Wednesday (7 Oct) - Confronting the Cat Lady

Wednesday (7 Oct) - Confronting the Cat Lady

While there was no sign up for the Wednesday raid, and several guildies were plainly confused about what we were or weren't doing (including one who posted on the website that he could not make the 25 man raid), most of the usual gang of 15 or so that always show up were again in game. The alts for the two raid leaders, a feral druid and a paladin, were our tanks. We had four raiders who could heal, but we were a versatile bunch and all of us at one point or another played roles other than healing. Bottom line is that, with minor exceptions, Wednesday's raid looked much like the raids from last week.

Ulduar was our target. Our battle with the first boss, Flame Leviathon, was swift and decisive, taking him down very quickly.

Razorscale was up next. Wild was in charge of the healing, and put Wild on the main tank and P-Jo on the off tank, with both of us raid healing. Two healers had worked out ok last week, but this week we wiped on our first attempt when we could not keep the tanks up. For some reason it was easier to manage with two druid healers on Friday, but did not work with a druid/priest pair on this night. We added a third healer, another druid, Hd, who, coincidentally, is a returning player who'd missed a lot of game time and only recently got her toon to level 80.

With three healers we had no trouble with Razor and the dragon fell.

Last week we had then taken on another optional boss, Ignis, but we bypassed him this time as the raid leaders did not feel we had a good raid makeup that that fight. Instead, we headed straight to XT. I was a little concerned about Hd's healing. She was a good healer, but under geared, and Wild preferred that pH, the other priest, help heal instead. Hd was happy to switch to moonkin. Wild was main tank healer for the pally, with P-Jo and pH working the off tank and the raid.

Wild was pushed a little main tank healing the pally. He wasn't under geared, but like the alt feral druid tank, they weren't as well geared as the tanks Wild normally healed for. There was certainly more challenge to it, and with the other two healers very busy themselves, Wild held complete responsibility for the tank. Wild, for the first time in awhile, was burning through his mana at a higher rate than he would like. We were doing well, though, and we were getting good damage on XT. However, we struggled with the adds, particularly when a couple of the bots reached XT, healing her by 30% and extending the fight. It was touch and go at the end, but XT died.

Hd had to leave after that, and we replaced her with a deathknight alt of another raider.

Kologarn, the giant viking, came into our sights next. And he was trouble. There are two main concerns with this fight. One is Grip, where Kologarn tries to "crush the life out you!" which he is fond of hollering when he snatches a raider in his gloved hand and squeeeeeezes. The other is the eyebeams, lightning strikes of usually two at a time that target a raider and then chase them, doing collateral damage to anyone close by as well. Kologarn took a fancy to Wild and I was Gripped at least six times during the battles with Kologarn. Wild never died from it, thanks to P-Jo, who kept those Gripped alive. Wild did die - twice - to those blasted eyebeams. The strategy with those beams is when targeted, run to the opposite side of the room away from other raiders. When not targeted, immediately step out of the way of nearby eyebeams to avoid getting hit with collateral damage. Poor Wild got his head on backward for one of the eyebeam attacks, stubbornly thinking that he wasn't the one targeted, and trying to step away from it, all the while it followed him around, fellow raiders frantically scattering to get away from Wild. Sigh. Not Wild's best moment.

It took three tries, but Kologarn finally fell. Kologarn dropped another one of those "gimmick" trinkets Blizz loves so much, called [Spark of Hope]. The gimmick was a good one, though, which when worn reduces the mana cost of all spells by 42. That's pretty darn nice to have, amounting to thousands of extra mana, even if Wild did have to remove a +100 spell power trinket to equip it. Oh yes, Wild won that one.

Then it was on to Auriaya, also known as the Cat Lady.

Two trash mobs have to be taken out before reaching Cat Lady that require special handling. The pair must be tanked apart from each other, must die within a few seconds of each other, and during the fight they also release a large spark that travels from one to the other. I'm not sure what the spark does if it reaches the other mob, but it would be bad. Most often a moonkin is used to cast Entangling Roots on the spark continuously to hold it in place while the DPS burns it down. We had no moonkin as Hd had to leave after XT. We had no one else who could do the equivalent of a druid root - except Wild, of course. So Wild stayed out of tree form and during the trash mob fight Wild Rooted each spark as it formed, spamming roots until the spark was destroyed. In between sparks, Wild HoTed up the two tanks to help with the healing. The trash mobs died, and Wild got to do something besides healing. Cool.

As has been mentioned before, success or failure with the Cat Lady begins and ends with the pull. Do it right, and the chances for success go way up. Do it wrong, and it's a wipe. Every time. The pally was the main tank and would be handling the Cat Lady. pH was assigned to heal him. Wild took the feral druid off tank, who would be handling the trickier pair of pouncing cats that accompany Auriaya.

On our first attempt Wild's tank died within seconds. We tried a second time, and Wild could keep the tank up only barely longer before he died again. Druids only have two emergency heals - once Wild uses up Swiftmend and Nature's Swiftness aided Healing Touch, any large heal took several seconds to cast. And the tank wasn't lasting that long. A better geared tank might be able to weather the damage better. So we decided to switch tank roles, putting the pally tank on the cats and the feral druid on Cat Lady. In addition, taking into account Wild's class shortcoming in fast, big heals, we enlisted another paladin in the group who had been doing DPS all evening to switch to healing. The pally healer and Wild both would heal the pally tank on the cats during the early part of the fight, and the pally would then switch over to the main tank on Cat Lady once we got the cats down.

It worked, and we got through the initial pull successfully. The rest of the fight was exciting, blasting away at the Cat Lady, the whole raid tightly grouped together to mitigate the AoE damage she does, getting Feared every few seconds and then immediately rushing back to position after the Fear, and finally Auriaya died.

It was Wild's first kill of the Cat Lady.


Wild also won a cloth shoulder piece from Auriaya, [Mantle of the Preserver]. It looked good when Wild compared it to his ragged T7 shoulders, the oldest piece of gear he was still using, and none of the cloth wearers wanted it. Later, after going over it in detail, it proved to be a poor match. The good stats were in areas Wild was fine, but the important stats were actually worse on the new piece than on his T7. Wild was not going to be able to use it, and that old T7 had to stay.

We still had a little bit of time left and made our way to the Iron Council. The Iron council is three bosses. The biggest and meanest is Steelbreaker, who is usually the first kill target. The other two bosses are rounded up by the off tank and pulled away from Steelbreaker until he is killed.

Wild has done this fight successfully in both 10 and 25 mans, and knows what to do. Knowing what to do and doing it proved to be two different things. Wild, as the off tank healer, was not able to keep the feral druid tank alive long enough even to get the two bosses pulled away. We tried twice, and twice Wild's tank died. The second time Wild used both his emergency heals, but it wasn't enough to save him.

We ended the evening, though, having made more progress than last week, and Wild got his first Cat Lady kill and two drops. A good night overall.

