Monday - (12 Sep) The Ole Switcheroo
The Mf led and new, full on Firelands raid started on Monday night - well now, hold there pardner ... About ten minutes before invites were scheduled to go out, the raid leader whispered Wild: "We are going to run BWD tonight to help a feral druid guildie get some healing gear. Cool w/that?"
Hmm, personally, not really, Wild was thinking, but heck, Wild is the only raiding resto druid in the guild, at least until Bd can buy another game card. Wouldn't hurt to grow another. But don't expect Wild to pass on resto druid gear if it happens to be a helm. Wild said Ok. At least we'll down a few bosses and Wild will pick up some valor points. Once we zoned in Wild realized that Mf had saved the raid from last week. Ok so no farming the first three bosses, we were starting with Boss #4, Chimaeron. Still a good thing, since Wild wants a helm and the last two bosses, Atramedes and Nefarian, might drop one.
The night was typical of our raids. Lots of time sinks when not a lot got done. We seemed to have entered a "klutz" phase with raiders not paying close attention to where they were going. We wiped four times during the course of the evening on TRASH, simply because raiders weren't watching where they were going. It's not like those mobs were hiding from us or jumping out from behind pillars or something. They are clearly visible and patrol very well worn paths. After awhile it got kind of funny, in a "what else can ya do but laugh" kind of way. Anyway, we killed two bosses, Chimaeron and Atramedes, on six total attempts. And no, Atramedes did not drop a helm. We had more than a half hour to tackle Nefarian, but several raiders had not seen this fight yet. They were sent off to watch the ten minute video of the fight, and when that was done there was a ten minute explanation of the fight. Then another few minutes re-explaining tactics to raiders who HAD seen the fight but still had questions. With five minutes left of our raid time, we made one attempt that failed in the first phase and we then went home.
The raid leader thanked everyone for coming, congratulated us on getting two bosses down, and was glad some more raiders got to see the Nefarian fight. I'm glad I'm not a raid leader.
Wild did have some fun whispering with our pally healer, and we kept up a conversation about healing, and Firelands, and whatever else came to mind. She was a pretty deadly warlock back when we first started raiding together, but she likes healing and once she switched to her pally she's stayed with it.
Speaking of the Firelands, Blizzard has announced that the Nerf Stick is going to start hitting the Firelands on 19 Sep. They are looking at Patch 4.3 (which will come with three more five man raids, I think) arriving perhaps in November, so they are looking to get more players a chance at Ragnaros. They will be nerfing both normal and Heroic modes, so those who want credit for an un-nerfed Heroic Rag kill had better get busy.
Even Wild is disappointed at the nerf news. It's possible Wild's guild will not even have one Firelands boss down before the first nerf. That would make Wild a sad cow.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Weekend (11 Sep) - All Quiet and Boring
Weekend (11 Sep) - All Quiet and Boring
The weekend was a big yawn in the WoW world. Happy and Lost, of course, kept up with the Auction Houses. Bean wanted more freedom. Judi plays Bean on the second computer in my room, but she also wanted to be able to play when she wanted to on her own computer in her room. WoW is now locked and loaded on her own computer. That way Bean can practice without Shevils looking over her shoulder.
BB got in a few Battlegrounds over the weekend. There was no Call to Arms BG to focus on, so BB just did randoms. They were mostly wins, in Warsong Gulch, Aterac Valley, Arathi Basin, and Eye of the Storm. BB kinda knows what she is doing, now, but she still dies a lot. Rogues with Fan of Knives do her in all the time. BB dinged to level 63 and now has over 1500 honor. She's not leveling at Eowyn speed but she's making steady progress. BB has also kept working on her two professions, Inscription and Herbalism.
Monday night is the debut of Mf's Firelands raid with the focus on the Bosses instead of rep grinding the trash mobs. As of Monday morning only six guildies have signed up for the raid.
Addendum - Part of the process of getting Bean ready to go on Judi's computer was working it out so that we both didn't try to use the same account at the same time. When an account is logged into, it will automatically close an account already active. Bean lives on Wild's account, and it wouldn't be good if in the middle of a Boss encounter Wild found himself bounced off the server by Bean.
Why does Bean live on Wild's account? I had an answer for that somewhere, but it escapes me. It was long ago. Can't be changed now, without some effort and expense, since Shevils - and Jocy - would also have to move if Bean moved. So, if Wild (or anyone in Wild's account) was in game, and Judi wanted to play, she couldn't play Bean, but she could login to Happy's account and play Chaitee. Remember Chaitee? She's a level 21 alliance hunter. The poor girl has really been neglected, too. Do you know what I found in her bags? Ammo. How long has it been since ammo went out of use? She was also stripped of all her heirloom gear, so there was some emergency rations and AH buys to get her to a survivable state. She's in decent shape, now, except for a really terrible bow that I can't fix at this moment. Shevils will certainly lend her heirloom gear when she wants, though. Provided Shevils isn't using it at the moment.
The weekend was a big yawn in the WoW world. Happy and Lost, of course, kept up with the Auction Houses. Bean wanted more freedom. Judi plays Bean on the second computer in my room, but she also wanted to be able to play when she wanted to on her own computer in her room. WoW is now locked and loaded on her own computer. That way Bean can practice without Shevils looking over her shoulder.
BB got in a few Battlegrounds over the weekend. There was no Call to Arms BG to focus on, so BB just did randoms. They were mostly wins, in Warsong Gulch, Aterac Valley, Arathi Basin, and Eye of the Storm. BB kinda knows what she is doing, now, but she still dies a lot. Rogues with Fan of Knives do her in all the time. BB dinged to level 63 and now has over 1500 honor. She's not leveling at Eowyn speed but she's making steady progress. BB has also kept working on her two professions, Inscription and Herbalism.
Monday night is the debut of Mf's Firelands raid with the focus on the Bosses instead of rep grinding the trash mobs. As of Monday morning only six guildies have signed up for the raid.
