Heya guys!!  Skeleton Jack is finally undead!!  Bout time right? 

Insurrection and Severed Merge

The guilds Insurrection and Severed have merged into the new guild Heretic.  Insurrection is Alliance and Severed is Horde, hence the screen shot.  So goodbye fleshy bits and pieces, hello skeletal frame showing through my armor!!

Insurrection is ranked ranked 1st Server, 184 US, and 515 World.  Severed is ranked 2nd Server, 240 US, and 663 World.  The hope is that Heretic will become a stronger competitor in the progression race utilizing a stronger and fuller pool of raiders for raid content progression.

Why Undead SJ?!

My first toon ever was an Undead Rogue.  Why?  Because it was an Undead Rogue!!  Hello?!  And have you taken the time to actually *read* my name?  “Skeleton” Jack.  It speaks for itself.

While Orc is the ultimate PvE DPS race for DK’s, I just don’t go for all of that hogwash.  Yeah, I called it hogwash.  You heard me.  Plus, *I* happen to love to PvP and the extra Fear break racial is the bomb imo!!

World of Warcraft is still a game.  And as such, you should be making some decisions based off of what you like and enjoy.  Orcs look like tubby lil fatties with bad teeth and hair.  Maybe if you could make an Orc with ebony black skin for that black orc feel I’d like them more…  But as is, Orcs look dumb to me in WoW.

And while I hate, hate, HATE the fact that Undead apparently cannot find armor *anywhere* that will cover their kneecaps (read: idiotic morons at Blizzard), I love how Undead look and feel in comparison!

Little known fact about Faction Changes…

Raid ID’s reset!!  O.O  You heard me, they reset!!  Did VoA25 two times this week already and we’re gonna do ICC25 a 2nd time this week!!

So if you feel like paying $30.00 for a one way faction change (3 day cool down on faction changes), you too can raid the same content twice in one week!!  (If you really spend $30.00 just for the extra raid, you need to roll and alt or something, fyi…)

And…

That’s it!  I’m Undead!!  RAWR!!!!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Basically I stopped keeping up with other blogs to ensure that my ideas really were “my ideas”.  But every now and then I poke my head out of the sand and peer around at the world around me.

I recently had a track back link from The Lazy Sniper.  So I decided to check it out.  Well, in doing so I came to find out about some big snafu where one poster somehow put their foot in their mouth supposedly by saying something “not cool” about another blogger’s site…  -.-

Yeah…sounds childish to me too.  (**This is where people can get mad at *me* for saying something bad about someone else.**)  Keep in mind, I have NO idea who it was that got spoken poorly of.  I only know it was Windsoar who did the talking.  I only read her “Apology Post” and a “Commentary Post” by Byaghro.  Nothing else.

So before someone decides to get pissy with me, resulting in me tearing down said moronic text, keep in mind I have ZERO knowledge of the original post, the site mentioned, or any idea of whose panties got all bunched up in some a$$ crack.  Got it?  K…

A long time ago some idiot on the WoW Bronzebeard forums (my server) put up some big post about my blog.  He was talking about how suck I was, how my guild sucked, how my blog was suck…there was a lot of “suck” involved.  Some people rallied to my defense while others rallied to troll my site further.  I think it took about a day at most for people to come running to me about it.

I made a reply, short and sweet. It basically read like this.

Thanks for the press!!  Any press, even bad press, is always good press!!  My site count has jumped since you made this post.  Thanks again!!

And that is the truth.  My site jumped in hits per day because of it.  You want to know what did not jump up?  My negative feedback in comments on my site.  So in the process of someone flaming me I got more readers who enjoyed my blog.  You do the math.

Everyone who can read this, or those other sites, is human.  That means you f up occasionally and make mistakes.  How many times have you said something that inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings or pissed them off?  Don’t bother lying, you’d only be lying to yourself.

So Windsoar accidentally said some negative stuff about someone and it got them upset?  That’s life.  Deal with it.  There have been enough links about the stupid fight by now that that poster’s site has seen a traffic increase due to it.  Which means he benefited in gaining readers.  Leave it be I say.