After the raid Wild was still fretting over the Iron Council fight, so I whispered to surveydrood (the pally tank alt who is also usually a druid moonkin/healer in our raids). He's also one of the two raid leaders. Surveydrood can be a bit imposing in the raid, as I've commented on before, because he seems to be able to see everything that is going on and is quick to correct any miscues practically the moment they happen. But he was fair and straightforward, and if Wild was doing something wrong I knew he would tell me, and offer suggestions for changes.

We had an excellent private conversation. We went over general healing principles for druids, all of which mirrored what both of us were doing. We had minor differences in style, with Wild still clinging to regrowth over nourish as Blizz tries to force druids into a nourish centric healing pattern, which surveydrood has already adopted. So not really any significant differences in healing strategy. For the specific Iron Council fight, two suggestions came out of the discussion. In pre-healing before the fight, both of us put up a stack of three lifeblooms, but surveydrood also adds a regrowth for the 27 second Hot as well. That's easy enough for Wild to do, but it didn't address the core issue. When we start the fight, the off tank has to run in and aggro two bosses, and then pull them a good distance away from the rest of the raid. Wild is running with him, refreshing HoTs and (in the fight) casting the only two big instant heals I have. Surveydrood said he uses Nourish to heal the off tank, which can't be cast when moving. Bottom line is that he finds a way to get into a position where he can stop and heal with nourish at the point the off tank slows to kite the two bosses, which is the point at which he is likely to start taking heavy damage. Tricky, and not something that Wild has needed to do on prior Iron Council fights, but apparently it's something Wild will have to figure out how to do.

Surveydrood added that the feral tank was a bit under geared to handle the damage from those two bosses, so it was a tough heal no matter who or how it was done, and who knows if any healer could have saved him under those circumstances. So don't sweat it, he told Wild.

We wrapped up our conversation, and Wild thanked him for the advice. "Any time, bud," he replied.

Tuesday (6 Oct) - On to Zul'Drak

Tuesday (6 Oct) - On to Zul'Drak

When Wild checked the guild calendar on Tuesday I wasn't that surprised that there was no sign up for Lady Hunter's group. I'm not sure what the status is, but I still believe we will get something going again and that sign ups will follow. Not that Wild wasn't a little disappointed to find that Wild and the rogue (alt of our melee shaman) were the only raiders in our group on. Another group has moved into the Tuesday spot, and Wild looked on with a bit of envy as they started in VoA and then headed over to ToC. Maybe Thursday.

Wild is also a little baffled about what is going on with the Wed/Fri guild raids. The change in raid schedules announced in game almost a week ago has not been posted on the guild website. Perhaps everyone interested in raiding already knows, but something from our guild leader or raid leaders would help, in my opinion. I did expect to see a raid sign up for the Wednesday raid, and that might still go up before the raid, but it's only a day away. Folks are busy, I'm sure, but if the ultimate intent is to get back to 25 man raiding, the first place we should start is to make sure there is somewhere for guildies to sign up.

JB had plenty to do so Wild, a bit reluctantly, passed the baton to her.

Zul'Drak is a smallish zone of concrete, ruins, and trolls. Lots and lots of trolls. While the area is the home of the Drakkari ice trolls, numerous other troll tribes have moved in as the Drakkari civilization fades, including the Zandalar and Winterfall tribes. The horde camps in Zul'Drak are more like open, armed bunkers. Even Light's Breach, the largest of several camps, has the look of hastily constructed, incomplete fortifications and insufficient troops.

It was a war zone, and JB flew into the middle of it, landing at Light's Breach and immediately handed multiple assignments by harried officers. The best that could be said of the area is that it was small, and the quests went quickly, even though the enemy had graduated to level 76 mobs.

If JB was frustrated with the slow pace of progress in Grizzly Hills, she was ecstatic about the speed of advancement at Zul'Drak. In what seemed like no time at all, JB DINGED! to level 78.

JB took a break to head for Orgrimmar, picking up upgrades to her talents and then taking a peek at the Auction House to see what was for sale. A slightly embarrassed JB walked out of there with a lot of bags of goodies under her arms. A new helm, belt, gloves, and bracers soon adorned JB. She'll be avoiding Silvermoon City and Happyface for a few days.

During JB's questing her DPS hovered around 1200; nothing special, but good enough to handle up to those level 75 elites. With a new level and new gear JB figured she should baseline her DPS on the target dummies to help track her progress as she closes in on level 80. One quick point to make about that is JB has not paid much attention to the +hit stat in order to push up her other stats for grinding and questing. But +hit is critical at level 80 if JB intends to get into Heroic dungeons, where all the bosses are level 80+ elites and require a lot of +hit to be able to hit them.

So, JB's testing was on the non-elite level 80 target dummy. For just pure DPS, there are really only three spells involved - Lightning Bolt, Flame Shock, and Lava Burst. The only buff used was Flametongue Weapon, which adds additional spell power. There is no specific spell rotation, but there are rules to go by to get the best DPS. (1) ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have the DoT Flame Shock ticking on the target. (2) Lava Burst EVERY time it comes off cooldown - and make sure Flame Shock is on the target. (3) Lightning Bolt like crazy when Lava Burst is on cooldown. That's pretty much it, when not worrying about moving around, dropping totems, healing, using specials (purge, wind shear, etc) and all the other things that a player has to think about when in a group or a raid.

After a half dozen or so attempts on the dummy, firing on all cylinders until JB ran out of mana, JB posted a best of 1717 DPS. On average, though, she was closer to around 1600 DPS. JB doesn't know how that translates into DPS in a group/raid, but it gives her a baseline for comparison.

JB also watched a level 80 elemental shaman going through the same drill on the level 80 elite dummy, which even at level 78 was ?? to JB. The shammy did a good job of keeping up Flame Shock, and the only other spells he cast were Lava Burst and Lightning Bolt.

Elemental shaman will get one more DPS spell when patch 3.3 comes out. The Fire Nova totem is being changed from a totem to a castable spell. Shaman currently have no true AoE spell, having only Chain Lightning which can hit up to three targets. Fire Nova is a true AoE, with the only restriction being that the shaman must have a fire totem down when casting Fire Nova. JB can' wait.

JB's future plans are to of course get to level 80, but she's started to consider including the Argent Tournament dailies as part of her routine while she can still get xp credit. Reality for JB is that she may not see many dungeons, and the Argent Tournament does offer some nice stuff if JB is willing to put some effort into it.

Monday (5 Oct) - Another One Bites the Dust

Monday (5 Oct) - Another One Bites the Dust

Like Borean Tundra earlier, JB ran into a shortage of quests in Grizzly Hills and had to find what was holding up her progress. Grizzly Hills only requires 75 quest completions to earn the Achievement, but they were getting hard to find. JB had flown all over Grizzly Hills looking for quests and finally had to come back to a small encampment called Granite Springs.

In the Borean Tundra, JB discovered that she was being stymied by a single quest, and it wasn't until she accosted the quest giver Feezix Geartwist and did the problematic mule hunt "Load'er Up!" did the rest of the quests she needed start to appear.

