Reflected Glory

Reflected Glory

Wild has always loved raiding. More specifically, Wild loves to raid with his friends. The names of Wild's raiding guilds have changed a number of times over the years. His core group of friends, though, the ones Wild refers to as his "cabal," are the ones who kept Wild playing. The latest guild incarnation, Meitha, remains a very large guild of close to 400 members. No matter the guild name on the banner, raiding was always an up and down adventure, with earnest successes often eclipsed by long periods when raiding went fallow. The driving force behind the groups that Wild raided with was Bloodknuckle. The best raid leader, ever, he was that rare raid leader that got the best out of his team through encouragement, spirit, and a voluminous knowledge of the raids. Raiding was pure fun with Blood at the helm of a raid, whether we slew the monsters or not. However, real life often intervened in Blood's raiding, and when he wasn't and integral part of our raiding, the raids suffered.

Blood remains absent from raiding at present, and until very recently the guild was not raiding at all. The guild leader, Porkkchopp, announced this week that he is starting up the guild's first flex raid over the weekend. Wild had aspirations of getting geared up well enough to sign up for the raid. Then Wild learned that only the most recent raid, the Siege of Orgrimmar (SoO) was available as a flex raid. For that raid, a gear score over over i500 (closer to i510) was needed to be successful. Wild's gear is at i475, well below where it needs to be to raid.

Wild will have to get his raiding fix another way for the time being. Thanks to Unbleached, a friend on the Alliance side who has been raiding SoO, Wild get can get his fix. Here are the results of the latest raid, as told by Unbleached:

"Last night reminds me of why people can love or hate raids. Unbleached, who people have shortened to Bleached (which would make the name the opposite of what it was, ironically), headed off to SoO (Siege of Org).Last night we had cleared out the Vale portion of the raid and moved onto the Gates.  Zaela and her proto-drake Galakras, and the Iron Juggernaut were dispatched and we left off right at the gates of Org.

Org has had marshal law declared, so a lot of people are in cages or hiding themselves in their homes. As we entered we had to clear out the Valley of Strength. Unfortunately civilian casualties are unavoidable. Good thing Happy is in UC, we cleared the AH too. Once the Valley is cleared it is time to draw out the Kor’kron Dark Shaman: Kardris and Haromm who are in the center fort where Hellscream had his seat. This job falls to one fast player to run in and run out, thus pulling them out into the open. This player needs to be quick, we lost three in the effort.

This was a HARD fight. I am looking forwarded to watching strat vids on this one to figure out how to survive it easier. The shamans, who share life, ride out on two wolf/dog mounts, fairly easily killed. Once the mounts are dead the shamans drop all sorts of things forcing you to use the whole valley as a fighting ground. Toxic mists that don’t move, toxic storms that do, foul stream that cuts targets one person and cuts a line of foulness to them (hopefully they run it away from the raid), an ashen wall that forms a line based on positioning, which can cut the area in half and you take damage when are near or cross it. Not to mention falling ash, poison mists (different from toxic), and iron tombs… this is the one that you can roll with it or develop a hate for raiding. I am not sure how many attempts we did before we brought them down, 6-7 maybe. But down he went and a new mace came to a very happy Bleached.

After this we cut are way through to the Cleft of Shadows and in the processes freed a very vengeful Gamon. He swore to kill a thousand orcs for everyone who ever beat him. Considering how many over the years picked on Gamon (previous to him becoming an elite), that could wipe out the race.  You can either let him run off to wack at people (and eventually die) or you can help him, he will assist with the general, and if he survives, you get an achievement.

The cleft is also in a very sad state. Signs to it read “heretics will burn” and the entry leading down to the cleft is strung with burning warlocks and warlock trainers. But we worked out way down and got to General Nazgrim. The General is a lot more straight forward then the shaman, thank God. You clear out some Org loyalists and start on the General. He fights a very valiant battle, no reference it not being what he hoped, just that he is the warlords fist and loyal to the Horde to the death.  Also I previously mentioned that the Dark Lady and the leader of Silvermoon would be there, must have read that wrong or it changed, no sign of them. Maybe it is the Dark Lady and Thoren for the dock area (for the Horde raid) where we got the SW King and Lady Janica.

The General is a fairly straight forward fight. He has three stances, each he is in for about a minute. Defensive, where you do not hit him. Battle, where you attack as usual, and Berserker stance where you pop heroism because he will take more damage then. The trick is to keep his rage down. Do not hit him when he drops a battle standard, this will give him rage, same if you attack him in defensive stance. Some members of our raid had issues figuring this out, even when it was called out to stop attacking :P  At so much rage he will release a battle ax(es) that will swing around the room. If it hits you it does a lot of damage (or kills you) and gives him rage when it hits. Same with his stomp, if you are in the wrong spot when it goes off, it gives him rage.  Also at certain points he will call in NPCs who have different abilities and priorities and need to be killed.

Since we did not on shot him, Gamon died and we did not get that achievement. Luckily for us we were able to get him by the 3rd try.

Apparently the next wing is not open like I thought, not until next week. So our raid was called and Bleached happily started to dream up names for her new mace. She thinks she will call it Mace. Not very imaginative, our girl. "