Note: Yes, I know this is Wednesday, but a lot has been happening. Phase 4 of the events leading up to Cataclysm began about noon on Monday. The horde cities of Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff came under direct attack, as well as the alliance cities of Stormwind and Ironforge. Philly was Orgrimmar when the first attack was launched.
Philly was shuffling back and forth between the Auction House, mailbox, and bank getting her glyphs sorted out, trying to conduct business as usual when things were definitely not normal. The usual cultist mess was going on. Every corner of the city seemed to have a cultist, a cultist group, or a cultist device in it. Small, annoying fire elementals roamed around in droves despite the constant effort to eradicate them. The cultists were gathering in larger groups and several groups of cultists had started rituals of purpose unknown. Outside the city small portals were opening and elementals were streaming out of them. So far city forces with player help had contained them. So far.
Philly knew something bad was happening the instant she saw a huge portal, five times the size of the portals popping up outside the city, open up a few feet from where she was standing. Inside the city. Out of that portal belched forth large fire and earth elementals. A lot of them. City defense chat instantly clamored for action. Portals were opening up in several areas of the city. Raid groups began forming to coordinate the defense of the city, but joining a raid group was voluntary. Philly eschewed the raids, preferring to go solo. She shifted into shadow form and went to work.
At least five huge portals had opened up, spewing out a total of 32 elite elementals. Some of those elementals strayed to other areas of the city. The portals would remain open for one hour unless these "rifts," as the portals were being called, were closed by defeating all of the elementals at that rift. In addition, every area of the city had to be cleared of elementals to ensure that they were under our control.
The Initial Assault
The battle was loud, exciting, and crazy. Philly was using her damage over time (DoT) spells on multiple elementals, and then hammering them one at a time with everything she had. More and more players swarmed into the area, and we closed the rift.
Then the entire group leaped onto their ground mounts and moved as one huge army, galloping through the city looking for more rifts. City forces had put up barriers to assist in the defense, but they did nothing to stop the elementals, and often hindered players getting caught in the fences.
We charged from one rift to the next, taking on the elementals and shutting the rift down. There was one rift left. Where was it? We found it inside the area where hunters and hunter pets are trained. The whole rift and all it's raging elementals were confined inside that small space. The battle was furious.
Once all the rifts were closed, Philly learned that she had earned credit for kills and rift closings for fire elementals and earth elementals. Later in the day, Philly set herself up in Thunder Bluff to await the attack there, which we now knew occurred every two to three hours. There were a lot of other players waiting as well. The battle, when it came, went pretty much as it did in Orgrimmar. This time, the elementals were water and air elementals. The end result was the same, and when Thunder Bluff had been cleared of elementals and the rifts closed, Philly had earned the Achievement "Trippin' The Rifts" for taking down all four types of elementals at the rifts.
Monday night Wild took part in the defense of Orgrimmar, staying long enough to get credit for rift closings and the fire and earth elementals. We were getting reports that there wasn't enough players in Thunder Bluff, however, and they were in danger of losing that battle due to the one hour time limit. Wild grabbed a flight to Thunder Bluff hoping to help out.
Arriving at the flight tower in TB, Wild wasn't sure where the action was, but as he came down the ramp Wild saw a half dozen TB npcs battling two air elementals. There were no players around. Wild popped into moonkin, dropped some DoTs on them, and then let one of the elementals have it with a stream of high powered Starfires. Wild hit that elemental so hard - well, the elemental aggroed on Wild. Wild tried to defend himself, but Wild isn't a tank, and despite furious healing Wild was losing health faster than he was healing it back. Wild bolted for the flight tower, tumbling down the ramp to the bottom floor, trying to escape the howling wind of the air elemental. Enough npcs arrived to pull the elemental off Wild, but not to kill it. More players arrived, saw the action inside the flight tower, and engaged. The elemental died. Lesson learned - don't take these things on by yourself. You can definitely get yourself killed.
Wild shortly caught up with the bulk of the players, joined in the fray, and successfully defended Thunder Bluff. Wild also got the Achievement "Trippin' The Rifts."
Things were a bit tougher on JB. She did well in the Orgrimmar battle, earning her earth and fire elemental rift closings. As soon as Orgrimmar was safe JB flew to Thunder Bluff. She was a bit late to the party, and only got credit for the water elemental rift closing. The TB battle ended and JB still needed one more rift closing - the air elemental.
On Wednesday morning Happy was glumly counting what few coins he was getting from a moribund Auction House when word went out of another attack. Happy grumbled, but gave way so that JB could get some of that action. JB was already in TB, but almost no one else was since most players in game this time of morning were all still clustered at the fighting in Org. In addition to all the other things going on, there are something like 50 citizens that get trapped during the battle. Someone has to save them. Since JB didn't fancy taking on any of these elite elementals by herself, she set off to save as many citizens as she could. JB counted forty citizens saved so far, and she was on Spirit Rise when she came upon two horde players tangling with a group of air elementals. One of them was near death so JB dropped a heal on him. JB got an invite to group with the two of them, and she accepted. Since these were air elementals, if they could close this rift JB would get her achievement. Unfortunately, JB burned through all of her mana in short order and both her group mates died. JB lasted a bit longer, and almost got out of range of the elementals, but they finally brought her down as well. JB used her reincarnation to get back into action, rezzed the other two, and we went at them again. Fortunately a few more players started to arrive, and the battle swung our way. JB got her achievement.
It's even possible for lower level players to get the rift achievement. Mery got hers by staying with a large group of level 80s so that she would not aggro any of the elementals. She could let BlueWitch, her pet, go after them and twanged away with her bow, missing most of the time but still having a great time. The key is to be nearby when a rift is closed in order to get credit for it.
In addition to defending the cities, Phase 4 also unleashed two new dungeons with single bosses. The two elite bosses drop level i251 gear and could be selected using the Dungeon Finder tool once you had completed the defense of a city. Philly joined with other guildies to tackle both bosses (see title for their names). Neither encounter was very difficult, and Philly won an i251 caster ring that was an upgrade for her. Fun fights, but pretty easy for raid level geared players. Wild didn't bother with the dungeons as there was no loot good enough to tempt him.
The Tuesday maintenance was a long one - 3am to 11am. Patch 4.0.3 was loaded (there is no 4.0.2). Hopefully there will be some bug fixes in there, but otherwise nothing major is expected to happen immediately. It's more preparation for the main event, likely to start in earnest next week. Or maybe sooner. I haven't predicted these things very well so far. The main event, the Shattering, will come with the final patch before the expansion, Patch 4.0.3a. After that you'll have to get the Cataclysm expansion pack to go any further.
PS - I hope folks have been reading these posts; otherwise, you're going to have a lot of catching up to do.
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