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By Trilliance, December 27, 2009 10:44 AM

The usual Over-achievers group got around to doing this achievement last night and got it in typical Clique fashion — on our last attempt of the night. We don’t have our own video to show but even better, we have come up with a Strategy Guide for you! Good luck in getting this achievement, it was quite fun!

The 2 videos below show the general strategy:

Hunter PoV (1:40):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihlv9wjNf7c
DK PoV (9:37): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUFUhzNrJIw

Here are some tips on how to get arguably the hardest ToC 10-player achievement:

• The Scarabs you are supposed to kill only have a minuscule Health Pool of 17k, handle them with care!
• NEVER DPS Anub’arak! You don’t need to kill him.
• You have to kite all the scarabs through 4 Burrow Phases. When Anub’arak burrows the 4th time, that’s your cue to start killing all the adds.
• Kite together! With exception of maybe the Hunters, stick together like glue!
• During the first few attempts when you learn how to kite, it may be useful to kill all the Scarabs to have an idea of how many scarabs have spawned, especially when you know you are going to wipe.
• The key to succeeding is not to let the scarabs hit you as much as possible. Acid-Drenched Mandible stacks hurt! To do this you need to stay in front of the Scarabs and stun/snare any that come from the front. The debuff stacks up to a maximum of 40, where it will hit for 48,000 per tick!
• Kill Nerubian Burrowers as fast as you can. 1 or 2 up during the kill phase is manageable, but 4 or 5 will wipe your raid.
• If you are behind the kiting pack, you may want to cut inside through the ice to rejoin the party. Sometimes, it is easier to just walk on the ice even though it slows you.

On our kill attempt, we used the following class composition:

• Tanks: Warrior (MT-Anub’arak), DK (OT-Nerubian Burrowers)
• Healers: 2x Resto druids – They are the best healers here due to the mobile nature of the encounter.
• 2x Rogues – FoK Anesthetic poison to deal with Enraged Scarabs. Able to Cloak off high stacks of Acid-Drenched Mandibles
• 2x Hunters – for Frost Traps and Tranq shot.
• 1x Ele Shaman – for Earthbinds, “Rank 1″ Frost Shocks, and Thunderstorm. Use Thunderstorm carefully – it hits for ~4k non-crit and if you are not careful Scarabs may die prematurely.
• 1x Frost Mage – “Rank 1″ Frost Nova, “Rank 1″ Blizzard. Be careful of your Water Elemental hitting Scarabs (do not glyph it) and put it to passive.

Class Tips:

• Rogues: Use the lowest DPS weapon available and imbue it with Anesthetic poison. You’ll be using this for most part of the fight, but remember to swap weapons when you start to kill all the Scarabs.
• Hunters: Stay in the ‘center’ killing orbs and Nerubian Burrowers! Lay Frost Traps in any gaps you see that Scarabs will path over. Help to Tranq Shot Enraged Scarabs. Try as much as possible to follow the kiting party so not to be out of range of heals. Use Aspect of the Wild!
• Resto Shamans: Glyph Riptide. Use 2 piece t8/2 piece t9 Resto set for reduced Riptide duration, and LHW relic. You don’t want to be healing and left behind the kiting party. Use Frost Resistance and Earthbind totems. Rank 1 Frost shock any loose Scarabs not on Ice patches.
• Elemental Shamans: Use Earthbind totem to root adds. Make sure that no one is in melee range of Scarabs before rooting. Use Thunderstorm if you need to but only when they are on Full HP. Rank 1 Frost shock any loose Scarabs not on Ice patches.
• Death Knights: Deathgrip orbs into ‘gaps’ of Ice patches (see 2:25 of the 2nd video). Chains of Ice adds that spawn in front of you and is heading to the kiting party.
• Warriors: Intervene and Charge is your best friend. Use it to stay in front. Charge and stun any adds that spawn in front heading to the kiting party.
• Mages: Go Frost! Use Rank 1 Frost nova only when Scarabs are catching up to the kiting party and it’s absolutely necessary. Ice Block when you have high stacks of Acid-Drenched Mandibles.
• Warlocks: Affliction is possibly your best spec here. Run around, DoT orbs and Nerubian Burrowers, though Shadowfury might still come in useful. Up to you here.
• Paladins: Hand of Freedom people who are lagging behind. Hand of Protection removes Acid-Drenched Mandible stacks, use it on raid members with high stacks.

