Monday (29 Nov) - The Wrath of the Horde

Monday (29 Nov) - The Wrath of the Horde ... and, uh, the Alliance, too

There was player vs player combat on Monday night as our two guilds brought their "A" games to the battles. On the Horde side was "The Order of the Dragon" represented by Lao and Melasahnd. On the Alliance side the guild "Tea Green" fielded Java and visiting newcomer Fin.

Lao was first in game and softened up the competition. Her description of the action captured the evening perfectly:

"Missed a good night last night, DER. Before anyone else got on Lao did a couple rounds of EotS. The first round I got pulled into did not look good. Alliance held three bases as I got in. Horde tied it up with two bases and held the flag while we tried to catch up on points by getting a third base. We won at the end by a good margin. The second game was even better. We came in and I pushed for DR right off and we caught three bases almost off the bat. Lao was quite the avenger and held 2nd in DPS behind a huntard… hunter. A shammy and I pretty much held DR solo.

Right as I finished this Wild shot a hello. I had not seen him come on. He seems to have a DK that I had no idea existed. He popped over to Philly to get a last stone for my helm, but it became way too much of a chain quest so he popped back over to.. hum.. well, not sure what her name was but it started with an M. Marissa, Manerva, Marrieane.. something.

We got pulled into an AV and set forth to destroy towers. Ms M was quite zealous in her quest against the alliance; you would thing that she had been pent up for ages aching to get out *Gives Wild a chastising look* Lao and Ms M got separated but in the end we, again, conquered. The down side is that it leveled Lao, so Ms M and she were no longer in the same bracket.

With a mad search I found a rouge (Fin) on the alliance side that could play with Javajoo the Invincible Pally. This rouge was a rather repressed rogue, since he never had even been in a battle ground. But I was a zealous clicker of all his buttons and he did not do too bad. He even capped a flag by some weird chance of fate. Java on the other hand was neigh unto invincible with his mighty pally heals, even got a few killing blows in. We won the battle in the end and even got Fin up one level for our effort.

Good times. Sin would have loved it. "

Lao was right about Melasahnd. She was one of the first born death knights when that new class of player was introduced. After that big send off the poor girl was all but forgotten, a level 62 DK reduced to helping out with small chores, such as helping Happy with the Auction House, doing a little herb gathering, baby sitting young family members, etc. Melasahnd had wanted greater things for herself, but probably felt that this was part of her atonement for the horror she and other death knights had unleashed on the world under the spell of the Lich King.

I thought it only fitting that that early chapter in Melasahnd's life be revisited and I am going to include that searing journey in the next post. It's quite long, but we should all be reminded now and then of the sacrifices it took.

I captured a screenshot of the final results of the Fin/Java Warsong Gulch match. Both did well, particularly considering the circumstances and the fact that they were pretty low level for that bracket (level 30-34).


Speaking of brackets, that brings up another change I wanted to mention. Battleground (BG) brackets have long followed a simple x0-x9 format. For example, the lowest level bracket is level 10-19. The next level is 20-29, and so on. Significant changes in how battlegrounds work are nearly always announced ahead of time and often are introduced in a patch. Less than a week ago a major change in the BGs occurred that went completely under the radar. No announcement, no explanation from any of the major sites that report on WoW ... nothing. Lao first noticed it and I did some research on it. There were many confused posts out there asking what was going on. DER came up with some information that clarified things, but as yet I've seen nothing official.

The change altered the brackets significantly. Instead of the x0-x9 format, BGs now follow an x0-x4 and x5-x9 format. For example, the level 10-19 bracket has now been broken into two brackets, levels 10-14 and 15-19.

There is both good and bad to this unannounced change. The smaller level brackets make the competition more even as there will no longer be level 10 players getting slaughtered by players nine levels higher then them. Four levels higher is still stiff competition, but the odds are much better. So the average match will be much more competitive. The bad is what happened Monday night, when Lao leveled to 65 and bracket 65-69 while Melasahnd, who also leveled (to 63) had to stay in the 60-64 bracket. Another more serious concern is that with only half as many levels in the bracket, queue times to get a BG going could become longer.

Look for "Melasahnd's Training Part 4" in the next post.

Monday (29 Nov) - Itching to Level

Monday (29 Nov) - Itching to Level

So, Lao the face melting shadow priest got the urge to level and has been seen recently clobbering random dungeons and pvp battlegrounds. I'm guessing she started in earnest around level 49? and is now at level 64, sweeping past not only her usual partner (Mery, looking winded at level 56) but also scaring the wits out of Melasahnd (at level 62) as Lao blew past her.

The Wild family hasn't been totally out of action, but the leveling has been spread out quite a bit more.

Mery's jump from 55 to 56 was recent. EZ has pushed up a couple of levels to 46. Jocelyne gained a level to 23. Even Happy, who Lao did a double take on when she found him in Orgrimmar questing instead of holed up in Silvermoon City, raised his level by two to 22. The droll Naithipe earned a level, too, failing to state exactly which level that might be.

On the alliance side Java leapt two levels to 31. Chaitee was set to join him in the level march, but Sunday morning (yesterday) when she wanted to start the Pilgrim's Bounty quest chain she discovered that the Bounty was over. I thought we had one more day! she cried. She was disappointed, but at least she had already reached level 20 and gotten her mount via the pre-Cata quests.

With the Shattering also came a huge new set of quests and what is supposedly a revamped questing system that is based a lot more on story lines and smooth travel (vs the often meandering quests requiring all kinds of seemingly purposeless travel and quests which are no more than "kill this many of that mob for no particular reason"). Lower level players will also see phasing (where a zone changes depending on what quests have been completed), something that just didn't exist before. Not that Wild didn't love leveling in Vanilla WoW - he did. So did JB. And Philly. And ... well, it started to get a little old by then.

I'm now starting to get anxious again to do some leveling, and in particular to experience the new and revised questing. From what I've read it is a lot of fun and pretty fast considering that players have 85 levels to aspire to instead of 60. I'm told that 1-60 leveling is much faster, 61-70 a bit faster, 71-80 a lot faster, and then there is the long grind of 81-85 (estimated to take as long as it took to go from 71-80).

I'm trying not to take on more than I can handle, though. I really want to start with a level 1 toon so I can experience everything in Cata, but I'm holding off until the actual expansion arrives so that I can have an Alliance Worgen. It won't be ujust questing. I'm sure she'll get into BGs and dungeons galore! I've mentioned before that she'll be a druid. I also have a name for her, but that will stay private until she is born. There will also be a goblin in Wild's future, but he/she will have to wait a bit. The worgen druid will also have to share leveling time with Wild, as Wild will be my first priority. It won't be fast, as my goal is to level the worgen to 85 before the end of 2011. I'm ready!

Thanksgiving Week (28 Nov) - The Shattering

Thanksgiving Week (28 Nov) - The Shattering

The reforging of the Horde city of Orgrimmar was pretty cool. The shell of the city remained intact, with all the same sections of the city and some additions such as the Goblin slums. But everything else had changed dramatically. The city on rolling hills became a city of deep canyon cuts, high peaks, and water channels and waterfalls I would not have believed possible. In addition, the city took on a more industrial look, with massive zeppelin towers squatting atop high ridges within the city proper instead of on it's outskirts, and concrete and metal bunkers housing elevators to get from one level of the city to another. For days Wild family toons struggled to find their way around a city that was at the same time familiar and alien.

The pics below show some of the many changes to the Horde's main city of Orgrimmar.

Water where none existed before

The Zeppelin tower has been fortified

A long, high ridge supports two zeppelin towers and the Flight Master

A view to the ground level

A new, deep rift in the Barrens split the zone into Northern and Southern halves. The cut was deep and filled with volcanic fire. Once one large zone, now there were two smaller zones.



There were more new wonders of the world to explore, but to be honest most of the world of Azeroth remained just as it was before the Shattering.

For a couple of days everything was turned upside down. Then, for a couple more days there was the expected pause for real life events such as Thanksgiving. And then a kind of normalcy began reassert itself, and despite only being in game for short periods, the Wild family gently settled into ... well ... the same routine as before.

The dramatic attacks and disruptions that was expected haven't happened yet, and there has been no sign of Deathwing. That is all still coming, I'm sure, but for right now business as usual has taken hold once more. Part of that business as usual are preparations for Cata, but for the most part life just goes on as always. Wild is coming out of his funk. By the time Wednesday night rolls around I think he will be ready to tilt at the Lich King windmill once again. And unless some new event from the Shattering interrupts guild plans, I do believe we will be raiding this coming week.

