Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog

Millie Watt yells: You really shouldn’t play with this stuff. Someone could get hurt.

I got to play with Millie in the wee hours of the morning when there was less of a queue.  I had lots of frustration as I was having difficulty getting her down past 1000k Health.

Millie Watt yells:  Look at you! HAH!

So I tweaked a little,  Healed a LFR and got  483  Dagger, paid 6.5k for the Jade Spirit Enchant,  and got the best Bracer enchant.  Was getting her to 600k

Tweaked some more,  Reforged more of my Mastery to  Haste, replaced the gem in helm to the +crit effect ( was using helm for heals and dps so had the +mana) and reforged some spirit into haste as I didn’t need the extra hit.

I committed my gear to a dps spec.  Rather I did all the stuff I should have done if I had been raiding as pure dps instead of the Heals switching I am doing with the casual guild I occasionally raid with.

I kept hitting the timer with 200-400k health left.  I was getting close,  and it’s so easy to panic.  I finally killed her.   The things that helped me was shuffling enough of a distance as soon as dynamite was thrown, and so taking less damage.  resisting the urge to shield or disperse when she casts Discombobumorphanator  as this only absorbs the damage your meant to take to break the stun., and trying to use my insta casts while standing in the field rather than just standing there waiting for it to happen and then moving quickly out of it.

Fears when your standing close to help reduce some of the constant damage she does,  but even then,  it doesn’t really interrupt her casting too much, and you run the risk of moving too far away from the lightning fields repositioning yourself.

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I’ve done a fair bit of upgrading and tweaking since starting the Brawlers guild,  and my Ilevel is now 483 I had to really think about ways of optimizing when I could dps. ( and hope for  good Crits )  I think so far that there has been plenty of  opportunity to put out the DPS required, it’s just a matter of optimizing the time you have, even if it means not stopping and healing your self, and reducing your movement too much.

There is a thread on the EU wow forums about the disappointment that the Brawlers guild is a gear check mainly because there is a timer – 2 min for each fight, and Pvp geared people, and non top geared raiders will have difficulty beating it. ( except Proboskus which is only 60 sec ) and it does get to a point where gear is required to beat the timer. I am struggling at Rank 5 with the gear I have with some of the DPS timers,  no tier, and bits I’ve upgraded or crafted & LFR stuff, but  that has made me work smarter.  Currently up to the 4th Gladiator at level 5 which are 5 little gnomes ( currently only killing 4 of them )

Some fights are easier for some classes, I got stumped for what would be considered an interrupt on Proboskus – Silence Durrr…  I’m not used to thinking in terms of interrupts outside my fears, and they don’t form part of my normal rotation – and silence is pretty much useless on any raid boss, so it’s more of a PVP use mentality,  whereas a melee class may have several interrupts to choose from,

My self-heal abilities as a shadow priest means I can worry a little less about taking some damage,  and some Gladiators like Millie do a constant stream of damage,  we have  Devouring Plague, Vampiric Embrace,  Renew, Praying of Mending  Halo, that will give self-healing back with little interruption to dps

Best resources so far for any of the fights have been

Twitter ( thanks Marathal) pointed me to Sorella’s Guide for Shadow Priests on How to Priest

Icy Veins Brawlers Guild Guide  ( has vids for all the fights – class specific information is missing though for a lot of fights – and needs collaborators)

Deeken Yells: DIE QUICKLY — I HAVE LUNCH PLANS!

Every Brawl is a dance, some are easier than others.  Some you learn to stand there and take the damage,  others you need to learn when to move.

I learned  to dance Deeken style.  He is the last Gladiator of Rank 4 and I had some issues trying to stand still long enough to do damage, while jumping around enough to avoid the static that does random patterns on the floor.  So I was going along with trying to increase the time where I didn’t have to avoid the field.  So I kept him locked up on spawn as much as possible

Prepot Potion of Brawlers Cunning the Intell + 4k for 25 sec pot  ( get it from Quackenbush – The Brawlers Guild Quartermaster)

Run to centre where he spawns. Fear him on spawn,

SWP MB – Psychic Horror before he can do a push back.

MF MF ….

Then it becomes a massive mess of static electricity and a stupid robot pushing you back into that static electricity at the worst of times. Some attempts went really bad.  He would push back and interrupt my spells at the worst time.

You can jump over the fields,  but I found that It worked better if I danced around them,   moved between their ups and downs, and sideways.

