like learning to play the piano well with your toes. Now we come to the kludgiest part of ghoul mastery: Ghoul Frenzy. I often ask myself two questions: What problem was ghoul frenzy trying to solve? Did it solve it? I believe Ghoul Frenzy was trying to solve two problems: reduce AoE damage the ghoul takes by providing a way to restore pet life without using death coils and passively boost ghoul DPS a bit to put it back in competition with the growing threat that was 2h Frost. The heal over time was a compromise since giving it back instantly makes it almost impossible to kill a ghoul unless the DK is ignoring him in the first place and also it does not nullify half of death coil's utility. The HoT means a pet can regenerate under harse AoE conditions since [url=]http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/night-of-the-dead]Night of the Dead[/url] reduces aoe damage taken by ghouls to manageable levels. This makes the ghoul more of a valuable pet and less of a suicide bomber (anyone remember ghoul jump + OP corpse explosion from early 3.0?) that is easily replaced every 30 seconds. Unfortunately, ghoul frenzy did not really adequately solve the problem. Where did Blizzard expect GF to fit into the unholy rotation exactly? IT -> PS -> SS/OB -> BS -> BS -> Dump -> GF -> IT -> SS/OB -> SS/OB -> Dump? No one in their right mind is trading a monster SS/OB for ghoul white damage haste plus an icy touch, not even to keep it alive. What needs to happen is ghoul frenzy needs to be changed to a blood rune so it stops throwing off the FU strike rotations and be put onto the [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/reaping/]reaping[/url] talent so the second half of the rotation doesn't lose it's third SS/OB before the dump. Most Unholy DK's just skip Ghoul Frenzy, myself included, knowing it's a DPS loss while learning to cope with the times that their pet is going to get immolated. Most major fights have a breather period where a pet re-summon doesn't hurt DPS too much anyways.

I started to write a from the ground up post about being a Blood DK, but decided it was too much work and most people bothering to read a DK Blog probably know how to run their character by now. So instead, I will focus on a guidelines for Blood ( [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jfVMVh0IcfofostZfzhhxc:IGL0mV]51/0/20[/url]) in 3.2 and hope you guys can figure out the rest. First and foremost, Blood is our most gear dependent spec. Right now, it relies on a lot of armor penetration(ArP) and pumping out lots of pure physical dps to do it's business. So if you are considering a switch to blood or wondering why your blood dps is so bad, chances are you are looking right at the problem: your character. I recommend trying Blood after you have access to 50% ArP cap (699 ArP) and [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/grim-toll/]Grim Toll[/url] or [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/mjolnir-runestone/]Mjolnir Runestone[/url] as a trinket, your other trinket being [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/darkmoon-card-greatness/]Darkmoon Card: Greatness[/url] or something like it. The reason for the trinket choice and ArP limit is the ArP cap is 100% of your opponents armor ( 1399.6 ArP as of 3.2.2). With the procs from the trinkets, you will hit this 100% cap and not waste any itemization points. Weapons and armor are pretty standard. All our tier gear seems to play well with blood provided you are using your non-sets for ArP. The sets will get you hit and some nice addons plus a good strength base, the non-sets will fill out your dps with armor pen or whatever else becomes great after ArP gets nerfed pretty soon. Also, be sure to grab your biggest, baddest two-handed weapon and slap a Fallen Crusader on it. There is no such thing as dual wield blood right now, at least if you don't want to be laughed at. For sigils, I recommend [url=db.mmo-champion.com/i/sigil-of-the-vengeful-heart/]Sigil of the Vengeful Heart[/url] as your primary choice. Haunted Dreams adds crit via strikes blood uses all the time, but not enough. Virulence does not apply to Blood strikes and Awareness benefits a strike that does not come up very often in the rotation (death strike only happens twice every 20 seconds), though it would be a close second choice if you can't get your hands on a SoVH. Although somewhat rare, SoVH is worth the effort. Your glyph choices are pretty light if all you care about is dps: Death Strike for a nice bonus so long as you stay above 25 RP, Dancing Rune Weapon for a nice bump to the 51 point talent point now that it is stabilized at 60 RP cost and duration, and Dark Death. Some have criticized the DD rune, but a 20% damage bump to what is normally 15-20% of Blood's damage is better than you will get out of any talent points. Finally, your rotation is pretty easy: IT -> PS -> HS -> HS -> DS -> Dump -> DS -> HS x 4 -> Dump for single target. For AoE targets, sub in epidemic after disease application and just keep the rotation the same. Blood boil has proven to be less dps than Heart Strike, including groups of up to five mobs. Even with the pending Heart Strike nerf, you will still be doing pristine dps against pairs of targets. However, do not forget about your rune of Death Strike and keep your RP above 25 at all times. Popping DRW at the right time and keeping your ghoul summon on cool down are the marks of a good Blood DPS'er. Good luck. I can't promise this information is useful, just accurate. Blood is on top for a lot of people, just not for this particular DK.

