Showing posts with label Serpent Shrine Cavern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Serpent Shrine Cavern. Show all posts
Friday, October 24, 2008
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
"...and the Sun did'th shine, and down from the Heavens reach'eth yon holy hand. And that thither hand shall typeth "/roll" and thine Lord doth smile upon thee, and upon thy screen shall appear 72 for thine raid to see, and the Lord boometh in deep James Earl Jones'eth voice'th....Thou Can Haz T5"
-Amava 25:17
So, any long-time readers here in my little corner of the information superhighway know that my WoW career, nay, my very existence, lives and dies by the never ending insatiable desire for phat lewtz and winning at WWS. And you've also likely figured out that my reasons for lusting after shiny purplez is purely so I can make those less fortunate or those with a smaller....er...um...dps bar, feel like the dirt under my dog's paws, and that burning drive nothing to do with lame and wishy-washy pursuits like seeing gear as a means to access more content for the team or using data to analyze my personal performance in my primary job of hurting bad guys.
Additionally, if you truly are a long-time reader over here, you've probably picked up on my sarcastic side.
As a player who has done most of his raiding during the "nerf content / buff players" phase of The Burning Crusade, I've been fortunate enough to avoid most of the Random Number Generator or Loot Envy issues that can plague raiders.
For me, most gear comes from faction rep, battlegrounds, arenas, badges. Makes it nice to have rarely even rolled "against" my teammates for loot.
But there is a strange thing that did happen. When we progressed into the 25's, the occasional loot item started becoming upgrade-quality, and as such, Amava threw a couple rolls out there. And wouldn't you know it, all that karma from earlier comes back and stings you in the tush, and you go ahead and win the first two rolls you go for.
Instant Looters Remorse! Go back to passing on everything. Ah, feels nice again, no rolling the dice, no feeling like you've taken from your teammates.
This little process takes us all the way to T5 and beyond. Kill Void Reaver a couple times, ok, now its time to start rolling on T5.
Wouldn't you know it, wham-o, win the damn roll.
Ok, ok, fine. Up to this point in life, no piece of loot or any roll for loot really made a profound impact or was something I was actively seeking or wanting.
Until the possibility of that tasty morsel of 2-piece T5 Bonus was dangled in front of my face.
With the introduction of all the new pets and capabilities in patch 3.0.2, the draw to T5 is just too great. Like Gollum on Mt Doom, I'd bite Elijah Wood's finger off for something to match my shoulders. A girl's got to accessorize, after all.
The 2-piece "indestructible pet" bonus is simply too game-altering for any sane hunter to NOT drool over.
Luckily, the T5 bonus is something lots of classes drool over, so the Guild made a decision to include some new T5 bosses into our raid schedule before WotLK, and while our focus is primarily on progress and new bosses, trying to farm T5 for people is also a priority, since its game-altering for a variety of classes.
So Wednesday night. SSC. Included in our raid is a trial tank we're reviewing, a friendly healer visiting, and a guildie playing on her out-of-guild alt (its complicated). Ultra smooth one-shot of Leotheras the Blind, and a progression kill of Fathom-Lord Karathress. Six T5 tokens!!!!
3 of the first 4 tokens go out of Guild!!!!!!
ZOMG! Never before has loot ruffled our feathers, this is just silly :-( But fair is fair, so to speak, and that's our loot policy, so gratz on you.
Then, on the fifth and most beautiful of all the Leg Tokens......I can haz T5.
Indestructible isn't even the right word.
I took Bubbles, at level 66 (note: not my raid pet...skittle the wasp is a nice and healthy level 70), straight over to western Nagrand to farm snakes for Cobra Scales, since these new pants are gonna need some polish.
Using instant-cast halloween broom mount, very easy to sneak in between the patrolling elites.
What fun is that?
Level 66 pet against level 71 elite. Pish posh. Ok, so threat was a bit of an issue and I had to shadowmeld once while FD and MD were on cooldown, but T5 bringeth health, not threat, and she misses a lot given the 5-level difference. Not even a scratch. Did have to keep Mend Pet running, but come on, this is a 71 elite here, high enough that he could deliver a crushing blow (four or more levels different). Probably been nerfed on 3.0.2 to hit more lightly, but don't tell Bubbles that.
