Since the beginning of Cata Wild has been teased and tantalized by the new raid dungeons. At the same time there has been huge frustration as the guild drama played out and raiding became an iffy, rare event. Wild once raided four times a week, two nights in a 25 man raid and two more nights in a ten man raid. Now, Wild feels fortunate to have a chance to raid once a week.
Cata Raids:
Baradin Hold (BH). Baradin Hold is a raid dungeon on the isle of Tol Barad. It is in the middle of a pvp zone. BH is not open during battles, and when the battle ends only the victorious faction has access. BH has a single boss, although there are already lairs built within that will house future Bosses, much like Vault of Archovan in Wintergrasp. Baradin Hold's first and so far only boss is Argaloth.
On Friday night Fn's MM Raid assembled and got invites started promptly at 5:45pm. We had two tanks and two healers, along with four DPS. Counting noses, that put us two short. On every previous Friday night, we ended up with PUGs filling those spots or, on a lucky night, we found friends or friends of friends to join us. On this Friday night the number of guildies in game reached 15, and with some sifting and shifting of mains and alts we made this raid an all guildie raid.
The Horde won Tol Barad, and by 6pm we were all inside BH facing the first trash mob. Time to go to work and have some fun!
We stayed with a two tank, two healer set up. We beat Argaloth last week with that makeup and saw no reason to change. The raid leader Fn (and main tank) did concede Wild to be the healer for the second tank, Rs, which made Rs very happy. Wild had added a pair of i359 boots to his gear this past week, and his overall gear score inched up to i348. The other healer, the paladin Fe, is better geared and a very good healer. Wild and Fe make a good team, too.
We wasted no time, clearing the trash in minutes. We all knew our roles against Argaloth as the raid leader set up the groups, Wild and Rs in group 2 and ready on the right, with Fn and Fe in group 1 and ready on the left.
A saying that I once heard almost every day suddenly came to mind, something I hadn't thought about in years: "Ready on the Right!? Ready on the Left?! Ready on the firing line!" On the rifle and pistol range I once practiced at I heard those words over and over. Everyone would quiet down and we'd settle into our shooting positions, waiting for the final two words. "Commence firing!"
We engaged Argaloth. We commenced firing. And Argaloth fell. On our first attempt. There was mail gear and a leather feral piece that went to a rogue. We had two rogues with us tonight.
Blackwing Descent (BWD). The Fn MM raid (hmm, might I call it the Efnm raid?) has been beating our heads against the first boss, Magmaw, on every one of our precious raid nights and we seemed to be going backward rather than forward. Fn wanted a change of pace, and changed the target dungeon for this week.
Throne of the Four Winds (T4W). T4W was our target this week, and Wild spent time going over the strategies and watching youtube videos of the fight against three Djinns (genies). The fight required movement between platforms using a wind tunnel effect, a coordinated killing of all three bosses within one minute of each other, and even a chance for a healer to tank! It sounded like huge fun.
After we finished off Argaloth, however, Fn had a change of plans. We were not going to T4W. We weren't going back to BWD, either. What did that leave us?
Bastion of Twilight (BoT). Fn has been sick with a nasty cold all week, and just hadn't felt up to learning the strategies for T4W, which he had very little experience with. Thinking of BWD just made him feel sicker. Fn had wiped a time or two in BoT, so he knew at least the basic strategies involved. Wild has also seen the inside of BoT. In the pre-MM2 days Wild was in two raids with raid leader Bd and we wiped a few a times against the first encounter there. They were fast wipes and we were way overmatched. But this is a different raid group, and time has passed and we've gotten better.
There are a LOT of trash mobs in BoT. And they come in large numbers. Crowd control was a must, but having two rogues made that all so much easier. And they weren't the usual crazy rogues Wild was used to seeing, either. These two rogues were like professional assassins, SAPing at will and then cutting throats when it was time to kill. Twice we had mobs aggro due to pathing issues, and both times it was lightning action by the rogues that kept whole rooms full of mobs from descending on us. It was a pleasure healing those two.
BoT is a favorite of PUGs and guilds because these trash mobs can also drop BOE loot. We did get a gear drop while clearing the trash mobs - an i359 gun that wound up in the hands of the DPS warrior. Our one hunter already had one just like it.
