Weekend (4 Jul) - A New Boss Encounter

Weekend (4 Jul) - A New Boss Encounter

There's a lot to cover over the long weekend, so I'll get right to it.

With Patch 2.4 the Tier 11 gear set costs were changed. Prior to the patch valor points (VP) were required to buy the gear. VPs are generally earned by doing random Heroic dungeon runs using the dungeon finder (DF), which Wild avoids like the plague. Hence Wild does not have any T11 gear, which is stupid, but it is what it is. Now, however, the T11 gear can be bought with justice points (JP), which can be earned at a higher rate and are generally earned by doing normal (non-Heroic) dungeon runs.

Wild isn't all that fond of DF runs, even non-Heroic ones, but I only needed two or three runs to get enough JPs to buy a T11. Wild's first DF run was in the Lost City. The tank was modestly geared but competent and knew his way around. The DPSers ranged from quite good to pretty awful. "Awful" meaning they had no concept of aggro, constantly pulling mobs the tank hadn't grabbed yet and generally making everything harder. Wild is way over-geared for normal dungeons so I could heal through almost anything, but when a DPS aggroed mobs that ended up attacking Wild, that DPSer tended to die as Wild was "too busy" to heal him. We did complete the dungeon, but bypassed at least one boss.

Later on, Wild queued for a DF and got Grim Batol. Again, we had a competent and game tank, but he admitted that he did not know the dungeon. His gear barely made the cut, too. None of us knew our way around. Wild has done Grim Batol once before. I sorta remembered the bosses, but directionally challenged Wild had little clue how to get around inside the place. We dived in anyway, and when we stumbled upon a Boss I'd check the Dungeon Guide and try to recall the strategy for the boss. I even remembered the drake bombing run part. We managed, more or less. The one thorn was a very earnest death knight who tried very hard, but died over and over. Since the tank death knight was pretty squishy as well, Wild had to use his Tree of Life form three times to keep the group from wiping on over pulls or simply lack of practice with the Bosses.

Those two runs did give Wild enough JPs to purchase the i359 T11 gloves, and raised his equipped gear level to i355. I calculate that Wild needs another six runs to get a second T11 (legs), and that will replace the last of his i346 gear. I have to note, though, that the reason the i359 T11 gear can be bought with JPs, is that the T12 gear is now available, purchasable with VPs. The T12s are ilevel 378. It's called Obsidian Arborweave Regalia for the healing set. Sigh, Wild is always a set (or two) behind.

Early Friday morning Happy was doing his Auction House thing and decided to check level 85 gear to see if any BoE drops from the Firelands were making their way to the AH. There were just a few, nearly all of which were +agi or +str gear that Happy knew Wild wasn't interested in. However, [Spire of Scarlet Pain] was also listed for sale. This is a 2-hand staff, i378, and had Wild been on he would have demanded that Happy pay whatever it cost to get it. The staff Wild has right now is the Chelly's staff (i359) and is the best weapon Wild is ever going to get short of the Firelands. So, you are thinking, do rep/BoE runs on Firelands trash mobs and see if Wild can win the Scarlet Pain staff! Well, there is a wrinkle to that plan. The staff has +hit on it, which makes it a DPS caster staff, not a healer staff. Even if it dropped, it would not go to Wild.

Happy equivocated. Happy dithered. The price was 35,000 gold, a not-insignificant price even for Happy. Someone else bought it while Happy was still staring at it. And the buyer then re-posted it at 60,000 gold. And it sold, too. Wild died a little inside at the missed opportunity. Happy fainted at the thought of all that lost profit.

Friday night was our second night in Bastion of Twilight. Yes, Wild did make it in game, to the raid leader's delight. One DPS guildie from Thursday night was not invited back for the second night. He just didn't seem to be able to keep up with the fights, and was always the last raider ready, making the rest of us wait. We got off to a later start on Friday as well, which was one reason Wild was able to get back in time.

We had no trouble with the trash mobs this night and we were quickly at the Twins encounter (Valiona and Theralion).

On our first attempt Wild was a little slow off the mark and let a Devouring Flames eat me alive. Wild got a battle rez but the attempt fizzled out with the Twins at 55%.

Our second attempt went much better. Wild was, of course, doing Blackout debuff duty, and I was getting the hang of that now, even chiding a raider for being late to collapse on the tank. Wild got his timing right with Devouring Flames as well, running to the rump of the dragon just before he starts spewing flame. That attempt eventually unraveled as well during Deep Breath, but it was clear we were starting to get a routine down.

On our third attempt Wild managed to get swept into the Twilight Realm, not just once, but twice! These are very avoidable, and Wild hasn't stumbled into them since his first encounter with the Twins. The first time Wild was able to get to the portal and return to the fight. The second time Wild died. The Twins were at 4% when Wild died, and since the priest healer was already dead, that left only the new pally priest to keep the remainder of the raid alive. She did, and the Twins went down. Finally, we had our second BoT boss encounter kill.

