Thursday (7 Jan) - From Beasts to the Bug

Thursday (7 Jan) - From Beasts to the Bug

Thursday night was our second night for the MM Toc10 raid. In their own guild they are called raid group 3. Most of the raiders in this group (Wild learned as he gets to know them better) have seen individual success in ToC10 with the other guild raid groups, but the new raid group has not been playing together for very long. They started in Ulduar before the holidays, but never really got on track as they were missing some of their key members. Wild got in on one or two of those early raids, but at the time Wild's guild was still fielding a 25 man that took precedence. The MM ToC10 took the holidays off, and this week was their first week back, and at near full strength.

For Thursday's run the raid makeup was slightly different than Wednesday's. The holy priest was gone, and we had a shadow priest instead. Wild loves shadow priests, as they really improve mana regen. Bd, the raid leader, switched from his warrior to his druid to be the third healer, along with Wild and Sh, the shaman.

On Wednesday it took us five tries to defeat the first boss encounter, Northrend Beasts, and we made four attempts on the second boss encounter before calling it an evening. You could say we were rusty. We started the second night against that second boss, Jaraxxus, a demon with many nasty tricks.

And we killed him on our first attempt. We were all pretty stoked after taking Jaraxxus down, but there were plenty of challenges still ahead.

The next boss encounter was the Faction Champions. Wild has seen this fight only once before. The Champions are 14 npcs, five of which appear once the event is started. There is almost always a healer, sometimes two, but it takes knowing what their names are to tell what their roles are. For us the names read as follows: Anthar Forgemember (holy priest and the healer), Baelnor Lightbearer (retribution paladin), Irieth Shadowstep (rogue), Kavina Grovesong (moonkin druid), and Noozle Wizzlestick (mage).

That list was also the kill order for the fight, in what is a five vs ten pvp battle. Don't feel smug at the 2 to 1 advantage on our side. These are Champions, and very tough. The strategy is pretty straightforward. Killing the healer (the priest) was our first priority. As long as he lived he'd make sure all the others stayed alive. Number two was the toughest, the paladin, who was murderous and very hard to kill. Then the rest in order. Two raiders were assigned to harass the rogue while the rest focused on the kill order. The rogue, left to his own devices, was a deadly, stealthy attacker, and we wanted him kept very busy until we got around to killing him. Everyone was told to keep moving, watch who targets you, and play it like these Champions were alliance players in some mid-field battlegrounds fight, winner being the last team standing.

It was a rout. That is, we got slaughtered on our first attempt. The rogue slipped away, and started slicing throats. The moonkin created a lot more havoc than expected, Wild seeming to bear the brunt of his attention and dying early, and the priest appeared capable of out healing all the damage being done to him. Wild wished JB were here to give him some pvp tips, as he was not practiced in any of this pvp stuff. Bd came to the rescue, though, reminding Wild that I could use my own interrupts and saves like Cyclone and Stomp to keep attackers at bay.

We wiped again on our second attempt, but the rogue was controlled correctly and we came close to killing the priest. On our third attempt the dang moonkin again outplayed Wild, although I like to think I gave him at least a little trouble before I died. There were two more deaths, but this time the five faction Champions died. A sweet +crit trinket dropped, but we had lots of DPS in the raid that wanted it.

After the Faction Champs came the Twins, Lightbane and Darkbane. Wild has seen this fight only once, although he was involved in many attempts on that one night. Wild would have real trouble with this one, on many levels. First, the strategy was different than what Wild had practiced on in that one other encounter. Second, Wild had started getting half second delays in his spell casting. This is a problem that sometimes pops up and then goes away and I haven't been able to figure out what causes it. I've checked fps (frames per second) and other indications that it might be caused by a server side problem, but there were no obvious issues. It may be some problem with my internet carrier, or maybe my wireless mouse. So far I haven't been able to nail it down. When it happens, though, Wild's spell casting goes into semi-slow motion.

The twins are called Lightbane and Darkbane for a reason. They both have the same abilities, and they even share the same pool of health, but they are the polar opposites of each other. When the event is started, four portals form at each corner of the room, two light, and two dark. Every raider must click on one of the portals to become light or dark, which shows up as a glowing circle under our feet. What color you are, and it must be changed many times during the fight, can be extremely confusing. Get it wrong, and raiders die.

The raid leader explained the fight, giving directions on vent for the tanks and DPS on what color they should start with and what commands would be called out in vent when colors had to be changed. Trying to keep things simple, the raid leader gave the healers private instructions so that the rest of the raid wouldn't get confused. In some ways the healers had it the worst, as our color shifts didn't always make intuitive sense. The difference between what Wild was used to and this strategy is that the raid leader then divided us into two groups, one for the light twin, and one for the dark twin. Wild was in group 1 on the Lightbane side. That meant that everyone in Wild's group selected dark; except Wild, who had to select light. The second difference is that the two portals Wild was used to using to initially select our colors from were in the back of the room, away from the two bosses. On this raid, we were grouped up near where the bosses would spawn, and would get our colors from the portals nearer the bosses.

In most of the events in ToC, the mobs either have a lot of stuff to say before they actually become hostile, or stand around untouchable until we activate the event. So when the portals formed up Wild went up to white portal to get his color as Lightbane entered the room and also headed in that direction. I expected Lightbane to ignore me. Instead, Lightbane aggroed on Wild. No one was ready for that, least of all Wild. We wiped.

That was pretty embarrassing, but I chalked it up as a lesson learned. For the rest of the attempts Wild had to quickly get to the portal and select my color before Lightbane got close enough to aggro. I didn't make a big deal out of it, but for next time I'm going to suggest we all use the back of the room portals to pick up our colors, and only after that should the two groups move to position to attack the twins. It's much safer that way.

Our second attempt went ok for what was really a first real attempt, but Wild struggled with his balky spell casting and that frankly cost us as my group started dying. There is nothing more frustrating than knowing you got a heal off in time to save a struggling raider and then seeing that the heal never landed. And seeing him die.

Some of the DPS were asking in vent why Wild was light while everyone else was dark, and then that got me confused as to whether I had misunderstood the pattern I was to follow. I whispered the raid leader. He confirmed that I was doing it right, but the rest of the raid didn't know that because healer colors had been explained in private. We got that sorted out as well and went at the twins again.

On our third try Wild tried mightily to anticipate heals and practically battered his keyboard and mouse into plastic fragments trying to overcome the spell casting delays. The shaman, who was in elemental spec for the extra damage, helped out with chain heals, and we managed to hold together deep into the fight. During the course of the battle the raid leader would call out "DPS dark! (or light)" which meant what it said. DPS only change colors by running to the appropriate portal and changing to that color. Sometimes he would call "Raid light (or dark)" in which the entire raid needed to switch to that color. In the old strat Wild would always stand near a portal of the opposite color so that if I needed to switch it could be done quickly. With the new strategy that wasn't as easy to do. Delay too long, and really, really, bad things happened if you were the wrong color. I worried obsessively about that, afraid the mouse click would fail me just as I was trying to switch colors.

No matter how hard we worked at it, though, Wild's group mates started to die. At the end, we had the twins down to 5% health and the only raiders left were the five in the other group. All of Wild's team had died. The other group saved our bacon, hanging in there and getting that last 5%. We had won. It was Wild's first kill of the twins.