And as to Windsoar, I could end up hating your blog if I read it.  Or loving it perhaps.  But for now, you’re cool in my book.  Don’t let the BS get you down.  Write about what you love to write, and just enjoy yourself.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Life is better now, thanks for the well wishes.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Heya guys!!  LOL, omfg.  LMAO, ROFDLMAO omg.  OMG it’s too much!!  OH MY GOD!!!  LOL

Gimme a minute…

LMFAO!!!  Oh man this is sweet irony!!!  ROFL

OMFG, lol!

/sigh

OK, lol…sorry.  LOL.  *snicker*  *giggle*  Hehe.  Blizzard…lol…hates this new disease-less…omg…spec crap right?  rofl  So they have made it to where Blood can’t do it anymore.  *snicker*  So uhm…they hate DW build domination too…ROFL.  Heh heh…  So they nerf it to hell to and bone IT because it’s a problem…lol.

OMFG BANDAIDS!!!  (laughing hysterically)

Oh this is too good.  I couldn’t make this crap up on my own if I tried.  LOL

So…I was looking through a ton of DK stuff, imagining what a lot of the new DK builds would look like.  0/41/26 and 41/0/26 builds are very possible.  They pick up FS/HS and also perma-ghoul.  So inherently, they have some serious potential.  They can combine heavy strikes with many advantages of those builds, while at the same time adding in Unholy tricks accenting their trees.  Add in the ghoul, and like I said.  You have potential.

And then, I stumbled across this…LOL.

Welcome to the new Disease-less Frost Spec

17/51/3

LOL, this is too good!!

So, this is a new top end spec for Frost atm on PTR.  And the last release did not cause this.  This was a hidden gem only recently discovered.

Rotation

HB -> OB -> BS -> BS – > FS -> FS

HB -> OB -> OB -> FS -> FS

Now to explain you need to understand the 2 second rule (2SR) about Runes, meaning they can be used when they just come off of CD or delayed by 2 seconds.  If this is done, they start their new CD countdown at 8, 9, or 10 seconds depending on how long you waited to use them.

The new version of HB has a 8 second cooldown.  When it had a 10 second cooldown this was the stupidest attack ever.  Rune rotations keep in order, if done properly, because of the 2 second rule.  But the PTR HB did not keep in order.  The 10 sec CD was so rigid that it would not fit properly.  So we had a problem, and Blizz fixed it to a 8 second CD.  Hoorah!!

Now the original frost specs only used IT because PS sucked *that* much for Frost.  Well, they’ve now kind of done the same thing to IT for Frost.  Outside of a RP generator, IT just isn’t as much *WIN* as it used to be.  The downside?  This requires T7 4set bonus to work.

Now, if you may have noticed by now, this is technically speaking, not a true disease-less spec.  Heh.  But close enough for me to still gimme a giggle.  HB Glyph adds in Frost Fever.  So you will have a disease ticking.  But as you 100% ignore IT/PS, I feel it still deserves at least the reference to Disease-less.  It follows the premise and heart of the build.

Whether this will be the top end winner will in many ways correlate directly to T8 itemization.  If another spec with full T8.5 can out dps a full T8.5 toon with 4 pieces of T7.5 or not.  So we will see.

Either way, this one gave me a damn good laugh.  Heh.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Ghouls have become the iconic sidekick to Death Knights.  It’s been a part of most DK builds to begin with for some time, and was going to be a part of even more.  In many ways, it would be simpler to just call DK’s a pet class and make the ghoul available to all DK’s as a base class ability (as a true pet). 

Simply tricking out the Unholy tree with the snazzy Ghoul stuff would have made it the pet focused tree.  Just like they wanted.  Sounds a little too close to Warlocks and Hunters you say?  Who cares?  There’s nothing wrong with pet classes so long as they all play different.  Which they all do.

