Shadow Lab

The Shadow Lab completed.

The second boss of Shadow Lab is the hardest challenge I've been able to beat so far. The problem is the paladin as a tank. After the first mind control (Time for some fun!) my tank is OOM. And since the mind control phases wipe aggro, getting back in control of the encounter is terribly hard. I made it with potting mana pots and using Symbol of Hope. Really hard encounter for my group. I went ahead and finished my Karazhan attunement quest after The Shadow Lab.

I also cleared The Slave Pens Heroic.

More Instances...

Cleared some more instances.

The Mechanar (-2nd boss, although I think he's doable in normal)
The Botanica
The Arcatraz

The Black Morass
The Steamvault

The Mecanar heroic.

Planning to do the Karazhan prequest, so next instance will be The Shadow Lab.

The Big Ding.

Finally, the last one on my team has reached level 70. I've been busy lately, and bored to tears with leveling in Wow. I had to take a break for a while. So I downloaded the trial version of Eve-Online, and had some fun with that. Looking into doing something with Eve as well, but haven't decided on anything yet.

I cleared Shattered Halls as well today. Gonna tie my Hearthstone to Hellfire Peninsula and run this instance for a while. There's some pretty nice upgrades to be had, and the instance wasn't very hard. Some of the biggest pulls were hard. The first boss was kinda naggy, but on the second boss I just had to go all in on dps and heal whoever had the aggro. I wiped 4-5 times on the final boss, but then I got to thinking and came up with a strategy which gave me total control over the encounter. He went down easy.

Busy times now around Christmas, probably not gonna get too much gametime. I'm gonna keep going with this team and maybe (maaaaaybe) make a pvp team as well. My goal was to be level 70 and well established before Wrath of the Lich King, and I feel I've accomplished that. WotLK will be another heavy gear upgrade, so I don't really need the best of the best available now to continue there, so I'm gonna try to take it easy so as not to go bored and quit. That has almost happened a couple of times already.

Total /played time on the slowest toon was just over 9 days and 12 hours. The time might not seem that much, but this has taken around 4 months with planning included. My goal with this team was to try to find the "ultimate" PVE team. A team that could basically handle itself well inside any of the many instances in Outland. Heroic instances should be doable for me soon, still need to upgrade some gear from Shattered Halls, Shadow Lab, Steamvault and the Tempest Keep instances. I'm curious to see wheter it's possible to do well with a "classic" teamsetup in heroics, and not have to resort to "cheezier" methods like kiting and such.

For anyone reading: Have a great Christmas and a happy new year!

More changes

I've replaced one of my mages with my level 70 warlock main. This gives the group-setup of Paladin, Warlock, Mage, Shaman, Priest. Although boxing 5 different classes could seem difficult, my dps (lock, mage, shammy) behaves in a similar manner. My warlock casting Shadow Bolt (2.5sec cast time), my mage casting Frostbolt (2.5sec cast time) and my Shaman casting Lightning Bolt (2.0sec cast time). Got some more utility by adding the Warlock. Soulstone is great anti-wipe addition, healthstone is great for the tank in those critical moments, and I got the 70 stamina imp buff. My warlock is geared with pretty much the best gear attainable (Black temple/Hyjal stuff) so this adds a formidable force to my nuking and AOE power. I use imp simply cause aggro is a nightmare already, hardly need that 15% extra dps from sacrificed succubus.

Sethekk Halls has been cleared. The extra dps from my warlock allowed me to just nuke the boss down, instead of going for "control", and dps'ing the adds down. I'm back to an awkward work-schedule, so I dont have alot of time to play. Seeing level 70 might take another week or so. I'm almost level 67 with the lowest leveled toon. Will probably just grind some instance until level 68. I assume I'll go quest in the two endgame zones after that. Questing is alot faster xp than grinding when I don't have any rested. It's also alot more fun.

Still trucking!

Done quite alot lately, but have neglected the blog alittle. Summary of events:

Ramparts & Blood Furnace cleared at level 61.
Slave Pens cleared at level 63.
The Underbog cleared at level 64 (-Swamplord Musel'ek, came back and finished him at level 66).
Mana Tombs cleared at level 64. Wiped completely on Shaffar, but took him down with me. The Ring of Blood completed at level 65. Got some help from another team. Nice rewards! Old Hillsbrad cleared at level 66. Only my tank and healer survived to the end, but hey... A kill is a kill, right? =)

I attempted Auchenai Crypts at level 65, but the first boss proved too difficult for me. Since my dps has cast-time on pretty much everything, this will be a tough battle for me. Got my herbalism and mining maxed out. Thinking about adding Engineering on 2 of the clones for fast travel to Tanaris and the Caverns of Time instances. Gotta say Earth Elemental kicks ass. This one is great for those few times I need an off-tank. Did some questing in Terrokar, Nagrand and Blades Edge Mountains inbetween instance running, since I don't seem to have much rested xp these days.

