Thursday (29 Apr) - Troublesome Djinn

Thursday (29 Apr) - Troublesome Djinn

So, the MM2 raid did not defeat Throne of the Tides once again. But there was a lot to like about the evening. Wild has talked many times about the easy going way this raid (and past raids with MM and even FS) operated, with delays and fooling around that was fun but that sometimes (often) interfered with progress when it didn't need to. The MM2 raid leader and his cohort Lady Tala presided over those raids. With MM2 and this raid, however, raid leader Bd has done an amazing job of establishing sensible but firm rules - and even more amazing is that raiders are following the rules that have been laid out. We were late getting started on Thursday night, but nine raiders were on time and ready, while the tenth had what became insurmountable real life weather issues and could not get in game. Bd still managed to rustle up the third healer we needed, an MM2 guildie who was a little undergeared and new to the Throne, but eager to help out. What really impressed, though, was how Bd marshaled our forces between each attempt, getting us quickly back inside, buffed up, and positioned for the next attempt. Despite the weather delay we still managed to get in thirteen attempts.

I thought I would just lay out the notes that Wild jots down for each attempt as a means of summarizing how the evening went. Overall Wild was very pleased with his own performance and how dedicated the rest of the raid has been despite somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 wipes with nothing to show for it - yet.

Some explanations of Wild's shorthand:
"G1" - Group 1, Wild and Sb (tank), swaps between Anshal and Nezir
"G2" - DPS group, switches between Anshal and Nezir
"G3" - New priest and Bd (tank), swaps between Nezir and Anshal
"G4" - Pl (healer) and warlock on Rohash full time
Platform wipe - any time all of the raiders on one platform die it's a wipe because any genie left alone has a "you all die!" spell he immediately casts. Also note that just about any single mistake by any raider will cause a wipe.

Attempts -
#1: G4 down early, Wild off to good start (9360 hps), new priest 4006 hps
#2: G1 tank missed platform, Wild insta death with no tank
#3: good start, but G4 wiped
#4: flower attack, Wild overwhelmed, get closer to tank!
#5: crud, Wild stepped too far back, accidentally launched to wrong platform
#6: G4 down
#7: Strange aggro by Anshal on raider before starting fight; wipe.
First time for everything I guess.
#8: Wild in a groove! two platform swaps! Sb misses a platform jump.
#9: Close! Anshal -> Nezir -> Anshal -> Nezir -> wipe
#10: G4 down again, those same two raiders did a lot better last night
#11: going well, not sure what went wrong here
#12: another great attempt, G4 went down again
#13: another solid attempt, G4 down once more

That was it for the night. We had about 10 minutes left and could have gone once more, but we would have had to drink another flask, and Bd was aware enough and nice enough not to make us spend an extra 100g on a flask we would only get 10 minutes out of.

Wild pretty much has his role down pat. He reached 10k healing per second (hps) on one fight, and overall did 8238 hps and more than half of all healing. The other tank healer was the new priest, and did very well considering his gear and being new to the raid, averaging 5012 hps. The G4 healer has the least amount of healing to do and came in at 3678 hps.

I'm not sure what went wrong with the G4 group, since the same two raiders had been near perfect the night before. Of 19 attempts, G4 was the cause of a wipe only once. On this night they caused wipes on 6 of our 13 attempts.

Wild has also made good progress on his spell selection, too. Wild used Healing Touch as much as he used Regrowth, which is a much more efficient healing rotation, but that requires a lot closer attention. Wild is also working in Tranquility more and more as it's a powerful spell, but since it requires channeling Wild can't be moving while casting it. Wild still needs his Innervate, but is no longer worried about running out of mana (even when occasionally I hit panic mode and spam regrowth lol). Here's the numbers:

Lifebloom: 29.4%
Rejuv: 18.7%
Wild Growth: 17.5%
Regrowth: 12.5% (I was around 20% before changing spell priorities)
Healing Touch: 12.3% (up from under 5%)
Tranquility: 3.5% (up from essentially zero)
Nourish: 2.4% (would be higher, taking away from HT in other fights than this one)

I tracked Wild's repair bill on this night. It came to 113 gold. Add 200g for the two flasks Wild used. JB is going to have to make some more flasks for Wild.

Oh, and Philly has a short report. Late Thursday night she decided to give pvp another try, signing up for a random battleground. She also gathered up the cloth heirloom gear that was laying around (hunter Rakta had them because they were "pretty"), getting heirlooms for shoulders, chest, and back. Wild should probably consider getting her a cloth helm as well (1500 gold, ugh!).

Anyway, Philly ended up doing the following:

Strand of the Ancients - Win!
Warsong Gulch - Win!
Wintergrasp - Win!
Strand of the Ancients again - Win!

Even though Philly was only level 80 in an 80-85 bracket, she had no problem being productive, coming in near the top in healing every time. And it was a blast! I'd forgotten just how much fun it is healing in battlegrounds. And I'm finding I'm liking the Holy spec. I'm trying to figure out some kind of issue with Penance, though. It's not in Philly's spell book, and I can't figure out why or how to get it back. It's a very important spell not to have.

The Wintergrasp win was hilarious. There were only three horde, counting Philly, and a few alliance who put up an indifferent attack. We were on defense and won without having to do much. The only issue is that it's hard to complete the quests with so few people, so it didn't really give Philly that much honor. But it was cool to get that done in between other battlegrounds.

Philly's honor points went from 2,633 to 3,084. With a little work and some more luck with those wins and maybe Bean will get that Cannon after all.