Christmas came a little early to me this year as I picked up our guilds first Deathbringer’s Will. Not only is it completely sick dps wise it’s also amazingly fun as a feral druid!
First off, it’s amazing in that it has 155 passive armor penetration which is almost double Banner of Victory. As kitties push towards a hard cap on arp (1399) this trinket is definitely a must. Secondly it has a ridiculous proc that is randomized and is different for each and every class. For feral druids, we’ve lucked out and gotten three procs that are all useful and good whereas some classes have gotten some not so optimal procs. The three that we’ve received are:
One week has passed since 3.3 and ICC was released and as reported earlier, some folks have already grinded their reputation to exalted! While this isn’t something that isn’t difficult or quite frankly necessary, it is intriguing and worth considering. Lets take a closer look at the rewards, what it entails and the time commitment…
Reward
First off, lets take a look at the rewards itself, the reason why people are doing this is naturally for the exalted Ashen Verdict ring. Being able to obtain a ilv 277 ring today when we’re generally still wearing 258 gear at best is pretty awesome. At first look at the friendly version of the ring, it’s really not much to scream and shout about, but my person opinion is once you get into revered that’s where the real bonus is. At revered the ring receive a chance on hit proc:
Pretty sexy stuff, to be that alone is enough to use this ring without looking into loot tables for ICC.
Time Commitment
Based on a guide created by Wolfie, he suggests that you can obtain ~850-900 reputation per run. That being said, lets try and calculate the amount of time/runs required to hit exalted. Lets consider a few different types of scenarios, note that this is all based on a druid pov (aka Night Elf) without any Human 10% reputation bonuses. Also lets assume that each run can yield 900 for calculation purposes.
Non Raider: If you don’t belong to a guild that can run 10/25 man and you are only looking to obtain the ring, you’ll need a total of 42,000 reputation, or 47 reputation runs.
Raider (ASAP): If you belong to a raiding guild but want to obtain the ring asap (say this week), you’re probably like me sitting at around 1005/6000 friendly. If that’s the case then you are still looking at 38,000 reputation to go. If you subtract the rep for running both 10/25 man this week (4k total), then you’re looking at 34,000 to grind or 38 reputation runs before you clear both instances.
Raider (Staggered Approach): If you’re like me and you’re looking to potentially boost your rep a little so that by the time the next wing opens (Jan 5th) then you can spread out your reputation grinds over the next few weeks and still obtain the ring quickly but in a more reasonable timely fashion. From now till Jan 5th, that gives us 3 lockouts left and 3 weeks of gaining 4k rep each for a total of 12k. We start at 34,000 reputation and substract the 12,000 leaving us at 22,000 required. Divide by 900 means 25 reputation runs in 3 weeks or a reasonable 7-8 runs a week.
Effort Required
If you’ve already cleared ICC then you know it is pretty simple, the difficulty level of this is pretty minimal, afterall it’s just killing trash. Again, Wolfie’s guide is a good overview of each trash pack and what abilities they have in case you haven’t entered ICC yet. He suggests a 1 tank, 2 healer, 7 dps setup probably for maximum efficiency but any group composition will do.
I’m planning to give this a shot tomorrow and see how long it takes realistically to complete a rep run. I don’t think my goal is to push to exalted but more to push to revered to get the ring with the chance on hit proc. I’ll report back once I get some more information. Happy grinding everyone!
*UPDATE*
So I went in there before our ICC10 raid and grinded for a few hours. We went ahead with a 1 Tank, 2 Healer, 7 DPS strategy which worked fine. Really it comes down to how fast you can pull and how fast you can clear so that you can reset and start again. By the end of our grinding runs we were down to around 15 minutes per run but I am sure it can be done a lot faster with a better aoe dps setup or just quicker pulls in general. The exact amount of reputation gained per run if you kill every trash mob prior to Marrowgar is 885 reputation. Currently I’m now sitting at honored with 1.2k/12k so at this rate I should hit revered prior to the next wing’s release.
Lessons learned from our first night of grinding were:
Do a 1 Tank, 2 Healer, 7 DPS strategy, the more dps, the faster it is
Don’t run into the rooms with the big Deathbound Ward, pull trash back into the previous room to avoid waking them up before you’re ready
On the big packs in the middle with double spiders, pull them back and use the wall to LOS so that it’s easier to grab them all, give your tank time!
With 3.3 released this week, this will be the last kitty update. As always, the most recent changes will be summarized here but for a full extensive summary check out 3.3 Kitty Summary which compiles all the information into one post.
Ashen Verdict Faction
This is the faction that grants rep within Icecrown Citadel. From the first week of doing 10 man and 25 man I got about 4k rep (1k/6k friendly now). Naturally as more wings open up, rep should become even faster to obtain. There are rewards rings associated that are upgradable with reputation improvements (friendly -> honored -> revered -> exalted) similar to the previous AQ40 and Mount Hyjal rings. MMO-Champion has a pretty good page summary of what you can obtain through the faction here. Below I’ve included the kitty ring which I’m personally not to fond of in it’s current form but the exalted version that has a 480ap proc does look pretty nice. It also has quite a bit of hit which if you’ve been checking out the new gear seems to be lacking.
With the new tier system that requires you to purchase your base tier first before you can advance up to the next ilv, obtaining Emblems of Frost as fast as possible is extremely important. As of right now while only the Icecrown entrance is available there are only a few ways to obtain badges:
So, your first week maximum would be 41 and going forward your maximum for the next 4 weeks would be 35. Thus until the next wing of ICC opens your maximum total would be 181 emblems. Just enough to buy two T10 pieces, so save and spend wisely! (thx to Kal for fixing my poor math)
Tier 10 Cost
With the above information known on obtaining Emblem of Frost, its important to understand the costs and how the system works. As mentioned above, to upgrade each tier ilv you need to own the previous tier level. So in other words start stocking up on emblems to buy your base T10 so that you can start upgrading as soon as possible. For a full summary check out MMO-champ’s page.
Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 Player) & Glory of the Icecrown Raider (25 Player)
I’ll update this in the 3.3 Achievement Summary but I figured I would combine it here since there’s not enough to warrant a completely new post for achievements alone. The meta requirements are out now (naturally since 3.3 is out) and it looks like there will be a combination of normal and heroic achievements so it’s going to be a while before anyone is getting their protos. But in the interim, here are some sexy photos of the new frostwyrms! Looks like pve kids will be getting pvp mounts afterall.
Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher (25 Players)
Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher (10 Players)
Core Hound Pup for Authenticator Users
Lastly, we got a surprise in people who use authenticators were given a Core Hound Pup! For those of you who don’t have one and are thinking of sneaky ways to get the pup with someone else’s authenticator guess again!
Q: How do I get the special Core Hound Pup pet for Authenticator users?
If you have a Blizzard Authenticator or Battle.net Mobile Authenticator attached to your Battle.net account, you’ll find the Core Hound Pup item waiting for you in your in-game mailbox the next time you log in. Simply use the item to add the pet to your collection.
Q: Can the Core Hound Pup help me in combat?
No, his bark is infinitely worse than his bite. The Core Hound Pup is a non-combat guard dog, trained to intimidate rather than eviscerate.
Q: What if I remove my Authenticator?
If you remove the Authenticator from your Battle.net account, the Core Hound Pup will disappear from the pets collection of all of your characters after you log out of the game. You’ll need to reattach an Authenticator to receive the pet again, at which point you’ll find him in your mailbox once more. If you switch Authenticators while in-game, your pet will remain intact.
Q: Which characters will receive the Core Hound Pup pet?
Each existing character on every World of Warcraft account associated with the Authenticator-protected Battle.net account will receive the Core Hound Pup pet, as will each character you create in the future while the Authenticator is attached.
Q: In what regions is the Core Hound Pup available?
The Core Hound Pup is available to players on realms located in North America, Europe, and Korea. A Battle.net account is required in all of these regions in order to claim the pet.
Q: Do I need to buy the Core Hound-themed Blizzard Authenticator to get the pet?
Nope. Any Blizzard Authenticator or Battle.net Mobile Authenticator product will do!
That’s it for now, back to cross server pugging for a Perky Pug!
I’d like to apologize to the readers out there for my lack of posts. Its’ been a busy couple of weeks in game prior to and post 3.3. I hope everyone’s been enjoying 3.3 so far (I certainly have!). Part of the reason behind my lack of updates is just being pure tired. We’ve been raiding about the same amount but I’ve been (are you ready for it?) healing a lot lately to assist the guild. I find healing a lot more tiring than playing as a kitty kat so I tend to just head to bed right after instead of blogging. With the hoilday season approaching that means more time off and more time for wow and blogging!
First update, we finally finished off our Ironbound Proto-Drake! I will admit it does feel a little cheesed in that we’re going back and doing 3.1 content in 3.2 gear but at least we finished this off before the release of 3.3 which is one less thing to worry about. I do think that Blizzard should have cut this one off a while ago especially with 3.3 out now.Even if it would mean that we would get screwed out of a proto drake I think it’s important that the gear doesn’t completely trivialize the hard mode achievements. That being said I think that if a cutoff had been announced we would have worked on this earlier but without a definitive date there was really no incentive. Either way, check out the pretty new proto!
Second update, Icecrown Citadel! The long awaited final raid instance of WOTLK has finally arrived and so far it’s been pretty fun. We went in on patch day on Tuesday and cleared the 10 man version with 2 healers and 0 wipes. Wednesday we went in and cleared the 25 man version in 2 hrs with 3 wipes total. Needless to say, the difficulty level wasn’t particularly challenging but again that’s the design that Blizzard is aiming for. While this won’t be as easy to pug like TOC, I would think that most people will at least be able to see the 10 man flavor. Unfortunately (and fortunately) the lockout until the next wing is 28 days away which is pissing off a lot of people. Blizzard has come back with a response:
As noted in game, the release of the Plagueworks in Icecrown Citadel occurs 28 days after patch 3.3.0 was released. After the Plagueworks is available, you will then wait less than 28 days for the next wing to become active. The extended length of the initial 28 day delay is simply due to the timing of the Holidays.
Again, good on Blizzard for taking dissuading people from ignoring family and friends during the holiday season! Here are some screenshots from my first week in 3.3
Where's the kitty? 😦
Rocket kitty, nice job Blizzard!
Bear Calvary
Finally, I finished off The Loremaster this week after working on it on and off for the past few months. For those of you who have yet to start or are a little afraid to start, don’t be! 3.3 has been this extremely easy with the quest system which tracks objective points and with a nifty little addon that I found called EveryQuest. It has a new feature (new for 3.3) which actually queries the Blizzard servers and identifies what quests you have completed and which ones you haven’t yet done. So no more running around like a maniac trying to find quest hubs, all you need to do is run this addon and it’ll tell you whats left to do in each zone!
With ICC on “farm” for now, and our protos complete we’ve turned our focus over towards Anub’Arak heroic and Algalon. Hopefully I’ll be sharing some stories for both in the near future.
I’m Retired!
As of 04/04/2011, I have officially retired from WOW. This blog will remain as a archived resource for those who know that CAT DRUID IS 4 FITE!
About Me
A blog for the ramblings and thoughts of Vallen, a full time raiding cat druid from Auchindoun-US with a passion for raiding & achievements. An avid wow player since 2004.
For any questions or concerns contact me via comments or e-mail
Feral Aggression 