Didn't have the balls to try out the 73 elite, largely due to the threat thing, so I'm gonna have to try that out, maybe with Aspect of the Beast to buff my pet's threat production. And I'm soooo going to see how many Outlands dungeons can be solo affairs as she gets closer to and actually dings 70.
Never thought I'd see the day!
Now, lets go farm whoever drops the T5 chest, because I'd rather put my Leggings of the Pursuit back on in favor of Merciless Gladiator's chest, but lets not get greedy here.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Alive and Progressin'
In a dramatic turn of events, Amava was still standing at the end of a progression boss kill.
Its been a while since that's happened. There was much rejoicing.
Anybody try a 25-person raid since tuesday's world shattering patch?
Its...i dunno...different?
Raid Setup
Sending out invites. Tanks do so much damage in their tanking spec/posture/gear that you can stack the raid with 'em.
No survival hunters to invite..oh yeah, mana battery now, not expose weakness.
On and on.
Try to setup the raid groups. Eh, not really much to do there, nearly everything has been converted to raid wide.
Mage leader tries to coordinate buffs amongst her colleagues. Nope, raid wide.
Paladins...well nevermind here, auras go raid-wide and blessings are totally changed.
On and on.
The Joy of a Dead Boss
Serpentshrine Cavern, Leotheras the Blind.
Wiki gives lots of descriptions for how various non-DPS classes can kill their Inner Demons.
Bah! Everybody does so much damage now, its just plain old silly.
Trash pulls were over in seconds. SECONDS! Even the ones with 9 mobs in them leading up to Lurker/Leo.
Massive Bog Lord guys, could barely target them before they were dead. Give the tank 0.5 seconds before opening fire and he's already got 6k threat built up.
First attempt at Leo. His health bar dropped faster than my sale price shoots up while pumping gas lately.
It really felt like Keystone Cops running round throwing whipcream pies and spraying seltzer on eachother. There's something comical about how silly the fights have become.
That said, took a couple tries, but we killed him on our first night trying.
A Pack of Loot Whores
T5 Yo!
Everybody's been drooling over the 2-piece T5 bonus, not just the Hunters.
Now we've got a second T5 dropping boss under out belts, which is nice.
The Hunter who landed himself a second piece of T5 will likely find himself spitefully placed in a party with the...oh wait....party composition barely matters. /doh, how can I spite people now :(
A Pack of Ego Maniacs
No combat log successfully captured the night, which is a pity since we're all anxious to seewho won at WWS how our new talents and attacks and such were performing.
Recount for the total run (newly installed and I didnt know how to reset it between boss fights) showed BM Hunter & MM Hunter nearly equal at the top (booya, BM tops by 700 damage for the night), followed by a Rogue. Didn't have a Ret Pally, so nothing hugely crushing to our ego. In other news, our main tank Prot Warrior was roughly 8th in overall damage, which is just insane. Lets stack the raid with tanks, no CC. Ever. Every mob gets a tank.
Mana, Mana, Everywhere
Strangely, I had ZERO mana issues the entire night.
When I say ZERO, I really mean ZERO. Felt like anytime I looked, I was at 100% mana or maybe 90%.
I walked into the fight with serious concerns about mana.
Dramatic changes to Aspect of the Viper, no chain drinking Fel Mana Potions, nearly every glyph for hunters involves mana conservation in one way or another.
Given all that, I was pretty worried about mana.
Nope.
Raid had a single Shammy dropping Mana Spring, a single Shadow Priest in the mana battery buff category. That's basically it for mana regeneration.
Individually, I was rolling with a 2H wep with Superior Mana Oil, drinking Elixir of Draenic Wisdom. I had no Glyphs installed because I discovered to my chagrin that you need to be near Lexicon of Power to apply them.
In my bag was my usual stock of 35 Fel Mana Potions.
When I went back to Aldor Bank to unload at the end of the night, I had in my bag...35 Fel Mana Potions.
I don't get it.