Twins Kill

The raid leader had prepped for the third encounter, called Ascendant Council, but no one thought to check out the trash mobs that precede it. So we just winged it. The first mobs are single mobs we could pull one at a time. They dropped a smattering of bombs around a random raider. Once we saw what they were doing, the bombs were easy to avoid, and not fatal even you got caught in the explosion. The second grouping of mobs were a lot more entertaining. There were mobs from all the elemental plains - air, fire, earth, and water, and they all had their particular abilities - none of which we knew, of course. The air ones I thought were oh so cute because they glided along using lightning bolts for legs. I didn't get a good count of them, but there must have been at least eight, all milling about in a large chamber. The two tanks targeted and pulled, successfully drawing just two. It's a flashy fight with all kinds of ordnance going off, with debuffs Wild would clear and AoE's strafing across the raid. None of it fatal to the raid. Except after it was over, when the healers sheath our weapons. The two tanks were still taking damage. A LOT of damage. The healers did a quick draw and went back to work. Wild burned his mana down to 60% keeping just one tank alive, while the other two healers were dealing the same with the other tank. Seems like these mobs leave an un-clearable debuff on the tanks when they die. We could figure out no way to short circuit it other than just letting it run it's course.

We also tried having our two hunters miss-direct to the tanks, but that went awry, drawing four of the things into our midst. We had two raiders die, but still took them down. By now we had seen all their tricks, and cleared out the remainder.

For the first time, we set our sights on the Ascendant Council. When I read up on the fight and the abilities, my mathematical side couldn't help but do a little figuring. There are three phases to this fight, involving five bosses, each of which have four unique abilities we have to deal with. Just a sec, counting. MmmHmm, that adds up to twenty different abilities we have to learn how to overcome. My head hurts.

We took things in chunks, of course. A raid can't learn an entire encounter at once. The first phase involves two bosses, Feludious (shortened to Fel) and Ignacious (shortened to Ig). So, phase one is against Fel and Ig. Get to know them. We might be seeing them a lot. We went over the strategy and made two attempts. We didn't get very far, but it was a start.

Overall, a decent night for us. As for the healing challenge between Wild and Gn, the pally healer ... well, she really stepped up her game. Results:

#1: Gn, 8020 hps, 32.9% of the healing
#2: Wild, 7233 hps, 33.1%
#3: Pl, 5652 hps, 19.0%

Gn topped Wild in hps, but Wild finished first in total healing. I call that a tie. And Wild is very happy to have Gn on the healing team. I hope she becomes a regular.

The Molten Front - also known as the Firelands Invasion

Molten Front and the Firelands have an interesting and lengthy (very lengthy) reputation grind. For the raid itself, killing mobs and bosses increases reputation with the Avenger's of Hyjal (just reaching Friendly with the faction rewards an i378 cloak). Outside of the raid, there is a many layered and extensive series of quest chains from which players can earn Marks of the World Tree. As you do quests, you start to unlock Dailies. Those dailies also reward Marks. Collect enough Marks and you unlock vendors. The interesting thing at this point is that once you can access the the vendors, the gear they sell can be purchased with gold. No more marks are needed. The gear is awesome, too! There is also a mount reward (a hippogryph) once all dailies are completed.

Don't expect to get to the vendors in a week. The absolute minimum amount of time it takes to get enough Marks to buy the gear is - 31 days. For Wild, it would be amazing if he got them done in twice that time. [Note - the starter quests were recently redesigned to reward additional Marks - too bad for those who completed the quests before it changed, which included Wild]

Wild has started the chain, beginning with Warchief's Command: Mount Hyjal, which can be picked up at the Commander's Board in Orgrimmar. Wild's initial focus was on the chain called Elemental Bonds. The chain was a lot of fun, but it's a good idea to do it while there are others doing it as well. Some of the battles are incredible, and trying to solo them can be a challenge. Wild switched between resto and moonkin specs depending on the quest and how many other players were around. In these battles you had to earn points for killing the attackers. The easier ones only gave 5 points, while the big nasty ones earned 15-25 pts. Wild was able to solo most of the big nasty ones, sometimes simply out lasting them in resto, or, as in the later quests, burning them down as moonkin (usually with help from other players). This chain can be completed in a few hours. Wild finished it on Saturday, with [Mantle of Desire] as his reward - an i365 cloak, which is now the highest level piece of raiding gear Wild owns.

Wild has also been working down the main path of the quest chain, which initially takes place in Mount Hyjal. Wild has completed the introductory/Stage 1 quests (6 quests) which opened up some Dailies, which Wild completed. The quests can vary, so for those who like variety, there is one Daily that always drops, with an additonal pair of quests picked randomly from a set of five. For grinding, frankly, Wild prefers no variety in order to speed up the necessary grinding, but oh well. Wild has finished Stage 2 as well, which took Wild near the Sanctuary of Malorne. New Dailies unlocked, adding to the prior ones. Wild got his first completion of the new Dailies as well. Again, the quests vary from day to day.

