Thursday 30th August 2007 - Void Reaver 3
I missed the 2nd abortive attempt on Void Reaver aka Loot Reaver on Tuesday and today's attempt was over-subscribed but TiceNits and I were in the final 25 to go.
I finished off my Blades Edge Mountains daily quests and was at the Eye for raid start time.
I have just installed PallyPower and Recount.
First off, Recount is a great raid meter. it gives all kinds of details, but for me the healing meter was great, it made me concentrate on trying to out heal the other healers and therefore be a better healer. For me as a paladin thatis good as we have huge threat reduction on healing. We had 3 priests, 3 paladins and 1 dedicated druid healer. I started off above the other pallies and fighting for 4th place with the druid. By the end of the raid I was down at the bottom of the pallies. I think this was purely because I was running away from orbs too much and too far.
Secondly, PallyPower. Now I think this is a must for raiding. One of the healers, or indeed anyone, that is set as a raid assistant can enter config mode and set what all the paladins buff and even set alternative lesser blessings, ie Put Greater Blessing of Light but put normal Blessing of Salvation on a DPS warrior. The great thing about this for the paladin user is that you get a window and you mouse over the class and it shows all the players assigned to that class and whether they are in range. Left click and you cast the main buff on all the class. Right clickover a specific player and you cast the assigned normal blessing. This made my life so much easier.
We enter the Eye and manage not to wipe on the birds. Good start. In fact we clear all the way to Void Reaver without a wipe.
We start on Void Reaver and we are not doing too bad. Once it is obvious that he is going to enrage before we down him most people run for the door to reset him. I am stuck on the far side of the room and I pop Divine Shield and stick to the outside of the ring AND HE RESETS!!! Now that is a bonus.
Well, anyway, we have to reset him 4 times and we're getting better and better. 5th time I am throwing Holy Shocks at him at every opportunity and we are ahead of schedule on each check point. Towards the end I am throwing Hammer of Wrath at him too . He has 20 seconds till enrage and he is at 4%. We throw everything we have at him and I run in and start Consecrating and meleeing him as well. He dropped dead at about 1 second to enrage. OMG - We killed Void Reaver!!!
We line up for the mandatory screenshot then have a look at the loot.
A hunter gets Void Reaver Greaves, a RaidWanker blows all his DKP on Tier 5 Shoulders Pauldrons of the Vanquished Hero and the rogue, paladin, shaman Tier 5 token, Pauldrons of the Vanquished Champion, also drops. I have a look at the DKP page and see that our paladin class leader, Chico, has way more DKP than me (because I blew all mine on my Tier 4 leggings!) and a rogue has more than me. The other rogue is well down the list so I tactically bid 1 more DKP than the other rogue. I guess that the top rogue will bid 1 more than me and that the Pally class leader will bid 1 more than the top rogue.
Well, Quelle Surprise, that's what happens.
So we pop off to Gruul's Lair, Main Tank goes down and we pop back in for a second try. And take High King Maulgar down easy.
He drops 2 sets of Mage, Warlock, Hunter Tier 4 Shoulders, Pauldrons of the Fallen Hero, and TiceNits blows all her DKP on them and bags a set! He also drops Hammer of the Naaru. I haven't won anything yet so I reckon I may as well try and get this for my DPS gear! I throw in a minimum bid and win them.
Gonna load up all my DPS gear now and go do the daily quests. See what happens when a holy spec Paladin roams around in DPS gear!
And the best bit? My durability only dropped to 86% with an inherent 2 gold repair bill. Nice cheap night!
Friday, 31 August 2007
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
No Raid For Me
Tuesday 28th August 2007 - Tempest Keep 2
Today's raid went to Tempest Keep for another pop at Void Reaver. Unfortunately I couldn't go because I had a meeting I had to go to.
However I got a text from TiceNits about 45 minutes to say they have wiped three times on the birds near the start and the raid leader (RaidWanker) has stormed off in a huff because no-one was listening to him.
As it turned out they did get a good 2 hours on the boss before calling it a night.
Today's raid went to Tempest Keep for another pop at Void Reaver. Unfortunately I couldn't go because I had a meeting I had to go to.
However I got a text from TiceNits about 45 minutes to say they have wiped three times on the birds near the start and the raid leader (RaidWanker) has stormed off in a huff because no-one was listening to him.
As it turned out they did get a good 2 hours on the boss before calling it a night.
Don't Tank Prince with a Druid
Monday 29th August 2007 - Karazhan
We finished off last Wednesday's unofficial Karazhan run tonight.
Our main tank couldn't make it so we took a druid to tank. Also TiceNits had to deal with the prios as MT is also Priority person.
I put a prio on Emberspur Talisman from Nightbane assuming that all the other drops, like T4 and healing plate would not be rolled for by anyone else. We did take 3 Paladins though, so I was taking a bit of a risk.
I really can't remember what order we do things in so this is out of order:
Terestrian Illhoof - we did this without a warlock. I died near the end, but we one-shotted him! Breastplate of the Lightbinder came up - woot! I had this on prio last week but it didn't drop. I rolled on 1st roll, but nobody else did so I won but wasted my prio. Should have waited and seen if anyone else rolled. DOH!
Netherspite - again, another one shot, it was a little random over the green beam, but he went down very easily. TiceNits won Uni-Mind Headdress but let someone else have Jewel of Infinite Possibilities.
Chess Event - Easy again. As always.
Nightbane - Easy. No-one else wanted Ferocious Swift Kickers so I got them, but as it turns out I have better in the bank for my DPS build.
Prince Malchezaar - Now this was a nightmare, we had some people from a collapsed raiding guild with us, one of which was a feral druid who was our main tank, we wiped many times. Luckily after wipe 5 or so our usual MT came online, so we drafted him in and we got him down first time. Nice. Farstrider Wildercloak dropped and no-one else wanted it so I got it. Gorehowl also dropped and something else.
Not too bad at all, I got my chestpiece which I am going to get Exceptional Stats enchant put on and upgraded my DPS cloak!
We finished off last Wednesday's unofficial Karazhan run tonight.
Our main tank couldn't make it so we took a druid to tank. Also TiceNits had to deal with the prios as MT is also Priority person.
I put a prio on Emberspur Talisman from Nightbane assuming that all the other drops, like T4 and healing plate would not be rolled for by anyone else. We did take 3 Paladins though, so I was taking a bit of a risk.
I really can't remember what order we do things in so this is out of order:
Terestrian Illhoof - we did this without a warlock. I died near the end, but we one-shotted him! Breastplate of the Lightbinder came up - woot! I had this on prio last week but it didn't drop. I rolled on 1st roll, but nobody else did so I won but wasted my prio. Should have waited and seen if anyone else rolled. DOH!
Netherspite - again, another one shot, it was a little random over the green beam, but he went down very easily. TiceNits won Uni-Mind Headdress but let someone else have Jewel of Infinite Possibilities.
Chess Event - Easy again. As always.
Nightbane - Easy. No-one else wanted Ferocious Swift Kickers so I got them, but as it turns out I have better in the bank for my DPS build.
Prince Malchezaar - Now this was a nightmare, we had some people from a collapsed raiding guild with us, one of which was a feral druid who was our main tank, we wiped many times. Luckily after wipe 5 or so our usual MT came online, so we drafted him in and we got him down first time. Nice. Farstrider Wildercloak dropped and no-one else wanted it so I got it. Gorehowl also dropped and something else.
Not too bad at all, I got my chestpiece which I am going to get Exceptional Stats enchant put on and upgraded my DPS cloak!
Tempest Keep
Sunday 28th August 2007 - Tempest Keep 1
Today we went offto have a look at Tempest Keep. We had the mandatory wipe on the first group of mobs but then we gradually made our way through to Void Reaver.
Now he is pretty much a tank and spank with a little extra. He sends orbs flying towards your position which do some serious damage and silence you. They go to where you WERE standing though so if you get targetted you simply run away.
You have to watch out for other people getting targeted near you as well, and run away from them too, they have a pretty large damage range.
He also resets if you run out of the room, so that's pretty good, we wiped a few times and had fun with him but had to call it quits after 2 hours on him because the trash stared respawning.
I got no loot but got my DKP back up to 14 from 0.
TiceNits got Fire-cord of the Magus, so she was pretty happy.
Today we went offto have a look at Tempest Keep. We had the mandatory wipe on the first group of mobs but then we gradually made our way through to Void Reaver.
Now he is pretty much a tank and spank with a little extra. He sends orbs flying towards your position which do some serious damage and silence you. They go to where you WERE standing though so if you get targetted you simply run away.
You have to watch out for other people getting targeted near you as well, and run away from them too, they have a pretty large damage range.
He also resets if you run out of the room, so that's pretty good, we wiped a few times and had fun with him but had to call it quits after 2 hours on him because the trash stared respawning.
I got no loot but got my DKP back up to 14 from 0.
TiceNits got Fire-cord of the Magus, so she was pretty happy.
Friday, 24 August 2007
Grull Down
Thursday 23rd August 2007 - Gruul's Lair
19:00 Still sat outside waiting for people
19:20 Enter Gruul's Lair
19:40 High King Maulgar is down
19:50 People are back after going to socket their new phat epix loot
20:05 Start Gruul the Dragonslayer fight
20:15 Sat around Gruul's dead body celebrating.
My Teir 4 legs token dropped and I'm up against 1 rogue and 2 pallies for it. This doesn't bode well for me, but I suddenly think: "check the DKP table" and lo and behold both the other pallies have less DKP than me but the rogue has the same.