Addendum - Part of the process of getting Bean ready to go on Judi's computer was working it out so that we both didn't try to use the same account at the same time. When an account is logged into, it will automatically close an account already active. Bean lives on Wild's account, and it wouldn't be good if in the middle of a Boss encounter Wild found himself bounced off the server by Bean.
Why does Bean live on Wild's account? I had an answer for that somewhere, but it escapes me. It was long ago. Can't be changed now, without some effort and expense, since Shevils - and Jocy - would also have to move if Bean moved. So, if Wild (or anyone in Wild's account) was in game, and Judi wanted to play, she couldn't play Bean, but she could login to Happy's account and play Chaitee. Remember Chaitee? She's a level 21 alliance hunter. The poor girl has really been neglected, too. Do you know what I found in her bags? Ammo. How long has it been since ammo went out of use? She was also stripped of all her heirloom gear, so there was some emergency rations and AH buys to get her to a survivable state. She's in decent shape, now, except for a really terrible bow that I can't fix at this moment. Shevils will certainly lend her heirloom gear when she wants, though. Provided Shevils isn't using it at the moment.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Wednesday (7 Sep) - A General AH Malaise
Wednesday (7 Sep) - A General AH Malaise
Hunter Fortress was (sort of) out in force on Wednesday night. Bean and Shevils missed an opportunity to run with Speak and See at an earlier starting time than usual (we blame the internetz for not getting the word), but fate conspired against us all being in a battlegroup at the same time. The four of us did start a Warsong Gulch BG shortly after all of us got in game, but poor Shevils and Bean experienced Disconnects (like what had happened with Wild earlier in the week) soon after getting into the BG. Bean recovered and rejoined the BG, but Shevils was knocked totally out of the BG and had to sit it out.
Speak had to leave soon after, but the three of us gamely jumped into an Alterac Valley battle. It started well, but again we were DCed, and again Shevils found herself back in Orgrimmar and not in Alterac Valley. See had to leave after that truncated fight.
Bean and Shevils got in two more WSGs where luckily there were no DC's, and we won one of them.
I believe the DC problem is the heat wave we are having out here right now. We've had all time record temps up to 97 degrees (compared to our usual pleasant low 70s) with much higher humidity than typical due to some sparse showers that have hung around (our first "rain" since February, I think). I think the heat is causing problems either with our internet connection itself or with our router. We don't have A/C, and it's HOT with that temp and with two computers running.
There is no raid scheduled for Thursday night. Wild finally learned what happened with our Thurs/Fri raid leader, Bd. Bd is having some real life issues and when his WoW game card expired he decided not to get another. He recently passed along word that he will probably be out of action for another month. Wild is going to start signing up for Mf's Mon/Tues raid hoping to get with them on a regular basis instead of as a fill in. They plan to work on the Firelands full time. Lady Hunter's group on Tues/Wed has decided to start running Heroic BWD. Maybe Heroic raids are a better plan than Firelands - the Heroic gear is i372 vs the Firelands i378, and both are better than some of the gear Wild has now. I love progression, though, and I'd rather Wild be learning the Firelands encounters than plodding through BWD in Heroic mode at the meandering pace of Lady Hunter's raid. But that might change if we discover that we simply aren't ready for Firelands.
The Horde AH is going through an interesting cycle the past few days. There has been some massive dumping of stuff at crazy low prices. It started with just a few sellers, but it has taken on a life of it's own. This happens periodically, but I don't recall it ever being this large or last this long. Happy was in heaven at first, buying and buying and buying. But there's a limit even for Happy, and he began sitting out some of the sell offs to take stock and to see if prices would continue to drop.
Happy has spent more than 10% of all his gold on mats he hopes will eventually be worth selling. He has had to pass a lot of that stock to other family members as Happy has no room for it all. Some items are practically worthless right now and Happy is reluctant to keep buying up that stuff, but then he thinks about Dream Shards.
Not too long ago dream shards were a junk item. Prior to that, Happy typically sold them at 5g apiece or better, and sales were good. Prices kept dropping, though, and Happy kept buying until things reached a point where Happy couldn't sell any of it back. Happy stopped buying when prices dropped below 50 silver each with no end in sight. A little more than a week ago, though, dream shard prices started going up. Happy sold out his stock too fast, and now you can almost name your price on dream shards, they are so hard to come by and at high demand. Lost opportunity. So, Happy keeps buying, and we'll see how that all turns out.
By the way, the Alliance AH has not gone through that, at least not yet. That AH has it's own peculiarities, but so far Lost hasn't seen the kind of dumping that happened and is still happening on the Horde AH.
Hunter Fortress was (sort of) out in force on Wednesday night. Bean and Shevils missed an opportunity to run with Speak and See at an earlier starting time than usual (we blame the internetz for not getting the word), but fate conspired against us all being in a battlegroup at the same time. The four of us did start a Warsong Gulch BG shortly after all of us got in game, but poor Shevils and Bean experienced Disconnects (like what had happened with Wild earlier in the week) soon after getting into the BG. Bean recovered and rejoined the BG, but Shevils was knocked totally out of the BG and had to sit it out.
Speak had to leave soon after, but the three of us gamely jumped into an Alterac Valley battle. It started well, but again we were DCed, and again Shevils found herself back in Orgrimmar and not in Alterac Valley. See had to leave after that truncated fight.
Bean and Shevils got in two more WSGs where luckily there were no DC's, and we won one of them.
Our one success of the night
I believe the DC problem is the heat wave we are having out here right now. We've had all time record temps up to 97 degrees (compared to our usual pleasant low 70s) with much higher humidity than typical due to some sparse showers that have hung around (our first "rain" since February, I think). I think the heat is causing problems either with our internet connection itself or with our router. We don't have A/C, and it's HOT with that temp and with two computers running.
