Weekend (25 Mar) - Raid Wars

Weekend (25 Mar) - Raid Wars

Saturday afternoon JB had a chance to get into a Baradin Hold raid. The raid leader was asking for a "class run," meaning there could be only one of each class in the raid, which maximizes the chance of a raider winning loot. Daeth and Silver were also in game, and the raid still needed a tank and a mage. Hmm, Silver is a tank. Daeth is a mage. Must be serendipity! They both got invites. It took some time to get the raid filled, but we were finally loaded up and ready to go. The raid even had two players from Wild's old guild, MM. Things then started to stray from the script.

Someone in the raid had already done BH, which locked out the rest of us from doing the only boss anyone cared about - Alizabal. We couldn't figure out who it was, and everyone was claiming it wasn't us or them. The raid leader finally had to walk his raiders through the steps to check whether they were locked out. Eventually one of the healers sheepishly admitted that he was the culprit. It was one of the MM players.

Well, now we were short a healer, and then another player left while we were working on that. These things happen, though, and we did manage to fill the raid again. We buffed up and got ready to go. Silver, who had been on hiatus before moving to Silvermoon, had not seen this latest boss in BH, and asked the raid leader, who was also the main tank, to give her a quick rundown of the fight. The raid leader then made the rather stunning statement that he had never tanked this boss, either. Ok, so let me get this straight. A player advertises that he's starting a Baradin Hold class raid as the raid leader, he's a tank, and he doesn't know the fight? Oh boy.

One of the other raiders, a rogue I believe it was, said he could explain the fight. His description of the fight helped, I'm sure, but unfortunately it was incomplete, leaving out a crucial piece of information. We made two attempts, both wipes, and raiders started bailing out of the raid. Alizabal is, I must admit, a pretty easy boss that should take us five minutes to kill. It also wasn't just because raiders weren't doing what they were supposed to. The DPS was low as well, which extended the fight and led to more mistakes. JB knew the DPS was low, because she was #3 in DPSing, and she knew her DPS wasn't the best. Daeth was the only DPSer doing potent damage.

The raid leader figured he should just call it off, and JB even left the raid for a bit. But, another attempt was made to start the raid up again. It took considerable time, but once more we had a full raid, about half and half old and new players. This time we brought Alizabal down. A pvp mail piece dropped. BH loot tends to be awarded quickly in a class run, where the winner is usually pretty clear cut. I don't know what happened, but the drop went to someone other than JB. It went to the hunter.

Well, what the hell, there was a mini-storm brewing on the RL front that needed some immediate attention, and while JB wanted the piece, it wasn't a priority. I'll give some credit to the hunter. He whispered JB to ask if I really wanted it. JB had already left the raid and hearthed back to Org. JB asked him why he took the piece, and he claimed that he had asked for it if no one else wanted it. Since he went to the trouble to contact JB, I believed him. The storm clouds on the home front were getting seriously threatening, and the hunter would probably make better use of it than JB anyway. "S'ok, don't worry about it, just use it well!" JB told him. He laughed and promised he would.

I can't say I tamed the weather, but the seas soon calmed enough for JB to give way to Wild so that the three of us - Wild, Daeth and Silver - could head into Siege of Deathwing for some Dragon Soul lfr action. That went well as we cleared all four bosses. No one got any loot, however. JB's elemental gear was already looking stale, although her DPS was slowly improving.

It wasn't until the evening that the Raid Wars began. The guild announced earlier in the week that a third Dragon Soul raid was starting (G3), with raid days on Saturday and Sunday. Few seemed to find that odd, even though both of the guild's other DS raids had been short raiders and hadn't run this week. Somewhat paradoxically, the weekend raid drew a lot of guildies which, I believe, was mostly because they hadn't been able to raid during the week. Wild had a number of reasons to be in game Saturday evening. Daeth and Silver were in game, and we hoped to get into the guild raid. I'd wanted to bring JB to this raid, but they were short healers and specifically asked if Wild would come. I also half-suspected that only a few of the many who had signed up for the raid would really show up, but on that I was wrong. We had an over-supply of DPS players, and two tanks when I thought they might be short one. The only spot they were short was one healer.

Wild gave Silver and Daeth the bad news - they would not make the raid, and Wild was already committed. There were lots of maneuvering to try and place that third healer. Meanwhile, Daeth and Silver had concocted their own plan. Silver decided to start her own PUG DS raid. Daeth then laid down a challenge to Wild - Which raid group will get the farthest, the guild raid or their PUG raid? Wild took the challenge, even though he was quite aware of the tenacity of both Daeth and Silver when they put their heads together, as compared to the normal, meandering pace of our guild raids.

The guild raid got off to a good, if late, start once we'd found our third healer. Morchok went down quickly, and the first drop was [Vagaries of Time]. This is an i397 +int mace for both healers and casters. Six raiders rolled on it. Wild, a priest, and one of the DPS all tied with an 82 roll. Wild won the roll off with a 93.