Time comes to whisper our DKP bids to loot master - I say "MAX bid" -I don't care if I go down to zero DKP - I'm not likely to get anything else in the near future and I'll earn DKP for tonight anyway.
I have a 50% chance of winning if the rogue bid MAX too! It seemed to take forever to announce the winner, but I got it! WOOT!
So whilst everyone is deciding whether to continue SSC or go to Magtheridon I go to Shattrath and check out the holy legs I can buy.
I am currently wearing mail legs with sockets adding to a +4 intellect socket bonus +27 healing +4 mp5 and +3 intellect Heart Flame Leggings - believe it or not I will lose a total of 29 healing by equipping my Tier 4 legs. However I will gain about 700 armour and a bit of Stamina and Intellect and I'll get a Stamina or Intellect enchant thrown on them if there are no healing ones. edit: DOH can't enchant legs methinks. maybe some cobrascale armour or something!
On top of that the set(2) bonus of +20 to Judgement of Light will mitigate the -29 healing as I do spend a lot of time next to the main tank healing from melee and this +700 armour and increased crit chance will help me with this.
Whilst I was comparing sets the rest of the raid were clearing the trash leading to Magtheridon, they also wiped too. Ooops!
By the time I get there we are ready for Maggy and we give him a go. The first attempt results in getting 1 of his adds down before he releases and getting him down to 99% LOL, but after several wipes we are working on his 4th add as he releases.
Every time I am the last to go down and my assigned tank is the second last one!!
Very good evening.
19:00 Still sat outside waiting for people
19:20 Enter Gruul's Lair
19:40 High King Maulgar is down
19:50 People are back after going to socket their new phat epix loot
20:05 Start Gruul the Dragonslayer fight
20:15 Sat around Gruul's dead body celebrating.
My Teir 4 legs token dropped and I'm up against 1 rogue and 2 pallies for it. This doesn't bode well for me, but I suddenly think: "check the DKP table" and lo and behold both the other pallies have less DKP than me but the rogue has the same.
Time comes to whisper our DKP bids to loot master - I say "MAX bid" -I don't care if I go down to zero DKP - I'm not likely to get anything else in the near future and I'll earn DKP for tonight anyway.
I have a 50% chance of winning if the rogue bid MAX too! It seemed to take forever to announce the winner, but I got it! WOOT!
So whilst everyone is deciding whether to continue SSC or go to Magtheridon I go to Shattrath and check out the holy legs I can buy.
I am currently wearing mail legs with sockets adding to a +4 intellect socket bonus +27 healing +4 mp5 and +3 intellect Heart Flame Leggings - believe it or not I will lose a total of 29 healing by equipping my Tier 4 legs. However I will gain about 700 armour and a bit of Stamina and Intellect and I'll get a Stamina or Intellect enchant thrown on them if there are no healing ones. edit: DOH can't enchant legs methinks. maybe some cobrascale armour or something!
On top of that the set(2) bonus of +20 to Judgement of Light will mitigate the -29 healing as I do spend a lot of time next to the main tank healing from melee and this +700 armour and increased crit chance will help me with this.
Whilst I was comparing sets the rest of the raid were clearing the trash leading to Magtheridon, they also wiped too. Ooops!
By the time I get there we are ready for Maggy and we give him a go. The first attempt results in getting 1 of his adds down before he releases and getting him down to 99% LOL, but after several wipes we are working on his 4th add as he releases.
Every time I am the last to go down and my assigned tank is the second last one!!
Very good evening.
Thursday, 23 August 2007
Not Much Loot Left for me in Karazhan
Wednesday 23rd August 2007 - Karazhan
Another unofficial run into Karazhan. Kill order today is Attumen -> Moroes -> Maiden -> Opera Event -> Curator -> Shade of Aran. I have Boots of Valiance as my priority item which is dropped by Moroes.
We managed this with only a single real boss wipe.
We took out Attumen The Huntsmen very easy and i got Stalker's War Bands because no-one else wanted it.
Next it's Moroes and he goes down very easily, the tank got garrotted first, then me but my sheild was on cooldown so I had to take the damage for a while. Then TiceNits got garrotted and I popped a Blessing of Protection on her, a druid got a garrotte but I just had to heal him through it and then he went down. Unfortunately my Prio item didn't drop.
The we got wiped by patrol trash on the way to Maiden. Argg.
We arrived at Maiden of Virtue and then wiped because the World Server went down, but we were going to wipe anyway. We took her on the second try. And I get Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden. I already have Tier 4 Justicar Handguards and I can't make my mind up which is better. I am leaning towards the maiden gloves, but I wish I had gone for the DPS Tier 4 gloves now so I'd have a set of each :(
Onto the Opera Event and we get Romulo and Julianne. I don't think people were paying attention in the 3rd phase as Julianne was nearly down as Romulo was on 50%, but just at the last moment all DPS switched to Romulo and they went down almost simultaneously.
Onto the Curator and we are taking out the last trash in his chamber when someone manages to aggro him. I am one of the first out the door and manage to cast Divine Intervention on a priest which saves us some ghost running time. When we actually try him for real I go into melee with the tank to keep Judgement of Light up and he goes down on the 3rd evocation without any deaths.
Now we head towards Aran and on the way I get Belt of the Tracker from a trash mob. Woot!
20 minutes left, so we only have time for one go on Shade of Aran, but we might well try so that all his trash despawns if we do get him. We decide to only interupt his Arcane missiles so the we can force him to drink early. TiceNits goes down pretty early but gets a battle res and we nuke him down to drinking time pretty early. i don't manage to get fire aura on before he sheeps us, but do manage to pop it as soon as I come of out of being sheeped and it may well have saved a wipe, only 1 druid died and everyone else is back up to full health and we nuke him down first go.
A happy end to a very good raid!
Tomorrow its Gruul and I'm going to try and get that 3rd healing enchant before we go.
Another unofficial run into Karazhan. Kill order today is Attumen -> Moroes -> Maiden -> Opera Event -> Curator -> Shade of Aran. I have Boots of Valiance as my priority item which is dropped by Moroes.
We managed this with only a single real boss wipe.
We took out Attumen The Huntsmen very easy and i got Stalker's War Bands because no-one else wanted it.
Next it's Moroes and he goes down very easily, the tank got garrotted first, then me but my sheild was on cooldown so I had to take the damage for a while. Then TiceNits got garrotted and I popped a Blessing of Protection on her, a druid got a garrotte but I just had to heal him through it and then he went down. Unfortunately my Prio item didn't drop.
The we got wiped by patrol trash on the way to Maiden. Argg.
We arrived at Maiden of Virtue and then wiped because the World Server went down, but we were going to wipe anyway. We took her on the second try. And I get Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden. I already have Tier 4 Justicar Handguards and I can't make my mind up which is better. I am leaning towards the maiden gloves, but I wish I had gone for the DPS Tier 4 gloves now so I'd have a set of each :(
Onto the Opera Event and we get Romulo and Julianne. I don't think people were paying attention in the 3rd phase as Julianne was nearly down as Romulo was on 50%, but just at the last moment all DPS switched to Romulo and they went down almost simultaneously.
Onto the Curator and we are taking out the last trash in his chamber when someone manages to aggro him. I am one of the first out the door and manage to cast Divine Intervention on a priest which saves us some ghost running time. When we actually try him for real I go into melee with the tank to keep Judgement of Light up and he goes down on the 3rd evocation without any deaths.
Now we head towards Aran and on the way I get Belt of the Tracker from a trash mob. Woot!
20 minutes left, so we only have time for one go on Shade of Aran, but we might well try so that all his trash despawns if we do get him. We decide to only interupt his Arcane missiles so the we can force him to drink early. TiceNits goes down pretty early but gets a battle res and we nuke him down to drinking time pretty early. i don't manage to get fire aura on before he sheeps us, but do manage to pop it as soon as I come of out of being sheeped and it may well have saved a wipe, only 1 druid died and everyone else is back up to full health and we nuke him down first go.
A happy end to a very good raid!
Tomorrow its Gruul and I'm going to try and get that 3rd healing enchant before we go.
Serpentshrine Cavern
Wednesday 21st August 2007 - Serpentshrine Cavern
We have finally made it into SSC. The intended goal of this raid was to check it out and to have fun. And this was a DKP raid, so these goals were good for me!
We started off and wiped on the first pull. Ha ha not a good start. The sporebats silence the healers and the mobs hit hard, so it s important to deal with these sporebats.
Back on track and we slowly clear all six platforms while avoiding Hydros, who although has been nerfed, is still pretty hard. The guild have investigated the resistance gear required for the 2 tanks for him and its gonna cost 5000 gold.
So we clear the 6 platforms and the water boils killing all the frenzies (which kill you pretty quick if you fall in the water)
No we can have a go at The Lurker Below. You have to fish in the strange pool to summon him. Once he arrives he hits a bit then does a 360 degree turn with a spout which one-shots you, to avoid this you have to jump in the water.
Well we wipe about 5 times and I am amongst the first to die each time. We stop because the mobs have started spawning on the platforms again so the frenzies are back in the water.
All in all a pretty fun evening.
We have finally made it into SSC. The intended goal of this raid was to check it out and to have fun. And this was a DKP raid, so these goals were good for me!
We started off and wiped on the first pull. Ha ha not a good start. The sporebats silence the healers and the mobs hit hard, so it s important to deal with these sporebats.