There is but one boss left - Anub'arak. If that name sounds familiar, that's because you've seen it before. You might think this big bug is the same as the one in the Spider wing of Naxxramas. Well, the two look alike, but the Naxx one is called Anub'rekhan. Let's say they are very close cousins. But you have seen Anub'arak before, in the five man dungeon Azjol-Nerub. The bug has kind of a cult following by those who played Warcraft III, the Frozen Throne. Anub had a prominent role in that game, and was considered a very bad dude. So, many folks were very disappointed when WotLK came out and he turned up in a lowly five man dungeon, and as the measly first boss to boot. So Blizz fixed that, having Anub'arak return as the final boss in ten man ToC. And here he lives up to his deadly reputation.

Throughout the evening the two primary healers were Wild and Bd, both of us druids. The third healer, Sh, often had other duties and wasn't even in healing spec for some of the fights. Bd is a great tank on his warrior, and he has grown into a pretty darn good healer on his druid as well, consistently beating Wild in hps and total healing. So what happened with Anub'arak was both surprising - and hilarious.

Wild had never gotten past the twins before, so I did not know what was about to happen when we started the event for Anub'arak. The floor of the chamber shattered, and we fell a long ways into a lake deep below ground. Swimming to shore, Wild saw a vast cavern. Far from where Wild shook the water off his hide, a circle cut into the floor marked where Anub would appear.


Wild was back on raid healing duty, Bd was main tank healer, and Sh was healing the off tank. We moved closer and Anub appeared. We buffed up and made sure everyone was ready. Bd gave the main tank the ok to engage. Wild likes to drop both Lifeblooms and a Regrowth on the main tank close to when he engages, even if I'm not the tank healer. It just gives the tank a little extra healing over time for those first key seconds of the fight. But unlike Wild's other raids, where there is a three or five second countdown, the main tank just starts running to the boss when he feels ready. Wild got a couple of lifeblooms on him and then started raid healing, unable to get a regrowth on him. Less than fifteen seconds into the fight, the main tank died and we wiped.

"That was me, I did that!" Bd said in vent. He said he misjudged how hard Anub hit and didn't recover in time to save the tank. He of course got mercilessly ribbed about it, we all had a good laugh, and we set up for our second attempt. This time Wild was able to get lifeblooms and a regrowth on the main tank as he started his charge, and I saw that Bd had dropped some HoTs on him as well. Wild decided to follow Bd in as I planned to refresh my Hots on the tank before starting to raid heal, just for some added help. But the main tank died before either Bd or Wild got in range of him. He was too far ahead of us, with both of us having misjudged how long the run was to the boss. Of course we wiped again.

It was too much. Our toons were not only dead, but we were killing ourselves laughing so hard. Bd knew what the problem was. He wasn't drunk enough yet. I have to be drunk to heal, he announced, and I plan to get there right now! Five minute Tequila break! We all cheered. I don't know how many hit the liquor locker during those five minutes, but we were all raring to go when we reassembled. As the main tank got ready for his charge, Wild whispered to Bd, "Race you to Anub!" I think I got a step ahead of him as he fired a barb back at me, but we both arrived together with the tank at Anub and we both plastered the tank with heals until we were sure things were well in hand. The battle began in earnest.

While the tank battled Anub, and the DPS pounded the boss, the off tank was hunting up the adds - more bugs that periodically spawned. Frozen patches of ground formed and the bugs were pulled to those areas. Staying on frozen ground, which formed when designated raiders shot down floating spheres (and which eventually dissipated), whenever possible was a key element to staying alive. Wild's mysterious spell casting delays disappeared, much to Wild's relief, and my healing picked up considerably. There is a phase 2 to the fight, and Anub burrowed under the ground. Above ground, scarabs that do not attack during the first phase, become hostile. They are numerous, easy to kill, but pack a pretty good wallop so avoiding them is the best choice. When you can. At the same time the tunneling Anub randomly targeted raiders and began chasing them with a string of spikes visible above ground. The spikes die out only when they hit a patch of frozen ground. If they reach the chased raider on non-frozen ground, the impact can be single shot fatal. The rule of thumb is that no matter what, stay away from the spikes, and do not be standing where that spike explodes, whether you are the chase-ee or not.

The two phases alternate until we get Anub down to 30% health. We made a good attempt, but wiped with Anub at about 37% health.

On our fourth attempt we got him to 30%, but we were already tilting into another wipe.

We had time for one more attempt. We had already seen huge progress from last night to tonight, and could comfortably rest on our laurels, having downed three encounters tonight. But we really wanted that bug.

On our fifth attempt we again got Anub down to 30%, and we were still in good shape with no raiders dead. The fight takes a crazy turn when we enter the third and final phase. Anub became a straight tank and spank fight. We still had a few leftover mobs to kill, but no new ones spawned. Of course, there is a wrinkle. There's always a wrinkle. In this phase Anub heals himself by drawing health from the raid. The higher our health, the more healing he gets. So healers have to let raider health get down to 50% or less (except for the tank), and keep it down there, without getting anyone killed.

The hardest thing in the world for a healer is to NOT heal someone who obviously needed heals. It is completely WRONG down to the very core of our being. Wild did not know how fast Anub would be draining health, or how much Wild's smallest HoT, rejuv, would recoup that health. I knew that using any bigger spells would likely raise health by too much. Wild kept his eyes on the raid, totally focused on those health bars, and tweaking constantly to maintain that low but still survivable bubble of health. Wild was so focused I was momentarily confused by the cheering.

Anub'arak was dead. We had cleared Trial of the Crusader.


It was an incredible rush. Wild and Bd talked excitedly with each other for quite awhile, going over what we did, what worked, what didn't, and just revelling in the victory. What a night.

Wild thought he'd retired for the evening, even leaving the game for awhile. But I was too stoked to call it an evening. Plus I had an ulterior motive for coming back in game. Wild has been collecting triumph emblems. With thirty emblems Wild could buy the T9 i232 gloves, which would give him two T9 pieces and get him the two piece set bonus. But he already had a decent pair of gloves, and gloves would likely be the first T10 piece he bought once he had enough frost emblems (60 of those were needed, drat Blizz!). Wild only had 30 frost emblems, so maybe I should go ahead and get the T9 gloves. Wild resisted temptation, however, and the magnificent clear of ToC had raised Wild's truimph emblems to 45. I only needed five more and Wild could buy the T9 i232 legguards, which would be a major improvement over the i219 T8 trousers Wild was now wearing.

What's the best, and quickest, way to get a few more triumph emblems? Calling Dungeon Finder, get me into a heroic!

When the call came, I couldn't have picked a better one myself. Our random group got Violet Hold, one of the easiest and quickest heroic of them all. We blasted through there in under twenty minutes, and it would have been even faster except that there are forced wait times between bosses where for minutes we just stood around waiting for them to spawn.

How many emblems did Wild get? Five. Forty-five plus five equals fifty (if Wild has his math right). Wild got his T9 pants and his two piece set bonus (he also has the T9 shoulder gear).

Bd led in healing with 2543 hps and 36.8% of total healing. Wild did ok with 2245 hps and 27.6%. But I'll be working on raising that percentage and gauging my progress in comparison with Bd.

Wednesday (6 Jan) - On the Trail of Beasts

Wednesday (6 Jan) - On the Trail of Beasts

Wild arrived at the Argent Tournament grounds around 5:40pm for the 6pm Wednesday raid. Normally Wild would go hang out at the eastern platform where the 10/25 ToC raids formed up to enter the Coliseum. Wild felt a little weird about that on this night. Wild opted to hop on his bronze dragon mount instead of simply shifting to flying form as was his norm, flew up to the roof of the Coliseum, and hung out there, around the corner from the eastern platform.

