Friday (9 Oct) - Deeper Into Ulduar

Friday (9 Oct) - Deeper Into Ulduar

The Friday ten man raid had a bit more of a cobbled together look with a couple of new faces, but the core remained essentially the same. Three raiders shared tanking duties, the usual alts of the two raid leaders (feral druid and pally), and a second pally who was an alt of the priest, pH. Healing with Wild was the DPS pally who was a part time healer last week, but was full time healing now. In addition, we had a guildie lady priest, but I never figured out whose alt she was. Wild assumed she was a holy priest, and only learned two-thirds of the way into the raid that she was DISC specced. Wild could have assigned her main tank duties, but when she eventually mentioned her spec and I asked her if she wanted to move from raid healing to tank healing, she said it didn't matter. I left things as I'd set them up at the beginning, with Wild and the pally tank healing and the priest raid healing.

Wild was waiting at Ulduar with most of the raid, waiting for the last couple of raiders to arrive, when I got a whisper from one of the non-guildie raiders that run with the Lady Hunter group. His guild was running Ulduar and he asked if Wild was free to join them. They needed a moonkin druid. Wild would have loved to do it. How often does Wild get asked to DPS vice heal? There was no question Wild was staying with his guild run. I just wish we could get something going again on the Tues/Thurs raid nights, when Wild is available. Frustrating, but these things tend to work themselves out, usually in slow motion, over time. But enough of that, and back to the raid.

Having pushed through Ulduar and killed the Cat Lady on Wednesday, we were keen to press even deeper. The boss that follows the Cat Lady is Hodir. Wild could not recall having ever faced Hodir before, but as we worked our way down a long, winding, ice encrusted tunnel toward Hodir's chamber, Wild started to get that deja vu feeling. Some time in the past Wild has been here before.

The ice tunnel has partly hidden snow mounds from which wryms burst forth, and there were more of the lumbering giants that can be found everywhere in Ulduar. The pally tank over-aggroed a group of mobs when had barely gotten started, pulling too many, and we wiped. The vet shaman, on his hunter alt, lamented that we should have been able to take the extra mobs. I imagine it can seem a bit strange at times - every raider here (except Wild) is experienced and thoroughly familiar with Ulduar - but all that experience is housed in lesser geared alts that simply can't do the things their mains can. Which got Wild looking at the raid in a different light. The idea for setting aside the 25 man raids and running ten mans is to primarily help gear up and train raiders who would eventually help build back our 25 man raids. Gearing up alts is only a secondary goal, since alts can only provide raid flexibility for class and role requirements, not more bodies in a raid. I think seven of the ten raiders on Friday night were alts. Hopefully that will change over time.

The Hodir fight is a fun one. Even the pally healer, getting his first look at this fight from a healer's perspective, commented on just how much fun it was to heal on this fight. That's because there is so much going on. Everyone is constantly on the move, dodging falling ice, keeping their feet from freezing to the ground, scampering to short lived safe spots, avoiding blizzards, and I could go on. The raid leader explained the fight, which sounded familiar, and as soon as the fight started Wild knew he'd done this before. [Note - I later looked it up. Wild had joined a 25 man run that had already gotten past the Cat Lady and we tackled Hodir. We didn't kill him, though. That was more than two months ago.]

We got Hodir down to 5% when he Enraged and wiped the raid. Our DPS was lighter than we were used to and it just took longer to kill things. It was an issue we'd struggle with and work around all evening.

We killed Hodir on our second attempt. Wild's first kill. Hodir dropped the gear token for [Leggings of the Wayward Vanquisher], usable by rogues, deathknights, mages, and druids. Wild and Rh's feral druid rolled on it. He won. Then passed it Wild, saying that he will get his eventually, and preferred that it go to a main. Wild thanked him profusely. The token can be turned in to get [Valorous Nightsong Leggings], which is a Tier 8 piece. Wild already has [Conqueror's Nightsong Headpiece], which is a T8.5 piece Wild purchased with Conquest emblems. The Valorous and Conqueror sets can be mixed together to get the set bonuses, so Wild now has two of a five piece set of T8/T8.5 gear. It'll be a nice upgrade for Wild, once he gets a chance to exchange the token for the gear back at Dalaran.

From Hodir we moved on to Thorim, a boss and a fight Wild has truly never seen before.

The Thorim fight is a bit like an arena fight, except that Thorim himself, a large ice giant, is a reluctant participant who'll have to be "encouraged" to join the fun.

