Wednesday - (14 Sep) Cows Can't Fly

Wednesday - (14 Sep) Cows Can't Fly

Lady Hunter snagged Wild on Wednesday night for her raid. Wild had gotten in game kind of hoping he would get snagged, and wasn't disappointed. She was leading us into the Firelands. Oh? Thinking they had changed their mind on Tuesday about their targeted raid (Heroic BWD), I asked if they'd gotten any shots at a Firelands boss? No, she explained, they did go to Heroic BWD on Tuesday, but decided to go to Firelands on Wednesday. Things didn't seem to have gone well on Tuesday, or they would have been back at it again on the second night. Wild was happy for the change, though.

Wild's two favorite healers are both paladins. One, Pl, runs with the Mf group, and the other, Fl, runs with Lady Hunter. Wild was happy to see that Pl was in the raid tonight. We were overloaded with tanks on this night and one had to switch to his warlock alt while another (Da, who is Wild's favorite tank next to Bd) switched from feral to resto druid to be the third healer. Da is well geared for healing but rarely heals in raids, so Wild fielded a lot of healing questions over the course of the evening as Da got to see the raid from a new perspective.

Lady Hunter also had her impatient tank in the raid (Mk, a death knight) who Wild likes because he doesn't waste time, starting pulls quickly and not slowing down unless Lady Hunter calls for a pause. This was Lady Hunter's first foray into Firelands with her own raid (she's been in Firelands with other groups, though), and several raiders were seeing it for the first time. They were excited, and it showed. This group is a lot more talkative, as well, and the comments, barbs, and innuendo was non-stop. No matter whether we get anywhere in the raid or not, running with a Lady Hunter led group is FUN. For the first time this week, Wild did not feel at all like complaining.

We made good progress through the trash mobs. We hadn't released Shannox, yet, and Lady Hunter asked if we wanted to try the mobs on the path that leads to the boss Beth'tilac. Why not? So off we went in that direction. I don't think anyone in the raid other than Wild and the impatient tank had actually attempted these mobs before. The tank explained the mechanics of the pull, and we engaged. No problems with the first set of mobs and we moved to the second clutch of spiders. Wild miss-placed his tank (Wild was healing Mk) and almost got him killed before I found him, but other than that all went smoothly. Another big bunch of mobs followed that needed crowd control. That got a little crazy and one of the tanks (not Wild's charge) died. He was quickly rezzed and we finished off the mobs.

Now we were at the most difficult set of mobs. One group stood in our way, and behind them was another group that could Shield themselves. It takes coordination to manage both sets of mobs without tanks getting cut off from healers, or DPS caught inside or outside the Shield at the wrong moments. We wiped on our first try.

As we were rezzing and getting back Lady Hunter, famous for wandering where she shouldn't (the joke is that her feet and her mouth are always in motion, and usually going in different directions), did just that, galloping down the hill from the instance portal - and right off the edge of the drop off. She's a tauren, and when she struck bottom and died, she said "Dammit! Why didn't someone tell me cows can't fly!"

We finished clearing the rest of the way to Beth'tilac. Wild and Mk were the only two in the raid who had ever taken a shot at this boss.

It was clear that Mk was going to be the tank that climbed the spider thread up to web where Beth'tilac would slither up to once the fight started. Wild was Mk's healer, but Wild had seen how difficult that web climbing process can actually be, and wanted no part of that.

Wild whispered his druid friend, Da. "I REALLY don't want to be the healer that has to climb that thread." Just setting up my play.

Wild then whispered the other tank healer, Fn. "I volunteer YOU to go up that web with Mk. :P" Fn laughed. Mk was going over the mechanics of the fight while this was going on.

Mk suggested that he, plus our top DPS rogue, and Wild should climb up into the web. Oh no. Both Da and Fn sent Wild "Ha Ha's" but Wild wasn't going to be outmaneuvered. Wild suggested in raid chat that the paladin healer was better suited for that role, with the two druids being the best choice for the AoE healing that was essential to the combat on the floor.