In Grizzly Hills it turned out that her problem was Budd. Budd hides in a small tent at Granite Springs. He uses a frying pan as a weapon. The quest is "Filling The Cages," and like "Load'er Up!" it's fraught with problems in getting a simple task accomplished.

JB was handed a cage when she accepted the quest, and was told to talk to Budd, who would help her accomplish it. The task was simple. Travel to a nearby troll camp. Tell Budd to smack a troll upside the head with his frying pan, then JB would run up to the dazed troll and toss him in the cage. Bring the captured troll back to Granite Springs and collect your reward. Most quests have 10-20 tips in wowhead on how to get them done. This one had 69 tips including a lot of helpful comments like "This quest sucks!"

JB hopped on her flying mount with Budd on her first try at this quest, but Budd promptly returned to his tent and refused that mode of transportation. A romp on her land mount got Budd halfway there and then JB lost sight of him. Yep, JB found him back at camp again. Other players trying to do the quest would lose him when they brought out a pet, or if they aggroed the troll Budd went to wack with the pan, or, well, just about anything will scare him back to camp.

Budd also has very little health, and on JB's third try when she simply tried to walk Budd to the troll camp, Budd nearly died from a single wolf bite. But JB finally managed to get him to the troll camp and they captured their troll.

Completing "Filling The Cages" then opened up a series of additional quests that, frankly, were almost as frustrating as Budd. The quests required several steps - killing mobs in multiple locations to collect vials of various compounds that then had to be combined with other vials and used at multiple locations. The quest information was maddeningly vague, the wowhead tips were full of conflicting information, and for once Questhelper was no help as it insisted on taking JB to the wrong locations.

Finally, though, they were done. Well, almost. JB had completed 74 of 75 quests. The last remaining quest was "Shade of Arugal." Time to go back and get that one done.

JB had beaten three of the four elites for that quest. Only Arugal remained undefeated. JB flew to Bloodmoon Isle and perched at the top of Arugal's tower, settling in on the right hand corner of the open air platform. Arugal held court on the round dais, his numerous disciples kneeling around him. JB's previous troubles with Arugal were the second wave of mobs that spawn. There were a lot more of them than on the first wave, and JB had yet to find a way to survive that attack. So she decided to try and avoid them all together. That was easier said than done, because soon after that second wave spawns, the npc Sasha comes to "help" and will aggro those mobs, causing them to attack and kill her, and then come for JB. Too bad JB couldn't just tell Sasha, "Look, I'd rather you stayed home and let me do this myself!"

From JB's position in the right hand corner she picked off the disciples on the right side of the room, leaving those on the dais stairs to her left alone, as well as any disciples up on the dais that might aggro Arugal if attacked. JB stood at max range, but still within casting distance of Arugal. I'd also set up a special combat bar with each spell that JB was using for this fight in order to accomplish three things - speed up casting, make sure I didn't forget a key spell (like not continuously dropping a grounding totem), and to help JB see the spawning mobs as early as possible.

JB dropped totems and tossed her first Lightning Bolt at Arugal. The two traded spell casts for awhile, with JB healing when needed, and then the first wave of adds spawned. When the adds spawn, Arugal Shields himself and stops casting. He's unhittable when Shielded, so the only targets and the only danger was the spawning mobs. Standing at max range, the theory was that the spawning mobs would not be in aggro range and wouldn't "see" JB.

JB stared hard at the mobs as they materialized on the dais, her itchy trigger finger dying to start taking them out. But she quelled the urge, and to her surprise and relief the mobs just stood there for a few moments, wondering why they had been summoned, and then - just faded away.

Woot! Arugal dropped his Shield and we went back to shooting at each other.

Here is where things get tricky. Technically the first mob spawn is the second phase of the fight, followed by the third phase where Arugal mind controls one of his attackers. Since there is only one attacker, however, he will not use the mind control spell. Still, that makes the phase a bit longer than the others, and JB, caught up in the fight, was a beat slow at seeing the second wave of mobs appear, which is the fourth phase.

There are many more mobs in the second phase, and they crowd the dais closer to JB than the first wave. JB was supposed to step back the instant Arugal cast his Shield, and before the second wave had a chance to target JB. JB hesitated. The mobs charged. JB died. Bummer.

On her second attempt JB watched Arugal and the dais closely during the third phase, not worrying about how much damage she was doing; just staying alive so that she could be sure she could see what Arugal's Shield cast looked like and see the signals that the second wave was coming. She again aggroed the second wave and died. No bummer this time, though, JB saw what she needed to.

On the third attempt JB stepped back at the right moment, and a small army of befuddled disciples milled about uncertainly on the dais.

From the left side Sasha charged up the staircase from the room below, aggroing the kneeling disciples that JB had intentionally left alive at the beginning of the fight. There were only two of them, enough to keep Sasha and her poor DPS going for awhile. She wasn't close enough to aggro the wave of mobs on the dais since she'd been intercepted by the other mobs. The second wave despawned, Arugal dropped his Shield, and JB burned him down.

Another elite bites the dust. And JB got her Achievement for completing 75 of 75 quests in Grizzly Hills. Lean in a little closer, JB wants to whisper something. "Wild only did 54 quests in Grizzly Hills. Tee hee!"

Later on in the day, JB moved into a new zone, the level 74-77 Zul'Drak. JB is 78% of the way to level 78.

Friday/Weekend (2 Oct) - Elites, An Endangered Species?

Friday/Weekend (2 Oct) - Elites, An Endangered Species?

Wild was greatly encouraged by the turn out for the Friday night guild raid. This was our first planned ten man raid since the guild announced that 25 man raids were being put on hiatus. No raid sign up had been established for the Friday raid, and with no DKP at stake for not being around at the raid start time, it was an open question as to how many would be in game. But we had a good turn out. At least 15 raiders showed up, perhaps a few more. It took a little longer than usual to sort out who was here, what classes and roles needed to be filled, make the invites, and, of course, decide where we were going.

The two raid leaders for our 25 man raids were part of the ten man, only they were on alts, since both lead their own ten man teams. Rh was running his druid tank alt, and surveydrood introduced us to his newest level 80, a pally tank. We had four veteran healers available, and all were invited: Wild, P-Jo, the other priest (who's nickname I still have to dig up, but let's call him pH), and a returning resto druid, Mg, who had gone off to do other things for a few months. There were other alts and players with varying levels of gear and experience. We weren't a PUG, exactly, since it was all guild raiders, but it certainly was a different looking kind of raid than we are used to running.

The decision was to head to Ulduar. Most of the raiders had at least some familiarity with at least some of the bosses, so that would give this group a small leg up. We did not set any hard modes, either, going with the normal (and still dangerous enough) mode.

Wild was assigned to a chopper for the first encounter, Flame Leviathon. For normal mode ten man we don't launch raiders onto the top of Levi to kill turrets as the extra damage was not usually necessary to beat this fight. That made the chopper job a bit easier since Wild and the other chopper driver would not be trying to save parachuting raiders tossed from the top of Levi. The choppers had another chore, though (in addition to the normal role of dropping oil slicks in front of Levi), and that was to pick up power canisters and deliver them to demolishers, who used them to fuel their weaponry. P-Jo got to be a siege engine driver for the first time. Rh took the gunner position on her tank, and with Rh's guidance P-Jo quickly learned the controls.