Wild was very happy to get an i397 weapon with +haste as well as reforged +mastery, but even when Wild wins gear there are downsides. According to the forums, Wild's i390 mace [Maw of the Dragon Lord] is actually better than Vagaries because of it's special healing proc called Cleansing Flames.

Wild checked his healing stats from Saturday night. Cleansing Flames was 7th on Wild's list of heals and accounted for 3.8% of his healing. That's not bad, but it's not raid saving, either. I will have to admit that in the lfr and normal 25 mans, the many raid stacking fights in DS will probably go better with the Maw. Wild is stubborn, though. For normal ten man, I'd like to try Vagaries. Wild was able to gain considerable +mastery through the reforging Wild could do with Vagaries equipped, and it has much higher spell power and a bit more +int. Wild is not a pure raid healer, and the extra mastery will help with tank healing. Wild will use Vagaries Sunday night and we'll see what we will see.

The raid wars had been in progress for a couple of hours when Daeth whispered Wild, wanting to know how far we'd gotten. Wild figured he was in trouble. Our raid leader was having a blast, talking smack and keeping the raid rolling forward. I'd never heard him talk so much. If that was all that was going on with our raid, we would have been going gangbusters. Unfortunately, our raid leader was also having unexpected disconnects, and we'd already lost time twice while battling the second boss, Warlord. We'd had one "oh so close!" attempt on Warlord even though the raid leader was DCed the whole last half of the fight, and we'd wiped with the boss at 1%. We did kill him on our next attempt, but when Daeth whispered Wild I had to admit we were just starting of the third boss, Yor. Daeth didn't disguise his delight in telling Wild the PUG raid had downed three bosses and were working on the fourth, Hagara.

The guild raid went on to kill Yor, but we ran out of time and did not get to Hagara. Daeth and Silver's raid was still in progress. Wild let them know I was going to log for a bit. When Wild returned a half hour later, the PUG was STILL in progress. Hagara had been killed, and they were battling Ultraxion, the fifth boss. Daeth was no longer in the raid, though. Much later, Wild logged out. Silver was still at it.

Regardless of when Silver's raid finished - or maybe it's STILL going on! - Daeth and Silver won their challenge. Their PUG killed at least four bosses, perhaps more, while the guild run ended at three kills.

So, Wild has his own challenge. The guild will be back at work Sunday night. Can Daeth/Silver continue their PUG and keep the challenge alive?

Sunday Night - We had another healer shortage for the G3 raid, but the wait wasn't too long. We started up where we left off, which was the fourth boss, Hagara. Hagara went down on our first attempt.

We then spent way too much time killing the dragon trash in the lead up to the Ultraxion battle. Too many raiders just don't know how to deal with this preliminary fight. It seems so simple. Let the tanks pull the dragons, kill the one that's targeted by the tanks, rinse and repeat. It took us five tries.

The rest of the evening was spent making five attempts on Ultraxion. The tanks were getting better at the taunt offs, and rarely had that problem, which had plagued us the last time we faced this boss. The third and fourth attempts were our best, but we still only got Ultraxion to 31%. It's another raid that is still feeling it's way.

Wild was using his new mace for the first time. I wanted some way to compare between this night and prior raid nights using the old Maw. I searched back to mid-Mar, the last time we'd killed Ultraxion (in the RG2 raid).

The Hagara fight involves a lot of movement and so the Maw Cleansing Fires proc doesn't really shine, so this is to give a baseline.

G3 Hagara Kill . . . .vs. . . . RG2 Hagara Kill
#1: Wild, 9.9k hps, 35.2% . . . #1: Wild, 10.9k hps, 36.2%
#2: Ag, 10.7k hps, 33.1% . . . .#2: Ag, 9.2k hps, 26.0%
#3: Ly, 8.5k hps, 21.9%. . . . .#3: Pl, 6.2k hps, 18.6%

The Ultraxion fight is perfect for Cleansing Flames. On the other hand, Wild was DPSing the first phase in the RG2 battle, lowering Wild's hps.

G3 Ultraxion Attempt. .vs . . . RG2 Hagara Kill
#1: Wild, 28.0k hps, 37.4%. . . #1: Ag, 32.5k hps, 36.8%
#2: Ag, 26.4k hps, 34.5%. . . . #2: Pl, 25.5k hps, 30.1%
#3: Ly, 22.3k hps, 23.2%. . . . #3: Wild, 23.2k hps, 28.0%

Oh well, I don't know if that really tells me anything, but Wild does like his stats.

Finally, about that raid challenge. Seems it's a tie, since the PUG raid went some 90 minutes longer than the G3 on Saturday night, and the G3 downed Hagara well within that time on Sunday night. That is, unless the PUG did kill Ultraxion? Silver was still tilting at that dragon when the Wild family went to bed Saturday.