The Wild family, both horde and alliance, have been pretty pre-occupied with doing the Cata pre-launch event this weekend. Now that most of that is out of the way I need to get caught up on the rest of the news.
Wild talked to Cr (the holy priest Wild runs with in G2) to find out how the G2 ICC10 raid went on Wed/Thurs. She said that they downed the same bosses they always do - Marrowgar, Deathwhisper, Gunship, Saurfang, Festergut, and Rotface. The group made a number of attempts on Putricide, but didn't kill him. We are stuck. It's disappointing that even with Bd back in action again, we still can't get past Putricide. Wild is losing hope that he'll ever see the Lich King fall, and is starting to worry that he might not even get to the Lich King fight before Cata. And after Cata there'll be no point. Wild is looking to get into an ICC10 PUG before the reset on Tuesday. Who knows, maybe Wild will get lucky. The G2 has aspirations of getting to Sindragosa (the last boss before LK) next week, but since they have yet to kill Blood Queen yet, either (boss #10 and a really tough one) I doubt they'll get that far. There's no question that they are closer to LK than G1 is, though.
I hesitate to mention it, but Wild might have let a chance to get into Ruby Sanctum (RS) slip by him. A player in the trade channel was advertising for raiders for an RS25 run. Wild was also hoping to get an ad hoc ICC10 run going with the guild, too. The player advertising the RS run is a very high profile player with a terrible reputation for ignoring loot rules, handing out loot to his guild buddies, and tossing raiders who complained or who make a mistake. Wild was in game almost two hours doing other things. The guild ICC run never came off and Wild was just about to log off when the RS25 raid was again advertised as needing just one more healer. Wild measured the chance to see Ruby Sanctum against the possible issues of running with this raid leader and a raid that took two hours to form - and decided it wasn't worth it. Wild learned much later from chat on the trade channel that it took that RS25 raid four hours just to kill the first mini-boss, and that was as far as they got. There are three mini-bosses in RS, plus the main boss, Halion. Wild is glad he didn't get involved in that debacle.
On Sunday Wild had a chance to get into an ICC25 PUG. I was watching the Padres-Giants game, rooting for the Padres, but they were already down 5-0 by the 4th inning. The Pads would need 3 games worth of innings to score six runs so I knew there was no chance. Wild asked for an invite and got it.
We had three tanks and five healers (2 priests, 1 pally, 1 shaman, and Wild). There were also two moonkin and two feral druids in the raid, making it five druids, so competition for druid gear could be nasty. Wild was the only druid healer, though.
The push through the trash mobs had it's moments, with a tank not properly line-of-sighting mobs and we had a large crush of them descend on us. Ten raiders died but Wild and the rest survived.
For the first boss, Marrowgar, there was as usual no healing assignments. With a disc priest and a pally we knew who would be tank healing, and Wild knew he would be HOTing tanks and raid healing. We would lose a raider or two here and there during the fight, but with five druids who each have a battle rez, dying was just a setback (if we had the time to find their corpse and rez them). Marrowgar went down and Marrowgar dropped one of Wild's coveted items - [Marrowgar's Frigid Eye], a ring with lots of juicy +haste on it. Wild did not win the roll. Sigh.
We then went after Deathwhisper, and brought that boss down as well. Then it was on to the Gunship. No one in the raid had the Kingslayer title, so we were not able to do the Gunship on Heroic mode. So we did it easily on normal mode and moved on to Saurfang. Oh, we also got the weekly raid quest done as well.
Saurfang proved not to be a problem, and we had worked pretty expeditiously through the entire first wing of ICC. No other gear dropped that Wild needed. We kept moving, working through the trash mobs and the two mini-bosses, Precious and Stinky.
Festergut is the fifth boss in ICC. He's not all that hard, but raiders need to know what they are doing. The raid leader was a little concerned about the DPS for this fight, and asked one of the healers, a priest, to switch to DPS. We should be able to handle things with four healers. In ICC25 ranged attackers and selected healers remained on the outer edge of the chamber and at least ten feet away from each other. Wild wasn't among that group so I would be in the center with the melee and the tanks.