Wild saw that the raid leader, Bd, of the MM raid Wild had signed up for, was in game. Wild whispered a Hi! to him, and he came back with his usual "Sup, Wild!" I was typing up another whisper to him when I got a second one from him. "WOOT!" He'd seen that Wild had signed up for his raid. And confirmed that Wild would definitely get an invite.

It wasn't just the MM raid that was forming up, though. Wild's guild had scheduled a ToC25 raid for Wednesday as well - same time, same place. Wild had declined the guild raid invitation, so they knew I was not participating. That's what made it weird to hang out at the eastern platform - Wild would be among guildies, guildies Wild would not be raiding with on this night.

The MM raid took it's time forming up. There was one raider who overslept, and two others who had user interface problems that had to be worked out. But it was still shy of 6:30pm when we got started. Bd, who Wild is used to seeing as the tank, delegated tanking duties to two other raiders. We had three healers, Wild, plus Sh (a shaman Wild has run with before), and d-priest, a holy priest who was making her first visit to ToC. Wild opted to raid heal, with the other two getting main tank and off tank responsibilities. Wild had run with four of these good folk before, so Wild got to get acquainted with five new raiders as well. All were in the MM guild. Wild was the only non-guildie in the raid. And at least four were women. Wild isn't used to so many women's voices in vent.

As we made final preparations, Wild was also monitoring guild chat to see how the ToC25 was going. It wasn't. Only 14 raiders showed up, and they had to cancel the raid. Those that did show eventually formed up an Onyxia ten man raid, so it wasn't a complete loss. Perhaps it's still too soon after the holidays. Perhaps there will be better participation next week. Perhaps.

The "sauciness" Wild had learned to expect from this group started up before Bd finished covering the strategy for the first boss encounter, Northrend Beasts. Lady Hunter, who had joined the MM guild some time ago, but raids only rarely due to some complicated housing issues, was visiting with Bd and was in the raid. I gave her a shout out and we traded hugs and barbs. So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when, in the middle of Bd's explanations, a loud buzzing noise drowned out Bd. "You told us to wrap up our preparations," explained Lady Hunter, the source of the noise (but through Bd's mike, since she was sitting next to him), "and I wanted to make sure the vibrator was working." That created a few minutes of pandemonium, with Bd trying to finish his explanations but often losing the thread of his remarks every time a new, ever more racy, comment popped up in raid chat.

I can't say that we settled down, but we did finally get started.

Northrend Beasts starts with Gormok, a single boss fight that is a typical "stay out of the fire" and "get this snobold off my back!" fight. Ok, so the snobold throwing (a small ratlike eat your face creature) by Gormok is a bit different. It had been some time since this group last raided, and there were some new faces even between the MM guildies, so there were some expected bumps as we got used to each other and re-familiarized ourselves with the fight. Gormok is only the first of three waves of bosses: a pair of frostwyrms, Acidmaw and Dreadmaw, follow on the heels of Gormok, and then Icehowl follows the wyrms.

Our first three attempts were somewhat like practice runs, and we got better each time, killing Gormok on our 2nd attempt, and getting to Icehowl on our fourth. The fourth attempt was awesome. We had been steadily losing raiders and only minutes into the icehowl fight we were down to just five - Wild healing, a DK tanking, and three DPS. On of the DPS, a mage, stood so far away Wild couldn't heal him, and I couldn't move to him because it took me out of range of the tank. He never thought to move into range of the one healer left, but somehow he managed to keep his health around 30% for the longest time. The rest of the remaining raiders Wild was going crazy trying to keep alive. I'm not sure what the enrage timer is for Icehowl, but the timers are generally ten minutes. We used up all ten minutes, all five of us staying in the fight until he enraged and killed us. We had him down to 10%, and I'm sure we would have eventually killed him - around midnight, maybe. :-)

We beat Northrend Beasts on our fifth attempt. Then came Lord Jaraxxus. We healers had a steep learning curve on this one. We had the same assignments as before, but Jaraxus comes with two special wrinkles. One is Incinerate Flesh. Raiders who get this must immediately receive massive healing. IF absorbs the heals (ie, all that healing doesn't actually heal him) but IF falls off after absorbing 30,000 worth of healing. The other is Legion Flame, and raiders who get this must run away from the raid, leaving a trail of fire in their wake, and then come back when it ends. Any time a healer got either one of those, raiders started dying, because we were still working out how to cover for each other when those things happened to us.

We worked on positioning, looking for a way that we could all stay in range of each other without creating worse problems by bunching up. During the set up of one of the attempts, d-priest was standing too far back, outside Wild's healing range. I had moved forward as much as I could, but she was still out of reach.

"d-priest, could you come just a little closer, please, I can't reach you." She moved a little bit toward me.

"Close enough?"

"Come in a little more," Wild responded.

"Now? Should I come again?" she asked.

Wild replied, "By all means, your position is perfect, and it feels so good!" I'd call the hubbub after that more pandemonium, but really it was just our normal state of craziness.

We never did kill Jaraxxus, and after four attempts we called it a night. That seemed less important that how much fun Wild had, and I'm looking forward to Thursday night's shenanigans.

Wild led in healing, working with Bd to find the right assignments for the best results. Wild moved to off tank healer on Jaraxxus, because the OT had to move a lot and Wild could move with him. D-priest had some mana problems, and Wild gave up his innervate to keep her going. We did struggle some, but I think we are ready for the next round.

Healing:
#1: Wild, 2390 hps, 40% healing
#2: Sh, 2127/30%
#3: d-priest, 2307/28%

After the raid and back in Dalaran, Wild saw that Rh, the raid leader for the guild ToC25, was still in game. I whispered him, feeling that I owed him an explanation for declining the raid when in fact, I was in game. He understood and approved of Wild doing whatever I thought best to progress. Of course, a better geared and experienced Wild will help down the road in guild 25 mans, but mostly I think he was just glad that I took the time to talk to him about it. He joked at the end, telling Wild, "but don't forget about us!"

Wild is very happy to be raiding again.

Tuesday (5 Jan) - Taking Stock of Wild's Raiding Plans

Tuesday (5 Jan) - Taking Stock of Wild's Raiding Plans

I know you've been waiting anxiously to find out how Wild's cunilingu . . . uh, culinary arts are coming along. Wild was disappointed on Tuesday when the daily cooking quest was once again "Soup For The Soul" - for the fifth straight day. Wild did not bother to do the quest. Wild checked again early Wednesday morning, and finally, Finally! received the quest "Revenge is tasty." The story behind this quest is that a guest in Skettis was knocked down and got his leg broken by a Monstrous Kaliri bird. His friends were giving him a cheering up party, and what better way to cheer him up than by serving some kaliri stew. For that, Wild needed a wing from one of the giant birds. Skettis is home not only to the kaliri birds, but also to a number of elite mobs. Before Northrend, level 70 players hunted those elites for a number of rep quests, and at that level Skettis was always a somewhat dangerous place to hang around at. The kaliri birds were not elite, but killing one took a little creativity. Why? Because they're birds, and birds fly, and these birds never land, or come close enough to be hit from the ground. They have to be attacked in the air. And you can't actually attack them from the air. The trick is to fly after one of the birds and badger it until it attacks first. One thing to remember is that when a flying player is attacked, he can be knocked off his mount. The fall can hurt - a lot - plus where you fall could make things interesting as well if there were elites around. Nothing a level 80 couldn't handle, but why make things too complicated. Wild has the advantage of flying form, so I wasn't manhandling a big flying mount around. Wild also made sure that I was over water (there's a large lake there) when I made a kaliri bird angry at me.

