Noobish-ness

For my non-gamer friends a "noob" is an unseasoned gamer. Someone who makes rookie mistakes and often seems unaware of the basic mechanics of the game. In a raid, a noob will often manage to wipe the party with some easily avoided mistake. A noob will ask questions about seemingly obvious parts of game play. We all start out as noobs. Last night, as a guild we played that way.

The core group of raiders for the guild tends to be pretty seasoned. We've seen all of Naxx and are now comfortable farming it (with a couple exceptions). As a group we've been to over half of Ulduar and brought down bosses using achievement strategies. Many of them have PUG'd all of the raids in the game. We've had a lot of shining moments. Last night was not one of them.

We started our raid on time and figured we would start with an easy victory. On Thursday we had downed Flame Leviatian, XT, Kologarde, and Auriaya with only one or two wipes. We were feeling good. Last night we started with Razorscale and managed to bring the big dragon down with only one death. We're still feeling cocky and decide we'll quickly handle Ignis and then move on to Freya, who we haven't really fought much yet. Ignis had other plans for us. We wiped on the trash getting to him, twice. Our first attempt on Ignis did not last long. We were killed quickly. The adds took too long and he kept killing people in his flaming pot. The second attempt was even worse with at least three adds running rampant through the party. After four or five attempts (they all blur together) we decided to bypass Ignis and head down to Freya. At least that way we could see the fight and learn.

To get to Freya, you need to kill a ton of trash. We had done this once on Thursday but the trash respawns. So we started with the first pull. And wiped. We managed to bring that down only to wipe again two trash pulls later. Wiping on a boss seems acceptable, wiping on a trash pull is just noobishness. We wiped four more times on the trash, including one terribly hurried pull where we grabbed a patrol as well. By the time we cleared the last trash and faced Freya most of us had repair bills of 30 gold or higher. Not good.

Freya has to be one of the most confusing fights in Ulduar. She has four different types of adds that spawn and each has to be treated differently. The detonating lashers need to be AOE'd down until about ten percent and then killed individually. Otherwise they all detonate together and wipe the raid. The three storm adds need to be killed within a minute of each other or they will respawn over and over until they wipe the raid. The ancient protector needs to be killed while standing under the growing and shrinking mushrooms. And the healing tree needs to be dpsed down quickly so it doesn't heal Freya. Oh and did I mentioned that new adds spawn every minute. Once you get through the add spawns, Freya herself is a piece of cake. I don't even remember how many attempts we had on her. Death after death, until shortly before midnight when we figured out the patterns and got lucky with the spawns and managed to bring her down.

We then decided to try the Assembly of Iron. It was 10 minutes to midnight (the designated end of the run) and we figured it wouldn't hurt to see a new fight. I would like to say that we lasted 30 seconds but I think that might be stretching it a bit. We were dead in seconds. It was just another death in a night of wipes. We died on bosses, we died on trash. Our shaman (my cute and wonderful husband) decided to play with the flowers instead of just dying and brought them down on us just as we resurrected. We died a lot. But we learned. The guild has never had a great raid make-up but we make due with what we have. We learned, we brought down Freya, and we saw more of Ulduar. Next trip will hopefully be better but I'd rather be Noobish with the guild, then masterful with a PUG. Expensive night but a good one.

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.

Wonderful Weekend and Ulduar

Okay so it's been a couple of days since I wrote anything. I had no internet access again this weekend so no posting. And this will be short. I've been not feeling well since last night. I was out of town helping a friend move. I know what you're thinking, how exciting, but we actually had a really good weekend. The move itself only took a couple of hours and the hanging out lasted all weekend. It was great to see everyone. We spent a lot of time talking, playing games, and eating. It was really a wonderful weekend. And the last of my traveling weekends for a while. I love to get away but I'm looking forward to being home this coming weekend. 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that our guild made their first attempt on Ulduar on Thursday before I left. Several of the regular members had done section of the raid but we hadn't tried it yet as a guild. It went surprisingly well. We started late but managed to bring down four bosses in the span of a couple hours. The first boss we worked on was the Flame Leviathan, who is a machine fight. I don't normally do well with machine fights since my minion often interferes with the controls. But I dismissed my pet beforehand and had no issues. I got to be a gunner, shooting rockets and bombs and enjoyed the fight immensely. 

We then took down Razorscale and I got to play a major role in the battle, shooting the guns that brought the dragon to the floor. We had no real problems with him. XT-002 the girl robot who thinks we are toys, was much more a challenge. We managed to bring her down but I died twice during the fight and we wiped at least once. We bypassed the Furnace Master and brought down Kologran, the giant with the active right hand after several wipes. It was an interesting set of bosses but we had a good time. I look forward to going back. 

Raiding Woes

I woke up on Sunday at 8 with a desire to write. Not blog writing but the kind of writing I did through most of my high school and college days. Novel writing, poetry writing, story writing. I had breakfast plans with a friend at 10:30 so I figured I had plenty of time to get some good writing in and then have breakfast. But again the best laid plans...

My friend called early and we went out earlier for breakfast. And then we went shopping. Now I'm not a huge shopping fan. Particularly not for clothes. But we ended up out for about 5 and a half hours. I was dead tired. My feet hurt and I just wanted to lie on the couch and pretend that the world didn't exist. Again I had a great time out but by the time I got home I was exhausted. And here's the weird part. I didn't want to raid. Thursdays, Sundays, and sometimes Mondays are regular raid nights for my guild. I normally look forward to these chances to hang out with the guild. Last night, I just wanted to sleep.

And it seemed like everyone else was feeling the same way. Our MT had bronchitus and could barely talk. Most everyone was pretty quiet. There was only minimal chatter. We really weren't feeling it. And it showed. Normally we can sweep through two quarters easily in a night. Last night we struggled through one. We died a couple times on Maexxnia, a boss fight that we hadn't had an issue with in a while. We forgot to explain the Grand Widow fight to one of our newcomers and came close to wiping. By the time we finished Arachnid, at 10, everyone was done. We opted not to go on. I logged off immediately and was in bed and fast asleep by 11.

We had included a number of alts in the run last night and that may have contributed but it seemed like more. Everyone seemed tired and not really into it. By this time of night I had lost my desire to write and was only thinking about sleep. If I could have gone to bed at 8 last night I would have. And today my feet are still feeling bad from the walking. We have dinner plans this evening so no chance to relax tonight. I hope by Thursday I'm ready to raid. Until then I'll try to get some writing done.

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!!