For those who read the comments section of Wednesday's post, you know I gave you an early look at the results of the Thursday raid. It pays to read the comments, too!
Our raid leader was running late Thursday night, so feral druid started a group with Wild. I had a list of all those who attended the Tuesday raid, so I took the raid leader role and began invites. Such as they were. Only three regulars turned up, and that included the late arriving Bd. Of the five non-guildies who had run with us on Tuesday, only one was in game and he needed to finish another raid he was on before he'd be able to join us.
In the end we scrounged up a couple of folks and decided to go do Heroic 5 man ToC. The 5 man ToC is called Trial of the Champion (to be always confused with 25 man ToC, which is called Trial of the Crusader). Assuming we could beat 5 man ToC in heroic mode, we planned to go slumming and clear the normal 5 man ToC as well so that alts could get some gear.
Most of the newer Dungeons have different versions, almost always having the same encounters - the same layout, the same bosses, etc. The only difference is tuning it for the version - a few more or a few less trash mobs, or an extra ability for a heroic boss and so forth.
One would expect, then, that Toc 5 man and ToC 25 man would be the same, adjusted for the version, just like the others.
Not so. Friday's post covered all of what Wild has seen in ToC 25. Heroic ToC 5 man was nothing like that. Heroic ToC 5 man has a special jousting session that must be won before the real bosses show up. And the bosses are not the same. Other than the fact that the two versions take place in the same Coliseum, everything else is different.
The contest can only be started by talking to an npc announcer. That initiates a very, very long (Yawn . . .) preamble where each raider is announced (to cheering from the fans in the stands and an explanation of the event). Wild decided to master knitting and the language of sanskrit while we waited for something interesting to happen. Oh yes, and that still left plenty of time for us to saunter over to a weapons rack and pick up a lance, and then select a steed to ride. Once mounted up on the steed, commands appeared that we would use during the first phase of the event. The most important command was the defense command, because keeping three shields active over the course of the fight was the best and mostly the only way to leave the battle astride your steed instead of flat on your shield.
When something did finally happen, it was only interesting the first time you saw it.
There are five Grand Champions, of which three are randomly picked. The three Grand Champions make a great show of riding into the Coliseum, to more cheering from the stands than we got, each Champion shadowed by three lesser champions. Adding that up, we are looking at twelve mounted bad guys.
Now, having put us all completely to sleep, one of the Champions sent his three lesser champions right at us. Wild started awake, checking his defense. Dang it, I let it expire! and started frantically mashing buttons. The lesser champions aren't too hard, though. Wild jousted with my chosen target, Charging for extra damage and then using a maneuver which knocks off one of the opponent's shields. Wild isn't the most coordinated of jousters, but I held my own. As soon as the first three were defeated, another three were sent in, and then the final three lesser champions.
With all of their lesser champions defeated, the startled Grand Champions decided it was best to take us upstarts on as a group, and all three rode after us. Those who've done this fight a few times know that the Grand Champions are the same bosses we will have to fight on foot after defeating them on horseback. Since each Grand Champion has different abilities once on foot, there is an order in which they are defeated in the mounted phase. Wild had no clue, so I was happily galloping around tilting my lance at any Champion I could get in range of.
When a Grand Champion is knocked off his mount, he will try to get to another mount located along the sides. The Champion has to be trampled to keep him from mounting up again. All three Champions have to be dismounted to complete the first phase.
We finally got them all off their horses, and then it got really confusing for Wild. We were all unceremoniously thrown from our horses. We were getting attacked on the ground by the now on foot Champions, and someone yelled for us to run out of the instance. Four of us made it, but one disconnected and went offline.
Once we were all back in game, we re-entered the Coliseum. The three Grand Champions were standing around, wondering what the hold up was all about. We engaged and killed them on foot in our normal gear and using our normal abilities. That concluded the first phase, and a chest became available for us to loot the one item inside. This is heroic level gear (ilevel 219) so this is good stuff. Wild would not get to disenchant anything here as every piece earned went to someone who could use it.
In phase 2 we waited to see who we would get. There are two possible bosses, only one of which we will face. This night it was Eadric the Pure. Eadric has two tricks, a Hammer that does significant damage on random raiders, and a spell called Radiance, which is extremely deadly but has a very simple defense - don't be looking at Eadric when he casts it.
About thirty seconds into the fight one of the raiders laughingly asked Wild, "Are you healing us with your back to the raid?"
"Of course," Wild replied, "I don't have to be looking at your ugly mugs to heal you. :P " Radiance was absolutely no problem for Wild.
We killed Eadric, picking up two epics from Eadric's chest. There was a very nice one hand mace called [Muriel's Sorrow] that Wild initially passed on as it could not replace the staff Wild already had. No one else could use it, though, and I thought it might br worth a second look, so I held on to it. I can tell you right now I was very glad I did, because that mace was good enough to become Wild's new main weapon in moonkin form. I liked the look, too.
Wild's new Mace
The final encounter in 5 man ToC is the Black Knight. There is considerable lore behind the Black Knight, who was killed early in the storyline but is now back as a resurrected Undead. We were just interested in killing him.
The Black Knight flew into the Coliseum on his skeletal flying horse, landed and jumped off. He had a heated conversation with the npc announcer, who seemed to be refusing to aid the Knight. The Black Knight slew the announcer right there in front of us and the now rabidly cheering fans, turning the slaughtered announcer into a ghoul. The Black Knight turned to us and the battle was joined.
Wild cast his first heal a tad early, not quite sure how much damage the Black Knight would be dealing on the tank. The heal attracted the ghoul, who came over to gnaw on Wild. The tank got him off me, though, and the Knight started spamming shadow damage spells across the raid. Much fun was had, and the Black Knight died. Then, like a page from Monty Python, the Black Knight rose again as a skeleton and called upon the death knight spell Army of the Dead. Instead of just one ghoul, we now had an army of them gnawing on us. Death knights also have an ability to cause ghouls to explode, which is the height of comic relief in many raids. Wild wasn't amused by all the gore being splattered all over his gear. We kept killing and healing and the ghouls and the Black Knight went down again.
And then here he came again. Give me a break! The Black Knight was now a ghost. More group wide shadow damage and a special treat for a targeted player of an extra 200% damage. Wild healed through it all with one tiny exception. As the Black Knight fell for the third time, so did Wild. I wasn't paying close enough attention to my own health bar. Sigh. I got a rez and we divvied up the loot. Wild had completed Heroic 5 man ToC.
After that we still had some time. The tank, Bd, and Wild stayed in the group for stability while the other three players scooted off to grab their alts and return. We cleared normal ToC three times so that the alts could gear up. Wild did get a few drops to DE on those runs, and they go into the bank to help others in the raid group as needed.
ToC is fun and pretty quick to do. Wild would love to do it more often.
A quick word on Friday's 25 man raid. There wasn't one. We had 15 raiders. I know the guild is trying to address the issue. I know we go through periods like this, so we all have to be patient. For personal reasons, though, I had really hoped we would have enough. Wild noticed that the pattern for the boots Wild has requested from the guild bank is now gone. The guild likes to hand out guild items prior to raids. Wild made sure that all of the mats to make the boots, plus the two gems needed and the mats for the enchant were all in Wild's bags before the raid. But the raid never got off the ground. I really wish I could get those boots!
No comments:
Post a Comment