Saturday, October 29, 2011

Friday (28 Oct) - F-I-R-E-L-A-N-D-S

Friday (28 Oct) - F-I-R-E-L-A-N-D-S

I watched the Texas Rangers lose to the St Louis Cardinals on Friday night. I was rooting for the Rangers, but my uncle is a big Cardinals fan and he was ecstatic so I didn't mind. It was something of a miracle season for the Cards, anyway, so it was also appropriate for them to prevail. The Rangers have now lost two World Series in a row and are still looking for their first Championship so they should be very motivated next season.

Afterward Happy and Lost got their work done. Wild's guild was doing a BWD fun run, but Wild wasn't much interested in that. There were plenty of takers so Wild wasn't needed. There were a couple of PUGs forming up for Firelands trash runs, but it was hard to get excited about killing a bunch of trash mobs for a small amount of rep. I was swapping back and forth between alts getting together some heirloom stuff for Sista. Another call in trade chat popped up asking for raiders for a fresh Firelands run. What caught Wild's attention was that the guild was Blackblades, a solid raiding guild that frankly was out of Wild's league. They were doing an alt run, however, and were looking for fill ins. It was pretty late, but Wild volunteered. They needed a resto druid, and Wild was in.

If Wild's guild raids are one of slow but steady, the Blades raid was like stepping into a roller coaster. Tanks waited for no one. Get there and do your job. We blasted through the trash in the direction of Beth'tilac. The three healers were Wild, a pally, and a Blades shaman. Both tanks and one DPS were Blades. The rest were all fill ins. Imagine a guild that is willing to run an alt raid for just four raiders and a bunch of us PUGs.

While we were still working trash Wild started having trouble with vent. I really didn't need that distraction while running with a group of strangers. The raid was pretty easy going about the whole thing, but not being able to hear what was being said half the time was pretty frustrating. Wild managed.

We arrived at Beth'tilac. It was funny that half the raiders started denying that they had ever climbed up into the web and would be terrible choices for that. Sounded just like Wild! Wild kept quiet this time. I had a feeling the raid leader would be hand picking his own folks for those difficult jobs up in the web. Wild was tasked to heal the group on the ground.

The raid leader wasted no time, making the assignments and then calling for the tank to engage the hated spider. The group of raiders on the ground did a good job of minimizing the damage from the falling AoE and the tank was excellent at rounding up and handling the spider adds. Raiders climbed up into the web. Wild kept up with the healing and we got through the first Smoldering Devastation with everyone still alive. That was a definitely a first for Wild. We got through the second Devastation as well, again with no deaths. Wow. On our third Devastation the healer fell out of the web early. She was the guildie shaman and her guild mates razzed her mercilessly - she gave as good as she got, while up in the web the tank stayed alive long enough for us to enter phase 2. It was Wild's first time reaching the second phase. Beth'tilac went down with no deaths. We had killed the spider.

[Cowl of the Clicking Menace] dropped. It's a leather healing head piece, i378, and Wild got it. It replaced the last piece of under i359 gear Wild was wearing, and equipping it got Wild the achievement Cataclysmically Perfect! Wild was the leading healer on the spider fight, averaging 12.5k and 32% of the healing with the shaman getting 11.5k/30%. Wild is loving his altered stats with the focus on +haste.

Beth'tilac - Dead Spider

"So, on to Shannox?" the raid leader asked. "Go for it," someone said. We went for it. Wild knew this fight, too, and even has one kill. Frankly, it was pretty easy. We had no trouble killing Shannox. Wild was dizzy with success - two Firelands bosses down on the same night!

The raid was ready and eager for more. Wild wondered who the next boss was. Maybe he should find out.

Wild Hastily Reading up on the Next Boss
The next boss was Lord Rhyolith. I've already forgotten where Lord Rhyolith is located. I vaguely remember that we came down from the portal and stayed to the right instead of the left, I think. We had to dodge a number of groups of mobs that seemed way to close to slip by. But the raid leader knew the way and everyone stayed to the unmarked path. We got there.

Wild had no idea what the strategy was for this fight. Wild knew what tank he was healing, and figured that if something stung him Wild would know to avoid it the next time. There was no discussion of the strategy beyond ensuring everyone knew their roles. Away we went, and four minutes, 35 seconds later Rhyolith was dead. Wild could hardly believe it. Three bosses down. But he has the proof:

Lord Rhyolith Meets His Match

We moved on. Wild's guild leader, Bd, whispered Wild as we were winding our way deeper into Firelands. He just wanted to say hi and to ask what Wild was up to. I had a feeling he already knew, if he had looked at the guild info and noticed that beside Wild's name was the word Firelands. Wild told him about the alt run and that we had downed three bosses. The response was "Oh, NICE." Nice for Wild, but Wild was also now locked out of joining any other Firelands raid until the reset on Tuesday. After the deal with getting Wild back on the raid calendar, Wild will not be able to raid Firelands with the guild on Monday. Maybe Bd was a little worried about all the success Wild was having tonight - with another guild. Wild was having too much fun to worry about that, though.

We came to a bunch of firebirds and eggs and stuff and plowed into them like they were ordinary trash. I guess that's what they were, but for the first time things did not go smoothly and we wiped. Wild has been in a few PUG raids in his time, and a wipe usually starts an exodus of players leaving the raid. Not this time. The raid leader laughed it off and hurried us up to get rezzed, buffed and ready to go again. This is what that area looked like after we brought those mobs down.