We started up, and things proceeded normally - at first. The damage to the raid started ratcheting up, which is also normal, but then spiked across the raid and it seemed two-thirds of the raid were taking excessive damage. Wild went crazy trying to keep everyone healed, but we finally wiped. Wild's 6564 hps led the raid, with the pally healer right there with Wild at around 6500 as well. The other two healers were under 4k, but we shouldn't have been taking that much damage that soon.
Wild got a whisper from the priest that had switched to DPS. "How's the healing going? Should I switch back?" Not sure why it was Wild he asked - I guess because I'd led in healing - and I told him "It depends. Were people missing the spores? It was pretty intense and it seemed like more damage than there should have been." He whispered back, "not spores, the ranged were too close together and they all started puking on each other." Wild sent back, "Ahh, got it, well, if they stop doing that then we are fine with the healing. :) "
We went with four healers for our second attempt. We kept everyone alive, but the fight went on, and on, and on, and Wild used his Innervate and still it went on, and on, and on. We had Festergut under 5% health, but we reached the Enrage timer and Festergut wiped the raid. Wild and the pally healer patted each other on the back. We had each delivered over 7400 hps, with Wild edging him out for the #1 spot with 7498 hps. The other two healers were under 5k. It wasn't a healer problem; we apparently did not have the DPS to bring Festergut down inside the enrage timer.
With two wipes on Festergut, Wild thought the raid would immediately fold. We lost some raiders, yes, but about twenty stayed. The raid leader worked to fill the holes, but as the minutes passed more raiders started to slip away. The RL tried to stem the bleeding, even getting more raiders to join. But the number stayed at around twenty, and in the end we had to call it a night. Wild was pleased with his performance and that he at least had a chance to roll on gear he wanted. [PS - The Padres lost 6-1]
Philly's been a bit quiet, but did get into one of the better Wintergrasp pvp battles. The horde was defending, but chose not to fight from within the walls of the Keep. Instead, we all headed out and met the alliance attackers in the open. It was awesome! Philly was involved in something like five different running battles with the alliance. The alliance would take key bases and out of those bases poured catapults and siege engines. The battle raged around those huge machines, with the alliance defending them to get them to the Keep walls, and the horde doing everything we could to destroy them before they got there.
The alliance did open one breach in the walls with few horde inside to defend. But the horde army poured into the breach on the heels of the alliance and broke up the assault, killing the alliance attackers down to the last man.
We held the Keep, winning it on the open battlefield.
Philly maxed out her honor points and will go looking for another pvp piece to buy. She's also way over the top in Wintergrasp marks and shards and doesn't quite know what to do with those. Perhaps another heirloom or two, although I think we're close to having one of everything WG has to offer. Philly is looking at getting a weapon, but can't decide if it would be worth it and if yes, what to get. The weapon price is very high so Philly would be able to buy only one to share with the rest of the family. Any suggestions?
Philly also got into a VoA 25 raid as a healer. She did pretty well against Toravon, finishing third among the five healers with 4858 hps, mostly damage absorption with her Shields. We only had 23 raiders, but it was enough to get the kill. Philly got a little excited when she saw that one of the three drops she could have used, but when she checked her gear she had to sigh. She already had that particular item.
Raiders started leaving after the first boss, which is very irritating, even though I know that most raiders no longer need anything from the other bosses in VoA. Some of us do, however, and Philly hung around hoping we'd give Koravon a try. We did, but we only had 18 raiders to do it with and only one true tank. We had two death knights, though, and they offered to help tank as well as they could. We gave it one heck of a try! We got Koravon down to 0.9% health. But we didn't kill him. You would think that getting that close would warrant a second try. Nope, more raiders abandoned the raid and that was the end of that.
