Blessing of Frost

Over the last seven years, there have been quite a few raids released and boy, the format of and entry into those raids has changed substantially. From crazy attunement chains to ones that were much simpler, from 40-man format, to 10-man format, to 25-man format, raids have changed a lot. We examine them in this episode!

 

 Episode 49 - Blessing of Frost - A Raid Retrospective: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Scepter of the Shifting Sands quest chain.

On January 21, 2012, four-plus years AFTER the patch that removed the old quest, our buddy (and melee officer) Daey got the Hand of A’dal title on his paladin alt.

The comments here are quite interesting.

An amusing tale of Kurn, Majik and Fog zerging Sarth 3D 10-man.

A similarly amusing tale of Kurn, Majik and Fog playing with Halion.

We asked Twitter what their favourite raid instance was. Thanks to everyone who responded and please do follow them!

@Technophobia: Karazhan.  It’s just the most thematic raid zone, imo.  With Ulduar a very close second.

@Jezi_Belle: Probably ICC, though mostly for non-design reasons. It was the first raid where I really felt like I was saving the world.

@SturgarHawkwind: @Technophobia @kurnmogh You’re going to hear this one [Ulduar] a lot. I second this notion.

@zomgAro: Black Temple.  Tons of unique, interesting mechanics and environments and epic quest chains.  Ulduar is a close second, for story.

@matticus: Sunwell.

@Restoisepic: karazhan, it’s the only thing that makes me wish I had played BC. I love that instance, the different bosses, rambling old house

@azerothapple: Ulduar! basically, it’s a mixture of lorelove for all of storm peaks, the utter beauty of it, and nostalgia for the run I did w/ apoth. 🙂

@WJRez: Kara. It was my first raid, which I did with my first guild, when we were in our prime. It always brings back nice memories.

@DSatt57: BWL for me, so many memories. Made great friends. Great fights at the time.

@Serrath_: Serpentshrine Cavern.  It was amazing from the elevator all the way to Vashj.

@GottaHaveFaythe: Kara. No debate. I wish they would give us another haunted mansion raid!

@MathiasSchnell: Ulduar by far.  It just seemed to have the best mix of difficulty, atmosphere, lore, and mechanics in it.

@35yards: Karazhan, hands down

@Jasyla_: Black Temple. Atmosphere and amazing boss fights.

@Sylaurian: To be honest Kurn, Molten Core, because it got me started on raiding and it was the one I had the most fun in.

@Kadomi: Ulduar. I loved the atmosphere and the lore, and Yogg-Saron was one of my absolute highlights. Beautiful raid.

@kenakabones: of all the raids.. its extremely close for me between Karazhan and Ulduar.  Mainly because of the variety of the fights and for ulduar; the exponential growth of hard modes and the methods to unlock them.  /wanders off looking at the shiny red button

@hestiahdruid: Kara and Ulduar, though I never saw either when it was current content, they were still fun as hell.

@HoneyTrap2:  sunwell, and also BT

@MMOSprinks: Definitely SSC as my favorite raid instance. The bosses were both challenging and felt like fresh mechanics after MC, BWL & AQ40.

@sarlalian: Ulduar, and anyone who says differently is wrong.

Don’t forget to check out Jasyla’s blog, Cannot Be Tamed!

And of course, you can also follow us, @kurnmogh and @Majjity  and even @ApotheosisET for our guild (apotheosis-now.com! Recruiting a warlock, mage, enhancement shaman, resto shaman!). Please rate us up on iTunes and leave us a review for a shoutout!

Send us your comments, questions, submissions and such to podcast [at] blessingoffrost [dot] com!

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Ladies and gentlemen, Episode 48 comes to you today with a few changes to its normal quality. Partway through the Loremaster segment, Majik lost power at his place and so, after much scrambling, we finally managed to get him, myself and our guest, Gina (of healbot.net) on to Skype. The audio quality isn’t great at first, but does improve, though it’s still not at our normal levels of clarity, for which I apologize, and I encourage you all to blame Majik. (#powerisacrutch)

That said, we did get through the whole episode, which came in at almost two hours in duration! Our General Chat topic was… the Dragon Soul nerfs that are forthcoming next week.

