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!!

I Found My Rhythm

Apparently whining and complaining does actually get me somewhere. A couple days ago I wrote a terrible blog post whining about my miserable DPS. I spouted terrible things about how awful a player I was and generally was annoying. And it apparently worked.

I had just logged on and started Sons of Hodir dailies when Jeff asked if I wanted to do a heroic. I've been wanting to get some instances in before the big patch, when warlocks will change beyond recognition and I will have to relearn to play. He mentioned Utgarde Pinnacle which has been my old nemesis. I just haven't been able to get through the gauntlet. He threw the offer out and we had a group in seconds. The plan was to do UP and UK. The first two bosses in UP went quick. None of us had ever had either with either Svala or Gortak. Then we got to the gauntlet. First attempt was too quick and we were smothered by the constant mobs. The second one was slow but the last ones did us in. The third attempt proved just as frustrating. Then one of our shamans offered to bring in his feral druid. The current tank, a warrior, took the boss after we knocked him off his high horse (ummm dragon) and the druid took the last couple adds. Down without trouble and we even got the achievement.

The last boss went down quick and easy but it was already 11. We decided to just to a quick Violet Hold run. And it proved to be quick. No deaths, no wipes, just constant activity. All the drops were plate but we had a good time and our warrior cleaned up. After the run I did some enchanting for our warrior and Jeff took the time to pull up the WoW Web Stats reports. This is traditionally my least favorite thing. I always come up at 800 or so. He asked me to guess what I thought I had gotten and I said 920. When he said over 1200 I thought he was lying. But no. I did over 1200 for the whole fight and over 1400 for the bosses. Woohoo!!! I had a couple bosses where I was over 1700 and two where I topped 2000. It was amazing.

Here's what I learned. I had been watching my casting bar. It seemed to take forever to get through a spell and I was waiting on that to hit the next one. Jeff got me started looking at my cooldown bars. I had tried it outside of instances and had been happy with how fast I could cast my next spell. So last night I focused on the cooldowns and that worked. I was able to go from 75% dps time to 98-100%. I topped the damage meters on most of the fights. I was tired but happy. But this morning I'm just so excited. I finally found my rhythm. It just took my focusing on the right thing...and possibly a little whining.

Do Not Meddle in the Affairs of Dragons...

for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

I learned that last night with my first heroic in WoW. For my non-WoW readers a heroic is an instance, either five or ten man, set on a much higher difficulty level then the regular instance. I'd never done a heroic in Burning Crusade, so I got my first taste last night with Oculus. Yeah Oculus. Not the easiest heroic to start with.

Now I've never been to Oculus on regular but I had heard plenty of stories. I knew that the last boss was done on dragonback and I was not terribly excited about that. I have problems with the quests where you have to control something else. But I was still excited to get a chance to go. Heroics are tougher, and I need the practice. They also drop much better gear.

My group had a hunter (Jeff of course), a druid, a paladin, a priest, and me. The other four are seasoned instancers. They have been through Kara more times than they can count and done most, if not all, of the instances in Northrend (Naxx excepted). So we had no difficulties with the trash up to the first boss. Drakos the Interrogator is really just a tank and spank, while avoiding the bright pink bombs he sends out. Nothing difficult. DOT and keep moving. We killed him quick and I got my first Emblem of Heroism. Yay!!

Then you get your dragon, do some simple aerial combat (actually very easy) and find the next boss area. We had some initial trouble getting to the next boss. A wipe or two where Jeff and I had forgotten to clear the snowflakes. Varos Cloudstrider is not an easy boss. Many groups simply can't get past him, particularly on heroic. He shoots out lightning doing large quantities of damage. You have to stay behind him the whole time. It was a lot of moving, not good for a caster, but with my dots I felt that I could contribute a little. He was tough intense fight. The tank died quickly in the fight but was battle rezzed to survive to the end.

Mage Lord Urom offered only a couple problems but we managed to bring him down with only a couple deaths (me included :-( ). The adds weren't the issue. We killed them quick. But on the fight with him alone we lost me, the hunter, and the paladin. Somehow the tank and the priest were able to finish him.

Then we mounted up on the dragons for Ley-Guardian Eregos. If I never hear that name again, it will be too soon. This fight took us well into when the second session was supposed to start. We tried several combinations of dragons (each does a different type of damage). We tried several different strategies. And we did way too many rezzes and corpse runs. We made nine or ten attempts on this guy until we finally had had enough. The best attempt I think we only managed to bring him down to 40%. It was discouraging.

We were all mentally exhausted. I had a terrible headache, left over from my illness, and was thinking of calling it a night. My repair bill was awful. Then one of the group suggested Violet Hold heroic. Okay so bed can wait. In twenty minutes we ran through heroic Violet Hold. There was not one death. My first successful heroic. It helped leave a better taste in my mouth. It was an incredibly frustrating night but well worth the effort. I'd do it again, but hopefully next time with some better plan of attack.

Sick and Tired but Well-equipped

Was sick all weekend. I'm fighting this stupid head cold. I slept most of Saturday and Sunday and still wasn't feeling great yesterday. Figured I should go to bed early last night. Of course that didn't happen. Jeff took me through Zul'Farrak and Razorfen Downs. I got me a beautiful new staff and enough blues and greens to boost my enchanting skills. Razorfen was an attempt to grind enchanting. I just didn't have enough low level mats. But we didn't start the instance until 10:30 and then I didn't log off until about 12:30. Took until 1:30 to fall asleep. I am dragging today. There might have to be a coffee run. Or two. Or three. But my enchanting is now respectable and my tailoring is pretty decent. I may eventually have a good fully functioning character.