My shot rotation was manually chosen (poor poor macro, my #3 button was a sad panda from neglect), primarily Steady Shot. I tried keeping Serpent Sting up during boss fights, which is an interesting exercise to say the least. Arcane shots were added whenever I remembered to check the cooldown.
That said, the addition of more Arcane Shot and Serpent Sting had me worried that it'd be more mana guzzling than my old 1:1 macro.
Nope. Nearly 100% the entire fight.
Taste the Rainbow
Skittle the Purple Wasp seemed to do nicely. Only level 69 but plenty survivable as long as her mama remembers to recall during whirlwind.
610 armor penetration is nice. I am under the impression that its a raid-wide armor debuff for all physical attacks, but I can't find anywhere that'll confirm that 100% for me or not.
Other hunters showed up with Silithid, Ravager and Cat. Gonna have to have a sit down and make sure somebody brings a Wolf too, pending the outcome of my "is it raid wide?" research above.
Buh Bye
So there you go, still raidin and progressin after the 3.0.2 patch. The Officers decided to go with 2 weekly raids instead of 3 until level 80 raiding, so we've got probably 5 more nights to cram in as many bosses as we can. Keep fingers crossed for another kill in Tempest Keep (Al'ar, you evil evil bird), and some sweet lovin in Black Temple.
Its been a while since that's happened. There was much rejoicing.
Anybody try a 25-person raid since tuesday's world shattering patch?
Its...i dunno...different?
Raid Setup
Sending out invites. Tanks do so much damage in their tanking spec/posture/gear that you can stack the raid with 'em.
No survival hunters to invite..oh yeah, mana battery now, not expose weakness.
On and on.
Try to setup the raid groups. Eh, not really much to do there, nearly everything has been converted to raid wide.
Mage leader tries to coordinate buffs amongst her colleagues. Nope, raid wide.
Paladins...well nevermind here, auras go raid-wide and blessings are totally changed.
On and on.
The Joy of a Dead Boss
Serpentshrine Cavern, Leotheras the Blind.
Wiki gives lots of descriptions for how various non-DPS classes can kill their Inner Demons.
Bah! Everybody does so much damage now, its just plain old silly.
Trash pulls were over in seconds. SECONDS! Even the ones with 9 mobs in them leading up to Lurker/Leo.
Massive Bog Lord guys, could barely target them before they were dead. Give the tank 0.5 seconds before opening fire and he's already got 6k threat built up.
First attempt at Leo. His health bar dropped faster than my sale price shoots up while pumping gas lately.
It really felt like Keystone Cops running round throwing whipcream pies and spraying seltzer on eachother. There's something comical about how silly the fights have become.
That said, took a couple tries, but we killed him on our first night trying.
A Pack of Loot Whores
T5 Yo!
Everybody's been drooling over the 2-piece T5 bonus, not just the Hunters.
Now we've got a second T5 dropping boss under out belts, which is nice.
The Hunter who landed himself a second piece of T5 will likely find himself spitefully placed in a party with the...oh wait....party composition barely matters. /doh, how can I spite people now :(
A Pack of Ego Maniacs
No combat log successfully captured the night, which is a pity since we're all anxious to see
Recount for the total run (newly installed and I didnt know how to reset it between boss fights) showed BM Hunter & MM Hunter nearly equal at the top (booya, BM tops by 700 damage for the night), followed by a Rogue. Didn't have a Ret Pally, so nothing hugely crushing to our ego. In other news, our main tank Prot Warrior was roughly 8th in overall damage, which is just insane. Lets stack the raid with tanks, no CC. Ever. Every mob gets a tank.
Mana, Mana, Everywhere
Strangely, I had ZERO mana issues the entire night.
When I say ZERO, I really mean ZERO. Felt like anytime I looked, I was at 100% mana or maybe 90%.
I walked into the fight with serious concerns about mana.
Dramatic changes to Aspect of the Viper, no chain drinking Fel Mana Potions, nearly every glyph for hunters involves mana conservation in one way or another.
Given all that, I was pretty worried about mana.
Nope.
Raid had a single Shammy dropping Mana Spring, a single Shadow Priest in the mana battery buff category. That's basically it for mana regeneration.