There is no raid scheduled for Thursday night. Wild finally learned what happened with our Thurs/Fri raid leader, Bd. Bd is having some real life issues and when his WoW game card expired he decided not to get another. He recently passed along word that he will probably be out of action for another month. Wild is going to start signing up for Mf's Mon/Tues raid hoping to get with them on a regular basis instead of as a fill in. They plan to work on the Firelands full time. Lady Hunter's group on Tues/Wed has decided to start running Heroic BWD. Maybe Heroic raids are a better plan than Firelands - the Heroic gear is i372 vs the Firelands i378, and both are better than some of the gear Wild has now. I love progression, though, and I'd rather Wild be learning the Firelands encounters than plodding through BWD in Heroic mode at the meandering pace of Lady Hunter's raid. But that might change if we discover that we simply aren't ready for Firelands.
The Horde AH is going through an interesting cycle the past few days. There has been some massive dumping of stuff at crazy low prices. It started with just a few sellers, but it has taken on a life of it's own. This happens periodically, but I don't recall it ever being this large or last this long. Happy was in heaven at first, buying and buying and buying. But there's a limit even for Happy, and he began sitting out some of the sell offs to take stock and to see if prices would continue to drop.
Happy has spent more than 10% of all his gold on mats he hopes will eventually be worth selling. He has had to pass a lot of that stock to other family members as Happy has no room for it all. Some items are practically worthless right now and Happy is reluctant to keep buying up that stuff, but then he thinks about Dream Shards.
Not too long ago dream shards were a junk item. Prior to that, Happy typically sold them at 5g apiece or better, and sales were good. Prices kept dropping, though, and Happy kept buying until things reached a point where Happy couldn't sell any of it back. Happy stopped buying when prices dropped below 50 silver each with no end in sight. A little more than a week ago, though, dream shard prices started going up. Happy sold out his stock too fast, and now you can almost name your price on dream shards, they are so hard to come by and at high demand. Lost opportunity. So, Happy keeps buying, and we'll see how that all turns out.
By the way, the Alliance AH has not gone through that, at least not yet. That AH has it's own peculiarities, but so far Lost hasn't seen the kind of dumping that happened and is still happening on the Horde AH.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday (6 Sep) - BWD 25
Tuesday (6 Sep) - BWD 25
On Tuesday night we ran our second 25 man guild raid. This is a monthly venture for one night only. The guild doesn't have enough interest in 25 man raiding to do it any more often than that. We had 24 guildies signed up for the raid, which was to get underway at 6:30pm.
Invites were started at 6:30pm by Lady Hunter, who set aside her weekly 10 man raid to run it. Thirteen guildies were in game on time. Things looked a little better at 7pm, with 20 spots filled. We had our two tanks and plenty of healers with 7, so all we needed was 5 more DPS. Four of those spots were filled by friends from another guild. The final spot was filled by a guildie who had signed up for the raid, but showed up at 7:15pm asking "Anything going on tonight?" He'd forgotten all about it, but he got his invite and we were ready to go. Of the 24 that had signed up originally, only 18 showed up.
Even so, by the time we were actually in front of Magmaw, the first boss in BWD, we were down to 22 raiders with two having DC problems and a third - who knows where. We killed Magmaw with the 22 raiders we had.
We moved like molasses in winter, though. It was 7:50pm before we were in front of the second boss, 80 minutes after our supposed start time and with only one boss down. Note that the second boss (Omnotron) is just across the corridor from the first boss, and we had killed the small number of trash mobs in the way while loot was being distributed from Magmaw. When we did finally engage the robots of Omnotron they went down as well.
There was more waiting around in between the second and third boss, Maloriak. We cleared some trash, we stood around, and time passed. Once we eventually engaged, it took us two tries to take down the dragon. During the first engagement Wild was DCed (disconnected from WoW). It actually happened right before the pull. Wild had just cast his Mark of the Wild buff on the raid, but nothing seemed to happen. Thinking I might have miss-clicked, Wild tried again, and again no buff appeared. I had time to say "oh crap!" when Wild dropped out of the game. I relogged quickly, but once back in game my raid screen was blank. Wild had nothing to clicky clicky on to heal anyone. Wild sent a quick chat to the raid that I was having a UI problem and not to start. Luckily, I caught the tank before the pull and they waited on Wild. I was the main tank healer, after all.
It happened again in the middle of the Maloriak first attempt. Wild was healing away, keeping his tank safe and warm, when Wild DCed. Again, I relogged quickly, but again I had no raid screen. Healing without a raid screen was hell. Wild could heal himself but healing others was something of a crapshoot. In the press of combat, in the frustration of losing my raid screen, with 25 raiders running about in a confined space, and all kinds of lights and explosions and movement going on, Wild could not find his tank. In the end Wild died and so did his tank and we wiped.
Wild apologized to his tank afterward, but the tank was more annoyed with the other healers. Wild had let the raid know twice that he was having UI troubles and the backup healers needed to take care of the main tank. With 7 healers and the first priority being the main tank, that should have happened instantly. The tank told Wild that once Wild DCed he got almost no healing. Very sad and frustrating.
We did kill Maloriak on our second attempt and Wild didn't have any further DC problems, but what a mess.
We moved on to Chimareon, made two attempts, both failures, and ran out of time.
Just doing a 25 man raid has to be counted a success, and Lady Hunter reminded us that the last time we did this we downed only two bosses - so three bosses down was an improvement. Of sorts.
We had nine loot drops, seven of which went to upgrade raider gear. On that basis alone we should be doing 25 man more often. But the guild has no stomach for it. If Wild sounds a little frustrated, he is. I really didn't think we'd actually clear BWD in one night (although honestly we are certainly capable of it), but I did think we would get to Atramedes and get Wild a chance at a helm. Not even close.
Here's the numbers on the night as well:
Healing
#1: Wild, 9924 hps, 22.2% of all healing (even with two DC's)
#2: shaman #1, 10321/16.6%
#3: shaman #2, 8793/8.9%
#4: shaman #3, 8556/8.1%
#5: pally, 7933/7.9%
#6: priest, 8070/7.7%
#7: shaman #4, 8757/7.5%
The DPS
17k+ 2 raiders
16k+ 2 raiders
15k+ 2 raiders
14k+ 2 raiders
13k+ 3 raiders
12k+ 5 raiders
The Wild Family is really looking forward to some entertainment and relaxation with Hunter Fortress Wednesday night.