Back on track and we slowly clear all six platforms while avoiding Hydros, who although has been nerfed, is still pretty hard. The guild have investigated the resistance gear required for the 2 tanks for him and its gonna cost 5000 gold.
So we clear the 6 platforms and the water boils killing all the frenzies (which kill you pretty quick if you fall in the water)
No we can have a go at The Lurker Below. You have to fish in the strange pool to summon him. Once he arrives he hits a bit then does a 360 degree turn with a spout which one-shots you, to avoid this you have to jump in the water.
Well we wipe about 5 times and I am amongst the first to die each time. We stop because the mobs have started spawning on the platforms again so the frenzies are back in the water.
All in all a pretty fun evening.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Ad Hoc Karazhan Runs
Monday 20th August 2007 - Karazhan 7?
Now that the official guild runs into Karazhan have finished there has been a lot of demand to go back in because most people still need plenty of stuff.
I for one have a list of stuff that I want and have at least 4 items that I would put a priority on. (We have introduced DKP for Gruul and beyond and at the same time implemented a priority system for Karazhan.)
So, how popular is this unofficial Karazhan run. Well it is so over subscribed that a second group had to be created, so practically the whole guild is interested. Why have we moved on from Karazhan if most of the guild still need stuff? Who knows?
I didn't go on the first run of the week because I was farming motes of water for my healing enchant, but I bagged a place on this run to start with Shade of Aran and move on up from there. I was not too hopeful about this as we have wiped on Aran so many times recently, and this raid also is "unofficial" so you get the impression it won't be as professional.
I mentioned the prioirity system earlier and I had a long hard think about what to put my prio on.
It was either going to by Triptych Shield of the Ancients from the Chess Event or Breastplate of the Lightbinder from Terestian Illhoof.
I went for the Breastplate in the end.
I arrive at the Entrance and discover that at some point on the last run I hit revered with means I can upgrade my Violet Eye Signet.
Well, we actually started with Nightbane, as he is nearer the start. My first attempt on him was good, but all subsequent attempts have been abandoned so this will be interesting with this "guild pug". Well, we downed him first go. No loot for me here though.
And so, onto the Shade of Aran, again this hasn't gone well recently so I was a little wary, but the first attempt went very well. There had been much discussion about getting him to drink quicker so as not to coincide with the elementals, and we got him down pretty close this time but wiped. Second attempt and we got him drinking and I managed to switch over to Fire Aura before the sheeping and everyone survived. Resulting in us taking him down on the second attempt. He very kindly dropped Aran's Soothing Sphere which I rolled for on 2nd roll (so as not to lose my priority) against the 2 priests and druid and won it! I also got Medivh's Journal from him too for one of the quests.
Next up is the Chess Event, and I actually manage to get it working this time. Looking in the chest and Triptych Shield of the Ancients and some Battlescar Boots are in there. Typical, I should have put a prio on the shield but as it turns out no-one else had either. Not only that but no-one even wants to 2nd roll either of them, so I get them both!!
Prince Malchezaar is next. I have only tried him once and we wiped a few times at the end of the night, but I need him for a quest so we had better down him! Well, first attempt is going well, but at about 50% I get trapped between 2 infernals and drop dead, the group carry on for some time but wipe at about 20%.
2nd attempt and the misdirection must have gone wrong because the Prince runs up and one-shots a priest before the tank even gets close to him, so that was a wipe before we even start.
Attempt 3: Keeping it steady, keeping everyone alive and sensible placement of the tank to avoid too many infernals and allowing an escape route is working well. He's down to about 15% and a badly placed infernal threatens everything, the tank manages to reposition well and off we go for the kill. He dropped Adornment of Stolen Souls which is strictly a DPS necklace but it is an upgrade for Natasha's Ember Necklace but I missed the non-priority 1st roll and I didn't get it, then rolled on the 2nd roll but lost. Some guildies comlpained that I rolled at all because it was a DPS necklace, but it's still an upgrade for mine and our Karazhan looting rules say we can roll on anything now. The Tier 4 for Hunters, Mages and Warlocks dropped but StupidDorf wasn't here and TiceNits lost the roll.
At this point we have about 40 minutes to raid end time and the raid leader has a vote to decide on Netherspite or Illhoof. I want to go to Illhoof for my Prio item, but most people vote Netherspite.
So off to Netherspite, this time it is decided to utilise the green beam as well as the red and blue. Yahoo! the 2 priests will rotate in the green beam and I am back up. All is going well with only a few worrying moments when panic sets in on teamspeak that the blue beam isn't being interrupted anymore because the interrupter died, then they realise that I spotted this as it happened and had already jumped right into it. Shortly afterwards. Down he goes. My first Netherspite kill. He dropped Jewel of Infinite Possibilities and Pantaloons of Repentance, both of which I have better and i don't reallty want to wear cloth if I can avoid it!
At this point there is still 22 minutes to go so we are going for Terestian Illhoof after all!! Well, it started off well, although TiceNits bit the dust very early, but then a healer got shackled and my healing couldn't keep up with it and the chains didn't get dps'd quick enough, so with one healer down it was a struggle. I went melee to keep up Judgement of Wisdom on him (which I also did for subsequent fights) but he just seemed to stick at about 30% HP and after a time he enraged and wiped the raid instantly.
A vote is taken as to whether to give him another shot and we agree to go for it. The 2nd attempt goes pretty well, although TiceNits died at the start again in the first shackle, but we were still too low on DPS and he enraged again. Everyone agrees to give it a final shot even though it is 20 minutes after raid time.
Third attempt: TiceNits goes down again at the start, but this time gets a battle res and we now have enough DPS to burn him down before he enrages. Loot? Well not my Prioirity item, gutted. Xavian Stiletto and something else i can't use.
So, after some disastrous "official" runs recently we have cleared it on the first "unofficial" run. Not only that but the other group also cleared everything too!
Now that the official guild runs into Karazhan have finished there has been a lot of demand to go back in because most people still need plenty of stuff.
I for one have a list of stuff that I want and have at least 4 items that I would put a priority on. (We have introduced DKP for Gruul and beyond and at the same time implemented a priority system for Karazhan.)
So, how popular is this unofficial Karazhan run. Well it is so over subscribed that a second group had to be created, so practically the whole guild is interested. Why have we moved on from Karazhan if most of the guild still need stuff? Who knows?
I didn't go on the first run of the week because I was farming motes of water for my healing enchant, but I bagged a place on this run to start with Shade of Aran and move on up from there. I was not too hopeful about this as we have wiped on Aran so many times recently, and this raid also is "unofficial" so you get the impression it won't be as professional.
I mentioned the prioirity system earlier and I had a long hard think about what to put my prio on.
It was either going to by Triptych Shield of the Ancients from the Chess Event or Breastplate of the Lightbinder from Terestian Illhoof.
I went for the Breastplate in the end.
I arrive at the Entrance and discover that at some point on the last run I hit revered with means I can upgrade my Violet Eye Signet.
Well, we actually started with Nightbane, as he is nearer the start. My first attempt on him was good, but all subsequent attempts have been abandoned so this will be interesting with this "guild pug". Well, we downed him first go. No loot for me here though.
And so, onto the Shade of Aran, again this hasn't gone well recently so I was a little wary, but the first attempt went very well. There had been much discussion about getting him to drink quicker so as not to coincide with the elementals, and we got him down pretty close this time but wiped. Second attempt and we got him drinking and I managed to switch over to Fire Aura before the sheeping and everyone survived. Resulting in us taking him down on the second attempt. He very kindly dropped Aran's Soothing Sphere which I rolled for on 2nd roll (so as not to lose my priority) against the 2 priests and druid and won it! I also got Medivh's Journal from him too for one of the quests.
Next up is the Chess Event, and I actually manage to get it working this time. Looking in the chest and Triptych Shield of the Ancients and some Battlescar Boots are in there. Typical, I should have put a prio on the shield but as it turns out no-one else had either. Not only that but no-one even wants to 2nd roll either of them, so I get them both!!
Prince Malchezaar is next. I have only tried him once and we wiped a few times at the end of the night, but I need him for a quest so we had better down him! Well, first attempt is going well, but at about 50% I get trapped between 2 infernals and drop dead, the group carry on for some time but wipe at about 20%.
2nd attempt and the misdirection must have gone wrong because the Prince runs up and one-shots a priest before the tank even gets close to him, so that was a wipe before we even start.
Attempt 3: Keeping it steady, keeping everyone alive and sensible placement of the tank to avoid too many infernals and allowing an escape route is working well. He's down to about 15% and a badly placed infernal threatens everything, the tank manages to reposition well and off we go for the kill. He dropped Adornment of Stolen Souls which is strictly a DPS necklace but it is an upgrade for Natasha's Ember Necklace but I missed the non-priority 1st roll and I didn't get it, then rolled on the 2nd roll but lost. Some guildies comlpained that I rolled at all because it was a DPS necklace, but it's still an upgrade for mine and our Karazhan looting rules say we can roll on anything now. The Tier 4 for Hunters, Mages and Warlocks dropped but StupidDorf wasn't here and TiceNits lost the roll.
At this point we have about 40 minutes to raid end time and the raid leader has a vote to decide on Netherspite or Illhoof. I want to go to Illhoof for my Prio item, but most people vote Netherspite.