The raid leader reshuffled our group into two teams of five each. One team would stay in the arena we would shortly enter. The other group, which Wild was in, would run a sort of gauntlet that in a tunnel that exited the arena but wound back around to it. Wild got both a verbal description of the fight and another one in our party chat specific to what our five man team would be doing.

A large frost wyrm currently occupied the center of the arena area, and we engaged and killed it. The tunnel team then moved quickly to the entrance. Wild kept close tabs on the tank and we rushed in, turned a corner to our right, and engaged the first mini-boss in the tunnel. "Move right!" the raid leader called out in vent. Wild scampered right with the others, just as the mini-boss cast a savage fire AoE - on the left side of the tunnel. As we fought the tank would continually call out which side of the tunnel to be on to avoid that fire blast. Running through the tunnel and shifting side to side almost constantly challenged Wild's healing as I tried to spam Wild Growth as often as possible as well as get bigger heals on the tank. Whispered instruction regarding healing were that the Wild Growth's would be enough to keep everyone but the tank alive. That didn't really account for raiders slow to change sides and getting hit with fire, or the lesser geared alts, who did not have the kind of health their mains have. Wild didn't help himself by getting his feet tangled up more than once, and Wild's groupmates started dying. There was trouble in the arena with the other team, as well, but Wild's group wiped first, followed by the rest.

Wild couldn't see what had been happening in the arena, but that group was facing several waves of mobs. The group leader for the arena team was concerned that he might not have enough DPS to kill the waves fast enough. The groups were already arranged the best way they could be, so we made no changes and went at it again.

Wild got the hang of things a bit better on the second try. We killed the first mini-boss without losing any raiders and were working on the second mini-boss when things went bad with the arena team and they wiped. Had we been able to continue, what would have happened next is that, after killing the second mini-boss, our next target would have been Thorim. Thorim would be aggroed by our group as the tunnel, which twisted upward as we moved through it, opened up overlooking the arena. We were all then supposed to jump down to the arena, and Thorim would follow. Well, maybe next time. The raid leaders determined we didn't have the DPS to beat the waves, and we were done with Ulduar for the evening.

We still had some time, though, and decided to give Onyxia a try, shifting continents from Northrend to Kalimdor. Long story short, we tried four times, but again, struggled to get enough DPS to bring her down. Wild got death-itis again with Ony, dying early twice, the second time on our fourth and final attempt, which effectively ended our evening. The first time Wild died it was by Ony's Breath, even though Wild had positioned himself properly as I had learned from the original Ony fights and reinforced by the one Ony fight Wild has seen since it was upgraded for level 80s. Avoiding the Breath meant getting to her sides where neither the Breath nor her tail swipe can get you. Or, hug the side walls, since her Breath never quite reached the walls.

Wild was hugging the wall when Ony's Breath killed him. When Wild questioned that, the raid confirmed that in the level 80 Ony encounter, her Breath reaches the wall. Well, you live and learn. Or, in WoW, you die and learn.

The second time Wild died, and ended our evening, Wild was safe from Ony's Breath, but too close to the tank I was healing, and the mob he was on aggroed on Wild's healing and crushed me.

It was all good, though. Wild has a new boss kill, got to see another new boss, and got some practice against Onyxia. Wild hearthed back to Dalaran and picked up his new leggings, popped a pair of +23 spell power gems in the two sockets, and weaved enchanted thread into them for +50 more spell power. Wild was just finishing that up when one of the raid leaders on the Ulduar run, surveydrood, asked if Wild wanted to join him in a five man to do the daily Heroic. Wild just happened to have already picked up the daily Heroic quest, and as soon as he got his gear ready got a Summons to Halls of Stone (HoS).

HoS is the five man dungeon that is part of the Ulduar complex. There are four bosses, but I have to admit that I only really noticed two of them. The group was running on their mains in order to collect the two triumph emblems that completing the Heroic daily provides, and this dungeon was no match us. It took us less than thirty minutes to race through the abundant trash mobs and take out bosses. Perhaps we even skipped a boss or two to get the required quest done which awards the emblems. Wild doesn't know, it went by so fast.

One of these days Wild (or more likely JB) will take a more sedate pace through all these WotLK dungeons, and really see them. Not that Wild is complaining, it was a great ride and Wild got his triumph emblems.

After Wild left for the evening JB came in game for awhile, getting in some fishing in Grizzly Hills after doing some of the new Argent Tournament dailies. JB is going to have to get a lot more proficient in jousting to continue to advance, but JB will cover that another time. JB finally called in a night around 10:40pm.