On Tuesday night we ran our second 25 man guild raid. This is a monthly venture for one night only. The guild doesn't have enough interest in 25 man raiding to do it any more often than that. We had 24 guildies signed up for the raid, which was to get underway at 6:30pm.
Invites were started at 6:30pm by Lady Hunter, who set aside her weekly 10 man raid to run it. Thirteen guildies were in game on time. Things looked a little better at 7pm, with 20 spots filled. We had our two tanks and plenty of healers with 7, so all we needed was 5 more DPS. Four of those spots were filled by friends from another guild. The final spot was filled by a guildie who had signed up for the raid, but showed up at 7:15pm asking "Anything going on tonight?" He'd forgotten all about it, but he got his invite and we were ready to go. Of the 24 that had signed up originally, only 18 showed up.
Even so, by the time we were actually in front of Magmaw, the first boss in BWD, we were down to 22 raiders with two having DC problems and a third - who knows where. We killed Magmaw with the 22 raiders we had.
We moved like molasses in winter, though. It was 7:50pm before we were in front of the second boss, 80 minutes after our supposed start time and with only one boss down. Note that the second boss (Omnotron) is just across the corridor from the first boss, and we had killed the small number of trash mobs in the way while loot was being distributed from Magmaw. When we did finally engage the robots of Omnotron they went down as well.
There was more waiting around in between the second and third boss, Maloriak. We cleared some trash, we stood around, and time passed. Once we eventually engaged, it took us two tries to take down the dragon. During the first engagement Wild was DCed (disconnected from WoW). It actually happened right before the pull. Wild had just cast his Mark of the Wild buff on the raid, but nothing seemed to happen. Thinking I might have miss-clicked, Wild tried again, and again no buff appeared. I had time to say "oh crap!" when Wild dropped out of the game. I relogged quickly, but once back in game my raid screen was blank. Wild had nothing to clicky clicky on to heal anyone. Wild sent a quick chat to the raid that I was having a UI problem and not to start. Luckily, I caught the tank before the pull and they waited on Wild. I was the main tank healer, after all.
It happened again in the middle of the Maloriak first attempt. Wild was healing away, keeping his tank safe and warm, when Wild DCed. Again, I relogged quickly, but again I had no raid screen. Healing without a raid screen was hell. Wild could heal himself but healing others was something of a crapshoot. In the press of combat, in the frustration of losing my raid screen, with 25 raiders running about in a confined space, and all kinds of lights and explosions and movement going on, Wild could not find his tank. In the end Wild died and so did his tank and we wiped.
Wild apologized to his tank afterward, but the tank was more annoyed with the other healers. Wild had let the raid know twice that he was having UI troubles and the backup healers needed to take care of the main tank. With 7 healers and the first priority being the main tank, that should have happened instantly. The tank told Wild that once Wild DCed he got almost no healing. Very sad and frustrating.
We did kill Maloriak on our second attempt and Wild didn't have any further DC problems, but what a mess.
We moved on to Chimareon, made two attempts, both failures, and ran out of time.
Just doing a 25 man raid has to be counted a success, and Lady Hunter reminded us that the last time we did this we downed only two bosses - so three bosses down was an improvement. Of sorts.
We had nine loot drops, seven of which went to upgrade raider gear. On that basis alone we should be doing 25 man more often. But the guild has no stomach for it. If Wild sounds a little frustrated, he is. I really didn't think we'd actually clear BWD in one night (although honestly we are certainly capable of it), but I did think we would get to Atramedes and get Wild a chance at a helm. Not even close.
Here's the numbers on the night as well:
Healing
#1: Wild, 9924 hps, 22.2% of all healing (even with two DC's)
#2: shaman #1, 10321/16.6%
#3: shaman #2, 8793/8.9%
#4: shaman #3, 8556/8.1%
#5: pally, 7933/7.9%
#6: priest, 8070/7.7%
#7: shaman #4, 8757/7.5%
The DPS
17k+ 2 raiders
16k+ 2 raiders
15k+ 2 raiders
14k+ 2 raiders
13k+ 3 raiders
12k+ 5 raiders
The Wild Family is really looking forward to some entertainment and relaxation with Hunter Fortress Wednesday night.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Monday (5 Sep) - Raid Group Eenie Meanie Minie Mo
Monday (5 Sep) - Raid Group Eenie Meanie Minie Mo
Now that the guild's various raid groups have cleared all of Bastion of Twilight (BoT) and Blackwing Descent (BWD) they seem to have entered a twilight zone where no one knows what to do next. For Wild, it would seem to make sense to combine the three groups into two groups, which should curtail the endless waiting around to fill a raid each night, and establish a regular group where we are not always having to explain things to newcomers. I honestly don't think anyone would be left out, either, since a fair number of our raiders raid with two toons. I doubt if we have any more than 25 guildies total who raid.
Of course, that won't happen, because we have three people who want to run raids and a group of guildies who can't agree to or commit to specific days of the week to raid.
Wild's regular group (using the word "regular" very loosely here) is run by Bd, who is having real life interference again. I love Bd. He's the best raid leader I've ever raided with. However, since Cho'gall went down he has simply not been around. There is no sign up for the Thurs/Fri raid, and raiders are going to make other plans if he or his secondary don't get the raid on the schedule and state where it is headed.
Wild wasn't really expecting to raid Monday night, and didn't even get in game until close to 6:30pm. Mf's Mon/Tues raid starts at 6pm. But they were still short on raiders and asked Wild to come along, which I was happy to do. They had saved their BWD raid from last week, and they were starting on the fourth boss. More on the raid below. The issue, though, is that Mf's raid had been looking the most stable, but now seems to be having attendance trouble again. It's troubling. Mf announced after the Monday raid that starting next week they will be raiding full time in Firelands. Wild is strongly considering asking Mf if Wild could become a regular with his raid. The Firelands is where Wild wants to be.
