The votes are in!

Thank you to everyone who participated and everyone who voted. Some of these races were amazingly close – we have SEVERAL ties for placements and there are very few categories with one “stand out” winner! In fact, we had over 50 votes in every category, with over 60 votes in the “Best in Show” category!

As mentioned, the prizes per category are as follows:

BEST IN SHOW and THE UROSTEK have in-store mount prizes

GUILD PRIDE and OPTIMUM OPULENCE have in-store pet prizes

HORDE PRIDE and ALLIANCE SPIES will 50k gold each in prizes

However, there is a bonus: I (Quetzie) was personally so impressed with the entries that I am adding in 5000g to any second-place winners and 1000g to any third-place winners. This includes tied entries!

Without further ado…

Continue reading →

All the images are submitted and the voting pages are up!

You get 3 votes per category, but you can only vote one time – no take-backsies!

Navigate to the individual pages below, or head to the Hallow’s End Costume Contest main page and click the headings.

Best in Show
The Urostek
Guild Pride
Optimum Opulence
Horde Pride
Alliance Spies

Voting ends at 1pm PST / 4pm EST November 1!

Did you find any bugs with the voting pages? Is something amiss in the galleries? Please let Quetzie know ASAP so that she can fix any problems and ensure fair voting to all participants!


From now until midnight on October 27th, submit screenshots of your character in costumes according to theme! At the end of the submission period, we’ll hold a public vote on the website all throughout the rest of Hallow’s End. On November 1st, we’ll reveal who the winners of each category are, and who will walk away with the top prizes!

Best in Show
Pull out all the stops and show us the costume you think will impress us most!
The Urostek
Scar us with the ugliest, mish-mashiest, or gaudiest transmog you can come up with.
Guild Pride
Use one of the guild tabards available at the vendor and rep MoD in style!
Optimum Opulence
Killer Queens and Kings of Pain – show off your Opulence crown and regal attire!
Horde Pride
Whether you rally behind Saurfang or Sylvanas, it’s Lok’tar Ogar all around!
Alliance Spies
Your assignment: go undercover in Stormwind. How well could you blend in?

For full details, including rules and how to enter, check out our Hallow’s End Costume Contest site.

Some of you might have noticed that the Guild Bank has been accumulating gold recently. This is largely in part due to guild mythic BOE farming events, BOE donations, and direct gold deposits into the bank. Where does all this gold go, and what is it used for? The answer is quite simple:

Guild Bank funds are only used for funding Guild Repairs.

You might be thinking, how can I increase what I am allocated each day? The answer to that question is also straightforward:

Participate in Guild Events. We have events for every style and skill of gameplay. By attending MoD Guild Events, you will be recognized with a guild promotion and an increase in your guild daily repair allocation. Also, all MoD Guild Events are displayed on the in game calendar and on the website calendar.

Finally, I want to say a BIG ‘Thank You’ to everyone who has helped farm for mythic BOEs, or donated gold or items to the Repair Fund during the past few months. Without your help, and participation, we would not have the support to offer these repair withdrawals.

If you’re an ‘old hat’ who’s been keeping a keen eye on things, you’ll notice a lot of new faces in raids, PvP, and around the Discord in the last few weeks. I’ve been going on a tear to try to inject some fresh blood and new life into events, as some of our regulars become more busy with school, work, and life in general.

If you’re one of the Redditors who we’ve recruited over the last few weeks – hello! We’re thrilled to have so many new folks to play with! If you haven’t yet, take the time to introduce yourself in the general channel of Discord, share a little about yourself, and talk about your love of the game!

If you’re interested in PvP, check in with our Warbringers – Phil, Frostlitch, and Hoss. We have a PvP section of the website that goes over expectations of rateds as well as what classes they’re looking for. There’s also a convenient calendar that shows when PvP events are happening (currently Sundays and Wednesdays).

If you’re interested in raiding, give the Raiding section of the website a glance. Be sure to make sure you’ve read the Raiding Rules and Regulations page! While you’re at it, say hello to the Warlords – myself, Telann, Zex, Tiv, and Lineda.

Not interested in top-level content? Say hello to Sunday Funday! Bulborbish runs old achievements most Sundays, like Glory of the Thundering Raider or Glory of the Tomb Raider. He also does other fun events, like the Brawlers Guild, Pet Battles, or alt-levelling with the Darkmoon Faire.

Of course, none of us could do with without Urostek at the helm. He’s out benevolent dictator Guild master, who is an easy-going, fair, and all-around loveable guy. If you have any problems or concerns, he’s the guy to talk to. You can reach out to him for good things, too! He likes that 😉

Finally, enjoy a Quetzie meme, of which you will see several if you stick around long enough.

… name do I pick for my character? What might get you in and get an invite?

Here’s a simple guide (choose 1 or choose all):

  1. Be original
  2. Be funny
  3. Be creative
  4. Be different

I’ve seen all sorts of character names applying to this guild. And we do decline people. Recent guild application declines that have come to mind have had names like Aidsinacan and Fartnuts.

Really?

