When I last spoke about my legendary cloak quest, I was progressing at a steady rate and expected completion with just a little more time.
I ran the first two wings of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR for my Titan Runestones and could have pressed further into Orgrimmar, but stopping at the gates after killing Nazgrim, preparing myself by finishing my cloak, felt like the right thing to do. I imagined Garrosh, penned in his Underhold, waiting for us heroes to breach it and come for his head, wondering why were taking so long to claim justice. Had he known what I was doing, he would have laughed heartily.
After turning in my runestones, Wrathion and I set off to obtain the blessings of the four Celestials. They gave their blessings, and then each Celestial issued a challenge, though only one had to be accepted to advance. The four available challenges each corresponded to a different raid role (tank, healer, ranged DPS, and melee DPS), so as a hunter I had little choice in accepting Yu’lon’s ranged DPS challenge: combat with a blindfolded Wrathion. Suffice to say, the dragon prince immediately wiped the floor with me. I tried a few more times before giving up in frustration.
I know I’ve been playing my hunter wrong. I don’t jump-disengage enough. I had some spells keybound, but I still mouse-clicked for some of them. And those spells that were keybound used the original number keys, so my bindings were horribly inefficient. My rationale was that I wasn’t looking to be a hardcore raiding hunter; I just wanted to hold my own in LFR and call it a day, and I could do that. I shied away from Brawler’s Guild or attempting any of the extreme soloing that would force me to maximize my DPS, or even get it to a competitive level. I kept my gear gemmed and enchanted (and sometimes reforged) and followed the tenant of ABC – always be casting – to make sure that I wasn’t at the bottom of the meters. This was a mediocre performance, and I was fine with this.
But mediocre wouldn’t earn me my legendary cloak.
I needed to unlearn what I had learned. To do that, I needed to take a break from all of my bad habits. I figured then was as good as time as any to roll a new Pandaren and explore the Wandering Isle, taking a break for a little while to collect my thoughts. Then I spent some time grinding professions on my alts.
Mentally refreshed, I finally returned to my hunter, deciding that the first thing I needed to do was fix my keybinds. After tweaking my layout and interface, the result was my being unable to play my hunter at all. To forced myself to always use my mouse, I had changed the binding of my W key, and so even basic movement was a struggle. Although I knew the bindings were different, muscle memory had me using the old keystrokes, and combat was embarrassing. I was still figuring out which key did what, which made me a liability in LFR, let alone any solo content. I was not prepared. So I took another break.
I started playing a low level shaman and as I acquired new skills to fill out the action bars, it started to feel natural using the keyboard for casting. In attempting to play my hunter, where I knew the rotation and had to immediately figure out which keys felt naturally, it was beneficial to play my low level shaman and slowly develop each new ability (and the related keystrokes) into a rotation. While the skills themselves are different from those of the hunter, I got used to relying on the Q,E,R and shift keys for the bulk of my skills. (I did wind up rebinding W as walk forward – that function is too essential, but the brief time without it has greatly reduced my keyboard use for movement.) The shaman dinged 20, and I decided it was time to return.
Before entering Yu’lon’s chambers, I ventured to the Isle of Giants. The leather there would be good for crafting, but even moreso, there were variable challenges on the Isle. I had previously learned to kill the smaller direhorns on my own, but larger creatures still proved a challenge. After re-establishing my dominance over the ceratopsids, it was time to test myself and my abilities with my new control scheme. I went at one of the Pterrorwings. It killed me, but it was a close fight – much closer than any previous attempt – and I knew the problem was that I kept accidentally casting multi-shot and ignored my glaive toss. I further tweaked my keybindings and kept working the Pterrorwings until I downed one. Then I tried again. After a while, I could down them reliably, and I knew I was ready.
I headed back to the Temple of the Jade Serpent and rang the gong to begin the challenge.
The fight starts with Wrathion blindfolded in the middle of the chamber. For a hunter, the best thing to do is have your pet tank him while you stand behind him shooting him. Eventually, Wrathion summons Neltharion’s Tears, which are giant molten blobs that chase you. They get faster as the fight drags on, which means slows and stuns are critical. If the fight lasts long enough, Wrathion summons several mirror images. The trick becomes finding the real Wrathion while avoiding their Inferno spells and those pesky Tears. Despite all of my practice, I could never find the real Wrathion before the Tears overwhelmed me.).