There was a learning curve to the fight, but no serious miss-steps, and Flame Leviathon met it's match, breaking apart when it's health crunched to zero.

We headed to Razorscale next. The priest, pH, asked Wild what the healing assignments would be, and with P-Jo's backing ensured that Wild would again be handling that role. With Lady Hunter's group, I knew all of the regulars and knew the strats we used, and could set healing assignments based on that. With this new group, Wild checked in with the raid leader to make sure we were thinking along the same lines.

Razorscale only needed two healers, and the raid leader asked that the two druids handle the healing so the two priests could go shadowform for the ranged DPS. The two tanks for the evening were both pallies: surveydrood's alt and a very fine pally who often tanked our 25 mans. Wild assigned Mg to Rh's druid, and Wild took surveydrood's alt.

On our first attempt we did pretty well, considering. We wiped, but like many fights, you need to experience it at least once before getting a feel for it. On our second attempt we killed Razorscale.

Razor dropped [Eye of the Broodmother], a trinket with very high crit and a strange ability that stacked additional spell power with each hit or heal. Wild is not a big fan of what I call "gimmick" abilities which require something to happen in order to get the benefit. But when Mg explained that on average the gimmick produced an additional 125 spell power (compare that to Wild's best trinket, which can deliver 111 spell power) and, well, Wild rolled for it.

We are not using DKP for these runs, so items were rolled on and went to the highest roll, with the usual courtesies of class and need. Wild didn't win the roll, but it went to someone who could use it, as did a good bit of the gear won during this raid.

So far so good, so we decided to try the decidedly more difficult Ignis. In 25 man there is only one strategy. Kite Ignis in a square around the chamber while chasing and killing the constructs that spawn using a rather complicated process of catch, burn, douse, and kill. In ten man Wild discovered that there is another strategy that's simpler, but can be used only if there is enough DPS to make it work. We decided to use the simpler strategy, which is a lot easier to learn.

Before we could get to Ignis, however, there was a rather difficult stretch of trash mobs. First is a pair of Molten Giants. They pack a huge AoE wallop and can also Silence. They are separated from each other when the battle starts so that their attacks don't overlap. One giant is pulled to the right, where eight raiders are assembled. This giant will be killed first and, hopefully, quickly. The other giant is pulled to the left by one tank, with one healer with him to keep him alive until the rest of the raid can join in after killing the other one. Wild was healing the tank pulled away from the rest of the raid.

We engaged and Wild set up cautiously halfway around a corner, trying to use line of sight to make sure I didn't get Silenced while still being able to heal the tank. Wild took a couple of hits and started to self-heal with the tank at full health. Wild didn't get off his self-heal as I did not get out of LOS and was caught in a Silence. All I could was stand there as the Giant killed me. Then he finished the job by killing the tank. Bad, bad Wild.

Fortunately, the rest of the raid brought down the first giant right at that moment and were able to pick up and kill the other one.

We moved on to battle more trash mobs on the stairs that spawn huge tornadoes that not only do heavy damage, they toss raiders high in the air. And if you happen to be tossed down the stairs, the fall damage can be fatal. Wild is used to fighting those mobs near the bottom of the stairs, which lowers the chance of dying from fall damage. This group used a strat that pulls the mobs to the top of and away from the stairs. That's fine, unless you happened to be Wild, healing the kiting tank as he rushed up the stairs, mob in tow, and got caught flatfooted by a spawning tornado - and tossed down the stairs. Wild was dead again.

"I'm not usually this squishy," Wild joked weakly as I was getting rezzed for the second time. But Wild's unlucky streak wasn't over, as I would die yet a third time before we got all of the trash mobs cleared. Wild was rezzed again, dusted himself off, and put it all behind him to set up the healing for the Ignis fight.

For Ignis we needed three healers, so P-Jo switched back from shadow to healing. P-Jo would handle raid healing as well as keep raiders alive that were scooped up by Ignis and tossed and simmered in his crotch pot. Wild stayed with healing surveydrood'a alt, who would be chasing the constructs around, and Mg had main tank healing duty.

Using the new (to Wild) Ignis strategy, the entire raid set up in the shallows area of one of the pools. Ignis will not be kited around the room; he'll be tanked standing in the water. Water douses the Scorch that Ignis does. The tricky part is the constructs. They will all come racing to the raid, where the off tank will pick them up. They aren't killed, though, because when killed they explode, delivering a massive AoE to anyone close to them. They are simply tanked. Over time the constructs will become too numerous to contain, and since gnis gains additional damage dealing with every living construct, Ignis has to be killed fast.

It is really an easy strategy, and we felt pretty good when on our first try we got Ignis to 42% before wiping. We tried a second time, but the results were worse than the first. Looking at the level of DPS we were putting out, the raid leaders agreed that we didn't have enough to make this strat work.

For attempt #3 we went with the kiting strategy. Even with the additional complications of that strat and many raiders seeing it for the first time, we still got Ignis to 47% before wiping. The main tank doing the kiting had never done it before. It's tricky getting Ignis to drop his Scorch where WE wanted him to, not where HE wanted to, so there were some badly placed Scorches, but overall the main tank did a remarkable job for his first try at it.

We had him on our 4th try. Ignis is a long fight of attrition, and everyone has to stay focused for the whole fight. The tank was doing the four square kiting, healers were saving every raider tossed into the pot, the construct team (which included Wild) were capturing and killing the constucts, and the DPS kept up a steady barrage of damage on Ignis.

Ignis starts the fight with around 6 million in health. When we got him down to under 500,000 (less than 10% health left) we started getting excited. The fight had gone even longer than usual, though, and we had run out of rezzes for dying raiders, but this monster was going down.

We fought hard, losing raiders stingily, but we started to feel the pressure build. When we hit 100,000 health left we had 8 raiders up and things went very fast from there ...100,000 ... 50,000 ... 25,000 ... 15,000 ... we were down to four raiders, counting Wild ... 10,000 ... three raiders ... 5,000 ... 2 raiders ... 2,500 ... Wild died, leaving only surveydrood's alt, the pally tank ... 1,000 ... surveydrood self-healing and tanking and DPSing at the same time, a truly impressive thing to watch ... 900 ... 800 ... 792 ... surveydrood died.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

We wiped with Ignis' health at 0.01%. One one hundredth of one percent. It was epic, and we were all juiced for the 5th attempt. And we killed him.

Riding the high from the near kill of Ignis and then taking him down, we swept like a tidal wave into XT and downed him on our first try.

Wild did not get any loot, but lots of folks did. It was a great end to the week. Wild is looking forward to next week where hopefully Wild can get into both guild and Lady Hunter raids.

Uh, so what's with the title "Elites, An Endangered Species?"

Thought you might ask that.