For the most part all that the Wild family has been doing is participation in the Pilgrim's Bounty celebration that has been going on all week despite the other distractions. Wild encouraged everyone to participate because there is a lot of cooking to be done, good for skilling up that secondary profession, and because the many quests deliver of a lot of experience points to help with leveling. The Pilgrim's Bounty quests are very easy, but they also require a lot of traveling between the city's of Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and the Undercity. That's for the Horde. On the alliance side Java and Chaitee haven't gotten their chance, yet, but I'll bet it will include the city's of Stormwind and Ironforge. I'll guess that Darnassus is the third alliance city. Java will confirm that one way or the other.

The Auction House is in considerable disarray as buyers and sellers can no longer depend on consistent pricing. Speculation on what items will be needed in Cata and what items will become useless is causing major price swings both up and down. For a day or so Happy was looking at miniscule profits as buying practically stopped on the horde side. Strangely, alliance players kept buying and even now prices are much higher on the alliance AH than on the horde AH. Happy has had to move a lot of goods over to the alliance side, which vexes him greatly, since Lost will be the one raking in those profits, not Happy. Enchanting mat prices keep rising, though, particularly the low level materials that are needed to level the profession. That has increased profits for both Happy and Lost, at least for as long as their stock of goods holds out. Buyers and sellers are still trying to make a profit off of the AH in these uncertain times.

To wrap up the week, I had thought that the expected massive upheaval would dominate all my in game time for many days. But once the initial wow factor of the terrain changes wore off, there wasn't really anything new to do associated with the Shattering. It's now wait and see until and if there is more to come between now and the actual expansion.

Tuesday (23 Nov) - The End of the World

Tuesday (23 Nov) - The End of the World

On Tuesday, 23 November 2010, on the exact date of the sixth anniversary of the release of World of Warcraft, Patch 4.0.3a was implemented - otherwise known as "The Shattering. "

The single biggest change with this patch is the massive destruction and reformation of the landscape of Azeroth. The dragon Deathwing will cast it's long shadow across the world and rain death and disaster in it's wake, not just in the major cities, but across the land. No where will be safe.

Another major change is that all players level 1-79 will have their damage and healing "retuned." The cited reason is to "bring combat times at low levels to a more reasonable length." How that translates to individual classes and toons is just something we'll have to test and see how it goes. And because of all the changes in talents, almost every Wild family member will have to reconstruct their talents once back in game. This includes druids, paladins, priests, and shaman. Revised talents also affect level 80 toons, and druids were nerfed (ie, their healing/DPS was deemed "too good" so they "fixed" that). This could have a dramatic effect on whatever ICC battles Wild has left to him.

Minor changes include allowing more race and class combinations; reducing experience requirements to make it easier to level from 71-80; and eliminating city portals in Dalaran and Shattrath.

Removing the city portals deserves an explanation. When the Burning Crusade expansion was released, the central city for both horde and alliance players was Shattrath, located in the new zone of Outland. As the central hub of player activity, Shattrath was provided with "city portals" which allowed players to port directly to other major cities across the world, such as Orgrimmar and Stormwind among many others. This greatly reduced travel time to those cities, which was necessary because the Shattrath city designers intentionally did not locate class trainers or an Auction House there.

When Wrath of the Lich King expansion was released, the same format was applied. The central hub was the city of Dalaran in the new zone of Northrend, and it too was lacking class trainers and an AH, and was supplied with city portals.

In Cata there is no new coherent zone like Outland or Northrend. The landscape changes are spread across multiple areas with both new areas and massively changed old areas. There is no central hub city in Cata, and as noted above, the removal of the city portals in Shattrath and Dalaran ensures that no city will provide that kind of ease of transport. In short, we are back to Vanilla WoW in that respect. I believe that players will gravitate to what they are used to - horde will wind up at Orgrimmar as their base of operations, and alliance will wind up at Stormwind. The in between of The Shattering and the release of Cata creates an interesting dynamic - we still can't fly in the old world, we still must spend a lot of time in Northrend, yet we no longer have portals in our "home" city of Dalaran. Hmmm. Wild, Philly, and JB are going to have to decide where they want to live.

What will NOT be activated is just as interesting as what is. The Shattering does NOT include the two new races (Worgen and Goblin), although crazily players will be allowed to pay $25 to change a current toon from it's current race to one of those; you still can't level past 80; new zones for over level 80 are not activated; still no flying in the old world continents (Eastern Continent and Kalimdor); no higher level professions or the new profession, Archaeology; and the new guild advancement system is not activated. All of those things come with the expansion itself.

Maintenance today was scheduled for 3am to 11am. There was no new download when I checked, so it appears that all of patch 4.0.3a was pre-loaded in a previous download. So no last minute changes or fixes.

Friday (21 Nov) - Failure . . . . .

Friday (21 Nov) - Failure . . . . .

On our third straight night of raiding eleven attempts were made on the Lich King. We never even got close. There was no magic this night.

Over those three nights we made thirty (30) attempts on the Lich King and came away ... with nothing.

Weekend - Chaitee's Misadventures

Wild was tired of Icecrown Citadel and the Lich King, and went off to sulk for the weekend. And while the cow is away, the children will play.

Little Chaitee and her combat pet cat, Tazzy, figured that if big brother Java could do the pre-Cata quest chain then she could do it, too.

Chaitee packed up her things and started out of Exodar, grabbed the boat to Auberdine, and swapped boats for Stormwind City (SW). Trouble was, when Chaitee stepped off the boat she could see that the city was under attack. Still firmly believing that she could follow in Java's footsteps, she waited until alliance npcs killed the lone elemental on the pier, and then trotted up the multiple set of stairs and into the body of the city. She didn't get far. A level 18 player can be spotted by a raging level 80 elite elemental from a long way away. It didn't even need to move much. A long tendril of lightning reached out from the elemental and just like that Chaitee was seared into a small pile of smoldering charcoal.

Undeterred, Chaitee came up with a new plan. SW has a waterway, and Chaitee figured that since elementals tend to stick to dry land, that waterway would be her special entrance into the city. Chaitee can hold her breath a very long time. Chaitee recovered her body at a marginally safe spot, waited for her moment, and then made a swift dash and splash into the canal, a bounding Tazzy plunging in with her. Chaitee swam to the bottom - it wasn't real deep, but it hopefully was deep enough. She wanted to make her way to the Trade Quarter, where she could pick up her starter quests.

It did work. Sort of. Even from the bottom of the waterway, though, roaming elementals were able to spot her. No need for them to get wet. One lash with that lightning bolt from the dry cobblestones took Chaitee out. Still, she made progress despite the lack of help from strangely absent alliance defenders. Oh, there were plenty of city npcs engaged, but where were all the alliance players?

Chaitee eventually made her way to the Trade Quarter. Here she found a sizable knot of alliance players, all standing around or dozing on their mounts. There were enough of them to keep the immediate area clear of elemental invaders, but none of them seemed inclined to defend the rest of the city, which remained under siege. And there would be no quest giver until the city was secure. Thirty minutes later Chaitee gave up and logged out to wait for a period between battles.

Chaitee did not get back in game until Sunday, when she logged in to find that the city was again under attack. The attacks were coming every two hours now, and would last a full hour unless the invaders were overcome. There seemed to be little will among the alliance to defend the city, however. That probably didn't hurt the level 80s much (who could avoid or survive elemental attacks), but lower level players who would have liked to get the rift closing achievement were pretty much out of luck. Also, with banks, Auction House, trainers, etc, all out of commission during the battles, very little commerce could get done. More and more lower level players started looking elsewhere, and Stormwind got even more deserted. The constant attacks, hour after hour and day after day, are apparently taking their toll.

Chaitee was one stubborn hunter, though. Chaitee had quests in her log she was determined to complete, elementals or no. She flitted from corner to corner, watching for elementals and scurrying out of their way. Often she was forced to take cover in nearby buildings. Sometimes that confused the stalking elementals and she was safe for a time ... sometimes it didn't.

It took several hours and many interruptions, but Chaitee never gave up. She completed all fifteen quests and leveled from 18 to level 20. Time to go home.