 

 Episode 48 - Blessing of Frost - Nerfs and Power Outages: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The official Dragon Soul nerfs announcement.

To answer DangFool‘s questions in our MOLL-E segment, check out our raw boss kill videos over on YouTube, such as Heroic Alysrazor and Heroic Beth’tilac to get an idea of how we tend to chat in Apotheosis.

Kurn’s post on the nerfs.

Gina’s post on the nerfs.

WoW Insider’s Matthew Rossi on the nerfs (includes some numbers).

Many other linked posts, from MMO Melting Pot, including Fannon‘s.

An interesting graph of WoW’s subscriptions (all based on officially released numbers and reliable sources). It’s interesting because Burning Crusade came out in January of 2007, Wrath of the Lich King came out in November of 2008 and Cataclysm came out in December of 2010. World of Warcraft got up to 10 million concurrent subscribers before Wrath ever came out. It’s been since Wrath came out that subscriptions initially peaked at 12 million and then dropped off, before a slight uptime in Cataclysm, followed by a decrease.

Keep up to date with Gina at her blog, healbot.net (no, she is not the author of that addon!) and on Twitter, @healbot!

Speaking of Twitter, I asked folks about the nerfs and if they’d use them or not and a few people had things to say. Be sure to follow them!

@Stelshadow: Sovereignty US-Turalyon. 10 man normal. We are making progress on Spine and will probably go with the buff turned off.

@piercingshots: Casual (2 nights/week) 10s guild, we’ll definitely keep the debuff on. I am hoping for a guild-1st heroic boss kill this week tho.

@fannon451: Our raid will use it as there is no point in turning them off. I reserve the right to complain bitterly, tho. http://t.co/9LMXapim

WTSHeals: Mixed bag. Some of our raid wants it off. People like me don’t really care since it’s just for personal gain and not achieves. If there was an achieve for NOT using the buff, it might motivate us to not use it, otherwise we’re likely just gimping ourselves.

@BloodyGneisha: I see no problem with turning it off and seeing how far we can go. Our issue isn’t ability, it’s timing – everyone’s schedule sucks and it’s difficult to get everyone together.

@_Rades: We’re working on Madness, so if we don’t get him in our 2 nights before the nerfs hit, maybe we’ll be glad for them. Maybe not? :\ I imagine we’ll do without until we get him, unless we’re making no headway and it’s really stressing us out.

And of course, you can also follow us, @kurnmogh and @Majjity  and even @ApotheosisET for our guild (apotheosis-now.com!). Please rate us up on iTunes and leave us a review for a shoutout!

Send us your comments, questions, submissions and such to podcast [at] blessingoffrost [dot] com!

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Blessing of Frost! Episode 47 is now out for your amusement and enjoyment, so sit back and relax as Majik and I discuss stuff from Monday, January 9th, including all about LFR, our General Chat topic of the week.

 

 Episode 47 - Blessing of Frost - LFR & You: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

4.3.2 notes from MMO-Champion.

The crazy baby carrots commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bhq_NL6jL0

The dog at my parents’ house: http://twitpic.com/858zin

Some links and thoughts from listeners who tweeted us — follow them!

@Restoisepic: LFR so far: pros: easy way to get T13 if lucky and 50% of weekly valour in 2 bosses, Cons: the overall attitude seems to stink additionally, there are not enough sad mooses in there 🙁

@xmolder: I think it’s great, but loses its sheen after you’ve seen regular mode mechanics. Not that mechanics matter.

@RandyLite: LFR I despise it wholeheartedly, I have completed it on 5 alt’s and my main goes weekly for possible upgrades. Reminds me of the trollroics grind for slightly better gear. It teaches bad habits and really brings out the loot whore in ppl. 500 valor is nice but it feels like 3 or 4 trollroics rolled into one 2 hour endeavor.