We then made our way to Alysrazor. Really, another boss? Wild had at least heard of Rhyolith. Wild had no clue to Alysrazor. Wild learned this fight the hard way - by dying. Twice. There were more than a couple of phases and frankly Wild winged it - that's a joke. Alysrazor is flying around in the air in the first phase. There are these feathers that get picked up so other raiders can fly around after her. Wild knew not to pick up feathers only because someone had joked about stupid healers picking them up. There are several adds and more dropping of feathers and the whole thing lasted a long time while Wild tried not to die. And that was just the first phase. In phase two there are fiery tornadoes. Wild doesn't like fire, and he doesn't like tornadoes, but as one raider quipped, those tornadoes really liked Wild. Wild didn't know the pattern required to avoid them. Wild pinged from one tornado to another like a pinball banging against burning bumpers - and died for the first time. Wild was battle rezzed and we got to phase 3. Wild knew nothing about healers DPSing the boss on this phase (the boss returns mana that Wild could have used). We got to phase 4 and Wild died a second time mere seconds before the boss fell. Ah well, we still got him!

Alysrazor's Pile of Burning Feathers
Wild is really tired now. We're past midnight. How long has it been since Wild's had to face more than a single boss? Buck up, buddy, Wild told himself. Keep 'em coming! Wild shouted. We headed for Baleroc.

There was a slew of trash mobs between us and Baleroc and we plowed into them with our usual reckless fury. We wiped. Then began a rather hilarious fifteen minutes as we tried to get back to where we left off. We had gotten strung out coming back from the wipe. The raider in the lead had a large head start, which turned out to be a good break for the rest of us. He aggroed some little turtles (turtles which have big bites) and died. We all laughed. Another pocket of raiders then aggroed another group of mobs and we had a near wipe with Wild getting caught up in it and killed. More laughing.

I was still having a nightmare time with vent and Wild was a behind everyone else getting back. Wild was doing pretty good remembering the way but maneuvering around all those mobs we didn't kill was really tricky. Wild touched off one mob but out ran it, finally making it safely to the rest of the group. Wild had time to buff the raid with Mark of the Wild and sit down to eat some buff food when ...

Well, I "thought" I had out run it. Nope. Not only did that mob find Wild, it brought with it all its brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles. We wiped again. Wild owned up to it and after all the prior shenanigans it was just one more crazy thing to deal with.

Baleroc is a close cousin to the balrog in Lord of the Rings. I've seen LOTR more times than I can count, and that encounter always gives me chills. For this fight, though, Wild had to admit he had no clue what to do. They didn't want to take the time to teach Wild a fight mechanic that required healers to use Sparks and Torment as a way to deal with damage to the tanks. Instead, the other two healers would perform that function while Wild's entire job was to maintain heals on the tank. Wild could do that without hardly moving and while the level of damage got pretty crazy right at the end, Baleroc went down.


How many is that now? Five bosses?

Beyond Baleroc was the arch and the great bridge to the center of the Firelands. Or at least near the center. If things were hot on the outskirts, it was getting plenty hotter now.

The Fire Bridge
Now we faced Majordomo Staghelm. Staghelm guards the way to the final boss, Ragnaros. In classic WoW Ragnaros was the end game boss and had as his door keeper Majordomo Executus. Ragnaros kills Executus himself in Molten Core. Not so in Firelands - the job of killing his new Majordomo, Staghelm, falls to us.

Wild had a lively time with this fight. Sometimes we collapsed together, which caused Staghelm to turn into a scorpion. Other times we spread out and Staghelm became a fire cat. Wild was smart enough to figure that out on his own, as well as avoiding exploding seeds, staying out of the fire, and watching out for pounces. All in a night's work. Majordomo Staghelm died.


It was well after midnight. The Blackblades raiders thanked the rest of us for an excellent night. This was as far as they were going, though. A couple of Puggers had to leave, a couple of the Blades were tired, and we called it a night.

Ah well, no Ragnaros, but Wild can't complain. When he started his night going to the Firelands was the last thing on his mind. When he started the night Wild had one kill on one boss in Firelands. And now Wild has downed six of the seven bosses. Many thanks to the good raiders of Blackblades for giving Wild the opportunity.

Wild still has trouble believing it really happened. After all this time. After all the disappointment. After all the failed attempts. Wild may not get Ragnaros down before Patch 4.3. But on one amazing night, Wild faced and conquered almost everything Firelands could throw at him. Wild can now happily face the upcoming patch knowing that he had overcome the specter of failing the Firelands. What a night.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Thursday (27 Oct) - Raid Schedule Drama

Thursday (27 Oct) - Raid Schedule Drama

Well, I was watching the World Series on Thursday night. Happy was in game checking the AH. When he finished up Lost got a chance to work the alliance side AH. With Texas up 1-0 around 5:20pm Lost completed her business. I decided to log Wild in to check the raid calendar for next week. I didn't expect to see anything posted and there wasn't. However, the message of the day said this: "Throne tonight, bring your A-game for the dark phoenix mount, last boss to earn the guild achievement. " First of all, "tonight" could be this night, or it could be any earlier night and already attempted. Messages of the "day" tend to stay for several days before getting changed.