We moved out of the large chamber of mobs - corpses now - and entered an even larger cavern. The cavern is surrounded by rock on three sides that come together at a high roof. Opposite the entrance where we stood a good distance away was open sky. Standing at that opposite edge was Halfus Wyrmbreaker and his pet dragon. Around the edges of the room were five more dragons. A random three of those dragons are also part of the fun. The three dragons we faced this night were Slate, Time Warden, and Storm Rider. These dragons are chained down, and if we don't bother them they won't bother us. But during the battle those three dragons give Halfus powerful abilities throughout the fight, forced to do Halfus bidding.
Storm Rider and Time Warden
There are good reasons for rattling the chains on those dragons, though. If we freed them, they would be required to fight against us, but they would also try to help us by counteracting some of the abilities given to Halfus. For example, Time Warden gives Halfus fireballs to throw at us that hit instantly and which we can't avoid. But if we free Time Warden from his chains, he'll slow down those fireballs so that we can see them in time to avoid them. Of course, Time Warden, once freed, will still be forced to try to kill us.
An even bigger reason to free the dragons is that killing these dragons doubles the damage dealt to Halfus with each dragon killed.
That was just the obvious stuff. We still had to figure out who was doing what, which dragons to free and in what order, and on and on. This fight is fascinating because there are so many different ways to go about it.
We started with the following strategy. The main tank, Fn, would run to the center of the cavern with the hunter with him. The hunter would miss-direct Halfus to Fn while the second tank, Rs, ran to the far end of the cavern to engage Storm Rider. We had decided to free Storm Rider first because the ability he gives to Halfus is the nastiest of the three. Storm Rider gives Halfus Shadow Nova, a powerful attack that can't be avoided or interrupted and which also knocks raiders back. When Storm Rider is freed, he slows the cast time of Nova and it also becomes interruptible. We had a mage in the raid, and his job was to counter and interrupt that Nova every time Halfus tried to cast it. Better said than done.
The rest of the raid was told to bunch up in the center so that we couldn't get too scattered by the Nova knockback. Halfus himself doesn't do that much damage, but don't forget that the other two dragons are also granting him abilities - the fireballs from Time Warden, and a stacking Mortal Strike from Slate which makes life hell for healers trying to keep the main tank alive.
Healing assignments were for Fe to heal the main tank and Wild to heal Rs, with Wild also having primary raid healing duty. Our first attempt was laughably short. We had barely gotten started when Wild was struck by a Nova knocking me halfway across the cavern and consuming almost a third of Wild's health. Fireballs rained down for a few seconds until Rs engaged Time Warden. Then pulsing pools of light started appearing all over the floor of the cavern, target points for the fireballs that we could now see and try to avoid. Rs had also freed Storm Rider, but the mage was having trouble interrupting the Shadow Novas, which were devastating the raid. Slate's Mortal Strikes were also crushing the main tank. Wild had his hands full as well, healing Rs with two dragons on him while trying to heal a raid that was taking damage from every direction. We wiped, of course, but the whole thing was so much fun we were all laughing as we rezzed and headed back in.
Our spirits stayed high over the next two hours. We wiped over and over while making innumerable changes to our strategy. There is no cookie cutter approach to this fight. We just had to find the best match of raider talents to overcome the specific set of abilities we were facing off against. It was really exciting to put our combined will into figuring out how to beat this fight instead of just following a "how to" guide.
After our tenth wipe Wild got a whisper from Lao. We were on a repair break, but only had a few seconds before we'd be gathering our strength for another shot. Wild sent her a quick reply, "10 wipes so far, getting better, in BOT."
As an afterthought Wild sent a second whisper back to Lao, "BOT, Bastion of Twilight."
Lao whispered back that she now knew how her Mom felt when she used a bunch of acronyms that didn't mean anything to her, and she had to spell them out for her. Wild got a chuckle from that, but didn't have time to respond as the raid leader was calling us all to action. Don't worry, Lao, your time will come to experience BoT.
We had made adjustments a couple of wipes before when our warrior had to leave. We brought in a shaman guildie to add a third healer. We had hoped the extra DPS would speed up that first dragon kill, which we desperately needed to happen to get that 100% damage buff, but we just couldn't stay alive long enough. The third healer made an immediate improvement on our survivability, but losing a DPS extended the fight. At the same time Fn had also moved Wild over to main tank healing to focus entirely on keeping Fn alive, with the pally healer using his Beacon spell to reflect additional healing to the tank. We were improving, but we hadn't killed anything yet.
The healing, no matter how we did it, was completely insane. Wild went out of mana more than once, having burned his innervate as well as quaffing a mana potion. We didn't have our shadow priest to help with mana regen on this night, either. The shaman helped a lot, but he just couldn't put out the level of healing that Wild and Fe could.
