Naxx

Okay I've been officially chastised. And when it comes down from the guild leader, well...you know you have to say at least something. For those of you World of Warcraft players keeping track at home, our guild officially finished Naxxramas on Monday. It took us from April to the end of May to finish with a mostly two night a week schedule. The Plague Quarter and the Arachnid Quarter is almost at farming level for us by now. And we were having good success with Military. Other than Gluth we could handle Construct Quarter. And that just left the big boys.


We finished with Thaddius late Sunday night. Midnight server time, 11 my time. We clicked on the portal to head back to the start only to come face to face with a huge bone dragon. This is Sapphiron, the second to last boss. Image pulled from WOW Insider.




Although it was bedtime for nearly half the group we decided to give him one shot. What could it hurt? We spread out all on the left side and started hitting him hard. He's a toughish fight with two phases. The first is a ground phase where he hits us with a blizzard and hit the tank with some serious frost breath. Then he heads up into the air for the second phase and turns two people into blocks of ice. Everyone then rushes to get behind the blocks before he blasts us with a frost wave. We got him to about 50% I think, before he demolished us. Time for bed but with a promise to head back on a rare Monday night.


The next night we figured we had all night to try him. So we started slow, and wiped. And wiped again. On the third attempt it was suggested that we spread out on both sides to move the blizzard around a bit more. And with only a death or two, we managed to bring him down. Yay! And the night was still young. So we headed on to the final boss, Kel'Thuzad.


I figured the final boss of a huge ten man raid would be tough...and boy I was right. KT has two (maybe three) phases. The first one is interesting. The group stands in the middle of the floor, back to back in a big green circle as he sends mob after mob after you. My job was banshees, the casters who moved slow but were deadly if they reached the circle. This phase wasn't much of a stress for us. Then KT joins the fight. And he is tough. He turns people into iceblocks as well but these blocks are deadly if they aren't healed through. We lost a ton of people to these until we noticed the warnings and could keep an eye out. But we had to spread out because if you are standing too close to anyone else, you both get blocked.


He also mana bombs someone during the fight. That will explode and hurt others if you are again standing too close. Oh yes and he likes to randomly drain health. This is a healers nightmare. We wiped a couple of times but again the night was young so spirits were high. On the last attempt we got him down to over halfway and he called on two scarabs (3rd phase?) to join the fight. That was the moment when our main-tank paladin went down. It was also the same moment that our off-tank (feral druid) stepped up and took on both KT and two scarabs. It was amazing. I died shortly after the scarabs joined and watching and waiting was excruciating. It was literally edge of your seat, crossed fingers, praying moment. And the guild was able to pull it off. One tank on a two tank fight, four dead group mates, and one dead Kel'thuzad. And we were done. It was a huge moment. And yes I have been a bit remiss for not posting anything yet. So Nez, are you happy now?

Naxx update

Two weeks ago we decided to try Naxxramas again. The plan was to start the first quarter on April 2 and see how far we could go. We cleared the first (arachnid quarter) that night. Four trips in the last two weeks and we have only three boss fights left. For a "casual" guild, this is incredible! I had mentioned how we had plowed through arachnid, then plague, then half of construct. Last night we headed back in before the reset today.

We managed to bring down Thaddius (last boss of construct) in one shot. This is by far my favorite fight. So much fun. You start up high on these platforms killing two mini-bosses. Like Romeo and Juliet, these also need to be brought down within seconds of each other. They gave us no real difficulty. Then you need to make this huge jump to get to the boss platform. From there it is all quick dps and movement. Thaddius hits all the participants with a polarity (either positive or negative). All the people of the same polarity need to be on the same side of the platform. If you stand together the buff you get is amazing (huge dps). If you stand on the wrong side, the debuff will wipe the raid. We moved when we needed to and with only five members still living we managed to bring him down. Huge!!!