I asked around, and a couple of guildies said they thought there was a raid planned. There were no guild raiders in game, though, that could confirm it. "Planned" couldn't be the right word, either, since it wasn't scheduled. Wild wasn't sure he wanted to raid Thrones, although it would be nice to kill the second boss, Al'Akir (there are only two), who the guild or Wild haven't bothered with since Firelands. To stick around and ask for an invite to an unscheduled maybe raid, or concentrate on the baseball game ... what will it be?

It's 9:30pm and Game #6 of the World Series is in the 11th inning and tied at nine. Oh my am I glad I stayed with the game!

I kept an eye on the guild, and while doing so noticed that something was going on in trade chat. The horde guild Insurgency got the Legendary Staff that Silverose has. It may be a first for the server, although I'm not sure about that. The Staff went to a boomkin named Eazybee. Wild is proud of his druid cousin. Druids don't often get offered that prize.

As for the guild raid, they did not down Al'Akir. Later (after Texas blew the game, letting St Louis off the hook) Wild had a chance to talk to Bd, the guild leader who seems to be finally back after a seven week absence from the game.

Wild was in for a revelation. All those missing raids and unscheduled "ad hoc" raiding that Wild was complaining about? Well, the reason Wild was so out of touch was that his name had been dropped from the guild's raid invite list. The raids were, in fact, being scheduled, but Wild was not getting placed on the invite list and therefore the raids were invisible to Wild. What was even more irritating is that even on days when Wild was in game around invite time, the raid leaders didn't think to offer Wild an invite. Even thought Wild was in on the one raid that has dropped a Firelands boss (Shannox), I guess they assumed since I wasn't signed up I wasn't interested, and didn't care enough to ask.

Bd didn't directly blame the other guild officers for letting things slide so badly while Bd has been gone, but he did say he had a lot of work to do to get things back to where they were when he left. By way of apology Bd did say that he was astonished that guild leadership didn't track Wild down to find out why the guild's best healer wasn't raiding. Wild's status has been restored to Raider and I should start seeing the raid schedule again.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Wednesday (19 Oct) - Smoke and Fire!

Wednesday (19 Oct) - Smoke and Fire!

Hunter Fortress was Hot Wednesday, but things had to come to a quick halt before we were through when we had a little real life excitement. A backdraft from our fireplace filled the whole house with smoke. At first we didn't know where the smoke was coming from and thought there was a fire somewhere other than in the fireplace! We also had to check to make sure the dog and all the cats were accounted for. We have four cats we are fostering so we have a LOT of cats in the house right now. An hour later we were still airing out the house. Now that adds a little realism to our evening battles!

Speaking of those battles, we managed to bring in a small army across two different battleground brackets. It started with a 25-29 bracket Warsong Gulch with Bean, Pong, and Jocy. The horde team we were on was really and truly bad. So bad the alliance set up shop outside our own graveyard and dared us to get by them. Mostly we didn't. We mercifully lost 0-3 after 13 minutes of futility. Bean's pet, Sammy, was so disgusted Bean couldn't get him to show up half the time. But it was good practice. Bean hadn't played in awhile, and we were playing in different rooms for the first time (her own computer is better than the backup computer we were using before).

See arrived after the first battle and we re-organized. See is level 30, while Pong, Bean, and Jocy are under level 30 in the lower bracket. Bean volunteered to sit out a battle so that See, Speak, and Shevils could take our shots at the Alliance in the 30-34 bracket. Which we did! slaughtering them 3-0 even without having a single healer in our ranks. Speak led in KB's with 26, more than Shevils and See put together - but who's saying Speak was hogging all the kills? :P See and Shevils were in on the final assault to get the flag for the third capture, with See sacrificing himself to give Shevils her chance to break away, race across the field, tangle with the alliance outside our base and then streak inside for the third cap and the win!

See retired on his laurels for the evening and the 25-29 bracket of Pong, Bean, and Jocy went back into action. This time we were dumped into an Arathi Basin battle that became a mindless mire. Neither team could hold a base and most of the time there were only 1 or 2 bases held by either faction. That made the battle incredibly slow. Bean was certainly not slow, though, riding her mount from one battle to the next with her pet Sammy scattering the bad guys every which way. Jocy tried to keep up, but kept getting snagged into battles we were constantly losing.

Almost assuredly by accident we managed to get three bases to their two. The alliance were ahead in resources but we were gaining on them as time was starting to get tight. Jocy stayed at the lumber mill for the last five minutes of the battle and we successfully fended off four different attacks by the alliance. Our score was 1580 for alliance and 1570 for horde when we lost a base somewhere and was back to two each. Both teams scores went up to 1590 each, a tie, and then the alliance won it 1600 to 1590. Despite all the issues we just almost pulled it off in a 26 minute contest. Pong and Jocy were 1-2 in healing.

Back in WSG for our fourth battle of the evening, which we won 3-0, Pong made a grand exit from the 25-29 bracket with a no death performance and by capturing and capping all three flags! Pong leveled to 30, and we were busy re-organizing again when we had that little smoke problem thing.