Chaitee arrived at the gates of Exodar and was greeted by festival goers. It was the week of Pilgrim's Bounty, with food, games, and prizes galore. Chaitee had her mind on only one thing, though. At level 20 she could now train for a ground mount. Chaitee was a few gold lighter when she finished haggling with the mount seller, but she was very proud of her new elekk mount.

A few picks of Chaitee playing cat and mouse with elite elementals:

Eyeballing the Waterway

Getting Very Wet - And Dead

Corpse Running

A Risky Look

Thursday (18 Nov) - The Last Hurrah?

Thursday (18 Nov) - The Last Hurrah?

Note - This is the second post of the day, so don't forget to read the post above this one!

Our G2 ICC10 group had reached a new high Wednesday night, battling the Lich King down to 40% health. On Thursday night we assembled once more. I had to wonder. Would this be our final chance?

Next week is Thanksgiving. It's almost certain that there will be no raid on Thanksgiving Thursday, and probable that Wednesday night would be out as well. We will have guests visiting us Thanksgiving week, and they arrive on Wednesday. Wild is out even if the group decides to try to run that night. The week after that is expected to be the Shattering, and all the world of Azeroth with be transformed. Deathwing will break free and the battles that so far we have seen only in four major cities will spread across the width and depth of our world. Could there be ICC raids that week? Sure, but will we be able to get our team together with all those other distractions going on? Maybe, maybe not. The week after that is the release of Cataclysm and ICC will be rapidly abandoned at that moment.

So, it was with more than a little sense of urgency that Wild logged in and prepared for battle.

We had two changes to our group from Wednesday night, and it created a ripple effect. Our main tank could not make the raid due to work. We brought in a warlock who had filled in in the last hour of Wednesday night's raid. We switched our moonkin druid, Rs, to tanking duty, and then switched druid Bd from healing to moonkin. That left us short a healer, but our other new raider was a paladin healer, so it worked out. The paladin was given dispel duties, so the two main healers would be Wild and the priest Pl.

The excitement and intensity were definitely up, and we were ready to start at 6:40pm. Having a warlock in our group gave us a healthstone, which is a nice "save me!" burst of healing we don't usually have. "Oooh, candy!" Cooed one of the girls in the group. "Candy" is what we call healthstones.

Wednesday night Wild and Bd had gotten into a very good healing rhythm. We knew exactly which raiders and what parts of the fight to heal and when, and we knew which of us had responsibility for each part. That saved mana since we weren't both trying to heal the same things, and it saved lives because we trusted each other to do our part of the work. In addition, our healing numbers were so close to each other I had stopped bothering to record them. One of the more insidious attacks against the raid was a spell called Infest. It hits the entire raid and will kill a raider that doesn't stay above 90% health. It's on a predictable timer, though, and we use that information to keep all ten raiders above 90%. Right before Infest hits, Bd dropped Efflorescence, an AoE heal that boosted healing for everyone in it's range, which was most of us. When Infest hit, Wild added a Wild Growth, more healing on the six raiders that needed it most, and Wild also tossed instant rejuvs on any raiders that still needed a little extra help. Wild depended on Bd to drop Efflorescene, because without it Wild had to do more frantic healing. Bd depended on Wild to cast Wild Growth and fill in where needed. Bd was not healing Thursday night, and our priest healer Pl did not have an equivalent spell to Efflorescence. Wild was used to healing with Pl, though, so I didn't expect any problems.

We began. The first attempt went pretty smoothly from the raid leader's perspective. Phase 1, the transition to P1.5, and the move into P2 all went well, even though the defiles got us before we got very deep into P2. Wild, though, found himself healing at a much more frantic pace than on the previous night. We had a new paladin doing the dispels, and I wondered if he wasn't helping out with the healing when he wasn't dispelling? Checking the recount stats, though, that did not seem to be the case. His hps (heal over time) was quite good, even if his total healing was low due to the dispelling. Wild's numbers after the first attempt was 4385 hps and 38.6% of all healing. Pl's numbers were 3038 hps and 27.1%. Compared with Bd's healing the night before, Pl's healing was a drop off. Maybe it was just first attempt settling in.

On our second attempt we got deeper into P2, but the healing pace was still frantic. Wild goofed and got himself killed by an Infest. I forgot that LK continues to cast Infest in P2, and I wasn't watching my health bar. Even so, Wild's healing numbers were well ahead of Pl's. Wild: 6246/41%, Pl: 4160/22.1%.

I'd call our third attempt the "Pick up a raider and drop off a pizza" moment. We seemed to get control of managing the defiles, those black pools of death that chases us around the platform. But those flying val'kyrs (VKs for short) were having a great time killing us. The VK's come at known intervals, target a raider, snatch him into the air, and then make a beeline for the nearest platform edge to drop that raider to his death. Our DPSers HAVE to kill it before it gets to the edge, but it wasn't working. So the joke was, "hey, now that you're dead, how about coming back with a pizza!" That took some of the sting out of our inability to bring down those VKs.

We improved some more on our fourth attempt, and VKs started dying. BD suggested that Wild add his own instant attacks, moonfire and insect swarm, when a VK showed up. I tried, and it likely helped some, but most of the time Wild was too busy healing and keeping himself out of trouble. Bd also suggested that Wild toss Thorns on the tank I was healing whenever possible. Thorns used to be a cast and forget spell that lasted an hour, but it had been changed and goes away after 15 seconds. It was one of those "cast it if you have time and you think about it." It does some extra damage for the tank. All this was possible because Wild no longer healed in Tree Form, and so could cast DPS spells without having to change form. But it was a pain trying to remember to work DPS into my healing.

On our fifth attempt our view of the Lich King changed dramatically. We reached the 40% mark against LK, matching our best ever attempt - and then surpassed it. We entered Phase 3. The VK's still attacked us, the Defiles kept coming, and LK still pounded on our tank. We had new problems as well. LK cast Quake once again, although this time instead of destroying an outer layer of the platform, the pieces we lost during the prior Quake reappeared. LK then cast Remorseless Winter, sure death for any raider that doesn't hurriedly make his way to that restored edge.

Once Remorseless Winter faded, we rushed back to the center. More bad news. A new danger spawned called Vile spirits, and these things were NASTY. They don't have a lot of health, but they have to be killed swiftly as they explode messily after thirty seconds for considerable damage. One of those explosions killed Wild. Wild got a rez and then a strange thing happened - a thing called Harvest Soul.

Harvest Soul is cast on a raider by the Lich King, and it pulls the raider's soul into LK's sword, Frostmourne. It also takes the player out of the battle on the platform. Inside the sword another battle is going on, though, between the sword's spirit warden and another famous name from the wars, Terenas Menethil. Players inside Frostmourne must help Menethil, either by DPSing the spirit warden or healing Menethil. As a healer, Wild's duty inside Frostmourne was clear - heal Menethil. Menethil's health was at about 30%. The higher Wild could get Menethil's health, the more damage Menethil did to the spirit. Wild was able to get Menethil's health all the way to 100%. When Menethil defeated the spirit with Wild's help, Wild was returned to the platform.

Things were a mess on the platform. Most of the raiders were dead, including one of the tanks as well as Pl. Our pally healer had been having a time keeping up the healing, but Wild was back to help. Well, unfortunately, only momentarily. Wild wasn't careful enough and was hit almost immediately by an exploding vile spirit. Wild died again. Wild had to watch as the remnants of the raid fought to the last. We wiped with LK at 14%.

It would be a huge understatement to say that we were "JUICED AS HELL!" at our progress. I should point out that we win when we get LK to 10%, and we came oh so close!

We made five more attempts, pushing well past our end time. We edged a bit closer to victory, getting LK to 12%. But no farther. Our night was done.

We immediately began discussing what we would do next week. Lady Hunter, our raid leader, suggested that since it was Thanksgiving week we would probably just do a fun run of some sort, perhaps Naxxramas. Wild was devastated. We can't stop now! Several folks said they would rather go after LK again next Wednesday if everyone could make it. A vote was taken to determine how many would be able to make it. Wild had to decline. I explained that I "maybe" could make it, but that it would be dicey since we would have guests visiting.

I suggested that we consider coming back tomorrow, Friday. We were so very close, and why lose that energy and practice from the past two nights? Another vote was taken, and all ten of us signed on for a Friday night run.

It's not over. Not yet. We have this one more night to make it happen.