With all of the Dailies in Mount Hyjal now unlocked, Wild was able to to take a Portal into the Molten Front zone for the first time. More quests and more Dailies are unlocked.

The next stage requires a choice. Players must choose one of two factions to get help from as the Invasion progresses. Wild chose "Druids of the Talon" because I liked the gear choices better than the alternative, "The Shadow Wardens." Don't worry, players can do both (unlike the faction grinds in BC, where you had to choose one over the other). However, you will earn more Marks questing with your main choice.

Whew! That's as far as Wild got on Saturday.

Forgettable Sunday

Wild logged in on Sunday to get a round of Dailies in. We had some guildies on and they wanted to do a Heroic. Everyone say it together, now: "Oh noes, not a Heroic!"

We had two main spec healers, but the pally healer wanted to DPS, so Wild got to heal. There were only the five of us, so Wild couldn't really refuse. How bad could it be?

The random dungeon finder gave us Grim Batol. Lovely. It was fun for the first thirty minutes. We arrived at the first boss, General Umbris. We tried him several times, but we couldn't seem to get untangled from the adds. The DPS tried kiting/CCing them and when that failed we tried to ignore them, but of course that just meant that more would keep coming. Wild was doing better than 9k healing, but the fight just wouldn't end and Wild always had a mob in his face. We got a little frustrated and decided to skip Umbris, moving on to Throngus. Him we killed after one wipe on the rather nasty trash mobs he has around him. Bolstered by that, we banged our way to Drahga Shadowmaster. We made a very good first attempt, easily getting to the dragon phase and getting the dragon under 20% before wiping. Then things completely fell apart. On every attempt someone screwed up (Wild included) and we just went nowhere. "This shouldn't be that hard," someone said in vent.

We tried a few more times against Drahga and his dragon, but the will had gone out of us and we decided to bypass him, too, going straight to the final boss so that we could get the heck out of there. Tempers were starting to smolder, as well.

The final boss, Erudax, is an AoE fight with some wrinkles. One of the main things to remember is to run into the portal whenever it forms. Wild had a terrible time seeing the dang thing (I'm color blind, and I can't distinguish between some color shades), and while sometimes Wild could heal himself through the resulting damage, Wild died a couple of times as well. About the time Wild started getting the hang of it the other healer (who had asked to DPS at the beginning of the run, you will recall) asked if he and Wild could swap roles. He would heal and Wild would DPS. Whatever gets us done, was the way I saw it.

We made maybe four more attempts with Wild DPSing. I wasn't having any trouble with the portals, at least. I know I suck at targeting, and in this fight adds form regularly which have to be killed quickly to avoid the adds releasing more adds from eggs around the room. Wild did the best he could for his first ever DPS role against Erudax, but sometimes an egg or two got hatched, which increased our troubles. We didn't kill Erudax, finally just giving up in exhaustion.

We spent almost two and half hours in Heroic Grim Batol, killing only one of four bosses and failing to get the Valor Point credits by failing against the final boss. Wild was drained. The two every day DPSers averaged 10k and 9k DPS. The tank was at around 6k. Wild did 8.8k DPS. I should be happy Wild DPSed that well under those circumstances, but I have to say that runs like this don't help Wild over his low opinion of Heroics. Even guild Heroics.

NOW, for the real Kicker (this is embarrassing): Roll forward to Monday morning.

As usual Happy got in game first, taking care of the AH business. After Happy, it was Lost's turn on the Alliance AH, so I had to relog in to Wild's and Lost's account. Wildshard is always the toon that gets displayed on first login. Wildshard, for some reason, looked odd. I was puzzled. I looked again. Finally, I realized what was so strange. I could see Wild's face. So? I blinked a couple of times and then it came to me. Wild is wearing a hat. Wild should be wearing his i353 Zul'Aman mask. Oh no. I couldn't have. I turned Wild around so I could see what was strapped to his back. Oh dear, I did. Along with his hat, Wild was sporting a very cool looking weapon. Only it wasn't really a weapon - it was Wild's fishing pole. Don't panic, that's just the gear Wild happened to logout in, right?

When we gave up on the Grim Batol run on Sunday, Wild hearthed back to Orgrimmar and then immediately logged out. Wild had not been back in game since then. That means ... that means Wild did Grim Batol wearing his fishing hat and wielding his fishing pole for a weapon. And I never noticed. Nor did anyone in the raid. How in the world of Azeroth Wild was able to do 9k+ healing hps and almost that much in DPS I have no idea. Would we have beaten Grim Batol had Wild been properly equipped? Perhaps. Wild has successfully healed the new Zul'Aman, which is a tougher place than GB. Or maybe not, Wild wasn't the only one who struggled. But one has to wonder ...

PS - It's been a couple of days since the GB debacle, and it actually seems pretty funny now. But if Wild ever does another Heroic, Please make it something other than Grim Batol!

