Make sure you enter our discord raffles, there are several cool prizes up for grabs!

Also: At 11am eastern, all members of Ministry of Defense are welcome to try their luck at pulling prizes, once a day, from the last guild bank tab. In that last tab are a Depleted Kyparium Rocket Mount, a Geosynchronous World Spinner Mount, a Spring Strider mount, gold prizes, battle pets and some ‘ZONK!’ prizes. If you get a winning letter from the last guild bank tab, please in-game mail it to Urostek. I want to thank @Lunzzul for helping set this up and @Telanlan for donating some of the prizes!

All winners must be a member of Ministry of Defense in good standing.

So, since the Gurubashi Tournament was super fun, we are going to do it again Saturday, instead of the scheduled Rated Battlegrounds!

This time, there’s a twist!!

An anonymous sponsor has set a prize for 200,000 gold to the final winner. That’s right! Two hundred THOUSAND.

Because of this being literally more than a single token, to avoid gear differentials and people who are just god amongst men at their classes being paired with people who haven’t had the same experience levels, everyone who wishes to participate will be required to make a trial character for this event. You can be any class, role, and spec that you wish, but it MUST be a trial with the stock gearset.

I hope to see everyone in the arena Saturday! Let’s get as many people as possible to make it an interesting last pre-BFA event. Betting is not only welcome, but it is also extremely encouraged 😉

PvP in Battle for Azeroth

So, since Blizz did us a solid and decided to add some Warmode features early, here’s a quick rundown of what its going to look like for anyone interested!

This is essentially a TL;DR, so if there is something you don’t understand completely, refer to this.

What’s New

Bounties

When a player in Warmode manages to kill more than 10 players of the opposing faction, they have a “bounty” placed on them. When a player gets a bounty on them, you will be notified when he or she comes near you, and you will be able to see it on your map. You can also loot this person when you kill him or her and get a nice little prize.

Air Drops

This one is super fun. An above aircraft will occasionally drop a crate that the two factions can fight over. Once a faction has control of this crate, anyone in that faction can loot it. Right now, its only available in Dark Shore, but it will be all over the new zones!

Achievements

So, one thing that I am REALLY excited about, is the Conqueror of Azeroth title that will be available in Battle for Azeroth. These two new features will unlock three of the requirements for the achievement.  Saturday, August 4, we will try to get as many as we can done. This section will just be a quick little guide for anyone interested in  participating, as well  as for anyone who just wants to do it on their own. They are all pretty straight forward.

August 4th Event

Band of Brothers

Band of Brothers is a four part achievement that requires you to be in a 2-5 person party.

  • Honorable kill
  • Loot Player Bounty
  • Complete Rare Elite World Quest
  • Loot War Supply Chest

War Supplied

  • Open a War Supply Crate from a air supply drop while within War Mode

Bounty Hunting

  • Loot 10 bounties from slain players while within War Mode.

As you may be able to tell, these aren’t exactly one day achievements, but my goal is to get as close to the requirements as possible. The full achievement with all the requirements is listed here. I hope to see all of you on Saturday, and as always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask away!

If you raided with us at all this season and have attained AOTC, don’t forget to submit your mount photo! (You don’t have to have gotten AOTC with us!)

How to do it is detailed in this post.

I’ll be adding any one who has submitted a picture and posting the shot I took last week on Tuesday! This photo will be used as part of the promotional images on the site.

This will be my last wrap-up until BfA and Uldir. pre-patch is going to be hectic, and we’ll be focusing more on personal changes to classes and how to raid with those changes, than on raid mechanics.

Wednesday: Heroic Lower

We had a few new & returning players to our heroic run this week!

Imonar we got a little too excited and too hasty on, with crossing the bridge the second time. We’ve become a little overconfident, and a little lax in being careful. As a result we had a wipe at only 6% health left. Raid Lead Reminder: stay behind the tanks! There’s no point in getting there first and missing heals or stepping in something bad.

Kin’Garoth, similarly, had a few mechanics issues. We had early Ruiner deaths across the board. We try to give ample time for calling out Ruined ahead of time, but you should all have timers that show when these things are being cast (especially you new folks). Raid Lead Reminder: Keep an ear out for important callouts. Ruiner and balls are both avoidable medhanics. We’ll do our best to help you by making others cut extraneous chatter.