Recently the developers queried the Tanks of WoW to discuss threat. One of my blogging compatriots, Gravity (of [url=http://www.pwnwear.com]pwnwear.com[/url] -- go read it if you haven't yet), [url=http://pwnwear.com/2010/02/27/is-threat-fun/ ]opined on the subject at great length[/url] with focuses on gearing and spec decisions. He also posted a helpful [url=http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23425705299&sid=1&pageNo=1]starting thread[/url] on the official tanking forums, which unsurprisingly turned into a giant woe-is-me tanking whiner thread in about eight seconds. However, I think I can answer this question without quite so much verbosity: no, threat is not fun. It is artificial and seems like a clunky game mechanic to get around the fact that people can't even get out of the damned fire, not to mention a boss that actually might move around. Fundamentally, raiding is a group puzzle solving game with timing mechanics. If you're good at Dance Dance Revolution and can solve sudoku puzzles, you're probably overqualified to be a raider in Warcraft. The entire raiding scene can be summed up with: tank(s) hold the boss(es) in some spot, DPS shoots their magic missiles at the boss, healers heal the tanks (and occasionally bad DPS who can't play DDR). At around a third into the fight, everyone presses the green left arrow, then the right red arrow, then back back, forward forward, and everyone gets back into positions to start tanking/shooting missiles/healing scrubs. Repeat at 66% into the fight, dps hard the last 10%, oh we won. Collect purple pixels, yay, I'm awesome. Inside of this group puzzle solving game, everyone has a particular job and as the tank your job is to hold the boss in one spot and keep him focused solely on you. You do this by maintaining threat. Threat is really a misnomer since you would figure the threatening people are the ones actually killing the boss (or the ones healing the ones doing the killing), but this ability for the person who does the least damage, can take the most damage, and does very little else needs a name, so threat sounds great. Threat can be considered invisible damage (like what Ovechkin does instead of scoring goals) because it really is only there to give the tanks a way to keep the boss on them. The reason we know threat is artificial? Watch as many arena videos as you feel like sitting through and notice how many strategies revolve around killing the prot warrior/paladin first. Now consider how many involve picking on the guy wearing toilet paper and doing all the damage. Alright, I think we can move on.. The upside of threat, if you can consider it an upside, it that it is pretty easy to build as long as you know which three buttons to mash like a golden retriever just fell on your keyboard. Most every tanking class has a tanking buff (frost presence, def stance, righteous fury, being a druid) that drastically increases the threat you generate from seemingly innocuous moves. Ever considered what taunting really is? Every NPC enemy in the game is basically Joe Pesci from Goodfellas. I just shouted at a mob and now it wants to kill me and only me. [img]http://www.phreakre.com/images/screenshots/goodfellas.jpg[/img] Another key problem with threat as it is now is that once you have established yourself as the primary recipient of the mob's full attention, everyone else can go to town with their magic missiles. The pace of threat for any tank that doesn't need a rectal/cranial extraction is so large that no DPS in the game could ever overcome it. Bash, bash, bash, AFK go to make a sandwich while DPS mashes out their rotations. With addons like Omen it is easy to calculate the exact point in which a boss will never leave you (unless someone else talks about their mom) with mathematical precision. 3.8 million threat, nearest rogue has 1.8 million threat and the boss has 3 million hit points left. Unless that rogue is doing 60% of the dps, you can go make your sandwich now because the fight still has about a minute and a half left .. then ten more while people argue over purple pixels and optimal resurrection order. So the question should be asked: if threat is so kludgy and artificial, what can we do to replace it? Fortunately the answer is relatively simple and has already been half implemented: increase tank DPS, lower threat per second, add more movements and threat clears to fights, lower boss damage, increase boss AOE damage, raise DPS class stamina, lower healing throughput, and make more encounters with more than one boss. - Increase Tank DPS : Already implemented and they are pretty good at it. A slight increase across the board should be made to rebalance after they are no longer the only people standing in front of the mob full time. - Lower TPS : Needs to be done in order to make the real champions of threat optimization champions again. Remember that tank in Molten Core who viewed pack tanking as his personal crusade? That guy needs to be held up as a hero, not just called out when he f*cks up. - Add more movement/threat clears : Supposedly the bosses we are fighting are generals and bodyguards and strategic geniuses that outsmarted the burning crusade, why do they act like idiots in a battleground that don't kill the healers? - Changing Taunt : Changing how threat and taunt works should make it more universal across both PvE and PvP by causing an exclusive targeting mode for