As many of you know, we have been doing joint 25-man raids with Covenant for the past couple months. This past week, we received an open invitation from Covenant for any of our level 80 toons to join their guild.

After much discussion by the officers, we have decided to accept their invitation.

As such, any level 80 toon that is interested in joining Covenant may do so without having to apply by speaking with one of their officers: Koramoor, Avenea, Xeraxis or Frostmare.

Although we are still working out the little details, they have indicated that we will have two officer positions, which will likely be filled by Unroku and Vesserion.

So what brought this on? For many of us, especially those who have been at level cap since shortly after the release of WotLK, their just isn’t anything interesting in the game other than raiding at the moment. And despite our efforts to build a strong 10-man lineup, we have not downed a new boss in at least 8 weeks. Putting our raiding toons into Covenant allows us to have a better chance of enjoying the game’s raid content at both the 10 and 25-man levels.

What will happen to The Arrow Gang? The Arrow Gang will continue to exist, just with fewer level 80s therein. For the most part, we are just moving level 80 raiding toons to Covenant. The majority of our other level 80 toons, and all of our lower level alts, will remain with The Arrow Gang. And although I cannot say what the impact of this event will have on our guild in the long run, I am hopeful that we can maintain our online community.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me in-game or on vent, and I will be happy to try and answer them.

Bhender

This week we extended our raid id for Ulduar-10, and will be working on punching Auriaya, Iron Council, Hodir and Ignis in the face! 

Daily – There will be a HToC 5-man and Heroic Daily runs for those interested beginning at 7:30 EST. 

Tuesday – We will take the 10-man team back to Ulduar.  First up is Auriaya, followed by the Iron Council.  RSVP on the in-game calendar.  Invites go out at 8:15, first pull at 8:30 EST.

Thursday – Back to Ulduar for more boss kills and phat loot.  RSVP on the in-game calendar.  Invites go out at 8:15, first pull at 8:30 EST.  Raid cancelled.  Enjoy the holiday weekend!

See you at the summoning stone!

Vess

Here is the raid lineup for this week:

Daily – There will be a HtoC 5-man and Heroic Daily runs for those interested beginning at 7:30 EST. 

Monday– There will be a joint Arrow Gang / Covenant Ulduar 25 raid starting at 9:00 PM EST.  Slots may be available for those qualified and interested in wiping on the totally insane raid PVP encounter some more, depending on Covenant’s needs.  Talk to Unroku, Vesserion or Karinthanis for more details.

Tuesday– We will take our 10-man raiding team to to Ulduar for farm night.  We will hit FL, XT, Kologarn, Razorscale and possibly Iron Council as well.  Check the in-game calendar for invites. 

Wednesday– Seyia is organizing an old world raid for kicks and achievements.  Check the in-game calendar for invites.

There will also be a joint Arrow Gang / Covenant 25-man Trial of the Crusader raid beginning at 9:00 EST sharp.  Talk to Unroku, Vesserion or Karinthanis for more details. 

Thursday– We will take the 10-man team to the regular Trial of the Crusader raid, starting at 8:30 EST.  Please review the strategies for this instance on Tankspot.com before the run.

See you at the summoning stone!

Vess

As you should all be aware by now, heroic dungeons and most raids drop Emblems of Conquest in lieu of Emblems of Heroism.  The heroic daily quest now rewards two Emblems of Triumph. 

Since Emblems of Conquest can be turned in for ilevel 226 gear, or traded down for Emblems of Valor (ilevel 213 gear) or Emblems of Heroism (ilevel 200 gear), you can very easily improve any weak slots in your kit simply by running a few heroics each day.

Furthermore, the heroic ToC 5-man dungeon drops ilevel 219 gear, the same ilevel that Uld 10 bosses drop.  (Torgan has posted a great summary of our strategy for this dungeon below.)

If you are interested in running the HToC and the heroic daily with the guild, we will be doing first-come-first-served runs most nights around 7:30 EST.  (Possibly earlier if a raid is scheduled to begin at 8:30 EST.)

If you can’t make the guild runs, you can usually find a pug, since so many people are badge farming at the moment.

Gearing up has never been easier.  Get out there and grab some purples! 

Vess

Here is the tankspot guide to the second encounter of the Trial of the Crusader Raid instance: Lord Jaraxxus encounter.  Enjoy.

Vess

Here is the tankspot guide to the first encounter of the Trial of the Crusader Raid instance: the Northern Beasts encounter.  Enjoy.

Vess

Here is the raid lineup for this week:

Monday – There will be a joint Arrow Gang / Covenant Ulduar 25 raid starting at 9:00 PM EST.  Slots may be available for those qualified and interested, depending on Covenant’s needs.  Talk to Unroku, Vesserion or Karinthanis for more details.