Then we moved on to military. We had tried the Razuvious fight on Thursday with very limited success (read: four very frustrating wipes). This time everything clicked. The two who were mind controlling the understudies talked, switched, and managed to control him the entire fight. We one-shotted him without even a single death. Go guild. Then we moved on quickly to Gothik. I had watched the video of this beforehand and the fight seemed frantic. The group is split up. Half stands on the living side and half on the dead side. I was on the living side so have no idea how the dead side goes. Adds are spawned on the living side, in increasing numbers. Once we killed the adds they went to the dead side. Finally, after a period of time, Gothik himself comes down to fight. He switches sides (living and dead) until the last 10% where the gate opens and everyone comes in to burn him down. This has to be the easiest fight we've seen in Naxx so far. I thought Noth was quick but this was just not a challenge for us.

And finally around midnight server time (11pm for me) we moved on to The Four Horsemen. I'd been excited about and dreading this fight at the same time. The Horsemen are fought in four corners. The front two is handled by the tanks, healers, and dps. The back two are handled by one person each. Most of them recommend having a warlock do it. Luckily we had two warlocks (me and an affliction warlock). Or perhaps I should say unluckily. I was given my charge and sent to the back corner. My only job was to stay alive. Sadly I failed. Twice. Causing the entire raid to wipe. I think I was putting too much pressure on myself and simply wasn't thinking. I would try to do damage (I am destro to the core now) or try to drain life exclusively or forget to sacrifice my minion fast enough. After two attempts we called it a night and I went to bed pretty dejected. But this morning things look different. I talked with Jeff last night on strategy and think I have a good one. All I need to do is continue to raise and sacrifice my minion over and over. The moment my protective sacrifice bubble bursts I need to sacrifice again. I'll go through a ton of soul shards but those aren't a problem. I can stay alive for quite possibly hours that way. Of course we'll have to try it. But at least this way I can buy some time for the guild.

Other than that I have to say how impressed I am with the guild. In two weeks we have downed over 70% of Naxx. We've learned to use Vent to our advantage and we've learned some really tough fights. It's been a ton of fun and other than the occasional warlock slip :-(, we've all settled happily into our roles. Great tanking, great healing, and great dps. But more than anything, great fun!

Raiding and Pillaging

{Warning: this is an incredibly long post that may not make sense if you don't know at least something about WoW}

My guild for WoW is a mostly casual guild. There are those who go out and pug every instance and every raid. There are others who will never instance at all. I fall somewhere in the middle. I have done the occasional pug (Pick Up Group, for my non-playing friends) but they are not my favorite. Group dynamics tend to be a bit off when it comes to pugs. So I instance regularly with the guild and occasionally pug something.

But the last two days have been all about raiding. On Wednesday the plan was to hit Vault of Archavon (VoA) or Obsidium Sanctum. It just depended on whether Alliance or Horde controlled Wintergrasp. Well, when raid time came Wintergrasp was Horde controlled so we headed over to OS. Now this is a 10 man raid (which I have pugged before) but we as a guild were well overpowered. It took us 35 minutes to get through with only an occasional death and no wipes. Sartharian (the last dragon) is an interesting fight but once you know to look for the flaming wall of death you pretty much avoid it. So there was 10 man OS done. In a shorter time than it takes to do a Violet Hold 5 man instance. So we all headed back to Dalaran. I was about to set out to do my dailies when Alliance took Wintergrasp. We jumped at the chance to do VoA. Now I've never done this raid. But considering it took us 15 minutes I can safely say that we were not in any real trouble. Four trash pulls and then the boss. We should start farming that one. And we had a good time. I enjoy instancing but I really love 10 man raids. It's just so much fun to work together and hang out.

But all of this was just whetting my appetite for last nights event. The guild was going back to Naxxramas! I mentioned in January that we had made an attempt on Naxx but had been stopped by low DPS. At that time we only were able to get through the first two bosses in the arachnid quarter before Maexxnia put an end to our fun. This time was a little different. We were all geared in blues and purples. We were all doing over 1500 dps. And for the first time we were trying Ventrilo. (more on that later) Anub'Rekhan, who had killed us a couple of times previously, went down without too much of a fight. Clearly our new strategy worked. The Grand Widow was just as simple since we managed to wait for the enrage to bring down her minions. I had won my sword from her in January. Maexxnia brought us down once because we forgot about her enrage but the very next time we brought our revenge. She finally went down. And that cleared the Arachnid Quarter. Yay!