Wild got his wing on this third kill. Back in Shattrath he completed the quest and got his Chef title. Wild dressed up for the official photo, wearing his tuxedo shirt, festival shoulders, and, of course, his Chef's hat.


On Tuesday night Wild also got in his daily emblem quest, and for the first time had some trouble with getting a group together through the Dungeon Finder. It took about ten minutes before Wild got his first invite to a random heroic, but one of the DPS waited five minutes after the invites came out and then declined. A rather vocal hunter in the group kept us entertained while we waited that first five minutes. We went back into the queue. It was only a couple of minutes before we filled again. The dungeon was Utgarde Pinnacle, a pretty easy dungeon with four bosses. We were starting to buff up when our tank checked out, leaving the group. Ok, so that hunter was a bit annoying, but really, this won't take twenty minutes. With the tank gone, though, the group leader, of all people, who was also our healer, checked out as well. Wild became the group leader. Now we're really in trouble. Wild reset the queue so that we could get a tank and healer, and that took another ten minutes of waiting around, listening to the hunter. We did finally get a group, and we cleared UP easily. As I mentioned, UP has four bosses, and Wild was able to get some good data on his DPS for each of the boss fights. Overall, Wild's DPS was a modest 2112, but on the boss fights Wild did considerably better:

1st boss (Svala) - 2248 DPS (1st)
2nd boss (Gortok) - 3306 DPS (2nd to mage)
3rd boss (Skadi) - 3277 DPS (1st)
4th boss (Ymiron) - 2070 DPS (1st)

King Ymiron Fears the entire raid several times during that battle, and the chunks of time where no damage is done lowered the DPS for everyone. Wild is less effective on trash mobs, because of target changing as well as the fact that the main druid AoE, Hurricane, is not really as good as other cast AoE. Still, Wild will take good DPS on bosses over good trash DPS any time.

Later, Wild was researching something on wowhead and came across one of those posts where a player asks the community why his DPS was so low, what was he doing wrong, etc. There were a couple of talent change suggestions, and I realized how long it had been since I thought about Wild's moonkin talent spec. I knew for sure that I had not made any changes since long before I started actively bringing Wild into heroics as a moonkin, which is much different than solo questing/grinding, which is what I would have originally set my talents for. The short answer is that yes, Wild needed to make some changes. Without boring you with the details, the gist of what Wild did was reduce my in combat mana regen (by quite a lot) to get higher spell power and crit - in other words, I sacrificed mana (the fuel for Wild's spells) in order to do higher damage. In heroics (pre-talent change) Wild has had absolutely no mana problems, never dropping below 80% even when furiously firing off my highest mana eating spells. Still, I'll need to watch that on future fights to see if I run into mana issues.

Next up is Wild's guild raiding review.

For the past two Tuesday's over the holiday there was no maintenance interfering with in game time. This Tuesday things were back to normal, with a long (3am to 11am) maintenance period. Wild took the time to take stock of the guild's raiding situation, and Wild's own plans and desires for raiding and gearing up.

With an expectation that we are now ready to begin scheduling raids again, Wild's guild has a 25 man raid on the calendar for Wednesday. The target is ToC25, as the guild still needs the last boss to earn a clear of that raid dungeon, and certainly there are raiders that need the i245 gear and the T9+ tier sets that drop in there. Wild could certainly use plenty of gear from there.

The guild website had a short announcement that 25 man raids were being started up again. In regard to 10 man raids, it was mentioned that those raids were focused on Icecrown Citadel (ICC). Raids, plural, likely means that the two senior raid leaders would continue their two 10 mans with essentially the same raid makeup as they've had for many months. Those are good groups, and pretty stable, and that's a good thing for them and the guild. Wild knows firsthand, though, that while fill ins are welcome and encouraged when they are short raiders, most of the time there is no room for anyone but the regulars.

So what about other guildies who want to raid ten mans? The obvious answer for a guild as large as ours is to form another 10 man or two. Our recent history has not been kind to a third ten man, and not much has changed to make Wild believe that one will be created, or if created, a stable group of raiders would emerge to fill it. There just aren't enough of us with the time and the desire to raise ten man guild raiding to thirty people plus fill ins.

Also this week, the MM guild has restarted a second (or third) 10 man that is initially focused on ToC10. ToC10 rewards i232 gear and the i232 level T9 gear. Wild would have a greater chance at gear in a ten man, plus, there is the opportunity for as many as 15 triumph emblems for clearing it. I like the raid leader for this group, a former guildie, there are some good raiders in the group already, and running with these folk is always fun. The names still change more often than is healthy for a stable group, and they are aiming at ToC10 because the raid isn't ready for ICC. Wild has no problem with that, and admits up front that he stills needs ToC10 level gear to be more ready for ICC, too, but to be fair I have to wonder how stable the raid makeup will be. This group meets on Wednesday and Thursday night. Earlier in the week the raid leader got hold of Wild to let Wild know that his open invitation to join his raid still stood, and added Wild to his raid calendar in case I decided to come along.

So, Wild has gone from little or no raiding to a conflict on Wednesday, our first planned raid night of 2010. I want to commit, one way or the other. Wild has always been doggedly faithful to his guild, and in the case of the larger guild raids Wild has always cleared his calendar to be available for them. I've never regretted that. But I think that Wild will lose his opportunity for not only 10 man raiding in ToC, but 10 man raiding in ICC as well down the road, unless Wild can get settled, soon, in an established group. Wild needs a ten man home. Assuming Wild does get an invite to the MM 10 man on Wednesday (and Wild will sign up for it), he will miss the guild ToC25 run. Making one more assumption, assuming the Wednesday ToC25 is a success, there will likely be a second day added, probably Friday. Wild could be available for that Friday raid as an alternate, and again, based on our recent past, there will likely be spots open. So the plan is to raid ten mans on Wed/Thurs with the MM guild, and try to get into the 25 man guild raid each Friday.

There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

You know, this whole post evolved when Wild started going over all the options and opportunities for gearing up ultimately for ICC25. I may numb you all with those machinations at some point, but suffice it to say now that lots of triumph and frost emblem farming are in Wild's immediate present and future to get there.

Monday (5 Jan) - Rockin' The Gulch

Monday (5 Jan) - Rockin' The Gulch

Wild is doing his best to keep grinding away at the random dungeon daily. On Monday if was the Halls of Lightning (HoL). Our group had no trouble and we pounded through there pretty fast. Wild's moonkin DPS was a pedestrian 2.1k compared to the other two DPSers 2.9k (mage) and 4.5k (DK), but Wild broke 3k on the boss fights and isn't particularly worried about it. The players for the random dungeon runs run the gamut from "just turned 80" to top tier raiders, so it's difficult to make comparisons in a thirty minute run.

After getting his two frost emblems for HoL, Wild decided it was time to make his second HoR run. The Halls of Reflection is a five man dungeon in the new Icecrown Citadel. If you'll recall (and Wild can't forget), Wild completed all three of the new five mans (HoR, plus the Forge of Souls and the Pit of Saron), but failed to turn in the final quest from HoR. Since the npc that the quest is turned in to only appears at the conclusion of HoR, Wild had no way to turn in the quest without running HoR again.