Oh, and I changed the guild name again. Figured I needed something with alittle more oomph for when I start my PVP team. I kinda stole an idea I saw Bradster mention either on #multiboxing or the forum. He said Ellay should rename his guild "zomg run" (or something like that). So I kinda snagged that one and called my guild "WTF RUN". Now lets see how long I can keep it before GM's start nagging.

So whats next. Well, I'll not try Black Morass yet. I fear the second boss slightly. May have to wait until level 70 with this one. I'll be doing some more tries on Auchenai Crypts. Don't really need anything from this instance, but I want to do it just to know that I could. Also Sethekk Halls should be doable soon. Don't think I will have any problems there.

Tradeskills suck...

Most of the weekend was spent leveling tradeskills. From 0 to 300+ mining and herbalism on my main (wanted to impale myself on a hayfork 10-14 times in the process). 275 enchanting and 300 tailoring for my healer. I had some time for PVE and did the Slave Pens from start to finish. The second boss hit kinda hard, but it gave me an opportunity to work on hard dps'ing and maximizing aggro with the tank. I judged Seal of the Crusader, then used Seal of Righteousness and spammed Holy Shield and Consecrate. Wicked threat, the boss was glued to the paladin. Frost Resistance Totem came in handy, but this encounter is all about fast and crazy dps. I also made a sort of duct-tape and chickenwire solution to a cast-bar for my mages/shammy, using AG_Unitframes and focustarget. Works pretty well and I've upped party wide dps alot by it. Final boss of the Slave Pens was just a pushover. I dinged 62 on the dps/healer, and my pala tank has just dinged 63. A couple of semi-difficult patrols/spawns, but they're only a problem if I'm noobing and reset focus instead of sheeping and such. I'm curious on how the final boss of The Underbog will be.

Outlands

I got impatient and decided to go to Outlands at level 58. It's a complete change of pace and I was level 60 after some hours of questing (bombing missions etc). At level 60 I went back to Ironforge and trained new spells and skills, and went back to Outlands to try some instances. I was curious how I would do on especially Nazan since I'd heard some people had some problems here.

Ramparts went really smooth up to Omor the Unscarred. I got owned twice, and after some research found that I'd written my decurse macros quite poorly. Once I fixed them he was pretty easy (if slightly chaotic with the bouncing around and stuff). My first try on Vazruden & Nazan ended pretty bad as I took over 2500 damage (over a period of 1-2 seconds) when the mount landed. Second try I downed them both with relative ease. Slight problem with a oom healer, but I had symbol of hope cooldown ready, so I was able to endure until Nazan was dead.

I then went to Furnace and proceeded to clear this instance as well. Some minor problems with healing aggro (I still suck at utilizing the priests fade and fear spells). Also the dual Felguard Annihilator pulls by the final boss gave me a headache or two. Need to work on iceblock/fear/fade those times where stun and taunt are on cooldown. It's alittle down to luck I guess as the felguards can charge different persons at the same time, and you have no way of taunting both. It needs to be said that my mages are extremely squishy though. I replaced some items yesterday that I'd had since before level 10. My Paladin went from 3500 buffed hitpoints to 6000 buffed hitpoints in one afternoon, so that should speak volumes for the changes that happens when you enter Outlands. Final boss in Furnace was really easy, although I had to reset the first encounter (Divine Intervention) due to healing aggro. But that was just because of sloppy play on my part. One thing that I've found is that having 2 extra ressers can be golden. If the priest dies and I see that I'm about to wipe, I can DI the shaman and save anhk. And vice verca, DI the priest.

Got the instance quests for Ramparts and Furnace done, and upgraded quite heavily on gear, and will continue to do this until I have all that I need from these two instances. After that I will probably run Slave Pens and The Underbog, but I will also probably do some questing since it's quite effective experience. Also worth noting, I did the Overlord quest, and almost wiped here due to totally underestimating him. This was fairly early in the day, so I hadn't upgraded much gear.

Great Success!

So my new priest has reached the rest of the DPS group and they are level 58 now. My tank is level 60, closing in on 61. I got ahead of myself in the last post, naturally I had to ditch Earth Shield when I respecced the Shammy to DPS. Changing the setup around took a good 3 hours work. I basically had to rewrite all macros, and change the positioning of the clones, do some respeccing and familiarizing myself with the Shaman in the DPS role. Really learning this setup took me the better part of the day on Sunday. Getting the hand of it now.

