Of names

I play Marksman hunters.  I have three at 85, and my poor Night Elf sitting at 81 waiting for me to get around to leveling her.  (Damn you, beta!)  Being a Marksman hunter, I don't collect Spirit Beasts, and I've mostly just collected some pet looks I like, outside the half-dozen pets I rotate around in my active slots for their buffs.

My very first hunter pet was named, well, "Kitty."  I can be slow about deciding on names sometimes, and in retrospect, it was pretty apt: I tend to refer to a lot of my pets by what they are, rather than their name.  My wolves are invariably "Puppy," all the cats get referred to as "Kitty," and so forth.  That said, I do have some naming conventions, with a few random puns.  Except for Viatrix's, all of my hunters' pets are male.  Some of Viatrix's are.

So, my pets.  (If you can't picture any of the looks, check Petopia.)

Duskhawk (Pets)

• KitTabik - Mulgore Prarie Wolf.  Dusk's first pet.  Way back when, wolves had a bonus to armor that actually made them okay tanking pets, before the implementation of pet talents.  He's named after an obscure wolf companion in one of my bad high school-era stories.
• Olin - Dun Morogh Snow Leopard.  I picked up Olin during the Karazhan days, when cats were the top DPS pets for hunters.  I leveled him from level 8 in Terokkar forest on basilisks.  I named him after, ahem, the daemon the Golden Compass daemon quiz thing gave me.
• Violet - Purple Tallstrider.  During Burning Crusade, they added in the druid flight quests, and at some point the purple tallstriders appeared on an island south of Auchindoun.  One of the guys in my guild whispered me asking if I'd seen them yet, and I immediately had to go tame one.  This was my first, "Where did you get that?!" pet.  I named him Violet because of the color.
• Hadrian - Black Dun Morogh Bear.  When they added pet talents and the additional pet slots, I picked me up a bear to tank.  I've always preferred the black bears, so I went back to Dun Morogh (where I got Olin) to pick up Hadrian.  I named him after the emperor the wall is named after.  Hadrian is the pet I generally have out while soloing.
• Coby - Orange & Black Ravager.  During a lot of Wrath of the Lich King, I raided with my wolf for the attack power bonus.  During Cataclysm, with the change in pet buffs, the one our raid leader was asking for most often was 4% increased physical damage taken - which is a ravager or a worm.  Since I don't raid as beast mastery, I eventually went out and picked up a ravager from Hellfire Peninsula.  (My transmog set for Dusk unintentionally matches him.)  He's named after my real-life place of work, because I don't like ravagers, and taming one was "work."
• Octavian - Winna's Kitten, all growed up.  I LOVE GREEN.  Ahem.  When I found out Winna's Kitten was tamable in Cataclysm, I had to tame him.  I named him after another Roman emperor, despite not being a tank pet.
• Phil - Green Wind Serpent.  I picked up Phil at some point for the spell power buff.  Apparently one of our guildies is actually named Phil, so when the raid leader asked about a spell power buff pet, and I said, "Sure, let me get Phil out of the stable," there was some confusion. >.>  One of the random male names I picked.
• Hawkins - Black Fox.  Hawkins was the first fox I tamed on Dusk.  His name is entirely a pun.
• Asher - Ashtail (Grey Fox).  I was wandering around Loch Modan for archaeology a couple months ago, and Ashtail popped up on my NPC Scan.  Since there wasn't anyone around, I was like, what the hell, why not? and tamed him.  The name is just a play on his given one.
• Pickles - Cheetah.  "Pickles was a bad cat."  The Firecat was one of my favorite books when I was little, and given 25 stable slots, I picked up a cheetah-skinned cat just to give him this name.
• (Unnamed Spider) - I've had a couple of random spiders over the course of Cataclysm for PVP purposes; I don't think I've actually named any of them.  This one is a red lava spider from the Molten Front.
• Chad - Grey Hyena.  I picked up Chad back during Wrath of the Lich King when hyenas had hamstring for PVP.  I used him mostly during the PVP fight in Trial of the Champion.  He's named after my cat that died last year.  (Since, you know, hyenas are more closely related to cats than to dogs...)
• Clever - Red Raptor.  One of the "omg 25 stable slots" acquisitions, named for - well, it's a raptor.  Do I really have to spell it out?
• Peredur - Black Boar.  I grew up on a hog farm, and I've always loved Durotar's black boars.  When I rolled a Draenei hunter on another server when my main server was down, she went on a pilgrimage at level 13 to get one.  He's named after Percival, which ties in to the same bad high school-era story KitTabik is from.
• Zuul - Green Demon Dog.  I love the look of the demon dogs, even though I don't play with him at all.  There is no Dana, only...
• Harold - Green Turtle.  I picked up Harold as a soloing tank pet for the spell shield.  I don't use him much.  Random male name.
• Turquoise - Blue Tallstrider.  Once the 25 stable slots went in, I went and picked up the clutch mother.  Named for the color again.
• Magenta - Pink Tallstrider.  I really don't like pink, but like so many other hunters, once I had the Lovebird and the Mulgore Hatchling, I had to finish the set.  Again, named for the color.
• Kurtka - Yellow Wasp.  I picked up the wasp for the armor debuff in case we needed it for raiding (we never have).  The name is another pun.  Kurtka is Russian for jacket.
• Justin - Green Nether Ray.  I mostly ride a green nether ray for my flying pet; I picked up one for a matching set thing.  Random male name.
• Clarence - Brown Sporebat.  The sporebat was a "just because" taming thing.  Named after the angel in It's a Wonderful Life.
• (Unnamed Skoll).  I picked up Skoll while looking for the Time-Lost Protodrake.  I haven't decided on a name.
• Larry - Green Worm.  I picked up the worm even though I don't play beast mastery because of its AOE, just in case I ever needed it.  (Then they buffed Multishot.)  He just seemed like a Larry...
• Lawrence - Black Devilsaur.  I love the sapphire-blue eyes the black devilsaurs have.  Named after Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.