PSS - On Monday night Shevils and Speak got a chance to run a couple of Warsong Gulch battles. We lost the first one only because we couldn't get people to organize; when we could pull 4-5 together we slayed them. Oh well. The second run went much better and Shevils got her first game winning flag cap! Despite Shevils being only level 20 and Speak level 21 in the level 20-24 battleground, finished at the top in damage in both battles. Both of us went up a level.

Thursday (30 Jun) - Post Patch Raiding

Thursday (30 Jun) - Post Patch Raiding

As usual Wild logged in a half hour early for the evening raid. Usually I use that time to make sure Wild is raid ready, and then I go get in a little fishing to make more +int food, which Wild can go through a lot of when raiding. Wild got a bonus for being early this time - the raid leader for the evening was putting together an impromptu Baradin Hold (BH) run and snagged Wild to heal.

I thought a new boss might be added to BH, but there is still only the one. Instead, the patch changed the trash mobs from humanoids to flying eyeballs. I'm sure there is lore behind that, but I haven't looked it up yet. The guild tried to do BH a couple of days before, and the new trash mobs slaughtered them! They found out later that BH was bugged and the eyeballs had been set to 25 man difficulty, not 10 man. We were very relieved that had been fixed by the time we arrived at BH on Thursday night. The trick with the eyeballs is that the whole group has to be AoEed down within ten seconds or really nasty explosions start to take place. The start was simple - stack on the tank and AoE like mad. We didn't get to see the explosions as we crushed the eyeballs. Our group downed the boss almost as easily. An i365 druid caster pair of boots dropped which went to Wild by default (good thing, Wild had rolled a "3"). It's a pvp item that won't fit into Wild's raid gear, but still very nice to have.

The raid leader then dropped the BH raid and began inviting those that had signed up for the Bastion of Twilight raid. Wild knew most of them, including Pl, the priest healer that Wild often raided with. The third healer was a friend of Bd's, a paladin, who was not in the guild but had helped out in raids a few times before. Bd was impressed with the healing she had done in prior raids, and Wild took that as a friendly challenge now that I was officially a regular in the guild raid.

We had one glitch during the trash mobs once we started BoT. There is a section where we run a gauntlet of mobs. When we reached the last of them all of the mobs we had killed reset and we could not complete the gauntlet until we went back in the other direction and re-killed all the mobs that had reset.

The triplet of drakes for the Halfus fight was only mid-difficulty. Last week it had taken us 7 tries to kill him. On this night Halfus died on our first attempt.

We cleared some more trash with no unexpected bugs and reached Theralion and Valiona, the second encounter. There is a new feature in 4.2 called the Dungeon Guide. In it you can read about every dungeon and raid encounter, and every boss including all abilities. No need anymore to have to swap back to wowhead to read up on a boss - it's all right at our fingertips now. Bd had us all open our guides as he walked us through the strategy, using the Guide to help us better understand the dangers and how the strategy accounts for it. Pretty useful.

The general positioning we use is that all raiders are in melee range except for four selected ranged raiders, who stay at range for the whole fight (except for Blackout, of course). Additionally, Bd asked Wild to be the sole raider clearing the Blackout debuff. Wild must watch for Blackout, note who it hit, time when the raid should collapse on the tank, and then clear the debuff when all (or most if there are laggards) are packed next to the tank, then clearing the debuff quickly. Waiting too long increases damage on the raid, but clearing too early could leave raiders too far away, which causes much higher damage. Blackout could kill raiders before the patch; we have a little more leeway for mistakes now.

On our first attempt Wild tried to do his debuff duty but on every Blackout someone else would clear the debuff before Wild. That was monumentally frustrating. We did pretty well on that first attempt, anyway, getting the pair of drakes to 45%. Wild then whispered Bd afterward, asking what had been going on with Blackout. The new visiting pally healer admitted she had been clearing the debuff. I didn't care either way, she could do it if she wanted to that badly. But no, Wild couldn't weasel his way out of that chore. The pally healer wasn't a regular - Blackout clearing was Wild's job - now and forever, I guess.

We only had time for two more attempts, with our best getting down to 29%. The meteorites seemed to confuse some people, so that was one issue. Avoiding the flame breath from the drake currently on the ground was another issue that our group needs to get better at. I hope I will be around Friday night for our second try, as I think we will beat those two.

But if Wild doesn't make it to the raid, that means the anniversary couple (our 22nd today) party got extended into the evening instead of restarting after the raid. I'm a happy guy either way. :D

Wednesday (29 Jun) A Mish Mash of Stuff

Wednesday (29 Jun) A Mish Mash of Stuff

[Note - The first part of this post is a grab bag of "catch-ups" that I just haven't had time to get put into the blog until now. But I will eventually be getting to the raid on Thursday and news about the release of Patch 4.2!]