But no, Blizzard has spent all of 3.1 slapping bandaids like crazy all over DK’s.  As some of you may remember I was loathe to start writing PTR posts becuase generally speaking, PTR posts just piss me the “F” off.  *runs hand down face from the forehead sighing in frustration*

Blizzard knows how to make a good game.  They know how to sell their product to the public.  And they can create some pretty solid content and mechanics.  But they are BUTT !@#$ing STUPID when it comes to class balance.  There.  I said it.  They’re morons.

They’ve let the whole DS thing go entirely.  Right.  Who wants to see DK’s in Arena matches DS’ing for awesome damage and heals, while cleaving constantly on HS’s?  HB is totally f’ing broken.  8 second cooldown.  Yeah, *that* fixes it.  Oh wait, it didn’t.  Everyone is picking up ghouls.  Let’s just move that entirely and trick them into buying something else then.  Oh wait, that *still* doesn’t make people want to buy HB.  Oh look, Rime!!  Let’s toy with that some… 

Bandaids do not fix a problem.  Every time they turn around they change something entirely, and when they realize it made things worse…well they just go changing more !@#$ again.  /sigh  DK’s needed some nerfs.  And DK’s needed some changes. 

DK DW and Disease-less were out of hand.  DK Tanking was out of hand.  DK PvP domination was out of hand.  But instead of some clear thought, and well worked changes.  We get a hack job and a bunch of bandaids thrown all over the place.  o.o

Right, gonna walk away and go grab a drink. 

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Heya guys!!  Yup.  That’s all of the DW, PvP, and Frost DK’s there.  A bunch of screaming lil girls!!!  Heh heh heh.  *evil grin*

Icy Touch has gone from…

“Holy crap this F’ING PWNS!!!”

…to more of a…

“Awww, that tickles.”

*Devs setting charges*

“LOL BOOOOMMM!!!!”

There went Icy Touch, lol.  Wonder why all of those DK’s are a bunch of screaming lil girls?  Because Blizz chopped their you know what’s off.  *smirk*  If you’re done laughing (which I am not yet, lmao), let’s move on to the details eh?

Icy Touch

Through talents Icy Touch gets a 70% damage bonus on Live, while in the current PTR build it gets a 45% damage bonus.  By no means is this cutting IT in half, but it does bring this hard hitting attack down by close to a third when all is said and done.  Which is extensive. 

Black Ice

They seem to have gone for a concept that they originally tried in Beta.  Originally this talent affected both Shadow and Frost damage, but at +30% it was beyond overpowered when synched into Unholy builds.  But they seem to have reneged on that nerf, so long as they nerf the damage.  This is now +10% Frost and Shadow.  While some of the Frost abilities have gone up in damage, it’s a broad sweeping nerf that was actually intended to focus on IT.

All top end PvP builds and DW focus entirely on IT.  Basically you turn yourself into a Mage in Plate.  It’s rather effective really.  And then there are the IT Spam builds, which was also the biggest beef Blizzard had.  It’s primary damage attack was IT, before anything else.  And Blizzard only wants this to be a “support” attack.  Starting off you’re diseases and giving some versatility.  /sigh

Impurity

This is one of the big boys believe it or not.  It is a big time pick up for IT builds so that you can get that much more spell power to fuel the IT.  A full drop of 5% is nothing to scoff at considering I did not even include it in the 70% and 45% numbers.

3.1 Frost Spec

I should have a Frost build out soon.  I have two specs ready, but they were done before the big Frost passover in this most recent build.  I was waiting to see if someone came up with something I missed.

3.1 DW Spec

Atm, this is dead in the water guys.  Pretty much every DW spec possible does more dps just by slapping on a 2H.  Which means they are not DW specs.  There are 2 potential ones atm, but they are more slapshod attempts to hold something together that was already torn apart.  Unless Blizzard changes something, DW is no longer effective.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Heya guys!!  Welcome to the next incarnation of Devs at Play!!  This is a situation however where I find I have far more to write than I know what to do with, so we’re going to do some more “overview” stuff to acclimate you guys!!  Don’t look at me with questioning eyes wondering WTF I’m talking about.  STFU and listen up newbs!!  j/k 

Devs at Play on the PTR

Part 2:  Does Trouble loom before us?  Why yes, I think it does!!