So off to Netherspite, this time it is decided to utilise the green beam as well as the red and blue. Yahoo! the 2 priests will rotate in the green beam and I am back up. All is going well with only a few worrying moments when panic sets in on teamspeak that the blue beam isn't being interrupted anymore because the interrupter died, then they realise that I spotted this as it happened and had already jumped right into it. Shortly afterwards. Down he goes. My first Netherspite kill. He dropped Jewel of Infinite Possibilities and Pantaloons of Repentance, both of which I have better and i don't reallty want to wear cloth if I can avoid it!
At this point there is still 22 minutes to go so we are going for Terestian Illhoof after all!! Well, it started off well, although TiceNits bit the dust very early, but then a healer got shackled and my healing couldn't keep up with it and the chains didn't get dps'd quick enough, so with one healer down it was a struggle. I went melee to keep up Judgement of Wisdom on him (which I also did for subsequent fights) but he just seemed to stick at about 30% HP and after a time he enraged and wiped the raid instantly.
A vote is taken as to whether to give him another shot and we agree to go for it. The 2nd attempt goes pretty well, although TiceNits died at the start again in the first shackle, but we were still too low on DPS and he enraged again. Everyone agrees to give it a final shot even though it is 20 minutes after raid time.
Third attempt: TiceNits goes down again at the start, but this time gets a battle res and we now have enough DPS to burn him down before he enrages. Loot? Well not my Prioirity item, gutted. Xavian Stiletto and something else i can't use.
So, after some disastrous "official" runs recently we have cleared it on the first "unofficial" run. Not only that but the other group also cleared everything too!
Monday, 20 August 2007
The Eye? Maybe not!
Sunday 19th August 2007 - Molten Core
We were supposed to be having our first look at The Eye in Tempest Keep today. Out of the usual raid sequence when there were attunements to be done, but now that TK attunements are gone a lot of guilds now have a pop at Void Reaver at about the time Gruul is going down.
Unfortunately, there are not enough people signed up as it's been a big partying weekend so we decide to go back to Molten Core.
This doesn't even start till quite late as lots of people have re-rolled characters for the expansion so are not attuned to MC so we hang around waiting for them to run BRD to get attuned.
Eventually we kick off with 10 people (including a 64 palladin and a 67 priest), this builds up to 14 at some point.
We probably start at about 19:45 and have downed 3 bosses (luciferon, naggblaggwahatevr and Garr) before I have to quit at 21:00.
Obviously drops aren't much use for us level 70s but people are still rolling against each other for them! Hehe
Anyway, that was my first foray into Molten Core and was a good laugh, probably made better by the fact we were 10 manning it at 70 rather than 40 manning it at 60!!
We were supposed to be having our first look at The Eye in Tempest Keep today. Out of the usual raid sequence when there were attunements to be done, but now that TK attunements are gone a lot of guilds now have a pop at Void Reaver at about the time Gruul is going down.
Unfortunately, there are not enough people signed up as it's been a big partying weekend so we decide to go back to Molten Core.
This doesn't even start till quite late as lots of people have re-rolled characters for the expansion so are not attuned to MC so we hang around waiting for them to run BRD to get attuned.
Eventually we kick off with 10 people (including a 64 palladin and a 67 priest), this builds up to 14 at some point.
We probably start at about 19:45 and have downed 3 bosses (luciferon, naggblaggwahatevr and Garr) before I have to quit at 21:00.
Obviously drops aren't much use for us level 70s but people are still rolling against each other for them! Hehe
Anyway, that was my first foray into Molten Core and was a good laugh, probably made better by the fact we were 10 manning it at 70 rather than 40 manning it at 60!!
Healing Enchants II
Friday 17th August 2007
I have just discovered another healing enchant
Enchant Gloves - Major Healing (+35 Healing)
6 Greater Planar Essence
6 Large Prismatic Shard
6 Primal Life
OK then. I have used up all my shards, and TiceNits only has 1 left. So I need to get 5 more shards. They are selling for 20 - 30 gold each on Auction house. So looks like I'm going to have to get them from 5 man instances.
TiceNits has Primal Lifes still so that's that covered. Just the Greater Planar Essences. Now this was the good bit.
Remember I bought 10 and only needed 4 and auctioned the rest? Well I go and have a look in the Auction House and mine are still there but there are 5 on there undercutting me. So I buy those up leaving mine as the cheapest, which subsequently sell!
So more profit all round!!!
So now I just need 1 Planar Essence and 5 Shards for my healing enchant on Justicar Gloves.
I have just discovered another healing enchant
Enchant Gloves - Major Healing (+35 Healing)
6 Greater Planar Essence
6 Large Prismatic Shard
6 Primal Life
OK then. I have used up all my shards, and TiceNits only has 1 left. So I need to get 5 more shards. They are selling for 20 - 30 gold each on Auction house. So looks like I'm going to have to get them from 5 man instances.
TiceNits has Primal Lifes still so that's that covered. Just the Greater Planar Essences. Now this was the good bit.
Remember I bought 10 and only needed 4 and auctioned the rest? Well I go and have a look in the Auction House and mine are still there but there are 5 on there undercutting me. So I buy those up leaving mine as the cheapest, which subsequently sell!
So more profit all round!!!
So now I just need 1 Planar Essence and 5 Shards for my healing enchant on Justicar Gloves.
DKP - Good or Bad?
Thursday 16th August 2007 - Gruul 4?
Off to Gruul and Co. once more. Just before the raid I get my 2 new enchants done. This is the first raid with the new DKP system in place. We all start off with 0 points so we'll only be able to bid minimum.
Tonight I am assigned as a healer for the tank on High King Maulgar himself, rather than the mage tank. We wipe 3 or 4 times but eventually he goes down.
First off my Tier 4 token Pauldrons of the Justice Seeker drops. There are no Shamans and only 1 rogue, so it is me against him. He won. Gutted.
Next item up is the Tier 4 Shoulders for Hunters etc. StupidDorf wins it. YAY - that should cheer him up.
Lastly a plate tanking piece drops. I am not going to waste my DKP on this as it is not for my primary healing build, but it would be good for my alternate tanking build.
Guess what. None of the plate wearers want it. So it is announced it is going to be sharded. A couple of people complain about this, including me, if no one wants it and is willing to spend DKP on it what should happen next?
Surely it is not good for the guild to shard something if someone could use it, albeit if it is for an alternate build that would not be used often.
StupidDorf pointed out that someone (Raider D) could wait for everyone else to get the drop (Raiders A, B and C) and weeks later when it comes up again and no-one wanted it Raider D could not spend DKP on it but still get it by default for free.
SO WHAT? That person has waited a lot longer for it and has gone without in the meantime. Now no-one else needs it now, so why shouldn't Raider D get it for free. Surely DKP is used primarily as a way to measure how much each player wants an item so that when multiple people want an item the highest bidder gets it. There should be a way to avoid something getting sharded. Maybe when bidding goes in you could bid (zero) and if no-one else bids you get it free. If multiple people bid zero and no-one else bids then they have to rebid an amount greater than zero. If no-one rebids, then and only then does it get sharded. Or maybe they roll for it.
So what if Raider A spent all their DKP on the same item 4 weeks ago and now Raider D gets it free? Raider A has had the item from the start and had the benefit of it, whereas Raider D has gone without.
I just think it is totally pointless sharding something that someone somewhere could use.
Well it got sharded anyway. What a waste.
Onto Gruul the Dragonslayer - wipe wipe wipe. Raid finsihed. Goodnight.
Off to Gruul and Co. once more. Just before the raid I get my 2 new enchants done. This is the first raid with the new DKP system in place. We all start off with 0 points so we'll only be able to bid minimum.
Tonight I am assigned as a healer for the tank on High King Maulgar himself, rather than the mage tank. We wipe 3 or 4 times but eventually he goes down.
First off my Tier 4 token Pauldrons of the Justice Seeker drops. There are no Shamans and only 1 rogue, so it is me against him. He won. Gutted.
Next item up is the Tier 4 Shoulders for Hunters etc. StupidDorf wins it. YAY - that should cheer him up.
Lastly a plate tanking piece drops. I am not going to waste my DKP on this as it is not for my primary healing build, but it would be good for my alternate tanking build.
Guess what. None of the plate wearers want it. So it is announced it is going to be sharded. A couple of people complain about this, including me, if no one wants it and is willing to spend DKP on it what should happen next?
Surely it is not good for the guild to shard something if someone could use it, albeit if it is for an alternate build that would not be used often.
StupidDorf pointed out that someone (Raider D) could wait for everyone else to get the drop (Raiders A, B and C) and weeks later when it comes up again and no-one wanted it Raider D could not spend DKP on it but still get it by default for free.
SO WHAT? That person has waited a lot longer for it and has gone without in the meantime. Now no-one else needs it now, so why shouldn't Raider D get it for free. Surely DKP is used primarily as a way to measure how much each player wants an item so that when multiple people want an item the highest bidder gets it. There should be a way to avoid something getting sharded. Maybe when bidding goes in you could bid (zero) and if no-one else bids you get it free. If multiple people bid zero and no-one else bids then they have to rebid an amount greater than zero. If no-one rebids, then and only then does it get sharded. Or maybe they roll for it.
So what if Raider A spent all their DKP on the same item 4 weeks ago and now Raider D gets it free? Raider A has had the item from the start and had the benefit of it, whereas Raider D has gone without.
I just think it is totally pointless sharding something that someone somewhere could use.
Well it got sharded anyway. What a waste.
Onto Gruul the Dragonslayer - wipe wipe wipe. Raid finsihed. Goodnight.