@thereadycheck: i did a short write up on LFR conflicts. lot of bloggers talking LFR i know, seems like many within the last 2 or so weeks. http://www.thereadycheck.com/?p=1500 @WoWMiri @_vidyala @matticus had a great LFR posts as well!

WoWMiri: http://wowmiri.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/pitfalls-of-lfr-and-ideas-for-improvement/

Vidyala: http://manalicious.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/looking-for-community/

Matticus: http://www.worldofmatticus.com/2011/12/12/11-raid-finder-personalities/

@Derevka: You think its undertuned to the point where it fosters poor raiding habits? Not “too easy” per say, but poor habits not assisting the tank, not DPSing the strategic target, heroism/lust timing, standing in the proverbial fire…

@e_man41: lfr is a pointless exercise in being mad at people you don’t know over gear you don’t really need

@GottaHaveFaythe: LFR has caused me to lose interest in our progression raids. 🙁 I no longer get that special feeling of seeing a new encounter and then finally getting the kill. No joy or adrenaline rush. It just feels… Blah.. It’s sad! Our 25m team hasn’t been able to pull together a FULL team since it released. We’ve been doing 22-24m kills.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, too: @kurnmogh and @Majjity for us and then @ApotheosisET for our guild (apotheosis-now.com!). Please rate us up on iTunes and leave us a review for a shoutout!

Send us your comments, questions, submissions and such to podcast [at] blessingoffrost [dot] com!

Welcome back, everyone! Here’s hoping your holidays were wonderful and you’re all set to come back and kick some Dragon Soul ass!

In this episode, we cover Ultraxion, Warmaster Blackhorn, Spine of Deathwing and the Madness of Deathwing. It’s a pretty hefty episode, so I hope you’re ready!

 

 Episode 46 - Blessing of Frost - The Fall of Deathwing Bosses: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hotfixes! There were some minor hotfixes that came out over the break and we also cover the ones that came out shortly after we recorded the podcast last time.

The winner of our contest was JoeEgo812! He made us an awesome MOLL-E bumper, which you’ll hear in this very episode. He chose a Lil’ KT as his prize, courtesy of Serrath! Again, thanks to Serrath for providing the prize and thanks so much to Joe for participating in the contest. The rest of you could, you know, submit stuff!

The I Took an Arrow in the Knee meme comes from the new(ish) game Skyrim, which both myself and Maj had the opportunity to play over the holidays. (In particular, this YouTube video – which is loud and NSFW – is pretty amusing.)

Tips from Twitter folks about the back-half of Dragon Soul — follow them!

@xmolder: Please, for the love of God, kill the tendon. #brotip

@BeruHeals: Don’t fall off the dragon!

@JoeEgo812: On Blackhorn, your raid only NEEDS to soak the Twilight Onslaught (large swirly). / Regenerative Bloods are easier to burst down on later platforms if you let them stack up & regen once before starting AOE.

@thereadycheck, re: Ultraxion: noticed so many 10 mans still 3 heal it when 2 healing is simple with good crystal use.

@miss_pewpew, re: fights where you should stack: Stack tight. I see soo many ranged sitting out of healing aoe circles *pulls my hair out*

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, too: @kurnmogh and @Majjity for us and then @ApotheosisET for our guild (apotheosis-now.com!). Please rate us up on iTunes and leave us a review for a shoutout!

Send us your comments, questions, submissions and such to podcast [at] blessingoffrost [dot] com!

Firelands is finally behind us, the Hour of Twilight is at hand! As usual, Majik and Kurn share their take on the new patch, although be warned that what they think is interesting about your class PROBABLY ISN’T, so go check out the actual patch notes!

We also did a livestream of the recording process, which meant that we got to interact with some awesome people in the chatroom while we did the show. Keep an eye on Twitter, we’ll announce if we’re livestreaming next week. If we are, here’s the URL: http://www.livestream.com/majikpugs

 

 Episode 43 - Blessing of Frost - The Dragon Soul Patch: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Daily Blink on Symbiosis: http://www.thedailyblink.com/2011/11/the-new-abilities-symbiosis/

And now, the poll about Majik’s next character to level:

[polldaddy poll=5711797]

And Alfimi sent us A SAD MOOSE. BRILLIANT.