So, overall, we were 2-2, but those wins were awesome! We also got six different toons into the game, three of which leveled (Jocy was the third, making level 27). Not a bad night at all. I do know that Jocy needs to get some better gear! She was running out of mana all night long.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Tuesday (18 Oct) - Dogs and Spiders

Tuesday (18 Oct) - Dogs and Spiders

Wild found it very weird that our raid group for Tuesday night had the same ten raiders we finished the night with on Monday. On Monday the raid leader got teased because he kept forgetting to make healer assignments after telling us he was going to start doing that (instead of Wild usually doing it right before the tank starts pulling stuff). On Tuesday night the raid leader gleefully announced he didn't need to assign healers since we had the same tanks and healers we had last night! Of course, all three of us healers played dumb and pretended we didn't know what he was talking about. Maybe things were looking up with this group.

We started on the trash as usual, and unfortunately as usual we were five minutes into it when we wiped. The dog we targeted was pulled too close to a group of scorpions, the same error we made the night before. Instead of shrugging it off as usual, though, the raid leader yelled at us. That surprised a lot of folks, but it got their attention. There was some arguing, and finger pointing, and then we settled down and plowed through the trash. In record time we had flushed out the first boss, Shannox.

The raid leader didn't wait around for everyone to pick their noses or go to the bathroom or talk about the latest youtube video. On Shannox's first pathing past us, our raid leader led us into battle. The only raider late to the party was our ranged DPS shaman, who is late for everything. Wild was healing the dog tank, Sb, the same as the night before, but we worked out a better arrangement that would get Wild in range of the main tank on Shannox more often. Gn, the pally healer on the main tank, was doing great but any help Wild could provide greatly increased our chances of victory. Wild was actually bored with healing Sb, and Wild did not need to always be in range of him to keep him alive. The two of us played like we had a rubber band attached to us. Wild watched the movement of the dogs and Sb watched how things were going with Shannox, and we flexed as needed. It worked. When Gn was caught in a trap Wild was close enough to come in range and keep the tank up until she could be freed. Sb moved in closer to Wild so that Wild could break away once Gn was free, run to catch Sb and keep him up as well.

We brought the dogs down, but we'd brought them down several times the night before and were then overwhelmed by the escalating damage Shannox does once those dogs die. Gn's mana was running low but Wild had innervated early and was able to innervate a second time for the final push. Wild had used Tranquility last night in this situation, but that hadn't worked well with the tank taking heavy hits, so Wild went Tree Form this time, saving the Tranq if we still needed it.

We didn't need it. Shannox went down on the first attempt. Wild, and the guild, had our first Firelands boss kill. It was a little sad that the first Firelands loot drop had to be disenchanted. It was a leather feral piece. We had no rogue in the group and Wild was the only druid. Wild doesn't have a feral spec and never intends to have one. At least the guild got the shard. And, of course, we had our kill.

The raid moved to the corridor of the spiders. Wild has been down this corridor numerous times, but until now I didn't realize that all those trips were with the other raid group, Lady Hunter's group. Mf's group, this group, were getting their first look at spider land.

We had some funny moments. The first time players see that spider eating the head off a firebird is always good for a laugh and a shiver. Seeing the shield protected mobs that are the final challenge on the way to the boss also gets some "What the hell?!" moments as well. We did fine, though, and cleared through it all.

We all took a look at Beth'tilac hanging down from her web. The raid leader and his number two called for a five minute break so that those who had never seen the fight (which was everyone but Wild and another Lady Hunter raider, a warlock, who was with us) could watch the video. The two leaders then huddled on a private vent channel to discuss strategy (and to watch the video, too, I'm sure. :-) ). I loved it when someone commented, "Hmm, our raid leaders were so confident in us that they don't even have a plan for what to do after we killed Shannox." Funny and true, but then we hadn't exactly earned that vote of confidence until tonight.

The raid leaders returned, and Wild had his own scare. The raid leader assigned roles. Wild would be the healer climbing into Beth'tilac's web. Wait! Wild wanted to shout. I didn't have time to finesse Gn into volunteering for it! Wild mentioned that he had no experience with the web climbing role. The raid leader responded that most of the raid had no experience at all with this fight, which made Wild the most experienced. Even the raid leader was seeing this fight for the first time, and he was going up into that web as well. Sigh.

Honestly, it wasn't as bad as Wild imagined. Wild was afraid that he would not be able to see and get to the threads of web that other raiders were bringing down by taunting the webspinners and killing them. Once Wild was actively looking for those threads, though, they weren't all that hard to spot. What Wild and the tank had a hell of a time with was coordinating the ascent so that the tank arrived just ahead of the healer. If the healer arrives first, it's a one shot kill. Wild learned that first hand. If the tank has to wait even a few seconds before Wild gets up into the web, the tank died before Wild could get him healed. We made seven attempts. There were problems on the ground as well as up in the web, but getting the web crawling bit right is the key to the fight. I'm not sure a druid is the best healing class for that role, but Wild is definitely not good enough in that role yet. I know what it looks like, now, though, and Beth's days are numbered.

