Welcome to StratFu!

First up, from tonight's PTR, an explanation of what Lord Marrowgar's hard mode is like:

• StratFu: Marrowgar Hard Mode (PTR)

Secondly, two class guides:

• Demonology and You, the much-anticipated Demonology/Metamorphosis guide from Brubaker of <Fusion>
• Raiding as a Combat Rogue, a guide to being a combat rogue from Ellyee of <Fusion>

And finally, fleshing out our ToC strats, two contributed boss guides:

• Semper Fortis VS Northrend Beasts from Stave of <Semper Fortis>
• Onslaught's guide to Lord Jaraxxus Hard Mode from Pulsar of <Onslaught>

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Swiped this from Idras of <I Stab Your Face> on Outland-EU on the EU icecrown progression thread:

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TL;DR summary of this entry: This system combines all of what I hated about Algalon and ToC and makes it worse. Raiding used to be relaxing, the most frustrating thing was losing a few hours to bad internet -- when did Blizzard decide they needed to force 9-10 guilds in the world to get out of the house more?

Not looking forwards to dreading server instability and key people DC'ing again and ruining the week.

Summarizing this post from Daelo: Icecrown Citadel Raid Access Progression

First off, there's multi-week gates for normal mode icecrown. So your raiders will be bored. The good news is, this means we can probably get past the holidays without hard-mode raids, so holiday schedules will be easier.

The unlockings are (with "several" week breaks in between):

1. Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang
2. Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide
3. the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana'thel
4. Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available

The reasoning? Very clear this time, no beating around the bush: they're playing nursemaid and mommy:

"We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace."

Unfortunately that's all the good news.

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While doing a 'view source' on a Blizzard forum page I came across this amusing gem. This particular post was by Bornakk, but this script is actually at the end of every single post made (e.g. the next one has race = "Undead" realm = "Boulderfist" yon_hero = "Shadowavatar")

<script>
if(this['arrpee']){ 
gender = -1;
if(gender==1){ third = "she"; possess = "her"; dobject="her"; }
else{ third = "he"; possess = "his"; dobject="him"; }
race = "blue poster"
realm = "Azeroth"
yon_hero = "Bornakk"
//lulz(0); //BBQs 
if(13395581 == rpf) lulz(0);
else arrpee(0);
}
</script>

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First off, another great class guide from <CUTIES ONLY>, this time from Raisa: Improve Your Destruction High-End Raid DPS

We got our first Northrend Beasts strat, thank you Stave of <Semper Fortis>: Semper Fortis VS Northrend Beasts

For those enjoying leveling alts or looking to get into the healing game, we have a detailed summary of the healing classes from Shanyn on Terenas: So you want to be a healer: Which class should I choose?

But if all of that is just too serious for you, relax and laugh with YOGSCAST of <Ye Olde Goone Squade> on The Venture Co, who make some of my favorite WoW movies:

• Ogrelon ("OGRE SAVE WORLD!" - Algalon)
• Anub'arak 25 Heroic with YOGS
• Twin Val'kyr Heroic 25 - Cheesy Door Strat

We're always looking for more content, be it funny or serious, world

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Thanks to the folks in #stratfu on gamesurge for sending this along.

Apparently it also works in the lagoon right before Anub, if you want to torture your guildmates who went AFK there.

From the YouTube information:

Song used: Yoshi's Island - Super Smash Bros. Melee

1. Pick up the daily quest "What Do You Feed a Yeti, Anyway?" (Note: Only obtained if Exalted with the Sunreavers or Silver Covenant)

2. Pick up LOTS of Fresh Chum(You can grab as much as you want)

3. Use the Fresh Chum in ANY spot where you may swim (Not sure if lava works).

4. ????

5. Profit

Click the 'more' link to view the embedded video.

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Unfortunately I was a bit slow, and we're already up to 141 users in the meantime, but I'd still like to take some time for a surprise profile of Meuhrlin of <Bière de Légende> ("Legendary Beer") on Rashgarroth (EU), our 100th user who joined about four days ago.

I'm just as curious -- if not moreso -- about the people who play WoW as I am about the encounters themselves, so this provided me with a good excuse to get to know one of our 'early adopters.'

First off, who is that masked man... err, I mean, who are you?

Used to be Meuhrlin, gnome mage, GM of Bière de Légende (Legendary Beer in FR) on EU-Rashgarroth.

Just changed race to Alumeuhse (basicly "slut" in french, with part of my old nick in for people to find me), Draenei mage, for the +1% hit our raid is missing and because gnomes are fun, but seriously, if my guildies read any of this, stop the gnome hate!

Tell me about your guild -- and are you recruiting?

What we are recruiting? Not much. We're actually on a tight roaster like you, but sometimes people have PC problems or studies and that is a real handicap. But we like it this way. We've know each other for 4 years now for some of us. We love our mates. We like people to fit in. Maybe another caster (SP, warlock or mage) could help. A resto shaman to replace our actual one who just took a break because he's fed up about the lack of love shamans get from Blizz.

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Tonight I rolled out a new "article watch" option. Each article has a link to watch it:

If you clck it, you will be watching the article:

In your profile you can configure options, by default these are turned on:

• Email Notification
• Automatically enable email notifications for posts that I start watching
• Send email notification when a post is updated or edited
• Send email notification when a post receives a new comment
• Watch Automatically
• Automatically watch posts that I comment on
• Automatically watch posts that I make
• Sharing
• Share my list of watched posts

On your profile page, you can see a complete list of articles you're watching and also optionally stop getting emailed or remove them:

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We've gotten some excellent class guides for stratfu recently. If you want some raiding advice from some top raiders, check them out:

• Unholy DK: Guide to TotGC by Potlol of Cuties Only


• Marksman Hunter Guide by Bowwflex of Cuties Only


• Introduction to Retribution by Bluedeep of Cuties Only


• Destruction Warlock Made Easy by Brubaker of Fusion

We also have a video from Coldbear of Renaissance for, as he says, "the average feral dps player who wants to improve and learn how to continue improving long after she's forgotten about this video.

• CB05 Guide: How to Feral DPS

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It's been a long (but fun) road and I'm please to announce that the new version of StratFu is launched as of today. There are still plenty of rough edges, but no show-stoppers remain.

The new StratFu:

• Allows much heavier community participation
• Encourages others to contribute strategies and videos
• Is entirely "database driven", so articles can be related better
• Allows you to edit your comments ;)

I've been working on the design for the past year, working pretty seriously for the past six months, and doing little other than coding for the past two months. The result is almost 22,000 lines of PHP that are now running this site on top of the Drupal CMS.

Comments, feedback, and complaints are welcome.

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