Wednesday (19 Jan) - Baradin Hold Again

Wednesday (19 Jan) - Baradin Hold Again

This is part 2 of Wednesday night.

Before getting into the Baradin Hold run, there was a follow up dungeon run after we finished Abyssal Maw. Fn had asked if we wanted to do another heroic, but the other four of us begged off. It was already past 10:30pm and another two hours plus in a heroic - no. Wild needed to decompress.

Wild cleaned up from the run. He paid a staggering 125g for a red +40 int gem to socket his new slippers with (Philly, get cracking on that jewelcrafting!), enchanted them, and toyed with his [Sea Star] to see if I could make the +spi trinket work. I couldn't, other than add it to Wild's "spi" config when I wanted to max regen at the expense of everything else. Before Wild could slip away, though, Bd whispered Wild that he was doing a normal dungeon run to help some guildies gear up for heroics. Bd thought Philly might want to come, and was disappointed that Philly was still a level 80. Wild knows how hard it can be to get normal runs together to gear up so Wild volunteered to heal, tired as I was. Bd sent an invite.

We tried to use the DF, but discovered that the gear the death knight in our group was wearing didn't measure up to even to the minimum standards of normal dungeons - i272. That didn't stop us, though, and Bd wouldn't let the DK back out, though he tried to. I think he was worried that he would embarrass himself. We decided to give the level 85 dungeon Lost City of the Tol'vir (LCT) a try (I think just because Bd likes that place). Two guildies traveled there in person, and Summoned the rest of us, including the DK. Screw the DF, we were doing this dungeon.

We set up for our first group of mobs, and brought them down without any serious problems. This is normal mode, of course.

However, the DK, probably as worried about his performance in a normal dungeon as Wild was in his first heroic run, excitedly called out to Wild, "Wow, great healing, Wild! I'm still alive!" The Dk was sure he would be dead after every pull.

The rest of the run was actually relaxing for Wild. Of course you still have to pay attention, but in all it's a pretty easy jaunt and Wild has been here a few times already. I think all three of the DPSers got gear, and even Bd picked up a ring he'd been wanting to get. Wild knew there wasn't anything he needed in this dungeon, but since it was level 85 Wild did get Dragonmaw rep for doing it. Oh, and that DK? He finished at the top in total damage despite his gear. Gear ain't everything.

Ok, so I'm finally getting to the Baradin Hold run, which was actually the first thing we did on Wednesday night. There were a number of surprises for Wild. It was only Wild's second time in BH. The guild has not killed the lone boss yet. We were having trouble getting a third healer. Bd had wasted no time bringing Wild in, and then brought a guildie pally that Wild has healed with many times. As mentioned in the previous post, our priest Ch also wanted to go, but Bd didn't feel that she was geared well enough (i330). That gave Wild a little twinge, knowing that he had been held out of a raid for that very reason in the past.

Wild got busy getting ready and I didn't notice who our third healer was until he whispered Wild for a healing assignment. The third healer was Mg, a very good healer with FS that Wild had raided with forever when with FS. Wild knew that FS was far ahead of MM raid-wise, and that Mg (i347 and wearing 8 heroics) would be way better geared than Wild (i336 before the heroics run). Mg also has a BH kill under his belt. Wild was liking our chances in BH. Bd likes Wild to be his healer, so I assigned Mg to the other tank, Fn. The paladin would raid heal and help with the dispelling that is so critical to this battle.

It's a pretty simple fight from a mechanics perspective. We split into two groups, each with a tank and a healer, and when the fight started we took up positions on either side of the room away from each other. The group healers were also responsible for debuffing stuff in our group as well as healing. In last week's run we never got past phase 1.

We started. Fn tanked first, and then the two tanks switched off. The switch did not go well and when that happens the raid takes tremendous damage. A tank died and we wiped inside the first minute of combat.

After that wake up call, we pressed harder and things started happening. On our second attempt we got the boss down to 61%, by far our best attempt. On our third attempt we passed phase 1 and into phase 2. In Phase 1 the only nobody has to move. In phase two we get fireballs from the sky and had to stay on the move constantly to minimize the hits. We got the boss to 34%.

4th attempt: 30%

5th attempt: 22%

The raid wiped on the 4th and 5th attempts because we hit the enrage timer both times. The raid leader felt that we just didn't have the DPS yet that it would take to finish the boss before we hit enrage. It seems the tanks now have the mechanics down, and the healing was good enough for a win, but we just need some more pew pew. We called the raid, but we are now pretty confident that this boss is going to go down, and go down soon.