Welcome to Draenor Challenge Modes.

Hi babies!!

I hope everyone has been enjoying WoD so far!! I have been having a great time with my new guild, levelling and gearing up ready for next weeks raids. So far I have been playing a lot of WW and BrM, not so much MW but I will hopefully be trying that out in heroic raids next reset ;)


One of the most fun things I have done so far is tanking challenge modes, at this point I have done Shadowmoon, Everbloom and Upper Blackrock Spire. I will proceed to go through my thoughts and talent choices etc for each but as a general overview (pre buff to guard) I will say that it was not as easy as MoP!! The overall feeling of it was that I felt squishier than I am used to, bear in mind that until this week I had absolutely NO tanking items whatsoever, so I have been using all my dps trinkets etc, so I was probably a little softer than some of the other tanks anyway, but that aside, it was actually really nice to feel like I have to make conscious decisions as to what I spend my resources on, especially since the gear level I was at means I have very limited resources at the moment, making it even more poignant what buttons I press and when. 

Then guard became useful again.....

After the guard buff I have to say, Blizz, I love you. pre buff, having two charges of guard meant little to nothing in CM's. You could press it and think "yay I will be safe!!" and guard's like "I'll save you!! Jk I'm gone with one melee swing." Since the buff I actually feel safer when I have charges to use. it feels worthwhile pressing the button instead of just pressing it out of habit and realizing it dose sweet FA.

Talent Overview

Level 15: Fro Ww I like to use momentum, but as BrM it's Tigers lust or go home for me. The on demand speed burst makes for some awesome kiting!!

Level 30: Sadly I was hoping the sphere would be good, however upon using it, it's just not strong enough at the moment. Chi burst is nice for a lot of AOE when you are playing WW but as BrM I'm still favouring Chi Wave.

Level 45: I'm still running ascension here, primarily because I have sod all stats and energy seems to be a massive issue for me right now, for WW I still like the brew, but as BrM its Ascension for me.

Level 60: As WW I tend to use RoP, just so that I dont get my tank splatted when LS resets the mob swings. However i have found myself using Leg Sweep a lot more in BrM spec, as when I want to kite it is great to do, then just bugger off :D

Level 75: At the moment as BrM and WW I am switching between DH and DM depending on the dungeon and how much magic damage is involved overall.

Level 90: As WW I have one spec with RJW for AOE, and one with Xuen for burst damage on bosses. As BrM I have not let my faithful kitty leave my side, he is REALLY powerful if you want to do big mob pulls, as he will merrily tank the shit out of them for you. 

Level 100: Ok, I need to put this in a concise way, as BrM, Chi Explosion is the devil, it encourages stupid chi management, and you will find yourself without shuffle far too much. Serenity is the way forward at these gear levels, on bosses it means you can windmill away with BoK and get yourself a massive shuffle up, leaving you free to spend precious chi on purifying and guards to keep you healthy. I found Soul Dance to be particularly useful in places like Shadowmoon Burial Ground, as it helps you to stagger magic damage, and there is so much of it in this instance it really pays off to make use of it. 




Now then, lets get to it....

Before I start, the comp we ran with was Brewmaster monk, Holy priest, Frost Mage, WindwalkerMonk, Rogue (switching between specs) We also weren't going for golds, it was just about getting through the instance, however we got bronze on all of them apart form UBRS.  All these dungeons will be from Brewmaster perspective, I will be doing the others but most likely as a windwalker!!


Shadowmoon Burial Ground.

Overview: This is a VERY magic damage heavy instance. The caster mobs are particularly nasty so using CC was good for us here, however a word of caution, if you are using glyph of keg smash, you can break CC so be very careful here if you do use it. The bosses themselves aren't much of an issue with regards to melee damage apart from Ner'zhul, who does hit quite hard, but as he stops hitting you to cast his ability every now and then, you will find you have a few grace periods for you to heal up. One of the major issues I have with mobs his size is the hitboxes are really small, and you literally have to stand in the bosses face to attack, and this can sometimes lead to the boss running "through" you and smacking you in the ass, which does hurt, there isn't really a massive amount you can do about this, except for bearing it in mind and keeping on your toes. 

Talents: I used tigers lust, Chi Wave, Ascension, Leg Sweep, Diffuse Magic, Xuen and Soul dance.
One thing to note is that you cannot change talents during the dungeon unless you go outside, so sometimes it might be beneficial to run two of the same spec, on my WW I have an AOE spec and a single target spec.


Sadana Bloodfury

She doesn't melee too hard, however the Dark Eclipse does a lot of damage without diffuse up so make sure that you sit on a white rune to avoid it. If the fight drags on there will be a lot of aoe patches pof damage that will cause positioning issues, so dpsing her down quickly is important, as aonk you can really contribute to this by using touch of death on the first mob that she summons, meaning your dps dont need to come off her, taking her down quickly.

Nhallish

Not much different to normal heroic, slightly more damag, and it is more important to pick up the mobs from his Exhume spirit ability as they will wreck your companions pretty quickly if you don't. Just be careful as they can swarm a little and get behind you if you're not careful.

Bonemaw

Again, no different to heroic apart from extra damage, diffuse is best used for his inhale here when you have to stand in the Necrotic Pitch, as your healer will need to be using their heals on your squishier pals ;)

Ner'zhul

Melees very hard and can have issues with positioning due to the stupidly tiny hit box, again, touch of death with become your team's best friend when he casts his first Ritual of Bones.

The Everbloom

Overview: A chance for monks to do what we were born to do, as long as you co-ordinate it with your team, you can do some REALLY big pulls here, because unlike other tanks we can kite for days and days and then some. Using the statue becomes a big deal here, it will take a lot of aggro off you, and so will Xuen if you use his taunt, he will also do a batshit crazy amount of damage for you. 

