Wild had not run an LFR DS since the raid reset on Tuesday. The guild was running a Blackwing Descent raid for alts on Friday night. It looked like a good time to raid Dragon Soul. Wild queued up, and was instantly accepted. Ya just gotta love how responsive Looking for Raid is.
Wild popped into the raid on a platform full of raiders and npcs. The air crackled with energy beams. No where could he see a familiar enemy form - no Morchok, no Ozz, no Yor'sahj or Hagara. Wild didn't know this place.
Wild had entered the second half of the line up of deadly foes in Dragon Soul. Like Wild's first time facing the bosses in the first half of DS, Wild had no idea what these fights would be like or what the strategies were. Some groups had raid leaders willing to spell out the highlights of a fight; others, like the group Wild was in, led us in blind. It was only when we had trouble did someone bother to mention a pertinent fact or two. LFR groups typically morph between every attempt on a boss, players coming and going at all times. This group was different. Over the course of the evening I would guess that 20 of the 25 raiders that started the run were still with us at the end. And of the five that left, three were kicked out of the raid (one for being afk for an entire fight, and two who couldn't DPS their sock size). We were well into the night before the raid leader made the call to drop the low performing DPS, though.
The first boss we faced was Ultraxion. Ultra is a dragon that eats dragon souls. Prior to the fight both Thrall and Noxdormu make an appearance, giving buffs to the tank and raid. There are also three crystals that healers can pick specific buffs to use in the battle.
[Note - as I'm writing this Saturday morning all three of our foster kittens are clambering around in my room. They're now 12 weeks old and full of endless energy. Their mother is headed to a new home today. We'll be sad to see her go, but happy that she'll be going to her forever home. The tabby kitten, Cody, will be leaving us for a new home next week. The two white females go up for adoption once they're spayed next week. Fostering kittens is both joy and sadness, since we can't keep them ourselves.]
Now where was I? Oh, Wild didn't know anything about those crystals until I read up about it after all was said and done. Sure, I should have checked on that beforehand, but all these new boss encounters get all confused together until I've had a chance to see the fights a couple of times. Wild will certainly make use of this experience the next time around. Ultraxion is considered a gear check as the last two minutes of the fight are very intense and escalate to the point where the healers will be unable to keep up if the DPS doesn't bring Ultra down quickly.
Our 25 man LFR needed seven attempts to kill Ultra. I thought it pretty amazing that the raid didn't fall apart given the number of failed attempts.
The next boss was Warmaster Blackhorn.
I wish I could describe the feel of the battles better, since they really did feel very epic and powerful. Dragon Soul is well designed and the lore lives up to the ultimate goal, which is the killing of Deathwing. There are short cut scenes between each fight that add to the epic feel. In ten man I think I will be able to give a better sense of that, but in a 25 man raid full of strangers it was all rush rush and get it done. That's the only major drawback to using the LFR.
The Blackhorn fight, who is a Twilight dragon with a group of Twilight army survivors, takes place on a flying boat and is pretty fun and easy. We only needed two tries to take him down.
After those two fights the battle gets very personal as we start the engagement with Deathwing itself. Our raid is parachuted onto the back of Deathwing, and we found ourselves on a forced march to either succeed for die.
I have a hard time even distinguishing between the third and fourth battles, but somewhere in there the physical Deathwing must be killed and our final challenge becomes a formless monstrosity called the Madness of Deathwing. The battle begins with Thrall's blessing, and the fight will spread across four platforms that we we have to jump to, with each succeeding battle getting more and more difficult.
After taking apart Deathwing's armor during the air battle on his back, Deathwing plunged to earth on our second attempt. Against the final encounter, we had one learning attempt, got the Madness to 4.8% on our second attempt, and won it all on our third attempt!
Wild earned the achievement for completing all of the bosses in Dragon Soul. Wild is very eager to take them on in ten man as well. I just have to get the guild out of Firelands!
Wild was happy with his healing, and to be honest in the LFR I never had any mana problems at all. Wild main healed one of the tanks as well as raid healed heavily, but always had plenty of mana. There were well placed pauses in the battles where we could take a breath or two, and that made a big difference if players took advantage of it. There were also special buffs that could be used to reduce incoming damage that also helped the healers - when the raiders remembered to use them. I have to admit, though, that there were healers in this raid that put Wild's healing to shame, putting up some eye-popping numbers.
Overall, I am really happy with Dragon Soul. Still no DS loot, though. Sigh.
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