several seconds (where your target is forced to target the tank) then released again. Instead of just working on hunter pets and voidwalkers off the leash, tanks would be able to force rogues to look at them for 3-5 seconds every 30 and have a chance to break up killer combos. This makes prot/tank specs useful in both PvE and PvP. - Lower Boss Damage / Lower Healing Throughput : Right now, no one but the most geared can stand in front of the ICC/ToGC bosses. The incoming damage is just too high. Because of this, the incoming healing needs to be equally as high. As a result, we are in a mexican standoff between increasing boss damage, increasing tank avoidance, and increasing healing throughput that has to end at some point. Pre-nerf, my DK was sitting at almost 60% avoidance, Cataclysm gear would put it out at 80%. The avoidance nerf was needed and is a direct result of the super high boss damage/healing rotation system that WotLK has produced. Luckily, Blizzard has already mentioned this as a problem and seems to be solving it in Cataclysm. - Multi-boss Encounters : I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been fighting single bosses for years now. Twins, Princes, and Emperors were a real treat because it makes the fights that much more complicated (without even more needless taunt cycles). Multi-boss encounters are fun and sprinkled in a bit more liberally would give tanks more things to do besides let one guy stand in the corner w/ the boss while everyone else hits him in the back and the Offtanks feel like wastes of space (or secretly hope the MT dies so they can have a moment in the sun). That is my thoughts on threat. No, it is not fun. Yes, it needs to be changed. Think I'm wrong (and I probably am)? Drop a comment here or on the official boards with your thoughts. We have the opportunity to help change the game, why not take advantage of it?

This weekend has been one of progression for the 25-man DoD raid team. Working Heroic 25 ICC for the first time, we have progressed through Festergut and will have Rotface next week easily. It is more important now, than ever, to maintain the highest care and the most disciplined approach to raiding. As we learn and beat the encounters, the new 277 gear will flow and they will become easier every week, but right now,they are still refreshingly hard for us. This has been a welcomed change after weeks of working through Sindy on easy-mode in less than four hours and spending the other four working LK25. So, the disciplined and rigorous approach I generally take to progression raiding has returned in full. I realized this morning that I go through logs every Monday morning to analyze my raids over the weekend during downtime at work. Frankly, I need to. I am far from the top DPS'er in [url=http://www.descendantsofdraenor.com/]Descendants of Draenor[/url]. In fact, I am one of the worst in the guild. Frequently, I am between 8th and 15th or 8.5-10k dps, depending on the fight. I hover in the bottom half of the DPS ranks. Like all scrubs, I attributed this gear at first. Everyone had better gear than me and so everyone should be doing more DPS. I observe with respect (and no small amount of jealousy) players like Setsero or Aeden who seem to effortlessly run the table on damage at will. I could complain that it is my class and not my skill or gear that is at fault, but we will look at that later. After every fight, I check the charts and note down the differential between Setsero and I. I check his spell makeup and the average hits/crits of each. This is usually the starting point for a long monday morning where I look for rotations and try to spot the exact point where he pulls away from me. I started to analyze my logs rigorously and hunt down tricks and tests on the beloved EJ forums and Bosskillers in order to close the gap. That gap is very significant to me. What started as almost 3500 DPS has closed to 1000. However, something terrible has happened to cause me to seriously re-evaluate the reasons why my DPS is ~11% worse than Setsero's: my gear has passed his. What started out two months ago as a crutch excuse has been disproven and like a good, rational scientist, I have started to check my premises. [img]http://phreakre.com/images/screenshots/festergut-heroic-logs-pic.png[/img] There are really only seven reasons that your DPS is worse than someone else's: [b]0) You do not know the fight.[/b] As I said in a [url=http://hordeofone.phreakre.com/blog/view/21]previous post[/url], knowing the fight is the best DPS increase possible. Watching videos and knowing the strategy will keep you alive longer and being alive is always better DPS than being dead. A scrub in quest greens standing in the right spot puts out more DPS than the 6k+ GS Mage who died because he didn't get out of the damned slime spray fast enough. (You will sense a theme in today's examples =) ) [b]1) Your gear is lower quality (264 vs 232).