Wednesday (28 Oct) - The Alt-10 Keeps Rolling

Wednesday (28 Oct) - The Alt-10 Keeps Rolling

Despite one of our two crucial tanks having a real life illness and unable to play, the Alt-10 managed to field a ten man raid of Ulduar. An death knight alt of one of our warlock mains agreed to off tank. We were still short a DPS, and another alt making his first appearance with the group also joined us. Later in the evening, when a hunter went offline with RL issues, the raid leader was able to bring in a pally tank friend from another guild to fill in, and the off tank dk was able to switch to DPS. For healing we had Wild, Mxpally, and Hpriest. P-Jo did make it in game, which Wild was happy to see, but not until after 6pm and we had already filled the raid. Wild also stayed in touch with the MM guild raid leader, who was also starting his raid at 6pm. Last week they hadn't decided what their second raid day would be, but he told Wild on Wednesday night that they were going to try running on Wed/Thursdays.

The Alt-10 raid had an uneven night, with some new faces and working with two new tanks, but despite some hiccups we still had an overall good night.

Bosses killed (in order and on our first try unless otherwise noted): Flame Leviathon, XT-002, Kologarn (4 tries), Cat Lady, and Iron Council (2 tries). We finally downed Kologarn on our 4th try with only nine raiders (when the hunter went offline). Wild's fascination with eyebeams remained intact as I was hit four straight times on that final attempt. The raid leader said that was a good thing - with a druid's HoTs, playing deadly tag with eyebeams still allowed Wild to keep healing. That's exactly what Wild was doing, although I really hadn't thought about it quite like that. Still, Wild plans to wear a "No To Eyebeams" T-shirt on next week's run. :P

In addition to our kills, between the Cat Lady and Iron Council fights we made three attempts on Thorim. Wild has only seen Thorim once before. This is the fight where the raid breaks up into two groups; a group of six which battles the arena-like event on the main floor of Thorim's chamber, and the other group of four which dive into a tunnel and fight mini-bosses that must be killed to force Thorim into the fight. Wild had had tunnel duty on his first exposure to the fight, so I talked my way into being on the arena team this time so I would understand both parts.

Before splitting into the two teams, we quickly killed the trash mobs that currently occupied the chamber. The tunnel team then entered the tunnel while the arena team drew up into a circle around the center of the chamber. In the arena various groups of mobs entered in a series of waves. Since they came from different directions, and entered the arena area with no aggro, anyone in the group could become initial targets. The tanks tried to grab them as they arrived, drawing them to the center where the AoE could kill them. Other raiders that got attacked were told to move through the center of the circle so the tanks and AoE could pick them up as we went through.

Unfortunately, we were not able to kill the incoming waves fast enough, and on every attempt the arena team was eventually overwhelmed and killed.

We wound up the evening just after 9pm. Wild did get loot, a nice helm. The leather helm is considered one of the best a druid caster can get at the ten man level. Wild tried to turn it down, considering that Wild already has the T8.5 helm, the only ilevel 226 piece I own (the Ulduar helm is ilevel 219). No one else could use it, though, and we didn't need the shard, so Wild kept it. Maybe I'll figure out a way to use it.

In other news JB is still banging out her Argent tournament dailies, and should reach the ten Champion Seals she needs to buy another piece of gear on Friday. By the way, through diligent practice JB has learned how to defeat the tougher npc City Champions to win her four jousts each day (which is one of the dailies). There is one daily that JB still can't do solo, so she could use some help - eyes DER. A level 77 can enter the tournament. Hint hint. ;-)