After the raid Wild and Happy made a compromise on Wild's effort to reach his 2005 haste rating. The price of the off-hand was not only too high, it wouldn't quite get Wild all the way to his goal, either. But a shoulder piece had recently been reposted with a very good price that Wild had also been looking at. The ilevel was the same (i378) as the shoulder piece Wild already had (Wild hates it when his upgrades don't change his gear ilevel), but the new piece had considerably more haste on it. Happy bought it, saving himself about 5k gold (had he bought the off-hand). Wild enchanted and socketed the new shoulder piece. Wild's haste rating is now 2010. Woot!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Monday (17 Oct) - Tea and Crumpets

Monday (17 Oct) - Tea and Crumpets

The weekend was pretty much a wash as far as the Wild family was concerned. There was very little action, and what little there was centered on the Auction House, where prices went through the roof and Happy was deliriously ecstatic.

Sis family members Tea and Congrou had some exciting adventures, though, which I want to share:

"So I have been mucho mucho busy at work, so not many responses or regaling you with tales of late. But due to two awesome moments in pvp, I must take time out and type this before I get to work and bogged down with taxes.
First: Tea’s tale. Wolfturtle, a boomkin in our guild, was a bit bored and Tea decided to join him for pvp. I won’t bore you with the bg’s breakdowns, just the exciting moment. So there we were, in the mist of the Eye. We were holding a steady win, mostly keeping around 2-3 bases and the center. Tea decided to run center since the rest of the team was doing a good job at holding the Horde at bay.
Tea has been dying to get two achievements for Eye. One, capture the flag three times in one game; not sure if no dying is required on this one. Second, capture the flag while we hold four bases. Again, this game was a 2-3 base game the whole time, except for the last minute. FR base gets to neutral, pulling it from the Horde, when Tea grabs the flag. She is running her little gnome legs off. The points are at 20 points to 1600.
DK arm grabs her! Bastard! She ignores him, pops a speed potion. Run little Tea! FR switches over to Alliance control, points hit 1600! GAH! Tea won’t make it! But wait! Eye has a weird bug, even if the points hit the max 1600 it still takes a few seconds longer before the battle actually ends. Me swearing at my computer for Tea to run! Tea runs! Tea hits the flag drop off point, the battle hits the end mark! Alliance wins and Tea gets BOTH her desired achievements!!
Tea is glad she took Turtle’s invite.
Second: Congou’s tale. So I am trolling around herbing and decide to pvp with Congou. Get in an AB, win. Not nothing too exciting there, then she gets into a WSG. Our team was in a very sad state. Three healers on our team and our team is getting eaten and spit up. Bloody orc rogue is two shotting the healers, Congou included, right and left. Horde gets an early cap, and Congou does not have high hopes for a win.
Congou decides to go for the flag. She gets it, even hits the home base tunnel on the final run, no Horde yet holding the Alliance flag. She hits her kitty form and dashes! As soon as she hits the main base room the Horde grab the flag and take off. Our team could not get it back before Congou got killed. So no cap for Congou, but at least they killed them before the Horde hit their base, so no cap for the Horde either.
Whole bunch more of Alliance getting chewed up and spit out occurs. Down to the last five minutes. Congou goes for the flag again. She heals, hits bear form, heals more, gets grabbed by a DKs arm thing, hits kitty, dashes, and CAPS!
“TURTLE!” yells the Alliance. We try but the Horde keep grabbing the flag, but we stop them mid but the last one slips past mid and our forces. “Gah!” We all say, but there is less than a minute left. Will he make it?! Of course he won’t, otherwise I would not mention this tale. Time runs out just as he is about to hit his base. Alliance wins the tie! And I have to point out, if it was not for Ms Congou, it would have never occurred."

On Monday night Wild got into his first raid in ... hmmm, let me look that up ... two weeks. Well, it seems a lot longer than that.

It was the Mon/Tues Firelands raid, and we did, in fact, go to the Firelands. I must admit that for awhile there I thought we were doing a trash run. We didn't seem to be that focused, and wiped twice on trash that had no business killing us. I will admit there were some disconnect problems, and we had to replace DCing raiders twice over the course of the night.

The good news is that eventually we got to face Shannox, the first boss. Wild was healing the tank that would be dealing with the dogs, while Gn, our pally healer, handled the main tank on Shannox. It's been longer than two weeks since Wild had faced Shannox (we'd been attempting Beth'tilac instead). I was astonished at the difference between Wild's last encounter with Shannox and this night. Healing the dog tank was easy. I mean, Wild had time to run back and forth and help heal the tank on Shannox it was so easy. Wild was attacked by the dogs many times, too, and they simply couldn't kill me (that was not the case in previous fights). We had problems because we were careless, stepping into traps, standing in the fire, and not paying attention to who was getting singled out by a dog. I was disappointed with our raid healer, a very well geared shaman who lagged way behind Gn and Wild as raiders died around us while Wild was out of range and Gn was keeping her tank alive.

Despite all that we came very close to killing Shannox. On our best attempt we came within 8% of bringing him down. For the first time our raid actually killed both dogs to get us to that point on several attempts. We should have taken Shannox down. I'll be really disappointed if we don't get it done Tuesday night.

The raid was also an opportunity to compare Wild's healing between his normal Max-ilevel gear setup and his new Max-haste gear setup, which Wild used for the first time Monday night. My overall impression was that total healing was about the same, and Wild had no problems with mana regen or running out of mana. If the size of the heals were smaller, I couldn't tell the difference. The new setup felt better, though. Spell casting was clearly faster and I was able to maintain critical buffs like Harmony with few interruptions. I'm going to stick with the haste setup for now. Wild is still just shy of the 2005 haste number he wants, and I've been eyeing an i378 off-hand that could replace Wild's current i365 and get him the haste he wants. It's very expensive, though, and Happy has been balking, noting that patch 4.3 is right around the corner. Wild is not very patient, but so far Happy has won out.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Thursday (13 Oct) - Hunter Fortress Rules!