Wednesday Night (17 Nov) - Once More Into the Breach

Wednesday Night (17 Nov) - Once More Into the Breach

Last week the MM G1 ICC10 group defeated the Lich King. Ten guildies now wear the title of Kingslayer. I wasn't sure what the G1 would be doing this week, but was pleased when they set up an ICC raid for guildies who could still use gear and reputation from ICC. They started with a fresh run and downed six bosses. Very nice. The Nooners ICC group, with only the Lich King to face, took aim but again fell short.

That left Wild's G2 for our regular Wed/Thurs head bashing against the Lich King. As is usual with this laid back group, invites began at 6:20pm with only five G2 raiders in game. We are supposed to start the raid at 6:30pm, but again it was close to 7pm before we started filing into Icecrown Citadel. We were short one DPSer and picked up a guildie mage making his first appearance against LK. We always seem to have a newby in our ranks. Our healing triumvirate was also missing one member, our paladin. Bd, normally playing moonkin, switched to healing for the night. That meant that our priest healer would be doing dispel duties for much of the fight, with Wild and Bd, both druid healers, doing the bulk of the healing.

Getting to the Lich King's platform high atop the Icecrown Glacier is pretty simple. Enter into the main lobby of ICC. Take the convenient teleporter to the fourth floor (Upper Spire), exit and walk directly to the center across a steel wire bridge to the teleporter to LK's platform. We have to make that trip every time we wipe as well. There is one additional small detail. Two elite val'kyrs fly about that area, and making that jaunt between portals requires timing it so that the val'kyrs don't pick you off. There is another way to handle that, which is to gather together and kill the two val'kyrs, a very easy task. Yet we don't bother. Individual players make that run and almost every time at least on raider gets killed. It wastes time that we could be using to get in more attempts on LK and it bugs me.

Anyway, we eventually got started. Our first four attempts were very solid. We were focused and have that first phase (P1) down pat. We were also doing very well with the transition through P1.5 and into P2.

Small mistakes were still getting us, but on our fifth attempt we got a taste of just how close we were to nailing it. On our fifth attempt we got the Lich King all the way down to the magic 40%, which initiates Phase 3. We weren't perfect, raiders were dying, but things we were failing at before we had much better success at. We managed the Defile so much better, getting ourselves out to the edge of the platform when it was coming so that it wouldn't contaminate the center. Our biggest hurdle, killing the val'kyrs before they could drop raiders to their deaths, was also much more successful. By the time we were down into the low 40s% there were only four of us left alive. The amazing thing is that with one tank, one DPS, and two healers, we were able to keep the battle going a good long time. Imagine what we could have done if more raiders had survived to that point. We did not actually transition to the phase beyond 40%, there being too few of us to survive that, but that's as close as we've ever been.

I'd like to say that even more progress was made, but despite four more attempts we never got that far again. The final three attempts came after a break, and we seem to lose focus every time we take a break. Normally breaks sort of last as long as the tardiest person to get back into the raid, anywhere from five minutes to 15 minutes or more. This time there was an attempt to limit the break to three minutes, plenty long enough for a bio break, a drink/food run, smoke break, yell at the kids break, etc. Raiders were told that we were going to start up the next attempt exactly at the three minute mark.

At the three minute mark the main tank engaged Tirion Fordring to start things up. Fordring and LK talk for about fifty seconds, and then LK attacks. There was no ready check. One tank, one healer, and two DPSers did not respond when the Lich King attacked. We wiped, of course. There was anger and annoyance and finger pointing. I support a hard break time, but starting the fight without knowing if everyone was ready was foolish and wasted more time than just letting raiders trickle back whenever they wanted.

Everything else aside, though, we really do have the ability to beat the Lich King. If we can only stay focused for two to three productive hours, he'll go down. I'm sure of it. It's the "productive" two to three hours I worry about.

Wednesday (17 Nov) - Javajoo Steps to the Plate

Wednesday (17 Nov) - Javajoo Steps to the Plate

It took some time, but an alliance cousin of the Wild family finally got a chance to participate in the pre-Cata events. Says Java, "Tanks fer nuttin'." If Java was a little irked, it had to do with the timing. The horde side of the family completed the fifteen quests of the first three phases before the beginning of the elemental invasion (Phase 4).

The majority of these quests are given, completed, and turned in at principal cities that have become extremely dangerous to be in for repeated periods of time. Java was about to find out just how dangerous that can be. Note that only four family members among Wild's horde clan have completed all four phases, the lowest level being Mery at level 56. Level 80 JB was killed during one of the invasions, and Wild came close to dying as well. Java, at level 29, is the lowest level toon to date among the family facing those level 80 hostile elementals.

Java wasn't really thinking about hostile elementals when he left the safe confines of Exodar and traveled to Stormwind to report to Captain Anton, the Alliance officer tasked with dealing with the cultists and other nuisances. Although things have progressed into Phase 4 already, every quest from the beginning "Prophecies of Doom" are still available. And Java needed to do them all.

In general, the alliance version of the quests were the same as the horde version. Differences were cosmetic and/or geographic for the most part. So Java had at least some idea what he was getting into. What did add to the time was that while most of the quests took place in Stormwind, there were several in Ironforge, which required taking the Tram between the two cities.

Initially, the hardest part of the quest chain for Java was just finding his way around in Stormwind. It's a beautiful, quaint city lined with cobblestone pathways, small shops, and innumerable blind alleys and dead ends. From the map it might look like there are half a dozen easy ways to get from point A to point B, but in reality there was generally only one way, and that one was the most torturous to navigate.

Java got a few of the quests done, and reached the quest taking him to Ironforge. Java knows where the tram is from an earlier quest chain, and had no trouble getting to it, safely arriving at the IF tram station a few minutes later. There was a quite nasty looking elemental at the station, though, with five alliance guards struggling mightily against it. An attack on Ironforge was in progress.

Java tiptoed past the battle and into the center ring of IF. Here there were elementals everywhere, and nary an alliance player in sight. All of the elementals seemed to be engaged against the alliance npc guards, though, so Java decided it was best to tiptoe past all of them to find the quest giver he needed to meet up with. Java didn't get a hundred yards before one of the elementals noticed the juicy level 29 trying to sneak past. Java lost twenty yards and 75% of his health when the elemental swatted him back the way he had come. And he wasn't done. The big rock with fire leaking from it's cracks came right after Java. Java had some tricks, and he played them, but it only delayed the inevitable. Java died.

A soberer Java resurrected at the graveyard and made his way back into IF. By that time a strong alliance force had moved in and was systematically blasting the elemental incursion into dust. Java hoped to capitalize on that by "being in the neighborhood" when rifts were closed. Unfortunately, he was too far behind the wave of alliance attackers, didn't know IF well enough to find his way to them, and there were still the occasional elemental roaming about and forcing unwanted detours. Java got no credit for rift closures.

Once the city was successfully defended, Java completed the quests in IF and then took a break. When he returned later Java grabbed the tram back to Stormwind - and found elementals outside the tram station. Not again! This time, however, there were other alliance around and they seemed to be getting the upper hand. Java watched the battle for a bit, but hey, who can resist taking a few shots at these beasts. What really delighted Java was that while his attacks missed almost every time, his stun actually seemed to work on the elementals. Java was going to get credit for at least one rift closing. That is, until he wandered a little too close to an elemental to get a stun on it, and instead got hit with some kind of murderous Stomp. "Murderous" was the right word, too. Java died instantly.

It's a pretty long run from the graveyard back into the front gates of Stormwind. And it was longer still to get to the far, opposite corner of the city where Java's corpse lay. By the time Java got back to his body and rezzed, the battle was already over. No credit for Java.

Java has a word of advice for low level players wanting to get the achievement. Don't run around by yourself - stay with the bulk of the player army. Don't attack the elementals. Keep a wary eye on the elementals and stay a good distance away from them. In fact, stay mounted and watch the battle, and then bring up the rear when the army of players moves to the next battle. Do that, and you might live long enough to get credit for the rift closures.

Java did get those fifteen quests done for the first three phases, and leveled from 29 to 30 (and more than halfway to 31) in the process. Java admits that he could have done without the elementals, but in the same breath hoped he'd still get a chance to earn that rift closing achievement.

Monday/Tuesday (16 Nov) - Prince Sarsarum and Kai'ju Gahz'rilla

Monday/Tuesday (16 Nov) - Prince Sarsarum and Kai'ju Gahz'rilla

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.