When I said there is entirely too much to look at, I meant it.  The sheer sweeping changes to DK’s on the PTR are mind boggling in a lot of ways.  Because not only are a great many changes rolling out, but then they are changing those changes.  Needless to say this creates double talk, scratching of heads, and back tracking of information.  Fun as usual on the PTR right?! 

The Devs made some nasty decisions when it came to DK tanks when it really comes down to it.  Their concept was for a new style of tank they relied upon Avoidance and CD Abilities to tank.  Overall the concept is amazing, but they went to far.  And then not only did they go too far, they over compensated in the wrong manner.  Tie in to this that the most difficult encounter in game is 3Drake Sarth and that DK tanks are the best MT in game for that encounter…and well there’s a lot of crying and whining on the forums.

Ratings are on DR now in the world of 3.0 WoW.  Back in the day there were no diminishing returns and eventually avoidance got so high that the Devs didn’t know what to do about it.  This is what created the stealth nerf of Sunwell known as Sunwell Radiance.  It was like a -30% dodge debuff on all players.  Or close to it.  Considering that you could build a druid (or a rogue, which yes that is damn silly) to have around 100% avoidance (or near to it), they really had no other option.  So incoming bandaid to salvage 2.0, and incoming DR for 3.0 to stop that from ever happening again.  Right?  Uhm…right?

Damn!  In comes the DK’s where they slapped on more avoidance through talents (which talents are not on DR) in the DK trees than any other class had access to.  Combine in some other factors, and you then have what has become 80%+ permanently up avoidance on DK tanks, not even counting their 1 min CD abilities making them obnoxious to say the least.

So were DK tank nerfs needed?  The answer is HELL YES they were!!  Sorry guys, but that is the truth of the matter.  Now the only question however is what should those nerfs be.  Quite frankly, the Devs don’t seem to understand that answer.  /sigh

On the upside things don’t seem that bad.  Before the current version, which rolled out in the last 12 hours or so, DK tanks could manage as much as 27-29% magic damage mitigation by building a “magic tank” niche spec.  While it runs the risk of threat issues, it definetly is a pretty sick combo.  Though the most recent tank nerf to PTR drops Frost Presence’s magic mitigation by another 5%, bringing DK’s down to close to 22-24% magic damage mitigation.  Now, again this is a “niche” spec.  What does that mean?

It’s a gimmick more than anything else, dipping heavily into both Unholy and Frost without mastering either spec.  Meaning it is not likely to ever be a MT spec since it lacks other strengths and could hit a wall on threat generation.  What is this spec?  I’ll leave you to drooling and imagining for now.  Perhaps you guys can put it together on your own?    With the inception of “dual specs” this could be a non issue, but would then limit a tank to using both slots for tank specs…which just sucks if you ask me.

OK we get it SJ.  Tanking is going through the ringer.  What else is going on?

Glad you asked!!

One of the more interesting things that should make a great deal of you guys happy is that 2 of the biggest DW nerfs have been undone.  Necrosis now works on your MH and OH weapons like before, and the internal CD (ICD) on Blood Claked Blade has been removed, making both of them super DW friendly again.  And then as I said before, DK’s now get 30% more out of melee haste rating, and 25% more out of armor penetration rating.  Pretty snazzy all in all. 

Really the only 2 major nerfs that are in effect now against DW spec is that Black Ice is now +20% to frost damage instead of +30% and that Howling Blast is no longer within range of purchase…  So the question remains…how good is DW spec atm on PTR?  Not sure yet, but hopefully soon.

And since we’re on the topic, initial testing of some Disease-less spec boss fights have revealed that it’s not as nerfed as imagined.  Supposedly it’s still doing pretty decent damage.  Now don’t get your hopes up on this one however.  OK?  With the new % modifiers on Strikes from diseases I don’t forsee Disease-less surviving, but as a novelty idea or a PvP concept, it could live on.  Who knows? 