Mabs (Pets)

• Kitty - Nightsaber (acquired as a level 6 cat).  This is Mabs's original pet.
• Sobek - Green Crocolisk.  I picked up a crocolisk for Mabs's tanking pet, since I wanted to use different tanks on all my hunters.  Sobek is a crocodile-headed ancient Egyptian god.
• Max - Old Cliffjumper (Grey Worg).  I like rare skins, and Old Cliffjumper is probably my favorite worg skin.  Max was one of my dogs as a kid, and I name all my dog pets in non-WoW games Max.
• (Unnamed White Lion).  I picked up Sian-Rotam before the quest was changed, but never named him.

Duskmoon (Pets)

• Darius - Blue Crab.  Named in the same vein as Hadrian, after ancient-era king, this time Persian rather than Roman.
• Joshua - Black Wolf.  I like the wolves around the Altar of Zul in the Hinterlands.  Random male name.
• Thirteen - Red Lynx.  Duskmoon's first pet.  Named after my favorite FF7 character.
• Patrick - Blue Tallstrider.  The first time I tamed the Clutchmother was on Duskmoon.  Random male name.
• Philip - Black Crow.  I liked the crows in Howling Fjord; the name was picked randomly.

Viatrix (Pets)

• Laurel - Black Boar.  I thought I would try something different with my pets on Viatrix and make them female.  Thus her boar is named Laurel.
• Phoebe - Undead Starting Spider.  I hate spiders.  Hate, hate, hate.  Running across one in the house leaves my skin crawling for hours, even if they never actually touched me.  So when I started my undead hunter and was given a spider pet to deal with, her name ended up a play on "phobia."
• Molly - Brown Tallstrider.  I figured I'd pick up a tallstrider for her at some point.  Named after one of my brother's cats.
• (Unnamed Brown Fox).  I got a fox while I was in the Western Plaguelands and never got around to naming it.
• Llinos - Green Ravager.  Okay, so at level 43 I decided I needed to go pick up a ravager for Viatrix.  I had been running dungeons on her, and... well, yeah.  There's only one place to get ravagers prior to Hellfire Peninsula:  Draenei-land.  Draenei-land, in Cataclysm, is accessible for Horde only from the boats at Rut'theran Village at the foot of Teldrassil.  To get there, without flight paths or a fast flying mount?  You have to go through Stormwind's docks.  At level 43.  I died at least five times before managing to get on the boat (after taking the zeppelin to Grom'gol and running up through Westfall and along the edge of the water up to Stormwind Harbor).  The name is Welsh for greenfinch.  (So... named after the color.)
• Shelly - Green Demon Dog.  I picked up a demon dog in the Eastern Plaguelands.  Random female name.
• Eleanor - Green Turtle.  I thought I would try using a turtle tank on Viatrix, but she ended up in the stable.  Random female name.
• Mara - Black Bear.  I tried a bear on her, too.  Decided to stick with the boar.  Random female name.
• Daniel - Red Worg.  So once I got up to higher levels, I decided to pick up a wolf for the 5% crit for dungeons.  I'd always liked the red worgs in the Burning Steppes, so I got one.  I forgot I was doing female names on Viatrix, and he ended up with a random male name.
• Jack - Snow Leopard.  At some point I realized that Viatrix had no cat, and for some groups I preferred to have the Agi/Str buff if it wasn't present.  I realized at 85 I hadn't named him, and in a brief panic, he was named after my new cat.  Then, when swapping out to my wolf, I realized the unintentional correlation. >.<