Individually, I was rolling with a 2H wep with Superior Mana Oil, drinking Elixir of Draenic Wisdom. I had no Glyphs installed because I discovered to my chagrin that you need to be near Lexicon of Power to apply them.
In my bag was my usual stock of 35 Fel Mana Potions.
When I went back to Aldor Bank to unload at the end of the night, I had in my bag...35 Fel Mana Potions.
I don't get it.
My shot rotation was manually chosen (poor poor macro, my #3 button was a sad panda from neglect), primarily Steady Shot. I tried keeping Serpent Sting up during boss fights, which is an interesting exercise to say the least. Arcane shots were added whenever I remembered to check the cooldown.
That said, the addition of more Arcane Shot and Serpent Sting had me worried that it'd be more mana guzzling than my old 1:1 macro.
Nope. Nearly 100% the entire fight.
Taste the Rainbow
Skittle the Purple Wasp seemed to do nicely. Only level 69 but plenty survivable as long as her mama remembers to recall during whirlwind.
610 armor penetration is nice. I am under the impression that its a raid-wide armor debuff for all physical attacks, but I can't find anywhere that'll confirm that 100% for me or not.
Other hunters showed up with Silithid, Ravager and Cat. Gonna have to have a sit down and make sure somebody brings a Wolf too, pending the outcome of my "is it raid wide?" research above.
Buh Bye
So there you go, still raidin and progressin after the 3.0.2 patch. The Officers decided to go with 2 weekly raids instead of 3 until level 80 raiding, so we've got probably 5 more nights to cram in as many bosses as we can. Keep fingers crossed for another kill in Tempest Keep (Al'ar, you evil evil bird), and some sweet lovin in Black Temple.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Fonts, Spite, and Progress
So to keep life interesting, I'm typing this in Comic Sans MS font and gonna see if it pastes into Blogger's input window and keeps the font. Let me know what font you see this display in. But in the mean time, don't I feel fancy while I'm typing?
Think of somebody walking past my cubicle now......Woah. That's not Times New Roman!!! Where'd that out-of-the-box-thinking, innovative, ponytail wearing, go getter come up with that font? He must be destined for corporate greatness.
Edit: Although my pumpkin pie hair cut is long and shaggy enough for a pony tail, my early-mid-life crisis hasn't yet hit the point that I'm willing to go out in public with a pony tail. What I do in the privacy of my own home is my business.
I'm back to my "renewed focus on work so as to maintain enough income to justify the ponytail" kick, so I'm trying to keep it short. ish.
So there'll be some speed topics to gloss over the normal braindump. Which I seem to be falling back into as I sit here and write. /doh
Progress
Brief recap. The other day. Raid about to face Lurker. Amava disconnects. Amava pouts. Amava stews. Raid figures out how to kill Lurker. Trash respawns seconds before iminent boss death. Raid wipes. End of recap.
In the heat of excitement following that near-kill, the GM announces that there shall be a raid the following night to finish the job.
That's a thursday.
In the nearly 9 months that we've been raiding, we've never deviated from Wed,Sun,Mon schedule.
Knowing that we never stray from the schedule, Amava specifically makes arrangements in RL whenever possible to accommodate said rock-steady raid schedule.
While Amava was in an airplane at 30,000 feet, on a normally raid-free thursday night, the Guild killed Lurker below.
Amava lands, claims baggage, drives home, checks guild's WWS site and reads report of one-shot Lurker progression kill.
Amava becomes angry. Childish, immature, prima dona-esque. But angry.
The anger has passed, and I am now in an emotional state where I can bask in the Guild's accomplishment and not cuddle with my spite.
After allowing the feelings to pass, I calmly shared my feelings with the other officers. They also feel that the Thursday move was perhaps not the best idea in the world, for more reasons than just Amava's spite.
Go Team!
/golf-clap
Amava puts her feet up
Sunday. Normally scheduled raid night. This one is our short night, only 2 hours.
Head into Magtheridon.
Amava is visiting family, and has sleeping folks right nearby, so doesn't want to speak on voice. Plus, I'm still clinging to spite a little bit at this point. Hell hath no fury like a man-playing-a-night-elf-chick scorned. Somebody else has to lead the raid.