But if you manage to earn from T8 armor, the 4set will make the difference even more overwhelming:  Death Knight T8 4P Bonus - Increases the bonus damage done per disease by 20% on Blood Strike, Heart Strike, Obliterate, and Scourge Strike = Snazzy!!

I’ve said snazzy 3 times now counting this one.  Did you notice?  I did.  I never usually say it either…weird!

As a general reminder all % modifiers are multiplicative, not additive.  WTF does that mean you ask?

If you have 20% haste from talents and 10% haste from gear, you do not have 30% haste.  You have instead:

• Math:  0.8 * 0.9 = 0.72 (or 28% haste)
• Explanation:  20% = 0.2 and 10% = 0.1 in decimal format.  But a 20% (0.2) increase means that if the base value is 1, then the resultant factor is 0.8 because in essence you are subtracting the 0.2 from 1, giving you 0.8.
• If that didn’t make sense:  Take any percentage and bring it to a decimal.  5% = .05, 20% = 0.2,  50% = .5, etc…  That that number and subtract it from 1.  So a 20% value (0.2) subtracted from 1 = 0.8.  Got it?  Take each % number and get the result.  Then multiple all of those numbers.

If you had 5% magic mitigation from Frost Presence, 2% magic mitigation from Imp Frost Presence, 6% magic mitigation from Magic Suppression, 4% magic mitigation from Spellbreaking (Runeforge enchant if I got the name wrong), and 5% magic mitigation from Blade Barrier…

1. 5% + 2% + 6% + 4% + 5% = 22%?   Wrong!!
2. 5% (.05) * 2% (.02) * 6% (.06) * 4% (.04) * 5% (.05) = ?  Yes!!
3. Now remember to subtract those values from 1 first!!
4. .95 * .98* .94 * .96 * .95 =  0.798
5. *OR* 80% meaning you would have a baseline of 20% magic damage mitigation with the current PTR build with this example.  Where if you had added it, it would appear that you have  22% when you did not.

Not understanding that % bonuses are multiplicative is one of the biggest mistakes made by WoW players across the board.  So there are three easy rules that answer most misconceptions!!

1. Talents that add %’s directly to a stat like Crit, Dodge, or Parry are additive.
2. Talents that add %’s directly to a value like damage or mitigation are always multiplicative.
3. Ratings are always additive.

Hope this helped guys!!  GL out there!!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Heya guys!!    So it’s time to finally break down some of the PTR is a fun and friendly manner to break up some of the hostile feelings that the broad and sweeping changes the Devs are creating.  So we’ve got a new post style installment here on SJ:

Devs at Play on the PTR

Part 1:  Will they cause mischief?  I think they will! 

At this moment we’re not going to go into depth on any of the particular changes, but just take a quick over view of some of the things going on that you can expect to read about over the next few days.  I’ve been doing some in depth reading on the DK changes, as well as overall PTR changes, and in the end it’s a sad thing to say that it still doesn’t even feel like the Devs play their own game.

An analogy, if you will, is George Bush…

“What?  WTF does that screwball have to do with anything?!!?  He’s gone, thank the Lord!!!”

The Devs are in a lot of ways like George Bush.  They stumble around and make a ton of mistakes.  Generally speaking, most of their actions leave people scratching their heads going, “WTF was that about?!!?”  And then when you see changes make their way on to the PTR, you have to sit there and wonder if they even play the game that they help design. 