Beta Mists, 4: Shaman and Priest

Ok, I've been playing Duskhawk in the Jade Forest for a while, so I figured I'd take a look at some of my other toons.  First, my elemental shaman, since I hear totems have gotten serious work.

Elemental Spec

 Shaman talents are interesting.  First tier is defensive, and second is about movement - either rooting or escaping roots.  Third tier is totems - reset cooldowns, refund cooldown if destroyed or replaced early, target them.  Fourth tier is the hard decision - elemental mastery (haste buff) vs. ancestral swiftness (5% passive haste and next nature spell isntant) vs. echo of the elements (like elemental overload, but for any direct damage or healing spell).  Fifth tier is healing focused, with a totem, an atonement copycat on a cooldown, and a healing rain related spell.  Sixth tier (that I can't take yet) is a buff to weapon imbues, turning elemental pets into real pets (albeit on their totem cooldown), and an elemental damage spell.

Shaman Talents

So, without talents, what have I got left for totems?

• Earth: Tremor Totem, Earth Elemental Totem
• Fire: Searing Totem, Magma Totem, Fire Elemental Totem
• Air: Capacitor Totem (AOE stun), Grounding Totem, Stormlash Totem (adds electrical damage to allies' attacks)
• Water: Healing Stream Totem

Totem bar is gone; you get totem pullouts now.  Not very handy if you need to hit them fast, but with only nine totems without talents, that's not a ton of toolbar space to just put them all on one.  Weapon imbues got a pullout too, which is pretty nice for them.

Elemental loses access to the Healing Waves and Fire Nova.  No more water breathing. :(

Huh.  I just realized that the bank got a recolor.

Some of the elemental glyphs (Lava Burst, Unleashed Lightning) don't really seem enticing.  Telluric currents sounds like it's probably a Resto-focused glyph (reduces damage by 30%, restores 50% of damage done as mana), but we'll see how mana efficiency is for Elemental.

Okay, I'm done running around Orgrimmar; let's go see how the spells look.

Oh, my God.  I just noticed that Shields and Imbues have 1 hour durations.  FINALLY.  But now - Pandaria on the shaman.

The new Lava Surge not only resets your Lava Burst cooldown, it also makes the next one instant.  The best part: you get a graphical notice around your character, like for fulmination, so you know when it procs with less staring at your toolbar.

Mana seems okay for basic questing; Elemental is still nice and bursty.  Haha, one of my new totems aggroed a critter, which ran over to attack me.

Okay, now to check leatherworking...  Oh, hey, it gave me Zen Master Skinner already.  Leatherworking patterns aren't in yet.  Cooking looks to have two skill 500 recipes in - probably so people can catch up their cooking.

Over to my discipline priest.  Last time I tried to look at her was one of the server crashes, so I haven't gotten to do more than glance through her stuff.

Priest tiers are a bit different than the shaman ones; the first tier is about control - fears, roots, mind control.  The second tier is movement - the bubble speed buff, removing movement impairing effects.  Third tier is incomplete, but it's where they've got Archangel and what used to be Surge of Light, which now has a shadow alternate effect; the third option is TBD.  The fourth tier is emergency buttons - instant self heal, health swap, and a proc'd bubble.  The fifth tier has utility abilities; sixth tier has three options for damage or healing abilities, all of which look cool and make me want to get to 90 on my priest just to try out.  Cascade looks like Prayer of Mending on Steroids with a damage alternate; Divine Star is like a boomeranging fire orb that heals or damage; and Halo is like a healing or damaging Blast Nova.