Healing Enchants
Wednesday 15th August - High King and Gruul
Now that I have Shard of The Virtuous I really wanted to get my weapon enchanted before going to Gruul tomorrow night. I thought all I need for this was 7 Large Prismatic Shards. As it turned out I needed a little bit more.
Enchant Weapon - Major Healing (+81 healing)
8 Large Prismatic Shard
8 Primal Water
8 Primal Life
Luckily TiceNits is an alchemist so she had a nice stock of Primal Lifes sitting around, a couple of Primal Waters and a Large Prismatic Shard. I had a Primal Water and a few motes of water. So on Wednesday night and before the raid I popped up to Skettis and farmed the surgers for Motes seeing as the primals sell for between 20 and 30 gold each. A few hours of grinding later and I have the mats.
There are 2 more enchants I want too, this is the first:
Enchant Bracer - Superior Healing (+30 Healing)
4 Greater Planar Essence
4 Primal Life
So I "acquire" another 4 Primal Life from TiceNits and go look on the Auction House for the Planar essences, they are selling for 4 gold 50 silver each but there is a stack of 10 going for 35 gold. Ever the Auction house addict I see a profit in this so buy up the 10 stack (3 gold 50 each) and put 6 back up for 4 gold 45 silver each (6 * 95 silver profit)
And so I now have enough mats for 2 great healing enchants on my healing epics. Woot.
This should make Gruul slighly easier....
Now that I have Shard of The Virtuous I really wanted to get my weapon enchanted before going to Gruul tomorrow night. I thought all I need for this was 7 Large Prismatic Shards. As it turned out I needed a little bit more.
Enchant Weapon - Major Healing (+81 healing)
8 Large Prismatic Shard
8 Primal Water
8 Primal Life
Luckily TiceNits is an alchemist so she had a nice stock of Primal Lifes sitting around, a couple of Primal Waters and a Large Prismatic Shard. I had a Primal Water and a few motes of water. So on Wednesday night and before the raid I popped up to Skettis and farmed the surgers for Motes seeing as the primals sell for between 20 and 30 gold each. A few hours of grinding later and I have the mats.
There are 2 more enchants I want too, this is the first:
Enchant Bracer - Superior Healing (+30 Healing)
4 Greater Planar Essence
4 Primal Life
So I "acquire" another 4 Primal Life from TiceNits and go look on the Auction House for the Planar essences, they are selling for 4 gold 50 silver each but there is a stack of 10 going for 35 gold. Ever the Auction house addict I see a profit in this so buy up the 10 stack (3 gold 50 each) and put 6 back up for 4 gold 45 silver each (6 * 95 silver profit)
And so I now have enough mats for 2 great healing enchants on my healing epics. Woot.
This should make Gruul slighly easier....
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Not the Perfect End to Karazhan Raiding
Tuesday 14th August 2007 - Karazhan 6
So, as the guild want to progress onto Serpentshrine Cavern this will be the last official raid into Karazhan. We will continue to raid it on off days to farm gear but as of midnight tonight it's "Goodbye Karazhan"
Now this is slightly annoying because I still need the quest drops from The Shade of Aran and from Prince Malkbazarebits, but hopefully I'll get them tonight.
This raid progresses on from Sundays raid where we took down Moroes, Romulo and Julianne and the Curator but got butt-whipped by Nightbane and Aran.
First off we went back to Nightbane, but after he spanked us again 4 or 5 times we called that one. OK, then, we'll spank Shade of Aran. Nope 3 wipes later and it's repair time, so we clear the way to the Consortium repair guy to repair. While we're here we do the Chess Event which I still can't get the hang of, but I took down a wolf and we won. Loot for me? Nope!
So, back to Shade of Aran and several more wipes later we decide to give up and go do some easier bosses. This is really frustrating because we have taken him down easily several times.
Off to Attumen the Hunter and we take him down pretty easy but no drops for me.
We now have 22 minutes until midnight so it's a mad dash to Maiden of Virtue. This gives me hope to avoid a loot-less night because she does drop one of my must have items. An epic Healing Mace.
18 minutes to midnight and we're nearly there when I agrro a whole bunch of trash from a side room, oops! No problem, we spank them and move on.
14 minutes to midnight, we start on Maiden and ... wipe very quickly! What is going on?
8 minutes to midnight, last chance on Maiden. And she goes down like a cheap hooker in Soho. What drops? My mace, that is what! Loot master calls out needers and the new druid rolls a 75! My heart quickens as I can see MY mace quickly slipping away from me. I steel myself and /roll .... 80 WOOT! I loot it and the clock ticks 00:00
So 30 gold in repairs and only 1 epic, but boy was it the right epic - Shard of the Virtuous !!!
All I need now is 1 more large prismatic shard and a couple more primal lifes and primal waters and I can get a +81 healing enchant put on it. The whole combo boosting my healing by another 200
Edit 16/08/2007: TiceNits gave me the shard and primal lifes I needed so I went farming the water elementals in Skettis. I needed 6 Primal Waters which means 60 Motes of Water. After an hour of farming I now have 4 Primal Waters to go. They go for 21 gold each on our server, so I will see how many I can farm before the Gruul raid tonight then just buy the rest.
So, as the guild want to progress onto Serpentshrine Cavern this will be the last official raid into Karazhan. We will continue to raid it on off days to farm gear but as of midnight tonight it's "Goodbye Karazhan"
Now this is slightly annoying because I still need the quest drops from The Shade of Aran and from Prince Malkbazarebits, but hopefully I'll get them tonight.
This raid progresses on from Sundays raid where we took down Moroes, Romulo and Julianne and the Curator but got butt-whipped by Nightbane and Aran.
First off we went back to Nightbane, but after he spanked us again 4 or 5 times we called that one. OK, then, we'll spank Shade of Aran. Nope 3 wipes later and it's repair time, so we clear the way to the Consortium repair guy to repair. While we're here we do the Chess Event which I still can't get the hang of, but I took down a wolf and we won. Loot for me? Nope!
So, back to Shade of Aran and several more wipes later we decide to give up and go do some easier bosses. This is really frustrating because we have taken him down easily several times.
Off to Attumen the Hunter and we take him down pretty easy but no drops for me.
We now have 22 minutes until midnight so it's a mad dash to Maiden of Virtue. This gives me hope to avoid a loot-less night because she does drop one of my must have items. An epic Healing Mace.
18 minutes to midnight and we're nearly there when I agrro a whole bunch of trash from a side room, oops! No problem, we spank them and move on.
14 minutes to midnight, we start on Maiden and ... wipe very quickly! What is going on?
8 minutes to midnight, last chance on Maiden. And she goes down like a cheap hooker in Soho. What drops? My mace, that is what! Loot master calls out needers and the new druid rolls a 75! My heart quickens as I can see MY mace quickly slipping away from me. I steel myself and /roll .... 80 WOOT! I loot it and the clock ticks 00:00
So 30 gold in repairs and only 1 epic, but boy was it the right epic - Shard of the Virtuous !!!
All I need now is 1 more large prismatic shard and a couple more primal lifes and primal waters and I can get a +81 healing enchant put on it. The whole combo boosting my healing by another 200
Edit 16/08/2007: TiceNits gave me the shard and primal lifes I needed so I went farming the water elementals in Skettis. I needed 6 Primal Waters which means 60 Motes of Water. After an hour of farming I now have 4 Primal Waters to go. They go for 21 gold each on our server, so I will see how many I can farm before the Gruul raid tonight then just buy the rest.
More Tier 4 Tokens, Aran wipes and a /gquit
Sunday 12th August 2007 - Karazhan 5
At last, TiceNits and I are in the same raid.
Moroes - I was asked to tank the paladin, that was easy enough but everything went down hill after that and we wiped. Second attempt, I tanked paladin again and then went onto heal. Result. Moroes down on second attempt. Loot: I got Royal Cloak of Arathi Kings and Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable. Not bad.
Opera - Romulo and Julianne - this was fairly hectic as for some reason Julianne's heals weren't showing up so she kept getting heals off when her or Romulo were about to go down, resulting in us having to stop DPS on the low health one and put all DPs on the recently healed, but after 2 or 3 heals we managed to get them both down within 10 seconds without wiping! He dropped Eternium Greathelm which the tank already had so another piece of tank/dps gear for me!
Curator - easy, downed in 1 again! The Tier 4 gloves token for rogues, shamans and paladins, Gloves of the Fallen Champion, dropped again. We had no rogue and the shaman had two to my one so It was given to me. He also dropped Garona's Signet Ring these will be added to my growing tanking/dpsing gear!
We then tried Nightbane, but he wiped us several times so we moved onto Aran.
Shade of Aran - he wiped us several times as well, this was not going very well, and was made worse when the shaman hearthed out, said goodbye and suddenly /gquit. It was later mentioned on the forums that there was some confusion that he thought he wasn't allowed to roll on something. I hope it wasn't my gloves!! Anyway, we managed to get a warlock in for the last attempt on Aran. This attempt lasted about 10 seconds!
So, this raid gave me no healing gear but did give me a second set of T4 gloves and 2 dps peices and 2 tanking pieces. Better than nothing!
At last, TiceNits and I are in the same raid.
Moroes - I was asked to tank the paladin, that was easy enough but everything went down hill after that and we wiped. Second attempt, I tanked paladin again and then went onto heal. Result. Moroes down on second attempt. Loot: I got Royal Cloak of Arathi Kings and Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable. Not bad.
