With all that pvping going on Wild finally had to force his way back into the lineup. A group of players were getting a Sunwell Plateau raid together that Wild just had to get in on. Sunwell Plateau is a level 70 25 man raid on the Isle of Quel'danas. It was the last and greatest of the level 70 dungeons, the last before Wrath of the Lich King. At the time it offered loot better than that of the Black Temple as well as offering the newest Tier 6 gear sets. And Wild had never set foot inside it; well, except for that one time solo, but we won't go into that.
The organizer, who would also main tank it, was surprisingly able to gather a full 25 level 80s for the run, which was really overkill for a level 70 dungeon. However, the fight mechanics against the SWP bosses (and there are nine in six encounters) was known to be tricky, and even level 80s can fail if you don't know the fights.
Wild had hoped to DPS it to wring out the bugs in my new system, but they wanted Wild to heal. We had five healers, but could have done it easily with four, or even three. The tank healer (a priest) and Wild did the bulk of the healing. The fifth healer just seemed to be along for the ride. It was really a blast and I thought I'd share it in pictures this time.
There is no attunement for SWP and raiders filtered into the instance as they arrived at the Isle of Quel'danas and rode the short distance to the dungeon. Just inside there is a clear zone where there are npcs, like there is in Icecrown Citadel, so SWP might be where they got the idea to do it with ICC.
The Sunwell is the source of power and energy for the elves. Guarded by dragons and other powerful forces, there is an ongoing battle with the Scourge to keep the Sunwell safe.
Waiting to get started
The first boss, the blue dragon Kalecgos, has been corrupted and must be stopped. He appears in both dragon form and elven form during the fight, which involves portals. The raid leader took the time to explain the fight, which helped a lot in minimizing the stupidity that seems almost inevitable in an old school dungeon run. An ice shield holds us back while a battle rages on the other side. Then the ice breaks and we can enter.
Kalcgos Behind the Ice Shield
The next boss, pit lord Brutallus, can also be found making mayhem on the far side of the Isle as part of the daily quest bombing run, when he isn't causing trouble in SWP. Brutallus can't be damaged on the bombing run, but you can shoot at him and he'll yell back that such puny beings as we should gather together and come at him in force. Sure, Brutallus, and here we are, in SWP. There is a huge wall of fire that the raid cannot pass until Brutallus is killed.
Brutallus
The third boss is a fel dragon, Felmyst, born from the corpse of the great dragon Madrigosa, who was defeated by Brutallus.
Felmyst Dies
The fourth encounter is against two demons, fire demon Alythess and his female twin, shadow demon Sacrolash. This is rated as the most difficult encounter in SWP, even for level 80s. There is a high damage AoE that hits a random player called Conflagration, and it can kill if raiders are not aware of what it is and how to handle it. Wish I'd gotten a pic of the after battle result. Ten raiders died. We basically overwhelmed the twins by pure numbers. A smaller group of level 80 raiders might have wiped.
Alythess and Sacrolash before the Fight
Next up we fought a tainted naaru named M'uru, who in the second phase transforms into a void wraith named Entropius.
The final encounter is against a famous demon, Kil'jaeden, who became the leader of the Burning Crusade after several former leaders were defeated or killed. His real claim to fame, though, is that he's the demon that created the Lich King. Kil'jaeden is trying to enter and take over the Sunwell, and we arrive while he is still being Summoned into SWP, and while the Sunwell's protector, Anveena, is held at bay behind an arcane barrier.
We succeed in stopping Kil'jaeden, but Anveena sacrifices herself to aid us, and the Sunwell loses it's power.
Victory with a heavy price
Following Kil'jaeden's defeat, the blood elves are able to re-ignite the Sunwell during a cool post fight set piece. The raid leader, who has done SWP a number of times, seemed just as excited this time, as well. "Get ready for the light show," he told us. Most of the raid even stuck around, even though we'd finished.
Sunwell Ignited
It was definitely worth waiting around to see. Once the Sunwell was in full fury again Wild walked into the center. The whole screen goes brilliant white. Very cool, and a lot of fun.
The rest of the weekend was a bit more mundane, but more important to Wild's and Philly's progression.
Wild ran Halls of Lightning, a 5 man heroic, to work on his DPS. There was definitely improvement. Wild usually averages around 2500-2600 DPS on a heroic run. In HoL Wild did 2864 DPS, second to a rogue with 3240 dps. The tank was in a great hurry, and Wild did over aggro a number of times as he pulled multiple mobs constantly. The healer was fine, but struggled with all the aggro being generated, and Wild backed off on some of DPS at times to give the healer a break. Going full out I think Wild could have gotten over 3k. Not goose pimple level, but it's progress.
Wild also did the weekly, which was Ignis in Ulduar, getting his five frost badges. Philly continued to crunch out xp and honor, doing a WG as well as the daily Call to Arms Alterac Valley run, both losses, though. Philly is 40% of the way to level 79.
And last but not least, Mery went dragonling hunting in Dustwallow Marsh for some thick leather and DINGED! to level 40. Her new bow and high powered shells sure came in handy. It also helped to get her tanking pet, the gorilla Sassy, from level 37 to 39. Mery can now start wearing mail armor instead of the leather she was limited to before. Mery already had a few items tucked away for this day, and will be adding more. Mery also made the trip to Bloodhoof Village to buy the faster ground mount. Mery's promotion to the 40s bracket is going to put pressure on EZ, currently level 28, to get to level 30, as there is no Wild family member in that bracket anymore. EZ is still one very conflicted shaman, who needs to get her act together.
I've been having login problems throughout the weekend. It began on Friday when I started the game and Patch 3.3.3 reinstalled itself. Reinstalls for no apparent reason are never a good thing. Since patches autoload, there wasn't any warning, so I let it finish, as stopping it midstream would have been even worse. I then started getting an "unable to validate game version" error message when I attempted to login. Computer reboots and various other checks later, I was able to login sometimes but not every time. Blizzard has a repair program that can be run, but from what I've read there are only two results by doing that - it fixes the problem, or it utterly screws you and you have to re-install the game from scratch. I wasn't going that route other than as a last resort. I had a new problem, too. The login sometimes started hanging at the blue bar, and I would have to ctrl-alt-del out of the game and try again, which usually worked the second time. Blizz has been running rolling restarts throughout the weekend, and so far today (Sunday) I haven't had any login problems, but we'll see.
Another issue has to do with the Auction House. Items for sale can be set at several time limits, the most common being 48 hours and 24 hours. Happy always places his items for 48 hours. For several days now the AH items have been expiring at 24 hours even when 48 hours is selected. It's extremely annoying to have hundreds of expired items in the mail every morning to sort through and re-post. Blizzard and the addon author for Auctioneer are pointing fingers at each other, and I hope they figure it out and get it fixed.
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