Talents: For this dungeon I ran Tigers lust (Dat kiting yo), Ascension, Chi Wave, Leg Sweep (when you get aggro, run in, LS, then run back out ;) ) Dampen Harm, Xuen, Serenity.  

Witherbark 

A nice easy boss to deal with, Dampen Harm and Guard will happily protect you against his Parched Grasp, and Xuen will do silly damage when he goes into his non tankable phase. If you have your ranged stack to the right of the boss you will also negate any orbs going through the vines on the floor, thus not having to deal with any adds. 

Ancient Protectors

No different to heroic except that Dhulu (the big git that runs about a lot) does hit quite hard, BUT....you can use you're statue to tank him if you wish, just make sure you slap another one down when it dies, and I would recommend using the leer of the ox to keep him on it. 

Xeri'tac

Quite a fun boss, save touch of death for the pale orc to stop him from healing himself by eating it, and if you are running dampen, be sure to stay out of the green fart clouds, as they hurt!

Archmage Sol

Here's where it gets a bit more interesting. Depending on how tanky you feel and how well you can manage your cds/co-ordinate with your healer, you can deal with her in a few different ways. The way we found easiest was to interrupt the second parasitic growth, and then leave her in her frost [phase, and move her to arcane just before the end, depending on how quickly you can get her down.  The arcane phase is by far the worst and if you can avoid it all together, I would recommend it. HOWEVER....not interrupting parasitic growths will mean you take more damage as a tank, but it all depends on your comp, you and how much you value extra tank healing over aoe healing. in the fire/frost phases, most of the damage is avoidable, but the aoe pule in arcane phase is really painful. I would recommend using lust here unless your damage is big as a group.

Yalnu

A nice easy one to finish, make sure you stand him in the fire from your NPc allies, use statue to tank the adds, and you can also help out with the weed whacking using Tigers Lust. also use Touch of death to free allies that are caught in vines.

Upper Blackrock Spire

Overview: Well....be prepared for some pain. The trash isn't TOO bad....but the bosses hit like friggin trucks. 

Talents: Tigers lust, Chi Wave, Ascension, leg Sweep, Dampen Harm (Although diffuse is nice for some of the bosses, so dual speccing may be worth here) Xuen and Serenity.

Orebender Gor'ashan

Not too difficult, doesn't do THAT much more melee damage, and using transcendence is great because you can help out with releasing the conduits and get back to pick him up quickly. 

Kyrak

A real tough boss, a lot of movement in a small area with really crappy camera angles. Once the two adds he has are dead he becomes easier, but the adds make things REALLY difficult, and if you get caught by Eruption, you're pretty much guaranteed to die as you can't nimble it :(

Commander Tharbek

A lot of add management required here, keep interrupts on the summoners and use your statue to help you out if you get too many adds out. 

Ragewing the Untamed

Make no mistake, this boss hits like a train, and the breath is devastating if you dont move right out of the way of it, I would save Xuen and the statue for the whelps, and try to make sure you have some cd's left for when the boss comes down onto the bridge as he gets a damage increase the longer that he is up. 


Warlord Zaela

Positioning is everything on this boss. Fortunatley they have removed her knockback, which makes the fight a lot easier, but once the adds start spawning avoiding the fire breath is imperative, as Zaela herself hits like a train, and also has the same affliction as Ner'zhul where she will run through you and slap you on the ass on occasion. I would save Xuen for when she spawns the 3 adds at 60% hp, these need to get killed like, yesterday, as they grip your team mates and pull them into the path of the fire from the drakes, so Xuens cleave and taunt become really handy.

Blog-a-versary...Blog!!

Wow, It's been a whole year since I started my blog, so I've updated it, and added/removed a few bits and pieces :) 

I want to say a huge thank you to the people that have helped me with promoting my little blog, endless retweets and even promotions on their own pages, all of which are appreciated so much, starting a blog can be a little daunting but it makes it so much more comfortable when you have some people to help you out!!


Here are a run down of some of the stats from the blog over the year it has been active:

Audience:

United States 5127
United Kingdom 2505
Turkey 734
Ukraine 685
France 580
Germany 528
Canada 384
Australia 227
Russia 209
Denmark 184

Operating systems used: 

Windows 9248 (64%)
iphone 1689 (12%)
Macintosh 1284 (9%)
Android 790 (5%)
iPad 415 (3%)
Linux 216 (1%)

Top 5 posts:

The Last Challenging post - The final installment of my challenge mode guide.

On the E-Sofa - Pip's portraits - The interview I did with Philippa who drew my graphics for Lazee and Lady

Another Very Challenging Post - The second of my challenge mode guides.

My name is Cat, and I'm a Mogaholic! - One of my earliest posts displaying my fabulous wardrobe!!

On the E-Sofa - when a Panda meets a Bear and a Draenei - My interview with @Sunnier and @Arielle 

Total pageviews: 13,770

Why start a blog?

I started my blog mainly for me, just as a place to dump my thoughts about playing and other things that interested me. I never actually expected it to get as many views as it has done,so In short, I am really grateful for all the people who have stopped by :)



The future is bright.....

Recently the guild I was in Midlifecrisis have merged with another guild, Addiction, for WoD, I will still be playing my monk of course, however much more likely to be playing MW/WW, it's been a really exciting time for all of us and we are all excited for the release, I have my energy drinks, my snacks and pots and flasks!!

Thanks once again to everyone that's helped make this little blog possible, and here's to another year ^_^

Special thanks:

Sunnier
Arielle
Vaylen
Chai
Daikatsu
Naoyuki
LeBlue


Enjoy the release guys, and as always....be good ;)

Looking Back, Looking Forward....

