Wednesday (2 Dec) - Doing the Chicken Dance

Wednesday (2 Dec) - Doing the Chicken Dance

Note - I'm going to start posting the contents on the Sporting News site again, instead of just providing the link to the blog. I'll keep the blog going, too, for those who prefer that, but frankly I'm not getting as many readers since I stopped posting on the TSN forums. Hopefully that is the cause, and not that you've gotten tired of me. ;-)

The guild alt-10 raid seems to be catching on. Not only did we have a full complement sign up for the raid, we had more guildies in game asking if they could go. Wild counted fourteen folks who were interested in running with the raid. Perhaps this was a one time thing, and perhaps it can't last with the holidays upon us, but it's still a good thing to see. We sorted out who would go, with some of our regulars bowing out so that those who needed it more could go. Usually we start with Onyxia on Wednesdays, but the raid leader wanted to focus just on Ulduar this time so that raiders who could only run on Friday would get a chance at Onyxia this week. Ulduar is getting pretty old for some in our raid, so bowing out was not that hard of a decision. There were also more than enough healers, and how often can I say that!? We shuffled new folks and new alts around until we were happy with the setup. We had three good tanks, although only our raid leader was an experienced tank, and for most fights he put the two lesser experienced tanks on the bosses so they could learn. Wild and another druid, Sp, plus a shaman alt of someone (there are so many guildies running alts I lose track of who is who), were the healers. Wild decided it was time to let someone else set up the healing assignments, so Wild "volunteered" Sp to take the lead. Wild's regular healing partners, h-priest and P-Jo, never wanted to handle that chore, which is why Wild got the job by default in the first place. But Sp and the raid leader were both ok with the idea, and that gave Wild a bit of a break from that role.

Healing wasn't necessary for the vehicle based Flame Leviathon fight, and we quickly destroyed the big tank. This fight is a joke now, and we just rush through it so we can get to the other bosses.

Razorscale came next, and Sp set up a three healer assignment. But three healers aren't really needed for this fight, so Sp asked the shaman healer to switch to his elemental spec. But the shaman said he was badly geared for elemental, and would not put out much DPS. Wild offered that he could go moonkin spec. And everyone wanted the raid buffs a moonkin delivers: +3% haste (faster casting and melee), +5% crit, and spell based +13% damage dealing for the raid when "Earth and Moon" is active. Not to mention -3% damage to the tank with Insect Swarm.

Wild got to "go chicken" for the Razorscale fight. It was a blast! Wild assisted the two tanks on killing the adds that spawn at the beginning of the fight, but it got even more fun when Razorscale landed and Wild could really cut loose. Wild has three DoTs that are applied right at the beginning of a fight, and then reapplied as needed: Faerie Fire (improved +hit for the raid), Moonfire, and Insect Swarm. Wild then begins spamming Wrath until a spell called Eclipse procs. Eclipse dramatically increases +crit, and it switches between Wrath and Starfire. If Wild gets Eclipse while casting Wrath, I immediately switch to Starfire to make use of the increased crit. If Wild is casting Starfire when Eclipse procs, I switch to Wrath. Keeping track of that can be hard with everything else going on during a fight, but Wild has an addon called "Squawk and Awe" that helps me keep track of the Eclipse procs and which spell I should be using.

Wild was no where near the top of the DPS charts, but did acceptable damage at around 2500 dps. Razorscale died.

XT-002 was up next, and Wild stayed moonkin for that as well. Wild was a bit tentative on the Razorscale fight, getting used to the spell rotations and overly concerned with keeping up the DoTs. On XT, it was "chickens gone wild" and Wild did his darndest to burn up all his mana, just to see how hard and fast Wild could cast. Wild pulled a little over 2700 DPS, good enough for fifth in DPS, and still never ran out of mana. That's a bit of a tease, by the way. Let's see, there were two healers, and two tanks, who don't really count when measuring DPS. That left six full time DPSers. Hey, at least I beat one DPS raider! Also, to be fair to Wild, he was DPSing in what is mostly healing gear augmented just enough so that he would be at the hit cap and not miss with his spells (he had no misses). Wild also has no set bonuses for moonkin spec, nor does he have the better idol for moonkin, which cost 25 triumph badges (Wild only last week got the better idol for healing). Overall Wild was pleased with his performance, although I did make one mistake that would have measurably improved his numbers - I never used Starfall, which is a cast and forget AoE. It's not something that should be used in every situation, but I could and should have used it on both XT and Razor. Wild just needs more "chicken time" for practicing!

After XT we headed for the Iron Council, and Wild shifted back to healing for the rest of the evening, as we needed three.

Iron Council - we tried four times, failing on every attempt. There were issues of tank positioning where they took themselves out of healing range. Healers can't maneuver too much on this fight because there are three bosses spread out over a large chamber. There were issues of raiders standing in deadly zones instead of immediately vacating them. Wild started as a raid healer, but Sp added Wild to tank healing when it looked liked we weren't getting enough healing to him.

We decided to break from IC and went after Kologarn. It's cool when someone else does the healing assignments. When Wild does the assignments, I usually take the harder jobs, unless there is a healing class for which it would be natural to give that job to. With Sp doing the assignments, he took the tough ones, and Wild got things like raid healing and Grip healing for Kologarn. Of course, Wild still HoTed up the main tank, kept the off tank healed, and in general did what I always do. Kologarn didn't last very long.

Rejuvenated by victory, we went back to Iron Council and killed them.

With time running out, we had one shot at the Cat Lady. We had not had a single break, however, and there were a couple of raiders holding their knees together, so the raid leader said for us to assemble at the Cat Lady area and then he would call a short break.

We assembled, and once we were all there the raid leader saw that the two trash mobs we needed to kill were presently in a good position to take on. He ordered the attack in raid chat. Wild was quick to add that I would handle sparks, an easy but critical task, and the raid leader pulled the mobs. Funny thing, though. Only half the raid responded. The other half had started their break. We wiped, of course.

A slightly miffed raid leader eventually admitted that he should have done a ready check before engaging. "But you should all know not to start a break until I give the word!" he couldn't help grumbling.

We sorted that out, and it turned out we only needed one shot at Cat Lady. She died.

Since Wild had split time between DPS and healing, overall numbers didn't mean much. Healing-wise, on individual fights Wild and Sp went back and forth between #1 and #2 in healing. Wild's two best hps numbers were on two of the IC fights - 2787 and 2899 hps. Not bad for 10 man.

Wild has no need for any of the gear dropped by these early bosses in Ulduar. I can still use the Conquest emblems that drop, but as for gear, it's the latter half of Ulduar I keep hoping we figure out how to get to and beat. Here's hoping we put a dent in those bosses come Friday.

There was also this thing called pvp going on, and I'll cover that in a separate post.