Da jumped in and agreed with Wild, ganging up on Fn. Lady Hunter liked Wild's logic and that became the assignment. Yes!

Seriously, I really did think that was the best arrangement. Wild wasn't excited about having to climb that thread (which has to be done several times) but Wild would do that if that was his assigned role. I'm not unhappy Wild didn't have to, though. I'm also certain Fn will get back at me at some point. :-)

We made a few spirited attempts, just learning the fight. I recalled that the first time Wild saw this fight the raiders on the floor spread out. I forgot why. So, this time, we grouped up so that the raid could take better advantage of having Efflorescence from two druid healers. It wasn't until our third attempt I realized that all that damaging stuff falling down on us from above could largely be avoided! I thought it fell everywhere, but no, spreading out and moving away mitigated a lot of the damage. In those first few attempts Wild and Da both were averaging around 18k hps, a new high for Wild. Once we realized the mistake things started to get a little more sane down on the floor.

The really hard part belongs to the three raiders who have to get up into the web with Beth'tilac. There are spiders that hang down from that web that must be taunted to drop down to the floor so they can be killed. The thread of web they drop down on stays put once the spider is dead, and it's those threads that are used to climb up. The raider clicks on the thread, and it then automatically pulls the raider up into the web. The tank must go first, immediately followed (on a different thread) by the healer, and then the single DPSer. It's a lot of coordination, and Beth'tilac doesn't wait for us to sort it all out. The icky stuff starts falling immediately, and the big spider starts attacking the tank the instant he gets up into the web.

Down on the floor, drones are spawning, and so are large packs of tiny spiders that are more dangerous than the bigger drones. It's chaotic, but as we learned and practiced it did become more manageable. Da whispered Wild at one point, worried because our hps had dropped, and I explained that we didn't need to operate at that 18k hps level since raiders were being more careful about avoiding the stuff we had to heal through before. All was good, or at least improving, on the floor, but there were still difficulties with the ups and downs in the web.

There are two phases to the fight, and in the first phase raiders have to climb up into the web and then drop down three times in order to trigger phase 2. The key ability of Beth'tilac that determines when the raiders in the web drop down is called Smoldering Devastation. You definitely don't want to be up in the web when the spider does that.

Over the course of the evening we were able to get through two smoldering devastations on two of our attempts. Total attempts? 13.

So, no, we did not make it to phase 2. But we played and fought hard, and did not waste a lot of time in between attempts, so raiders stayed sharp. I believe our DPS is still not quite there, and it just takes practice for the group of web climbers to get proficient at it... but we can take this boss.

After the raid Wild made a decision to sign up specifically for Lady Hunter's raid. If Mf needs Wild on Monday's, that's fine, but Tuesday and Wednesday will be with Lady Hunter. Wild had a lot of fun.

After the raid Hunter Fortress, in the persons of Speak and Shevils, ran three WSGs, winning two of them rather easily. Speak DINGED to level 30 (Gratz!).

Here is Speak's report on our night: "Just to give a little more info on the bgs Speak and Shevils did, the first one was rough. We had a poor horde group that just wanted to fight mid and they couldn’t even do that well. Speak and Shevils teamed up to try to cap the flag a few times and each time we would get assaulted by waves of enemies. These two can deal a ton of damage and have a bevy of CC, but we can’t heal and the more enemies we face alone the less health we will have and that always got us killed. We lost 3-0. For the second and third WSG, the horde teams dominated the alliance. We finished the two games with 6 caps to 0 or they may have capped one flag. Between the two bgs Speak had 45+ killing blows, 120+ honorable kills, no deaths, 3 flag returns and a flag cap. Shevils had great games as well, but it was a little easier for the alliance to kill her as she was only a level 26 compared to Speak’s 29 and 600 extra health. The two were always at the top of the list for damage, honorable kills and flag returns and had a lot of fun pwning alliance. We missed See though."

After that Sin and Wild decided to visit Molten Core. More on that in the next post.