Tuesday – We will take our 10-man raiding team to the regular Trial of the Crusader raid, starting at 8:30 EST.  Check the in-game calendar for invites.  Please review the strategies for this instance on Tankspot.com before the run.

Wednesday – There will be a joint Arrow Gang / Covenant 25-man Trial of the Crusader raid beginning at 9:00 EST sharp.  This is cutting edge progression for both guilds, so gear and performance are required.  Again, the availability of slots will depend on Covenant’s needs.  Talk to Unroku, Vesserion or Karinthanis for more details.

Thursday – We will take the 10-man team to Ulduar for farm night.  We will hit FL, XT, Kologarn and Razorscale. 

Miscellaneous – We may (?) be extending the raid ID on our 8-man Naxx run, with the intention of completing the full clear sometime this week, and earning The Dedicated Few Achievement. 

See you at the summoning stone!

Vess

The Trial of the Champion instance is located in the Agent Tournament grounds in the northern section of Icecrown. The Trial is broken in the three parts and the entirety of the instance takes place in an open Colosseum.

Part 1 – The Joust

The Joust is broken up in to two sections, mounted and unmounted.

Phase 1 (Mounted)
The Joust is a mounted combat section, as the name implies. As you enter the Colosseum you will notice mounts lining the walls and an NPC standing in the middle of the room. You will need to equip either your Argent Lance or Horde Lance and mount one of the wolves in the room. If you do not have a lance, you can get one from the lance racks near the entry inside the instance. Once mounted, you will notice you have 4 abilities available to you, the first is a melee strike, second is a shield breaker which throws a javelin at the opponent removing one stack of defense, third is a charge attack which shots you forward in to the opponent removing one stack of the defense buff and dealing significant damage, the last ability is your defend ability which adds to your defense buff. Your defense buff can stack up to three times and it is imperative that you keep it at 3 stacks at all times. The defense buff last for a minute, if not refreshed in that time, all stacks fade off. Once you are ready to begin the fight talk to Jaeren Sunsworn (the NPC in the center of the room) to initiate the Joust.

Starting this instance takes some time. There is dialog between King Varian and Garrosh if you care to read it, we use this time to make sure you have all of your shields ready. Three sets of 4 jousters will enter the Colosseum. Three of each set will be “trash” and one will be a boss. Once all three sets of jousters have entered the arena, one set of trash will move to the center of the ring and engage you. The most effective way to kill these trash pulls is to focus fire down one at a time with charge attacks. Each trash jouster will only have one stack of defense and will not go above that so the shielder breaker isn’t necessary at this point. We usually start with the jouster in the middle and burn him down, the move on to the next target. Once all three are down the next set of trash will move to the center of the ring and engage. Follow the same focus fire tactic to take out the next two trash waves.

Once all of the trash mobs are down the three bosses will all move in the the ring and engage. Focus fire is still the name of the game but be sure to use shield breakers and watch you defense stacks as the bosses will have 3 stacks of defense and will actively attempt to remove your defense buffs. Once a boss is down they are not dead, they are only dismounted. Have one of the people in your group stand on top of their body. It is important that you stand directly on top of the downed boss because the boss will attempt to get up and walk over to another mount. Standing on them will prevent this. The person standing on a downed boss will now be using shield breaker constantly to keep the defense buffs of the other bosses low while not moving. If a boss happens to get close enough, they can also use their melee strike ability. If at any time in the fight your mount’s health begins to get low, run up to one of the other mounts in the room, you can switch to a fresh mount without dismounting and doing so will also reset your aggro. When all three bosses are down it is important that all non-tank players run as far as they can as fast as they can because you will immediately enter phase 2.
 

Phase 2 (Unmounted)
When phase 2 begins there is a complete aggro reset as the bosses all stand up. It is important for the tank to pick up all of the bosses quickly and for all non-tank players to run to avoid pulling aggro. This transition is very difficult and can often cause a wipe. In this phase each of the bosses will need to be burned down and each has their own abilities. Below is a list of the bosses in priority order. Please note you may get any combination of the 5 and you should kill them in priority order.

1. Lana Stouthammer (Dwarf Rogue) – She drops clouds of poison that hurt ALOT. I can’t stress enough the importance of staying out of these clouds. She also puts DoTs on targets that can be cleansed.
2. Mashal Jacob Alerius (Human Warrior) – He has a very powerfu bladestorm ability you need to watch out for.
3. Colosos (Drenai Paladin) – Can heal, but is interruptable
4. Jaelyne Evensong (Night Elf Hunter) – Can disengage (annoying) and has Lightning Arrows (an AoE attack)
5. Ambrose Boltspark (Gnome Mage) – Has a polymorph ability, mostly harmless.