Hello my babies....I am aware that this is my first post in a few weeks, I have not abandoned my blog, I have still been playing WoW, I have just moved house and took some time off blogging to adjust.

So here we sit at the end of Siege of Orgrimmar, the mighty 6.0 looms ahead of us as we wait in anticipation for reset day. I thought I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on the current raid tier, what I've learned, things I've enjoyed, and to enlighten you on what I am looking forward to for WoD. So for the final time this tier...grab your heartiest of brews, and join me on a trip down memory lane....

As I didn't start playing until Heart of Fear was released, I have only experienced Two raid tiers, SoO and Throne of Thunder. My Throne of Thunder experience was not all that good, the group I raided with never made it past Tortos, we spent week after week wiping on the council and there was a time when I wondered if this game really had anything to offer me. I was raiding on my Warlock, I grew tired of the class and due to the composition of our group, I was never taken to raid on my monk, which I enjoyed playing far more. After many frustrating weeks I finally plucked up the courage to request that I could be a tank for when 5.4 hit. My request was declined and I knew that I needed to make a change. Moving to Midlifecrisis about a month before 5.4 hit, I was taken straight into a ToT 10m normal raid that week and was thrown in the deep end and told I would be tanking, starting with Durumu. I enjoyed myself so much that night, I was made to feel so welcome and I knew I was in the right place, and was suddenly looking forward to the impending patch, which had previously been filling me with an empty dread.

We spent the last few weeks preparing for 5.4, gathering materials for the guild bank and food for the noodle carts. When 5.4 hit, I was part of the flex team, and helped out on a few nights where the main group were short, including a guild first kill of Spoils Of Pandaria. I think I actually fell in love with that fight a little, it's like Blizzard said "Hey monks! You know you guys just LOVE aoe right? Fights with lots of adds? Well, here's a fight completely made up of adds!! Oh, and just as a little bonus, you can open them all up from their boxes like Christmas presents!" to this day that is my favorite encounter in the raid, it's so much fn and a real nice opportunity to shine as a monk tank. 


After a while we managed to gather together 10 players to make a second 10 man group for the guild, we had a great start, a shaky few bosses and then finally, against all the odds, managed to get our own Garrosh kill. We did start to work on our own heroics, making 3/14 before our group sadly disbanded due to holidays and schooling schedules. I was eventually taken in by the main guild group and we continued the guilds progress on heroics. We made it to Garrosh but sadly, he remains undefeated, however we had an amazing time getting there, and some really great kills along the way. 

All in all I've enjoyed the raid, I think it's been a little too long between content arriving but I look forward to new raids and dungeons. 

Taking one for the team.

Although my monk is my main toon, I have switched to others. People have asked my why I do this, so I will endeavor to answer this question. When our group got stuck on Thok, I realized that my Monk dps was not going to cut the mustard, also, as we already had 2 other melee, adding an extra one to the mix wasn't really going to help. I was not needed as a tank at that time, so the only other thing I could offer was my hunter. After doing a dps test on some dummies, I realized that even under geared, I could do more damage on Lazeebow than Darklady, so with a slightly heavy heart I asked if my GM would like me to bring him to the next raid instead, it made sense, he's ranged, and he does more damage, plus hunters do not suffer any of Thok's interrupting shouts, so to me, it was the better choice.  After I used Lazeebow for our Thok kill, I also used him for Seigecrafter and Paragons, and then we started on Garrosh. On the first night I noticed that my dps here, although high, would not be enough to secure a kill, so I suggested that our disc priest revert to his main Shadow spec, and I brought in my own disc priest to heal. 
      Why though? Why would you offer to switch from your main, to a toon that you don't use apart from alt runs? You wont benefit from gear unless you coin, you wont get the EP rewards on that toon as they get transferred to your main, what's in it for you? The answer to this is simple, if it gets the bosses down, the guild and team benefit. For me, raiding is not about just me, and what gear I can get, it's about working together and making kills happen, and if that means I need to switch, I switch. I'd rather hear the cheers of 9 other happy people when a boss dies, than wallow in misery wipe after wipe because our composition is letting us down, and if I can change that composition, then so be it.
     As I have a lot of alts, I have access to more classes than some people, I keep all my alts that I use for alt runs in good shape, they are all fully gemmed and enchanted, and all of them have their legendary cloak. I know a lot of people do this, and this is not an uncommon thing to do, particularly in hardcore guilds, where it is practically mandatory for each raider to have an array of alts to be used as the guild desires. However, as I have been asked this question numerous times, I hope I have answered it fully!!



To the future!

I have earned myself a place as an officer for the guild. I have been in charge of recruiting for a few months and intend to continue this going forwards to WoD. Will I be maining my monk? Short answer, yes. I will be going WindWalker at the start of the expansion, and from there, who knows....I am not put off by the MistWeaver changes, and am prepared to go healer if I am needed to. I will level up all my "raiding toons" and as I have done this expansion, switch to whatever is needed to get the fight done. I will be sad not to be a full time Brewmaster, however there will be plenty of challenge modes and alt raids for me to play my beloved tank spec, so I am not too worried about making the change.
       I will continue to blog throughout WoD, my little blog is almost a year old, and I'd like to thank each and every person who has taken the time to read my random ramblings, and I am eternally grateful to the people that helped me promote it, and gave me so much support when I started out. I was writing the blog mainly for myself, but over the year I have become more confident and even extended to posting guides (which was not something I ever saw myself doing), more importantly, people have thanked me for doing so, and it's a really heart warming feeling to know that I've helped someone.
    I am currently in the process of coming up with a redesign for the page, and will dedicate a post to my blogoversary when it comes up next month!

See you through the dark portal.....

Be good!!