Now, that said, the upside is that unlike Mr. Numbnuts over there, the Devs actually listen to people.  They look at parse logs, detailed reports on combat fights, and more.  If players can prove them wrong, they will go, “WoW, we made a mistake…ok.”  (See what I did there?   Heh)

1. Howling Blast going to a 10 second CD = WTF?  No one cares about the OP’ness of the ability guys.  Everyone cares about the fact that it runs on 2 different cooldowns and you can’t ever seem to use it when you want to.  Making it do less damage, but always being up (or costing Runic Power) would make *everyone* happy.  Just about anyways.  Any time that you have 2 abilities dependent upon 2 totally different cooldowns there is a major major issue.  Look at Chain Lighting for Elemental Shamans, or any other CD spell for casters.  They have 1 CD, and then when it’s up they can use it if they want to.  No problem.  Hey look, my HB CD is up!!!  Oh wait, no Runes available…
2. Death Strike = WTF OWNED NEWB!!!  Who wants to go toe to toe with a DK and see them self heal for over 10k HP while they simultaneously hit you for 4-8k damage?  LOL, it’s a bad idea no matter how much fun I may have while doing it!! 
3. ZOMG DK Tank’s have more avoidance than anyone = NERF SLAMMA JAMMA BOOM!!!  Take that ya damn DK’s!!  Seriously?!?  WTF man??  You were the morons who gave us far too much avoidance that did not go on to diminishing returns (DR) like all of the other classes.  And the community even told you about it.  And now you’re response is to knee jerk kick us in the groin and devastate our tanking ability putting us on the bottom rung of tanking?  How does that make sense?

These things and more are what we’re going to be delving into over the next few days as I begin to break down the PTR for you guys.  Most likely the Parts will be broken up into 5 overall sections.  Unholy, Blood, Frost, Tanking, and PvP.  And then we’ll go from there.

On the upside if you missed some of the general news affecting us:

1. All classes now recieve 25% more benefit from APr (Armor Penetration Rating).
2. Death Knights, Shaman, Druids, and Paladins now receive 30% more benefit from HR (Haste Rating).

Now the Haste thing is great news in a lot of ways.  Not only does it become a much more viable stat for us, but it’s a huge boon to anyone with a perma-ghoul (they get haste from us).  Also it significantly helps out those DW builds out there.  Yes, that’s right, DW has recently gotten some loving from the Devs and is no longer the red-headed step child of days long lost.

The APr on the other hand is laughable at best unless you are Blood spec.  DW, Frost, and Unholy all do far too much spell damage to ever truly benefit from APr like other classes can and will.  In fact the only way a DK could benefit from APr to make it a significant stat for us, would make it so valuable to Blood and other physical classes as to make it the best stat in game.  Which will never happen.  So that change will only affect the Blood Knights out there sadly.

Also, I will be explaining the math behind the new Strike mechanics.  If you’ve kept up on it at all you will have noticed that the disease damage modifiers have changed.  The new formula appears to be:

(percent * weapondamage + static) * ( 1 + disease bonus * diseases )

I need to do some follow up checking on this, but this appears to be the new base line for determining your Strike damage if you so choose to play with the math and numbers. 

So, hopefully this has given you some things to think on.  And even more hopefully something to look forward to! 

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Anyways, after much trial and tribulation we managed to get 10 people all together inside the instance.  Not only did we get 10 people there, but we even had 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 dps.    Let the good times roll!!  So, without further ado lets talk about the boss fight itself in Ulduar 10man.

Ulduar 10 Man

Now as you come in to the room, you’ll notice that there are some ice block’ed dudes in the room, the MAN himself, and then some weird frosty lookin’ anvil chest things.  Forget the chests, they’re probably where the loot goes.  Wait, don’t forget the loot!!!  I mean, damn!!  Remember the loot, REMEMBER THE LOOT!!!  Just remember it…later…  Right, moving on…

Now these lil guys in these ice blocks are buggy.  Shocker right?  Pick two of them and agro on to those ice blocks.  Don’t hit the boss first.  Have your tank running in and grabbing threat like he is supposed to on the pull, but have dps and tanks first hit the two lil guys you want to free to help you fight.  Some of them will despawn, and if you do not target the guys you want off the bat, they will sometimes despawn as well.  It’s not 100% fixed yet.

There are basically four lil guys who “can” come out and help you.  But you only get 2 at a time in 10 man.  So depending on what you want you pick two lil buggers to help out.  But we’ll come back to these 4 lil guys in a minute.  First, lets talk about what the boss does during the encounter.