LBRS has been cleared from top to bottom, every nook and cranny. It's a step up in difficulty from BRD for sure. But with this new and improved team, I only wipe on stupid pulls and "unforseen accidents". I once pulled the entire subfloor with totems (40-50 mobs) in the crack where Bijou the npc stands. One pull next to the Quartermaster mini-boss gave me some trouble. 2xWarmonger, 1xSummoner, 1xRanger and his 2 wolfguardians, but it gave me an opportunity to practice sheeping under stressed conditions. Rule of thumb: Don't Panic. I also have the AOE fear ability that the priest brings to the table, and although I've had little use for it yet, I'm sure it will come in handy later. I find this group setup to be immensely powerful, and as I'm getting smoother with my micro I find that things have sped up. I'm also starting to get that feeling of control and mastery where I do things without really thinking about what I'm doing.

I haven't gone to Outlands yet. Don't know when I'll go, but probably soon. I've had a heck of a good time doing the Old World instances. Wish there was time for a trip to Stratholme, Scholomance, Dire Maul and UBRS, but I doubt I'll do them all. Some proper gearing in Outlands is really tempting. Oh, and I had my first epic drop for this group yesterday. Dwarven Hand Cannon dropped from one of the spiders in LBRS. Great Success! =)

Changes, changes...

Ok, after running BRS for a while I got really bored with getting my tank Hexed by the Trolls. This caused some wipes and I decided I could not go on having to dodge encounters like the Shadow Hunter boss in LBRS. So I decided at first to add a holy/disc dps priest to my setup, but something was nagging in the back of my head and finally I found out what it was. I went Shammy healer for Tremor totem alone, and I never considered going with priest healer because I (thought) would loose Tremor Totem. The answer was naturally just to kick out one of the mages, respec the shammy to elemental and add a priest as healer. So I did. The priest is level 54 at the moment and I'm boosting him up to the rest of the group which is level 57.

This gives me the setup of Paladin Tank, Priest Healer, Shaman Elemental dps and 2 mages. The bonuses and synergies are off the charts. In a pull I'll be able to use Earth Shield and Power Word: Shield, and Renew on top of that. 5xGift of the Naaru is a sweet backup for those extreme pulls as well. I lost one sheep that I honestly never used, but I also gained a shackle. I will loose some dps due to 2.5 sec casttime on the mages and only 2.0 sec casttime on the Shaman (Lightning bolt) but hopefully Totem of Wrath will make up for that. Now I'll be able to disspell the tank whenever I need. Divine Shield is on too long of a cooldown to solely rely on. I've also gained 2 new buffs; Power Word: Fortitude and Divine Spirit. I'm excited for the changes I've made, it will not impact my playing style at all. I'm alittle weaker in the AOE department, but that doesn't worry me at all.

Level 55

Turned level 55 yesterday. Pretty much been grinding BRD with the occational detour to Western Plaguelands, Eastern Plaguelands, Burning Steppes and Winterspring. Also did the Jailbreak! quest. Wiped once but survived the second time. The supply room was hairy though and Windsor barely made it out alive. Almost time for Outlands, that's when the real gearing will start.

My G15 keyboard finally arrived. Took half a day to set up. New mouse (G9) as well and with Logitechs SHITTY setpoint mousedriver software, figuring out how to get stuff to work took hours.

Almost 50.

Level 49. Had to go away on business for 2 days, so I only brought a laptop with me. Can't wait to get to level 50 and get some new and powerful talents to play with. Been running Zul'Farrak for a while, also some Sunken Temple. I got what I needed from these two instances, and started doing the first part of Blackrock Depths (Detention Wing). Still need a few items from this area. Bosses include Gerstahn, Lord Roccor and the Arena Event.

Gerstahn has an aoe fear ability where Tremor Totem really comes in handy. I would not have been able to do this boss without it. It's a pretty dangerous encounter with underleveled dps and healer (lvl 48-49). My Paladin tank is now level 54, so I manage.

The Spawning room of Doom in BRD. I cleared the way with my 70 Lock to test aoe grinding this room. So I ran my team (53pally, 48mages & 48restoshaman) down there and did it for about an hour. The result was quite underwhelming, I could do like 25.000-30.000 xp pr hour, and it was horribly boring. Boosting a 4-man team with a level 70 paladin would probably be extremely rewarding though, and maybe I'll check it out. A level 70 character should easily be able to pull hundreds of mobs in one single pull. They only give about 20-25 xp around level 50, and with a level 70 in the group it would probably go down even more, but with the huge amount of mobs one can pull, I can see numbers above 100.000 xp pr hour being possible. The mobs here are level 55 so it could be doable beyond level 60 even.