Unsung heroes 1 - Lazeebow

Happy Friday folks! Today I am starting a small collection of posts about my 'unsung heroes'. My monk is obviously my main toon and I love her dearly, however I also raid on a few other toons, some of which have contributed to guild boss kills, and I felt like giving them some love and credit, as you know I am somewhat of an alt-aholic, and seeing as my monk takes the limelight on the blog I thought it was time to properly introduce you to some of my other babies...I mean toons...ahem. 

So, for this post, ditch your brew, grab your guns, crossbows and your favorite companions, and meet Lazeebow....

It starts....

Lazeebow is my hunter, he's a loveable cuddly Pandaren with a flair for outrageous outfits, a passion for food, alchemy and is also a skilled engineer. Incidently Lazeebow has gone through some rather drastic changes since I rolled him. He was actually born a female goblin called Snoopscout, I rolled this class/race combo to help out my old guild with the stay classy goblin achievement. For all intents and purposes, she was never meant to go past 85, however, spurred on by the prospect of cooler pets being available at 90, I maxed her out, collected a few pets, then left her while I started to level other toons. After a while she went through a race change and became a female orc called Mogdurz - named after the female orc that works in the Gloombound Mine in Skyrim. However I still never played her, and one day while boredom was getting the better of me, I wondered what could possibly want to make me actually play my hunter. Being particularly fond of the male Pandaren I race changed yet again and renamed him Lazeebow, the name was just something that popped into my head at the time while i was thinking about his lore (I like to have a little story behind all my toons). 


Lore.

Lazeebow was born and raised near HalfHill, his parents were tragically killed by a rampaging mushan when he was young, so he was taken in by the Tillers, who raised him, and put him to work. He was content like this for many years, he worked hard on the farm, helped out at the market, gave people rides to nearby farms, and was a generally well known and loved figure. His pet tiger Cringer was never far away from him, although she was really his only friend. Although he was known by many, he never really had any special person to call his own, and often felt like something of an outcast, it never really bothered him too much, but he always wondered if there was something more out there for him than being a farmer. 
     As a rather portly chap, he was very fond of his food, he met other hunters that stopped by the market, all of them slim, agile creatures, with grace and poise. Even as a very skilled hunter himself, he had about as much grace as mushan, and slim was not a word he ever wanted to associate with himself. Some of them ridiculed him for his size, however he took it all in good humour, in fact, he never got flustered about anything, true to his name, he was one of the laziest Pandaren you would ever come across, although he loved to help people, his favourite activities involved sleeping and sitting in quiet contemplation as the world went about its business. He had adopted this mantra from a wise old brewer by the name of Chen Stormstout, whom he first met as a small cub himself. He had attempted to lasso one of the giant cranes that roamed the skies just outside halfhill, which of course had gone wrong and ended up with him running for his life, even after the giant bird had given up the chase, he kept running, and eventually bumped into Chen, who gave a huge belly laugh and looked down at him and spoke the words that would stick with him forever...
    "Slow down...life is to be savoured".
   After many years Lazee was helping out at the market one day when an orc in some incredibly flashy armor approached the stall he was selling bread from. As usual Lazee chatted away, introducing himself and talking about how wonderful Halfhill was, and offering the orc a taste of the fresh bread. However it wasn't long before he had to ask about the orc's armor, it was red and black, and had spikey shoulders that looked very fearsome, he was wielding two huge swords, with red and black hilts and some glimmering red runes engraved on the blades. It was all very impressive. The orc informed him that he was a mighty warrior, and he was gathering up supplies to visit orgrimmar and compete in the Brawlers Guild. Lazeebow had never heard of such a thing, so he probed the orc with more questions, and discovered that it was a tournament, where entrants had to vanquish many foes, in order to claim the honor and prestige of being the best. What interested him most however was the prize, a mushan beast that he could ride around on. He told the orc that he might just enter himself, at which point the orc threw back his head an laughed, 
"A farmer? In the Brawlers Guild? Are you crazy?!?! You'll get eaten alive by the first round opponent! Have you never heard of Bruce?"
Lazeebow cocked his head to one side and eyed the Warrior up and down.
"If you can do it, why shouldn't I?" He asked quizzically. The orc chuckled, 
"The names Darkguyver, look me up when you get there....if you even make it there" With a sly wink he turned and wandered off. 
Lazeebow knew it was his appearance that was deceptive, dressed in raggedy old clothes and sporting his tillers tarbard with his wooden bow he knew he didn't look like much else than a harmless farmer. Maybe a new outfit would change that....?

    Lazeebow packed up his things and left HalfHill in search of something more, he got himself a shining new set of armor, which he would later become known for wearing. As ostentatious as it was on anyone else, on a huge Pandaren it just looked incredible, he went to the Brawlers Guild, and there, after some quite heavy rivalry with Darkguyver, they both managed to fight their way to the top and earn their prizes. It wasn't until they discovered arena matches that the pair really bonded, and became firm friends. They spent their time competing against other pairs in their bid to become champions, they traveled Azeroth looking for more interesting armor and tougher foes to vanquish.

Being a hunter doesn't always mean you get the crap jobs....

That's actually a lie, being a mobile dps that has only one castable ability that can be cast on the move anyway means you get ALL the crap jobs, but are they actually crap? Most of the time, doing these jobs enables your raid to kill bosses, and in the case of the one I am going to focus on shortly, means you actually get away with not having to deal with a lot of horrible boss abilities. I've used Lazeebow to help our guild get their first heroic Thok kill and more recently, Siegecrafter. I play Beast Mastery as my main spec, with Marksman as my OS but I only use this for PvP. It's not that i don't like survival, it just doesn't play as well for me personally as BM does. I understand that this may end up being to my detriment where I know that survival is better for some fights that BM is, and if it came down to the difference between a kill and a wipe I would switch.Even though Lazee hasn't even broken 570 Ilvl yet, he can still keep up with dps just fine, as I have spent a lot of time playing PvP on him, I have noticed my reactions are quicker and I can take preventative action for incoming issues without having to think about it too hard, thus making me a more capable player, even though my main role is a tank.