Monday (15 Nov) - Elemental Invasion Phase 2

Monday (15 Nov) - Elemental Invasion Phase 2

Note - Things are moving fast. The below report was written before I knew that the invasion was going to fall on us about the time I finished writing this report. I'll follow up on the new developments already in progress in the next post.

[Written Monday morning]
Phase 1 of the infiltration of the Twilight Hammer was complete with the quest "Alert Our Leaders."

In Phase 2 players must fight off an attack of elementals ("Tablets of Fire") outside Orgimmar near the Zeppelin Tower. When the event starts players get a pet bar with three attacks. Different attacks must be used on different types of elementals.

"Tablets of Fire"

Then there is the boring and tedious "Subduing the Elements" where players have to kill twenty elementals in the city. It's a wack-a-mole event of chasing down little fire elementals and dousing them. The worst part is that even though there are plenty of elementals to go after, the longish cooldown between charges means there is some waiting around between kills.

"Show Me Your Papers" is king of cool, and it's actually the start of Phase 3. A crowd of cult followers have gathered outside Orgrimmar. Players make a proclamation outlawing the cult and then question five people, who are taken into custody. The funny part is that there are so many cultists parked outside Orgrimmar that the pvpers who like to use that area for their duels finally had to move somewhere else.

"Show Me Your Papers"

We then get to personally arrest five cultists in "Arrest the Infiltrators" and turn them over to authorities, followed by "Back Under Cover" for a simple go here and go there quest and finally "I Said The Words" where players disrupt rituals that the cultists have started doing in the city. For players at level 60 and higher, there is one more quest, "A Gathering in Outland." Thrall has moved to the Throne of Elements in Nagrand, and this is a simple go and say hi quest. Hmm, I thought Thrall was supposed to be going to Northrend? Ah well, Faction leaders seem to be in several places at once these days.

"Arrest the Infiltrators"

"I Said The Words"

The Wild family on the horde side is up to date on all the quests through Phase 3. I am going to try and get Java and Chaitee at least through the series on the Alliance side, but it may not happen. Just not enough time.

Phase 4 is going to be hell to get all my toons through. It hasn't started yet (as of Monday morning, anyway), but it is a timed event that will occur every 2-3 hours and each toon will have to participate in the event at least four times to get all the achievements as well as a rare Feat of Strength. More to follow when the event gets started. Update - The event started on Monday at high noon.

No Phase 5 has been announced. It's assumed that the next event after Phase 4 will the Shattering.

Reins of the Raven Lord Progress: Six Anzu kills. No mount. Wild has been killing Anzu on the first attempt, but things weren't so smooth on the sixth. First, Wild got careless and let an elite bird discover his stealth while padding to Anzu's chamber. Wild was immediately stunned and then attacked by a whole room full of mobs. Wild died. Then, against Anzu, Wild changed his strategy. Wild stayed with the first part of the plan - battle Anzu until he he goes into his un-hittable phase, change position away from Anzu, heal, and then kill the first pack of birds. Anzu comes out of his phase and has to run to Wild, so I can hammer him and buff Wild's armor while the bird was on his way. The past couple of kills I noticed that Anzu's health was way down at that point in the fight. Normally, when Anzu goes un-hitable the secnd time, Wild would again change position. But why bother? I should be able to kill him right where I stand. Wild healed and held his ground. The second wave of birds arrived. Wild got off one Hurricane on the birds, and then got stunned. Anzu shifted back into attack mode and, not having to run to Wild, immediately stunned me. Wild still hadn't killed all of the birds, and between Anzu and the birds Wild found himself stunned 75% of the time, and the other 25% of the time Wild could do litlle more than keep himself alive. When curses started landing in addition to the stuns, Wild died. On Wild's second attempt he went back to the original strategy and Anzu went down.

Weekend (14 Nov) - Cata Meanderings

Weekend (14 Nov) - Cata Meanderings

Random thought - I'm glad the new expansion has the simple nickname "Cata." I got really tired of having to type WotLK all the time.

The whole idea of goblins and worgen suddenly diminished for me when Blizzard announced on Wednesday that players would be able to pay for faction/race changes for both goblins and worgen starting with the last patch before Cata. I thought the whole idea of having two new races was to get a lot of folks leveling up in the remade world of the Cataclysm? Now we are going to have level 80 worgen and goblins before Cata even gets here. Most players love this idea, by the way, and certainly Blizzard loves the $25 you have to pay to make the switch. I still plan on leveling an alliance worgen from level 1 to as high as I can get him/her.

As for the Horde goblin . . . I wonder how Happy would feel about being turned into a goblin? What do you think? Maybe we could change his name, too. How about Hapless?

There are also some seemingly tough bugs in the Cata beta, serious enough that the rumors are starting to fly that the 7 Dec release date might be in jeopardy. Things I have been hearing about:

* The latest tweaking to the beta has resulted in a bizarre stunting of the troll player race. All trolls appear at a tenth of their actual size and look like paper cutouts. Apparently the developers haven't been able to figure out what is causing this.

* There is some kind of problem with the worgen race, unspecified, although a fix was supposedly in the works.

* In the old world of Azeroth, players can't fly on the two original continents. In Cata, players can use their flying mounts. However, apparently many beta players find themselves falling to their death after taking to the skies. If they can't fix it maybe Blizzard will just incorporate it into the game. After all, in the current game engineers can make items that only work some of the time, and occasionally explode when used. Maybe the use of flying mounts in the old world will come with a warning that flying could be hazardous to their health.

Or, here's an idea, mayhaps they should use those tiny, flat trolls as the image on their flying warning. You know, THIS could happen to you! :P

Oh, and who doesn't remember Gamon? If you're horde, that is. Gamon lives in the Orgrimmar city Inn and is regularly killed as part of a quest. Lots of other folks that don't even have the quest go out of their way to kill him just for fun. He's famous. And unloved. In Cata it's payback time. Gamon has graduated into a level 85 elite. I wouldn't mess with that bad boy now.

There are some more pre-Cata quests to do, which I'll get to in another post. Things are getting crazier. The earthquake rumblings are getting more frequent and more fierce. The leaders of Azeroth grow more worried. Blizzard is doing a great job of setting the stage, as well as pre-staging events with so that they can advance the story more often and at different times than the usual Tuesday maintenance cycle.

Oh, I checked with the recount addon author and got an answer on why Efflorescence is not showing up on the healing meters. Blizzard categorizes different things different ways, and for some unknown reason Blizzard has designated Efflorescence a "guardian" spell, spells typically associated with pets. So, I can split out "pet" heals and see it as a separate category, but the author has no way of splitting it out and showing it in the overall healing numbers. Oh well.

I decided to buy the Cataclysm digital download a couple of days ago. Cost me $40, and the 800MB file downloaded pretty fast. Theoretically, I will be able to install and play Cataclysm at the stroke of Midnight on 7 Dec. That is, assuming that the release date holds. And of course, barring however many last minute patches that might have to be downloaded, and considering how many millions of other players will be trying to login at the same time, and most likely dealing with server crashes and unforeseen bugs etc etc etc. The Mrs says she's sympathetic - she's giving me a week, but then she is dragging me off in the RV for a week away from home. My whole guild will be level 85 by the time I come back. Wives can be so cruel . . .

Thursday (11 Nov) - So It Goes

Thursday - So It Goes

"The encounter against the Lich King, appropriately for its level, requires above average raid performance. Personal mistakes, even more so than in the other Icecrown bosses, can quickly become raid mistakes and, soon after that, wipes. " - Wowhead.com

We were much more focused on Thursday night. We can once again say that we have mastered the first phase of the fight, and the transition to the next phase. Most of our time was spent trying to master the second phase, or what the raid leader was calling phase 1.5. The phases are not so clear cut as in other boss fights, and that, more than anything, may be what makes this battle so difficult.

In simplistic terms, there are three phases:
Phase 1: The start of the fight
Phase 2: Starts when the Lich King falls to 70% health
Phase 3: Starts when the Lich King falls to 40% health.

