Friday (24 Sep) - Double The Raid Fun

Friday (24 Sep) - Double The Raid Fun

Friday - Yes, it's Friday but I still have to get to the Thursday G2 ICC10 raid. It won't take long. Yes, there was a raid, and yes, Wild got an invite even though I wasn't able to make it on Wednesday.

We started on Professor Putricide and did pretty well, getting him into the third phase twice. But after four tries we hadn't killed him, and decided to switch to Dreamwalker so we could at least get one boss down on the night.

Strange things were happening in the Dreamwalker fight, though. Several raiders complained of lag. The adds which spawn numerous times during the fight were not following the pattern we were all used to. Inside the portal, there did not seem to be as many orbs as I usually see and they seemed frustratingly harder to fly through. It was Wild's worst outing trying to heal the dragon. Wild usually gets up into the 17-19k hps range, but never got higher than 15.5k on five attempts. Poor Cr, playing her paladin, never cracked 10k. We got close to saving the dragon twice, even with all the strange problems, but when the night ended we'd beaten no encounters.

We'll go at it again next week. Wild is hoping the raid will be locked, but we'll likely start fresh once again.

Moving on to Friday, Wild doubted he'd get an invite to the ICC25 co-op raid. I'd let the raid leader know on Thursday that Wild would not likely be able to make it to the second night on Saturday. A friend of ours is getting married Saturday and I am under orders from the Mrs to attend. In a suit, no less. At least I hear that the food will be good. Anyway, the raid leader gave priority to raiders who could be there both nights. However, there were not enough healers, and Wild got his invite to the Friday raid.

There were only five MM guildies in the raid, three of us healers. We were going with six healers since we would be doing some Heroic Mode fights. Four of the six healers were druids - we were a walking forest of trees.

The BH guild that runs this does an admiral job of keeping things moving, and we had last week's experience to build on as well. Wild likes the larger raids, anyway, and is really enjoying it.

Marrowgar - We set Heroic Mode (HM) for this first boss. We wiped once and then killed him. The i277 upgrade for Wild's mace dropped, but Wild lost the roll. That's two week's in a row Wild had a chance at that mace. Wild's friend and MM guild leader won it.

Deathwhisper - Normal mode and down she went.

The Gunship (HM) had some scary moments, but we avoided embarrassing ourselves and won the battle.

Back to Normal mode again for Saurfang, and there was no trouble taking him out. A Mark of Sanctification dropped, which Wild could have used to get his T10 gloves, but he lost that roll, too. Not doing so well with those dice.

Festergut (NM) heard us coming, but couldn't get out of our way or find a place to hide, and he died next.

Rotface (NM) thought he could take us, but he proved no match for us. Wild actually won something, cloth bracers that would have looked good on his moonkin set. But like last week, Wild again offered it to cloth wearers, and wouldn't you know it that same shadow priest from last week that asked for it. That's two pieces of gear Wild has given up to that guy. No more.

We had time for two tries against Professor Putricide. We'd taken him down last week, but it wasn't to be this time. We played well, but it wasn't enough.

On the healing side Wild only led in healing on one fight, Festergut. But Wild was close enough over the course of the evening to finish first overall in total healing.

#1: Wild, 3930 hps, 13.3% total healing
#2: JC priest, 4711/12.0%
#3: BH druid, 4077/12.0% <-- missed the Putricide fight
#4: BH priest, 3687/11.0% <-- replaced the BH druid on Putricide
#5: MM Bd druid, 3486/10.8%
#6: shaman, 3513/10.1%
#7: BH druid 2, 2886/9.2%

One would think I'd be tired of raiding after a 5-8pm run on Friday. Well, some time after 9pm on Friday night Philly heeded the call for a PUG ICC25 raid and got herself an invite.

Philly hasn't seen much of Icecrown Citadel, although she did clear the first wing the one time she got into ICC25 with the MM guild. She wasn't a complete novice anymore, and she was now bringing her two-handed staff Nibelung to the raid (which she won in her prior ICC25 run).

This ICC25 wasn't a guild run, it was a pure PUG. They had a temporary vent set up, and many of the raiders invited knew each other from other PUG raids. Philly didn't know anyone at all. A quick gear comparison also showed the PUG nature of the raid. There were many raiders at Philly's gear level or even a little worse; but there were also some very well geared raiders in the raid who were looking for specific items. Class balance was less important than finding 25 people, and we ended up with five priests in the raid, three healers and two DPS. That meant Philly would have a lot of competition for gear. Philly also needed the run to improve her reputation with the Ashen Verdict, which she could use to acquire a very nice ring that can be upgraded as rep improves. Philly hoped to get enough rep to earn that ring.

It took a long time to fill the raid, but the raid leader was persistent and apparently the invited raiders didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night. We finally got started at 10:30pm.

We worked through the trash to Lord Marrowgar. Out of 17 DPSers in the raid, Philly was 15th in trash mob damage with 4383 DPS. So, Philly's a slow starter. ;-)

Somewhat to Philly's surprise, we killed Lord Marrowgar, the first boss, on our first attempt. There's more talent here than I first thought. The battle was well organized and the raid leader kept up a running commentary in vent on who should be doing what. The mace that Wild uses, [Frozen Bonespike], dropped. Philly rolled on it but didn't win it. Ah well, Philly still had her Nibelung. Philly finished 9th in DPS with 5108 DPS, which was a pleasant surprise as well. She didn't fare too well in dealing damage on Spiked raiders, though, an issue she had in her last ICC raid and something she needs to work harder on.