AND, a last-minute submission from Alfimi gives us our very own SAD PANDA!

Alfimi, you are amazing and we love you. Thank you so much!!

Kurn’s 4.3 blog post about holy paladin changes: http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=2129

Are you a ret paladin? Looking for a guild? Check out our guild, Apotheosis! http://www.apotheosis-now.com/main/

The old WoW Cartography maps that Kurn would spend hours gazing at:

http://wow.incgamers.com/wiki/Eastern_Kingdom_All_Flight_Paths

http://wow.incgamers.com/wiki/Kalimdor_Map_All_Flight_Paths

Kurn will be on the Twisted Nether Blogcast on Saturday, December 3rd, at 11pm ET/8pm PT: http://www.twistednether.net/

THE TWEETOFF!

Tweet either of us (@kurnmogh, @majjity) with:

#sadmooseftw

OR

#kurngoingret

Kurn will randomly pick a #sadmooseftw person and Majik will randomly pick a #kurngoingret person. The two of us will then have a Magicka duel and whoever wins the duel, will have their randomly selected person win a FREE COPY of the game Magicka.

Speaking of Twitter, thanks to the following people for chiming in about what they’re most looking forward to in 4.3:

@stoppableforce: Transmogrification, pretty much hands-down my most anticipated feature.
@mageic: looking forward to new stuff, just feeling a bit stale currently, so new things to do will be fun
@matticus: New raid content. Done with Firelands.
@psynister: The new DMF and reduced exp requirements to get through OL/NR.
@BeruHeals: MOAR BOSSES TO BLOODLUST!
@Velystia: Transmog, new dungeons, new raid… a reason to log in again. 🙂
@MathiasSchnell: The Fangs of The Father questline and rewards! 😀
@DuridJaymz: Looking forward to… hmmm… Actual “difficulty” and “choice” in the feral rotation!!!
@hestiahdruid: Transmogging gear, and kicking Deathing’s ass.
@kenakabones: 4.3 – transmog, new 5 mans *they’re fun* and dragon soul!
@Kamilla_of_ET: my wings!!! I can’t wait to have my wings again hehee 🙂 yay for T6!

Please do follow us on Twitter as well! @kurnmogh and @Majjity for us and then @ApotheosisET for our guild.

Also, please rate us up on iTunes and leave us a review for a shoutout!

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Ladies and gentlemen, one year ago, we embarked upon a crazy adventure that has led to a lot of laughter, some bleeped profanity, many late nights, a few early mornings and, well, a LOT of time talking about WoW together and with various guests.

Episode 42 is our one-year anniversary episode and it is totally packed with awesome and clocks in over two hours in length, but it’s absolutely worth it. Why’s that? It’s because we contacted some of our guests from our most-downloaded episodes and somehow convinced three of them to make their returns to the show!

Beruthiel – You know her as the raid leader of the Horde guild Monolith (US-Llane) and the resto druid blogger behind Falling Leaves and Wings. She’s also on Twitter as @BeruHeals. She was previously on Blessing of Frost for Episode 23 – Legislation for a Legendary. (She may also now be nicknamed “Bloodlust”…)

Stoneybaby – Known primarily for being the guild master of the Horde guild Big Crits (US-Sen’jin) and the creator/producer of the Big Crits web series, Stoney was last with us on Episode 11 – Progression Pointers. He can also be found on Twitter as @stoneybaby.

Vidyala – Guild master of the Alliance guild Business Time (US-Moonrunner), Vid is also known as the Pugging Pally and the blogger behind the blog Manalicious. She was a guest with us for Episode 13 – 10s vs. 25s (and was also a guest with Kurn for Episode 13 of My Epic Heals!). Most recently, she’s been busy releasing new comics over at From Draenor With Love every Wednesday. You can find her as @_vidyala on Twitter.