JB was already on an elite roll with the defeat of three level 75 elites in the Shade of Arugal quest chain. On Saturday JB was back to deal with another level 75 elite, Ursoc the Bear god, in Grizzly Hills. JB was on the way to that appointment when DER, who was questing in Dragonblight, asked for some additional firepower against his own collection of elites.

"You got it," JB replied, just let me take care of Ursoc first.

JB arrived at Ursoc's den and spoke with Tur Ragepaw, who had offered to help with the fight against Ursoc. What was interesting about this particular task is that not only was Ragepaw a druid, he offered JB his choice of spec: resto, moonkin, or feral tank. Given JB's earlier success against level 75 elites, she asked Ragepaw to go moonkin. "Let's just burn him down," a confident JB told ragepaw.

There is a long path between Ragepaw and Ursoc's den, lined with non-elite bears. That slowed us down as the two made their way to Ursoc. The monster-sized bear came into view, and JB opened the assault. With both JB and Ragepaw delivering the goods, JB expected Ursoc to go down quickly, but concern grew as it became obvious that Ursoc had considerable health and was dying a lot more slowly than JB. Ursoc was also interrupting JB's casts, slowing the damage. JB realized too late that she should have started out slower and let Ragepaw take the brunt of the damage from Ursoc, but it was now too late to shed aggro. JB fought to keep heals up, but it became a losing battle of heal and do insufficient damage or DPS and risk death. JB took the risk, and died.

After rezzing JB conferred with Ragepaw again. Stung by Ursoc shrugging off her DPS, she asked Ragepaw to heal this time. JB felt that two healers (since JB could still heal herself if needed) was better than risk having Ragepaw go down too early as a tank. The combination worked, and Ursoc died. JB was so happy she nearly walked away without completing the last step in the quest, but remembered in time, getting back to the corpse to perform a ritual before the body despawned.

Ursoc's Corpse

Note that a new Ursoc had already spawned by the time JB got back to finish the quest. Good thing Ragepaw was already gone or JB might have ended up fighting Ursoc again.

With JB's work done she headed to Dragonflight to find DER already kiting a huge satyr-like beast with the torso of a man and the body of - an elephant? Also known as Gigantaur. Wanted for "Bein' ugly." JB landed behind the beastman, dropped totems, and then ran out of range of them as she chased after the mob and DER, who was making sure to stay well ahead of the hard hitting mob.

Huffing and puffing to get in range, JB tossed a Flame Shock at the Gigantaur to get his attention and then hastily dropped totems and cast Lava Burst as the mob turned and charged back at JB.

Oww! That thing hits hard! JB was not able to get a rhythm going and was surprised by the amount of damage she was taking. In short order JB went down.

Ok, do over, I wasn't ready for that!

The elite DER was after was one of three DER had found Wanted Posters on. Kill them all, and an even nastier bad guy came into our sights. DER shared the Wanted Poster quests so JB could complete them as well.

When JB was ready the pair went chasing after the elephant man again. This time, with DER constantly in the mob's face, JB was able to pound away, as well as dropping an occasional heal on DER, who held his own quite well. It was no contest and Gigantaur died.

The second criminal was hiding behind several mobs we had to clear first. Magister Keldonus had no where to hide, though, and we took him down. Then, while looking up where to find the third elite, Keldonus respawned on us - so we killed him a second time.

The third elite was a drake that we had to bring down to earth, named Dreadtalon. The drak gave a spirited fight but was squishier than the other two and crumpled quickly.

DER and JB returned to the quest giver to complete the three quests and pick up the final challenge, a level 75 elite frostwyrm. Sarathstra was so deadly it was recommended that he not be attempted with less than five players. We would take him on with two.

At level 72 one would think DER would have trouble tanking the big icy wyrm, but the deathknight has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. Twice JB had to add heals, but other than that DER manhandled and frustrated the elite while JB steadily burned him down. With just two of us it took a little time, but the result was never in doubt. Down he went.

There must be more elites out there that we could take on, but for now they all seem to have gone into hiding. Elites are definitely on the endangered list when DER and JB are around.

Thursday (1 Oct) - Shade of Arugal

Thursday (1 Oct) - Shade of Arugal

As expected there was no Lady Hunter ten man on Thursday night. Wild was the lone member representing the group as 7pm came and went. Hopefully Bd will be able to return next week, and that Lady Hunter finds a computer/network connection that she can use.

So JB got some more game time, although she got off to a slow start. JB has been using an addon aid called Questhelper. It organizes the open and completed quests in JB's quest log and recommends the order in which to do them by streamlining all the back and forths that are part of questing. QH also marks the map with the location of each quest as well. It's a great time saver.

JB was very frustrated with Questhelper, though. The addon seemed stuck on two quests that wanted to send JB to all the wrong places on all the wrong continents. JB spent way too much time trying to "fix" the problem instead of just ignoring the thing and just doing the quests. JB aborted her first questing period, getting from 73% to only 82% of the way to level 77.

Later in the day a restless JB went at it again. I figured out what was wrong with one of the problem quests, completed it so it would go away, and ignored the other one by putting it as the lowest priority among JB's quests.

JB worked more quests in Grizzly Hills, and even picked up a caster DPS ring better than one she had. An actual upgrade! Not major, but still, it meant JB was getting into quests where it was possible the loot could be useful.

Then came the quest "Hour of the Worg." This is the final quest of a nice multi-part quest chain that ultimately took JB to Bloodmoon Isle off the coast of Grizzly Hills. A tall castle-tower sits at the top of the lone hill on the island, looking eerily like the castle dungeon of Shadowfang Keep where Arugal was defeated. At the top of that tower the Shade of Arugal makes his magic and his comeback. Guess the guy likes castles.

There are obstacles set before JB that she must overcome first, however. JB flew to the island, sailing over the non-elite worg mobs along the shore and landing at a small open area to the right of a winding path leading up to the tower. The encampment had what looked like one non-elite and one very elite werewolf named Selas. Elite, as in level 75 elite, just one level below JB. Well, JB had been feasting on those level 72 elites - now it was time to ratchet things up a few notches.

JB pulled and killed the non-elite. Being cautious on the first attempt, JB decided to open with her earth elemental and let it tank the elite while JB dropped totems and started shooting. I sorta thought the elemental pet would stay put until I actually sent it in. Oops, the boulder sized earth elemental charged right into Selas's lap, and died in seconds.

Well, that wasn't good. She also noticed that another non-elite had been hiding behind Selas and had joined the fight, but it didn't survive long enough to matter. JB got her totems down as well as getting off a Flame Shock and a Lava Burst, and them Selas on was her. Added to JB's repertoire were Lightning Bolt, Water Shield, and Lesser healing Wave whenever Lava Burst was unavailable. After a few frantic moments it became clear that JB could out heal the damage being done, and so it was only a matter of time until either Selas died or JB ran out of mana. With Water Shield always up and Selas doing mostly melee damage, JB was not likely to ever run out of mana. It took time, but Selas died.

JB moved up the hill to another encampment, this one occupied by Varlam, a level 75 elite human riding a large, fierce worg (wolf). There were half a dozen non-elites protecting him, but that protection proved useless as JB pulled and killed all of them without aggroing Varlem.