If you want to be 12, be 12 somewhere else.

We’re all adults here. 😛

This evening, Tiraffe and I peeled through the various defensive azerite traits available for the Mythic raiders for Sivarra. Many (most) of these are great across the board for the raid – many of these are also amazing in M+. Some of the poorly ranked ones may be better for other fights, or for M+, or for PvP. It’s important to be familiar with your spec when making these decisions.

It’s also important to note that many of these abilities require you to actively use specific spells – for example, Ursoc’s Endurance is useless if you’re not using Barkskin! Therefore, if you’re not using some of these abilities either on cooldown or as when is most effective, you may want to stick with the more passive traits listed, even if they’re in a lower tier.

Azerite Traits

A+ Tier:

Resounding Protection (stack when possible – this should be the default trait you look for)
Impassive Visage (excellent for constant damage fights like this one)
Death Knight – Runic Barrier
Demon Hunter – Thrive in Chaos (tank spec)
Paladin – Gallant Steed

A Tier:

Gemhide (tanks)
Death Knight – Cold Hearted
Demon Hunter – Soulmonger (Tank)
Druid – Ursoc’s Endurance, Switch Hitter (resto aff. only)
Hunter – Duck and Cover, Nature’s Salve (IF TALENTED)
Mage – Eldritch Warding
Priest – Sanctum
Warlock – Desperate Power
Warrior – Moment of Glory
Engineering – Personal Absorb-o-tron

B Tier:

Self Reliance (ranged)
Death Knight – March of the Damned
Mage – Quick Thinking (fire)
Rogue – Shrouded Mantle
Warlock – Lifeblood (you can prepot these!)

C Tier:

Longstrider
Hunter – Shellshock, Nature’s Salve (not talented)
Mage – Quick Thinking (frost), Cauterizing Blink
Monk – Strength of Spirit
Shaman – Serene Spirit, Ancient Ankh Talisman?
Engineering – Auto-Self-Cauterizer

F Tier:

Gemhide (everyone else)
Vampiric Speed
Self Reliance (melee)
Bulwark of the Masses
Demon Hunter – Thrive in Chaos (dps), Soulmonger (dps), Burning Soul
Druid – Reawakening, Switch Hitter (any except resto aff.)
Mage – Quick Thinking (arcane)
Monk – Exit Strategy, Sweep the Leg
Paladin – Stalwart Protector, Empyreal Ward
Priest – Death Denied, Twist Magic
Rogue – Footpad, Lying in Wait
Shaman – Pack Spirit
Warlock – Terror of the Mind
Warrior – Intimidating Presence, Bury the Hatchet

Defensive Talents

If you’re not sure what defensive talents to use, you should check Warcraft Logs and see what the top talents for your spec are. While the mythic raiders should already know what offensive talents are the best overall on a per-fight basis, a mythic progression boss might have different defensive requirements than you’re used to. This is also useful for the non-mythic raiders who may be unfamiliar with how to check their class’s top talent builds

Warcraft Logs Mythic Abyssal Commander Sivarra Reports

From that page, select your class and spec from the dropdown. At the top of the list, you’ll see “Top Talents”. You can look on a ‘row by row’ basis to see what most people take. Then, you can look on the right-hand side of the long list to see any variants. Perhaps some people are taking a slightly different talent. You can investigate further as to why. Maybe their group comp requires it, or maybe it’s personal preference.

You can also look at the top azerite essences (which follow the azerite powers, though are on the same row).

For non-mythic raiders, you can also change ‘mythic’ to a different difficulty. You can also change it to another boss (not marked on the image, but should be pretty obvious).

Finally beating the past couple of weeks of procrastination, Tiraffe and Fokola put together a weekly raid roundup for both teams to review. The roundup contains 3 sections; 2 for each raid team and a section for improving an individual’s dps and some other small things to note.

Thursday/Friday Raid Roundup

Sivara (H/M)

Good: Comfortably meeting dps/hps requirement on Heroic.

Bad: Folks still dying to Overflow mechanic. This is happening for 2 reasons:

  1. Not enough people stacking on the Overflow target. 3 or more is recommended for heroic. We should have enough healers/ranged to cover this without having to have the rest of the melee move.
  2. Heavy Defensives/Immunities not being used when there’s mechanic overlap and/or 2 or less people are soaking. This is a direct result of not enough people stacking, since the teams lack a lot of immunity classes.

For Mythic, people need to dodge the overwhelming barrage to avoid getting unnecessary stacks and need to make sure they pop Unstable Mixture at 3 or 4 stacks. Overall damage could be higher. Azerite defensive traits should also be used instead of mobility to increase survivability.

Note: Outside of the start of the fight and whenever Inversion occurs, people should be better on stacking with their respective marks instead of being a continent away. Since Overflow happens more often than Inversion, it should be better to stack until it’s time to spread instead of the other way around. There’s also something about having more than 4-5 stacks at once, but it probably won’t kill by itself on heroic. Everyone that died last week was either soaking by themselves without a heavy defensive or stacked with just 1 other person and still died due to not using a defensive. Continue reading →