We downed Deathwhisper on our first attempt as well. Philly ws greatly encouraged at how well we were doing. Philly was 11th with 4888 DPS. One of the best caster trinkets in the game dropped, [Althor's Abacus]. It would be a monstrous upgrade for Philly - but she lost the roll.

Then there was the weekly ICC quest which we wiped on once when we attempted a new strategy that most of us had never heard of. We got the quest done on our second attempt and moved on to the Gunship. We wanted to do Gunship in Heroic mode, but we didn't have any raiders with the ICC25 Kingslayer title, so we had to stay at Normal. We breezed through that fight.

One thing Philly learned about the Gunship that not even Wild knew was that the rocket pack that we use to jump between the ships can be used to reach the catwalk far above our heads. It's a tricky maneuver that can get the careless killed. While dealing with a couple of raiders with disconnect problems, several raiders tried to reach the catwalk. Cheering and/or boo's erupted from the raid with each attempt, depending on how successful they were or how spectacularly they died trying. Philly couldn't even get close, but at least she didn't die. The raid leader finally corralled us and we got ready for Saurfang.

We had taken a five minute break before starting on Saurfang, and during that interlude had one of funnier and more bizarre episodes of "I'm so lost I can't find my own butt." Thankfully it wasn't Philly. A very talkative shaman had already told us that he had transferred to our server this very day because on his low population server he could never get a raid. He was overjoyed to be in ICC25 and told us that over and over and over and over again. The raid leader was Australian and the shaman just gushed over him, telling him he'd been there once and about how the women there just threw themselves at him. Everyone was back from break - except for him. He had died and was still in ghost form. It took some effort to get him to shut up long enough to ask him to get back in the raid.

"Oh, duude, I'm sooooo sry but I am soooooooo lost!" He told us. That's when I realized that he was soooooo drunk as well.

I could sympathize with him a bit on the being lost thing. There are no real landmarks to direct players to the instance portal of Icecrown Citadel. The whole area has this dark and forbidding bluish grey color. The Citadel is huge - tall spires and many ramparts surround the center at several levels of the mountain it clings to, and it all looks pretty much the same from any angle or elevation. The shaman had released when he'd died, appeared at the graveyard (which is outside the Citadel and on the tip of a slice of rock below and off to the side of the rampart where the instance portal is). Wild has gotten lost trying to get back from the graveyard many times - fortunately not recently, though.

We tried to explain how to get there, but the raid leader, showing a lot of patience (because the shaman was healing, and he didn't want to have to look for another healer), portalled back to the entrance, went outside, and guided him in. That sounds simple, but we were all in stitches by the time the directions soaked through his alcohol sodden brain and he finally made it to the entrance.

But it didn't end there. With his shaman healer now safely inside, the raid leader trotted to the interior main portal and used it to return to the rest of the raid. There are several of these interior portals, and anyone who has ever been inside ICC knows what they are for and how to use them. A minute passed and we realized that the shaman hadn't joined us. Then we got a raid warning, and the shaman died. Apparently he had ignored the interior portal and tried to walk to us. He aggroed mobs we had bypassed and was killed. He was real excited on vent, telling us in detail what had happened. "Dude, I was just walking back to you guys and a booming voice yelled at me and this HUGE mob came right out of the wall and just mashed me!" He also said "I'm Sorry" a lot, as well as "I feel like a dumbazz."

The raid leader had to go back down and outside the instance, guide him back to the entrance, and then practically hogtie him so he wouldn't move. He explained what the interior portals were for, but didn't trust him to get safely back to the group. He had a warlock open a portal and wisked him directly to us. It was hilarious, but it ate up a lot of time. My theory about this shaman? He bought the toon that someone else had leveled for him and despite what his gear might show, the person now running that toon had never set foot inside Icecrown Citadel. And the most amazing thing of all? The whole raid stayed put; no one quit.

Saurfang went down on our first try. I was seriously impressed that a PUG swept through the first wing like that. Saurfang dropped a Greatcloak that had Philly drooling over it. But guess what? She lost the roll on that, too.

It was getting very, very late, and a couple of raiders had to leave. Others left, and a few new faces got invited in. The raid leader tried for more than thirty minutes to get a workable raid back together, but when we fell to just three healers it became impossible. At just short of 1am we called it quits.

Philly was pretty pleased with her performance. I was hoping for a top ten place in overall DPS, but had to settle for 11th out of 17. Here is a summary breakdown:

#1: death knight, 10881 DPS and 8.9% of all damage
9k+ damage: 2 raiders
8k+: none
7k+: 5 raiders
6k+: 1
5k+: 4 (Philly: 5330 DPS, 4.4% of all damage)
4k+: 2
3k+: 2

We had good healers for the most part and Philly felt very well protected. A paladin led with over 7k hps, and everyone else was at 5k or better with one exception - the shaman healer (yes, that one), who did under 3k hps.

It was disappointing that Philly didn't win any of the three fine pieces of gear she rolled on. The run was a lot of fun, though, and Philly may have earned enough badges to get Mery that heirloom bow she wants so badly.