Wednesday (28 Jul) - Ya Just Gotta Laugh

Wednesday (28 Jul) - Ya Just Gotta Laugh

Wild has been a bit spoiled with the ICC10 runs the last couple of weeks. Our warrior/tank/raid leader, Bd, who generally runs with Group 1 (Tues/Wed), has been running with Group 2 (Wed/Thurs). Whether he is on his warrior or on his druid . . . whether he is the actual raid leader or just helping out . . . whether we have a super group or one full of alts - his presence, direction, and leadership ensure a fun and smooth raid. Bd went back to raiding with G1 this week, and Wild missed having him in the G2 raid Wednesday night.

The G2 is a good raid, with good people. Interesting people. Kind of crazy people, too, with never a dull moment. For example:

The raid leader, Lady Hunter, is a great friend. She is always ready to help another guildie or friend, and she is a wizard at filling a raid. It seems like she knows half the players on the server, and it's only a matter of time until she gets to know the other half. You can't say no to her when she asks a favor or wants you in her raid - it's just not possible. Once the raid starts, she tends to let the raid establish it's own flow, and so the raid tends to move forward in fits and starts, with several raiders involved in determining the next course of action.

Our lead tank, Tn, is a good tank, and in general he sets the pace of the raid. That is a tougher job than one would think, because in between assaults on trash mobs and bosses, there is a lot of, well, absences from the raid, side tracked conversations, forgotten things that need to be gotten, pizza deliveries, child taming, bio breaks, and the list could go on. Ideally breaks should be restricted to defined periods with a defined start and end, but it never seems to work out that way. So one could excuse Tn when he suddenly sends out an "are u ready?" over raid chat, and then proceeds to engage the boss or trash in front of us without waiting to see who happens to be ready or not. Fits and starts, fits and starts and What? Did we start!? It certainly keeps the healers on our toes.

Our second tank, when its Rs, keeps us all amused in between battles with foam swords we can duel with, children's rocking horses (which the girls really like), and numerous other toys and non-combat pets to wow us with. He's a walking circus clown whether in bear form, chicken form, or sporting leaves. Wild likes to shift into his murloc costume and become part of his show.

Then there is Dn, a death knight who is generally our best DPSer by a fairly good margin. He is pure death to hostile mobs, but he also dies more than any other raider since he and the tanks are always challenging each other. Can Dn pull aggro off of the tank, or can the tank hold it? They just love to push it to the limit. Wild heals him just as I would a tank, because I never know when he'll over-aggro and take the full brunt of a boss attack. Dn also has a mischevious side and may pull mobs at random if the raid has been sidetracked too long. One never knows what is going to happen from minute to minute.

Wild and a holy priest, Cr, are the regular two healers in G2. Sometimes we have a third healer, usually a paladin. Cr is a truly excellent healer and we complement each other well in our healing styles. She is geared as well as Wild and between the two of us we can put out a ton of healing. We struck up a whispered conversation in the raid Wednesday night that went on for most of the evening and was a lot of fun, talking about healing, approaches to different fights, who we liked to heal and who we worried about keeping alive, etc.

Hmm, that's a lot of stuff going on and you might have noticed I haven't even mentioned the actual raiding yet. Well, that's kind of how it feels in the raid, too. We never seem to be quite organized, a lot of things don't seem to be going the way they should, and yet -

1 - We wiped TWICE (and almost a third time) on the initial trash mobs before reaching the first boss. Why? Umm, "why" is not a question worth posing because the answer doesn't exist or would take so long to explain we'd forget why we asked in the first place. Of course, the wipes might have something to do with an impatient raider pulling trash when there were only four other raiders paying any attention. Did we clear the trash, though? We did.

2 - Lord Marrowgar: Another, let's get this thing going moment with the tank running in without a confirmed ready check from the raid. Was it messy? Yes. Was it insane? Probably. Did Marrowgar go down? Yep.

3 - Lady Deathwhisper: Well, we managed to pull an entire room full of adds at once, when that is usually a FOUR pull process. Did raiders die? Yes. Did we wipe? Nope, we cleared all of the trash in that one titanic pull. How did Lady DW fair? The fight went smoothly and flawlessly and she died.

4- The Gunship: Wild's turn in the spotlight. Wild always wears a rocket pack just in case he has to make an emergency jump to the enemy ship, which generally isn't necessary in ten man. Wild also always tests his rocket pack with a couple of jumps on our own ship before the battle starts. Wild made his usual jump, to the top of part of the ship superstructure. He's made that jump a dozen times without a hitch. Time for a hitch. Instead of landing where he expected, he glanced off the superstructure and bounced into the air. Had Wild been on the ball, he might have been able to redirect his flight back to the deck of the ship. Instead, I watched dumbfounded as Wild sailed over the rail of the ship. Note that this is a FLYING ship. It was a long fall. Wild died. Fun and games at Wild's expense went on the whole time Wild rezzed at the graveyard and worked his way back to the raid. Wild won't live that down any time soon. Oh, yes, we won the encounter, once Wild was back and we got started.

5- Deathbringer Saurfang. It took a looong time before all the comings and goings and this and thats ended and we actually started the fight. Once we did start, we were superb. We had a DPSer Marked early in the fight, but we kept pouring heals at him and kept him alive until Saurfang was down to about 33%. Wild then also got Marked, and between Wild, the two tanks, and all the other healing, Wild and Cr finally had to let the Marked DPSer die so we could keep up everyone else, including the Marked Wild. No one else died, and Saurfang fell.

We rolled past Saurfang and brought down mini-bosses Stinky and Precious, but tanks died both times and it seemed we were losing our battle focus. We pushed on to face Festergut. We gave it two attempts, but I think the energy was gone and neither attempt went very well. We'll go back at him on Thursday.

Healing for the night:
Marrowgar:
Wild, 4622 hps/39.4% healing
Cr, 4105/31.6%
Pally, 3767/24.8%

Deathwhisper:
Wild, 3312/34.4%
Pally, 3513/31.3%
Cr, 3113/28.1%

Gunship:
Wild, 2616/41.8%
Cr, 2263/28.1%
Pally, 2429/26.5%

The Saurfang fight has a healing mechanic that invalidates the recount meters.

The two failed Festergut Attempts:
Wild, 4854/40.2%
Cr, 4668/39.1%
Pally, 2133/12.8%

The G1 was also in game Wednesday night, their second night since they start on Tuesdays. For the first time G1 gave the MM guild our first kill of the extremely difficult Professor Putricide in the second wing (Plagueworks), and all ten raiders in G1 got the achievement for clearing Plagueworks. What a huge accomplishment! When G2 ended our raid at 9:30pm, G1 (which starts a half hour earlier than G2) was still raiding. When G1 wrapped up not only had they cleared the Plagueworks, they brought down a boss in the third wing - Valithria Dreamwalker. Another first for the guild.