Priest Talents

Like the shaman glyphs, other than Atonement, there aren't a bunch that excite me.  Hunter glyphs were much more fun.  There is, however, an offensive version of the dispel magic glyph - it deals damage when you do an offensive dispel.  Nice for PVP, probably.

On to the priest spells!  Offensive and defensive dispel have been split up - Dispel Magic and Purify.  Purify has Cure Disease rolled into it.  Discipline no longer has Heal, Holy Nova is MIA, and Divine Hymn is Holy-only.  Most of the shadow damage spells have gone over just to Shadow spec, but they left us Mind Sear and Shadow Words Pain and Death.

No tailoring recipes in yet, but hey!  There's some enchanting stuff.  ... and Zen Master Enchanter requires Blacksmithing (500).  [giggles ensue]  They haven't updated graphics for the new enchanting materials - they have Spirit Dust and Mysterious Essences, but the Cataclysm enchanting graphics.  Several of the skill-ups are 2-5 per crafting.  (FINALLY.  I've been leveling an alt enchanter, and some of the levels are so slow to get past.)  The numbers are large, of course (spirit by 200, etc.).

Enchanting - entry recipes in, but a few bugs

Now to go test discipline soloing!  Actually I really just want to see the void tendrils graphic.  You may have notices I also gave my shaman the earthgrab totem; I like RUN AWAY options, since I have been known to get my characters in over their heads.

I like how prevalent flight paths are in the Jade Forest.

Okay, discipline soloing is as nice as always; I accidentally pulled three wasps, and had no trouble with them.  Void tendrals are HUGE!  Hm, Archangel isn't flashing at me anymore when Evangelism hits five stacks.  All those little things I like are still there - Divine Aegis, Train of Thought, etc.

Void Tendrils

No healing attempts yet - too much to do around the house, and I've spent all weekend beta-ing.  But soon!  (I'll try to remember to screenshot the discipline spec next time.)

General Beta Notes

So I've had a couple days to run around in the beta; some stuff is in, some isn't, some is buggy.  A summary:

What's in:

• Monk class
• New talents/skills/glyphs (mostly)
• AOE looting (which is awesome, btw, and I need to test if it works with the loot-a-rang)
• Quests in the Jade Forest
• Pandarens and their starting zone
• New cloth and leather for gathering
• Temple of the Jade Serpent (instance)
• Some new battle grounds, although I haven't tried them

What isn't in yet:

• New crafting (or at least, not engineering)
• Mining and herb nodes
• Most mobs' loot tables in the Jade Forest
• Most mobs' correct type (most beasts are humanoid, etc.)
• Tamable mobs in the Jade Forest
• Pet talents

What's sort of in, but not quite:

• Pet battles - the interface is there, though you need to keybind it to see it, but I haven't been able to capture anything new yet.  You can see capturable critters, though, because when you mouse over them, you get a target cursor.

Frequently Asked Questions in the Jade Forest:

• Portals are buggy and you may need a Rune of Teleportation to use them.
• Wisdom of the Ages and Jinyu in a Barrel are both buggy and may not work if more than one person tries to do them at a time.  If there's a line, your best bet is to get in it.  There's probably still a chat channel for Jinyu in a Barrel (/riflechat).
• There are several quest hubs (crash site (Horde), Chun Tian Monastery, Arboretum, the orchards, etc.), but the crash site quests chains you through to making friends with your NPC faction.
• No flying on Pandaria until level 90.  (The skill is in your spellbook, waiting to be learned.)
• Premades will need to get a mage to port them to Orgrimmar, or get a Rune of Teleportation from someone to use the portals until they fix them.
• Currently only the Jade Forest is open, and you can't get to the other zones in Pandaria.
• Current level cap is 86.
• Hunter pets are bugged and appear at the size they were tamed.
• You only have a mainhand and and offhand slot now - no ranged slot.  You can put ranged weapons in your mainhand slot, and if it's a wand, you can use an offhand item with it.
• Once Nazgrim is at Hellscream's Hope, he's behind the tower.  (He just had an airship crash; cut him some slack.)

Beta Mists, 3

Back in the Jade Forest...

Cliff gilders (wind serpents) currently track as humanoid.

Even on the beta I'm getting questions about where to get my purple tallstrider mount. >.<

Crowded for some quests - a few the phasing is bugged and need to be done one at a time.

OMG BEAVERS.

Waiting in line for Wisdom of the Ages - took about an hour for the line to get through.