Thursday (13 Oct) - Hunter Fortress Rules!

Hunter Fortress had a special night this week, moving our regular Wednesday night foray to Thursday night. See, Pong, and Shevils were at the top of their game against some very good Alliance opponents.

In our first match in Warsong Gulch, we got off to a quick start, capping the first flag. Thinking we had this one in the bag, we battled them at mid-field doing great damage to the Alliance. However, a group slipped by us, grabbed our flag and made for their base. We collapsed back to attack them. The battle raged all the way from our base, across mid-field, and into the Alliance base, where despite an explosive fight they capped our flag and tied up the score. With nearly 15 minutes left, the battle ebbed and flowed, but neither one of us could get that second flag cap. Credit the Alliance for holding us off. Time expired with the score still at 1-1, and since the Alliance had capped last, they were awarded the win. See and Shevils combined for 45 killing blows (KBs). The other 8 members of the team had 45 KBs total. Team leading healing by Pong kept us alive to get all those kills.

We picked up WSG again for our second match. The Alliance put up a good fight, but this time we really did have the edge. There were some great fights inside both bases, but in the end we swept them 3-0. See leveled to 30 and will be moving on to the 30-34 bracket the next time Hunter Fortress gathers.

Pong and Shevils marched on, getting a third WSG match, which again went our way in a 3-0 sweep. Shevils rolled over to level 30 this time.

Pong was still short level 30, but we were after one more match to close out the evening. Pong retired for the night so that Speak, who has leveled to 32, could join Shevils in his first 30-34 bracket battle. This time we got Arathi Basin. The fight spread out across the many bases and it was a lot of fun racing from one base to the other, taking bases from the Alliance. Normally those captured bases would be defended, but the Alliance were following a similar attack pattern, but they weren't as good at it as we were. We got an edge in resources and managed to stay ahead in the number of bases we held. As we gained more and more of an edge in resources, the Alliance made a strange decision to focus their forces on one base at a time. Most of the time they descended on the Blacksmith base, and there were fierce battles that sometimes went our way, and sometimes their way. In the end we won the overall battle of resources, defeating the Alliance team. Speak led in damage and KBs despite being only level 32, and level 30 Shevils came in 3rd on the 15 player team.

Hunter Fortress had a very good night, going 3-1 overall.

Raiding Update: With two of the three raid groups still shut down, it appears that the one remaining raid group is having trouble getting raiders to come. The daily in game info requested more raiders to sign up for the Mon/Tues raid. One of the reasons Wild had stopped signing up for that raid is that they insisted on going to BWD on the first night, leaving only one night for Firelands. Wild went ahead and signed up for next week's run, which is listed as a Firelands only raid. I hope so.

Wild picked up one more i378 piece which added additional +haste to his revised gearing plan. Wild is trying to get the i378 Leatherworking gloves [Heavenly Gloves of the Moon] crafted, which could get Wild to his goal of 2005 haste. No one in our guild can craft it yet, however, so Wild is looking in chat to find a leather worker who I can pay to craft it for Wild. Happy and Lost both have been looking for one to show up on the AH, but either the demand by guilds for them is just too high to sell them, or they get grabbed so fast I haven't been lucky enough to catch one for sale.

Once patch 4.3 drops, i378 gear can be earned in the three new 5-man dungeons and Firelands will be deserted.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Monday (11 Oct 2011)- More Changes On the Way

Monday (11 Oct 2011)- More Changes On the Way

There may be some breaking news this week in regard to guild raiding. The raid leader, Bd, that has been on an extended absence from the game is back. Wild hasn't caught up with him yet and he hasn't scheduled any raids yet, so even though he has been seen in game I don't know what his situation is. If he is truly back, Wild will hopefully be getting back his raid fix each week pretty soon.

On the Wild family front there is no new news. But it's not just the lack of raiding that has shortened these posts.

I have rekindled another passion of mine, and have spent a lot of time getting the pieces together in the past few weeks. I am restarting a writing career I let lapse some years ago.

I have a website up on my own domain which went live over the weekend:

http://www.jwalkerbell.com/

J Walker Bell is the pseudonym I used for my prior writing, and since I have published work under that pen name I decided to keep it that way.

So I haven't just been goofing off all this time. :P

I still intend to be active in WoW, but not as active as I was. Wild will raid at least his two nights per week assuming the guild has raids Wild can sign up for. Hunter Fortress is still on and Shevils and company intend to continue their dominance over the Alliance. I'm sure I'll find other times to get in game, but my intent is to write full time. In other words, I have a job now (I know, it's about time!), and it's one that I love.

So visit my site, sign the guestbook, and check out the blog. I am just getting the word out now, but I will be regularly adding to the blog as I progress.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Thursday (7 Oct) - Time for a Change

Thursday (7 Oct) - Time for a Change

Wild has an i366 gear score and I believe is a good healer. He knows his class, keeps up with changes, and generally follows talent and stat gearing guidelines. Wild is a conservative healer, though, weighting +spirit as a higher priority than other druid healers might because I never want to run out of mana if I can help it. Wild also puts a high priority on +intelligence, which is another way of saying that I generally go for the highest ilevel piece I can get, as that guarantees the highest +int, even if the other secondary stats aren't as good.