On to the Plague Quarter. We had tried in January but the trash mobs killed us. You know it's bad when you die repeatedly on trash mobs. Last night that was not the issue. We rolled through the trash mobs without problem. I got to spend most of my time AOEing. And after only a couple of pulls we were face to face with Noth the Plaguebringer. Now I was originally going to say that the Grand Widow is the easiest fight we've seen in Naxx but Noth comes close. He is pretty much a tank and spank except that he summons skeletons. Then mid-fight he disappears and we have to fight a larger number of skeletons. Then he returns. He went down without any deaths. Easy fight. Heigen the Unclean was not the same way.

I don't think I have ever seen a fight with so much need for movement. Our Main Tank, my friend Lon, described it as two dances. First there is the slow dance, where the ranged stands on the stage while the melee and tanks hurt Heigen on the floor. Every couple of seconds the floor erupts with acid. You need to make sure you're not standing on that section when it does. You move left to right across the floor avoiding the acid areas. And then back. When Heigen returns to his original spot the ranged must come off the stage and the fast dance begins. You just have to move. No casting, no healing, nothing. Just move. Then when you are again in the middle, the slow dance portion starts again. Until you bring him down. The first attempt was a wipe. We just couldn't stay ahead of the acid. Our long suffering rogue started the deaths but I quickly followed. The second attempt worked but only after we had lost all of our main dps. In the end, two healers, two tanks, and a dps/tank brought him down. It was the longest fight I've ever seen. 12 full minutes of fighting. Of course it was particularly long since I spent most of it "decorating the floor" as our hunter said.

The last boss in the Plague Quarter is Loetheb. Loetheb is a strategic fight but not an impossible one. He casts debuffs on you. The first one drains your health, the second one reduces healing by 100%. So basically you are watching your health drop rapidly and can't do anything about it. You have a three second window to heal. The healers did an amazing job keeping the tanks up even with such a short window. I concentrated on healing myself when those three seconds were available. I didn't want the healers to have to worry about me. I ran through my healthstone, two potions (with the cooldown I could only use two), and more bandages than I care to count. I died but the rest of the guild brought him down. Plague Quarter cleared. Yay! We cleared two quarters in a little more than 3 and a half hours. It was amazing. We go back on Sunday and I'm incredibly excited.

As I mentioned earlier we were also using Ventrilo. Vent is a voice over internet program that allowed us to talk to each other in game. I have to say that having played with my guildmates for over a year now, it was really cool to get a chance to hear their voices. My guildmates have definately become friends but friends that I only could type to. Last night I got to talk with them. I hadn't originally planned to hop online until right before the run but when I heard one of our guildies talking through Vent I had to jump on early. I skipped dinner (a huge thing for me) to be able to hang out and talk. Although raiding and instancing with the guild is always fun, being able to talk just made it that much better. I never really thought I would enjoy raiding. I worried that there would be too much pressure. But I'm having nothing but fun. I'm so excited for Sunday. Yay!!

Difficulty Level Set to Heroic

Warning: This post is whiny and self-deprecating which is my least favorite type of post. I really shouldn't be writing this. Particularly not today. Just be warned.

There is a great line I heard once that once you're on your fifth divorce, you can no longer really blame the other people. The idea being that there is obviously something wrong with you. The first two I can see being not your fault, by five you have to start questioning your own abilities.

Such is the case for me with heroic runs in WoW. I have had five (count them five) unsuccessful heroic attempts in the last week. These are instances that we get into and die so many times that we just give up. This is not after the first or second death by the way. This is normally after ten or so deaths. Where we are all so tired of the same fight that we can just no longer think straight.

Despite Jeff's best assurances I have to wonder how much it is me. I'm on a mission to increase my dps. I was third on the charts last night but I should be higher. I respec'd Destruction this past week in an attempt to move up. In Naxx I moved from seventh to sixth. (and remember we have two healers). When I'm only barely above the healers, that's just not good enough. So today I'm reading, heavily. To see what I can do.