On our 12th attempt we again decided to try freeing two dragons. The mage had gotten the hang of interrupting the Nova's. The raid as a whole was starting to get a feel for avoiding the fireballs, and Wild and Fn were thinking with one mind on managing those Mortal Strike stacks. But our strategy hinged on one thing - kill one of those dragons fast.
We had also learned early on that pre-fight we could meander all over the cavern without aggroing anything. Halfus had to actually be attacked to start the encounter. So, for this 12th attempt, we all trotted into the cavern and took up our positions. Fn was again holding court in the center, and the hunter started the fight by miss-directing Halfus to Fn. Rs was standing next to Storm Rider and began freeing him. Wild started spamming heals to keep Fn alive as the Mortal Strikes started coming. The mage hovered around Storm Rider to interrupt the Novas. The rest of the raid had spread out into whatever position they felt comfortable with, but we no longer bunched up because it was too hard to see the fireball targeting pools and other things when we were standing on top of each other. Wild, who hates fights where he has to move a lot, discovered that if he kept moving he would see the fireball pools sooner and that it was easier to avoid them. When he stood still I tended to stare at the raid screen instead of the floor, and that got Wild hit by fireballs. Movement is good, I say, even if Wild objects.
Wild was utterly focused on his role. He never stopped healing Fn, who could go from 100% health to near death in mere seconds. Rs, with two dragons to deal with, got to scarily low levels of health as well, and Wild would throw some heals his way, too, even though it tightened Wild's gut knowing it was a heal not going to Fn.
With five mobs in play (Halfus, his pet, and the three dragons) it was impossible to know how we were doing. Just stay alive. Just keep everyone else alive.
Storm Rider died. No more shadow novas. We were shocked at the suddenness of it, and Time stood still for a moment. Then we all cheered! We'd dropped one of the dragons! New energy coursed through us and the DPSers suddenly saw their damage dealing DOUBLE.
The DPS turned on Time Warden, and Rs freed Slate. Time Warden died. No more fireballs. Damage dealing went up another magnitude. Slate fell as well, and now there was no more Mortal Strikes.
All the power and might of the raid turned on Halfus. Wild was still healing like crazy, but the pace had eased up slightly. Wild had also earlier adjusted his healing approach so that I could get two innervates cast instead of just one, and that had proved critical in not running out of mana.
We battled Halfus down to under 50% and entered Phase 2. Wait a minute - after all that there is another phase!?
Halfus began using Furious Roar, a raid wide stun that pulses three times, dealing damage, knocking raiders down and interrupting all action other than instant spells. Halfus used that spell a lot. And the fireballs and shadow novas were back. Halfus was using Shadow Nova on us and his pet kept blasting us with fireball barrages. Halfus also had a truly incredible amount of health even at under 50%.
The DPS blasted away with everything they had, in between getting knocked about in earthquake like hammers from Halfus' Roar. Wild tossed his instant heals out there during Roars and then caught up the healing on the tank in the few seconds between. It was crazy and exciting and terrifying all at the same time.
"Thirty seconds until Enrage!" called out the raid leader. Come on, give us a break! "If you still have any cooldowns left, use them now!"
The enrage timer ticked down to 12 seconds. And Halfus died.
That was pure AWESOME!
Beyond the win itself, it was also hard to believe that no one had died. Had we lost a single raider, we would not have beaten Halfus.
Halfus dropped a pretty holy paladin item, which Fe was delighted to get. He also dropped a very nice leather feral tanking item which went to Rs.
The MM guild has their first boss kill in BoT, and we now have two Cata boss kills. And I have to point out that MM2 still only has the one BH kill.
We still had a little time, so we waded through even more trash mobs looking for loot - and got another drop, this time - surprise (yea, right) - another leather +agi item, a helm. The rogues had a good night for gear. We took a look at the second boss encounter - another pair of dragons - but we were out of time. Still flushed with our success, we headed back to Org to brag about our conquest.
The most important thing about this night, though, will hopefully play out over the next several days. An MM raid has killed a raid boss in BoT. The raid came out of there with incredible loot - FOUR i359 items. Maybe, just maybe, that will get other guildies to thinking - perhaps I should sign up for the raid next week? Or, maybe there's a spot open in the Saturday raid that is on the calendar? This is how it starts.
Awesome, congratulations Wild!
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