Monday (10 May) - No, Not Forge of Souls

Monday (10 May) - No, Not Forge of Souls

First of all, the generator on our RV went out on us on Monday and we spent a good part of the day getting to and from the RV place. It's a long drive but they are very good, and we got it back the same day.

In and around that Philly got in a couple of WGs (one win) and a couple of random battlegrounds (both embarrassing losses). Philly is starting to get BG-aphobia. Every time she enters a random BG on her own the horde gets obliterated. Ah well, Philly still gets honor points.

Philly had yet to do her daily heroic dungeon, and Monday night she was back in game to get at least that done. Frankly, she wasn't all that excited about her chances to win something worthwhile in heroics with it's ilevel 200 gear, and thought she might force the issue and get in on a normal mode Forge of Souls dungeon, which is the first of three ICC 5 man dungeons Philly needs to do. The normal mode offers upgraded gear at ilevel 219. I went so far as to sign her up in Dungeon Finder for that specific run.

Time went by and the run didn't pop up. Bd came in game and asked if anyone wanted to do a heroic - Bd is our ICC10 main tank and would make quick work of a heroic, so Philly switched gears and volunteered. Philly unchecked FoS on dungeon finder. We added a mage and a death knight from the MM guild to our group, but we didn't have anyone else available, so we let the Dungeon Finder pick our healer.

We quickly got our random dungeon - Forge of Souls. Heroic mode. What are the odds of FoS being the random heroic? However, that is the second time this has happened to me (ie, randomly getting a dungeon I'd selected, and then de-selected), once to Wild, and now to Philly. Very strange. FoS drops i232 gear and Philly might be out of her element in this dungeon, which is much more difficult than the run of the mill heroics Philly had been doing. The healer we got, a priest, was a really good sport. The only non-guildie in the group, she was a superb healer and had to wonder what she was doing in a group like this. She stayed because Bd was such a great tank, that's my guess, because us three DPSers weren't packing much wallop in there. After wading - slowly - through a considerable number of trash mobs, we made it to the first boss, Bronjahm. Philly, in shadow form, had to remember to run away when the boss channels me, and to stay close during phase 2 when a whirlwind surrounds the boss and straying into it was near certain death. The healer, having seen our DPS, suggested that she go shadow as well for the extras DPS, and heal when needed. "Otherwise, this is going to take us all night," were her exact words. Then we had our mage go afk on us do to a family thing, and we ended up tackling Bronjahm with just four of us.

Yes, it did take a long time. Both the DK and then, very late in the fight, Philly, died. Bd and the healer finished him off by themselves. He dropped a very nice axe. Philly can't use axes.

We got our mage back and worked our way to the second and final boss, Devourer of Souls. I started getting the giggles as Philly was running around, trying to keep all her spells working while avoiding the purple pools of death, staying out of reach of unkillable mobs that spawn all over the place, and remembering NOT to attack the boss when he did his mirror thing and reflected damage dealt to another player. The mage died this time, too, but the healer did a remarkable job and kept the rest of us alive. There were two boss drops this time, a coveted sword (that Philly can't use) and a plate pair of boots that Philly can't wear.

But Philly had completed her first ICC 5 man heroic, and that is one heck of an accomplishment. She'd also gotten her first dungeon run with her new guild, another nice first. Half jokingly, Philly suggested "Dare we try Pit of Saron?" PoS is the 2nd ICC 5 man. The mage had to leave, however, and the priest healer just laughed and said, "I'm actually tempted, you guys are fun, but I don't think so." Then she thought about the 3rd ICC 5 man that would follow PoS, and added with another laugh (which might have covered up a shudder), "And definitely NOT HoR. No way." HoR, or Halls of Reflection, is not a battle even Philly would recommend we try, as the first encounter is truly, truly nasty.

The Tuesday maintenance this morning was limited to only certain servers, and Silvermoon was not one of them. Things were very quiet, though, as most players likely assumed the server would be down and didn't even try to login. Wild was in game for a bit to see what the new frost weekly was (Sartherion in Obsidium Sanctum). Wild also checked on the progress of sign ups for the Tuesday night ICC25. We have 16 signed up, far too few, and that is not looking good. The MM guild ICC10 still plans to run as well, and that may be where Wild ends up Tuesday night.