Same strategy, new boss, except this time JB didn't drop her elemental pet until battle was joined. The cooldown on JB's earth elemental was still ticking, so this time she used her fire elemental. Varlem went down faster than Selas, which meant either he wasn't as powerful as Selas or that JB was getting the hang of this. Hopefully the latter, because we were just getting warmed up.

JB moved to the top of hill and took a short flight around to the back, where the stable entrance was located. After killing two non-elites hiding from their foreman, JB faced level 75 elite Goremaw, a huge wolf with teeth as long as JB's arm. More bark than bite, it was another kill.

Three elites down, one to go.

The very top of the tower is open to the sky. A set of stairs opens up from below. Across from the stairs is a round dais raised by a few steps. Shade of Arugal stands toward the back of the dais. His many disciples, and there are quite a few, kneel on the stairs and on the dais itself. JB hadn't bothered to use the stairs, flying up to the top and landing in one rooftop corner near the stairs and well out of aggro range.

A View From the Top

JB commenced killing disciples. JB killed a number of them, but there were still three up when respawns started happening. Well, that's a bit irritating. JB kept at it, speeding up the kills to get ahead of respawns. There were only two disciples left, the two closest to Arugal. JB targeted the one slightly farther away, wondering if hitting it would aggro Arugal. It didn't, and that left just one. JB hit that one, and that got Arugal's attention. The battle was on.

Arugal's main weapon was Shadow Bolt, and he used it constantly. JB had dropped totems and started unleashing her own attack. JB kept up her self-healing, and things were going well.

Arugal Summoned a number of adds, more disciples, only this time in worg form. A couple of human form disciples also had respawned. JB fought them off, trying to keep some damage on Arugal as well, and dropping earth elemental to take some of the pretty serious incoming damage.

With the adds down, as well as JB's elemental, it was one on one again. But not for long. Arugal again Summoned adds, and this time JB did not have an elemental. JB killed most of the adds, but was finally overwhelmed and died with Arugal at 35%.

JB returned for another try. More patient mob killing to clear the room. This time JB knew the nearest disciple would likely aggro Arugal when she hit him, so JB tossed out totems beforehand and was ready when Arugal started shooting. Again, JB made good progress in this first round of the fight, but when the first adds spawned something went haywire. They did not attack, and then despawned - ie, they simply went away. Great luck for JB, right? Nope, because Arugal also reset back to full health and JB was back to square one. The attack resumed, and this time JB got Arugal to 20% health, but still, JB fell under the barrage of adds and the added shadow bolts from Arugal. One other item of note. There are far more adds spawning for the second wave than the first, but JB also got help from a spawning friendly npc named Shara. Obviously she didn't help enough.

Returning for a third attempt, JB noticed that she was 96% of the way to level 77. Killing all those adds at the beginning of each attempt had it's own advantages, pushing JB closer and closer to level 77.

JB also added a new spell to her rotation - Grounding totem. It is included in the set of four that JB drops at the beginning, but doesn't last very long. The totem redirects an incoming spell to itself, destroying the totem in the process but keeping it from hitting JB. It has a 15 second cooldown, and JB vowed to recast it every time the cooldown was up. That would mitigate the damage coming from Arugal at least a little.

With an elemental available, JB again fought Arugal, getting him down to 16% before dying once again. Making progress, but man this guy is tough! JB learned yet another bit of information. After the first wave of adds Arugal has a Mind Control trick, but he only uses it when there are at least two attackers - ie, at least two players attacking Arugal, or a player and pet. Hmm, it was possible that the elemental might have still been alive and could have been mind controlled, and could have been attacking JB instead of fighting the adds. JB has to attack his elemental if that happens, so it is one more thing to look out for. Surprisingly, if JB were to get mind controlled, she would likely kill her elemental, but at the same time the mind control spell also heals JB, so getting mind controlled is actually a good thing, if it's JB. Will have to keep that in mind.

On JB's 4th attempt she aggroed Arugal early when he tricked her by having two disciples close enough to aggro him. JB did not have an elemental available but recovered quickly and improved once again, getting Arugal to 14%. Still no kill, however.

Nearest two Disciples will aggro Arugal

JB returned yet again. This time the mobs stubbornly kept respawning, and there were always at least two hovering so close to Arugal I knew they would aggro Arugal. It was pretty late and JB got careless and short tempered. She chain lightning'ed all three of them, blasted down the adds, and went to work. But the prior battles had taken their toll, and JB fell once again.

It was time to assess the strategy, and come back after this bad boy another time.

Still, three level 75 elites were dead, and JB was confident Arugal would eventually join them. And soon.

After granting Arugal a short stay of execution, JB killed a few non-elites around the castle and DINGED! to level 77. She'll be back.

Wednesday (30 Sep) - So, There's This Dragon Called Onyxia

Wednesday (30 Sep) - So, There's This Dragon Called Onyxia

So, there's this dragon called Onyxia, ever hear of her? Big girl, somewhat nasty disposition, probably because she has waaay too many children. Too many chaperones, too, with all those Black Dragonfight types around. Kinda makes it hard to get a date, ya know?

Well, we got a date with her. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

When Wild logged in at 5:35pm on Wednesday, I was expecting to see a few more than four guildies. But that's how many were on. It's a weekday, though, and many raiders can't get logged in until closer to 6pm. With twenty raiders signed up, we had a chance actually get a 25 man going.

Wild headed out to the Argent Tournament grounds to wait for invites, and then went afk while I watched some of the Tigers-Twins game (which my favored Tigers later won 7-2 to my great relief). What wasn't so great is that at the 6pm invite time we had only 16 raiders to invite, the same 15-17 number we've been stymied at for several raid days now.

Once it was clear we were again going to come up short, the raid leaders asked if we would hang around for a bit for an announcement about changes to our raid schedule. Everybody got on vent.

First off, we were all praised for our attendance and support of the 25 man raids, and acknowledged the frustration we were feeling over not being able to field a full raid. A lot of effort by raid leadership had gone into trying to find enough raiders both within and outside the guild, but for whatever reason interest in the 25 mans was waning and there were few takers.

So raid leadership was proposing a change. The proposal will be posted on the guild website, but they felt that those of us who kept showing up deserved to hear it directly and have a chance to comment.

The proposal is to set 25 man raiding aside - for now. A date will be set, but a period of a few raids or a month were mentioned as the likely timeframe. Replacing the 25 man raid would be a new ten man team with a special purpose.

The guild has two stable ten man teams and two others that are less so, meaning they regularly have trouble filling the raid. Lady Hunter's ten man would have to be put in the "less stable" category right now. The new ten man would be open to all raiders, including alts, and would focus on three primary areas: increasing raider familiarity with the raids in ten man to help us later on with the 25 man version; gearing up mains that need help (which will also help the 25 mans) as well as alts when mains aren't available, and of course, to have some fun and increase guild participation in raiding. The idea is that with attendance on Wed/Fri stuck at around 15-17 raiders, a very good ten man could be formed with the ability rotate raiders in on those two days so that everyone will get a chance to raid. There would be no "regulars" and everyone would get opportunities to participate. Ideally, there would be enough raiders left over each raid day to run a five man and do some chain Heroics or anything else we would want to do. I believe the hope is that this will also serve to increase attendance, perhaps leading to fielding two ten mans on Wed/Fri, and eventually get us back to 25 man raiding.