In reality, the phases look something like this:
Phase 1: The start of the fight. We're facing ghouls and shambling horrors, and LK is casting Infest and Necrotic Plague.
Phase 1.5: Starts around the 72% point. The ghouls and horrors should be dead, but now Raging Spirits appear. Infest and Plague continue, and added to that are two more spells, Remorseless Winter and Pain and Suffering. All raiders must move to new positions.
Phase 2: Moving past 70%, Plague stops but the rest of the spells continue. The tank starts getting hit with a new spell, Soul Reaper. We get a new mob - Ice Spheres. This lasts about sixty seconds.
Phase 2.5: Raiders move again. LK casts Quake, destroying the outer edge of the platform. No more mobs from prior phases, but now we get Val'kyrs, flying mobs that pick up raiders and carry them out over the void and drop them to their death. Infest and Soul Reaper are the only spells still active from before, but a new one is added: Defile.
Phase 3: Starts at 40%, and we haven't gotten that far yet. However, this phase is a repeat of phases 1.5, 2, and 2.5. Only there will be a new set of mobs and new spells from LK to add additional difficulty and flavor.

How far did we get Thursday night? Our best effort after 7 attempts was 49%. That attempt was actually better than the attempt last week when we got LK down to 44% because we were a lot better coordinated this week. In other words, last week was a fluke. This week, on this night, I think we earned that 49% with solid play.

At 9pm two of our raiders had to leave. Instead of ending the night, though, we brought in two new guildies who hadn't had the pleasure of dealing with the Lich King before. It was cool seeing how excited they were to be getting their first look. We got in a couple more decent attempts and then called it a night.

Some random comments on the night:

On our very first attempt we got LK down to 68% and into p1.5. That positive start set the tone for the rest of the evening. Wednesday's debacle was completely forgotten.

Our main tank from Wednesday could not make it Thursday so Wild's druid friend Rs took over main tank duties. I love working with him as the main tank healer, and the cagey guy loads up on the praise so that I will try all that much harder. Rs whispered Wild before the start of the first attempt. "Wild, sorry you'll have to be healing me tonight, but PLEASE keep me alive!" Wild whispered him back. "I got your back, Rs." Many attempts later we were driving hard into the second phase, trying to survive a Defile pool, when Wild was picked up and carried off by a Val'kyr. Wild, unable to heal or doing anything else while in the clutches of the val'kyr, said "Halp!" in raid chat. Rs immediately demanded that the ranged DPSers redouble their efforts to "save my healer!" But the DPS couldn't kill the val'kyr fast enough and Wild was dropped to his death. After the wipe we were joking around about it and a DPSer said something like "Well, Rs, it wouldn't have mattered if we'd saved Wild, we were pretty much done by that time anyway." Rs protested. "Not true, as long as Wild is alive I'm pretty much invincible." What a nice compliment to Wild's healing.

Rs has Wild's back as well. On attempt #6 Wild forgot to watch his own health and let an Infest kill him very early in the fight. We had only two druids, Wild and Rs, for battle rezzing. Obviously Wild couldn't rez himself, and Rs was the main tank and way too busy battling LK to switch out of his tanking bear form to caster in order to rez Wild. Yet when phase 1.5 hit and the raid shifted position, Rs popped out of bear form as he moved, LK hot on his tail, and battle rezzed Wild. Wild had to wait a second to clear some raid damage that would have ruined the rez, and in that instant Rs sent a raid chat "Wild I hope to gawd you got that rez!" I did, and Wild was able to rejoin the fight.

I did track the healing numbers, but I discovered that some of my key healing spells were not being recorded properly by the recount addon. Two spells, Swiftmend and Efflorescence, are not showing up correctly. Both are specialty spells that I mix in with my more often used spells, and Efflorescence is new since the patch. The two feed off each other as well, so it looks like the recount author hasn't got that right yet. That made me wonder if other healers had similar problems. In particular, recount is supposed to capture shield absorption numbers and add them to healing numbers now. Yet when I looked at the absorption numbers they didn't look high enough. That would affect both Pl (our priest healer) and Kd (our paladin healer), since both use shields to absorb damage. Hopefully this will get straightened out, but for now just note that the healing numbers, while still worth looking at, are not as accurate as I'd like.

Wednesday (10 Nov) - Cheers and Setbacks

Wednesday (10 Nov) - Cheers and Setbacks

Wednesday night was the second night of the MM G1 ICC ten man raid. The night before they finished their evening of assault on the Lich King with a best effort of 30%, well past the 40% needed to get into the third and final phase. But they didn't kill him.

On Wednesday night the G1 killed the Lich King. The MM guild had their first ten Kingslayers.

Wednesday night was also the first night of the MM G2 ICC ten man raid. The week before we had gotten the Lich King down to 44% on our best attempt. We were stoked to take that further.

But after ten attempts we were discouraged and near broken. Not only had we not killed the Lich King, we did not get close to the 44% we had achieved the week before. There were many mistakes, too many mistakes. Some were understandable, some we just shook our heads at. I've begun to see why this fight has stymied so many, and why those who get that title are so proud of it.

It was between our tenth attempt and our eleventh attempt that we learned that the G1 team had brought the Lich King down. We were happy for them. I for one was jealous of them. There was an initial letdown that we would not be the first to earn the title for our guild. We really thought we would be. That was gone.

Then we got mad. And we went back to work. Attempts #11 and #12 were very good attempts. We pushed deep into the second phase and did it without losing any raiders during the first phase, something we had failed to do all night. The last attempt, the 13th, came up short as well when I think we just ran out of steam.

Our ever optimistic raid leader, Bd, who, as the night deteriorated, tried not to show his increasing frustration, made only one comment as we retired for the evening.

"We had only two good attempts all night. Tomorrow I'm going to pretend tonight never happened. We have to be a whole lot better than this."

Time is running out for Icecrown Citadel. Time is running out for all those without a Kingslayer title. It's just a title. It's such a small thing. But you know, the things I remember best in this game (other than the friendships of course), are the end game boss encounters. Killing Ragnaros in Molten Core. Prince Malchazaar in Karazhan. Destroying that most loyal of Lich King champions, Kel'Thuzad, in Naxxramas. These were epic confrontations. Epic victories. My greatest regrets were failing on end game bosses, and there are more of them than there are victories - the Black Temple, Hyjal Summit, the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. Worst of all, Blackwing Lair, where months were spent getting to the final encounter with Nefarian, but never bringing him down.

Four more weeks. Perhaps seven nights total. Will Icecrown Citadel be one of those great memories of victory? Or my greatest regret?

Weekend Plus (9 Nov) - Bits and Pieces

Weekend Plus (9 Nov) - Bits and Pieces

Not to bog this down with a lot of Auction House stuff, but Philly had a short, interesting conversation on Saturday night while working on her glyphs. It only takes about twenty minutes to get through the AH stuff with both Happy and Lost. Philly, however, has to deal with over a hundred single items that have to be reviewed, priced, and posted one at a time. Posting and reposting and making new ones and checking prices and ... well, it just takes so much time! Philly had already been at it for maybe forty minutes when a stranger whispered her. The name was Lysanther, a level 29 blood elf paladin. Philly was becoming numbingly familiar with the names of all the regular glyph posters and this wasn't one of them.

Lysanther: "Most of those glyphs you are posting are being underbid by Gakuenalice btw"

Philly thought about that, briefly, posted a few more glyphs, and then responded.

Philly: "and your point?" She sent back. Because, really, what was the point? Bids get underbid. Then I underbid them. It goes like that, and occasionally someone will want to buy something, and hopefully yours will be the lowest price. All I could think of was this person must be the main or an alt of this other poster he mentioned and didn't want me underbidding him.

Lysanther: "because you're and azzhole so continue posting"

Continuing to post was what I was intending to do. Still assuming he was also selling glyphs, Philly responded again.

Philly: "Like you keep posting?" That hit a nerve.

Lysanther: Lysanther ignores Philly.

The guy or gal had put Philly on "ignore" so that I would not be able to send him whispers anymore. Funny, he was the one who started the conversation. Philly didn't know who this was or care, so being ignored by him was fine by me.

But I decided to find out if the other player he mentioned was actually an alt. Philly checked the name, and learned that he was a level 1. Yep, definitely someone's AH alt. Philly decided to say hi.

Philly to Gakuenalice (hereafter referred to as Alice): "Hi, having fun with glyphs tonight? I am."

Alice: "yep" I waited.

Alice: "anything else?"

Philly: "Nope, just seeing your name a lot. Good luck and have fun!"

Alice: "u 2"

Philly: "thanks"

That was the end of our conversation. Alice seemed nice enough. So I'm still not sure what all that was about. But it passed the time while Philly continued to post her glyphs, often underbidding Alice while Alice was underbidding other bids that Philly had made. As at least a dozen other glyph sellers were doing as well.