Once all three are down you are done with Part 1.

Part 2 – The Argent Champion

After you’ve finished looting, talk to Jaeren Sunsworn to start Part 2. Part 2 consists of one of two possible Bosses with three simple trash mobs. Once all of the trash and the boss have entered the ring, they wait for you to pull them before engaging so take your time. The trash mobs consist of three different humanoids each, a Priestess, a Lightwielder, and a Monk. They should be killed in that order. The Priestess heals, which is annoying but interruptible, the Lightwielder has no notable abilities, but the monk should be killed last because on heroic mode when he dies he starts to channel a spell that reduces movement, casting, and attack speeds by 70%. Once all three mobs are down stay to the outside of the ring. The boss will move immediately to the center and if your party is along the wall, you won’t immediately pull.

The Boss is one of two in this section. It’s either Eadric the Pure or Argent Confessor Paletress. Here are the strategies on each:

Eadric the Pure
Eadric is the easier of the two. He has two main abilities, Radiance and Hammer of the Righteous. Radiance is a stun effect that can be avoided by “shielding your eyes” (read turning your character away from the boss) when he begins casting it. If it hits you, you will be stunned for four seconds. Hammer of the Righteous begins by Eadric stunning a party member with an ability much like Hammer of Justice. He will then begin casting Hammer of the Righteous. The stun can be clear by normal means and if it’s clearer before he finishes casting, the player will catch the hammer instead of being hit by it. If you catch the hammer you can throw it back at him by hitting 1 on your quickbar. This will get you the achievement “The Faceroller” if it is used to kill him. If the stun is not cleared in time, the target will take upwards of 15k damage. Other than those two abilities Eadric is a basic tank and spank encounter

Argent Confessor Paletress
Paletress will start out casting three spells: Holy Fire, Holy Smite, Renew. All of them can interrupted and the renew can be dispelled from her and her add, which we recommend because it ticks for about 15k. At 50% she will summon a Memory add at random. No matter which add she picks, it has the same abilities. The tank will need to be ready to pick the add up because she picks a random member of the party and summons it behind that person, which can be rough for some of the squishy cloth and leather wearers in the party. The add has three basic abilities, a magical debuff that increases cast time by 90%, a party-wide fear, and normal melee attacks. Focus fire down the add and ignore Paletress, she will be shielded and healing herself and the add. Once the Memory is down, switch back to Paletress. She won’t have any new abilities, so just burn her down.

Thats all for Part 2. Loot and rebuff for Part 3.

Part 3 -  The Black Knight

If you’ve done the Argent Tournament quests, you will be familiar with the Black Knight. He will fly down from the rafters after you talk to Jaeren again. When he does there will be a little scene in which he chokes, reverse Death Grips and kills Jaeren (poor little guy) and moves to the center of the ring, use this time to get yourselves into position. The Black Knight has three forms and there is no break in between forms.

Form 1 – The Black Knight
He will start the fight by raising Jaeren as a ghoul, the tank should pick up the ghoul and the boss before the ghoul starts wreaking havoc on your party members. The DPS can focus on the ghoul if you want to , but it isn’t necessary. Either way you should be able to burn through the first form very quickly. When the ghoul or Black Knight goes down (which ever happens first) it will trigger a “Ghoul Explosion” ability that will hit anyone close to it for a large amount of damage.

Form 2 – Skeleton
The Black Knight will get back up immediately, there is no break, so be prepared. He will start by spawning an Army of the Dead which we usually AoE down. If you are low on AoE classes you can have the tank kite the Black Knight and ghouls around so no one gets hit by the corpse explosions. Otherwise just burn the Knight Down again. One more form to go!

Form 3 – Wraith
In this phase every party member will be taking constant magical damage. The healer will also need to watch for the debuff named “Marked for Death”. The debuff increases magical damage by 200% which can quickly kill a party member if not dispelled. Other than that, third burn is the charm. He’ll stay down this time. Loot and you’re done. Not so bad right?

There was some talk of people leveling healadins the other night, and/or other paladins picking up holy as their dual spec whenever Patch 3.1 rolls around.  I came across the following article the other day, which covers some great basics for anyone looking to join the healing team.

http://www.bananashoulders.com/2009/03/27/holy-paladin-faq-v10-pre-31/

Thanks to Siha over at Banana Shoulders for the great article, which has saved me from having to level another healer so I can educate you all.

Enjoy.

Vess