 
Hey, the right-click > report menu has been expanded - now has name/cheating/spamming/language.  I like!  It'll make reporting offensive names and such so much easier.

The report menu when you right-click on someone's name has been expanded

Yay, done with the line!

Done with Wisdom of the Ages!

Haha, I can summon crows under water.

Ok, now that I'm past the long line and the immediate follow-up, it's time to make brownies.

Beta Mists, 2

I played a monk to level three before creating a beta guild for my guildies who are getting in.

Not being able to scroll out further than the default may cause me some issues; I need to play 'further back' to not get motion sick.

Ok, after some lag/crashing issues, I can finally teleport to panda land!

I, uh.  Pandaren are short.  I mean, sure, I'm a Tauren, but...  OH, that's a Pandaren kid.  The adults are shorter than I expected, but not *that* short.

Pandaran Male

Pandaran Female

Heading out of Dawn's Blossom to the Arboretum

Run around a bit, find some quests to kill wasps and pick up flowers.  Oh, right, my toolbars.  Some stuff is gone (Concussive Shot, Kill Command is out of my spec, etc.), and I haven't bothered to remake macros yet since I don't know what I'm going to need yet.  But I have A Murder of Crows, and it is awesome.


There are some pretty cranes in the Jade Forest, but I can't tame them.  This is just as well; the stable is a little buggy, and I don't want to mess with swapping pets around yet.  The pet talent pane is... gone?  I don't know, I just can't find it.  I'm guessing that's another work in progress.

Pretty green cranes!

The new glyphs are mostly fun!  I put in mostly soloing ones for now (Mending, Misdirect, and improved Mend Pet is now a glyph) since I figure that's what I'm going to be doing.  The Camouflage glyph right now gives you real stealth, which will be tempting later for dungeon soloing type stuff.

Marksmanship specialization

Talent pane

Talbuk models have returned!  Also not tameable.

Poor Hadrian has been shrunk, without even having the glyph in.

Taking lots of pretty pictures - War Serpents, the Temple of the Jade Serpent, the Dawn Bridge.

Approaching the Temple of the Jade Serpent

Guards in the Temple of the Jade Serpent - female Pandaran tails go under the cloak, no clipping

Stairs to the Temple (a little glitchy)

Temple of the Jade Serpent

The Dawn Bridge

There are a bunch of kites suspending lanterns along the bridge

War Serpents

Waterfall from the Dawn Bridge

Temple of the Jade Serpent, seen from the Dawn Bridge

Back in the Arboretum, looking towards the flight path

Serpent trainers

Serpent trainers

Aw, no fishes yet.

Oh, thank God, I found the camera distance slider.

OH MY GOD I KICK STUFF.  Okay, right, so I'm a Tauren hunter.  I have to destroy these statues.  To do so, I KICK THEM.  This is awesome.

Haha, first fatal error.

I keep trying to run out to range, but minimum range is gone. >.>

Lots of fill-up-a-bar quests in the Jade Forest so far.

Bell in Chun Tian Monastery

... High Elder Cloudfall randomly fell over and died.  Um.  It's apparently a known issue in the quest; I guess I'll go find other quests.

The bamboo forest

Hey, nearby available quests show up on my world map now?

Ok, the Jade Forest is kinda crowded, I'm going to go check out the Tauren monk I rolled yesterday.

Hm.  Jabbing stuff to death at level one and two feels slow.  I get roll at level two, and... ok, it doesn't roll yet on Tauren, more like the goblin's rocket jump effect.  But it's got a 0, 1, or 2 on it; I can use it twice and then it has to regen?  But the tooltip doesn't clarify.  Also my starting weapons think they're broken.  (They're not.)

Hm, leveling is just automatically teaching me stuff in the field, no running back to train.  Kinda nice.  Level three got me Tiger Palm (which uses some Chi) and Blackout Kick (which also uses Chi, usable at 35% like an execute).

Monk interface & a gazelle critter that I can't capture yet

Still, I feel kind of weak compared to the other low level toons I've made.  I'm dying a lot more than I usually do, to mobs just a level higher than me.

Hee, another bug that's already been reported.  Tauren monks don't speak Taurahe.

Moon over Mulgore

ALL NEW BETA ADVENTURES

So @vitaemachina mentioned this afternoon that he had a beta invite as of... sometime today, so I logged into my account again to see, and... BETA!  My husband got in, too, although he's not as likely to play around with the beta as much.

