Wednesday (16 Sep) - Deadly Night of Highs and Lows

Wednesday (16 Sep) - Deadly Night of Highs and Lows

The guild 25 man raid is at least running again. We were not able to fill the raid Wednesday night, but we were able to maintain 23-24 raiders for the whole evening, even with a few coming late or leaving early. It wasn't as good as it should be, both in numbers and class makeups, but we went with what we had. There were only six healers, so surveydrood switched from his usual moonkin spec to resto for the evening. This guy is good at whatever he does, and I believe he heals regularly for his ten man group, so he is both well geared and experienced. We also had a third resto druid, EC, who gets better every time Wild runs with him. Late in the evening we would add a fourth resto druid. With the two moonkin that made it six druids, making up a quarter of the raid. Go droods!

We had assembled at the Argent Tournament grounds, intending to head into Trial of the Crusaders (ToC). Raid officers huddled in a private vent channel talking about whether we had a good enough makeup for ToC, and considered switching to Ulduar. But Rh, the co-raid leader with surveydrood, lobbied to give us a chance in ToC. The gear was better and we needed as much experience as we could get. As Rh explained when the decision was announced, if we wipe and it looks like we just don't have the right mix of raiders, we'll move on. But we're already here at ToC, so let's take some shots at it!

We buffed up and got ready to go. Wild has explained the three part encounter before, so let's just let the first attempt play out as it happened.

Wild was assigned main tank healer to one of three tanks, and asked to HoT the other two as well. Since this encounter includes three boss fights, healing assignments changed depending on what we were fighting.

Gormok the Impaler stepped through the opening saloon doors to the central floor of the Coliseum, and we engaged. Wild starting stacking HoTs on the tanks and helping to raid heal, keeping one eye on my charge, the main tank, and another eye on the health of the raid. Another eye watched Wild in case Gormok tossed a face eating snobold my way, and for the first time in a number of these fights Wild got one. A spot had been designated for the snobold afflicted to run to, and Wild did that with alacrity. DPS raiders blasted the snobold off of Wild even as Wild continued healing the main tank. Wild needed a fourth eye to watch out for the fires that are laid down by the snobolds. "Stay out of the fire" has become a joke on the fact that so many of the newer raids use this form of attack over and over again.

Not everyone survived Gormok, but we were flush with battle rezzing druids and we got the two dead raiders rezzed in time to see Gormok fall.

"Move toward the doors!" the raid leader called out as the snake twins, Acidmaw and Dreadscale, slithered through. The tanks had to pick up the two jormungers quickly as we'd had problems in the past with healers and DPS not staying range of the moving tanks. Wild was hot on his tank's rear as he engaged Acidmaw, and the rest of the raid moved into position. While the two snakes are engaged, the main thing to watch out for are the debuffs, burning bile and paralytic toxin, which the two snakes cast on random players. The two very deadly spells can only be cleaned when two raiders, one with the toxin and one with the bile, get close to each other, which neutralizes both spells.

Acidmaw and Dreadscale burrowed underground, and raiders scattered so that the snakes would not emerge in the middle of a large group. As soon as they surfaced again the tanks re-engaged, hoping that the DPS gave them time to re-establish aggro before the shooting started. The raid reformed around the new positions of the snakes and we went another round. Twice the snakes submerged, and the second time they emerged we killed one of them. The surviving snake, whichever one it was, submerged a third time, but we didn't give it a fourth. The second snake died.

No time for cheering, because here came Icehowl. We'd only lost one raider against the snakes, and again he was battle rezzed. Icehowl is a straightforward fight with Wild worrying only about two things. Icehowl blasted the entired raid, throwing us all up against the walls and stunning us. That was one. Fixing his eye on one of the raiders, we could see his huge muscles bunch up for a Charge. Wild was craning his head at right angles to his position, and as soon as the stun broke he ran pell mel about ten feet just in case Icehowl was headed in his direction. Icehowl Charged and butted his head against the wall, missing his target and stunning himself. For fifteen seconds DPS rained destruction on Icehowl.

Icehowl recovered, and we faced several more iterations of that. Icehowl also spews an icy breath in a large cone that freezes those caught in it for several seconds, and which also cuts off healing. That was the second thing Wild worried about. Wild had been studying Icehowl, trying to predict which direction he turned when using his icy breath, because no matter where Wild stood he always seemed get caught in that stream. Wild may not have totally figured it out, but it did look like Icehowl always turned toward the center the of room, wherever he happened to be. The breath always followed a Charge, too, so Wild made sure that after every Charge he ran to Icehowl and his tank along a path toward the wall and not in the middle. Wild was only hit once early on and was able to stay out of it the rest of the way.

