Monday (18 Jul) - Bait and Switch

Monday (18 Jul) - Bait and Switch

There usually isn't much to post about on a Tuesday. The activity over the weekend is over and there are no raids or events scheduled for Monday that involve Wild. Happy spends his Monday morning counting gold pieces from the weekend "take," and all the Wild family lines up to get the stipend Happy doles out. That's really it for excitement.

Wild did his usual run of dailies, of course, and was finally successful on the two quests that had been stymieing him. The first was the "Wisp" daily which requiring killing numerous adds while an npc did something with a portal - a "keep the npc alive" quest. Wild finally used a combination of Hurricane and moonfire spam to complete the quest. The other quest was in the Molten Flow. It was a rescue quest, and as I've mentioned before there seemed no way to complete it. Well, there is a trick to it, that if I'd paid attention to what the npc was actually saying, I would have figured it out sooner.

On Fireplume Ridge there are air shafts that players can use to jump to higher levels on that craggy chunk of rock. What I didn't know was that there are similar air shafts inside the Molten Flow. Wild and other players kept trying to escort the npc on foot through the Molten Flow to save him, and it never worked. Usually Wild starts killing things around him when he starts the quest, but this last time I simply watched and followed where the npc went. He starts on a small chunk of rock in the middle of a lava flow, so Wild has to rock jump to him and then back to the path. Once on the path, the npc strode over to what looked to Wild like a wall of rock. The npc bounced on his heels, and then jumped into the air. The air shaft, which Wild had not even noticed was there, picked up the npc and carried him to a higher spot. Wild followed. The rest of the run was easy - a series of air shaft jumps, and Wild completed the quest. It turns out that quest isn't a daily, so it can only be done once. But completing it does open a new daily that Wild can add to his list of daily chores.

Wild also had a scheduled dungeon run planned for Monday night, which was unusual for him. The scheduled run went through a number of alterations over the weekend, though. I mentioned before that it was being run by the second guild raid group that does BWD, not Wild's group that is doing BoT. Originally the plan was do put together a 25 man raid into the Firelands (FL). Wild was way up for that! Then it changed to a 25 man BWD/FL. I got the idea that the raid leader wanted a shot at the final BWD boss, Nefarion, in 25 man where it's supposed to be easier to do than in ten man. Then it changed again, back to a ten man, and then that they would first go to BWD to work on the "last two bosses" and then go to FL. Wild was getting dizzy from all the changes.

Still, hoping for that elusive FL run, Wild showed up on Monday night. He whispered the raid leader, letting him know that Wild had originally expected an FL run. The raid leader said they would be doing BWD, not FL. So, Wild wanted to make sure the raid leader knew that Wild had almost no experience in BWD, as the MM guild BWD run that Wild was formerly part of was very early in Cata and we never got past the first boss before the guild split. So, if the raid leader had his regular group then he should feel free not to invite Wild.

We gave it some time to see who would show up. This was originally going to be a 25 man so I expected a larger crowd to show up, even though there hadn't been much interest shown on the calendar. There were just the normal gaggle of folks, though. The 25 man had been abandoned, and in fact, the raid leader was having trouble filling his own regular ten man. He whispered Wild and said that he could really use him if I wanted to go on the run. Of course Wild said yes. It's not FL, but it's still a raid.

Wild quickly did some reading up on the second to last boss, Chimaeron, so that I would at least be partly prepared for the fight. The 6pm start wound up starting at about 6:45pm. The two tanks were well known to Wild, particularly one of them who Wild main healed for in our Thrones raid group with MM. The other two healers were a pally that often goes DPS/retribution when there are enough healers, and a shaman who led the exodus from MM and formed up MM2. He was still a co-guild leader, but Bd does most of the guild leader functions now. Anyway, Wild knew most everyone, and we got started.

Our first encounter was a patrolling dragon. Just a single mob, so Wild wasn't expecting the fireworks that ensued when we engaged it. We brought it down, but wow, if that is what the trash is like in here the bosses are really going to be something. We had two raiders die, and the fight was really chaotic. "That went better than last week," the raid leader noted. It did? Oh my.

We worked through the rest of the trash with more confidence, though - small groups of moving mobs and eventually one more of the dragons. So, not as hard as that first encounter intimated.

We reached the chamber of the boss, and the raid leader talked through some of the mechanics, which kind of confused me because it wasn't matching up with what I had read. When I didn't hear anything about the healing (which is unusual in this encounter and critical to the fight) Wild whispered the shaman and asked about it. He whispered back that he had never healed this fight, either. Uh oh, something's not right here. Wild whispered the raid leader, wanting to make sure Wild knew his healing role.

At the same time the tank sent a ready check to see if we were ready to start the fight. Wild was waiting for an answer from the raid leader. It was one of those rare times when Wild said no, I'm not ready.

The answer I got confused me even further. "This IS the Chimaeron fight, right?" Wild finally asked him. No, it wasn't. It was Atramedes. Ok, now, Wild can count. There are six bosses in BWD, and the "last two" are Chimaeron and Nefarian. Oh, said the raid leader, he meant we were on the last two bosses "before Nefarian." Good grief, here I thought this raid group had actually gotten as far as Nef, when in fact they were still two bosses short of that. Then I learned that they had only reached Atramedes just last week and had made only one shot at him. Oh my, indeed.

We made eight attempts on Atramedes. It's actually a fun fight with a neat twist - the dragon is blind, and uses sonar to locate raiders. It's fun, that is, except when the dragon Atramedes goes airborne and targeted Wild with it's laser beam flame breath thing. Wild died every single time (except those times Wild could drop into cat form when his speed ability was up). The dragon really liked targeting the healers, and we spent a lot of time dead.

On our best attempt we got Atramedes down to 5% health, but we couldn't drop him. Not bad, but we got to figure out the flame breath thing (and yes, we know about the gongs, but I don't think we are practiced in using them effectively).

Anyway, I'm not sure Wild will be running with them as their raid nights are Monday and Tuesday. I'd like to, but I know they have regular healers, plus I'm not sure I could get away with four nights of raiding plus Hunter Fortress every week.

The sad thing, though, really, is that we still haven't formed up a guild run into Firelands. I just don't get it.

PS - I just had to make a comment about Atramedes using "sonar." By definition sonar is a system that detects objects UNDER WATER. We were definitely not underwater. However, there is an explanation. The dragon is like a bat, using sound pulses to locate raiders. This is sometimes referred to as sonar, but it's actually a biological trait called echolocation. Maybe that was too big of a word for Blizz to use. Or maybe they just didn't know or care.