So here was Wild, back again at the start of HoR. Note that the IC five mans are not pushovers. They award much better gear than the heroics (ilevel 232 vs i200) and are considerably tougher. HoR has a very challenging beginning, and a very exciting and fun ending. Our group's healer was a shaman who was in HoR for the first time. From the party chat it looked like the group had three players from the same guild, which included the shaman. When asked what was the best way to heal the first part of the battle, the group leader told the shaman "spam the hell out of chain heal." Wild hoped that would be enough.

The front half of the fight consists of weathering ten waves of mobs. The waves are arrayed around a circular area and it's possible to aggro more than one wave if players are not careful. There are two bosses to deal with during the waves as well. What groups usually do is gather in one of the alcoves off the main room and force each wave to come find us, and then the mobs are fought in the alcove. That's what we tried.

Wild's DPS approach for multiple mobs is to DoT up incoming hostiles until the tank had gotten hold of them, and then channel Hurricane, Wild's best AoE spell. Once mobs start to fall, Wild can pick up and help kill the stragglers that survived or avoided the AoE, keying on what the tank was targeting.

We got about halfway through the waves when our melee rogue chased a mob out into the main room and aggroed additional mobs. Things got really hairy, and the heals stopped coming, and Wild had to break out of moonkin to self-heal. That's when I noticed that three players had already died. It was a wipe.

Fortunately, the dead waves stayed dead, so we did not have to start from scratch on our second try. On that second try, we did pretty well until the very end. The eighth wave took longer to bring down than the others, and the ninth wave arrived before we had finished off the 8th. While the group was capable enough to handle the extra wave, the trouble was that these mobs ran at and aggroed on everybody but the tank. Wild had two mobs in his face and had to single target them to survive instead of being able to AoE. Wild brought down one of the them, and got a quick peek around. The shaman was dead, and the rest of us were dangerously low on health. Wild dropped out of moonkin and started healing. Wild healed himself first, fending off the mob on me at the same time, and then got the tank healthy. The tank gathered up the remaining mobs as Wild healed up one of the DPSers, but I wasn't in time for the rogue, who died. But things were back in hand again, and Wild helped bring down the last of the mobs.

There was a bit of a lull, and I think we forgot there was still more to come. Wild rezzed the two dead players, and popped a couple of heals on them as they sat down to drink and buff up. Both were still under half health, though (and the shaman would later say he had only 30% mana), when another wave descended on us. But we managed to stuff that wave even gimped as we we were, finishing off the first part of the fight.

For the second half of the fight the npc Sylvanas joined us, and we got a sudden visit from the Lich King himself. The advice Sylvanas gives us was the same Wild got on his first run of HoR: "Run!"

On that first HoR run, the strategy was essentially to keep running and stay out of range of the Lich King, who could and would single shot kill any one of us that got into range of him. The Lich King would call down groups of mobs to slow us down, which we would kill on the run.

The group leader offered another strategy for this run. As Sylvanas leads us on our merry escape, instead of following her, we peeled off to the left and basically hid from the Lich King. There was a moment where I think we all held our breath, when the Lich King walked past our position. If he sees us we're all dead, Wild thought. But he didn't, choosing instead to chase after Sylvanas, who kept moving as well.

Once the Lich King was well past us, we followed along behind him. The Lich King still spawned mobs, and we tackled them from behind the Lich King, which took a lot of pressure off of worrying about the Lich King catching up with us. At the end of the chase Sylvanas broke down a final barrier and we escaped as falling rocks blocked the Lich King. Wild barely made it through before the rocks blocked the way, but one player got stuck behind them. With the Lich King. The group leader told the panicked rogue not to worry. Sure enough, the Lich King despawned and the rock barrier crumbled so the rogue could join us.

I have to agree that the follow strategy is the better strat. But I wouldn't give up that first HoR and the thrill of being chased by the Lich King for anything.

An ilevel 232 ring, [Oath of Empress Zoe], dropped. Wild and the shaman rolled need on it - and Wild won it. It's a DPS/crit ring, so it helps Wild more on the moonkin side, but with more +int and mp5 than one of Wild's other rings, it was an upgrade to Wild's healing as well.

At the end a ship waits for us, with a portal back to Dalaran. Wild made sure not to make the same mistake he made last time, which was to get on the ship and take the portal. Wild waited about a minute on the landing, while some in the group talked about staying together for another random run. Sylvanas then appeared on the landing, and Wild got his quest completed. The group broke up and we were done.

The take from the HoR run was - a new ring, two frost emblems from the quest, and three triumph emblems for completing HoR. Wild's DPS was around 3.1k for most of the run, 2nd in the group, with a lot of AoE going on.

Monday night it was time for some pvp action. Ando the druid healer and EZ the orc shaman teamed up for a long and exciting evening of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin action. We had hoped Lao could join us, but she didn't make it.

Both EZ and Ando were level 20, so we were at the cannon fodder stage of the 20-29 bracket. There is a certain freedom from worry when you are that low on the totem pole - nobody expects much from you, and if you do manage to light up and kill a few allies, it's a lot of fun to dance on their corpse for letting a level 20 beat them.

We had a huge run of good luck in WSG, playing for hours and racking up five wins against just one loss. We also split two AB battles, winning one and losing one, for an overall 6-2 record on the evening. In between it was training time. Ando and EZ dueled each other many times, working on our techniques. Since both of us could heal, the duels often came down to who could manage mana better. I think we were pretty evenly matched gear and stat wise, which meant that the better pvper, Ando, usually won. EZ got in some good practice, learned a few new tricks from Ando, and it was a lot of fun.

Both of us DINGED! to level 21.

Weekend (4 Jan)- Wild Earns his Chef Title (Maybe)

Weekend (4 Jan)- Wild Earns his Chef Title (Maybe)

The weekend isn't over yet, so I hope the lead in for this post isn't premature. Wild isn't quite done, and if he doesn't wrap it up before I publish this post, I guess Wild will have egg batter on his face.

Since the last report, Wild has completed all but two of the achievements needed to win his Chef's title. The latest include:

Critter Gitter - Wild charmed 10 penguins with critter bites to build a private penguin army.

Dinner Impossible - Loved this one. Wild had to join all five level 80 pvp battlegrounds and cook the raid a Great Feast in each one. Wild even stuck around for the fights. Officially, Wild lost four BGs, but won the Eye of the Storm and even got a pvp achievement for winning in less than six minutes. Wild credits his Great Feast for the win. ;-) Of course, Wild didn't know what was going on in Eye of the Storm, but hey, over the course of those five BGs Wild earned four pvp achievements, including getting his 500th honor kill. See, cooking isn't all about stoves and stuff, Wild got to kill people, too. Hmm, I hope I didn't get those ingredients mixed up. Alliance tarts, anyone?

Second That Emotion - Wild had to make and then nibble on such interesting cuisine as Last Week's Mammoth (better than last month's mammoth) and Bad Clams.

The Northrend Gourmet - Cooking up all 45 recipes offered in Northrend.

Sous Chef - Learning at least 100 cooking recipes.

Probably the most interesting recipe in Wild's growing cookbook was Kungaloosh. It took a little bit of sleuthing to get that one. The recipe is given by a quest, and the quest giver is right in Dalaran, but there were pre-quests to be completed before that quest could be obtained.

The investigation led Wild to Sholazar Basin, where Wild received a quest from Grimbooze Thunderbrew called "Some Make Lemonade, Some make Liquor." Wild collected fruit from local trees in this lush zone. Then, for a followup quest, Wild performed a timed event where I had to mix all the ingredients and operate a pressure regulated stove. Wild had five things he had to have instant access to as the quest giver yelled out instructions, and in the middle of that a horde player on one of those huge mammoth mounts decided to stand in the middle of the operation. I've heard of opposite faction players trying to make a player fail a quest, but it was pretty irritating seeing a fellow horde do it.