[/b] All other things being equal, your gear is the largest factor in determining what your damage potential is. Note I said "potential". Your gear will only allow you to unlock that potential and turn it into damage. [b]2) Your spell rotations are wrong. [/b] Many people would call this "skill". My damage potential is gigantic. I crossed the 6000 GS barrier last night, but the actuality is I might as well be wearing badge gear for all the help it is doing me. I suspect my "gap" exists somewhere in this area. I am running the standard ABx4MBAM rotation to death, [url=http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/0wfkemukfu4kn3k8/log/?s=10781&e=11119]this log[/url] shows that I am a damned ABx4MBAM missile throwing machine. Arcane combo, arcane combo, arcane combo. However, I am still getting killed on the meter. I would agree with calling this "skill". This is where the Archmage, who knows his class inside and out, starts to pull away from the newbs reading EJ and watching videos. He knows that sometimes one rotation is higher DPS than another. He is weaving instants without thinking while running around to avoid puddles and to drop off slimes. The Archmage's attention is focused on the fight, the damage is incidental to keeping himself alive and riding the highest possible DPS crest at all times. [b]3) Your talents are not set up correctly.[/b] The talents are [url=http://elitistjerks.com/f75/]mathed to death on a great many sites[/url]. For a long time, I ran with the recommended cookie cutter specs and did very well (outside of 25-man w/ DoD). However, since I 'upped my game' and moved into the pro-leagues, I have found that the cookie cutter specs are not enough. I still have [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/44413/incanters-absorption/]2/3 Incanter's Absorption[/url] because IA is still a boost to me. I defended [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/t/arcane_stability/]3/5 Arcane Stability[/url] last week to @Psynister but have since dropped it due to many boss AoE's not causing pushback. The cookie cutter specs are only there to get you a good basis from which to work out of, but if you do deviate from them, be sure you know why. We all have horror stories of 57/3/11 Mages without [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/29447/torment-the-weak/]Torment of the Weak[/url] and Warriors who never trained taunt because they never planned to tank. Don't be that guy, know why you have your points where you do and have the math and testing to back them up. [b]4) Your gear is not enchanted/gemmed correctly.[/b] This goes along with knowing your talents. Arcane Mages gemming crit are doing themselves a disservice. Mages gemming Hit are likewise doing the same thing. Have the right enchant and the right gems in the right spots to get you going. However, as big a deal as people make out of enchants and gem choices, they are really not that large in the overall scheme of things. Sure, enchanted is better than not and gemming stamina is a dumb idea unless you are a tank, but in the end, they might add up to ~2% of your overall DPS. So unless you are [url=http://www.stabilizedeffortscope.com/]a serious douchebag[/url], don't sweat how many +sp/+haste vs +sp gems you need for each and every socket until you change out a piece of gear for an upgrade and have to buy the new enchants and gems anyways. This gives you a chance to re-evaluate your gear at periodic points and see which direction you are really moving. Constant re-gemming is expensive and the gain is not all that awesome for the two thousand gold it will probably cost you. [b]5) This fight does not lend itself well to your classes strengths [/b] Some fights, you just can't win. It speaks well for Blizzard that when you look at [url=http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Icecrown_Citadel/dps/]Top DPS worldwide for ICC25[/url] on World of Logs, each pure DPS class except rogue has a fight that they appear to be the best at. Fury warriors seem to excel at Marrowgar and LK, Hunters at Lady Deathwhisper, Druids at Festergut, Warlocks at Blood Prince Council, Mages at Blood Queen Lana'Thel, and DK's at Sindragosa. Of course, when you tick it up to Heroic ICC25, the fury warrior DPS just seems to run the table on every single boss. Sometimes, you just cannot be #1. Don't fret, do your best, compare yourself against the best Mages in the world at any given fight and use that as your benchmark for winning. Consider that they may be using a special talent tree just for that fight and you might only be able to get within delta of their DPS curve. Even if you end up short, you have done an amazing job of holding up your end of the short stick and hopefully those who are excelling at the current fight are doing a bit of carrying. [b]6) Your class is not properly balanced at this point in time. [/b] [img]http://phreakre.com/images/screenshots/zach_ghostcrawler_nerfgun.jpg[/img] After you have checked all six of the other reasons, you get to say "my class sucks right now". At this point, you can go post on the general forums and get shouted down by the social M&S who have nothing but anecdotal evidence and ad hominem attacks to counter your well reasoned and scientifically established claims. Oh well, the glories of the badge system is that you can reroll into a great class (warrior anyone?) and get it up to speed pretty quickly for ICC25. In closing, your goal should be to do your best. Analyzing your character to death, as I am prone to do, has diminishing returns. Eking out the most from your gear and time is rewarding and a fun past time for some people. However, I think everyone can reach a baseline of acceptable competency with their class if they consider this list and give it a few minutes of thought when they receive an upgrade. After all, if you are not playing to at least average capacity, why are you playing at all?

