So, you've got your raid together, and are head into the Firelands, but now what? Well, likely your first intended target will be Shannox, the simplest of the boss fights in the Firelands. You'll notice some trash as you enter, so go ahead and clear to the bottom of the path. You'll also notice that there are several routes you can take through the instance, but Shannox will be to your right.
A standard raid setup of 2 tanks, and 6-7 healers (2-3 if 10m) should suffice.
The first thing you'll need to do is spawn Shannox, as he is not immediately available. Start clearing some trash in the open area to your right, this is where you will fight Shannox. Be sure to clear enough trash to give your raid plenty of room to do the encounter without pulling other groups. Once you have cleared enough trash, Shannox will spawn and begin pathing around the area. If you are not ready to pull just yet, just make sure you're out of aggro range when he comes by. It takes a bit for him to path all the way back around again, which is pretty annoying, but whatever.
So, I was reading a post over on Root and Branch, entitled Enabling Failure, and it brought to mind a lot of discussions I had with other players during the beta and shortly after the launch of cataclysm. It really is a drastic change in playstyle from 80-85. I remember at level 80, I was a demi-god in wow. I was nigh unstoppable. There were very few mechanics that couldn't simply be brute force healed through. Especially in the heroic dungeons, previous tier raids, and early bosses in icc.
It felt great being so powerful. A good healer could heal anyone through nearly anything. In reality though, there was very little skill involved in this kind of healing. It was really just a matter of having decent gear and pressing your buttons in a timely manner. But, the near god-like status of healers had some very bad side effects on the general wow population.
First, it took away nearly all accountability from an individual for their actions in a group, and transferred that responsibility to the healer. Over the course of the two years of wrath the "healers that could do anything" bred a new breed of wow player. The wrath baby. And I mean that in the bad way, not just someone who started playing in wrath. (I started playing in wrath btw.) These are the guys you met up with in your randoms, that never moved from any type of damage whatsoever. It was the mage who went entire dungeon runs and cast only blizzard. The guy in your icc run, who had good gear, and the appropriate achievements, but had no idea what he was doing and had no clue what the bosses did. He just ran up to the boss and smashed his face on the keyboard until the purples dropped.
We've all seen that guy. We've all been in a dungeon run or raid with him. And, I'm willing to bet, damn near every last one of us, just healed him through it. It made us look better
I have to admit, while I try not to be an elitist, the Valor Point changes in 4.2 are really not sitting well with me. It just seems a little over the top, that a player can get capped on the highest tier raid currency, without ever setting foot in a raid. I just don't get it. Was there something terribly wrong with the previous cap? Were those 300 extra points a week really putting actual raiders that far ahead of the dungeoneers. Frankly, I find the change to be quite stupid. I'm of the mindset that no VP should be rewarded from 5 man content, but I'm willing to concede that more casual players need the extra help. But this is just ridiculous. The regular heroics are outgeared at around ilvl 340ish, and the Zandalari at around ilvl 350. With 359 gear available for justice points, 365/378 gear available from questing/rep, what purpose does it serve to cap out valor points from dungeons? Especially if you're just a dungeon hero, honestly why do they need more gear to run dungeons they already outgear?
I don't know, maybe I'm just a little too upset about this. But I can't help but be just a little butt hurt that the non raider will be gearing up just as fast as a raider. At least with items from vendors such as rep gear and tier gear. I don't know, maybe I'm just an elitist in denial, but I feel like people that actually step foot in a raid instance and kill raid bosses, should receive raid currency more quickly.