Wild got it done, anyway. After completing the second quest, a third had Wild taking the resulting brew around to several npcs for taste tests. Finally, Wild returned to Dalaran, met with the quest giver down in the sewer section of the city, and received the Kungaloosh recipe. Surprisingly, this recipe is actually useful and fun at the same time. The functional part is that it restores mana when you drink it, just like many other easily purchased items do. But the drink also makes you tipsy, and getting a little high before or after a fight gets big "fun" marks in raids. Seriously. The ingredients for Kungaloosh are cheap and can be bought from vendors, so there is no grinding for ingredients, either. Wild now carries around a stack of Kungaloosh as a staple of his food and drink buffs.

The Outland level 70 daily cooking quest is what is keeping Wild from finishing. There are four quests, and one of the four is randomly available each day. Wild has gotten three of them done, but the wow random number generator gods have yet to give Wild a chance at the fourth one, Revenge is Tasty.

The other achievement Wild hasn't finished is also related to the daily cooking quest. Completing the daily awards a Crate of Meat or a Barrel of Fish. The recipe Skullfish Soup can only get gotten as a random drop in the Barrel of Fish. So far, it hasn't dropped for Wild. Wild has to cook that recipe in order to complete the last of the 26 recipes in The Outland Gourmet.

Those are the last two things Wild has to do to get his title.

In the meantime Wild didn't let a little thing like losing 10 emblems ruin his weekend. On Saturday he signed up with the Dungeon Finder for a random heroic so he could at least get the 2 frost emblems that awards.

Wild signed up at 1204pm and then went fishing. He didn't have to fish long. At 1216 Wild got an invite, but one of the DPS that signed up declined to go. The rest of us went back in the queue (at the top of the list, we are told), and less than a minute later there was another invite.

When the instant portal cleared, Wild found himself in the Culling of Stratholme (CoS). JB and DER have two manned the level 60 Stratholme, so they know what is in there. Thousands of trash mobs, and quite a few bosses. It took JB and DER hours to clear the place, doing all of the bosses (even the optional ones) in order to get the achievement for clearing it. The "Culling" version at level 80 is the same layout, but the time of the event is different and there were a lot fewer bosses to deal with. Arthas was our guide, and the final boss was Mal'Ganis, who we defeated, but who would escape Arthas' attempt to finish him off. Total time from start to finish was 31 minutes.

There was only one item of loot of any value to our group, and Wild won it. It was the fast flying mount the Bronze Dragon, which drops in CoS from the second to last boss, the Infinite Corrupter. It's a timed fight, so it only drops if the group gets to and kills the boss fast enough. Wild has his flying bird form, and a flying carpet, and other common wyvern flying mounts, but this is his first dragon mount. While it's not that rare, it is a bit special, as it's sized slightly smaller than the other dragon mounts and has bronze/yellow colored scales. Wild definitely likes his new mount.


Philly was busy as well. She cleared all of the main quests in Nagrand and moved on to Blade's Edge Mountains, and has DINGED! to level 69.

I know Jocelyne had aspirations of joining the Andro/Lao team of pvpers in the 20s bracket, but she has not gotten any time to pursue that and remains a level 14. Not wanting to lose out completely, Wild did give EZ a very late night opportunity. Philly sent EZ the family's two heirloom items, and EZ got into two Warsong Gulch matches with her experience gain turned back on. She started at 88% of the way to level 20. In that first WSG EZ was the only level 19 among a bunch of much lower level pvpers on the horde side. EZ found herself ganged up on by two pally 19s almost constantly while the rest of the allies slaughtered the babies. It didn't last long, we lost, and the xp bar only moved up to 91%.

EZ waited almost twenty minutes for a second match, and had skilled up her fishing from 0 to 50 by the time the invite came. The situation was reversed in the second match, as we had three 19s and most of the allies were level 16 and under. EZ and two druids could take the allie flag at will, and we played keep away for awhile, with EZ able to kill lower level allies with two flame shocks. EZ got one of the flag caps once we decided to end it. The victory catapulted EZ to level 20 and 6% beyond, for a 15% gain. Welcome to the level 20 bracket, EZ.

It was very, very late, but EZ insisted on getting her level 20 talents, and wanted to get her mount, and also had five quests from Wailing Caverns that she had completed weeks and weeks ago, but had not turned in so she could stay at level 19. The questing turn ins, which also included the daily pvp quest, padded EZ's xp to 56% of the way to level 21. Being as late as it was, though, EZ had something of a personality malfunction. The stout shaman was in Org, but she hearthed to Thunder Bluff, and then went to the tauren starting zone at Bloodhoof Village to get her mount. Or maybe she just wanted to visit with Rheebah. She certainly wasn't going to be allowed to have a kodo mount. So she went back to Orgrimmar and made the long run to Sen'jin Village in southern Durotar. That's the troll starting zone, and maybe EZ was thinking "I'm a shaman, JB is a shaman, and JB got her mount here, so . . ." Only JB is a troll, and the mount sellers in Sen'jin wouldn't let EZ have one of their raptor mounts. You see, EZ isn't a troll, she's an ORC. She's the only orc in Wild's family, so I guess the confusion is understandable - well, maybe not. So, she headed back to Org for the third time - the orc mount stables are right there in Org, near the pvp Battlemasters area.

What made up for the long confusion was the black wolf mount that EZ ended up with. The black wolf is a new mount, and the Wild family has always wanted someone to have one, and now we do.


Sunday Night - Wild was in game Sunday night to see if there would be a raid. The raid calendar was empty, so no 25 man was scheduled, but I still had hopes that the raid leader would at least get a 10 man going. As it turned out, there was a run being set up, but it was for an established guild ten man. Apparently, lacking enough guildies to form a 25 man raid, that guildie premade raid group is using Sunday as a raid night for their 10 man.

Wild watched the raiders join up at the Icecrown Citadel, which topped out at 8 guild raiders as the 6pm start time passed. There were maybe three other guildies in game, counting Wild. About ten minutes later, the raid leader for the guild's other 10 man, which I'm not sure is even running right now, came in game. He's a druid moonkin/healer, and he got an invite. Their tenth raider must have been a non-guildie (they have a couple of non-guildies in their group), as they wrapped up invites and headed into the instance.

I know it's the holidays, and a lot of folks just aren't around, but it's a little sad that the best our guild can do right now is field one somewhat exclusive 10 man raid. Wild is not happy that he isn't getting much raid time.

On the culinary front Wild was halfway successful with his Chef Title ambition. The Skullfish Soup recipe dropped and Wild was able to complete The Outland Gourmet achievement. However, Wild did not receive the "Revenge is Tasty" daily cooking quest, getting "Soup for the Soul" for the third straight day, so there is no success to report. Only a matter of time, now, though.

PS - On Monday morning Wild picked up another daily Outland cooking quest. For the fourth straight day, it was "Soup for the Soul." Sigh.

PSS - My raid news ended on something of a downer, so I felt I needed to to add that on Monday Wild got some promising news on the raiding front. More on that in the next post.