Lady Hunter's raid group is slightly more stable, although her raid nights are Tues/Wed which would butt up against Hunter Fortress. She has been considering Thrones as her raid target, since the guild hasn't bothered to kill the final boss in Thrones, Al'akir. Wild would be up for that, but so far that has only been talk.
In fact, tonight's raid is going to be our monthly 25 man raid in BWD. Wild is really looking forward to it. Twenty guildies have signed up, and there will almost certainly be unfilled slots that will need PUGs and could take in lesser geared players. Too bad Sinstar isn't quite ready for that yet. If we take this even half-way seriously we should tear this place apart in 25 man. Wild wants his T11 Helm and Nefarian has it. It's the last under i359 gear slot Wild needs to replace.
The bottom line is that Wild is still mixing and matching his raid nights depending on availability and where the raid is headed. That's sometimes a good thing, since Wild is getting 3-4 nights of raiding each week. Wild would really like a permanent, dependable raid home, though.
So, the BWD raid Monday night was pretty forgettable. The bosses that they had already downed last week were Magmaw, the robots, and Maloriak.
We started on Chimaeron. Wild no longer needed to have any of the fights explained, but there were couple of others who had not seen the fight yet. It should have been an easy romp, but it took us three tries to kill the two-headed dragon. Atramedes was next, and Wild had particular interest in this fight since Atramedes might drop an i359 helm. We were terrible, there is no other way to put it. We got the dragon down to 2.5% on one attempt, and down to a gut wrenching 0.8% on another without killing him. We finally killed him on our 7th attempt. It was like we had never seen this boss before. It could have been the third attempt if we'd finished him on that 0.8% try. We had three healers and frankly I think we'd have been better with just two and gotten the extra DPS. Our third healer, a very good paladin, was well below Wild and the shaman healer in hps not because she wasn't good, but because the two of us sucked up most of the healing. By the way, Atramedes did NOT drop the helm.
We didn't even have enough time left to tackle Nefarian, so Wild finished another raid without his helm. Ah well. If things go really, really well Tuesday night, Wild could get two more chances at a helm.
On the topic of Hunter Fortress, Wild earned enough honor points to buy holy paladin Jocy an heirloom weapon, [The Blessed Hammer of Grace]. Wild doesn't have the +22 int enchant, so he had to buy it off the AH at a price of 1300 gold. Jocy had better appreciate that. The WSG's Wild had to endure were absolutely brutal. In level 85 BGs healers are mercilessly stalked and focus fired on, and there are few players who bother to defend them. Wild could almost hear the Alliance BG commander sending word to his DPS - Kill the druid, kill the druid! Matter of fact, in one match with only two healers, the Horde DPS complained constantly about not getting heals, when they could look and see that both of us were dead.
Wild actually made a mistake on the weapon enchant buy, accidentally buying a +50 int bracer enchant for 750g (which would have been a really good deal if it had been the weapon enchant). Wild was initially furious at the mistake. Then he realized he'd never upgraded the enchant on his i378 bracers, which was still set with a +50 spi enchant. The +50 int is a huge upgrade over the +spi, so it all worked out for the best.
Now that the guild's various raid groups have cleared all of Bastion of Twilight (BoT) and Blackwing Descent (BWD) they seem to have entered a twilight zone where no one knows what to do next. For Wild, it would seem to make sense to combine the three groups into two groups, which should curtail the endless waiting around to fill a raid each night, and establish a regular group where we are not always having to explain things to newcomers. I honestly don't think anyone would be left out, either, since a fair number of our raiders raid with two toons. I doubt if we have any more than 25 guildies total who raid.
Of course, that won't happen, because we have three people who want to run raids and a group of guildies who can't agree to or commit to specific days of the week to raid.
Wild's regular group (using the word "regular" very loosely here) is run by Bd, who is having real life interference again. I love Bd. He's the best raid leader I've ever raided with. However, since Cho'gall went down he has simply not been around. There is no sign up for the Thurs/Fri raid, and raiders are going to make other plans if he or his secondary don't get the raid on the schedule and state where it is headed.
Wild wasn't really expecting to raid Monday night, and didn't even get in game until close to 6:30pm. Mf's Mon/Tues raid starts at 6pm. But they were still short on raiders and asked Wild to come along, which I was happy to do. They had saved their BWD raid from last week, and they were starting on the fourth boss. More on the raid below. The issue, though, is that Mf's raid had been looking the most stable, but now seems to be having attendance trouble again. It's troubling. Mf announced after the Monday raid that starting next week they will be raiding full time in Firelands. Wild is strongly considering asking Mf if Wild could become a regular with his raid. The Firelands is where Wild wants to be.
Lady Hunter's raid group is slightly more stable, although her raid nights are Tues/Wed which would butt up against Hunter Fortress. She has been considering Thrones as her raid target, since the guild hasn't bothered to kill the final boss in Thrones, Al'akir. Wild would be up for that, but so far that has only been talk.
In fact, tonight's raid is going to be our monthly 25 man raid in BWD. Wild is really looking forward to it. Twenty guildies have signed up, and there will almost certainly be unfilled slots that will need PUGs and could take in lesser geared players. Too bad Sinstar isn't quite ready for that yet. If we take this even half-way seriously we should tear this place apart in 25 man. Wild wants his T11 Helm and Nefarian has it. It's the last under i359 gear slot Wild needs to replace.
The bottom line is that Wild is still mixing and matching his raid nights depending on availability and where the raid is headed. That's sometimes a good thing, since Wild is getting 3-4 nights of raiding each week. Wild would really like a permanent, dependable raid home, though.
So, the BWD raid Monday night was pretty forgettable. The bosses that they had already downed last week were Magmaw, the robots, and Maloriak.