Belt Duty - spending hours on a giant treadmill and losing NO weight.

As myself and the other hunter in our group can obviously just go round and round on belts each time, we spend the entire fight not having to deal with any sawblades, lasers, bombs or magnets. To be honest, once you get comfortable with the matter purification beam rotation and work out your cds, the belts are a doddle. This is a short desctiption of how we managed our cds so that we could ensure we did the 10m damage to each item on the belts. 

Note: If you have even a flex AoC as i do, and it is fully upgraded, you will have Bestial Wrath available for each belt. Very importantly, if you do not have at least this trinket on flex fully upgraded you will not have a short enough cooldown on disengage to get onto the belts on time!!
Belt 1:
This belt is the easiest, both of us pre pot, get bloodlust, and use nothing more than Bestial Wrath, and kill command with Arcane shot, it is usually dead within around 5 seconds.
Belt 2:
For this belt I used Rapid Fire.
Belt 3: 
I use my stampede
Belt 4:
The other hunter uses his stampede, my Rapid fire is back up and it should die before it reaches the second set of beams.
Belt 5:
I use my gloves again, the other hunter uses his second pot, we both use BW
Belt 6: 
I use my second pot, other hunter uses his gloves and we both use BW
Belt 7: 
Anything and everything we have, my gloves are back up for this one and so is Rapid fire.
Belt 8:
As the other hunter has a heroic AoC he re uses stampede.
Belt 9:
My second stampede is up.
Belt 10: 
Finish off the boss!!

This is just the basic "big" cds that we used, obviously we both use glaive toss, kill command etc on cd. 
Talents & Glyphs: 
Posthaste and Glyph of Disengage are vital, or you will not make the distance to the belt!
Fervor is nice for extra focus though I found Thrill of the Hunt to be better for me personally. 
Spirit Bond - this is quite important, you have next to no healing on the belts (depending on where your raid team is tanking blackfuse), and for us the healers were all the way on the opposite side of the room, so having spirit bond to heal you while on the belt after you take a tick of overlaod is great.
Glyph of Deterrence - great for when you have to run through fire to reach the pipe
Glyph of Liberation - again, just a little help with healing, especially for when you are disengaging onto the belt, the ticks of overload are quite heavy and having those little touches just make it safer.
Pets:
I took a spirit pet, purely because it has a self heal. Pet can be somewhat buggy on the belts where you disengage up, so after many trials of different things, I settled on climbing the pipe, dismissing my pet, then re-summoning it as soon as I land, this way your pet stays with you and you get the maximum use from spirit bond.


Lazeebows Wardrobe and Companions.

 This is by far my favorite outfit, mostly because its bright and looks outrageous on a male Pandaren. It is the complete set from Ahn'Qiraj, including the bow. It's the set I currently use for PvE. The pet pictured with me is Mayhem (Originally Ban'tholos) my spirit owl, in my eyes he is one of the best looking hunter pets in the game. For PvE I always carry him, a sporebat for spell haste, a Hynena for attack speed, a wolf for crit and any other pet I desire, or anything the raid needs.



This is my current PvP set, its an old set of PvP gear which I bought for HP in the sewers in Dalaran, the bow drops from Illidan. Pets are quite variable for PvP, my go to pet is Mowgli because he gives me a crit buff, as this benefits myself and my partner who is a warrior. I like to have a carrion bird handy, as it reduces damage taken, a small raven or a gull for disarms, and a crab for stuns. Depending on the comp we are against, I will ususally use one of those pets listed.










So there you have it! Lazeebow in all his glory, complete with crazy clothes and fabulous pets. Next week I shall uncover another of my unsung heroes, until then....be good ;)

Talents for SoO - A closer look at which talents suit which bosses and why.

Hey guys, I was struggling to come up with a blog topic this week, and while raiding the other night I ran out of tomes of the clear mind and it suddenly hit me how often I talent change depending on the fight, so I though I would explain my thoughts on each talent, which fights I use them for, and let you in on some of my failed experiments when trying different ones out! (note: all from a Brewmaster PoV)


Level 15 talents.

Celerity - Having an extra roll can be really useful, especially on high movement fights, the added bonus of a cd reduction on these rolls means that if you spread them out properly, you can always have a roll ready, nothing worse than needing to move out of trouble and clicking the roll bind like a madman only to see its still got a 5 second cooldown. Some of the fights on heroic don't leave 5 seconds grace before you get slapped upside the head by something. I like to use this talent for Iron Juggernaut, as you need to take 3 bombs between tanking the boss, having the 3 rolls is pretty perfect here. I also like to use it on Spoils of Pandaria sometimes.

Tigers Lust - I love this talent, its pretty much my go to choice in this tier for most fights, its got a nice low cooldown, and provides not only a burst of speed, but frees you or anyone else you use it on from any slow effects, this is particularly useful for something like Garrosh, the adds he summons in phase one put a hamstring debuff on whichever tank they are attacking, and even if that's not you, you can put it on your co tank, meaning they can move out of the way of the iron star without being slowed. I use this for almost every fight in SoO, I personally value the short speed burst over the other two choices.

Momentum - I have not really found a place for this talent in Siege for myself, the extra distance on the roll is nice but compared to the other two options its just not as valuable to me, that being said, if you are add kiting on Garrosh, as long as you spread out the two rolls you have, you can make the most use out of the extra movement speed, combine this with keg toss and you can kite those adds for days, I think this talent would really shine if you're in a 25 man guild and on add duty in P3.