Opera - Romulo and Julianne - this was fairly hectic as for some reason Julianne's heals weren't showing up so she kept getting heals off when her or Romulo were about to go down, resulting in us having to stop DPS on the low health one and put all DPs on the recently healed, but after 2 or 3 heals we managed to get them both down within 10 seconds without wiping! He dropped Eternium Greathelm which the tank already had so another piece of tank/dps gear for me!
Curator - easy, downed in 1 again! The Tier 4 gloves token for rogues, shamans and paladins, Gloves of the Fallen Champion, dropped again. We had no rogue and the shaman had two to my one so It was given to me. He also dropped Garona's Signet Ring these will be added to my growing tanking/dpsing gear!
We then tried Nightbane, but he wiped us several times so we moved onto Aran.
Shade of Aran - he wiped us several times as well, this was not going very well, and was made worse when the shaman hearthed out, said goodbye and suddenly /gquit. It was later mentioned on the forums that there was some confusion that he thought he wasn't allowed to roll on something. I hope it wasn't my gloves!! Anyway, we managed to get a warlock in for the last attempt on Aran. This attempt lasted about 10 seconds!
So, this raid gave me no healing gear but did give me a second set of T4 gloves and 2 dps peices and 2 tanking pieces. Better than nothing!
Even Officers Can Get Stroppy
Thursday 9th August 2007 - Gruul's Lair
So, The High King went down after only 1 wipe, err that might have been my fault, I was healing the mage tank again and decided to get in close to throw on a Judgement of Light, the mage died because I was not healing enough, I died next followed by the rest of the raid. Oops! Second attempt they all went down! woot!
At this point there was a little trouble, a druid off tank, ArgyBargy, rolled on something (probably a Tier 4 token) and beat our main tank, FannyFart.
FannyFart, also a guild officer, quit the raid and hearthstoned out! He was replaced soon enough and we went on to wipe many times on Gruul.
He later started a thread on the guild forums and he and ArgyBargy then flamed each other for a while.
The result: ArgyBargygot a /gkick and the officer was suspended. Hmmmm
So, The High King went down after only 1 wipe, err that might have been my fault, I was healing the mage tank again and decided to get in close to throw on a Judgement of Light, the mage died because I was not healing enough, I died next followed by the rest of the raid. Oops! Second attempt they all went down! woot!
At this point there was a little trouble, a druid off tank, ArgyBargy, rolled on something (probably a Tier 4 token) and beat our main tank, FannyFart.
FannyFart, also a guild officer, quit the raid and hearthstoned out! He was replaced soon enough and we went on to wipe many times on Gruul.
He later started a thread on the guild forums and he and ArgyBargy then flamed each other for a while.
The result: ArgyBargygot a /gkick and the officer was suspended. Hmmmm
Rotated Again
Tuesday 7th August 2007 - Karazhan
After the StupidDorf/gquit debacle we've been given more warning of whether we're going to be rotated. Yesterday evening the Guild Leader, lets call him HardAss the GM, asked me if I minded being rotated again, of course as a new member I couldn't really argue!
However, I asked if whenever possible if TiceNits or I were going to be rotated, could we be rotated together. HardAss the GM said he was going to ask me about that so all worked out well.
We were both rotated out with plenty of warning and arranged to do some stuff in "Real Life" instead. :-)
After the StupidDorf/gquit debacle we've been given more warning of whether we're going to be rotated. Yesterday evening the Guild Leader, lets call him HardAss the GM, asked me if I minded being rotated again, of course as a new member I couldn't really argue!
However, I asked if whenever possible if TiceNits or I were going to be rotated, could we be rotated together. HardAss the GM said he was going to ask me about that so all worked out well.
We were both rotated out with plenty of warning and arranged to do some stuff in "Real Life" instead. :-)
And The Other Bosses?
Sunday 5th August 2007 - Karazhan 4
Tonight I got to see the rest of the Karazhan bosses.
First we kicked off with The Opera Event and I get to see Romulo and Julianne, managed to get a wipe in before downing them on the second attempt. The mage, lets call him RaidWanker, didn't know to spell steal from Julianne and she kept healing herself or Romulo just before one of them went down. The trick with this fight is 1) Down Julianne. 2) Down Romulo 3) They both come back and you have to down them both together. If you don't kill them within 10 seconds of each other they come back for more. Anyway, I (the noob) informed RaidWanker of this for the 2nd try and it went well.
Off to take Nightbane out. Again, downed first time. Here we stayed on one side of him and when he dropped charred earth we all ran through his back legs to the other side. When he takes off every 25% we all run to the main tank until the skeletons start falling, at which point we take them out and then return to Nightbane when he lands again. He dropped a couple of tanking bits for me here, Panzar'thar Breastplate and Ironstriders of Urgency.
Next to fall was the Curator, pretty standard fare here and he dropped Wryn Dynasty Greaves, more tanking stuff for me!
I may have got the order confused for the next three, but it's near enough.
So we took a look at Terestian Illhoof, and took him out easy. Nice. Thing here is once in a while he shackles someone, this person needs healing quickly and all DPS needs to go on the chains to destroy them. Also a warlock is required to put Seed of Corruption on Illhoof once imps start portalling in so that all the firebolts go to the warlock.
Another pop at The Chess Event, still don't really seem to be able to do much, but we won anyway.
We then despatched Shade of Aran without too much trouble and moved onto Netherspite - Again, another first for me but I had read up on the encounter. Now we had a little problem here and this is where I learnt a valuable lesson. What the raid leader wants the raid leader gets. If the raid leader wants you to run the encounter naked - that is what you do. Now I had read up that all the beams need to be interrupted and rotated between raiders so that Netherspite never gets a beam and the players get the most benefit / least reduction from them. However this team were planning to only do the blue and red beams and leave the green beam on Netherspite. Now the green beam heals him for lots at an increasing rate each tick, so that clearly is not a good beam to ignore. Someone was also saying the phase lasts 2 minutes so we didn't have enough people to rotate and wouldn't listen to me telling them it was only 90 seconds. I mentioned this several times on Teamspeak and was eventually told to shut up. At which point I lost interest, we wiped several times and I ended up standing by the wall throwing the occasion heal out randomly and waited for each inevitable wipe.
On the upside I did get to increase my stock of tanking gear!
Tonight I got to see the rest of the Karazhan bosses.
First we kicked off with The Opera Event and I get to see Romulo and Julianne, managed to get a wipe in before downing them on the second attempt. The mage, lets call him RaidWanker, didn't know to spell steal from Julianne and she kept healing herself or Romulo just before one of them went down. The trick with this fight is 1) Down Julianne. 2) Down Romulo 3) They both come back and you have to down them both together. If you don't kill them within 10 seconds of each other they come back for more. Anyway, I (the noob) informed RaidWanker of this for the 2nd try and it went well.
Off to take Nightbane out. Again, downed first time. Here we stayed on one side of him and when he dropped charred earth we all ran through his back legs to the other side. When he takes off every 25% we all run to the main tank until the skeletons start falling, at which point we take them out and then return to Nightbane when he lands again. He dropped a couple of tanking bits for me here, Panzar'thar Breastplate and Ironstriders of Urgency.
Next to fall was the Curator, pretty standard fare here and he dropped Wryn Dynasty Greaves, more tanking stuff for me!
I may have got the order confused for the next three, but it's near enough.
So we took a look at Terestian Illhoof, and took him out easy. Nice. Thing here is once in a while he shackles someone, this person needs healing quickly and all DPS needs to go on the chains to destroy them. Also a warlock is required to put Seed of Corruption on Illhoof once imps start portalling in so that all the firebolts go to the warlock.
Another pop at The Chess Event, still don't really seem to be able to do much, but we won anyway.
We then despatched Shade of Aran without too much trouble and moved onto Netherspite - Again, another first for me but I had read up on the encounter. Now we had a little problem here and this is where I learnt a valuable lesson. What the raid leader wants the raid leader gets. If the raid leader wants you to run the encounter naked - that is what you do. Now I had read up that all the beams need to be interrupted and rotated between raiders so that Netherspite never gets a beam and the players get the most benefit / least reduction from them. However this team were planning to only do the blue and red beams and leave the green beam on Netherspite. Now the green beam heals him for lots at an increasing rate each tick, so that clearly is not a good beam to ignore. Someone was also saying the phase lasts 2 minutes so we didn't have enough people to rotate and wouldn't listen to me telling them it was only 90 seconds. I mentioned this several times on Teamspeak and was eventually told to shut up. At which point I lost interest, we wiped several times and I ended up standing by the wall throwing the occasion heal out randomly and waited for each inevitable wipe.
On the upside I did get to increase my stock of tanking gear!
One night - Two raids
Thursday August 2nd 2007 - Gruul 2 and Karazhan 3
Tonight we went to Gruul's Lair, took the High King down fairly easy and wiped a few times on Gruul. Fair enough.
It was quite clear we're not really ready for Gruul yet, so the raid was called and we went to do a little Karazhan.
First off Attumen the Hunter - My first time on him. Simple fight, burn down him and his horse. At around 10% of his horses HP he mounts the horse and you just DPS him down.
Off to Moroes for an easy kill.
Then onto Maiden of Virtue - Another first for me and we downed her real quick and she was kind enough to give me Bracers of Justice which I'm going to bang a +30 healing enchant on.
That was that for the night, so not a lot from Gruul but got another nice epic from Karazhan.