Well, I'm sorry that there have been so few posts since we returned from our trip, but there has been a new hang up. On Saturday my newer Acer computer went on the fritz. Long story short, the power supply failed and my efforts to replace it failed as well. Took it to the shop and learned that the new power supply I'd installed was fine, but the main hard drive was toast. Got that fixed, but before it came home the tech discovered that the second drive could be read (and he copied off all the files) but could not be written to. So all told I had to replace the power supply and two hard drives. I've had it back for two days (Wed/Thurs) and it's been working fine. Now Acer and I are having long, intimate conversations about what they will and will not pay for (PC is still under warranty). Their hope is that they'll wear me down with endless requests for additional information, but I'm determined to get my money back for that crappy power supply and the two drives the PS destroyed.

Before the computer debacle Wild did get into Bastion of Twilight on Thursday and Friday night (last week!) with the MM2 guild. There was also some guild drama as Wild's guild, MM, scared up a raid on Friday night also aimed at BoT, and Wild declined their invite since I was already committed to the MM2 run. I had a full report on the raid all written up, but alas I did not post it before starting surgery on the computer and it's gone. So, the summary is that we did take down the first boss, Halfus, on our 7th attempt. Wild already has a few Halfus kills with MM, but it was still nice to be back raiding again.

Wrapping up the week (the last one) Hunter Fortress has been re-evaluating the weekly schedule. After much back and forth over email, the four of us decided to move our weekly pvp assault from Tuesday to Wednesday, and back up our start time by one hour for those who want the extra time and to adjust for time zone differences. I'm sure we are all getting anxious to get in some action!

Week of 27-30 June

The big news of this current week was the release of Patch 4.2. There is a new raid called The Firelands, new and higher level gear to lust after, and huge hand fulls of new quests with very nice rewards. Wild has barely touched the surface, getting in just a couple of the starter quests. At least two friends of Wild's have completed one full quest chain already (I think there are four), and gotten a new i365 cape (Wild's cape is i359 - I'm jealous). The other big change from a raiding standpoint is that all of the other raids that Wild has been doing had their difficulty reduced, which is standard practice as I've mentioned before.

So, that brings us to Thursday night and Wild's first official raid as a member of MM2. What, didn't you get the memo? On Tuesday night Wild talked to his MM guild leader, letting him know that Wild was going to change guilds. He already suspected that I would leave, given that most of Wild's cabal (actually, ALL of Wild's cabal) had already changed guilds. The GL appreciated that Wild took the time to let him know, instead of just leaving with no word. We parted amicably, and there may be future chances for Wild to raid with MM as a fill in or, like Wild has done in the past, as a regular raider in two guilds. On Wednesday I found the MM2 guild leader, Bd, on his blood elf in the Orgrimmar bank. He saw me, waved, and then scooted up to Wild and emoted: "What a big cow you are!" in that sultry blood elf voice. "What a beautiful, sweet looking blood elf you are" Wild cooed in return (a cooing cow can be a scary thing), and then gave him that unique tauren ROAR! [Note- 4.2 changed the /roar command - every race now has a unique roar - cool!].

I let him know that was leaving MM. He put a fatherly arm around Wild (having to stand on his tippy toes to do so) and empathized that he knew what a tough decision it was for Wild to leave a guild. He continued: "So, when do you think you'll be leaving MM, and when do you think you might join MM2?" Wild replied, "I left last night, and any time you want to send me an invite." The invite was instantaneous, and Wild became a member of MM2. There were several guildies in game, with several friends calling out "Wild! Dood! Welcome!" All drama aside, Wild is happy to be in MM2. The guild reached level 20 on Thursday.

Ok, so I teased you about the Thursday raid and got you this far. This post is getting long, though, and while you've been reading this I've been working on the raid post. It'll be up soon!

Thursday (23 Jun) - The Lady Hunter Effect

Thursday (23 Jun) - The Lady Hunter Effect

Ok, the title is really unfair to Lady Hunter. She is a fine raider and a master at putting a raid together. Her raids, however, have a reputation for trying raider's patience with delays, waits, side projects, meanderings, and all manner of unexpected needs which turn into raiders standing around doing nothing. During those delays can also be some of the most hilarious conversations Wild has ever listened in on, and eye popping shenanigans on the scale of Saturday Night Live. That is the outcome of the Lady Hunter Effect, although it has little to do with Lady Hunter herself now. She has even been trying to get away from the "Lady" title, but Wild continues to nurture and foster it. She objects but I think she is still secretly pleased.

Lady Hunter was not organizing or leading the MM2 raid on Thursday night, so none of the time sink on this night could be attributed to her. She was in the raid, ready and prepared to raid, with no delays. But delays there were, as raid leader Bd struggled to fill the ten man raid.

Wild was in game before 6pm for the 6:30pm raid start. The raid target was Bastion of Twilight (BoT). Wild has raided BoT with MM, but this would be his first BoT raid with MM2. The guild trials of MM and MM2 have been discussed previously, but from a raiding perspective the result from Wild's point of view was that there were a lot of new names. Some of those names were likely alts moved up to mains of raiders Wild probably knew, but figuring that out took time.