Philly also tried to get into a fresh ICC25 PUG. They needed both ranged DPS and healing, and Philly could offer both with her shadow priest main spec and DISC healing offspec. The raid leader wanted raiders with a minimum 5200 gear score. Philly's gear score was 5328. The raid leader also wanted raiders to list their ICC achievements. Philly told the RL that I knew the fights (Wildshard does) but that I did not have any achievements yet on this alt (Philly). Philly did not get an invite. It's one those "I won't let you in my raid unless you've already done it before." Getting in for the first time with no achievements is harder to do than the raid itself. Note that Philly did better hps than two of the healers that Wild worked with in his ICC25 raid. She could handle it. I wonder what the RL's priorities were - would a higher gear score have gotten Philly an invite even without any achievements? Obviously the RL discounted all of the experience I'd bring to the raid based on Wild's achievements.
Lost had a little excitement over the weekend having nothing directly to do with her AH work. She was in the AH when the chamber suddenly filled with Horde. A horde shaman cast Chain Lightning on the Auctioneers and all three were instantly killed. Little Lost was the only alliance in the AH. The horde were apparently doing the For The Horde! achievement, but it isn't necessary to kill the Auctioneers to get it. They also killed every npc in the bank (the two businesses are close to each other) but left the rest alone. I didn't hear if they killed the target of the quest, but other allies reported a couple minutes later that the group opened a warlock portal and they all portalled out. These things happen, and Lost wasn't all that upset, but what made this striking is that when the horde left the AH after having killed all of the npcs, one of the horde players sent Lost a /Sorry! Lost started a /cry just so he'd know she heard him, but Lost will never know if he got it. I guess he felt sorry for the young level 11 girl, all alone when the big bad Horde stormed in. No matter, when Lost or one of her kin get old enough, it'll be time to pay those marauding horde a return visit.
Lost and Rakta were the last two Wild family members to get the Cata pre-launch quests done. Both had the longest distance to travel. Rakta, who handles the neutral Auction House at Booty Bay in Stranglethorn Vale, took a flight to Stormwind City and then the Deeprun Tram to Ironforge. Lost, who works the Alliance Auction House at the Exodar, had to take the boat to Auberdine, and then transfer to the boat to Stormwind City. Then she took the Deeprun Tram to Ironforge. Lost really loves Stormwind City, and stayed there over the weekend, thinking about making it her home. However, the city is crowded and there is noticeable lag in making AH transactions. As much as she liked the City, Lost ultimately made her way back to the quieter waters of Exodar. When Lost got off the boat to return to Exodar she noticed an entrance that she hadn't seen before. The waterside entrance took Lost down into the Vault of Lights, one of the more impressive chambers in Exodar. The floor was transparent and it was enough to give Lost a bit of vertigo. But it was cool looking, too.
While Lost was conducting her business of the day, a player started spamming a request to buy Nerubian Chitin. Nobody seemed to have any and the guy sounded a bit desperate. To a seller, a desperate buyer is a good thing. Lost checked the AH and there were 9 chitins for sale. The market price was 20g each, but they were selling for 10g each. That would be a nice profit. Lost whispered the buyer to set a price before actually buying the stuff. No way did Lost want to get stuck with it. The buyer would only pay 3g each, however, obviously oblivious to what they really cost. No sale. Oh well.
Happy wants to rant some more about the Auction House, particularly since there was one day this past week that Lost actually made more gold than Happy did - and that isn't a good thing, since the reason was poor profits on Happy's part. Happy is not going to get his chance to rant, though. Suffice it to say that the release of the first Cata pre-launch event seems to have touched a nerve. Prices on just about everything Happy sells is falling like boulders into a deep sea. Profits are down to about a fifth of what they used to be, even with Happy taking what advantage he can of the crashing prices. Things may right themselves a bit again, but knowing what to buy and when, and what to sell and what to hold on to, is getting more and more challenging.
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