Last night we tried Naxx again before the reset. We were dying repeatedly on trash pulls in the Plague Quarter. We never even came close to the boss. Then we broke into groups and moved to Utgarde Pinnacle. Only one boss down there. Finally after dying too many times to count in the Trophy Room, we moved to Utgarde Keep. And couldn't get past the first boss. Now in all fairness we were going in with a new tank that was slightly undergeared.

But this is not the first time I've had problems in heroics this week. And after this many deaths in one week, I just have to wonder if it's me.

{As you can see, not my best mood. But I warned you.}

Lessons in Humility

For those of you keeping score at home, Naxx kicked our butts last night.

Maexxna 9

Guild 0

Apparently my talk on Wednesday about how well we had done in Naxx called down the evil forces of the place. This big spider kicked our butts over and over and over. We would get her down to 30% and then she would just destroy us. I had at least 20 gold in repairs last night and I wear cloth. Then we followed up our nine wipes with a couple unsuccessful attempts at heroic violet hold. Not a happy night for Cat. Grrr.

Naxx

Tuesday's have become my knitting night over the last year or so. They also happen to be guild run nights. So I never sign up for guild runs that night since I know I'll never make it. My boss stopped into my office yesterday afternoon to ask what I was doing at 4:30. Never a good question. I ended up attending an economic forecast presentation, which was interesting, but didn't allow me to go knitting.

And that worked out for the best. I got home about 7:30 and made some dinner. I was sitting on the couch finishing up my food when Jeff says that there is a spot open for our guild's first attempt at Naxxramas. If I sign up quick I might make it. We're short some dps. So I sign up on the forums and then try to log in. There is a queue of over 300. It takes me at least 25 minutes to log in. Grrr.



So when I finally get on, I'm shocked and excited to still get an invite. I figured I was probably too late. But I'm going to Naxx!!! We have two tanks, two healers, and 6 dps. Most of us have run together. You enter the instance through any of the four portals and then choose which wing you are going to work on. We chose the Arachnid Wing (our poor arachnophobic paladin) and started clearing trash mobs. I was surprised how easy the trash mobs were. We handled them without difficulty and were quickly at Anub'Rekhan.

Anub is a giant beetle like creature that summons swarms of locusts, large adds, and a few (and that's putting it mildly) scarabs. We were all going into the encounter blind but we knew that we needed to avoid the locust swarm. Our first attempt ended quickly. Tanks went down and so did the rest of us. It was the combination of the locust swarms and the scarabs that killed us. Two more attempts and we finally figure out that the best way to go is to lead him around the circle to avoid most of the damage. But the tank still goes down and we still wipe. On our fifth attempt our main tank, who is a druid, decides to switch into cat form for the run around the circle. He avoids damage and we finally manage to bring him down. Woot!


I'm not sure if it was right then or after that our Death Knight got disconnected. Gone. Thank goodness none of the drops would be useful for her. We stand around and wait for her to return. And wait...and wait. After 10 minutes we decide to start clearing trash to the next boss. Even with only nine this goes quickly. We assume she must be trying to log on and has a queue. So we wait more. Right as we start thinking about finding a replacement she comes back on, grabs her Emblem of Heroism, and on we go.


Grand Widow Faerlina is the next boss and for those who've done Kara, think Romeo and Juliet. She is mostly a tank and spank but with some added features. She casts rain of fire doing tons of damage but we quickly learned to avoid those. It does look an awful lot like a Death Knights circle so at first many of us stayed put. But we quickly learned. The tough part about the Grand Widow is that she enrages, and does some serious damage when enraged. In order to stop this, you need to kill one of her alcolytes right as she starts. But you can't just kill them, you have to kill them within a certain distance of her. That dissapates the enraging. The first time we tried we didn't kill the alcolyte fast enough. The second and third time we killed them too quick. We didn't wait until the enrage started. By this time it's 11 pm and most of us are tired. But we figure one more try. We had been close. And this time it works. We had a paladin who brought the alcolyte down to 50% health and then the moment she enraged we would kill it. Perfect.


So our first attempt last night and we managed to bring down two bosses. The Arachnid Wing was cleared. I'm already signed up to go back on Thursday. Tonight I'm planning to respec Destro. We'll see how it goes. I want my name a little higher on the dps charts.