 

 Episode 42 - Blessing of Frost - Awesome Anniversary: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Here’s a link related to Episode 40 – The Corpsegrinder Controversy, shared with us by Luke, who sent us a great email for our MOLL-E segment. This link offers a compelling (and very personal) argument as to why homophobic language should not be tolerated. Please consider yourselves warned, it may have potential triggers for some readers. http://vorpalbunnyranch.wordpress.com/

Apotheosis of Eldre’Thalas is a 25-man 6/7 HM Alliance guild and seeking a retribution paladin and a hunter, so check us out and apply now!

Monolith, a 25-man 7/7 HM Horde guild on the US-Llane server, is seeking a DPS death knight.

Business Time of Moonrunner is a 10-man 6/7 HM Alliance guild, seeking two quality players, preferably on the Conqueror token (priests, paladins, warlocks!).

#sadmoose shoutouts! A bunch of people tweeted us with the #sadmoose hashtag and got shoutouts on the show. Here they are on twitter — follow them! 🙂

@Technophobia: Why is #sadmoose sad?
@FFPMMarc (MegaCode): #sadmoose
@RandyLite: Do previously tweeted #sadmoose count?
@YAWoWB (Rooster): what kind of #sadmoose ? Any #sadmoose or a very specific #sadmoose ? Does the #sadmoose have to be WoW related or IRL?
@JoeEgo812: The sweet bleating sound of the #sadmoose
@DangDangFool: Sinuses? #SadMoose
@PotatoeWoW (extra shoutout for #craw!): Nerfs ftw. Heroics out of reach for my guild. Heroic Ragnaros? Impossible anyway, so idc how hard he is. #sadmoose #craw
@gumhead: I love the #sadmoose podcast…. errrr….. I mean the Blessing of Frost podcast.
@facemauler: just to irritate Majik even more… #sadmoose

And we also got a tweet after we recorded the show:

@badtauren: was a #sadmoose till I found BoF on stitcher. Its about time yay!

And @DSatt57 sent us a Tip of the Week! “When doing the Harvest Week quests the first day, get 25 of each main ingredient. Start in SW, go to IF, back to SW, then Darn.”

Please do follow us on Twitter as well! @kurnmogh and @Majjity for us and then @ApotheosisET for our guild.

Also, please rate us up on iTunes and leave us a review for a shoutout!

Once again, thank you to all our listeners for your support, interest and interaction with us over the last year. Without you, we probably would have given up on this nutty idea back around Episode 6. We hope you’ll stick around for many more episodes to come!

Majik & Kurn
(PS: #sadmoose! #craw!)
(PPS: Warp this, bitch!)

Welcome to Episode 41 of Blessing of Frost! This week, our topic is Heroic Ragnaros. With just 2.5% of Firelands raiding guilds at 7/7 HM (according to guildox.com as of this recording), does this constitute a problem? What about the fight itself, are the mechanics just that challenging? Majik and Kurn explore the concept and design of Heroic Ragnaros this week.

 

 Episode 41 - Blessing of Frost - The Repeated Routs by Ragnaros: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Of course, we’re not the only ones talking about this. Last week, Lore from TankSpot addressed the issue in Episode 107 of The Weekly Marmot.

Beruthiel, of the guild Monolith on the Llane server, who was our guest here for Episode 23 of Blessing of Frost, posted her thoughts about Heroic Ragnaros in late October on her blog, in a post called “Are 400 Pull Kills Good Design? Are They Fun?“. It was talked about over at MMO Melting Pot as well (read the comments on both posts! @Pliers1 makes some great points on the MMO Melting Pot article) and Borsk (who raids with Beru) posted a response blog about it as well.

Beru’s guild got Rag down last week, so she and Borsk both had things to say.

So, what are your thoughts on Heroic Ragnaros? We’d love to hear what you have to say.

podcast [at] blessingoffrost.com

Follow us (and tweet us!) on Twitter (don’t forget to tweet with the #sadmoose hashtag for a shout-out next week!):

@kurnmogh and @Majjity for us and then @ApotheosisET for our guild. And don’t forget to check out Majik’s blog: Majik’s Missives — he’s got a few posts up already and enjoys comments. 🙂

Also, please rate us up on iTunes and leave us a review!