The other team didn't fair so well, they got to Attumen at about the same time but took a little longer to down him, We had downed Moroes before the other team even started their first set of wipes on him. We then downed Maiden at about the same time they finally downed Moroes. We is leet!
Tonight we went to Gruul's Lair, took the High King down fairly easy and wiped a few times on Gruul. Fair enough.
It was quite clear we're not really ready for Gruul yet, so the raid was called and we went to do a little Karazhan.
First off Attumen the Hunter - My first time on him. Simple fight, burn down him and his horse. At around 10% of his horses HP he mounts the horse and you just DPS him down.
Off to Moroes for an easy kill.
Then onto Maiden of Virtue - Another first for me and we downed her real quick and she was kind enough to give me Bracers of Justice which I'm going to bang a +30 healing enchant on.
That was that for the night, so not a lot from Gruul but got another nice epic from Karazhan.
The other team didn't fair so well, they got to Attumen at about the same time but took a little longer to down him, We had downed Moroes before the other team even started their first set of wipes on him. We then downed Maiden at about the same time they finally downed Moroes. We is leet!
The Trouble With Rotations
Tuesday 31st July - Karazhan
OK, so I had a meeting tonight so I couldn't go raiding.
However, StupidDork got rotated out of this loot-run which really annoyed him. We had gone to Gruul last Thursday, which in essence was a wipe fest, so anyone that went on that should really have had the opportunity to get some gear from Karazhan tonight.
StupidDork /gquit over this and caused quite a stir. In my mind rotations are a necessary evil but should be done on an instance basis not a raiding calendar wide basis.
If you guild has 30 active raiders and does 2 Karazhan teams and also makes up a 25 man team from the same pool then you should expect to be rotated every 3rd Karazhan run and this should be totally separate from being rotated out of every 6th Gruul attempt.
The way our guild was doing it was haphazard and in a linear fashion. StupidDork was rotated out of "a" raid because it was his turn and it was bad luck that he was in a wipe fest(Gruul) and then rotated out of a loot run (Karazhan).
To make matters worse everyone that signed up for a raid was expected to be at the instance entrance 15 minutes before raid and in that 15 minutes you are assigned to the raid or rotated. So all the grinding for stuff and preparation for the raid was in vane, and he had to cancel/postpone activities in real life.
Now it is better, raid teams are decided in advance, so your not sat there 5 minutes before raid time only to be rotated out at the last minute.
OK, so I had a meeting tonight so I couldn't go raiding.
However, StupidDork got rotated out of this loot-run which really annoyed him. We had gone to Gruul last Thursday, which in essence was a wipe fest, so anyone that went on that should really have had the opportunity to get some gear from Karazhan tonight.
StupidDork /gquit over this and caused quite a stir. In my mind rotations are a necessary evil but should be done on an instance basis not a raiding calendar wide basis.
If you guild has 30 active raiders and does 2 Karazhan teams and also makes up a 25 man team from the same pool then you should expect to be rotated every 3rd Karazhan run and this should be totally separate from being rotated out of every 6th Gruul attempt.
The way our guild was doing it was haphazard and in a linear fashion. StupidDork was rotated out of "a" raid because it was his turn and it was bad luck that he was in a wipe fest(Gruul) and then rotated out of a loot run (Karazhan).
To make matters worse everyone that signed up for a raid was expected to be at the instance entrance 15 minutes before raid and in that 15 minutes you are assigned to the raid or rotated. So all the grinding for stuff and preparation for the raid was in vane, and he had to cancel/postpone activities in real life.
Now it is better, raid teams are decided in advance, so your not sat there 5 minutes before raid time only to be rotated out at the last minute.
Karazhan Again
Sunday 29th July - Karazhan 2
Unfortunately TiceNits was rotated out of this raid, so she went to bed and my heart really wasn't in it, but still, a very productive evening loot wise with my best haul ever. (edit 16/08/2007 still my best haul)
Off to Moroes, easy kill
Then to The Opera Event where we had the Wizard of Oz again. Another easy kill and I got Ribbon of Sacrifice and Libram of Souls Redeemed.
Then the Curator, and he dropped my Tier 4 Gloves token Gloves of the Fallen Champion which I nearly had an accident with when converting, see end of post.
And so onto Shade of Aran. Wipe wipe wipe (rinse and repeat) by this point I was clicking buttons and just hoping for the raid to be called.
But, I hit honoured so I could upgrade my Violet Eye Signet from Blue to Epic.
So, about the near accident with the Tier 4 token. I went to the guy to hand the token in for my gloves. Saw a set of gloves that this token would buy and looked at the stats. Tanking Gloves? WTF? I thought this was rubbish and why would a paladin's Tier 4 gloves not have any healing stats on them. I was about to buy them when I noticed 2 other gloves that could be purchased. A DPS set and a Holy set. Thank God for that. It would appear that your token can be used to buy a build specific item. So I bought Justicar Gloves.
Unfortunately TiceNits was rotated out of this raid, so she went to bed and my heart really wasn't in it, but still, a very productive evening loot wise with my best haul ever. (edit 16/08/2007 still my best haul)
Off to Moroes, easy kill
Then to The Opera Event where we had the Wizard of Oz again. Another easy kill and I got Ribbon of Sacrifice and Libram of Souls Redeemed.
Then the Curator, and he dropped my Tier 4 Gloves token Gloves of the Fallen Champion which I nearly had an accident with when converting, see end of post.
And so onto Shade of Aran. Wipe wipe wipe (rinse and repeat) by this point I was clicking buttons and just hoping for the raid to be called.
But, I hit honoured so I could upgrade my Violet Eye Signet from Blue to Epic.
So, about the near accident with the Tier 4 token. I went to the guy to hand the token in for my gloves. Saw a set of gloves that this token would buy and looked at the stats. Tanking Gloves? WTF? I thought this was rubbish and why would a paladin's Tier 4 gloves not have any healing stats on them. I was about to buy them when I noticed 2 other gloves that could be purchased. A DPS set and a Holy set. Thank God for that. It would appear that your token can be used to buy a build specific item. So I bought Justicar Gloves.
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
First Karazhan and now Gruul's Lair
Thrusday 26th July 2007 - Gruul's Lair 1
In four days I have gone from a raid-noob in blues and greens, to having some respectable healing epics from my first ever Karazhan and now we're off to Gruul's Lair!
What next? Black Temple on Sunday?
So, here I am prepared for another guild wipe fest on High King Maulgar with a team of only 23 out of 25 raiders. This doesn't bode well.
So, I am assigned as secondary healer to the Mage tanking {insert mage mob name}. Spam Flash of Light and get ready for a Holy Light when shield goes down!
First couple of tries my mage dies, succeeded by raid wipes. I sometimes managed to shield up and run out the door.
Another couple of tries and the Main Tank dies, then next thing I know is my mage running past me and heading for the door, so I hot foot it after him!
Another couple of tries, and the mage target is down, but a lot of the rest of the raid is dead or dying so more wipes.
At about attempt six or seven the mage target is down, followed by all the rest of the Kings adds followed eventually by High King Maulgar!
So, onto Gruul the Dragonkiller next. Cave ins and Shatters take their toll and we give up after getting him down to 24% or so.
WOOT! My first venture into Gruul's Lair and the guild's first boss kill in there! It must have been down to my leet healing skills!
In four days I have gone from a raid-noob in blues and greens, to having some respectable healing epics from my first ever Karazhan and now we're off to Gruul's Lair!
What next? Black Temple on Sunday?
So, here I am prepared for another guild wipe fest on High King Maulgar with a team of only 23 out of 25 raiders. This doesn't bode well.
So, I am assigned as secondary healer to the Mage tanking {insert mage mob name}. Spam Flash of Light and get ready for a Holy Light when shield goes down!
First couple of tries my mage dies, succeeded by raid wipes. I sometimes managed to shield up and run out the door.
Another couple of tries and the Main Tank dies, then next thing I know is my mage running past me and heading for the door, so I hot foot it after him!
Another couple of tries, and the mage target is down, but a lot of the rest of the raid is dead or dying so more wipes.
At about attempt six or seven the mage target is down, followed by all the rest of the Kings adds followed eventually by High King Maulgar!
So, onto Gruul the Dragonkiller next. Cave ins and Shatters take their toll and we give up after getting him down to 24% or so.
WOOT! My first venture into Gruul's Lair and the guild's first boss kill in there! It must have been down to my leet healing skills!
My First Rotation
Tuesday 24th July 2007 - Karazhan
All keyed up and excited for my 2nd ever raid I turned up early, fully repaired, bags emptied, all potioned up, and what happened...
... I was rotated out. :-(
Too many healers, not enough spots.
I was gutted, TiceNits was still going but I had to sit out.
Oh well, I was the new guy so what can you do?
Loot? None, obviously!
All keyed up and excited for my 2nd ever raid I turned up early, fully repaired, bags emptied, all potioned up, and what happened...
... I was rotated out. :-(
Too many healers, not enough spots.
I was gutted, TiceNits was still going but I had to sit out.
Oh well, I was the new guy so what can you do?
Loot? None, obviously!
More Epics Than You Can Shake a Stick At!
Sunday July 22nd 2007 - Karazhan 1
Today is 14th August, what I am going to try and do is record what happened in all the raids I have been in up until now, and then record the raid details live from now on.
So, my first ever proper raid. What Happened?
I turned up on time, with potions and 100% armour (blues and a green set of shoulders!) a good start.