Wild got his raid invite at 6:35pm, and had been chatting with Bd even before the invite. As raiders were invited in, Wild added the unfamiliar names to his Friends list so that I could track them for future raids. There were some friends as well - Bd and Lady Hunter of course, but also the husband/wife hunter/priest pair Gv and Pl. One of us three druids in the raid (we had almost the whole spec this night, with Wild healing, a tank druid, and a cat druid. All that was missing was a moonkin) Wild learned was really a friend all the way back to FS days. He was a mage back then. Now he was a tank.

When our ranks got up to eight we stalled. We eventually found a ninth raider, an MM2 guildie warrior and tank, so Bd (who has four raid ready level 85s) switched from his warrior toon to his newest 85, a shaman healer. He invited an MM guildie who happened to login (for most of the night the MM guild list on in game players listed only Wild - MM is like a ghost guild most of the time Wild is on). That player had vent problems, though, and eventually decided not to come. Finally, two hours after Wild logged on, 90 minutes late, we had ten raiders when one more MM2 guildie logged in.

Once we were ready the raid moved forward briskly and Bd was his usual sterling self in handing out assignments, explaining fight specifics, and in general masterfully running the raid.

BoT has a lot of trash mobs just inside the entrance as well as two more large pockets of mobs that can be engaged or bypassed. Doing BoT with MM, we always cleared every mob because they occasionally dropped nice gear. With MM2, we only cleared the mobs we needed to in order to get to the first raid Boss, Halfus. Wild used the trash mob fights wisely, brushing off the cobwebs and settling into raid healing mode.

Wild was familiar with the Halfus fight, and Bd's strategy was very similar to the strat MM used. Wild was assigned as the tank healer for the less experienced tank, while Pl tank healed the druid. Bd was the raid healer. The Halfus battle involves defeating three drakes (dragons) and then Halfus himself. The three drakes we faced this night (it varies) included both of the AoE heavy drakes, which meant that raid and tank damage would be very high, putting pressure on the healers. It was also a combination that Wild had not faced before. Bd asked Wild to go into Tree Form early and often during the first phase of the fight.

We made a very good first attempt, then struggled on our next two tries. On our fourth attempt we killed two of the drakes but still fell short of getting Halfus past 50% and into the easier phase 2. Our fifth attempt was forgettable, and since we had such a late start that was all we had time for.

As for healing, Wild assessed himself as adequate since despite some good healing numbers he did struggle a bit in keeping his tank alive and as usual was a bit slow in ramping up to raid speed.

Still, Wild topped 8k healing per second (hps) on individual Halfus fights. Counting the trash and all the attempts on Halfus, the final healing numbers came out:

#1: Wild, 5812 hps/32% total healing
#2: Pl, 5385/29%
#3: Bd, 5317/28%

Wild could have hoped for a better outcome of his first raid in a month, but overall it was a lot of fun. We will be back at Halfus on Friday night with hopefully a full three hours to hammer away at BoT.

Tuesday (21 Jun) - Setting The Hook

Tuesday (21 Jun) - Setting The Hook

It was up to See and Shevils to represent Hunter Fortress, the first Tuesday night back for Shevils and Bean since the Big Trip. Speak was out of action with gear trouble while Bean begged off to catch up on a million small details of coming home (and caring for another new addition to the household).

As the two of us waited for our first battleground encounter, Shevils headed off to the Northern Barrens to visit the arms quartermaster, which she hadn't had a chance to do since she gained level 20. See took that opportunity to "accidentally" queue for Warsong Gulch without Shevils. See led her team to victory, taking top damage honors and capping the final flag for the win. So she said, anyway. Shevils was lost somewhere out in the Barrens at the time. :P

The second WSG popped a short time later, but we no sooner entered the BG than it was over. I mean, less than five seconds between arrival and a big fat LOSS. Talk about coming into the tail end of a fight; anyway, See had it right - better the instant loss than a loss after 20 minutes of fighting.

We got in one more WSG, a well fought battle where See also topped the damage charts, got 21 killing blows and capped all three flags! Shevils tagged along and finished 3rd in damage, basking in See's reflected awesomeness. Shevils had her own awesome moments, such as chasing down the level 23 cat druid that thought he could outrun a hunter and when engaged switched to bear form way to late - Shevils got a solo kill. That druid will never live that down.

After we called it a night Wild was in game to enchant some +15 agi weapon enchants for Shevils. As soon as Wild logged in he was hugged and hit from both sides in whispers from the MM2 guild leader and Lady Hunter. They were ecstatic that Wild was back, asked about our travels, and we talked about how things were going.

Well. Remember that MM tank that was taking time off for family? He's joining MM2, along with an excellent rogue that was also in the MM raid group. And remember Rs? Wild's druid tank friend that stayed with MM even when most of our cabal went to MM2? Lady Hunter says he, too, is leaving MM for MM2.

Wild is signed up for Bastion of Twilight with MM2 Thurs/Fri night. They've been bringing in an outside healer that Wild would be replacing (which tells me that they aren't overflowing with raiders at present - or at least healers). The GL said Wild had a spot in his raid, and Lady Hunter offered a spot in her raid, too, if Wild wanted it, although it wasn't clear whether she had a raid quite yet.