Friday (1 Jan 2010) - I Hate Malygos

Friday (1 Jan 2010) - I Hate Malygos

Sigh. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. Of course, I no longer get paid to get out of bed on any day - but you know what I mean. :P

Have I mentioned that Wild hates OCC (the 5 man dungeon Occulus)? Sure I have. Have I mentioned that, even more than OCC, Wild hates EoE (the 10/25 man raid Eye of Eternity)? Certainly. Both of these places are found in The Nexus, a dungeon hub in the icebound Colderra, which is a frozen island that is part of the Borean Tundra in Northrend. Here's the GPS position - ha, got you, didn't I? Just kidding. About the GPS. Not about hating those places.

The short answer as to why Wild hates those places is that both require mounting up on dragons and flying around in three dimensional space trying to shoot down hostile dragons while same, with much better flying skills than Wild, try to shoot me down while laughing near helplessly at Wild's uncoordinated efforts to get his dragon mount to go where he wants it to. That was the short answer, but what a long sentence!

So, why does Wild care? Well, he sorta didn't, "didn't" being the key word here. Each week a random raid is given a special quest that rewards 5 frost and 5 triumph emblems. Wild planned to do those quests each week as 10 emblems cannot be allowed to get away. The Big Butt to this, however (no cow jokes please, this is serious), is that this week's quest required killing Malygos in Eye of Eternity. Just say no, Wild told himself. I'm not going in there, emblems or not. End of story. And that should have been the end of the story.

It's Friday night. Wild was in game working on his culinary skills and otherwise minding his own business. Cm, a good friend and long time guildie, asked in guild chat if anyone still needed to do the Malygos quest. The quest is called "Malygos Must Die!", but as far as Wild was concerned he might as well just take a flying leap with his wings clipped. Cm said that he hated the place, hadn't done the fight in months, and would only do it in a guild run - no PUGs, no way, he said.

Wild kept his mouth shut, busy in the kitchen. There was a little discussion in guild chat, but it didn't seem to amount to much. There were only ten guildies in game anyway. Wild puttered about some more. Than, against his better judgement, swearing to himself he was only looking, he peeked in on guildie locations and saw that six had left comfortable Dalaran and were in Borean Tundra. Yuk, they were really trying to get a raid together.

Wild stayed in denial. Even when a guildie whispered Wild and asked if I'd like to join them, I told them I sucked at EoE and that I didn't want to screw it up for the rest of them. Wild didn't exactly say no, though. Why didn't I say no?

Another whisper a bit later - Come on, Wild, we need one more, and we want it to be a guild run. We all hate this place, and we all suck at it.

How can one turn down an offer like that? Hey, this is going to suck and we're going to hate it and we'll probably fail. Sounds like fun, right?

Count me in, Wild replied. They quickly sent Wild his invite, before I could change my mind.

Malygos is the only boss in EoE, but the battle takes place in three phases. There is a single, circular platform that literally floats out in space. If you walked off the outer edge you'd fall to your death. Wild was Summoned via the Summoning Stone to Colderra, and then Wild flew the rest of the short way into the Nexus and through the EoE instance portal. On the other side, Wild popped out in mid-air and dropped twenty feet or so to the platform. Everyone else was already there, so Wild did his buffs, set his gear, and got on vent quickly so we could start.

There were some short explanations. All of us had been here before, even if we rather didn't want to think about that too much. We began by calling down Malygos.

The first phase, a beitch when the guild first began attempting it, was relatively trivial for the gear level of our current group. The tank dealt with Malygos and we had to dodge (or endure) Sparks while the DPS attempted to destroy them at a specific range from Malygos. Additionally, vortices formed which pulled groups of raiders up into the air and did considerable raid damage. Wild and a priest did the bulk of the healing with modest effort and no deaths. It wasn't the first phase Wild was worried about.

In the second phase Malygos leaves and two groups of mobs begin to appear. Here is where it gets pretty complicated for the tanks and DPS. While mobs are flying around on surfboards (ok, they call them discs) tanks have to grab and hold one type of mob while staying in a bubble. Did I mention bubbles? Large bubbles form one after the other on the surface of the platform, and then start shrinking. Raiders have to get into those bubbles quickly - or die quickly even with healer help. That's why mobs have to be tanked inside the bubbles.

When a mob dies, he drops his disc. DPS raiders jump on dropped discs and wage a flying battle with other disc flying mobs. Healers have two jobs - keep up the healing, and keep moving from bubble to bubble. Most PUGs fail on this phase, but we made it through, and again no one died. But it wasn't the second phase Wild was worried about, either.

At the start of the third phase the platform exploded into shards and the whole raid fell to their death - well, almost. As raiders fell flying dragons swept under us and we all mounted up.

There is no frame of reference, and no way to gauge distance. We are in space, stars twinkling in the distance, vague clusters like far away galaxies at the edge of vision, and blackness everywhere else - up, down, and sideways. Ten raiders spread out, nine of them looking to circle Malygos and find the range to attack him with various flame weapons while avoiding some really, really, nasty attacks from Malygos. The tenth raider, Wild, was still trying to figure out where everyone else went. Wait, who is that? Oh, that's just Malygos.

"Malygos Focuses on Wildshard." Uh oh, that's probably not good. I think I have some sort of shield I should be using. Hmm, which button is that?

Malygos casts Surge of Power. Ouch, now that hurt! Not Wild, but his flying dragon is already in desperate straits. Don't do that again! Ok, there's a heal button here somewhere.

Malygos casts Surge of Power. I said don't do that again! Wild's dragon dies. No dragon, no flyboy. Wild shakes an impotent fist at Malygos, plummets to whatever the bottom of this place is, and dies.

Wild was the first to die. But not the last. We still had 7 raiders up with Malygos at 21%. Six at 18%. Five at 16%. Four at 15%. Three at 11%. Wipe at 8%.

We tried again. We mowed through the first two phases and entered the third. Wild wasn't flying any better than before, but at least I didn't wander totally out of the fight. Eventually Wild found Malygos again, out of range this time, which was a good thing. With Malygos as a frame of reference, Wild flew toward him, noticing other raiders now arrayed around Malygos. Wild crept into range, and remembered the initial firing order - Flame Spike, Flame Spike, and then Engulf in Flames. Again, and again, and again. Other raiders had more aggro on Malygos, so Wild stayed under (literally) Malygos's radar long enough to do some consideration damage without taking any shots. We lost almost half the raid, but Malygos died.

Wild was still flying around, having not been returned to the platform like everyone else. Huh? So Wild jumped off his mount, figuring he would return to the platform. Wild died. Drats. Wild returned to the instance as a ghost, figuring, ok, now I'll be rezzed on the platform. Instead, Wild was rezzed, still in space, on his flying mount. WTF? I hate this place!

Hearthing didn't work, either. In the end one of the raiders switched toons to his warlock and then Summoned Wild. That worked. No idea what the problem was; Wild was glad to finally be out of there, and with a victory in EoE!

"Don't forget to turn in your quest, everyone!" the raid leader called out in vent.

The quest.

"Everyone should have it. I shared it with everyone earlier."

That was before Wild was invited to the raid.

Uh oh.

With deep misgivings, Wild opened his quest log.

Sigh. There was no quest. Wild had completed the instance, and was now locked out until it reset and a new weekly quest came out.

Now you really know why Wild hates that place.

Wild was actually pretty philosophical about it. It's a new year, let's get these little wrinkles out of the way early. Besides, it was time to do some more cooking.

On that front Wild was doing quite well. Dramatic progress was being made. But more on that in the next post. Wild would like to wallow in despair at those lost emblems for a little while longer first. Philosophical, my azz.