The dang things don't sell very fast, now, and the prices are starting to fall faster. Opening up the mailbox and seeing page after page of expired glyphs is getting depressing, even though Philly is still making a decent pile of gold each day. Philly's not sure it's worth all that effort, though. She'd rather be off killing something.

Speaking of killing things, Wild decided that it was time to start farming Anzu. Wild may be the only druid ever to start the Anzu quest chain when it was established during the Burning Crusade expansion and still not have it done when Patch 4.0.1 came out. The quest chain was required in order to get the new flight form ability for druids. The final quest was to kill the raven god Anzu in Heroic Sethekk Halls, which Wild never got around to doing because later on the requirement was waived and Wild got flight form without having to complete it.

There was another reason to complete the quest, though. The Anzu boss dropped a mount called "Reins of the Raven God." Since Anzu could only be Summoned by a druid who had completed the quest line, and because there was less than a 2% chance of the mount dropping even then, the Raven God mount became one of the rarest mounts in the game.

Anzu was a popular boss to farm, obviously. Wild was never cared that much about collecting a bunch of mounts, so Wild never thought about attempting it with a two or three man group. Wild's long time shaman friend, though, was trying to get the mount and back in July Wild hooked up with him to give it a try. Unfortunately, Wild screwed that up because he'd forgotten to bring a special orb or something that was required to complete the last quest and Summon Anzu. Wild wasn't interested enough to pursue it further and that was pretty much the end of it.

More time passed, and Patch 4.0.1 came out. Buried in all those huge patch changes was a small change that involved Anzu. Wild did not hear about it until days later. Anzu had been made a permanant boss in Heroic Sethekk Halls. He did not need to be Summoned, and anyone could go and take the bird on without having to bring a druid. Wild was seeing the bird mount a little more often now, and started to appreciate just how rare and beautiful it truly was. And despite the fact that now anyone who can kill Anzu and also get lucky on the drop can get the mount, to Wild it is still a "druid" mount. And Wild now wanted it.

To find Anzu, Sethekk Halls must be set to Heroic. It is a five man level 70 rated dungeon, with mobs around level 71/72 and bosses somewhat tougher. A level 80 can solo Sethekk Halls (SH), but even a level 80 can get killed in there. Wild has cleared Sethekk Halls before solo, but only in normal mode. Anzu doesn't appear in normal mode. So, Wild has never seen Anzu in the flesh (or, more appropriately, feathers).

Sunday night Wild decided to rectify that. Wild was almost waylaid right at the start, as a guildie wanted him to heal an ad hoc ICC raid. Wild was all ready to help out, but then it got canceled and Wild was free again. Wild headed for the Outland city of Shattrath, and from there flew to the Auchenal Crypts, where Sethekk Halls was located.

Wild, in his cat form, can stealth through most of SH without disturbing any of the hostiles in there, but the first boss, Darkweave Syth, can see through stealth. Wild forgot that little fact, and when I tried to slip past him Wild found himself in combat not only with Syth, but also with all of the many mobs in the room that came running in to aid him. Frankly, Wild should have died. In straight up combat, Wild can heal through just about anything mobs of this level can throw at him, but there are birds that can silence spell casting and other mobs that have a nasty stun that Wild cannot stop. Too many silences and stuns and Wild can't get enough self healing. But Wild was lucky. The mobs died, and so did Syth.

Killing a boss and a roomful of elite adds actually bolstered Wild's confidence that maybe Anzu wasn't going to be as tough as he'd read it would be. Wild went back into cat stealth and padded his way to Anzu's room.

There he was, standing in the middle of the room. Waiting. There were no other hostiles. This would be mano a mano. One on one. There are three statues set around the room. Maintaining a heal over time spell on one or more of the statues helps with the fight, but Wild wasn't sure he needed the help. I'd read up on how to tackle this bird, but it was tricky and I must admit that I really only had a vague strategy, along the lines of "let's attack him and see what happens."

Wild attacked. And Wild died.

Ok, so a little more finesse is needed.

Having to stealth through two-thirds of the dungeon after getting rezzed at the graveyard was a real pain. The third boss, Talon King Ikiss, guards a locked door that's a shortcut back into the dungeon. All Wild had to do to open that door was kill him. So Wild stealthed past Anzu and into Ikiss' room. Ikiss was a straight tank and spank type of fight and Wild killed him easily.

Now it was back to Anzu. This time Wild tried to follow the time tested strategy. It went like this:

Wild buffed as he usually did, and then cast a rejuv HoT on the Eagle statue, which deals damage to Anzu as long as the rejuv is active. Rejuving the hawk statue would have reduced the incoming damage from Anzu, but Wild found himself much too busy to deal with the statues after the fight started. Wild cast Hots on himself, and then thumped Anzu with a Starfire spell. Anzu charged at Wild and I cast the instant attacks Moonfire and Insect Swarm, followed by Wild's armor increasing spell for protection from the ferocious melee attack Anzu delivered on Wild. Wild went to a Wrath spell spam and was feeling pretty good about the amount of damage I was doing, and Wild wasn't even in moonkin form (so that I could heal more easily). Wild knew there was a point that he was supposed to move to the other side of the room. When was that? Anzu turned ghostly and stopped attacking. Oh yea, now I need to move. Wild got halfway across the room when a storm of birds descended on him. They weren't elite, though, Wild remembered, and used his AoE spell Hurricane to burn them down. As soon as the last bird died, Anzu returned to sold form and rushed at Wild. Dang it, I forgot to re-heal myself before all the birds died and Anzu attacked again. No problem, I'll just heal . . . oops, Stunned! Wild stood and watched Anzu pound him, health dropping dangerously low. The stun ended and Wild fought to get heals on himself. A Curse! The curse Spellbomb rapidly burned up mana and dealt damage with every spell Wild cast. Luckily, Wild can dispel the thing and did so quickly. And was promptly stunned again. Anzu turned ghostly. The birds returned again. Wild stood his ground and wiped out the birds. He started to heal himself when Anzu came back to solid form again and immediately hammered Wild, stunning him once again. Oh dear, that's why Wild should be moving to away from Anzu when he goes ghostly - to get some breathing room to heal. Wild mustered all the resources he had left, but Anzu killed him again. Wild kept learning and practicing, dying a third time.

Wild killed Anzu on his fourth attempt. The Reins of the Raven Lord didn't drop. The effort cost Wild 32 gold in equipment repair bills. Wild plans to keep trying. The dungeon can be run only once per day.

Monday - Wild made his second trip into Heroic Sethek Halls, and this time was able to kill Anzu on his first try. It was still a little dicey, with Wild getting down under 20% health at one point, but it worked. Wild went to the trouble of getting full buffs this time - Mark of the Wild, Fortitude scroll, stamina food, and a spell power flask. I also made a macro so that I could engage the Eagle Spirit more efficiently. Finally, I discovered I wasn't using one of my moonkin spells. Starsurge is a new spell from the patch that I'd completely forgotten about. Add all of that up and Wild should get Anzu down even quicker with more practice.

And, no, the raven lord mount did not drop.

Tuesday - Wild made his third trip to Heroic Sethekk Halls and again killed Anzu on his first try. No mount. Wild pretty much has this fight down now, although the randomness of the stuns and silences could still trip Wild up if he gets too nonchalant about it. It takes several minutes to bring him down, so Wild can't just overpower the bird like he can with the other two bosses. It's also too bad that the gear Anzu drops is so ugly. Much of it is named for the Raven God and Wild initially thought it would be a good idea to build a set of cool looking gear to wear should he ever get lucky enough to get the mount. But the gear looks terrible and Wild just disenchants it and sends the mats to Happy to sell.

Happy has been living at Silvermoon City for as long as he can remember. It's quiet, there's no lag, and the Auction House, Bank, and mailbox are all close together. However, two high level alliance have taken up almost permanent residence themselves for the past several evenings. The pair have been slaughtering the AH auctioneers at both Auction Houses, corpse camping them for long stretches of time. Silvermoon City is out in the boonies and there are usually no horde level 80s around to chase them off. Happy finally had enough of it and moved his operation to the Undercity on Monday night. It might not be permanent, but the Undercity rarely gets raided by the Alliance and I've never seen the Auctioneers there targeted. Happy will stay awhile and then decide whether to move back or not.