One important factor about druid healing is to maximize the number of tics of our heal over time (HoT) spells. The more +haste you have, at certain breakpoints, the more HoT tics you have, which is more healing. Haste also speeds up spell casting, which is never a bad thing. However, the bad thing about +haste is that any extra haste over a breakpoint but short of the next breakpoint is wasted and should be exchanged/reforged for better secondary stats (usually mastery).

The point of this is that Wild's gear choices have given him a large mana pool, high mana regen, and significant spell power. Wild used to have a pretty good base of haste, too, even though he never attempted to reach the highest breakpoint. According to my log Wild at one time had 1741 haste rating, but that eroded during Cata to the point that Wild only held enough haste to meet the first breakpoint at 916. That's the rule of thumb - if you can't make the next breakpoint don't add haste until you can. The nirvana of haste breakpoints is 2005 haste, when a 9th tic of Wild Growth is added. That number was completely out of reach, so I never really considered it. Wild focused mostly on mastery (which buffs heals) as his primary secondary stat.

Those gear choices affected how Wild healed, of course. With my haste at 916, Wild's longer cast spells took a long time to cast. That meant that Wild tended to use Regrowth (mana expensive) even without clearcasting in many situations as longer cast Healing Touch just wouldn't get there in time. The use of the long cast Nourish to maintain Harmony (essential to Wild's mana regen and a help to the raid in general) was difficult to work into the rotation and Wild often had to make the decision to let Harmony lapse to get in a faster heal, or take the risk of someone dying while waiting for Nourish to finish.

The battles with Beth'tilac finally convinced me that all that extra mana (int), mana regen (spi) and buffed healing (mastery) was being burned up by the inefficient healing driven by the lack of haste. In other words, I couldn't heal fast enough to use my most efficient heals effectively.

If Wild's guild was raiding regularly and we were making progress, Wild would not be thinking about making any radical changes to his gear. But now seems to be a good time to make a big change.

I went through all of Wild's gear, both his current set and the set of older hand me downs that I always keep around. I wanted to know if it was even possible to achieve that magic haste number of 2005, and what I would have to give up to get there.

The bottom line is that with some hardship Wild can get to 1882 (short by 123). "Hardship" means not only massacring mastery, it means re-gemming some sockets and changing some enchants, reducing +int. It also means going with lower ilevel gear (with more haste) in five slots, reducing all stats except haste, including +int and +stamina (which reduces Wild's survivability).

Right now Wild can't bridge that 123 haste gap to get to 2005 without really serious consequences. Wild can make the breakpoint prior to 2005, which is 1779. If it works, Wild will be able to heal much faster, allowing Wild to cast more efficient spells and reducing mana use. The HoTs will tic faster, and Wild will get extra tics as well. I've looked at what Wild will lose in int, mastery, spi, and sta. It's worth giving it a shot.

Wild is going to do it.

Friday Afternoon - It's done. Wild now has a haste based gear set with a haste rating of 1799 (up from 988). The biggest loss was -133 int, which is a loss of about 2000 mana, not to mention all the other effects from int. As for secondary stats, mastery of course took the biggest hit, dropping from 14.38% to 11.14%. Wild did manage to keep his spirit over 2k, and his 2236 combat mana regen is still good. Spell power dropped by over a 100 as well, but Wild is well stocked there. Wild's i366 gear score went down to i362, which won't keep Wild out of any dungeons or raids. All in all, it doesn't look nearly as bad as I feared it might. The real test will be in a raid, and I'm getting excited about trying it out. We have guests coming over tonight, though, so not even any PUG raiding until the weekend.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Wednesday (5 Oct) - Lady Hunter Returns

Wednesday (5 Oct) - Lady Hunter Returns

Wild checked the raid calendar around 5pm on Wednesday and the Lady Hunter raid had four guildies signed up. The raid had been posted sometime the day before, so there hadn't been much time for guildies to notice it was up, and it was only for the one night instead of the usual two. Wild tried to pretend disinterest, but couldn't stay away. Wild logged in about five minutes before the 6:30pm raid start time.

Lady Hunter was in game already, which was surprising, but a good sign. She asked in guild chat for volunteers for the raid. Lady Hunter didn't wait for Wild to answer the call; she sent Wild an invite, already knowing I wouldn't say no. Wild is so predictable. It was just Lady Hunter and Wild in the raid for awhile, but guildies trickled in and more invites went out. At 7pm we had nine raiders with our 10th, a tank, finishing up a Heroic. That took longer than expected and it was 7:30pm before he joined up and we headed for the Firelands.

This night was not a trash/rep run. We were after Beth'tilac and we killed only those trash mobs we needed to get past to get to the big spider. We had four women in our raid: Lady Hunter of course, two of the three healers, and a mage. It was pretty lively on vent (maybe it's sexist to say that there is a lot more back and forth commentary the more women there are in vent, but that seems to be the case :-) ). Wild set up the healing assignments (I was getting tired of having to try and heal everybody not knowing who was assigned to who).