How do you rank 52 bosses based on difficulty? I was reading through Larisa's [url=http://www.pinkpigtailinn.com/2010/05/my-ranking-list-over-raid-bosses-of.html]treatise on ranking the WotLK bosses from easy to hard[/url] when that question came to mind: how do you rank difficulty? There are certainly quantitative methods involving calculating how many guilds have cleared a certain boss, how many attempts does it take for the average raid to make it through an encounter, or how many guilds have [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/4584/the-light-of-dawn/][ The Light of Dawn ][/url] achievement. We could also approach the question qualitatively by asking ourselves why so many raid leaders think Sindragosa is harder than Professor Putricide, discover why many guilds that kill LK seem to only kill Heroic Gunship, and evaluate what level of raid endurance is required to break a boss like Heroic BQ Lana'thel since she is nine bosses deep into ICC. There are many bosses who seem difficult at first, but after breaking them immediately put them on farm status. Their gimmicks are just that: gimmickry. Once your team knows the gimmick, they rarely fall for it again and the boss dies week after week after week while random team members talk about politics or play terrible pop music over vent. On the other hand, there are encounters like Lich King that will always be hard regardless of gear level or raid awareness. The RNG clusterf*ck factor is extremely high on certain fights and well after they are on farm, still pose a stumbling block to a hardened, experienced raid that is just a little too burned out to climb and take the hill again this week. So, I sat down and started to consider my own raiding history. I have fought every boss in WotLK. Except for LK, I have fought every boss in Hard Mode as well. I have destroyed most of them as two classes, sometimes three, and been a Main Tank, an Off Tank, a melee DPS, and a Ranged DPS for several of them now. I started to review my fellow bloggers "difficulty" criteria and saw that my fellow Descendant of Draenor, Aezil, had [url=http://hybridtax.blogspot.com/2010/05/52-bosses.html]added his voice to the boss ranking debate[/url]. Given Larisa's and Aezil's previous lists documenting the high and low points of the Boss fights, I decided to do the same for Heroic Difficulty. My scale consists of a few key points: - How hard was the boss in equipment with the same gear score as what drops off the boss? - After broken, how hard was the boss week after week? - If not in ICC, do I want to go kill that boss in Hard Mode now? (Can I pug it?) - What achievements made certain bosses switch from Easy to Hard mode? [b]20. Lord Jaraxxus [/b] Strangely, this was the hardest spot to fill. Lord Jaraxxus is almost a loot pinata reward for clearing HM-Beasts. He has a lot of gimmicks and a lot of debuffs flying around, but really it's a straight tank and spank hard mode. Whether I put Lord Marrowgar or Jaraxxus in this spot really came down to which boss I personally had more trouble with. I enjoy Jaraxxus, few bosses have stealable buffs that make Mages perform at a godly DPS level. Ultimately, that won him the top (bottom) spot in my list. Let the QQ commence.. [b]19. Lord Marrowgar [/b] AKA "the guy who never drops the damned caster belt". I have to admit to having been relatively slow to master this encounter. While I generally do not die, I spend an extraordinary amount of time running around since he seems to cling to me like I have his favorite biscuits in my backpack during Bonestorm. The fact that Bonestorm does not stop the Bone Graveyard is a minor hiccup compared to other bosses in ICC, even heroic Lord Marrowgar is easier than regular Putricide and beyond. [b]18. Freya [/b] Freya is a hard enough fight before [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/3187/knock-knock-knock-on-wood-25-player/][ Knock, Knock, Knock on Wood ][/url] and a pretty crazy fight afterwards. Much like Mimiron, this is one of those fights where attempting the Hard Mode takes a regularly difficult fight and ratchets it up into the stratosphere of awesome. With a woman who drops bombs everywhere she goes and the deathstar laser sun beams, this fight is a gift that keeps on giving. Even now, running UldHM Drake runs, it is not one of the fights that I put down in the "gimme" column. Hell, even her trash wipes raids regularly.. [b]17. Twin Val'kyrs [/b] Once the orb strategy is figured out, this fight becomes almost trivial. Many times, I have fought heroic Twins, witnessed a 50% heal go off, and still defeated them. The only