Friday (13 Nov) - Raid Bouncing

Friday (13 Nov) - Raid Bouncing

Wild was in game at the usual time Friday night for the guild ten man. Wild had missed the Wednesday raid, but was signed up for Friday. Ten man ToC was on the agenda, but once we had enough raiders the consensus was to go after Onyxia first. Mxpally, hpriest, and Wild were the healers, which is the combo I like best. We were going with two bear tanks, one of which, EC, is more often in the raid as a druid healer, and has also brought his shaman as well. Flexible fellow, and this was his first time in the group as a tank.

Wild likes the Onyxia fight, but there is one aspect that gets Wild in trouble almost every time. It's her Breath. Wild wants to lobby Bliz for a bad breath trinket that would cure Onyxia of that abominable Breath that almost always, sooner or later, gets Wild killed. Slightly more seriously, Wild is considering wearing his level 60 Onyxia Scale Cloak from the old school days as it provides some protection from that Breath. In truth, Wild should do what everyone else does, and that's look at Onyxia when she starts her Breath, and then get the heck out of the way (moving to one side of her). Of course, she is airborne when she does it, and Wild can't seem to crane his neck skyward at the right angle fast enough to see which way she's facing. Got to be a trick to it Wild doesn't know about. Mostly Wild sticks close to raiders that know what they are doing and then runs screaming in the same direction they are going when Breath starts.

That said, Wild managed to get hit by Onyxia's Breath only three times over the course of the fight, and those were fleeting touches as Wild pounded hooves out of the line of attack in time to lose "only" 90% of his health - which is still better than being dead. If it were just the sulfurous odor, a clothespin on the nose (a big one for a big nose) would suffice, but alas, it also has to be filled with fire.

A little confusion between the tanks during a transition when Onyxia lands and there are whelps still about got Wild killed and the raid wiped on our first attempt. Those whelps are such cute little baby dragons, and they have such teensy teeth - and such a big appetite. They come out of their caves in swarms, and when a healer draws aggro - well, the whelps feed.

On our second attempt we brought Onyxia to ground and killed her. It was Wild's first Onyxia kill since old school days. Onyxia drops a lot of loot. Only one of the four pieces of gear (mostly plate stuff that Wild couldn't wear) were usable by Wild. The one piece he wanted was a +hit trinket that would have shined brightly in his moonkin gear, but a warlock won it. Wild was also out rolled on Onyxia's head, which can be turned in for one of a selection of very nice gear. Then there was the 22 slot gear bag (22 slots being the largest bag in the game), but no, Wild didn't win that either. Finally there was a bag of jewels - two jewels, to be exact - that Wild did win. Wild sent them to the family's new jewel crafter, Philly. They would be useful, but wouldn't help Wild in any tangible way. The best loot, though, was the three triumph badges Onyxia awards, which gets Wild closer to the relic he MUST HAVE! :P

So, are we going to ToC now? No, wait, horde has just won Wintergrasp. Let's go do VoA! And off we went.

Earlier in the week Wild had been in a 25 man VoA PUG that cleared the place. This time Wild was going with his guild for a 10 man VoA. I think the success Wild had with the PUG bouyed Wild's confidence. We mowed through VoA, not overpowering it by any means, but not allowing anything to slow us down, either. The new tank had never seen VoA as a tank, so he was learning as we went, but we got past the rough spots. We killed the main boss, Koralon. We spent a long time on Emalon, but still brought him down on our first attempt. Nobody wanted to do Archavon since he doesn't drop anything they'd be interested in, but Wild likes to finish things. It would take time away from other, better fights, though, so we moved on. Wild saw the rare mount drop for the second time, but didn't win it.

Well, ToC was not in the cards tonight as we moved on to Ulduar instead. The Wednesday raid had gotten up to the Cat Lady, so that's where we started. We brought her down pretty easily on our first try.

It seems that this group, even with the shifting attendance of this or those alts, pretty much has the first half of Ulduar on farm. Flame Leviathon, XT-002, Razorscale, Iron Council, Ignis (when we have the right makeup), Kologarn, and Cat Lady are going down almost every week.

It's after the Cat Lady that we run into trouble. I've mentioned the first seven bosses, who reside in the areas of Ulduar called "The Siege of Ulduar" and "The Antechamber of ulduar." Once Cat Lady is down we enter the area called "The Keepers of Ulduar." Wild has seen (and killed) two of the bosses in this area, Hodir and Freya. Wild has attempted but not killed a third boss, Thorim. The other boss in this area, Mimiron, remains a mystery to Wild. Then there is a fourth area, "The Descent Into Madness," with two more really bad-azz bosses that Wild has never seen, either. We still have a long way to go.

Wild does not have fond memories of Hodir. I've helped him die just once. Too many times on too many nights we try and try and just can't bring him down. Wild and the other healers wrestled with why we couldn't keep tanks and raiders alive, and it didn't seem to matter what healers we had or what assignments we made. Wild is no uber healer, but Mxpally and hpriest are dam good. It's not the healing. We've also used about four different combinations of tanks, with the one constant being that the tanks are not surviving a deadly attack called Frozen Blows. Frozen Blows happen often in the fight, and it's an attack that switches from physical damage (which tanks are well built to withstand) to non-physical frost damage, doing both a massive up front hit and then more damage over a 20 second DoT. All of our tanks are alts, and don't have the gear of a tank that does that for a living. They can survive some Frozen Blows, with drastic healing help and using their "oh sh1t!" emergency spells, but sooner or later they basically get one shot. And in this fight when the main tank dies there is no recovery and we wipe.

We started with the new tank as the main tank so he could get experience with the encounter. We wiped three times, but we counted that as a success since the new tank was learning the fight. We then switched to the other, more experienced (but still an alt) tank, and wiped three more times. No joy, and Hodir mocked us as we retired for the evening. We just gotta figure out how to get this guy!

By the way, prior to the start of the evening another former guildie and friend who has moved over to the MM guild got hold of Wild and invited him to join his new ten man ToC raid that starts on Wednesday afternoon before the evening run. It's early for Wild to be raiding (3pm start) but I can probably swing that, at least some of the time. Assuming Wild also goes to his evening guild raid on the same day, that would make for a long day of raiding (3pm - 9pm). I told him to sign me up. :-)