We worked our way to Beth'tilac easily. We once again had raiders who had not seen this fight, including one of the healers, a druid. She whispered Wild for advice and I went over what she needed to look for and do from a healing perspective. She's relatively new to the guild and a little under geared, but she has made some real progress since joining the guild.

Beth dangles from her web near the floor of her lair when we first approach her. She then glides up into the web above us once the encounter starts. Nobody in the raid had any experience climbing up into that web, which three raiders have to do for this fight. The more I see of this fight the more convinced I am that experienced raiders who can handle the battle in the web above are absolutely essential to winning this fight. Nothing we do on the floor of her lair matters if things don't go well up in the web.

All three of the raiders tapped for web duty were good raiders, but would be climbing into the web for the first time. We made five attempts and on three of them we wiped due to (1) the tank got too close to the hole in the web and fell through. Without the tank up in the web, Beth instantly killed the healer and DPSer that were still up there; (2) the healer up in the web did not know about the hole in the web, which during the phase change is how she gets down to the floor of the lair. She stayed up there too long and died; and (3) the healer thought the tank had already ascended up into the web, so she climbed up there only to find she was the first up in the web - without a tank to protect her, Beth quickly slaughtered her.

On our fourth attempt the team was having some success up in the web, and that made the battle on the floor of the lair more important. Wild used all his special heals - tree form, Tranquility, etc, to keep the raid alive while main healing the tank who was kiting the drones and the even nastier little spiders that spawned. The other druid healer, who stayed on the floor with Wild, did well, too, for her first time. We got Beth to drop down and return once without a wipe, but did wipe the second time she came down. She has to descend three times before we enter the second phase. It was progress, anyway. The last attempt was forgettable.

The top end DPSers were around 18k, but it ranged down to about 12k. Wild averaged about 15k hps with the pally healer at 10k and the other druid around 8k. The numbers are still good enough that with some practice we should be able to take Beth down. The problem is always that we never know who will be in the raid. We never have a enough core raiders to form a team where everyone knows their role and does it.

Wild got his raid fix, though. And there is always hope it will be better next week. Oh, he also bought a new pair of boots, ilvl 378 and one of the leather working pieces that top end leather workers can make. Wild had to go outside the guild to get it, as our LWers haven't reached the point where they can get the pattern. Wild inched up to gear level i366 (from i365). There is a pair of gloves Wild will be going after next.

With the raid running a little late there was only Shevils representing Hunter Fortress for the after the raid fun. Shevils queued up and then went and did some of the Brewfest quests while waiting for the queue to pop. JB was the last Wild family member to go through and complete all of the Brewfest quests, culminating in her getting the ram mount (she has two of the ram mounts, actually). Wednesday was the last day of Brewfest, though, and Shevils was only fooling around. She did try the ram races, but that takes a lot of practice to be able to complete the quests. Long before Shevils had gotten the hang of things, the BG queue popped. It was Warsong Gulch. We had a pretty high level team: 1 level 27, 2 28s, and 7 29s. The alliance team fought well at mid, but never got their hands on our flag. We beat them 3-0. Shevils was a little disappointed that she only came in 2nd in dealing damage. Shevils is 57% of the way to level 30. She'll probably go ahead and finish leveling to 30 this week.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Tuesday (4 Oct) - Rescue

Tuesday (4 Oct) - Rescue

On a quick real life note a couple that we know discovered that they had a mother cat and three tiny kittens living in their wood pile. They had a full half cord of wood in a small space that made it impossible to just go in and get them. The couple lives in an area where coyotes, hawks, and owls are numerous and they were really concerned about them. We have a reputation for taking on challenges like that. As of this morning we have the mother and all three of the kittens. "Mom" will be spayed after she finishes weaning her kittens and the couple plan to take her in. We'll find homes for the three kittens.

There is perhaps another kind of rescue coming for Wild with Patch 4.3, expected to arrive in November. Wild's guild is drifting, with three raid groups now reduced to one. I heard they had trouble filling our one raid on Monday night, and that the once a month 25 man raid never got off the ground on Tuesday night. Wild wasn't present at either. There is the baseball playoffs, and I enjoyed watching the games. Frankly, though, I would have rather been raiding, had there been raids.

Wild is considering trying to hook up with PUG Firelands raids. There are at least a couple always advertising for raiders. It's frustrating, though, as those PUGs generally have 1-3 boss kills already under their belt and want experienced Firelands raiders. Rookies need not apply (ie, link you boss kill achievements or don't bother). And rookie Wild is, since his guild has yet to down a boss in Firelands. I find myself thinking that this may be the first time ever that Wild could finish a patch without ever killing even the first boss in the premiere raid of that patch. And find it hard to care.

Where the "rescue" may come, is in Patch 4.3. There will be a Looking for Raid feature so players can sign up. Valor points will be awarded in addition to boss loot. Wild doesn't like the random dungeon finder, but might be okay with the raid finder, depending on how it is deployed. These raid finder raids are the kiddy pool of raids, offering lower ilevel gear than even the normal level raids. As such, though, players can learn the strats and earn some interim gear to be better prepared. Guilds who can't beat normal level raids could at least earn valor points and raid experience in the new raids, which might entice guildies to join those raids. Maybe.

Don't know if this will work out or not, and I really hope Wild can get back to regular raiding. If not, I see the Wild family finding less and reason to login.