Step one: Copy over Duskhawk and Elsabeth.

Step two: Realize I forgot to loot the guild bank before copying them. (I keep all my cash on my bank toon.)

Step three: Loot the guild bank, give cash to husband, who then copies over his main.

Step four: Refund guild bank.  *sigh*  It's not like anyone has posted Poseidus recently.

So I logged into Dusk, gave the talents a glance and tweaked the video settings (windowed/full screen), logged in Elsa just to get the name change done, then made me a Pandaren monk.

Client then promptly crashed out, so I restarted the download, and I'll just let it download in the background while we're raiding.  Ahem.

One of the things I want to see in the beta, as it progresses, aside from reporting bugs and testing stuff, is to see if I like the monk enough to make it my 11th slot.  I lean heavily towards ranged, be it with weapons or spells, and if I don't like the monk enough on the beta to level through on live, I'll make a Pandaren something-else.  We'll see if I like their casting animations or their shooting animations before I decide what the something else is.

The fun fights

I have favorite boss fights for, if not every raid, at least every expansion.  I'm partial to dragons, but not every raid has a dragon.  Recently I was thinking about this - my love of dragon fights - and I realized I don't really care for either of the Deathwing fights.  One has frustrating pacing, and the other is just too long.  So here are a few fights that I do especially like:

Onyxia (original)

My guild did three and a half raids in Vanilla, with random shots at the first boss in Blackwing Lair to no avail.  I ran Molten Core a lot, but never enough to get exalted, since I worked on two of our three raid nights.  My first raid was actually Zul'Gurub, but none of the fights in there particularly excited me.  We also did Ahn'Qiraj (20), but not all of it.

But Onyxia.  There are a variety of reasons I liked the fight: It was multiphasic.  It allowed for epic kills.  You had to work to get into it, but other than finding a group for Upper Blackrock Spire and actually winning the blood, it wasn't a terribly odious attunement.

Multi-phasic boss fights weren't terribly common in the first tier of Vanilla raiding.  The fights were generally, "boss does x, y, and z the whole fight, and may enrage at q%."  Sometimes there were adds to initially kill, or something to be off-tanked and killed afterwards or ignored.  There weren't a ton of fights were the boss changed tactics entirely at a%, b%, and c%, or on timers.  Even the Vanilla Ragnaros fight was just two phases cycled.  Onyxia starts out as a tank-and-spank, then flies up into the air for an add phase with random fire breathing, then comes back down but adds fears and lava bursts.  Onyxia was a hint of things to come, of bosses that require mid-fight adaptation.  Looking, for example, at Firelands:  Beth'tilac has two phases with different tactics; Rhyolith is a similarly phased fight (complex phase + burn phase); Alysrazor has four phases that repeat until you kill her; Staghelm has two alternating phases, each with some extra bits built in depending how many of each phase you've done; and Ragnaros, who has three phases with different tactics for each.  Shannox isn't really a phased fight different from the "kill the adds, kill the boss" tactics of a lot of other flamewalker bosses (every one but Shazzrah in Molten Core, really), although you have to be a little more careful about how you kill the adds, since dropping both dogs too early or too late is bad; Baleroc uses the same tactics for the whole fight, but is a bit of a DPS/gear check.

So I guess I'm saying I like complex fights, and Onyxia was the first taste we really got of it.  And then of course there are the epic kills.

Vanilla Onyxia was a 40-man raid.  One of the thing I liked about these big raids was that people could die and you wouldn't wipe.  If you lose people in a 10-man raid, finishing the fight becomes iffy.  The healers may not be able to keep up; the DPS may not be enough to finish it.  The closest we've come to similarly epic kills in Cataclysm (in my guild, anyway) are 3-man standing Gunship fights.  Well, dude, 3/10, that's pretty skin-of-the-teeth, sure.  But 3-man standing Onyxia kills, when you started off with 40?  That's an adrenaline rush, to be sure.  (I say 3-man, but really, it was one man and two women - the tank (male), one of the priests (female), and me, a hunter (also female).  I've gotten pretty good at not dying early most of the time.)  This isn't to say that people were expendable; just that if you got a boss to 3% and people started dropping, you weren't necessarily going to lose.