I like the idea. The actual proposal hasn't been posted yet, so I may not have things exactly right, but I think I've got the basics covered.

There were a few comments from other raiders, all positive. The focus quickly turned to, so what are we doing tonight? After all, we were all here to raid. So let's raid! We began working out who would comprise the night's ten man and discussing where we would be headed.

Wild intends to continue to sign up for the Wed/Fri raids, as well as for Lady Hunter's Tues/Thurs ten man, which I hope will continue. If, due to one raid or the other, Wild gets locked out of another raid, then that'll just have to be the way it is. I'm glad that Lady Hunter get's first crack at Wild since Tuesday comes before Wednesday, and I love that group. But Wild will go with whichever one gets him in a raid. As long as Wild is raiding, I'm happy.

There is also my elemental shaman, JB. She is going to be a level 80 in the not so distant future. Raw, solo questing oriented, with next to no dungeon or raid experience, but she'll be an alt that I'll make available if needed on raids where Wild is locked out. Speaking of which, JB is now 73% of the way to level 77.

It did not take long for us to form up a ten man raid, and those who did not get in on the raid had volunteered not to go. Wild was in. So was P-Jo, Wild's healing partner in Lady Hunter's raid. We also had another priest and another druid who could heal or DPS depending on what was needed. Our 25 man main tank, Rh, was in one of the stable ten mans and could not come, but his alt, a feral druid, came instead since we needed a second tank. The main tank was a mostly full time moonkin who was also a very experienced tank.

Ok, so where are we going? Didn't I say something about a dragon awhile back? The choice was Onyxia's Lair.

Onyxia's Lair was a level 60 classic WoW raid from pre-expansion days. There was a pretty tough attunement for it, for which raiders received the [Drakefire Amulet] which acted as the key to enter the Lair. Wild had that amulet.

The latest patch reintroduced a level 80 version of Onyxia's Lair, with new loot and even some stat upgrades for favored old loot. Neither the attunement or the amulet are required anymore. I guess Wild can throw that amulet away now.

Us oldtimers remember Onyxia, and a few newer raiders have already made forays into the level 80 version. However, most of the raid had never seen this fight. It took me a long time digging through old posts to dredge up the first time Wild faced Onyxia. The SN forums search "feature" is a useless hunk of bad coding.

The first inklings of Wild's interest in Onyxia attunement came at the prodding of the guild leader at the time who patiently and persistently kept Wild on the hook. Wild was already running Molten Core and was just starting on Blackwing Lair, but was still missing the thirty minute Onyxia run that usually started the evening raid because he wasn't attuned. Wild ultimately completed the fourteen quests (and multiple trips into UBRS and LBRS) to get attuned, achieving that milestone on 18 Oct 2006, also known as "the attunement that took one year, seven months, and 26 days" to achieve. Unlike the Karazhan attunement, though, which after it was done Wild went many, many weeks before actually getting into Kara, the Onyxia run came much sooner. On 24 Oct, 2006, just six days after Wild got attuned, Wild happened to be around for an unscheduled guild Onyxia run. Onyxia fell. You could look it up - page 21 in the SN journal pages (although those earlier entries are not yet available on the Wild Family blog).

Now it's October 2009, just shy of three years since Wild's first Ony kill. And here we are, now level 80, and Onyxia is back and feistier than ever.

Once the decision was made to attempt Onyxia, Wild at first drew a complete blank as to how to get there, or even where "there" was. A raider mentioned that the closest flight path was Mudsprocket. Mudsprocket? Wild had never heard of the place. No, no, Wild hadn't forgotten the place, I really had never heard of it.

Since we were all hearthing back to Dalaran first, where there are portals to the major cities on the other continents, Thunder Bluff was named as the city to head for first. Things then started to come back to Wild. Onyxia's Lair was in Dustwallow Marsh. The horde town there was Brackenwall Village, which in Wild's day was the jumping off point for the ride to the Lair, through mid-forties level mobs, many of which were elite and could drag down even a level 60 that aggroed too many.

All of that has changed, though, mostly from patch 2.3 many moons ago which hastened the level 20-60 levelling process by dumbing down quests, adding more quests, turning elites into non-elites, etc. Part of that patch added the new quest hub of Mudsprocket, a neutral town available to both horde and alliance located closer to Onyxia's Lair than any other town.

Wild bypassed having to locate Musprocket by getting a Summons directly to Onyxia's Lair. The sight brought back memories. The area around the cave entrance was still full of mid-40s level dragons, but they were all now non-elites and terrified of the packs of level 80s that came and went, occasionally one shotting a few of the mobs just for sport. There were also the pvp flagged alliance hanging around trying to start a war, and sometimes succeeding.

Wild trotted up the familiar U-shaped rock ramp to the closed gate. Wild tried to open it - Yes! Wild still had the touch. The gate opened and Wild entered. Wild needed a moment to adjust his eyesight to the deep blue and black gloom of the interior. Wild recalled that there was a shortcut to the spot where we assembled, but would have missed it if I hadn't seen a couple of raiders already there. Wild made an abrupt right turn, stepped up on a rock ledge, and jumped down to the rally point.

The raid began to get itself together. We had five possible healers with us. So who is going to be the healing leader? the raid leader asked. None of the healers who held that job in the 25 mans were with us. None of us spoke up right away. We were a shy bunch. There was a senior priest in the group that Wild hoped would raise a hand, but when that didn't happen Wild started typing that he would take it. I didn't get to send it, though, as two chat messages hit the raid at the same time ahead of Wild. One, from P-Jo, nominated Wild to be healing leader. That got a smile from Wild. The second came from the raid leader, and he assigned that role to Wild.

Ok, ok, I got it, I was going to volunteer anyway. Eventually. Wild set up the healing assignments, initially using four healers as that's what I thought I'd heard. Wild then corrected that when I learned that the senior priest (whose tag I cannot recall at the moment - we have so many priests!) had switched spec to shadow for the ranged/magic DPS and raid buffs. We fought our way through a winding tunnel peppered with mobs without any trouble, and arrived at the only boss, Onyxia. Wild assigned himself to main tank healing. I assigned the other druid to off tank healing and P-Jo to raid heal and back up the tank healers. I could have gone the other way, but there is a lot of raid damage on this fight and I knew P-Jo could handle both raid and backup tank healing.

Onyxia's Lair is a slightly egg shaped chamber. We entered from the southern tip, with Onyxia resting at the north end. On each side (east and west sides of the room) is a side chamber full of eggs.

