Wednesday (4 Nov) - A View of Two Guilds

Wednesday (4 Nov) - A View of Two Guilds

Wednesday night's raid was the first guild raid since the dust up on the guild website regarding the state of guild raiding. There were not a lot of guildies in game, but nearly all of those that were there were there for the raid. Both of our regular tanks were in game, along with two healers, Wild and Hpriest. We also had two death knights who had tanking specs, and that allowed one our regular tanks, an alt of surveydrood, to waive his spot so that another guildie could come. Among our regularly invited healers, Mxpally, P-Jo, and Mg did not make the raid. But we had another guildie druid healer in game, EC, who had expressed interest in attending last week, and he got the nod as the third healer. We were ready. Wild sent a whisper to the raid leader of the MM guild run, Bd, letting him know that he needn't hold a spot for Wild. The MM guild headed into Ulduar. Wild and company decided to take advantage of the Horde holding Wintergrasp fortress, and headed there for Vault of Archavon (VoA).

Koralon is the toughest boss in VoA, and with reason - he has Tier 9 gear to reward those able to kill him. Wild set up the healing. There was a little confusion with EC, who was used to being a raid healer, and missed Wild's instructions that he was the off tank healer. Druids are often raid healers, but that assumes there is a paladin or disc priest available for tank healing. Wild was the main tank healer with Hpriest handling the raid healing. We wiped on our first attempt when the off tank didn't get healed right away.

We straightened that out for our next attempt. We tried three more times, getting Koralon down to as low as 21%, but could not cover that final ground. We tried with both a three healer and two healer arrangement, and switched tanks around as well, but could not find a combination that worked. If we'd had a little more time I think we would have gotten him, but a WG warning told us to leave as the next WG battle was about to start. We scrambled out of VoA and headed for Ulduar.

We pounded through Ulduar: Flame Leviathon, Razorscale, XT-002, and Kologarn all fell on our first attempts. We struggled with the Iron Council. Wild and the druid main tank had control of the primary boss, Steelbreaker, with Hpriest assigned to interrupt the big hits that Steelbreaker hammered the tank with. That left Hpriest with less time to help out EC, and Wild was fully engaged keeping the main tank alive and assisting raid healing those in range. EC and the dk tank initially had good control over the other two bosses, which are just held away from the raid until Steelbreaker is killed. But on two attempts the dk tank kept dying. Rather than spend any more time on the optional encounter, we shifted gears and headed after Auriaya, the Cat Lady. Wild put EC on spark duty for the trash mobs, and that went smoothly. We then engaged the Cat Lady. Everything went exactly right and she fell in minutes, one of our best kills yet. Friday we hope to get deeper into Ulduar and take some shots at ToC.

Wild hurried to Dalaran and to the Quartermaster holding emblem of Conquest gear. Wild had finally reached 58 emblems, enough to buy another piece of T8.5 gear. This time it was a chest piece, ilevel 226, and matched up nicely with Wild's other two tier pieces at helm and legs. Wild also got an ilevel 219 cape that I plan to work into his moonkin gear. A very good night for Wild.

Wild was getting mats together to enchant the chest piece, and haranguing Happy to stop dithering at the AH and just buy Wild the two gems I wanted, when Wild got a whisper from the Bd, MM guild raid leader. He wanted to invite Wild to their VoA run now that they had finished their Ulduar run. The horde had held the fortress in the last battle and so VoA was open again. Sorry, Wild declined, as I was already locked for ten man VoA since I'd run it earlier in the evening. No problem, he replied, how about 25 man VoA? He explained that they were going to try to do a 25 man as soon as they finished the ten man. Wild didn't even need to think about that. Count me in, Wild whispered back.

It took the MM guild longer than expected in 10 man VoA, in part because they were actually running two raids, and needed both to finish so they could combine into a 25 man raid. It was after 11pm when they got finished and we started filling the raid. Since it had gotten so late several of the MM guildies had to leave. Bd was persistent, though, and filled in the holes with pugs when we ran out of guildies. We had five healers, and Wild was assigned main tank healing with raid support. Another raider, a priest, was also main tank healing. We got two attempts on Koralon, then had to leave, again because a new WG battle was starting. We left VoA, but instead of breaking up and calling it a night, Bd offered that those who wanted to stay could remain in the raid and we'd join the WG battle. A group of 20 plus raiders coordinating a defense of the WG fortress was a pretty potent group. Wild stayed, and got to experience his first WG as an active participant.

The WG battle was very short. The alliance could not overcome a coordinated group and they failed on almost every front. Horde raiders kept taking key areas, which lopped minutes off the timer, and the Horde held the fortress.

Then we headed back into VoA. I wish I could say we beat him, but Bd's assessment after three more attempts was that they just didn't have the dps to bring him down fast enough. We wrapped things up around midnight, still empty handed.

It was a lot of fun, though. Wild started the night with a grand total of 9 lifetime pvp kills. He collected 26 more kills in Wintergrasp, primarily healing those doing all the damage.

Like Wild said earlier, a very good night.