Magtheridon

When the Burning Crusade rolled around, we didn't get terribly much further into overall raid progression than we did in Molten Core: that is, we didn't move very far beyond the first tier.  We ran a lot of Karazhan.  I liked both dragon fights in there (Nightbane and Netherspite) and the Shade of Aran, despite the frustrations of the Flame Wreath.  (The advent of Flame Wreath is when I bound escape to the thumb key on my mouse, since I couldn't jump to interrupt casting during it.)  We also killed Gruul, delved into Serpentshrine Cavern to kill Hydross and the Lurker Below, and we tackled Magtheridon.

Magtheridon was an interesting fight - you had to kill his adds one by one, kill the adds they summoned, and then click on cubes the five original adds were using simultaneously with four other people in your 25-man group in order to interrupt his blast nova.  This was a fight where your raid team working together was important - if the timing on the cubes was off, you were going to get hurt.  And then of course at 30%, he'd drop the ceiling on your raid for more spike damage, so you'd have to throttle your DPS to not hit yourselves with the ceiling and blast nova damage at the same time.  Oh, and I think he threw fire puddles on the ground, so you had to stay near the cube you were going to click, but not right by it, or you'd have fire on the ground by the cube when you needed to be channeling it.

Thaddius

Wrath of the Lich King brought back Naxxramas, which we didn't really see prior to the expansion other than running around with about 15 people and dying horribly at some point towards the end of the Burning Crusade.  The fights were mostly of the Vanilla style of complexity (tank & spank with some twists), but you got some like Heigen that were just off the wall different.

Thaddius was one of those fights where if someone died, you were probably screwed.  Every person up was another added to the stacking damage buff, and the DPS threshhold meant that, in the fairly casual guild we are, you needed everybody alive.  He was also a personal-responsibility fight, because you had to pay attention to your polarity and stand with the right people.  Overall the fight wasn't terribly complex, but the pace of it, and the "am I + or -?!" switches gave it a nice edge.

Mimiron

Ulduar was a taste of the new - a raid full of complex fights, and my guild's first advancement beyond the entry tier of raiding in an expansion, because Ulduar was the first long-form (not one or two boss) raids we cleared after an expansions initial multi-boss raid tier.  I liked a lot of the fights in there, but Mimiron was my favorite.  He was engineering-related, he required you to watch what you were doing and where you were standing, and he was a complex, multiphasic fight.  I still haven't gotten to do his hard mode. :(

Blood Prince Council

Icecrown Citadel was a continuation of Ulduar for us in some ways - new, complex fights and a new tier conquered.  I should be listing Putricide, or Sindragosa, or the Lich King here, because they were all complex, changing fights.  But I associate Putricide with the exodus of several of our raid leaders, and Sindragosa with the stumbling of our 25-man raid (and our quest towards the legendary axe, since the person we were sponsoring stopped showing up to them).  And, let's face it, the Lich King, like Deathwing, is just too long a fight.  I like fights in the ~6 minute range - long enough I can and should be watching to use my five-minute cooldowns twice, but short enough that my hand doesn't cramp up.

So how does that lead to the Blood Prince Council?  I like the fight because I got to do something entirely different most of the time - I often got tasked juggling the balls.  In 10-man, between me and my pet, I could generally handle them alone.  When I'm not healing, I've got pretty good awareness of what's going on in the room, and I really liked the change of pace.

Halion

We got a bonus raid in Wrath of the Lich King - the preparation for Cataclysm brought us a Twilight dragon to fight, Halion.  Halion was, hands-down, my favorite fight of the expansion.  I was generally in the twilight realm and got to deal with the cutter; the balancing of damage between the parts of the raid in either realm, the stuff to avoid standing in, the dancing around to keep ahead of (or just behind) the cutter - overall I found it to be the most satisfying encounter in terms of design and challenge.

Nefarian (Blackwing Descent)

Cataclysm meant another expansion, new raids, and a more-or-less end to the guild's 25-man raiding, which we had done for most of Wrath, parallel to 10-man raiding.  The initial tier gave us three raids to deal with - two mid-sized and one short one.  I liked Valiona and Theralion in the Bastion of Twilight, but for the tier, my favorite fight was Nefarian in Blackwing Descent.

Nefarian is a great boss.  He apparently hates all his minions, but he talks to the raid throughout the whole fight.  He knows you're there, and he's confident (despite having been killed by, presumably, you before, in Blackwing Lair) that he can handle you even if his minions can't.  This is a great throwback to the Rend Blackhand fight in Upper Blackrock Spire, where he observes and gives commentary and advice throughout the fight.