The druid main tank counted down the start: 3 . . . 2 . . . 1, then cast a lifebloom on himself before shifting into bear form as he moved across the room to Onyxia. Wild followed the tank, dropping a rejuv and a stack of lifeblooms as we ran. With only the main tank to heal on this first phase, P-Jo covered for Wild when the tank took the first big hit from Onyxia, getting a big fast heal to the tank to supplement Wild's Hots. By then we were in position and Wild could use longer cast spells as well as his HoTs. Positioning was important, and the raid took damage as raiders learned where NOT to stand. Onyxia has a deadly tail sweep if you are too close behind her, a nasty cleave if you stand toward her front on either side, and a frontal flame breath which only the tank should have to absorb. The tank also had to survive wing buffet, which knocks the tank back, which is why he stands with his back against a wall.

We wiped on our first try, but now everyone had seen how the first phase unfolded.

On our second attempt we were able to beat Onyxia down to 65%, at which point she took to the air. Ranged DPS could still target and attack, and even the melee could hit her by standing directly underneath. When she took off the raid sort of scattered about the room, which wasn't exactly what we should have been doing. Wild followed the main tank, who had switched targets to an incoming Lair Guard. They spawn in pairs and they hit hard. Wild was healing the main tank on one of the lair gaurds when the room flooded with whelps, forty flying baby dragons that instantly took after the healers. The off tank worked frantically to round them up so that they could be AoEed. We survived the first wave lair of guards and whelps, but not the second, wiping again, with Onyxia at 59%.

We went at Onyxia again and again, making progress on nearly every attempt, and learning a bit more about the fight as well. We had struggled with the initial positioning, but now had that down. We had problems with the whelps wiping out the healers, and adjusted to a "retreat to center" strategy when they spawned so it was easier for the off tank to coral them and the AoE to kill them before the healers went down.

We made six attempts, all wipes. The problem was too many targets and not enough DPS. The whelps had to be focused on. Then there was the lair guards, which could not be allowed to roam free. And there was still Onyxia, who would stay in the air and send lair guards and whelps at us over and over again until we battered her back down to earth by getting her health down to 40%.

We had two problems. Our DPS was stretched too thin. And we had also not figured out how to survive Deep Breath. More on that to follow.

By the third attempt the raid leader knew we weren't getting enough DPS on Onyxia, and asked Wild whether we could manage with two healers. One less healer added significant risk, particularly of losing a tank. The second druid healer needed help on the off tank when those whelps came flitting in. I told the raid leader we needed three healers.

After the sixth wipe I knew we needed to try another approach. Wild reopened the healer question and told the raid leader I wanted to try it with two healers. The third healer, the druid, would switch to his moonkin main spec and Wild and P-Jo would handle all of the healing. Wild and P-Jo are used to healing as a team. P-Jo took over as off tank healer. I knew she'd also drop heals on the main tank if he took a big hit, and she knew that I'd be keeping Hots on the off tank. We looked out for each other. With enough extra DPS on Onyxia, maybe we could get her out of the sky and into phase three before things fell apart.

We engaged again. And again. And again. We were still making progress, with only a 3couple of misfires which drew laughs rather than groans. Melee got caught in a Blast Nova from lair guards which prematurely wiped us on one attempt. Wild found himself mysteriously attacked on another attempt. I was so befuddled at what could be hitting me when only Onyxia was present that I missed a heal right when the tank got flame buffeted, bounced off the wall from the knockback, and died. Clawing through the combat log after the wipe, Wild discovered that he had gotten too close to Onyxia and had been Cleaved. Not just once, but several times.

P-Jo had given Wild a gerbil at the beginning of the run (don't ask) and when I mentioned in raid chat the mysterious damage, P-Jo immediately announced that "It's the gerbil!" I think we might have wiped just from laughing so hard.

The real nemesis, though, was Deep Breath. While in flight Onyxia uses this attack over and over. There is a short warning. Anyone caught by that Breath dies. There were two ways to avoid it - get yourself up next to the nearest wall before she cast it, or find out which direction she is facing and get on one side of her, away from both head and tail. Sooner or later one or more of us would get hit with it, and we could not get out of the second phase.

We made seven attempts using the two healer approach, which was the right number of healers. We had the DPS to do it, too, but just couldn't get down how to manage the Deep Breaths.

After 13 total attempts on Onyxia, the trash mobs that lined the tunnel to Onyxia respawned, and we called it a night.

I'd rate the night a great success, though. Not only did we tackle a newly reinvented encounter, we did it in the new spirit of our ten man strategy of learn and improve.

Wild doesn't know if there will be a Lady Hunter raid Thursday night, but I'll be there just in case. I'm not locked to either Ulduar or ToC, or even VoA, for that matter. Wild also plans to be in game for the Friday raid as well. Wild may or may not end up in that raid, depending on who is there and what we're doing, but that will be fine either way. At least we're raiding again.

Tuesday (29 Sep) - JB Still Has The Stage

Tuesday (29 Sep) - JB Still Has The Stage

Note:Forgot to post this yesterday. Wednesday's post will follow. :-)

The two raid leaders for our ten man group are still out and it appears that there will be no raiding on Tues/Thurs until that changes. Wild and P-Jo were the only two to show up. Wild did his dailies and hung around until around 7:30pm, when JB took over.

Things are looking a little better for the Wednesday 25 man. There are 20 sign ups, with six confirmed healers and two DPS who could heal if needed. That's still five short, but it's better than being 9-10 short, which has been the norm for the past couple weeks.

JB tossed a three sided coin and it came up Grizzly Hills as her next destination, a level 73-75 zone of heavy forests, lakes and streams. JB had also considered the lower level zones of Howling Fjord and Dragonblight, but elected to skip over them in the hopes of getting more useful quest rewards.

So far, with 20 quests completed in Grizzly Hills, JB has been tantalized with quests rewards "almost" good enough to keep, but the gear still gets trumped by the Auction House blues that JB has been quick to snap up. JB has not been slowed at all by the higher level mobs she is now facing. Where that will get important is when the quests involving elites turn up.

No really exciting quests so far, although JB did save a hunter's life. We were both up on a snow swept mountain battling robot defenders. JB had completed her current quest and had taken flight to move on to the next quest when the sounds of frantic combat could be heard below her. Swooping down, JB saw a level 73 hunter with an ape pet out. The tanking pet must have not held aggro because two elementals were sending slashing attacks into the hunter's face as he tried to get some range to use his bow. It wasn't working, though, and the hunter's health fell below 20% as JB landed behind the elementals.

JB cast two heals on the hunter, which did not draw enough aggro to pull the elementals off of the hunter. The elementals are immune to JB's Lightning Bolt, so it was Flame Shock plus Lava Burst. That outright killed one of the elementals and the other went down under the hunter's renewed attack immediately afterward. JB got a very sincere Thank You! from the hunter, and then went on her way.

JB is now 43% of the way to level 77.

One interesting side note is the ongoing comparison JB is going to make between her and Wild on how many quests each complete in the Northrend zones. Wild has only passing interest in Achievements, so the number of quests means nothing to him - but JB intends to rag on him about it anyway.

For Borean Tundra, JB completed all 150 of 150 quests - Wild completed 86.