Level 30 Talents.


Chi Wave - Another "go to" talent for me, overall this does a lot of healing, and damage, plus it has a relatively low cooldown making it nice and spammable. It also uses the smart healing mechanic so it can be overall really helpful for your raid, especially your melee and co tank. I have used this talent for every single fight in the raid, and its always proved valuable.

Zen Sphere - Although I like the idea of this talent, running logs on it I have discovered that its overall healing and damage just don't stack up to Chi Wave, although its cd is shorter and you have have 2 orbs out at once, the amount it ticks for loses its value when you're being hit by bosses that have 300k+ melee attacks as standard. Thats not to say Chi Wave is any better in that situation, but it can provide on the spot "chunk" heals as opposed to a small ticking heal. I currently do not use this talent for any fights in SoO.

Chi Burst - I love this talent for aoe fights, it provides a huge burst of on the spot healing to anyone it travels through and contributes a very reasonable amount of damage to any adds. I favour it on fights like Galakras, sometimes spoils, though for progress I used Chi Wave as it requires less aiming and has no cast time so that I could focus more on add control and positioning, but once the fight was more committed to memory and I was more comfortable I switched to Chi Burst.

Level 45 Talents.

Power Strikes - As I do not generally have any issues generating chi I do not use this for any fight, that being said at lower gear levels it could be quite useful for ensuring you always have enough chi to keep BoK up and the ability to purify on demand.

Ascension - This is pretty much the only talent I use in this tree as it stands, I like having 5 chi available and as I do not run any extra haste and have reforged any haste i do have into mastery, the extra energy regen means I always have the 40 I need for my keg smash, coupled with the fact that I am very fond of RJW, I prefer the 15% regen to make sure I can use both as much as possible.

Chi Brew - Again I find this talent nice for lower gear levels and when I was struggling to generate chi, I still find it great for single target fights like Malkorok, where an instant chi generator can really come into its own, plus the extra stacks of EB are also great to keep a high uptime on it, especially when you run a lower crit build like I do.


Level 60 Talents.

Ring of Peace - This is a really nice talent when you have either a lot of adds to deal with or caster adds, the silence gives you a lot of breathing space and time to position yourself in front of the adds and stop them from stacking up behind you, I use this talent for Galakras, Spoils, Garrosh and sometimes General Nazgrim, depending on the raid comp at the time.

Charging Ox Wave - I really like this talent, however the only place I have really found it useful is Nazgrim, because in my humble opinion, the other two choices are better. Using it for Nazgrim adds means you can help lock down a mage that's casting while you're dealing with a Shaman, obviously this requires some careful aiming but once you get used to it, it can be great on this fight.

Leg Sweep - I used to use this on add fights, until I discovered that when you use it, it resets the swing on each add stunned, which will then all hit you together at once, which is fine if they dont hit very hard, but the adds on Phase One of the Garrosh fight hit for about 200k each, when there's 6 of them, and they hit you as one...it hurts! I have grown to favour RoP over this, once I started tanking bosses that hit harder, the reset swing can really knock you for six if you're not expecting it. One thing I will add, is that the animation for this is hilarious compared to the other two, and watching 6 adds fall over on their arses in unison is always great.


Level 75 Talents.

Healing Elixirs - I was never a huge fan of this talent to begin with, but after combining it with the Chi Brew I discovered that for constant damage fights it is quite nice to have that extra heal, also, any fights where you are likely to be away from healers for any length of time. I currently use this talent on the  Norushen fight on account of the constant ticking aoe damage. 

Dampen Harm - This for me is a really nice damage against the hard hitters like Malkorok, General Nazgrim, Thok, paragons and Garrosh, although for Garrosh I sometimes like to take Diffuse magic, again depending on raid comp. Combined with my already high mastery build, If I am going to have to wait for too long for a guard and have no other cds left, it can take the edge off what could be otherwise fatal melee swings. As it is not affected by attack power it is also a great tool to pop at the start of the fight until you have enough vengeance built up to get a decent sized guard, as cold tanking on a monk can sometimes be a little painful.

Diffuse Magic - I love this talent for fights like Immersius, it means that if something goes wrong you can completely negate an entire corrosive blast. I also liked to use it if I was tanking He softfoot, as if you get into an awkward position when he has noxious poison, you can give yourself 6 seconds grace to reposition, and not take any extra damage from the poison on the floor. I also use this talent for Sha of pride, Siegecrafter and Garrosh for the whirling corruption if we have no DK's with AMZ present.


Level 90 Talents.

Rushing Jade Wind - A particular favorite of mine, even before it was remodeled in 5.4. Especially on Add fights like Tortos. Since the remodel it has become my favorite talent for all 3 specs of the monk, I find it particularly great for extra damage and chi generation on Galakras, Spoils and Nazgrim where there is a constant flow of adds to ensure said chi generation. That's not to say that I haven't used it on fights with less adds such as Sha of pride, or Garrosh. When you need to get and keep aggro on adds that may not be there for long, if you already have high vengeance, this talent is perfect, plus is means you do not have to channel SCK and you can keep using your other abilities. I appreciate that you still dodge and parry when SCK is going, but as someone who has 8% parry and 20% dodge (without taking EB into account) this doesn't really comfort me a lot, and there have been more than just a few occasions where I have fallen over because of this channel.

Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger - one of the coolest looking talents by far, a giant blue electric kitty fighting for you gives a certain amount of street cred over other tanks in my opinion! Xuen also does amazing amounts of damage, and he cleaves, but if you're looking for burst on a single target boss, this is the guy to do it. I like to use him for Malkorok, Iron Juggernaut, Thok, Seigecrafter, and for progress, he was brilliant for Spoils, as if you find yourself overwhelmed, you can bust him out and have him take over some of the ads and tank them for you, while doing batshit crazy amounts of damage, thus helping them melt a little faster. 