Guild wise things are getting sticky once again, and even as Wild counters offers to join MM2 with Wild's famous reluctance to change guilds, Lady Hunter slips in a comment that "it would be for the last time, hun." Wild thought he'd never leave FS, and would have stayed even after the guild fractured had the remaining members wanted him. They didn't. He followed his "cabal" of friends to MM, and that move should have been "for the last time." Then most of those friends split off and started MM2. Wild has new friends in MM now, too, raiding friends. But MM2 is setting the hook. Sigh.

PS - Oh, that new addition? We have a new kitten, Rhodi (pronounced Road-ee). The tiny grey kitten was found in a friends back yard half starved to death. I'm sure he'll be getting a post on the blog site in a day or two.

Weekend (19 Jun) - Potent Patching, Bedeviled Guilds, and Mount-Mania

Weekend (19 Jun) - Potent Patching, Bedeviled Guilds, and Mount-Mania

Wildshard was in game Friday morning and his MM guild leader again weighed in with some additional status on the state of guild raiding. We were the only two in game from the guild. The GL said that after the Friday night raid leader decided to take a break from WoW, one of the non-guildie players on the Saturday raid offered to join the guild and take over as raid leader. That player then moved to Japan and has not been seen in game since. That may sound hard to believe, but that is what Wild was told. I've been to Japan. I think their time zone is like 17 hours later than PST, which would make a 6pm server time start 11am the next day for someone playing in Japan. Maybe he works nights? Or maybe he has to use the Asia servers over there, which is why he has disappeared? It doesn't get much stranger than this.

Anyway, the GL said that he has been talking to the Saturday raid leader about running a second raid during the week. That would be nice, but I'm not sure they will be able to fill it.

While Wild was talking with his GL, he got a whisper from one of the MM2 guildies that Wild raids with. Now that they know Wild is back they are anxious to get me raiding with them again. They now have two raid groups. The first is the Bd raid that Wild is already part of. They are running the Bastion of Twilight (BoT) on Thurs/Fri night. Another MM2 raid group runs Sun/Mon and is working on both BoT and Blackwing Descent (BWD). Wild plans to sign up for Bd's raid, and will consider adding the other raid depending on what they are currently doing. It's really starting to look like MM2 has their act together while MM is just treading water or worse.

I was also told that the next patch, 4.2, was coming on 28 Jun. I couldn't conform that, but if so that will bring a new raid called The Firelands. It will also dumb down the patch 4.1 raids, including BoT, Four Winds, and BWD. Those raids will get easier - maybe easy enough that Wild's two guilds can gain some progress. This is a normal process, now. As new raids are introduced, older raids are simplified so that more players can be successful and see more content. I don't care, I just want to play, so I like this process.

I also learned on my own why my authenticator isn't popping up on my home computer. Simply put, Blizzard changed how the authenticator works. I found it in a patch 4.2 note that no one at Blizzard bothered to mention in the trouble ticket I'd put in. If the computer is considered local, then the IP is considered safe and the authenticator is bypassed. Why? To save me the 5 seconds it takes to enter the code? I have the thing, and I want it active, even at home. I feel less safe without it. Right now there is no way to opt out of that change, but a lot of people are asking on the forum to offer an option that would keep it active. We'll see.

Sunday - With Patch 4.2, Valor Points (earned by doing Heroic dailies and downing raid bosses, and used to buy i359 gear and Tier 11 gear sets) will go away, merged with Justice Points. The good news about this is that all of the gear that required VPs will only require JPs after 4.2. Wild, despite his loathing of random daily dungeons, will have a huge incentive to run them, since he will be able to pretty quickly fill in his gear holes with Tier 11 gear using JPs. Wild figures that if he works at it he might have enough VP+JP points to buy two T11 pieces the day patch 4.2 drops. Wild doesn't have many VPs, but given they were going away it made it worth it to use what he could now. So Wild traded in his i346 relic for an i359 VP purchased relic, which he finally had enough of after his last raid prior to going on vacation.

Wild's biggest needs now are: Gloves, Pants, Ring, and Trinket (which are all i346). Wild will need nearly 4,000 VP+JPs to buy the two piece T11 set (gloves and pants). Wild has less than 800 total points after the relic buy.

The Wild Family also received a "feel good" bonus for our return. On the Happyface side of the family, every member received a Celestial Steed. This versatile mount can be used at level 20 and all the way to level 85, able to run and FLY as long as the toon has the appropriate riding skill. For example, JB can use hers to fly at max speed since she has paid for all her riding skills. Shevils, at level 21, can still ride the steed, but won't be able to fly since she hasn't reach the minimum level for that. Toons below level 20 will still get the steed, but it can't be used until level 20.

On the Wildshard side of the family, every member received a Winged Guardian. The guardian works just like the steed.

JB on her Celestial Steed

Bean on her Winged Guardian

Happy finally relinquished the gold he had accumulated this past month - handing it over to Wild so he could buy his repair npc equipped Mammoth mount. Now Wild can do gear repairs wherever he is without having to go find a repair npc.

