Wouldn't it be nice if Wild was part of a raid that was somewhere in between having to punch a time clock and ignoring the clock all together? The thing Wild always liked about the FS raids is that start times were set and raiders were expected to be on time (and most of the time were). The single-minded focus on progression was a bit overbearing at times, which tended to stuff out the shenanigans that are a welcome part of the MM raid. I like the shenanigans, but when a raid is planned for 6pm start and doesn't get off the ground until 7pm, and when there are 5-10 minute breaks in the action seemingly between every boss . . . well, that can get a little tiresome, even knowing and understanding why it's like that in the MM raid.
For the first time in memory I actually dozed off waiting for the MM raid to form up Wednesday night. Wild had been in game since 530pm (his own anal retentive personality insisted he be in game 30 minutes before start time), and after doing some dailies, cleaning out his bank, trimming his hooves, and giving his mammoth mount a good brushing, he mounted up atop the big whooly beast and waited ... and waited. Some time later I noticed that Lady Hunter had been /poking Wild for a couple of minutes and the MM raid leader had sent a whisper "icc Wild?" Clearing the cobwebs, I announced that I was conscious again and got my invite to the raid.
It was a bit after 7pm by the time we got down to business. Bd, our regular raid leader, never made it in game, so Mf took the reins. Mf has a number of level 80s and plays whichever seems to be needed on any given night. He's also the second youngest raider in the guild, a teenager slightly older than the 13 year old druid moonkin that was also a compatriot of Wild's who moved from FS to MM. Just thought I'd share that tidbit of random information that flows steadily in vent during the raid.
We were all inside ICC, and all buffed up, but the raid leader/tank was having a bit of a problem getting everyone's attention to get started. So he just started attacking the first set of trash mobs. Wild, who was his healer, half suspected that was going to happen given similar incidences in the past, and followed after him to heal. The rest of the raid shifted from idle to drive and came after us. We had cleared two sets of trash when someone noticed that our buff was gone. The buff, "Hellscream's" something or other, is a raid buff that we get automatically upon entering the dungeon, but can be removed if a raider talks to one of the npcs inside. Someone had, probably not realizing that would remove the buff. We all had to troop out of ICC to reset it, return, and start the trash mob pull all over again.
Even without a rogue with us, we were able to clear trash to Marrowgar with no problems and without tripping a trap. We had three healers, with Wild as the main tank healer, Lady Hunter on her paladin as the off tank healer, and a shaman for raid healing. I must say it was an exciting fight. We were a little rough around the edges, and Wild found himself taking risks with his tank in order to help keep the other tank alive and to spray some raid healing around. We survived, though, and Marrowgar fell. Our group is still at that point where a first attempt kill is still pretty exciting, so we were jazzed up moving on to Deathwhisper.
Marrowgar healing:
#1: Wild, 4614 hps/46.9% healing
#2: Pally, 2659/22%
#3: shaman, 2199/21%
One of the raiders was having serious UI problems and needed to reload. He ended up having to reboot his computer as well, and that lowered the jazz level a bit as we waited for more than ten minutes. Not that the conversations weren't entertaining, although the Mrs gave me strict directions there would be no further talk of "bacon" from Wild. But I do plan to tell her about the "num num num" joke. ;-)
Deathwhisper was a bit of a scary ride as well, but she fared no better than Marrowgar, falling on the first attempt.
Deathwhisper healing (forgot to note the % healing):
#1: Wild, 3039 hps
#2: shaman: 2517 hps
#3: pally, 2087 hps
Wild won a cloth bracers drop from Deathwhisper on a roll of "3" (no one else wanted it, a good time to get such a lousy roll). [Bracers of Dark Blessing] is a small upgrade i251 item that will likely only be used in Wild's moonkin set because it lacks the +haste Wild would lose in his healing set. Still, Wild was happy to get it.
We moved on to the Gunship. I like the raid leader's summary of the fight: "This is an easy battle. The only hard part is living through all of the glitches this thing has." The raid leader set up the groups, one to stay on the defending ship, and the other to jump over to the enemy ship whenever needed. Group 1 was the jump group with the main tank, but when he set up the group he kept the pally healer in group 1 and put Wild in with the second group. Shouldn't matter, as the tank planned to stay close to the rails on the enemy ship so he could be healed without the healer having to jump over as well. On the first jump the tank immediately had problems and died.
Wild, who was keeping the off tank alive on the defending ship, saw it and rushed to the rail. The dead tank was in range, splayed out half off the rail, and Wild battle rezzed him. Wild and the pally got him back to full health, but in spite of that two massive hits killed him a second time. We wiped. That shouldn't happen with the kind of healing we were dishing out, and the tank confirmed that it was glitches that killed him. I think Blizzard should add "glitches" to the list of hostile abilities for this encounter.
Our second attempt went very long. Twice we thought we were close enough to finish off the fight without having to board the enemy ship again, and both times we were wrong. The fight is won when the enemy ship is destroyed, and it just took us longer to get that done than I'd experienced before. But a win is a win is a win. We had taken down the first three encounters.
Gunship healing:
#1: Wild, 3477 hps/46.7% healing
#2: shaman, 2077/26.7%
#3: pally, 2093/16.9%
Only half of our group had ever seen the Deathbringer Saurfang fight, which was our next stop. It would be the first time tanking him for both of our tanks, I believe, and the first time healing for the shaman. There is a lot of things to remember, and after going through them once the best thing to do is just try it, to be able to visualize what you'd just been told.
On our first attempt we made a surprisingly strong effort, getting Saurfang down to 20% before we hit the enrage timer and wiped. We had run out of time and there would be no second attempt, but we were overall pleased with the effort. Lady Hunter said that she might try to get the raid together one more time before the reset so we could take a crack at Saurfang again.
Wild returned to Dalaran to enchant and gem his new bracers. I also sent Wild off on a recon mission. Beneath the wide avenues and tall spires of the floating in air city of Dalaran is what is called the Underbelly. The Underbelly is the sewer system of Dalaran, and yet there is also a thriving community down there that has carved out a way of life. Wild has been down there many times. Players congregate in an open area where horde and allie duels are in play almost constantly. There is even an Inn, called Cantrips and Crows. Wild has been to the Inn many times, to complete cooking quests or passing through to fish the dank, tepid waters which cover all of the lower reaches of the Underbelly. There is also a hostile alliance npc that sits morosely at the bar near the barkeep. He's there for a specific quest, but many a horde has started a fight with him accidentally when the intent was to talk to the barkeep.
Wild had gotten a tip that there was more to that Inn than I realized. Supposedly, the Inn featured all of the same benefits of both the topside inn and the separately located topside banks. And sure enough, tucked away in a tiny cubbyhole to the right of the bar, was a mailbox and access to both personal and guild banks. The lag when logging into the topside inn can be very brutal. But players can set their hearthstone to the Underbelly inn, too, where the lag is perceptibly less brutal. All the comforts in a compact space and less lag to boot. Wild set his hearthstone to Cantrips and Crows.
Philly, too, set her hearthstone there and discovered yet another marvel of the Underbelly. Catching a flight from the flight master still requires that players go topside. However, if the plan is to use a flying mount from Dalaran instead of the flight master, Philly discovered that there is a tunnel near the bank area that leads directly to the open air and sky of Dalaran's Crystalsong Forest. Now how convenient is that!
Perching just inside the Underbelly tunnel
The Underbelly tunnel seen from Philly's flying mount
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