Chi Torpedo - Ever since I flung myself off Lei Shen's platform when forgetting how far this thing goes in compared to a roll I have been a lot more cautious about using it. In all honesty, for Siege, it just doesn't stack up to the other two options in this tier for me. I don't use it for any fights, purely because it means I would have to forgo either my Kitty or my RJW. It's a shame really, because I believe it has its uses, and the animation is pretty awesome, but with the amount of healing and mobility Brewmasters already have, it just doesn't have any value for me.

Lady Monks....ASSEMBLE!!!!!!!!

Well hello darlings!!

As you know I am an avid viewer of Monk Meditation, and the other lady monks and I decided that it was time to take over once more, so last night, we entertained the dojo, with wit, charm, sophistication and some FABULOUS monk info on Monk Meditation Episode 29, Ladies Night Part Deux!! The show was hosted by yours truly, and I'd like to give a huge shout out to the MM gang for letting us take over and have such a fun night. 
My beautiful co-hosts for the evening were:
Tigercrane - @Ashveridian
Sunnier - @Sunnierbrew (Sunniers Blog)
Stormieh - @Stormieh_MW (Sentry Totem)
Jadedot - @Plumwd  (Chi Burst Forums)

We discussed the recent Beta changes, took questions from the lovely Dojo, and let everyone know how we're all preparing for WoD. Check out the video below ;)

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Monk Meditation is part of Catalyst Gaming Media. For other great gaming blogs, podcasts, and events, visit catalystgamingmedia.com

Pet Battles: Beasts of Fable

Hi guys!

Sorry for the delay getting this post out, I have had some personal things to take care of and I appreciate everyone's patience!! A little plus since my last post, our guild managed to down Thok on heroic so we are now working on the mighty Siegecrafter! To finish off my Battle Pet extravaganza posts, today I will go through my tactics for defeating the beasts of fable, and finish up my favorite pets list, so sit back, relax, and lets get to it!

Critter:

This was by far, the hardest category to pick my favorites in, mostly because it houses some of THE cutest pets that WoW has to offer, after MUCH deliberation I have picked 5 that I love, either for their looks or their utility!
The Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm, because omg HOW cute? Plus the little trumpet he gives every now and then is just adorable! I purchased this little guy off the AH, and he's usually easy to find on there and not too expensive. 

Bubbleflex my Gu'chi Swarmling, named because he was given to me by a friend with that name, he drops off the rare on the timeless isle but I had been unsuccessful in getting one so he was generously donated and thus named in honor of the donor! I have not leveled him yet, but he is cute and squidgy looking and I want to cuddle him :D

The Armadillo pup, which is capturable via pet battles, just...too cute.

Dippy my Darkmoon Hatchling, again, just very cute and seeing as I have the mount to match he makes a great "on show" companion pet!!

Finally, (and you MAY have heard of this little guy before...) Brian, the legend that is my Rapana Whelk. The pet that can seemingly solo all manner of other pets, I love him, he's gotten me out of so much trouble, and he was also the first pet I captured at rare quality!

Aquatic:

Squirt, my eternal strider, he's a great leveling pet and his self heals are really awesome!

Muckbreath, I bought this little chap from the AH because he is VERY cute, I do intend to level him at some point.

Finally the Spawn of G'nathus, this pet is a guaranteed drop from a giant version of himself that swims around the north of townlong, beware, this guy has 40m hp and hits like a truck, but worth it as the pet is awesome!!

Beast: 

Another really hard category, but I have narrowed it down to just 3! The Clefthoof Runt, available via pet battles in Nagrand, very cute and looks awesome when you pop a pet biscuit on him!!

My Direhorn runt, a drop from the isle of giants, he's very cute I hate seeing the place on the isle where they are captured, I want to take them all home!!

Finally, Kovok, probably one of my favorite pets of all time, I LOVED the Klaxxi quests involving this guy, and I was quite distraught when I found out that I had to kill him during the SoO raid encounter!

Elemental:

The last pet family, again these all seem to be rather cute but I have picked my favorites, most of these I actually use, as the elemental pets are great against mechanical pets.

Jack, the Sinister Squashling, the first pet I leveled to help me deal with the battle pet tamer with 3 mechanical pets, and the one I use against the guy on Darkmoon island.

Minme, my Ruby sapling, so named because he looks like my druid when he is in treant form and I like to have companions that look like me :p

Timmy, the Terrible Turnip, this guy is seriously cute and REALLY useful for battling. He is a reward from planting a special seed on Sunsong Ranch.

So there you have it, all my favorite pets for each of the pet families! Now onto some much larger pets, the Beasts of Fable. These guys can be found dotted around Pandaria and you can't really miss them as they are all huge!! I don't tend to use leveling pets with these that much, mostly because some of them are quite hard to defeat and they don't really provide a lot of XP, not enough to make it worth it for me anyway!!



No-No (Vale)

He is an aquatic wonder, down next to a pool and a lot of other little aquatic pets (Incidentally this is a great place to level pets due to the abundance of 25s here)
I use:
Leveling pet
Amber Moth
Firefly
To be honest, any flying pets (particularly the ones with moves like Take Off and Cocoon Strike) will be just fine here, you can always get away with using your leveling pet first as No-No will always cast his Beaver Dam, which blocks 2 attacks from both sides, giving your level pet its XP and time to change to your first flying pet. Although I find No-No to be a little on the daft side - he casts beaver dam usually followed by a dive, which seems pointless as the dives damage is blocked by the dam, make no mistake, when he does hit with his Tail Slap, it hits for 600 hp each time, so avoid as many as you can with Cocoon Strike and just use what you can to nuke him down, he has a lot of HP but he's not particularly dangerous as he will usually use Tail Slap twice before he starts building dams again!