Varimathras had tank issues again. Our first pull was really good. After that, we could barely get between two movement rotations before wiping. Once we got those issues sorted out, we downed him.

Wednesday Logs

Saturday: We did it, Reddit!

WE DOWNED COVEN!

It only took us 3 attempts that night. Basically, we needed decent RNG on the add phases. If we could have everyone up for the healing adds, we were golden. We finally got a good one, and took those bitches down.

After that, we rolled onto Aggramar for a while, and then Argus. Aggramar had 4 wipes, including one that was very nearly a kill. Mostly, we’re struggling on add management and CC. Our first add phase will often go well, while the second…is a mess. We also had the large adds brought too close to one another, or too close to smaller adds, on a couple occasions. Aggramar is….aggravating…and requires us to be very precise in our movements.

Saturday Logs

Sunday: Bonus Argus Kill

I didn’t take logs. We killed him, for the first time, with no PUGs. It was great to get one final kill in on Heroic before the squish and great to do it “alone”. It’s been a great season and that was a lovely way to wrap it up.

Monday: Alt Night

First off, we had no wipes. That doesn’t happen much, especially not when we go for a record-setting 9 kills on raid bosses.

We had a very good and relaxed time. We had multiple tanks at points, multiple people under our minimum requirements (last night before squish – why not have some fun with it?), and plenty of fresh faces. We hope you guys will come back! Here’s some quick tips on the various fights:

Garothi: DPS should run decimation to the right-hand side of the screen.

Coven: Melee should never be on Noura; make sure not to stand close to one another when we have lightning adds; don’t stand in the middle during flames!

Aggramar: Everybody did a great job. We can tell that the newbies did a great job listening to raid lead calls and really worked hard here. We had only two deaths!

Argus: We could use a few more DPS paying attention to when orbs spawn, and some of the blights were messy. Make sure to bring blights back as far as possible in phase 1. Conversely, move the buff drops to the right. Be good about practicing only interrupting the proper spell on normal, and by the time you face Heroic, you’ll be a-ok!

Felhounds: Nobody died. I got the Charhound. Can’t complain 😉 Ranged, be sure to stack tightly on the blue (ranged) marker unless you have the fire mechanics. This will prevent hardships on the healers, and is good practice for heroic, when fear becomes an issue.

Eonar: It’s hard to mess her up these days. Enjoy the free tier pieces!

Imonar: We had a few people who didn’t quite understand sleep canister, but repeating directions of where to stand or go, I could see that listening comprehension was pretty good in this group. We rearranged and moved together pretty well. Lasers were an issue – I had to call out too many people who needed to move to one side or another. Be sure to watch videos of this fight, and pay attention to your in-game warnings! We also had a ton of people simply plow over mechanics on the bridge back across. Much like on heroic, wait for tanks to go first (unless you’re REALLY self-assured).

Kin’garoth: Some of you died to avoidable mechanics like Ruiner. And not many were stacked properly. It’s incredibly important that after you dodge a mechanic, like Ruiner, you get back to blue as soon as possible. It is better for you to stop DPS and run, than to stop-go-stop-go and mess up the raid with bad Ruiner placement. This week was no problem, but next week, Raid Leads will be naming names on who is not standing in the right spot. It’s not about shaming you, it’s about making sure you can make things easier on the tanks, healers, and your fellow DPS. The other advantage to standing on blue is that when Ruiner comes out, you can run in the direction of where you’re supposed to go next. This is especially important on heroic – dodging Ruiner in the direction of Yellow or Purple will make it easier for you to get to that location when you need to, thus increasing your DPS output 🙂

High Command: NOBODY died? Woah. Great job, healers! And tanks and DPS, I guess. DPS, make sure to stack behind and to the left of the boss, and be sure to dodge bombs that get placed under your feet. Again, Raid Leads will be naming names in the future instead of making general comments. Again, not to shame, but just so you know to pick up your awareness on some things a little more.

Monday Logs

Final Thoughts

Congratulations everyone on a wonderful Raid Season and expansion in general. We started coming together this year for raids and I’m super proud of how far we’ve come. I know the other Raid Leads are as well. I know we’re all very excited for BFA and for Uldir, and I know you are too.

Please take a few minutes to read our plans for raiding until BFA launch and Uldir launch.

New guys, I hope you return. Veterans and old hats, thanks for sticking with us.

Here’s to an amazing Battle for Azeroth.