reason this fight ranks this high is because of where it is in the instance, the required gear to blast through the encounter focusing a single twin, and the amount of dancing required to properly avoid vortexes and attack shields. Is it harder than Beasts? Probably not, but I struggled with placing it above Freya. [b]16. Beasts of Northrend [/b] Nothing makes me feel more like a gladiator in this arena dungeon than the Beasts of Northrend encounter. Recalling my youth and reading stories of gladiators fighting lions, tigers, and other strange and exotic beasts in the Colosseum, this encounter goes straight to the reason I play Warcraft. A three phase slug fest with the best Northrend has to offer from a huge centaur to an even huger Yeti. In heroic mode, the difficulty level jumps a full notch to give absolutely no leeway for slow dps, lapses of judgement, or laconic reaction times. The Beasts no longer wait for you to finish them off before the next set jumps on you like a pack of hungry wolves waiting for dinner. Where else can you fight two Jormungar and a Yeti at the same time? No where. [b]15. Valithria Dreamwalker [/b] Given the changes going from the Dream to the Nightmare and the extra healing required due to health depleting, Valithria is not to be taken lightly. I have to say that as an arcane mage, I have a lot of fun on Valithria since the encounter plays to my strengths and allows me to open a can of arcane blast on anything that is moving (mostly thanks to our bad ass DoD tank squad composed of Pkizmet, Drecca, Klockerr, and Bretthew in both 10's and 25's teams). While switching to hardmodes might be a real step up for a healer, since I have never played one, I can delight in saying this hardmode is not that hard to me. =) [b]14. Mimiron [/b] [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/firefighter/][ Firefighter ][/url], /thread. An incredibly difficult and detailed fight. This was previously my lipnus achievement for "good raider" vs "just a raider". Firefighter is no walk in the park now and never was back when 226 gear was the norm. This fight has a lot of stuff going on all the time and when you press the big red button that says not too, you add a walking, creeping fire to the whole dance of death with Mimiron's machinations. Even now, I like nothing in raiding more than bashing that big red button and doing my best to smoke down Mim's machines with 9-24 other people who know how to do it right, because when it's done right, it's a real beautiful fight. [b]13. Rotface [/b] I would file this under "more and harder". Heroic Rotface and normal Rotface are pretty much the same encounter, Heroic is just more ooze damage that hits harder. The ooze kiting tank has to run his trailing oozes through the middle a bit more to avoid being rooted, infection victims take 25% healing instead of 50% healing, and there is a vile gas mechanic involved. I suspect for most HM teams, this encounter was just a speed bump on the way to the Professor, provided you had the original encounter down.. [b]12. Sindragosa [/b] I know I will get flack for putting her this low, but I don't view Sindy as a very hard encounter. Move the debuffed casters out of the raid, clear buffs more often, make an extra spot for the extra beacon, move along. If your DPS core is even half awake, this is a pretty easy encounter as far as HM's go. I think [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/4620/all-you-can-eat-25-player/][ All You Can Eat ][/url] might be slightly harder than the hardmode, maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe I really am living in an ivory tower of raiding or perhaps, collectively, the raiding skill of every raider in WoW has just increased to a point where these mechanics no longer seem that challenging. Either way, Sindragosa HM should be a single blip on the raid radar compared to the incoming flotilla of pain that other ICC HM's represent. Of course, this is probably the fight that got AVR banned.. [b]11. Faction Champions [/b] To be honest, I had a hard time rating the "hardest" encounter in ToGC. Time after time, Faction Champions ends raids, not kills them, ends them. Sure, the well developed, well oiled machines pick through the place at light speed, but they don't really have trouble with Anub or Faction Champs. Ultimately, Faction Champs lost due to Anub being just "too hard" for a lot of teams to complete anymore. Eventually, even the most green of PUGs still makes it through Faction Champs in current gear (3.3.3). Faction Champs is unpredictable, they target on a whim, agro at will, use every mean spirited trick