We started on Chimaeron. Wild no longer needed to have any of the fights explained, but there were couple of others who had not seen the fight yet. It should have been an easy romp, but it took us three tries to kill the two-headed dragon. Atramedes was next, and Wild had particular interest in this fight since Atramedes might drop an i359 helm. We were terrible, there is no other way to put it. We got the dragon down to 2.5% on one attempt, and down to a gut wrenching 0.8% on another without killing him. We finally killed him on our 7th attempt. It was like we had never seen this boss before. It could have been the third attempt if we'd finished him on that 0.8% try. We had three healers and frankly I think we'd have been better with just two and gotten the extra DPS. Our third healer, a very good paladin, was well below Wild and the shaman healer in hps not because she wasn't good, but because the two of us sucked up most of the healing. By the way, Atramedes did NOT drop the helm.
We didn't even have enough time left to tackle Nefarian, so Wild finished another raid without his helm. Ah well. If things go really, really well Tuesday night, Wild could get two more chances at a helm.
On the topic of Hunter Fortress, Wild earned enough honor points to buy holy paladin Jocy an heirloom weapon, [The Blessed Hammer of Grace]. Wild doesn't have the +22 int enchant, so he had to buy it off the AH at a price of 1300 gold. Jocy had better appreciate that. The WSG's Wild had to endure were absolutely brutal. In level 85 BGs healers are mercilessly stalked and focus fired on, and there are few players who bother to defend them. Wild could almost hear the Alliance BG commander sending word to his DPS - Kill the druid, kill the druid! Matter of fact, in one match with only two healers, the Horde DPS complained constantly about not getting heals, when they could look and see that both of us were dead.
Wild actually made a mistake on the weapon enchant buy, accidentally buying a +50 int bracer enchant for 750g (which would have been a really good deal if it had been the weapon enchant). Wild was initially furious at the mistake. Then he realized he'd never upgraded the enchant on his i378 bracers, which was still set with a +50 spi enchant. The +50 int is a huge upgrade over the +spi, so it all worked out for the best.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Weekend (4 Sep) - A Visit From a Game Master
Weekend (4 Sep) - A Visit From a Game Master
Happy was plying his trade on the Auction House Saturday morning when he got a whisper. Happy gets whispers frequently, mostly asking for cash, favors, or advice. Happy ignores the beggars most of the time - unless they tickle his interest or Happy just feels like talking. If the whisper seems genuine, though, Happy answers back. Why not? He can talk and make money at the same time.
Here is the whisper Happy received on this lovely Saturday morning:
"Good morning, Mr. Happy. I don't suppose you could answer a question for me, could you?"
Well, Happy doesn't get called "Mr. Happy" very often, ie, never. This could be interesting.
Happy, in the middle of counting profits from his latest sale, whispered back "fire away." There was a delay in his response long enough for Happy to consider sending him a second whisper explaining what "fire away" meant. Maybe he thought Happy wanted to duel and I'd scared the poor gentleman away. Of course he was a "he". If he were a woman she'd have called Happy "Hun".
He answered back, though. "I noticed that you always have a very large number of items for sale on the AH. Do you perhaps farm all these hundreds of items?"
With a name like Happyface, I guess Happy could get that kind of notice on the AH listings. Happy is not the biggest seller, though, not really even close to a half dozen other sellers who blanket the AH with page after page of their crap. Oops, you'll have to excuse Happy, professional disdain for his competitors, ya know.
Happy likes talking about his work, though, and explained to the nice fellow his market strategy, business plan, stock portfolio, and that account in the Cayman's (ok, he didn't mention that), all summed up with buy low and sell high.
"Well," he responded, impressed (Happy could hear the adoration in that single syllable). "You are very good at it, Mr. Happy, I can see."
Happy felt compelled to explain a little further, since there have been players who looked down on Happy's little business. Happy mentioned that he was quite excited about what he was doing, loved his job, and all his other toons appreciated his efforts.
"I'm sure they do, Mr. Happy. Thank you for being so kind as to respond to my question. You have a nice day."
We said our polite goodbyes, and that was that. Happy, of course, looked the gentleman up. "He" was in reality a "she" and was a level 68 blood elf protection paladin (the thought suddenly occurred to Happy that he should have tidied up the place). She was a guild master and there were only three other toons in her guild, all very low level, who were all likely alts. She was decently geared for a level 68. She has a world drop weapon (Crystalblade of the Draenei), but the rest of her gear was clearly from questing and dungeon runs. Was she a Game Master (GM) checking on us large scale marketers on the AH? Happy thinks so. Who else talks like that in World of Warcraft?
Wild's guild did not raid on Friday night. There was a last minute "can we get one together" kind of thing, but without the presence of the raid leader it was doomed. There was no sign up, so a raid wasn't expected, but Wild had still hoped one might come together. Didn't happen.
That gave some of the evening to BB, who went stalking in Warsong Gulch, which was this weekend's Call to Arms. WSG is a much different place than last week's Alterac Valley "five minutes and we're done" zerging. WSG is ten on ten pvp combat and those battles take a little time.
BB had taken the advice of Eowyn, revising his attack rotation. BB had also changed his talent spec from Blood spec to Frost spec. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was simply a personal choice. BB wanted the "On a Pale Horse" talent which greatly speeded up his mount speed, which made farming herbs a little faster. It also made him a candidate for flag carrier in WSG, but at level 60 in a 60-64 bracket, BB didn't get much chance to grab a flag. What he got in that first WSG was a whole lot of dying, and we lost 1-3.
The alliance team got better, though, and BB got better, too. Not good, but better. Tea was in game banging away in her own WSG bracket, and cheered BB as he got his first WSG achievements. BB's WSG record after that first loss went like this: 3-2, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0. Five straight wins. The 60-64 bracket probably has more death knights in them than any bracket other than the 55-59 bracket, and there were always 3-5 DKs in BB's matches. As always with a Wild DPS toon, targeting was a problem. Being left handed meant a stretch to hit the "Target Nearest Enemy" buttons (TAB or HOME). I tried setting up a macro on the keypad to make that easier, but could not get it to work. I think I will hard code the Keybinding next time. The attack rotation worked very well. At level 60, though, there is a lot of dead time where all BB was doing was white damage. Staying in melee range of a target was also a pain, but that just takes years of practice (years for me, anyway). I want a spell called "Stick to Target".