First we took down Moroes easy, heal everyone and try to slam Blessing of Protection on healers if they get garrotted. First boss and my first level 70 epic, although only mail and drops my already woefully bad armour level it does give me a very nice +healing boost Belt of Gale Force.
Opera Event - We got The Wizard of Oz. I was quiet worried about this before hand because I had seen TiceNits wipe on Romulo and Julianne many times when she was raiding with "Fist Me Nicely". As it turned out we downed them all very easy, the Crone popped up, I got whirlwinded across the room, and then she got DPS'd down real quick. No drops for me though.
The Curator - now that's some weird mofo, I loved his voice!! He also went down first time. Still no loot for me though!
Shade of Aran - Walked in the room, event started, 3 seconds later I was dead, Aran went down pretty quick but I made the mistake of releasing so had to run all the way back rather than being ressed! As I was running back there was talk of another piece of loot for me. After a few hairy moments of "OMG, I released so I can't loot" the little twinklies appeared above him and I picked up Pauldrons of the Justice Seeker. Now we're talking. Plate healing gear. Lovely.
Chess Event - This was confusing, I couldn't control it to start with, then turned my pet bar back on but often it didn't seem to want to do what I was telling it. Still we won and I won Heart Flame Leggings not too shabby at all.
Prince Malkalkyzar(whatever!!) - Well, this is where the wipes started, I'd say we were unlucky with the Infernal drops, but having read up on the fight a lot of people say it is not luck really, more a question of moving Prince around so there is always an escape route from the infernal drops. We wiped a few times here and then called it at the usual call time of Midnight server time.
All in all a very rewarding and exciting first foray into Karazhan and raiding in general. Except for 29/07/2007 this was my best haul of healing epics.
Today is 14th August, what I am going to try and do is record what happened in all the raids I have been in up until now, and then record the raid details live from now on.
So, my first ever proper raid. What Happened?
I turned up on time, with potions and 100% armour (blues and a green set of shoulders!) a good start.
First we took down Moroes easy, heal everyone and try to slam Blessing of Protection on healers if they get garrotted. First boss and my first level 70 epic, although only mail and drops my already woefully bad armour level it does give me a very nice +healing boost Belt of Gale Force.
Opera Event - We got The Wizard of Oz. I was quiet worried about this before hand because I had seen TiceNits wipe on Romulo and Julianne many times when she was raiding with "Fist Me Nicely". As it turned out we downed them all very easy, the Crone popped up, I got whirlwinded across the room, and then she got DPS'd down real quick. No drops for me though.
The Curator - now that's some weird mofo, I loved his voice!! He also went down first time. Still no loot for me though!
Shade of Aran - Walked in the room, event started, 3 seconds later I was dead, Aran went down pretty quick but I made the mistake of releasing so had to run all the way back rather than being ressed! As I was running back there was talk of another piece of loot for me. After a few hairy moments of "OMG, I released so I can't loot" the little twinklies appeared above him and I picked up Pauldrons of the Justice Seeker. Now we're talking. Plate healing gear. Lovely.
Chess Event - This was confusing, I couldn't control it to start with, then turned my pet bar back on but often it didn't seem to want to do what I was telling it. Still we won and I won Heart Flame Leggings not too shabby at all.
Prince Malkalkyzar(whatever!!) - Well, this is where the wipes started, I'd say we were unlucky with the Infernal drops, but having read up on the fight a lot of people say it is not luck really, more a question of moving Prince around so there is always an escape route from the infernal drops. We wiped a few times here and then called it at the usual call time of Midnight server time.
All in all a very rewarding and exciting first foray into Karazhan and raiding in general. Except for 29/07/2007 this was my best haul of healing epics.
Finally Started Raiding
Well, after playing WoW for 18 months I am finally raiding! Woot!
I started playing in January 2006 and was level 60 within a couple of months of casual levelling.
I joined a friendly guild which didn't really have a chance of even getting to UBRS, level 60s kept leaving for raiding guilds and I eventually became GM through a process of attrition. Still no hope of raiding so I created a new character on a newly created server and started a new guild. This started off and we recruited lots of new members. Some of those new members levelled very fast and then got frustrated by the lack of raiding so left.
So I left my level 47 tauren shaman and headed back to my level 60 human paladin but no-one was interested in doing anything because TBC was coming.
TBC hit and my girlfriend, lets call her TiceNits, and I moved our main characters to another realm where a friend, lets call him StupidDorf, had his hunter. We started levelling and joined a casual raid guild called "Fist Me Nicely". However by about level 64 got I bored of the 60-70 grind and temporarily went back to my original realm and levelled my Gnome Warlock to level 61.
Nothing going on there though, so started levelling my paladin again after threats of /gkick because I wasn't level 70 yet. By now TiceNits and the guild were already attuned and raiding Karazhan.
By the time I got to level 70 the guild dissolved without me even getting the chance to do 1 single outland instance. :(
Well, by now my good friend the Dwarf Hunter was back from 3 months working in abroad so he got me and TiceNits into a once proud high-end raiding guild, lets call it "Afterbirth", it was non-raiding and quiet now but there was still a few people around.
That was back at the end of March 2007. I then spent the next 3 months levelling some of my other alts up back on the "Home" server so my warlock could access their professions at post-level 225.
So along came my level 35 Priest Herbalist/Alchemist. Bored of Him.
Next came my Mage Miner/Blacksmith, got him to level 40 and then got bored.
Then got my rogue Leatherworker/Skinner to level 41 whilst playing with my TiceNits' druid but then she quit WoW again.
StupidDorf finally made it to level 70 and /gquit and joined "FuckingTossers"* where a lot of the old "Afterbirth" people had gone and were raiding Karazhan.
Back to my old faithful paladin then where TiceNits (Gnome Mage), had managed to secure herself a trial with "FuckingTossers", mage class closed but StupidDorf got her in!
After watching her and StupidDorf do a couple of runs in Karazhan, I was thinking, now this is what I want to do, this is finally what the game is all about.
With StupidDorf and TiceNits in the guild I ventured over to the guild website to check it out on the advice that they were looking for healers and I'd get a good reference. Yep they wanted paladins. YAY!
There was no requirement to actually be attuned for Karazhan, but I reckoned it would look better if I was, so I spent the next week getting attuned, StupidDorf got a couple of the guildies to come along and help with the instances, so I got a semi-trial there and then.
So on Friday July 20th 2007 I applied to my first raiding guild, Friday night we went for a little Shattered Halls run and i got a nice healing weapon upgrade and an offhand healing thinggummy and the suggestion that I had done well.
Sunday 22nd July, a Karazhan run with the guild.
Result?You'll have to keep reading...
* Renamed
I started playing in January 2006 and was level 60 within a couple of months of casual levelling.
I joined a friendly guild which didn't really have a chance of even getting to UBRS, level 60s kept leaving for raiding guilds and I eventually became GM through a process of attrition. Still no hope of raiding so I created a new character on a newly created server and started a new guild. This started off and we recruited lots of new members. Some of those new members levelled very fast and then got frustrated by the lack of raiding so left.
So I left my level 47 tauren shaman and headed back to my level 60 human paladin but no-one was interested in doing anything because TBC was coming.
TBC hit and my girlfriend, lets call her TiceNits, and I moved our main characters to another realm where a friend, lets call him StupidDorf, had his hunter. We started levelling and joined a casual raid guild called "Fist Me Nicely". However by about level 64 got I bored of the 60-70 grind and temporarily went back to my original realm and levelled my Gnome Warlock to level 61.
Nothing going on there though, so started levelling my paladin again after threats of /gkick because I wasn't level 70 yet. By now TiceNits and the guild were already attuned and raiding Karazhan.
By the time I got to level 70 the guild dissolved without me even getting the chance to do 1 single outland instance. :(
Well, by now my good friend the Dwarf Hunter was back from 3 months working in abroad so he got me and TiceNits into a once proud high-end raiding guild, lets call it "Afterbirth", it was non-raiding and quiet now but there was still a few people around.
That was back at the end of March 2007. I then spent the next 3 months levelling some of my other alts up back on the "Home" server so my warlock could access their professions at post-level 225.
So along came my level 35 Priest Herbalist/Alchemist. Bored of Him.
Next came my Mage Miner/Blacksmith, got him to level 40 and then got bored.
Then got my rogue Leatherworker/Skinner to level 41 whilst playing with my TiceNits' druid but then she quit WoW again.
StupidDorf finally made it to level 70 and /gquit and joined "FuckingTossers"* where a lot of the old "Afterbirth" people had gone and were raiding Karazhan.
Back to my old faithful paladin then where TiceNits (Gnome Mage), had managed to secure herself a trial with "FuckingTossers", mage class closed but StupidDorf got her in!
After watching her and StupidDorf do a couple of runs in Karazhan, I was thinking, now this is what I want to do, this is finally what the game is all about.
With StupidDorf and TiceNits in the guild I ventured over to the guild website to check it out on the advice that they were looking for healers and I'd get a good reference. Yep they wanted paladins. YAY!
There was no requirement to actually be attuned for Karazhan, but I reckoned it would look better if I was, so I spent the next week getting attuned, StupidDorf got a couple of the guildies to come along and help with the instances, so I got a semi-trial there and then.
So on Friday July 20th 2007 I applied to my first raiding guild, Friday night we went for a little Shattered Halls run and i got a nice healing weapon upgrade and an offhand healing thinggummy and the suggestion that I had done well.
Sunday 22nd July, a Karazhan run with the guild.
Result?
* Renamed
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