Holy ez-mode, Batman.
I got to sit back, put my feet up, eat some haggis (was at a Scottish festival earlier that day. Actually quite tasty, if you can kinda block the mental image of the food's contents).
No pressure about finding the players. No stress about ensuring everybody knew their assignments. No onslaught of whispers with random thoughts, suggestions, complaints, desires.
Just pew pew pew. And a cube click here and there.
Ok, so somewhere during this raid was when I was able to let go of the spite. Watching my fellow officer serve as Raid Leader, and doing an admirable-but-harried job, showed me that I'm perhaps being petty. /sue-me
Lots of new Champion titles were earned that night. There was much rejoicing.
Progress. Almost
Monday. Another normally scheduled raid night. Some bickering over whether to try two ZA raids or one 25-man, and if 25-man, which one.
Decide to head on up to Tempest Keep for our first visit to that dungeon.
Amava was back in the driver seat, free of any childish hard feelings from a few days ago.
Holy hard hittin trash, Batman.
Took a lil bit to figure out how to manage the trash, but we nailed it.
Went to Void Reaver.
Wiped in a bloody mess our first try. Didn't realize quite how fast those Arcane Orbs come at you.
About to try again, with a nicely organized setup before we started.
Tank gives countdown for pull. While tank was running in to the boss, somebody starts a heal going. Pulls boss. Major chaos ensues.
But we did get a very nice feel for how to position and how to maneuver away from orbs.
Trash respawn ended the night, but me thinks Void Reaver will die soon.
I hope people realize what I mean when I say "when targeted, you need to run straight away from the center of the room, towards the back wall. Turn with your mouse, because if you turn with your keyboard, not enough time to run away". I got a lot of vacant stares from that one.
T5 Shoulders, you will be mine. Oh yes, you will be mine. Oh, wait. I'm passing on loot for the next few weeks to spread the wealth. So maybe not "mine" in the personal sense, but "mine" in the royal Guild sense.
Think of somebody walking past my cubicle now......Woah. That's not Times New Roman!!! Where'd that out-of-the-box-thinking, innovative, ponytail wearing, go getter come up with that font? He must be destined for corporate greatness.
Edit: Although my pumpkin pie hair cut is long and shaggy enough for a pony tail, my early-mid-life crisis hasn't yet hit the point that I'm willing to go out in public with a pony tail. What I do in the privacy of my own home is my business.
I'm back to my "renewed focus on work so as to maintain enough income to justify the ponytail" kick, so I'm trying to keep it short. ish.
So there'll be some speed topics to gloss over the normal braindump. Which I seem to be falling back into as I sit here and write. /doh
Progress
Brief recap. The other day. Raid about to face Lurker. Amava disconnects. Amava pouts. Amava stews. Raid figures out how to kill Lurker. Trash respawns seconds before iminent boss death. Raid wipes. End of recap.
In the heat of excitement following that near-kill, the GM announces that there shall be a raid the following night to finish the job.
That's a thursday.
In the nearly 9 months that we've been raiding, we've never deviated from Wed,Sun,Mon schedule.
Knowing that we never stray from the schedule, Amava specifically makes arrangements in RL whenever possible to accommodate said rock-steady raid schedule.
While Amava was in an airplane at 30,000 feet, on a normally raid-free thursday night, the Guild killed Lurker below.
Amava lands, claims baggage, drives home, checks guild's WWS site and reads report of one-shot Lurker progression kill.
Amava becomes angry. Childish, immature, prima dona-esque. But angry.
The anger has passed, and I am now in an emotional state where I can bask in the Guild's accomplishment and not cuddle with my spite.
After allowing the feelings to pass, I calmly shared my feelings with the other officers. They also feel that the Thursday move was perhaps not the best idea in the world, for more reasons than just Amava's spite.
Go Team!
/golf-clap
Amava puts her feet up
Sunday. Normally scheduled raid night. This one is our short night, only 2 hours.
Head into Magtheridon.
Amava is visiting family, and has sleeping folks right nearby, so doesn't want to speak on voice. Plus, I'm still clinging to spite a little bit at this point. Hell hath no fury like a man-playing-a-night-elf-chick scorned. Somebody else has to lead the raid.