BB did have some fun and tried to be useful. BB liked to suicide attack the initial incoming run for the opponent's flag when the battle first starts. BB slowed down their run and sometimes distracted a bunch of them for the several seconds it took them to kill BB, giving the alliance team some crucial extra seconds to capture and return the horde flag. BB also learned to love Death and Decay, the AoE DoT that even horde DKs never seemed to notice in the heat of battle. BB helped so many horde pvpers to the graveyard that way, lol.
Being a gnome, and quite miniature, led to some fun battles, too. BB's weapon is twice as long as she is, and she was soloing a horde level 64 tauren warrior in one match. The huge cow was laughing so hard BB got him to half health before he finished BB off. BB waved at him and hoped all those diseases BB had smeared him with would eventually finish him off.
The most fun BB had all night was with a horde shaman. We were up 2-0 and weren't trying very hard to finish (ie, farming kills). BB was running around and spied the shaman in ghost wolf form making for our base. BB Death Gripped him, Chained him, and started swatting him. He shifted form, broke Chains, and, already DoTed up with diseases, tried to escape. BB re-Chained the fleeing shaman multiple times, until he became immune to it. BB couldn't get into melee range, though, and could only use his ranged spells. BB Death Gripped again just when the shaman thought he'd escaped. The shaman could have turned and likely killed BB at any time, but he was so focused on escape by the time he'd realized it the DoTs had done their work and the shaman died. BB can be a real bulldog sometimes.
BB made level 61 Friday night and now has her Obliterate spell. She's looking forward to trying that out over the weekend.
BB and Eowyn later got in some dungeon work, heading into the Outlands and Coilfang Reservoir. We did the Slave Pens and the Underbog (one of them twice), BB picked up some new gear (including a second resilience piece) and made level 62.
Happy was plying his trade on the Auction House Saturday morning when he got a whisper. Happy gets whispers frequently, mostly asking for cash, favors, or advice. Happy ignores the beggars most of the time - unless they tickle his interest or Happy just feels like talking. If the whisper seems genuine, though, Happy answers back. Why not? He can talk and make money at the same time.
Here is the whisper Happy received on this lovely Saturday morning:
"Good morning, Mr. Happy. I don't suppose you could answer a question for me, could you?"
Well, Happy doesn't get called "Mr. Happy" very often, ie, never. This could be interesting.
Happy, in the middle of counting profits from his latest sale, whispered back "fire away." There was a delay in his response long enough for Happy to consider sending him a second whisper explaining what "fire away" meant. Maybe he thought Happy wanted to duel and I'd scared the poor gentleman away. Of course he was a "he". If he were a woman she'd have called Happy "Hun".
He answered back, though. "I noticed that you always have a very large number of items for sale on the AH. Do you perhaps farm all these hundreds of items?"
With a name like Happyface, I guess Happy could get that kind of notice on the AH listings. Happy is not the biggest seller, though, not really even close to a half dozen other sellers who blanket the AH with page after page of their crap. Oops, you'll have to excuse Happy, professional disdain for his competitors, ya know.
Happy likes talking about his work, though, and explained to the nice fellow his market strategy, business plan, stock portfolio, and that account in the Cayman's (ok, he didn't mention that), all summed up with buy low and sell high.
"Well," he responded, impressed (Happy could hear the adoration in that single syllable). "You are very good at it, Mr. Happy, I can see."
Happy felt compelled to explain a little further, since there have been players who looked down on Happy's little business. Happy mentioned that he was quite excited about what he was doing, loved his job, and all his other toons appreciated his efforts.
"I'm sure they do, Mr. Happy. Thank you for being so kind as to respond to my question. You have a nice day."
We said our polite goodbyes, and that was that. Happy, of course, looked the gentleman up. "He" was in reality a "she" and was a level 68 blood elf protection paladin (the thought suddenly occurred to Happy that he should have tidied up the place). She was a guild master and there were only three other toons in her guild, all very low level, who were all likely alts. She was decently geared for a level 68. She has a world drop weapon (Crystalblade of the Draenei), but the rest of her gear was clearly from questing and dungeon runs. Was she a Game Master (GM) checking on us large scale marketers on the AH? Happy thinks so. Who else talks like that in World of Warcraft?
Wild's guild did not raid on Friday night. There was a last minute "can we get one together" kind of thing, but without the presence of the raid leader it was doomed. There was no sign up, so a raid wasn't expected, but Wild had still hoped one might come together. Didn't happen.
That gave some of the evening to BB, who went stalking in Warsong Gulch, which was this weekend's Call to Arms. WSG is a much different place than last week's Alterac Valley "five minutes and we're done" zerging. WSG is ten on ten pvp combat and those battles take a little time.
BB had taken the advice of Eowyn, revising his attack rotation. BB had also changed his talent spec from Blood spec to Frost spec. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was simply a personal choice. BB wanted the "On a Pale Horse" talent which greatly speeded up his mount speed, which made farming herbs a little faster. It also made him a candidate for flag carrier in WSG, but at level 60 in a 60-64 bracket, BB didn't get much chance to grab a flag. What he got in that first WSG was a whole lot of dying, and we lost 1-3.
The alliance team got better, though, and BB got better, too. Not good, but better. Tea was in game banging away in her own WSG bracket, and cheered BB as he got his first WSG achievements. BB's WSG record after that first loss went like this: 3-2, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0. Five straight wins. The 60-64 bracket probably has more death knights in them than any bracket other than the 55-59 bracket, and there were always 3-5 DKs in BB's matches. As always with a Wild DPS toon, targeting was a problem. Being left handed meant a stretch to hit the "Target Nearest Enemy" buttons (TAB or HOME). I tried setting up a macro on the keypad to make that easier, but could not get it to work. I think I will hard code the Keybinding next time. The attack rotation worked very well. At level 60, though, there is a lot of dead time where all BB was doing was white damage. Staying in melee range of a target was also a pain, but that just takes years of practice (years for me, anyway). I want a spell called "Stick to Target".
