Four Bosses, Four New Items, 8 Deaths

Not sure if I should call it a win or a lose evening.

Ulduar is not my friend! In fact I'm pretty sure it hates me and means to do me harm. Okay has done me harm. We made our second attempt on the raid last night and I found about a million ways to die. Okay 8 ways to die but that was more than almost anyone else. (One of our pallys led the charge in total number) Four of those were wipes. The rest, all me.

I only finished one boss fight last night from a vertical position. Most of the rest of the time I was "decorating the floor" as we like to say. I went from full armor at the beginning of the night to mostly red. It was not a good night for warlock survival. And what hurts the most is that most of them were my fault.

We started with Flame Leviathan and I got to drive a siege engine (tanking vehicle). My very patient gunner was our druid healer. Being new to seige engines I moved in too close to mobs and managed to get myself (and the druid) killed quickly on the trash from the towers. Not my finest moment. We both released and grabbed a new machine. It took us two tries to get the Leviathan down although in our defense we were doing the achievement method. The second time went much better for us but my vehicles health was very low by the end. Right before he died, our vehicle went and both the druid and I died...again.

Then it was on to Razorscale, the giant dragon that I get to harpoon to the ground. I love this fight because I get to play a huge role (mostly because I can teleport back to the harpoons quickly). The group starts by killing the adds which pop up from three towers. That is done until the harpoons are ready to fire. Then I teleport back and fire the harpoons to bring Razorscale to the ground and we all DPS him. He rises back up and it's rinse and repeat until he is at 50%. Then he is permanently grounded and we start the full on fight. It took us three tries to bring him down. The last try everything was going well until he was finally grounded, when he resisted the tank's taunts and came straight for me. I lasted one swipe of his paw and was down for the rest of the fight. He managed to bring down two others before the tanks finally got him under control and the guild brought him down while I anxiously watched health bars and bit my fingernails.

Then on to XT. I hate this fight. I'm not kidding. This is my toughest fight and so far I have not been standing at the end of any of our attempts. When we went two weeks ago it was the only one I died on. This time I died quickly on each of our attempts. Embarrassingly quickly. One of my issues I've figured out is that I have not downloaded the new Deadly Boss Mods. So right before XT pounds the ground (causing all sorts of aoe damage) I get a DBM warning that I have to click on. I'll update that tonight and hopefully it will help a little. The problem with this fight isn't XT himself. It's the adds. The first attempt last night I was helping out with adds and actually surviving a bit. Until one of the bomb guys aggroed me and I died in a small explosion. The second death on this was my own stupidity. I was working XT only, when I saw a robot break past our hunters and head straight for him. If he reaches the boss, it will eat him and recover health. So I aggroed the robot. And couldn't get my soulshatter off in time. He came for me and killed me in two blows. Again decorating the floor while the rest of the group brought him down.

And we finished the night with the two handed giant of doom. (not his actual name. :) ) This big boy (Kologran) is a much more difficult fight than he looks. There is so much that needs to be healed. Jeff kept switching between his hunter and his shaman when we needed extra heals, which was helpful for us. In this fight, you need to kill the giants left hand, and then dps down the body. Kologran brings up adds from his shattered hand, shoots laser beams from his eyes, and grabs people and shakes them when his hand is alive. He's not the toughest fight there but he seems to give us fits. It took us at least three tries to get this one, but minutes before midnight success was finally ours. So far this fight is the only one I can can consistanly stay alive on.

So elaborate fights and many deaths would seem to make for a bad night. And it could have been. But the loot gods smiled upon the only dps cloth-wearing caster in the group. And I walked away with four new items. I've somehow become the group's master looter which is a fun and slightly nerve wracking role for me. I'm not the quickest player in the group and am pretty slow at distributing raid mats. I'm also still learning what potions and injectors go to which player. I hope to have it down by next week but I had to do a lot of asking last night. But apparently being master looter is good luck for me. I picked up a new belt (Conductive Cord), a new set of bracers (Combustion Bracers), a new ring (Emerald Signet Ring), and a new trinket (Eye of the Broodmother). Four new items, four bosses down (okay that was more the guild than me), and 8 deaths. My armor bill was awful. Not sure if I should call this is a win or loss night. But I had a great time with the guild, so I'm calling it a win.