Dos - Ryga (Kun-Lai)

This was an interesting one, I tried all sorts of weird and wonderful combinations on this fish, eventually stumbling on a crazy powerful combo of just two pets on Wowhead (the comment I refer to is number 23 god bless that person!).
I use:
Pandaren Water spirit
Chrominius
Nothing else required, you can use a level pet here though I wouldn't recommend it as it can mess up the sequence you need to kill him.
Open with the Spirit, Cast Geyser, cast Whirlpool,
Switch to Chrominius, Cast Howl followed by Surge of power, the fish will be dead :)
If Dos starts with Whirlpool himself you will need to forfeit and restart as it will kill Chrominius!


Kafi (Kun-Lai)

Personally I use the Pandaren Water Spirit/Chrominius combo for this one too, though you can use other combinations of pets, as he is a beast, any 2 mechanical pets will see him on his way, particularly the Son of Animus due to his crazy self heals! The third pet can be your level pet if you wish.




Ti'un the Wanderer (Townlong)

Ugh this turtle, hits like a truck and takes no prisoners, I don't even bother to use a leveling pet here, because he usually kills 2 out of my 3 pets. His Tidal Wave move is REALLY annoying as he casts it very often and it does damage to your other 2 pets. After much deliberation and many many tears over this damn turtle, here is my pet combination;
Amber Moth
Firefly
Rapana Whelk
Now, here's the kicker, this fight can go a number of different ways depending on how lucky you are, if you're lucky and Ti'un doesn't block EVERY DAMN SPELL YOU HAVE (Not bitter) then you can almost kill him with the moth alone....however.....I'm generally not that lucky and it usually takes me 3 or 4 goes before I get enough hits on him to kill him, fortunately he doesn't heal. The Whelk is my back up pet, the two flyers can both do damage while avoiding pump (which I appreciate can be unpredictable but it hits for a k so...), as much as possible, when he casts his Tidal Wave, Brian (Rapana) seems to take less damage than most other pets so he is my safety net, though if everything goes correctly, you shouldn't actually need to use him.


Gorespine (Dread Wastes)

The hedgehog from hell!! To be honest I struggled way more than I should have with this one, but now I have a pretty safe combo that allows me to kill him fairly quickly!
I use;
Darkmoon Tonk
Darkmoon Zep
Son of Animus
I open with the Tonk, cast Shock and Awe, use missiles until I get to 1/4 HP (this wont take long he hits hard) when I know he is going to kill me next hit I cast Ion Cannon, which will hit him after the tonk reforms from its first death, I then let him kill the Tonk and use Decoy and Missiles on the Zep to finish him off, he should be dead before you need the Animus, but I don't recommend a leveling pet here either.


Skitterer Xi'a (Krasarang)


Another aquatic boss pet to deal with, though he's not as much of a pain in the arse as Ti'un, I take;
Amber Moth
Firefly
Anubisath Idol (anything tanky here for me, though if i had another flying pet, it would be here)
He SHOULD die from the second pet, however as with all of these boss pets, he is subject to the RnG gods too, so it may take a few gos.



Greyhoof (Valley)


This guy is relatively easy to sort out, and I would encourage taking a level pet here (just be careful of the pet's level, he hits REALLy hard to low level pets!), personally I take;

Level pet (usually at least 7+)
Darkmoon Tonk
Darkmoon Zep

The Tonk and the Zep should be able to see him off, usually I will lose the Tonk but if I use decoy on the Zep it gives enough time to get Bombing run up and finish him off with that and missiles.



Lucky Yi (Valley)


This guy is also pretty easy to take down, especially if you have plenty of speedy beast pets, I use;
Level pet
Kovok
Zandalari Footslasher/Anklerender/Kneebiter/Toenibbler
It can be a little risky to take a level pet but it's doable if you get some crits, if you can double up on the little Zandalari guys go for it, I currently only have 1 at max level so I have to use Kovok as he is my only other beast pet. Sometimes it takes a few gos but he should die fairly consistently with only 2 beast pets.



Ka'wi the Gorger (Jade Forest)


I always feel bad killing this chap, he looks all squidgy and cuddly!! He's pretty simple to kill,  I use;
Kovok
Zandalari Dino (any type)
Plains Monitor
As these are the only 3 beasts I presently have at max level, they are all I can use!! He should die pretty easily though ,Kovok should take half his HP, with the dino dropping him to next to nothing if not killing him, with the monitor finishing him off. What i will say is that as soon as I have two more of those Dinos leveled I will use 3 of them against him!



Nitun (Jade Forest)


This one is a bit of an odd one, considering he is a critter, my first thought was to take beasts. However, everytime he kills a pet (and he hits REALLy hard) he heals for practically all his HP. This was really frustrating for me until I tried something, and found the answer....undead pets. When he kills them, he doesn't heal, so pick any 3 undead pets you like and let him have it!! I currently use;
Stiched Puppy
Fossilized Raptor
Unborn Val'kyr
provided I use Plagued Blood>Howl>Diseased bite, I may even get another bite off before he kills the puppy, of course with no healing he should only have about half HP left, I use Claw on the raptor to finish him off, healing as and when needed. I rarely use the third pet so if you wanted to, you could use a level pet here, but be careful, he does hit quite hard.

That concludes my Pet Battle extravaganza!! Thanks to those that have commented so far, if you still want to be in with a chance to win the Gusting Grimoire that i have, you have until Friday 22nd August to comment as I will be announcing the winner then!