The fight itself gives you three phases, with a persistent electrocution effect at every 10% throughout.  One of the interesting change-ups about the phases in Nefarian's fight is that they're not reliant on his health; you can't push him too far in phase one just because of the interplay with Onyxia's electrical charge; she'll blow up and wipe you if you ignore her too long, so you have to kill her and transition the phases.  But phase two is a three minute phase regardless, and if your healers can handle it and you had enough ranged damage, you could burn him once the adds on the pillars are dead.  Phase three is more complex compared to some burn phases, since you have to both not stand in moving fire and have your second tank kite around the skeletal adds.

We worked on him for weeks and I never resented it.

Ragnaros (Firelands)

I mentioned Firelands earlier, about how the fights are generally all more complex than the kind of fights we saw in Vanilla raids.  Ragnaros was two cycling phases in Molten Core, but faced on his own turf, he's apparently much more devious and resourceful.

I liked Firelands overall; there was a lot more trash than the initial tier had, but it was all upfront.  Once you got most of it out of the way, that was it, with just a few more pulls per boss.  Between Staghelm and Ragnaros there's just an elemental and two worms, which, while admittedly more than was between Executus and Ragnaros, is just two pulls.

The fight was probably the first real adrenaline rush I got in Cataclysm, which was a bit disappointing given how many things we had killed by that time.  There were positioning challenges on occasion, but really most of those stemmed from my camera angle and that damned fire gate that pops up to fence you in for the fight.  It's the same problem I have on things like the Gunship in Dragon Soul:  I turn to move, and suddenly I can't see anything, and damn it, I may as well have a cat in front of my monitor.  (New cat hasn't yet learned that mommy can't see through him when she's playing her game but you can sit in my lap but wait I can't move my arm now could you--yeah, that kind of cat issue.)

But it has a nice first phase - stand around and shoot stuff but don't stand in the bombs and avoid the fire waves; the sons actually do something besides just mana drain now, so we have to kill/slow them fast.  The second phase is also a nice challenge: stand apart, collapse and AOE, and hey, don't stand in the lava that spawns or the fire waves.  The third phase?  Boulders.  (I may or may not have killed a warlock by feigning two off myself.  Ahem.)  The third phase has just enough tension built in the escalation of boulder-threats to make it enjoyable but not insanely frustrating if your raid is on its toes.

Warmaster Blackthorn

Okay, so Warmaster Blackthorn isn't really my favorite fight in Dragon Soul; Yor'sahj is, because I like the Skittles combinations and that which ones you kill decide how you react for the next part of the fight.  (Personally I'd say kill the add-spawning one every time, but that isn't a universally popular choice.  I just hate the adds.)

The most satisfying fight for Dragon Soul (in normal 10-man, not looking-for-raid), however, has been Warmaster Blackthorn, or really, "Keep the Boat Alive!"  Warmaster Blackthorn has given us the epic kills of half-the-raid-dead-but-we-got-him, and it's sometimes got skin-of-the-teeth recoveries for not losing the boat.  It's got two and a half phases, both challenging:

First, you have to keep the boat alive by blocking damage to it from the twilight dragons, while simultaneously killing the attackers they're dropping on you and keeping goblin sappers from blowing the ship out from under you.  Oh, and you have to kill those twilight dragons that are spitting stuff at the boat, too.

Secondly, you have to deal with the attackers' leader, Warmaster Blackthorn and his steed, the twilight drake Goriona.  I called it two and a half phases because the first part of the second half is dropping Goriona so she'll stop dropping void zones on the boat.  Once she's gone (not down, gone; I do wonder if she's going to be back in the future), you can focus on the Warmaster, whose Shockwave can be a pain to get out of if he happens to drop it equally around you.  Shockwave while Goriona is still around is especially dangerous, since if he stuns you, she tends to drop a void zone on you.


I'll admit there have been points during this expansion where I wonder if I'll keep raiding.  I don't have the time or the energy to keep pushing multiple toons through, and as much as I've missed raid healing, I don't have the time to go back to it regularly in alt runs (and it's been intimidating to try in more complex content).  And then we got to Dragon Soul.  I liked the Firelands fights better, but the low-trash design of Dragon Soul?  If they stick with this, if they keep the fights challenging but the time commitment to raiding at a reasonable level, I'm not going to worry about staying in it with at least my hunter.