Wild's Tundra Mammoth

Thursday (16 Jun) - Home Sweet Home

Thursday (16 Jun) - Home Sweet Home

We are home. Happy has had the run of the place for more than a month, and is content with his efforts to build up the Wild Family coffers to cover what will likely be a lot of pent up demand.

There is even a little bit of news to impart.

Two nights ago JB was making some potions for Lao. When she came in game a couple of guildies said Hi, including the guild leader (GL) who was on one of his many alts. He said, "Hi Jezzi!" I answered back, and, recalling that this was the original day I was supposed to be back, I figured he thought I was home. So JB commented back in guild chat, "I'm not really here yet, I'm somewhere in Arizona at the moment - we got delayed, but should be back by Thursday." That got a puzzled response from the GL, asking "Are you on vacation or something?" Hmm, maybe he didn't realize who JB was?

I whispered the GL, this time, telling him "This is Wildshard." There was a long pause while he digested that. It turned out that he thought he was playing his alliance character, and in that guild there is an alliance toon with JB's name he calls Jezzi.

Once we got that straightened out the GL had some guild news to pass along - most of it bad. Wild's Friday raid group with MM is comatose. The raid leader and tank, Fn, took time off to spend more time with his family and was not raiding. One of the healers, Fl, quit the game and is gone. Two other regulars have simply stopped showing up for reasons unknown, including Rs, one of Wild's cabal friends and the other tank. With Wild also out, that left only five regulars available - but it also left them with no tanks and only one of three needed healers. No wonder they weren't raiding.

Sort of on the positive side, the GL was very excited that his regular Saturday raid has been very successful. They are working Blackwing Descent, and last week they downed their fifth boss, leaving them to challenge the final boss, Nefarian. That was exciting! But when I later peeked at the guild's Achievements, it showed only two of six bosses downed. So the raid is led by the MM guild, but most of the raiders in it are not from MM. Go figure. They raid on Saturday, so that won't be one Wild can run.

As for MM2, they have also not made any further raiding progress as far as I can tell since Wild left on vacation. At the time MM2, with Wild, had just downed Conclave of the Wind in Thrones - but nothing else since. Maybe it's time the two guilds considered reuniting - the split does not seem to have helped either guild progress.

Additionally, I was very surprised when looking at the member status of the two guilds. When MM fractured into two guilds on 1 March, the new MM2 guild started with 20 level 85s to MM's 116 (after the exodus). A week later MM's number of 85s dwindled again to 98, while MM2's swelled to 43. Things seemed to settle a bit after that, but what Wild didn't realize was that the trend set in March has continued into June.

As of 16 Jun, MM has 80 level 85s, a loss of 56 level 85 guildies since the split. MM2, starting with no 85s until the initial 20 jumped to MM2, now has 112 level 85s. It appears that MM is fading, while MM2 is at least still attracting new members. Gah.

Speaking of guilds, there is some exciting news to report, too! And for that, Wild will turn things over to Lao, who has found a much better plan for her future than joining Wild's struggling MM guild. Here's the story in her own words:

"Lao has been a bit bored, she has been fishing and killing Alliance to pass her time. Which are a very similar events, except one takes up more bag space. Then the idea hit her, she can infiltrate the Alliance and gather intelligence. Sure she would have to deal with their holier-than-thou honor and airs, but the intell gathered could be very vital to the Horde cause. No more lost BGs, and Tol Barad would be controlled by the Horde at all times! The beauty of the idea made Lao very excited, she even had to un-fog her goggles.

So last night she knew she had to find a shady character to smuggle her across both servers (so no one on hers would recognize her and blow her cover) and factions. But since the goblins came off their island and have now flooded Org, that was not an issue. So after a few hours, a few exchanging of credits, and dealing with goblin odor (they smell a bit like moldy toads), it occurred. It was a bit tricky, but she settled on a disguise as a gnome, since the blood elf and gnome weigh the same.

So in the early hours of the morning a new innocuous looking girl showed up in Iron Forge named Teagreen, and she sent out a letter to someone she identified that might be a sucker to let in and let her infiltration begin."

So it appears that Lao, in disguise, has changed her faction, her server, and even her name for the glory of the Horde! I hope this shady character she speaks of treats her well and never suspects the life that "Teagreen" once led. Best of luck and hopefully there will come some raiding stories to tell.

So far I had not yet actually logged into the game since our return home. So I was very shocked when I finally had a chance to power up the computer and log in to WoW. Everything was fine - except something didn't seem right. Then it hit me. I had logged in as usual, but the login process never asked me for my authenticator code. It logged me in without it.

I don't know what to think about that. I've logged in at a lot of places over the past month and always had to use my authenticator to get access. Suddenly, at home, it's not required. Needless to say, I am not logging on from home until Blizzard figures this thing out. I did put in a trouble ticket. So I still can't play the game, and even Happy is now out of luck until this is resolved. Sigh.