Friday (1 Jan 2010) - New Years 2010

Friday (1 Jan 2010) - New Years 2010

Another year, and time for Wild's Sixth Annual Report. WoW enters it's second decade (yep, 2010 is a new decade, boys and girls). The game shows few signs of slowing down. The recent Fall of the Lich King patch has carried us through to the new year. On the horizon Blizzard has Cataclysm, the third major expansion pack of the game, guessed at for release sometime early this year (2010), which should keep players engrossed in the game.

As for this past year, much has happened.

On 1 Jan 2009 this thread stood at: 1,389 posts - 74,358 views

Today, 1 Jan 2010, we are at: 1,916 posts - 110,403 views

Wild's /played: Wild's total in game time is 131 days, 18 hours, and 44 minutes. He has been in game as a level 80 for more than 23 of those days.

The raw posts/views numbers are a bit off now, since back in Sep of 2009 the Sporting News forums went belly up for a time and a new blog, Wild's Family Adventures, was created to cover the gap. Now readers can check in at either site, which is convenient, but it has made tracking visitors a bit more complicated. The latest report from the blog site is as of 28 Dec, and if I counted those views it would add another 1,475.

As always, Thanks to all you readers and posters out there!

In 2008 much of the year was all about Karazahn. Wild and what was then called the "Wrath group" hit Kara twice a week with pretty steady regularity. Lady Hunter led the group, and it was a great bunch of folks that loved to have fun and did not take things too seriously, while still managing to make serious dints in Kara bosses week after week. Not since the heyday of Molten Core had Wild felt so much like family to a group of raiders. Even so, there were some guild problems, and friends left for a new guild. Wild wished them well, but ultimately stayed with his guild.

In 2009, in spite of major infusions of new raid instances and a still growing guild, things were not quite so close, there were internal squabbles, and we lost a few guildies I wished could have stayed. We also changed Guild Leaders. In 2009, very like what happened in 2008, Wild had to make a decision between staying with his guild or switching to a new guild where good friends had already moved to. Like 2008, Wild chose to stay. The guild that Wild could have belonged to in 2008 no longer exists.

In 2008 pvp became an exciting part of the Wild Family, largely due to Red wooing practically every member of the female side of the family into the pvp battlegrounds - first Jocelyn, then Merylitlbotm, and finally Phillyperdue. So I guess it was no surprise that, come 2009, it was Jezzibael that found herself wooed into the clashing battles of pvp, not to mention young Ezuh quickly falling under his spell as well. And, like a good soap opera, it looks like Jocelyn may be back for a second whirl.

It was also a year for reaching level 80. Wild did it on 13 Jan 2009. JB, given a chance when Wild's raid time diminished greatly due to the guild upheavals, added a dual spec and became an elemental shaman on 4 Sep, and then went on a tear of questing and levelling. Forty-three real life days later she was a level 80, on 17 Oct. And on 27 Nov, the family guild welcomed it's third level 80, deathknight DER.

Long queues and broken servers dominated much of the early part of 2009, but even with three significant patches installed this year, by mid-year server problems had become mostly minor and temporary.

Wild made his first run in the new Northrend version of Naxxramas on 15 Jan. Wild died 13 times, and we killed just one boss, Noth. Undergeared and under-prepared, but we were in there. Wild got his first full clear three months later, on 7 Apr. Naxx dominated guild raiding the first part of the year with the new 10/25 man raid format.

Strange occurrences involving what became known as the "Chronicles of Naithipe" began on 27 March, and persisted for several months, but were never resolved. The mystery remains.

It was on 22 Apr that Naxx had to make room for Ulduar, a bigger and badder Naxx style dungeon that arrived with patch 3.1, along with dual specs and the Argent Tournament. That transition was a tough one for the guild, and in particular, the Lady Hunter ten man group. We all struggled, but over time Naxx fell off the schedule and Ulduar became the primary focus.

During the Naxx/Ulduar transition Wild had time on his hands, going off on his own to solo dungeons such as the Underbog, and others, even bringing along a videographer to record the solo sweeps.

Wild certainly can't forget the day his ten man guild gave Wild his first opportunity to raid as a moonkin, on 20 May. We were still half in Naxx and half in Ulduar, when the raid leader gave Wild the nod. A snippet from that report: "We left Ulduar and headed for Naxx. Wild made his grand entrance, switching to moonkin form and announcing, "Never fear, your chicken is here!" Bd chimed in: "All Hail the new BOOMkin!" Priestly Jo hugged Wild, then plucked a feather for a souvenir. Silly stuff, but Wild has never been anything but a healer in every single raid I have ever been in. The guild has never seen Wild as anything else. Think of that - never in five years of play has Wild ever raided as anything but a healer. Wild can never say that again."

And does anyone think they know how many guilds the Wild family is part of, and how many they lead on Day 1 of 2010? You might want to read the post on 4 Jun 2009 to be sure.

Wild has always loved BWL, almost as much as MC. In his level 60 days the final boss, Nefarion, had always eluded Wild and the guild. He took matters into his own hands much later when Wild challenged Nefarion in solo combat. Wild lost, but at least he tried. On 8 Jun, however, Wild plus a pally and a shaman three manned Nefarion, killing him and earning Wild, at last, his achievement for clearing the beloved instance. That came about because the three of us were the only raiders wearing the old school Onyxia cloak that protected us from Nefarion's Breath. The other thirteen raiders in the raid were killed, leaving the three of us to take him on. That just goes to show that no matter the level (all of us were level 80) an Old School dungeon can still have tricks up it's devious sleeves.

Jump forward to August, and patch 3.2, and ToC. Wild got his first look at the 5 man Trial of the Champion on 5 Aug. It's raid neighbor, the 10/25 man Trial of the Crusader, competed with Ulduar for game time along with the pvp raid instance, Vault of Archavon. The raid landscape got ever more crowded, even as guild raid nights continued to shrink.

August also rung in the Wild Family's newest member, Ezuh, along with partners Ando and Lao. As evidence of the level of pvp blood now running in the family, all three were born to pvp, quickly ascended to the level 10-19 bracket, and are now pressing into the 20s.

DER and JB began hooking up more and more often, which included two man forays into old school places like Blackrock Depths. BRD may have more mobs than any other dungeon in the game, and DER and JB killed every last one of them. The battle at the end was one of the most epic I ever experienced, even if it did take us two tries to surpass the waves of mobs that had JB thinking of Spartans and Persians and the Battle of Thermopylae. What a rush!

JB making level 80 led to Wintergrasp, and more pvp, and pvp rewards that became heirloom items to help with levelling. Philly, pvp goddess at level 59, packed away her crown and started levelling again, adding Jewelcrafting to her learned studies in addition to being a Scribe. It also led, indirectly, to the retirement of one of the oldest members of the Wild family, Rheebah. The level 6 druid, older than any toon besides Wild himself, decided to retire and return to Bloodhoof Village, the starting area where she was born.

On 8 Dec the world tilted again, this time with the release of a patch with an expansion like name, Fall of the Lich King (patch 3.3). With it came many changes, the most significant being the new Dungeon Finder, which has utterly changed the way dungeon runs are organized. In addition, the raid opportunities grow yet again with the release of Icecrown Citadel, the new 10/25 man end game raiding location with the best gear in the game. Wild made a daring move, completing the three 5 man precursors for ICC the day after the release. And on 30 Dec, Wild got to see the inside of ICC proper for the first time.

As the new year dawns, there is the new raid dungeon to conquer, and the high expectations of Cataclysm expansion in the near (but not too near, please!) future. The ups and downs will always be there, but life is good in the Wild household, and all look forward to both the known, and unknown, of the new year.

Happy New Year!