Holy ez-mode, Batman.
I got to sit back, put my feet up, eat some haggis (was at a Scottish festival earlier that day. Actually quite tasty, if you can kinda block the mental image of the food's contents).
No pressure about finding the players. No stress about ensuring everybody knew their assignments. No onslaught of whispers with random thoughts, suggestions, complaints, desires.
Just pew pew pew. And a cube click here and there.
Ok, so somewhere during this raid was when I was able to let go of the spite. Watching my fellow officer serve as Raid Leader, and doing an admirable-but-harried job, showed me that I'm perhaps being petty. /sue-me
Lots of new Champion titles were earned that night. There was much rejoicing.
Progress. Almost
Monday. Another normally scheduled raid night. Some bickering over whether to try two ZA raids or one 25-man, and if 25-man, which one.
Decide to head on up to Tempest Keep for our first visit to that dungeon.
Amava was back in the driver seat, free of any childish hard feelings from a few days ago.
Holy hard hittin trash, Batman.
Took a lil bit to figure out how to manage the trash, but we nailed it.
Went to Void Reaver.
Wiped in a bloody mess our first try. Didn't realize quite how fast those Arcane Orbs come at you.
About to try again, with a nicely organized setup before we started.
Tank gives countdown for pull. While tank was running in to the boss, somebody starts a heal going. Pulls boss. Major chaos ensues.
But we did get a very nice feel for how to position and how to maneuver away from orbs.
Trash respawn ended the night, but me thinks Void Reaver will die soon.
I hope people realize what I mean when I say "when targeted, you need to run straight away from the center of the room, towards the back wall. Turn with your mouse, because if you turn with your keyboard, not enough time to run away". I got a lot of vacant stares from that one.
T5 Shoulders, you will be mine. Oh yes, you will be mine. Oh, wait. I'm passing on loot for the next few weeks to spread the wealth. So maybe not "mine" in the personal sense, but "mine" in the royal Guild sense.
Friday, August 29, 2008
F#$@. Respawn. Timers.
Yeah, so long story short, no f@#$ing ribs.
Sure, sure, they had baby back ribs on the menu.
I was very specific in my desire for beef ribs. The big dinosaur ribs like they put on the Flintstone's car and tip the vehicle over.
The substitute steak was pretty damn good, tho.
On to the raid.
We get 24 people from the guild together, which is pretty f@#$ing sweet. And the other night we had all 25 from our guild for the very first T5 run. Nice!
So this night, following the rib-less disaster of a sales pitch, we head into SSC, with aspirations of making a Fish Taco out of the Lurker Below.
Up to this point, we'd tried him 2 nights in a row. Clearly the T5 content is a little more demanding on the raid members. For a progression team, it seems tuned such that even a single slacker will cause trouble.
Head on in, relatively straight forward push through the trash.
Then the connection issues started up. One player was continuously DC'ing. Then another, then another.
And right as we clear the final trash pull that causes the water to boil and all the fish to be belly up, Amava begins her lovely waltz with the DC Monster.
Maybe 15 minutes or so, trying to log back in, reading the Blizzard forums which seem to indicate this is happening to lots of people.
Through it all, my Vent connection was perfect, so I was able to rule out my local hotel Internet connection.
So I made the call to replace me. We luckily had a Mage available, so off they go.
And I listened on Vent.
Stewing.
Just not fun to be blocked by technical issues, when all the other stars were aligned that night.
First few tries, same old, same old. People are having issues (A) avoiding Spout, and (B) crowd controlling the archers on the islands, and (C) allowing the tanks to pick up the Guardians on the donut, which is my pet name for the island that Lurker lives in the middle of.
Then one attempt, everything just seemed to come together.
Everyone was diving deep to avoid Spout. I had put a Hunter and a Mage on each island, and they all worked out how to properly CC the archers. Everyone was showing discipline and allowing the tanks to pick up their Guardians.
The boss was progressively heading towards a watery grave. The raid was suitably healthy, with nearly every member alive.
Amava was listening in on vent, pacing in the Hotel room, like an expectant father in the waiting room, unable to do anything to change the course of events, but hugely anxious for the outcome. (*)
Then. The Tragedy. The Travesty!