in the book, but ultimately that chaos makes this fight very predictable: Blow up the healer as fast as possible, stay the hell out of hellfire, then use man advantage to widdle down the Champs. Almost identical to it's normal mode counterpart. [b]10. Anub'arak[/b] Lets take a fight that involves adds management, boss healing, and boss kiting and kick it up a notch. While in normal mode, Anub can pretty much be killed by anyone just by assigning a hunter to full time orb duty, the Hard Mode is just about the exact opposite. Sure, your tanks will be taking more damage from having to deal with more Nerubian Burrowers armed with a shadow attack and you will have to find a way to deal with Burrowers during the burn down phase at the end, but nothing compares to the snow patch change. Limited to six frost patches which you must carefully guard the entire fight, properly kiting a giant beetle monster never became more fun (or important). This is still a challenge for ICCHM 25 teams, in my opinion. [b]9. Blood Princes [/b] [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/72998/shadow-prison/]Shadow Prison[/url], you are a son of a b*tch. For a class that likes to move about in a fight that requires you to move about, Blood Princes becomes an entirely different fight in Heroic mode for a mage. All ranged are now required to watch the skies with terror hoping a Kinetic Bomb does not spawn over their heads (incredibly difficult camera view to maintain, btw). Melee are taking debuff damage when they avoid vortexes and doing the "are you going to the right or am I?" empowered shock vortex chicken dance just became a recipe for both of you to die from shadow damage. A hard fight, a fun one, and definitely worthy of being ranked in the top half. [b]8. Yogg-Saron [/b] This is probably one of the choices that I will receive the most feedback for. Other guilds seemed to have a real hard time with Yogg, but by the time we made it past Mimiron, this fight seemed like a walk in the park. We used a ferrying method to defeat the Guardians and then basically told everyone "Don't stand near the clouds". Not exactly rocket surgery. In 226 gear, this became a DPS race tied up into a CC race where the ability to run faster seemed to be the only thing holding you back from defeating tentacles as fast as they could spawn. [i]* Note: I have never done [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/3164/alone-in-the-darkness-25-player/][ Alone in the Darkness ][/url]. Perhaps this fight is incredibly more difficult without Thorim killing Immortal Guardians in phase 3, but I find that hard to believe. At some point, I'll find a team to head down there and beat it for that final achievement and perhaps change my opinion of this fight. [/i] [b]7. Blood Queen Lana'thel [/b] BQ is one of those bosses where you find out if your raid team showed up to play or not. Heroic BQ is where you get punished if they left their berserker DPS back in Dalaran Trade Chat. Given the hard berserk timer and the fact that for the last minute BQ is doing 40% more raid damage via Shroud of Sorrow, everyone really has to bring their A game to down this boss. Hard fight, hard boss, excellent mechanics, and you even get to be a vampire for a while.. [b]6. Lady Deathwhisper [/b] Whether you are trying [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/4611/full-house-25-player/]Full House[/url] or competing to kill her heroically, Lady Deathwhisper is no walk in the park, that's for sure. When we were 7/12 HM, Lady D was one of the five who stood against us for several weeks while we tried to master dealing with so, so many adds that just keep coming and coming through the whole fight while constantly watching that enrage timer tick down and down and down. We tried putting the ranged in several places, moved around the kill priorities, and did a fair bit of yelling, but eventually she was killed. Still, not the easiest fight in the world by a long shot. [b]5. [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/4017/earth-wind-fire-25-player/]Earth, Wind, and Fire[/url] [/b] A truly magnificent achievement that turns three loot piñatas into a crazy dance of timing, logistics, and tank stretching. Which boss is pulled first? Where should we fight them? How little damage can a paladin tank do to Archevon and still keep agro over the healers and not kill him by accident (again)? This raid achievement is rarer than almost any other besides [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/4584/the-light-of-dawn/][ The Light of Dawn ][/url], maybe. The definition of "Top 5" material. [b]4. Malygos [/b] What more do I have to say? Who else skips the weekly when Malygos Must Die comes up? Who else remembers competing for [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/1400/realm-first-magic-seeker/][ Magic Seeker ][/url] and still failing to master the encounter for weeks? I know I do. Malygos is still hard because your average raider has forgotten about the damned third phase drake flight. You know, that phase where you get to basically use the worst camera angles in the game to stare at a blinding disco light of healing auras and hope you are spamming the correct sequence (1112) to stack your flame debuffs on poor Maly before everyone "moves to the right", ignoring the fact that you are now raiding in three dimensions and your raid leader means rotate anti-clockwise in 2D. I enjoy fighting Malygos, one of the few fights I still get to arcane blast my ass off, do something cool by flying around on a disc to avoid bombs and kill some minions, and feel like a total f*ckup on a drake all in the same ten minutes. ([url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/1875/you-dont-have-an-eternity-25-player/][ You Don't Have An Eternity ][/url], you say? Fugitaboutit. ) [b]3. Deathbringer Saurfang[/b] A soft enrage timer coupled with a boss healing mechanic rolled into a minion killing fight where the minions one-shot anyone who isn't a tank. What isn't to love? Our first kill had five marks active when Saurfang finally bit the dust. I have a screenshot of the [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/4632/heroic-storming-the-citadel-25-player/][ Heroic: Storming the Citadel ][/url] achievement with my iceblock up while trying to soak a mark to avoid wiping us (yet again). That's how razor thin this fight can be. Like every good fight, every player has to be on their toes, skills and utility spells that rarely see the light of day become extremely clutch, and the DPS cannot lose a second of time busting down the "Heart of Draenor". [i]* On a side note, I don't know about anyone else, but I was ready to murder the WoW Dev who put the roleplay intro into that fight and made it unable to be skipped. Almost as annoying as "Suffer, mortals, as your pathetic magic BETRAYS YOU! .. and I repeat this phrase over and over again!". Okay, maybe not that annoying. [/i] [b]2. Professor Putricide [/b] +900% damage debuff anyone? Nothing rivals the unbound plague madness that is Professor HM. Even good DPS have trouble with the missing tear gas, mind the plague, double ooze phase changes. A full head above the rest of ICC and anything else in the game, except... [b]1. The Lich King* [/b] [img]http://phreakre.com/images/screenshots/Arthas_dark.jpg[/img] Regular LK is a dance of death with the King of Icecrown Citadel. The encounter is hard for everyone involved and requires good timing, good group synergy, and no screw ups. Phase change, after phase change, after phase change. It's a workout, even for a guy sitting in front of an LCD screen. I don't look forward to triple HP Valks, whole raid Harvested Souls, or wicked spirits.. hail to the King, baby, and kudos to Blizzard for designing a truly worthy encounter for the namesake of the expansion and the most popular villain in contemporary MMO's. [b]Honorable Mentions: [/b] - [b]Gunship[/b] : One of the few ICC Hard Modes to not make the list. I see "LF1M ICC10, must have Kingslayer" all the time in trade chat, I know they want a Kingslayer just for HM Gunship. Is there such a thing as hard mode Karazhan Chess? No? Neither was there a hardmode gunship. We did [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/4612/im-on-a-boat-25-player/][ I'm on a Boat ][/url] during HM Gunship on the first try. - [b]Festergut [/b] : Professor Putricide makes a cameo appearance during Heroic Festergut to throw Malleable Goo at various team members while fighting the hard five minute enrage timer. If you didn't already master Malleable Goo dodging in regular Professor, this might have been slightly harder for you here, but really it should be a walk in the park for (almost) free 277's. [i]* the Lich King is the only HM boss I have not fought heroically. Just looking at the fight, I have no trouble understanding why it takes the best teams in the world weeks to figure this encounter out. I look forward to fighting through it with my DoD brethren and know that we have the smarts and determination to eventually get it down.[/i] So, how did my Hardmode list stack up with your expectations? Do you agree with Sindy being so low and Malygos being so high? Can you even remember when Malygos was progression content? =)