Now in this picture you can see 2 of the effects done throughout the fight.  Biting Cold is a debuff on everyone in the entire raid.  It starts off as a stack of 1 doing minimal raid damage, and by simply jumping or moving you can keep the stacks down to 1 or 2 at all times.  The nasty part here is that if it builds up to 3+ stacks, jumping once will not reduce it instantly down to 1 stack.  You have to keep moving to get it back down to 1.  There is no way to stop Biting Cold through player actions.  Remember this.   So it is imperative that you move and/or jump consistently throughout the entire raid.

The other effect that you can see here is Flash Freeze, which is sometimes a death sentence and must be avoided at all costs.  This is not something that you can wait for it to wear off as it has a 5 minute duration.  And since you cannot move while under the effect, Biting Cold will continue stacking until it eventually kills you.  Now the upside here is that it, the Flash Freeze, is targetable.  So suffering through one is not an instant wipe or loss of a character.  But you cannot afford to have your dps constantly breaking people out of these Ice Blocks because the Flash Freeze’s do come fairly frequently.

The boss has a 10 minute enrage timer which pretty much means a wipe.  So it is imperative that your dps is killing the boss and not contantly breaking people free of Flash Freeze.  Now periodically during the fight small snowstorms will start falling from the ceiling, and after a few seconds large falling ice will drop to the ground doing massive damage (10k+) and knockback.  Think similar to Gruul.  Now these little snowstorms are especially important because at Flash Freeze, there are 2 special ones.

Directly to Hodir’s left and directly on top of him you can see 2 snowstorms falling.  Now I did not get a decent pick of any normal snowstorms, but this should still be sufficient.  The regular snowstorms that just drop the frosty doom on you are much easier to see through.  They will not be as cloudy, frosty, or difficult to see through as these are.  Every Flash Freeze however there will be 2 special snowstorms that look just like this.  It is important to note that these 2 storms can appear right on top of each other.  So it may look like there is only one at times.

When these appear you need to run up NEXT to them, but NOT ON TOP OF THEM!!!  They are about to drop massive blocks of ice “of frosty doom” ™ which will knock you away from them, which is very very very bad.  Once they drop, 2 mounds of snow appear.

Once they have dropped, you then immediately run and get on top of these fluffy mounds of safety goodness!!  <3  They will make you immune to the Flash Freeze.  Now sometimes if you are too far on the edge you will get the Flash Freeze anyways, but it’s not a big deal because the snow you’re standing on will get rid of it immediately.  There is also another little trick possible too.  If you are too far away, for whatever reason, if you leap as Flash Freeze is casting you will continue forward even while frozen.  So long as you land on top of the snow, the effect will be removed from you.  I know, it happened to me!!  Got too close waiting for the icicles to drop and ate a knockback…  >.<  Heh.

Lastly the boss has two other tricks up his sleeve.  He will periodically cast frost novas (dispellable) around the raid and will also buff himself with an uber damage buff.  His hands will get all glowy (you cannot miss it) and he stops doing physical damage and does all frost damage.  They can still be avoided (dodge/parry), but armor no longer does jack.  How to live through it?  Have a Prot Warrior turn on his reflection thingy and turn his back to the boss.  The Prot War will do like 20k+ damage per Reflection easy.  The reason he turns his back is for a dps boost.  He will avoid a lot of the damage if he is facing him through avoidance.  But since he will not take any damage with reflection up, you don’t want to dodge or parry these attacks.  You want them all reflected.  By turning your back to the boss, every hit will land, or in this case, be reflected back at the boss.  Turn back around once Reflection is off though.

Now, let’s get back to those lil guys who wanna help for a second.

If you look closely you can see a gnome mage off to my right.  And then you can see me standing directly to the left of a small camp fire that the mage creates periodically.  Now if you look to the far right of the screen where my buffs are, there is no debuff up there.  The mage drops these nice lil fires that allow casters to stand on top of them without gaining the Biting Cold debuff.  So long as an icicle of doom doesn’t appear above you, this allows the casters/ranged a lot more breathing room for standing still and doing their jobs.