Somewhere around 27% or so, with things going strong, and a boss-death seeming imminent.
Everybody dives below to avoid a spout.
And all sorts of WTF's start flying around.
The damn fish in the water respawned, and wiped the raid.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
We're so going back in there and kicking his ass. And I'll accept no technical issues, BLIZZARD!!!!!! /shakes fist
(*) This is the year 2000, and modern fathers play an active role in the actual delivery room, not pacing in the waiting room, smoking cigars, crossing fingers for a boy. I use the simile in jest.
Sure, sure, they had baby back ribs on the menu.
I was very specific in my desire for beef ribs. The big dinosaur ribs like they put on the Flintstone's car and tip the vehicle over.
The substitute steak was pretty damn good, tho.
On to the raid.
We get 24 people from the guild together, which is pretty f@#$ing sweet. And the other night we had all 25 from our guild for the very first T5 run. Nice!
So this night, following the rib-less disaster of a sales pitch, we head into SSC, with aspirations of making a Fish Taco out of the Lurker Below.
Up to this point, we'd tried him 2 nights in a row. Clearly the T5 content is a little more demanding on the raid members. For a progression team, it seems tuned such that even a single slacker will cause trouble.
Head on in, relatively straight forward push through the trash.
Then the connection issues started up. One player was continuously DC'ing. Then another, then another.
And right as we clear the final trash pull that causes the water to boil and all the fish to be belly up, Amava begins her lovely waltz with the DC Monster.
Maybe 15 minutes or so, trying to log back in, reading the Blizzard forums which seem to indicate this is happening to lots of people.
Through it all, my Vent connection was perfect, so I was able to rule out my local hotel Internet connection.
So I made the call to replace me. We luckily had a Mage available, so off they go.
And I listened on Vent.
Stewing.
Just not fun to be blocked by technical issues, when all the other stars were aligned that night.
First few tries, same old, same old. People are having issues (A) avoiding Spout, and (B) crowd controlling the archers on the islands, and (C) allowing the tanks to pick up the Guardians on the donut, which is my pet name for the island that Lurker lives in the middle of.
Then one attempt, everything just seemed to come together.
Everyone was diving deep to avoid Spout. I had put a Hunter and a Mage on each island, and they all worked out how to properly CC the archers. Everyone was showing discipline and allowing the tanks to pick up their Guardians.
The boss was progressively heading towards a watery grave. The raid was suitably healthy, with nearly every member alive.
Amava was listening in on vent, pacing in the Hotel room, like an expectant father in the waiting room, unable to do anything to change the course of events, but hugely anxious for the outcome. (*)
Then. The Tragedy. The Travesty!
Somewhere around 27% or so, with things going strong, and a boss-death seeming imminent.
Everybody dives below to avoid a spout.
And all sorts of WTF's start flying around.
The damn fish in the water respawned, and wiped the raid.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
We're so going back in there and kicking his ass. And I'll accept no technical issues, BLIZZARD!!!!!! /shakes fist
(*) This is the year 2000, and modern fathers play an active role in the actual delivery room, not pacing in the waiting room, smoking cigars, crossing fingers for a boy. I use the simile in jest.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Mile High Ribs
So I'm on a business trip.
Visiting some software vendor who stands to make a fortune I recommend to my company that we buy their software.
Naturally they have a vested interest in making sure they take care of my needs.
Their vision was to take me out, wine and dine me.
I told them "I raid monday and wednesday, so tuesday, you better stack a pile of Texas ribs higher than I can jump."
See, I like me some ribs.
I'll tell you tomorrow how the ribs are.
Back to the WoW.
Things have been pretty cool.
SSC. Two nights in a row. Total of 10 attempts at Lurker Below.
No boss kill yet, best attempt at 60%.
On a feel good note, tons and tons of positive feedback for Amava on how the raids run and how I keep the team together through hours and hours of wiping. That strokes the ego better than topping the damage meter.
If we struggle on Lurker some more, I think either Hydross, or maybe a visit to Void Reaver might be in order.
