Wednesday/Thursday (15 Mar) - The Flu Season

Wednesday/Thursday (15 Mar) - The Flu Season

I don't know if this is officially the flu season, but this week seems to have taken out half of the RG2 raid. Add a broken arm to another raider, and we had a tough time filling the raid on Wednesday night. Wild was "this close" to giving Hearte a call on Wednesday night, but remembered she was only available until around 7pm. We did fill the raid and should have the same folks available for Thursday, but if not Hearte may get a call.  :-)

Wednesday Night - We were down to our #3 raid leader, Sb, with one out with the flu and the other out with a broken arm. Even the raid leader we did have was still getting over the flu he'd gotten the week before. The raid, which we managed to cobble together, was very heavy with melee DPS (only one ranged). The two tanks were alts - good alts, but not the first string. We had two of our regular healers, Wild and Pl, and added a second priest who was also very good. Wild took over and ran the healing assignments.

Morchok gave us no trouble, not did Yor'sahj. We had a lot of dead time in between battles, though, and with the late start it was already well past eight pm when we got to the Warlord. The best we could do was swap one melee for her ranged alt, but it still left the groups unbalanced. We made three attempts in various configurations mostly requiring healers to try and heal melee at ranged depth. Melee tended to run out of healing range, though, no matter what we tried. We did get Warlord down to 27% on one attempt so we thought we still had a shot at him. A melee death knight offered to switch to tank spec, which would allow the main tank (the raid leader) for this fight to switch to a ranged alt, which would balance things a bit better. We spent so much time talking about it we would only have one more attempt, anyway. The raid leader decided not to make the swap. Unfortunately, the melee raider didn't get that message and had switched to his tanking spec. Not realizing what was about to happen, the raid leader called to start the fight. The raid leader would have started a 3-2-1 countdown before running in, but he didn't get a chance. The "new" dk tank ran in instead. It was chaos and we wiped. At least we killed two bosses.

I ran out of steam after that and finished my evening watching some episodes of Season 1 of HBO's Game of Thrones.

Thursday Night - Another raid leader succumbed to illness. Sb, who was recovering from the flu, but led the raid on Wednesday, had a relapse. Bd, who has also been sick, returned to lead the raid. Bd brought his shaman alt to help balance the melee and ranged DPS for the first fight of the night, against the Warlord Zon'ozz of the deadly bouncing ball. The rest of the raid was as the night before.

Our first attempt on the Warlord went badly. Wild, in charge of healing the melee group, heard the command to start the battle. Wild waited for the tank to take on the Warlord, but no one moved. Ten raiders breathed, shifted their feet, and patiently waited. Then, over vent, Bd commented, "Well, it looks like Wild DCed." That's how Wild discovered the battle had started without him. The raid wiped before Wild could get back in game. I wish I knew what caused the DC. It is more than coincidence that several times now the first boss encounter of the evening starts with Wild DCing - although it never happens in the lfr DS. Strange.

Our second attempt went rather better. There were deaths, but the last death was the Warlord's.

Then came Hagara's turn. Hagara did not survive the first attack.

It was time to face Ultraxion. The RG2 raid had taken Ultraxion down for the first time last week. We were determined to make it two weeks in a row.

Wild got to DPS once again at the start of the fight. It isn't really all that much damage, but two healers are more than adequate for the first phase of the fight, so why not add a couple of percentage points of extra damage. Wild even used the "On use" proc of his trinket for a little more Oomph! to Wild's Wrath spam. Wild then settled into his healer's role, standing tightly packed with the rest of the raid as Ultraxion fought to murder our tanks and blast our raid to dust. The raid had strong early attempts, getting the dragon to 18% and then to 11%. We weren't fooled. The fight gets ever more deadly the closer to it's end. That last 11% would be bloody.

Three more attempts took us farther from our goal. The tanks struggled to get into the difficult rhythm crucial to the fight. The tank with aggro is the one who must survive Hour of Twilight, to be saved by the healers once back into the shadows. Fading Light must be handled with care, for the tanks must taunt off of each other or both could die. The tanks were strong. More than once both tanks were hit, and saved. But without the rhythm it couldn't hold.

On our sixth attempt it all came together, and despite horrific damage crashing across the raid in the final moments, it was Ultraxion that fell, and not the raid. We had won another victory.

Ag has been impressive since joining the raid last week. The priest is not as well geared as Wild, but really knows his class. As the numbers show below, he has been at or near the top in healing, challenging Wild to push even harder.

Heals by Boss:

Warlord Zon'ozz
#1: Wild, 18.8k hps, 33.7% of all healing
#2: Ag, 19.1k, 30.7%
#3: Pl, 12.9k, 23.3%

Hagara
#1: Wild, 10.9k, 36.2%
#2: Ag, 9.2k, 26.0%
#3: Pl, 6.2k, 18.6%

Ultraxion
#1: Ag, 32.5k, 36.8%
#2: Pl, 25.5k, 30.1%
#3: Wild, 23.2k, 28.0%

DPSing the first phase of Ultraxion took a lot more out of Wild's healing than I thought it would.

The gods favored priests and shaman on this night, and the loot flowed into their hands. Wild was content, though. His only regret was that he fell just short of achieving a long awaited title. Wild has changed guilds twice and had to start over earning guild reputation each time. Wild has long been at Revered rep with the honored title of "Veteran of Meitha" but has one more rung to climb. At the end of the raid Wild had 20,923 guild rep points. Wild is 73 points short of reaching Exalted. By the time this report reaches other eyes, Wild expects to have achieved that goal.

On other fronts, it was good to see Hearte in game as well as Daeth. I'm sure Daeth has stories to tell of dungeon conquests and, Wild hears, his first steps into Hour of Twilight. That should make a nice additional to the report.