The Scalpelmen

Changed the name from "Docsquad" to "The Scalpelmen". Being a member of the WOW Guild "The Axemen", I figured it was a fitting name. Not much going on the past days, been working my ass off (IRL). Should have some time the upcoming week, and hopefully I can reach level 50 at least.

Level 40

Level 40 achieved. Boosted some with my 70 lock, and borrowed a friends 70 paladin (with tier6 gear) for a day. Cleared Cathedral in 2 pulls: Aggro Mograine and run back to start. Kill off everything, drink up, gather the rest of the instance, run back to start, kill them and reset). Full clear took about 7-8 minutes. At level 40 I did the Shaman "Call of Air" quest which I had put off since level 30, expecting it to take an hour like the previous totem quests. To my relief, it took about 10 minutes. Also ran around and learned the Teleport and Portal spells.

Made a short trip to Uldaman just to test alittle. It was pretty simple (although my mages were only level 40), but I identified some issues I need to work on. My G15 keyboard haven't arrived yet, and it looks like I need it. I need one-touch healbuttons for all the toons, "/assist macros" aren't good enough while actively tanking and dps'ing. Also found that after playing around for a good while on my main, and having to adhere to global cooldowns, it's quite hard to let go of that natural break that the gcd provides. All in all I'm satisfied with how things are going, it seems a daunting task at first to micro 5 characters, but with little practice still it's all coming together quite nicely.

Level 30

Clones have reached level 30. Nothing special going on. Should be level 40 in a few days. Shaman quests are taking up some time here and there. I ran The Stockade for 2 days, from level 15 to 26. After that I tried to run Gnomeregan a few times, but freakin patrols everywhere, and underleveled toons (eating poison AOE everywhere) made it a dangerous place to be. Need to be same level for this kind of environment to work as I had to work hard for aggro with my level 50 paladin. Moved on to Scarlet Monastery, and ran Library once. Didn't much care for patrols and layout, so I went straight to Cathedral. Will boost there until level 40. And I swapped the paladin with my level 70 warlock for some quicker boosts. Wish I had a level 70 paladin to boost cath with.

Have installed a few addons.
Omen & Damage Meters - Not really needed yet.
Mainassist - Check that my clones have correct targets.
Twoboxing Toolkit - Mainly just to relay whispers that the clones receive.
Grid - Party/Raid interface.
Some more...

I also have ordered a new keyboard and mouse. Logitech G15 and Logitech G9. I recently purchased a new keyboard, but found that it didn't like it when I pressed three buttons at the same time, so I had to get something new. I thought why not add some programmable buttons. It was either that or buying an Xkeys board or something similar. The G15 should give me more buttons than I need. I have alt mapped to my mouse thumb button, so in effect all my buttons are dual-use. Just need to memorize the combinations.

Progress continues...

Albeit slowly. Naturally once I got the wow copies, I got really busy at work. My toons are lvl 15 now, and I've done The Deadmines a couple of times. I have preleveled my paladin tank, and currently working on getting him to level 50 (47 at the time of writing this). This will allow me to level alittle faster up to Sunken Temple content, and I will not have to do much outdoor questing. Why level 50? Well originally I was going for lvl 48, but decided to make it 50 due to getting a new rank of consecrate, and the lvl 50 talent Avenger Shield. But also at lvl 48 I get to use the best paladin tanker weapon there is (at least for a good while) the Fist of Stone that drops from Landslide boss in Maraudon. It procs +50 mana, has a 1.8 second attackspeed (great for reckoning), so in addition to seal of wisdom, not alot of drinking should be required until I catch up with the rest of the group.

I have also aquired the Mallet of Zul'Farrak to summon Gahz'Rilla, have made the Staff of Celebras, and have done the prequest for the Avatar of Hakkar. After the pala dings 50 I will be boosting Stockades and Scarlet Monastery, and start working towards Zul'Farrak, Maraudon and Sunken Temple. Having a solid tank will also help ease things along, and prevent wipes due to testing of macros and addons etc. It will also help me settle into a playing style for the group, gradually working on dealing with increasingly advanced encounters. Things are not moving as fast as I'd like, but the few sessions I've had to play sure has been alot of fun.

The Docsquad is born

Just received the extra copies of Wow/TBC, and have played for a couple of hours. Due to work I have not had much time yet. Level 7. The docsquad consists of a Paladin Tank, 3 mages and a shaman healer. The team is designed for PVE only. My goal is to be lvl 70 and well established before Wrath of the Lich King. Will come back with my setup and further development.