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By Trilliance, December 21, 2009 7:20 PM

Congrats to our 10 new Herald of the Titans for defeating Algalon while using Ulduar 10-player gear.

Exitt, Cherak, Bushhealer, Mesias, Trilliance, Wheretodo, Maxar, Stroke, Tulang, Paxman

Special mention to Bushhealer for his effort in organising this run and providing the raid with enchants and consumables (Thanks for the Intellect scrolls)!

Other notables include Mesias who wasn’t able to find a suitable weapon and ended purchasing a Bind on Account weapon for the encounter, and Wheretodo who was frantically making Saronite bullets after the pull after realising he was using the new Iceblade arrows from ICC! We wiped a couple of times, but the kill attempt was as clean as it could go.  We beat the enrage timer with 20 seconds to spare.

Here are some photos to show:

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
Glory to the newborn king.

Merry Christmas everyone!

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By Trilliance, December 13, 2009 8:31 AM

Of course you know that 3.3 was released on Wednesday, and this post is a few days overdue because we’ve all been busy exploring the new content like little boys in a candy shop. But better late than never

There were many new changes that came with the patch, some good… some bad… But most of them were for the best. Shadow priests must have been extremely satisfied with this patch. From my estimates, I think they must have gained at least 20% increase in DPS. Rogues too must be very happy with the changes to up their DPS. Resto druids can’t complain much either with Rejuv ticking much faster now. Elemental shamans and Destro Locks on the other hand were badly hit by the nerf stick – with nerfs to their 4 piece Tier 9 bonus & Conflag respectively. Elemental Tier 10 bonus isn’t that great either and seem to contradict each other (the 4 piece bonus which results in more Lava Bursts cast, indirectly results in fewer Lightning Bolts cast making the 2 piece bonus less effective). I think Ele shamans need more love… You can say that Patch 3.3 also made the game a lot more user-friendly for WoW players. The new built-in QuestHelper, quest tracking, nameplate overlap, have made WoW a much more friendly game for both beginners and pros to play.

Icecrown Citadel has been pretty sweet so far. The whole instance kind of reminds me of Black Temple. I really hope it becomes more grandiose as we progress deeper into the depths of Icecrown… I can’t wait to see what Blizzard has in store for us. Trash for most part have been really easy (most of them are Undeads too so 1 minute shackles FTW!), nothing too complex and can most pulls can be AoE’d down to the ground without much CC.

Boss models have been excellent so far. I really like the fallen angel look of Lord Marrowgar. I’m sure we’ll get to see more awesome looking bosses in the future. Mechanic-wise though, a lot of these boss fights could have been more original. Also I know a few who are pretty annoyed with the 1 minute RP before certain boss fights. /wait Saurfang. Overall, I felt the first four bosses were undertuned. I was expecting the bosses to put up a bigger fight and for us to wipe a couple of times, but we ended up one shotting everything. Hard modes will be a whole different story though, we shall see…

Great new changes to the LFG system. I’ve always been a fan of PUGs (I’m wierd. I know..), and this change makes running PUGs a lot more attractive. Pre-3.3, it was quite troublesome to run them because there was no real incentive to do so other than the reward from the daily heroic. With 3.3, the random heroics is an excellent way to obtain enchanting mats, not to mention the 15 gold & Frost/Triumph emblems you get from completing the run, and a cute little pug. I also found that the auto-disenchanting still work if you are partied with an Enchanter and a green drops while you are killing random mobs.

Anyway, I wish everyone a wonderful December and a great year ahead! May all your hits be crits and bosses fall on your feet. Here are some screenshots members of the guild have taken. Enjoy the holidays!