The Static hits you for around 90k damage each wave. Some waves  overlap each other and can smash you down quickly and thus ended a couple of attempts. I even tried taking a wave or two to get more dps out.  Running around, avoiding the static electricity with only  SWP and SWD on insta cast hoping to get lucky mindspike procs won’t get him down in enough time.

I found he got immune to my fears  eventually,  or he resisted them,  when I did try to CC it was more to reduce his push backs then reduce the damage he would do in melee,  which wasnt much, you spend more time worrying about the waves then him.

Towards the end of the timer there is a pause where it seems that all the Static resets and the floor clears,  when I finally killed him I did that then,  free space to breath and smash him as hard as you can.  By that time,  if you haven’t already used a Brawlers Healing Potion, you should be able to use another Cunning pot.

You are next in Line

Your heart races.

You have been watching a few of the fights,  seen some people die,  seen them win.

Sold your soul on the Black Market Auction house to get an invite.   ( Actually it was only 6.9k gold for me and some BMAH camping for my outbids)

Now it’s your turn.  In front a crowd of your peers,  fellow players from your realm  and  some from others, guilds big and small are here watching or waiting  for their own turns. You can hear the hecklers cheering on the mobs. “GO BRUCE”  they yell. Bizmo laughing at each contestants deaths

So much blood

But it all fades away when your standing the centre. Facing the grey paneled metal wall, waiting for your opponent to appear,  deep in the depths of the Deep Run Tram.

You can smell the rust, metal,  or blood you’re not sure.

Just breath

Bizmo Yells: Put your hands together for Zahraah! Zahraah is a Rank 3 priest.

You told the Bouncer at the door you were here to fight, not die – what happens if you lose?

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Well if you lose, your body lays near the bouncer,  until you either release,  or someone nice rezzes you.

There was a buff group going, and people were quite friendly, and encouraging,  buffing, healing and rezzing. You keep all your buffs going in,  flasks, food and other class buffs. It all helps.

There is no shame in doing what you need to survive that fight,  and that means I have stopped and healed myself,

I will admit to looking up the Strat for Dippy. When he killed me.   My recount showed massive damage,  and basically  the guides said don’t let him cast Peck So I ran around like a mad woman, dotting him up, and Shadow Word deathing him to death.  The cast bar for Peck is quick and I figured I’d rather it take longer then slow down to add more dots, or even try to  Mind Spike him.

I also had some issues with the Ooze dude. Blat,  the first ‘Gladiator’ in Rank 3 I was able to keep away from him,  dot flay, run, dot flay run kinda thing,  but then I went over the timer for the fight and got the massive AOE so I had to take some more smack damage from the main Blat to get him down fast enough.

The Brawl Queues  got better the later it was,  I also noticed that we started getting more people from other realms as it became a shared zone. so there was always an audience.

I love that it does have this secret, grity underground club exclusivity to it.  I wish I had gotten into it a little earlier.  It’s been a few weeks now since the Patch and these were the stats on the brawls and if you chat to the dude called ‘Numbers’ he will tell you how bad or good its been so far.

The First number is the times the Gladiator has killed the Player, and the second number is how many times they have been killed.  Apparently its server wide stats. The fights get hard, and they look really interesting.

Deeken yells: YOU ARE BAD AND SHOULD FEEL BAD!

I stayed in the pit way too long,   ( am on holidays – no bed time ) and I am writing this in between fights.  Currently stuck on Ixx. 3rd fight on rank 3   I can’t run between his legs fast enough – getting better though.  Using Inner Will for the 10% run speed.  Standing in his hit box to escape from the AOE he casts.  Tried to range it but he is too fast,  and its a wide cone.  Need to learn not to panic, and move too much so I stay in position, and also stop casting straight away and MOVE.   I am tired though which isn’t helping.

Haven’t seen many level 5-7 fights but there has been lots of people round my level tonight, and a few 8’s.  Those rank 8  fights look complicated, and I will need to read up on them,  have winged it mostly so far.

Will I go all the way to level 8?  Will I hand over for free the Brawlers Pass I will earn at level 7.  ( friends..  what friends… ) I can make a decent chunk of gold if I do it soon ( 20k the invite was for on the normal AH when I checked today) It’s been fun so far,  even if I am looking like a complete knob on this boss.   Finally killed it. i Did it by running between his legs and hooking – so not straight out the back as his AOE comes under his legs too. (  I wasn’t hitting publish post till it was dead)

My new Fav Song at the moment is Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, and their song, as well as the clip played through my head during the brawls.  Teddy bear Brawls. Did I say Teddy Bear Brawls. Oh yeah and Lazers!   ( give it just past 1 min for what a real brawl is )

Welcome to the new age, to the new age