On a separate note, I tried out some Dual-Boxing action. Undead Mage and Troll Priest. Lots of fun. Nearly fully automated controls between the two windows, so I only have to use the Priest's WoW window to do quest related stuff. Not sure if it'll become my primary alt-related activity, but it sure makes for a neat diversion from time to time.
Visiting some software vendor who stands to make a fortune I recommend to my company that we buy their software.
Naturally they have a vested interest in making sure they take care of my needs.
Their vision was to take me out, wine and dine me.
I told them "I raid monday and wednesday, so tuesday, you better stack a pile of Texas ribs higher than I can jump."
See, I like me some ribs.
I'll tell you tomorrow how the ribs are.
Back to the WoW.
Things have been pretty cool.
SSC. Two nights in a row. Total of 10 attempts at Lurker Below.
No boss kill yet, best attempt at 60%.
On a feel good note, tons and tons of positive feedback for Amava on how the raids run and how I keep the team together through hours and hours of wiping. That strokes the ego better than topping the damage meter.
If we struggle on Lurker some more, I think either Hydross, or maybe a visit to Void Reaver might be in order.
On a separate note, I tried out some Dual-Boxing action. Undead Mage and Troll Priest. Lots of fun. Nearly fully automated controls between the two windows, so I only have to use the Priest's WoW window to do quest related stuff. Not sure if it'll become my primary alt-related activity, but it sure makes for a neat diversion from time to time.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Primals, primals, everywhere
Talked things over with the Officers and it looks like we're going to try to accelerate our progress a little bit. We're all anxious that the xpac is on the horizon, and the raids that we're doing now will be long forgotten by Christmas. As long as we feel the team is overall geared up, even close to enough, we're gonna try to push past bosses as fast as we can. If a boss has already been killed, and is considered optional to a dungeon, pretty much gonna skip.
I was originally hoping to farm Gruul's and Magtheridon, and master each until we could do both together in a single 2 hour raid. After talking it over, we figure that we're pretty much ready to move on, and not linger too much longer. Kill Maggy a couple more times, just for the sake of proving its not a fluke, and to get a couple more pieces of gear for folks to boost up some healing capacity and maybe some under performing DPS.
That means SSC is coming up soon. If we have 20 ppl from the guild online this Sunday, we'll probably go in.
That means we need the specialized magic resist gear for our tanks.
That means we need primals galore.
Luckily, Amava's got a financial manager (AH mule alt) who likes to squirrel away valuables for rainy days, and so a couple of stacks of Lifes, Fires, and Waters went into the Guild Bank, getting us pretty close to what we need. Supposedly also need Shadow, but I'm all out. Time to kill some of the Void guys over by the Clefthoof farming grounds.
Its a little corny, but there's a part of me that likes the Guild-wide effort like gathering up Primals to gear people up.
Of course, there's also a part of me that thinks that specialized gear for just one encounter is stupid. And even more so once one of those players jumps ship, and takes their soulbound resist gear with them.
But, at least for now, I'm somewhat amused by the process.
I was originally hoping to farm Gruul's and Magtheridon, and master each until we could do both together in a single 2 hour raid. After talking it over, we figure that we're pretty much ready to move on, and not linger too much longer. Kill Maggy a couple more times, just for the sake of proving its not a fluke, and to get a couple more pieces of gear for folks to boost up some healing capacity and maybe some under performing DPS.
That means SSC is coming up soon. If we have 20 ppl from the guild online this Sunday, we'll probably go in.
That means we need the specialized magic resist gear for our tanks.
That means we need primals galore.
Luckily, Amava's got a financial manager (AH mule alt) who likes to squirrel away valuables for rainy days, and so a couple of stacks of Lifes, Fires, and Waters went into the Guild Bank, getting us pretty close to what we need. Supposedly also need Shadow, but I'm all out. Time to kill some of the Void guys over by the Clefthoof farming grounds.
Its a little corny, but there's a part of me that likes the Guild-wide effort like gathering up Primals to gear people up.
Of course, there's also a part of me that thinks that specialized gear for just one encounter is stupid. And even more so once one of those players jumps ship, and takes their soulbound resist gear with them.
But, at least for now, I'm somewhat amused by the process.
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