I gave up and started doing research. This fight was proving especially frustrating, and I considered attempting the Xu’en melee DPS fight, figuring I could just stay in close and pretend I was melee. Before I could test the other fight, I read something that made me realize what I was doing wrong – if I was making it to the mirror image stage, I was taking too long. I realized I had to kill Wrathion as quickly as possible and I needed to up my initial burst DPS, and if there’s one trait of the Beastmaster hunter in Mists of Pandaria, it is their potent burst potential. Hunter burst is so powerful that hunters are the only class that is not aided by the Celestial Offering during this part of the challenge. Acknowledging this, I made three changes.
1. Before the fight, I would order my pet to stand right next to Wrathion. I’d been letting him dash in once the fight started which was costing precious attack time, especially since I was casting Bestial Wrath to begin the fight, and was wasting the buff while my pet closed in.
2. I realized I needed to use every available tool, including all my traps. Traps can be placed without triggering combat, so launching a snake trap, ice trap, and explosive trap at Wrathion’s feet were added to my pre-fight preparations.
3. The biggest change – I switched to my core hound pet. I had been running with a hyena, because its the pet I’ve had since old Thousand Needles. I wanted to use him, but I realized I was forgetting the tenet of the modern hunter is to bring the buff the raid needs. Normally, in LFR, there are enough raiders that pet choice is not crucial, but here, I was responsible for all my buffs. If there was one buff I needed for my burst, it was Bloodlust. So, in came my core hound, and Ancient Hysteria was added to my start-of-combat macro.
On the first try, I had Wrathion down to a couple thousand hit points before the Tears overtook me. A few additional tweaks to my keybindings, a few more tries, and eventually, Wrathion fell, finally granting me Yu’lon`s blessing.
I spoke with Wrathion to complete the quest, and a new quest appeared. I saw that the rewards were the epic cloaks that would become legendary after the final chapter was completed. I accepted the quest, and Wrathion said he would meet me at Mason’s Folly with a surprising reward (Which of course was the cloak which I had just seen, so “surprise” was a bit of an overstatement.). I ventured to the Folly and claimed my prize.
The next night, at Wrathion’s behest, I returned to the Timeless Isle and defeated the four Celestials. I again returned to Wrathion, and he presented me with the legendary imbuement for my cloak.
Although I visited Wrathion upon his invitation after hitting 90, I didn’t really attempt the legendary cloak undertaking in earnest until I ventured into LFR at the start of 2013. Once I realized I could earn Sigils of Power and Wisdom in LFR, and became comfortable doing so, I decided I would attempt to earn the cloak. Ever since I participated in the quests in the Badlands to protect Wrathion’s egg, I’ve found the character intriguing, and while I could read spoilers about the quests and Wrathion’s involvement, I knew it was always better to experience it for myself. Finally, after about fourteen months of intermittent effort, I had completed my journey and earned my cloak.
Now, I am finally ready to return to my original goal. It is time to down Garrosh.
WoW! Blurbs!
Carbot has a new series called Wowcraft. Episode 1 is up and has an amusing look at character creation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbjRlxvKLBc
DisRuptive1 on r\wow did the math for just how much time the Level 90 Boost saves. I look forward to his analysis on a stitch in time. http://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/20ndp7/i_went_through_the_effort_to_determine_how_much_a/
Angry Birds: Warcraft might be a thing. For now, we just have to settle for Angry Fans. https://twitter.com/DaveKosak/statuses/446130578329325568
Blizzard is shutting down the EU Class Role Forums. I guess I missed the part of the Warlords presentation where it said “EU Class Role Forums… GONE!” http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10189088868?page=1#1
Cross-Realm raiding is now enabled for Normal and Heroic SoO. Now you can grow tired of the same content with a different group of friends! http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/12091049604
Mythic SoO will be available for a few weeks before Warlords. Now you can grow tired of the same content but harder with nineteen of your friends! https://twitter.com/WatcherDev/statuses/448536775061811200
Garrisons will have their own resource instead of gold. As long as its not dollars, I’m fine with that. https://twitter.com/Muffinus/status/446808409736634368
Spirits of Harmony will remain soulbound instead of becoming account-wide. This decision leaves me in rather disharmonious spirits. https://twitter.com/CM_Lore/statuses/447071656763072512
Senior Art Director Chris G. Robinson teased an upcoming Artcraft about Female Draenai. Maybe someone can tease an upcoming announcement about beta??? https://twitter.com/artofcgrobinson/status/448647704424361984