Now if you look here you cannot see the Elemental Shaman off the screen, but you can see his Chain Lightning hitting me and FM.  It grants a buff for about 15 seconds that ups your damage.  I cannot remember if it upped the crit % or the bonus damage from crits, but all in all…you do more damage.

Now sadly I did not manage to get pics of the priest and boomkin effects, but I can at least tell you about them.  The priest was dispelling the frost novas periodically cast by the boss and doing some healing.  And then the boomkin was applying some buff that was doing haste or something like that for people.

Allies:

• Mage:  Brings dps to the table and also creates campfire zones where casters can stand still without gaining Biting Cold stacks.
• Boomkin:  Brings dps to the table and also buffs your dps to do more damage.
• Priest:  Heals for you (or maybe he smites and does dps…  *shrug*) and also dispells the AoE frost novas the boss periodically casts.
• Elemental Shaman:  Brings dps to the table and also buffs your dps to do more damage.

Once you have things down the Mage combined with either the Boomkin/Shaman (depending on which buff is better) will allow for the fastest kill possible.  The mage is too valuable since he can actually allow your ranged dps to do their job and just dps.  Every Flash Freeze will hit these guys unless they get lucky and end up on a snow mound somehow.  You need to break them free every time, and your healers can heal them.  They do not appear to take Biting Cold damage, but do take all other damage.

Boss Abilities:

• Flash Freeze – It can be avoided by getting on one of two snow mounds that appear right before it is cast.  Remember to avoid the falling ice before they are formed or you may be knocked too far away.  If it is not avoided then dps must break people free from their prisons.
• Biting Cold – It can be avoided entirely by standing next to a fire created by the Mage NPC if it is out, but otherwise you must rely on moving and/or jumping to keep this debuff down to 1 stack.
• AoE Frost Nova – It is periodically cast and cannot be avoided except by spreading out well.  It can be dispelled.
• Frozen Blows - The boss will do *massive* damage versus the tank.  His physical hits become “Frost” damage bybassing armor, hitting significantly harder.  It is best to use a Prot War so they can reflect the damage back at the boss.  But other options like a DK tank with AMA and IBF could work.
• Falling Ice – Similar to Gruul, a small swirl of ice and snow will begin to fall to the ground.  You must get out of this area (similar to a void zone) or a massive block of ice will fall upon you knocking you back and doing massive damage to you as well (10k+).

Pets:

This fight is NOT friendly to pets.  You need to have a pet macro set up to pull your pet out of the fire…er ice…so to speak.  When Flash Freeze starts, make your pet follow you and get the hell out of there.  Every pet frozen is that much less dps getting done, and wasted time spent on getting them free.

Kill Shot?!?!

Sadly no we did not kill Hodir.  Had we not been hung up all night with dc’s, loading issues, people stuck in Dalaran, waiting to even be able to zone in to Ulduar, etc…  We would have.  Once we figured out where the snow mounds were we brought Hodir down to 40% before we hit the enrage timer at 10 minutes and he killed us.  Then shortly after Blizz called the testing as finished, and the next thing we know our MT is teleported out of the zone and a wipe ensues.   /sigh  Ah well…

You do not need an OT, and if you’re healers are really good you can honestly roll with just 2 if you wanted to.  Preferably with one of them as a Druid if you went with 2.  It’s a REALLY FUN fight, and it is a total blast!!  You guys are seriously going to enjoy it!!

Disclaimer:

This is not meant to be an UBER BOSS GUIDE!!!  This is not a boss guide site.  But, this is still something you may find useful on your raids!! 

I had more fun tonight in WoW than I have had in a very long time guys.  Ulduar appears to have been done very well, and I look forward to telling you guys more and more about it!!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters

I’ve been lax the past few days, tied up with /rl and with various other things, but I’ve got plenty coming your way.  In fact, as soon as I stop writing here, we move on to our opening up Frost post for today. 

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.