Thursday Night 2 (4 Nov) - The Lich King Versus The G2

Thursday Night 2 (4 Nov) - The Lich King Versus The G2

The lair of the Lich King is at the very top of the Icecrown Citadel, which stands upon the Icecrown Glacier. The circular platform is accessible only via a special portal that becomes activated only with the death of Sindragosa. The platform is open to the skies of Northrend. It's a very long way down. The Lich King sits on his Throne at the top of a set of steep set of ice stairs. Everything is ice. It's also very, very cold up here.

Standing at the center of the platform staring up at the Lich King is Tirion Fordring. The human has a long history including his leadership of the Argent Crusade against the Lich King and the Scourge. The two mighty leaders have fought each other numerous times and now stand against each other once more.

When the Lich King settled in Northrend he could have destroyed the adventurers that sought him out. Instead, he sought to forge us into the most powerful army in the world, and wield us as his slaves. The Argent Tournament and it's challenge of champions was intended to cull the lesser adventurers, leaving only the most accomplished to be forced to serve the Lich King. Instead, Fordring championed the greatest of the adventurers, ensuring they would not be swayed by the Lich King's dark powers. Fordring now stood with his adventurers to end the Lich King's reign once and for all.

As we assembled for battle the Lich King rose, pulling the legendary sword Frostmourne from it's sheath, and shouted at Fordring. "Shall I lay down Frostmourne and throw myself at your mercy, Fordring?"

Fordring returned the mockery. "We will grant you a swift death, Arthas. More than can be said for the thousands you've tortured and slain."

The Lich King was moving down the stairs as they shouted at each other. "When my work is complete, you will beg for mercy -- and I will deny you."

Fordring raised his own sword and shouted back, "So be it. Champions, attack!"

While they clashed back and forth in words, we had been preparing. The main tank moved toward the center, staying behind Fordring but ready to join in the battle. The off tank stood further back from Fordring, standing ready for whatever tricks LK might throw at us. The rest of the raid was a few more feet behind the off tank, clustered together, tense with determination, resolve, and no small amount of fear.

The Lich King reached the bottom of the stairs and stretched a hand toward Fordring. Fordring was immediately encased in ice. "I'll keep you alive to witness the end, Fordring," he says. "I would not want the Light's greatest champion to miss seeing this wretched world remade in my image."

With Fordring encased in ice, the main tank engaged the Lich King. The tank pulled LK toward the rest of us, forming a triangle with the off tank and the rest of the clustered group of raiders. Groups of ghouls began spawning that the off tank would have to engage and keep busy. At the same time LK cast Infest, which did massive and increasing damage to the entire raid.

Wild and our priest healer, Pl, immediately picked up the healing pace, already frenetic, to get raider health above 90%, which is the only way to remove the escalating damage of the spell. All of the DPS were pounding the Lich King with everything they had. We were then hit with another nasty plague, Necrotic Plague. Wild was one of the first exposed. Wild rushed forward to the off tank and our paladin healer, Kd, cast his dispel to remove the plague. Wild wasn't fast enough in getting turned around and back out of the way, and the plague leaped back onto Wild. Wild made an about-face and swept back into range of the dispel. The plague leaped again, but this time it found the Shambling Horror that the off tank was fighting. That was the pattern of beginning of this long fight.

The DPS kept up the damage on LK, the off tank kept the horrors and ghouls off the rest of us, and the healers battled to maintain raid health and keep off the plagues. We had already lost a couple of raiders, victims of the plague or infest, Wild wasn't sure, but it was maddening having to maintain almost his full attention on keeping the Lich King from massacring the main tank while knowing Wild still had to spam heals on the many raiders feeling the effects of both Infest and Necrotic Plague.

Somehow we battled the Lich King down to 70% health, and more things started happening. The ghouls were mostly dead just from the waves of AoE damage coming from raiders, and the Necrotic Plague was doing in the shambling horrors. More raiders had died, though. Wild got one of them resurrected, but when another druid attempted a second battle rez, it failed. That's when we learned that another change for Cata had been implemented - only one battle rez was allowed during a single battle. We had four druids, so we thought we had four battle rezzes. But now it was only one.

At 70% the Lich King ran to the center of the platform while the raid broke up into two groups along the edge of the platform. Wild, in his rush to get into position, came very close to the edge. Did I mention it was a long way down? Wild gulped and stepped back a couple of feet, but never stopped healing. LK cast Relentless Winter, death in seconds to anyone within 45 yards of LK. LK also spammed Pain ond Suffering, a frontal cone of shadow damage we just have to heal through. Raging Spirits spawned and the tanks fought to keep them turned away from the two groups of raiders, as they cast a Silence that stopped the healing. Wild, battling to keep the main tank alive, was living a purple hell with Pain and Suffering coursing through him. Pl got a Shield on Wild just before I was targeted by an Ice Sphere. Wild thanked her with a heal back at her while the DPS tried to kill the Ice sphere before it killed me. One ice sphere reached a raider, immediately exploded, and blew the raider clean off the platform. It was, as I've said, a long, long way down. Another dead raider.

At sixty seconds from the 70% mark, LK cast Quake. Anyone now still standing at the edge of the platform was in deep trouble. Quake broke free the entire outer rim of the platform. Ice and rock cracked with a thunderous noise and began showering down the glacier. More raiders, late to realize what was happening, fell with the debris.

The main tank re-acquired the Lich King at the center and the rest of the raid spread out around him. The "right" distance between the center and the new, much closer edge of the platform was a dicey decision. The first Val'kyr shadowguard flew into view and grappled with one of the raiders. The raider was lifted into the sky and carried off. The DPS turned and shot the val'kyr down right before it reached the edge of the platform. The raider survived the fall. LK, never one to use a single attack when he can use several, cast Defile.

Defile is a deep, black mass of thick shadow stuff forming on the ground. It targets a single raider to set it's position, but it spreads rapidly each time it does damage by contact with a raider. On the small platform there are few places to run. The raider next to Wild was the unlucky target, and Wild beat feet away from him as quickly as possible while other raiders did the same. One raider who'd run near the edge of the platform to escape the Defile was nabbed by a val'kyr and swept away before the DPS could kill it. Once past the edge of the platform, the val'kyr let him go.

One more time. It's a very, very long way down.

On our best attempt we got the Lich King down to 44% health. This was only the G2's third night against LK, so we considered that to be considerable progress. There were nine attempts. We got pretty competent at the first phase, which covers the start of the fight down to the 70% mark, and we're starting to figure out the phase between 70% and 40%. Obviously, we haven't seen what happens at 40%. Yet.

There were no extraordinary healing numbers. That was slightly diluted because there were three healers vice the usual two we have for earlier ICC battles. But I also think that the tweaking continues as part of the ramp up to Cata, and it appears our healing was adjusted a bit. At any rate, Wild, in his first battle with LK, was pleased that he led the healing in all nine attempts. Overall healing wrapped up as follows:

#1: Wild, 4366 hps, 41.7% of all healing
#2: Pl, 3217/28.5%
#3: Kd, 4065/21.1%

According to the notes from the updated Recount addon (which provides the healing and DPS stats), priest and paladin shield absorption is now included in the healing numbers, so the numbers above should be pretty accurate.

Kd gets credit for all the dispelling he had to do in the early phase, which lowered his total healing percentage. As a full time healer his hps indicates he might have surpassed Pl. But someone has to dispel in this fight, and Kd was our man.

I also need to explain that the above description of the fight is a compendium of the nine attempts so that all that we saw and learned could be included in one report instead of nine. Wild managed to die in most of the ways described above, in one attempt or another.

As with the last post, I will leave you with a few pictures of Wild's first night against the Lich King. It was a memorable night for me. I fully intend to kill LK, that thing that can no longer be truly called a man, before Cata. But if the gods deny me that, I will still be happy to have this night of battle against him.

The Pictures -


There were four druids in the raid. Three of us posed with Tirion Fordring in cat form. Wild is the kittie on the right.


Here's a nice view of the sky around the platform. Wild was killed and was left hanging in the air when the outer edge of the platform broke up. It's a long way down.


Here, Wild was nabbed by a val'kyr. The ranged DPS tried to shoot him down but the val'kyr made it past the edge of the platform and let go. Down Wild went.


Finally, here's what the platform looks like from underneath. Very pretty. Except that you have to be dead to get this view.