Icehowl died. The short-handed raid with the wrong makeup one shot the first encounter in ToC. And did it with every raider standing at the end. That was the high point of the night.

The raid leaders had assumed that it would take a few attempts to either beat this encounter or figure out we weren't going to beat it this night, and the plan was to move from ToC to VoA, the raid inside the pvp zone, Wintergrasp. Horde controlled it and we wanted a crack those bosses which drop T9 gear.

With our one shot victory, though, we had made time to see how we would do against the second encounter in ToC, Lord Jaraxxus.

The Lord Jaraxxus encounter, according to wowhead, "is significantly more complicated" than the earlier encounter, but is "still a relatively easy fight." I beg to differ. Over the next hour Wild would learn to hate this guy and this fight.

On our first attempt Wild was totally confused. Was it incinerate flesh that caused fires under me and did that turn me green or was it legion flame? Which one did I run away from and which one was I supposed to stand still for? The raid had to be very spread out, yet every raider had to be in range of at least two of the three healers designated to heal those who got incinerate flesh, because if they didn't receive 60k in healing in under 12 seconds, the raider exploded, doing massive damage to the whole raid.

Don't stand any closer than 15 yards to another raider or Fel Lightning will jump from raider to raider. Oh by the way, Volcanoes are going to erupt, spewing three infernals who'll run around killing people until the off tank can get control of them. Wild got to see a lot of those mounds of moving rock in his face. Want more? How about a Nether Portal which spawns a Mistress of Pain? Yep, lots of fun and games in this fight.

We made five attempts on Jaraxxus. The good news is that Wild did finally figure out how to tell the difference between the stand in one place incinerate flesh and the "move is an arc toward the wall while leaving flaming pools on the ground" legion flame. We had a terrible time with the Fel Lightning until we grouped up in pairs and stood at specifically assigned spots. That meant two raiders would always be hit, but only two raiders. Wild learned to play the dangerous game of Dare, where Wild and his partner held position, nervously watching for all of above, and only moving when forced by imminent death.

Surveydrood, who has accepted the unpopular role of telling raiders what they did wrong, kept driving home the point to "stay out of the fire." Wild seemed strangely attracted to it, however, and kept dying. Wild was finally cautioned to "heal himself" even before the tank if that's what it took. We couldn't afford to lose healers.

Chastised, Wild vowed to take that to heart on our fifth attempt, even though it violated rule #1, "the tank shall never die." Midway in the fight, Wild's partner, also a healer, got legion flame, and he didn't move. Wild made a belated dash to get away, but we both died.

We got Jaraxxus to 5% health on that fifth attempt, with two healers missing in action. We came SO CLOSE! I hate Jaraxxus and I hate those fires down below. So take that, Bob Seger.

We had pushed the time envelope as far as we could and we had to get over to Vault of Archovan. Our main target was the newest boss in VoA, Koralon.

Despite Wild's erratic play, Wild had been leading all healers in total healing up to the fifth attempt, but being dead half the fight took it's toll and he dropped to 4th. Of the seven healers, though, it was kind of nice to see druids holding positions #1, #4, and #5, with our healing leader shaman at #2 and a pally at #3.

Koralon was worse than Jaraxxus. The fires in that fight kill in about two seconds if you don't move; the chamber is small so you not only have to watch for fires hitting you directly, you have to make sure you have a safe line of flight away from other pools of flame; even the floor is fire colored, making even seeing the flames for a color challenged druid difficult; and since everything Koralon does is fire based, the whole room is constantly engulfed in orange, yellow, and red.

We made three attempts and Wild died every time. On two of those attempts Wild died twice, having gotten rezzes. Wild wasn't the only one, but I really got tired of hearing in raid chat the weary voice of surveydrood: "Wild's dead. Somebody got a rez?" I know surveydrood had to bite his tongue to keep from adding, "Again."

On our three attempts we got Koralon to 4%, 12%, and 8%, spitting distance each time of beating him. But we came away empty handed.

Wild hung on to 4th in healing with surveydrood taking the #1 spot. Kudos to EC, too, for healing his way past both the pally and Wild and finishing 3rd. So druids finished the evening with the #1, #3, and #4 spots.

The DPS was truly impressive. Top honors to the 5k club:
#1: hunter, 5496 DPS
#2: DK, 5281 DPS
#3: melee shaman, 5004 DPS

This is one night Wild hopes to forget. However, we will be doing it all over again come Friday. I can't wait. Groan.