BB did have some fun and tried to be useful. BB liked to suicide attack the initial incoming run for the opponent's flag when the battle first starts. BB slowed down their run and sometimes distracted a bunch of them for the several seconds it took them to kill BB, giving the alliance team some crucial extra seconds to capture and return the horde flag. BB also learned to love Death and Decay, the AoE DoT that even horde DKs never seemed to notice in the heat of battle. BB helped so many horde pvpers to the graveyard that way, lol.
Being a gnome, and quite miniature, led to some fun battles, too. BB's weapon is twice as long as she is, and she was soloing a horde level 64 tauren warrior in one match. The huge cow was laughing so hard BB got him to half health before he finished BB off. BB waved at him and hoped all those diseases BB had smeared him with would eventually finish him off.
The most fun BB had all night was with a horde shaman. We were up 2-0 and weren't trying very hard to finish (ie, farming kills). BB was running around and spied the shaman in ghost wolf form making for our base. BB Death Gripped him, Chained him, and started swatting him. He shifted form, broke Chains, and, already DoTed up with diseases, tried to escape. BB re-Chained the fleeing shaman multiple times, until he became immune to it. BB couldn't get into melee range, though, and could only use his ranged spells. BB Death Gripped again just when the shaman thought he'd escaped. The shaman could have turned and likely killed BB at any time, but he was so focused on escape by the time he'd realized it the DoTs had done their work and the shaman died. BB can be a real bulldog sometimes.
BB made level 61 Friday night and now has her Obliterate spell. She's looking forward to trying that out over the weekend.
BB and Eowyn later got in some dungeon work, heading into the Outlands and Coilfang Reservoir. We did the Slave Pens and the Underbog (one of them twice), BB picked up some new gear (including a second resilience piece) and made level 62.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Wednesday (31 Aug) - Cho'gall is DONE
Wednesday (31 Aug) - Cho'gall is DONE
At the prelims of the fight the two heads of Cho'gall both talk at the same time. When the tank attacks:
Head 1 - Enough!
Head 2 - To His will all flesh succumbs. From his Kingdom, chaos comes!
Head 1 - Yes - what he says.
After a practice run and a pretty good 2nd attempt, pushing into the final phase but failing at 21%:
Raider: Beam of Butt Sucking got me right up the rear! (we understand that he means Debilitating Beam, which looks like an eyeball on a stalk and shoots a slithering purple beam).
We get Cho'gall to 17% on our third attempt:
Wild: STOP Polymorphing me when I get Converted! I can't heal if I'm a penguin! (some raiders never figured out that raiders who are Converted have to be stunned or interrupted - instead, they use polymorph, which works but leaves Wild unable to heal until I can break the poly - they did it to me twice! I think it was on purpose. ;-) )
On our fourth attempt Cho'gall slipped to 7%.
Incredulous Off Tank: Are we doing Cho'gall with just two healers?
Lady Hunter: Sure. Seems to be working just fine.
Wild and Pl stare at each other and think to ourselves: He just now noticed? Then we both grin. Cool!
On our fifth attempt we took him down. As he died Cho'gall said:
Head 1 - Brother...we are shattered..
Head 2 - But the Master...I still hear...so angry...Master...
Wild has now completed all of the Bastion of Twilight and all of Blackwing Descent. That leaves Throne of the Four Winds (T4W or just Thrones). Wild has defeated the encounter Conclave of the Winds, but we never attempted the second/final boss, Al'Akir, back when we were doing T4W. With an hour still left of raid time we tried to get everyone to go straight to T4W. Nothing ever happens fast in this raid, though, and after this and that and those and these we wound up calling it without going anywhere.
Wild did 11.5k hps and the pally 11.1k on that final run. No one in the DPS cracked 15k and two of the six DPSers did less than 11k dps. We did it, though. Nice to have Cho'gall down.
At the prelims of the fight the two heads of Cho'gall both talk at the same time. When the tank attacks:
Head 1 - Enough!
Head 2 - To His will all flesh succumbs. From his Kingdom, chaos comes!
Head 1 - Yes - what he says.
After a practice run and a pretty good 2nd attempt, pushing into the final phase but failing at 21%:
Raider: Beam of Butt Sucking got me right up the rear! (we understand that he means Debilitating Beam, which looks like an eyeball on a stalk and shoots a slithering purple beam).
We get Cho'gall to 17% on our third attempt:
Wild: STOP Polymorphing me when I get Converted! I can't heal if I'm a penguin! (some raiders never figured out that raiders who are Converted have to be stunned or interrupted - instead, they use polymorph, which works but leaves Wild unable to heal until I can break the poly - they did it to me twice! I think it was on purpose. ;-) )
On our fourth attempt Cho'gall slipped to 7%.
Incredulous Off Tank: Are we doing Cho'gall with just two healers?
Lady Hunter: Sure. Seems to be working just fine.
Wild and Pl stare at each other and think to ourselves: He just now noticed? Then we both grin. Cool!
On our fifth attempt we took him down. As he died Cho'gall said:
Head 1 - Brother...we are shattered..
Head 2 - But the Master...I still hear...so angry...Master...
Cho'gall DEAD
Wild has now completed all of the Bastion of Twilight and all of Blackwing Descent. That leaves Throne of the Four Winds (T4W or just Thrones). Wild has defeated the encounter Conclave of the Winds, but we never attempted the second/final boss, Al'Akir, back when we were doing T4W. With an hour still left of raid time we tried to get everyone to go straight to T4W. Nothing ever happens fast in this raid, though, and after this and that and those and these we wound up calling it without going anywhere.
Wild did 11.5k hps and the pally 11.1k on that final run. No one in the DPS cracked 15k and two of the six DPSers did less than 11k dps. We did it, though. Nice to have Cho'gall down.
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