Tidewalker Washed Away!

Serpentshrine Cavern, Zangarmarsh
April 30, 2008

This just in! Distant Beliefs has downed its third boss in SSC. On its first night ever facing the incredibly ugly Morogrim Tidewalker, Distant Beliefs has sent him to his watery grave. The members of the execution team were seen laughing over his dead body before heading off to make Leotheras the Blind its next target.

ZA Progression

Well, last night, we downed the first four bosses in ZA, anticipating returning tonight to work on the Hex Lord Malacrass. And work on him, we did. I lost track of our attempts, we had two druid healers and a holy pally. Two rogues, a dps warrior, a mage, a warlock, a shadow priest and a pally tank.


Finally, after several tries getting him down to anywhere from 12 to 30 percent, we killed him! He dropped Dagger of Bad Mojo and the Staff of Primal Fury. Deressy ended up with the staff, as the other druid had the (better) badge staff, and seven more badges (2 for the kill and 5 for the quest).

We took a couple of runs at Zul'Jin afterwards, with our best attempt of the 3 getting him down to 43%. Not bad for a first run at him, having done no real research.

Earlier in the evening, though, we decided to take a look at the Sunwell trash - just for fun. What disaster! Well, not completely...we cleared out 3 pulls worth and picked up 3 epic gems and got a nice bit of humble pie! It was fun though!

Recent Acquisitions

Deressy finally completed the final quests she needed to get the title, Champion of the Naaru! Woot!

In addition, last night, she picked up the one thing she *really* wanted out of ZA: Mojo.

SSC Progress

It's late and I'm tired, so I won't go into too much detail. However, after a couple of nights trying, we've now downed Hydross. We might have gotten him down a bit sooner, but our first try was with 4 resto druids, a priest and a pugged pally healer. The fight is quite nasty for resto druids. More on that later.

Most of the Hydross strategies recommend between 8 and 9 healers. We had 6...well, almost 6. Tonight we had 2 restos, a pally, and three priests - one of them seriously undergeared. It took a couple of attempts and getting the timing down, but Hydross is now on our official kill list. Woot!

We moved on to down Lurker and decided to call it quits for the night. Tomorrow we'll be back, jousting at Tidewalker.

We took a group to ZA once we finished up in SSC tonight. I'd run with various folks in the group before, but not run ZA with that exact group. It was good fun and we cleared the first four bosses. I know they want to get in there before it resets on Friday to make a run at Hex Lord. Not sure when that will happen though.

Positively Progressing!

As you may have read in my last post, lots of changes have happened recently in our guild. Hence, my long silence. Let me focus for now on our post-2.4 progress (it's easiest to remember).

*zul and I were mostly absent last week, though we did sub in on a couple of raids when we had freed up from our real life commitments and others needed to leave. Our guild has turned its focus to Al'ar, particularly since the changes to Void Reaver in 2.4. Besides, if we could down Al'ar, then we could stop having to reclear his trash every time we head into the instance. Last week, we made some solid progress...getting him to 9% (then he enraged and we all died), then 7%, then 6%, then 4.5%. This week, no questions asked, he was going to die!

However, Monday nights (the start of our official raid week), we cleared Gruul's then Mag and then some of us continued on for a full clear of Kara. This was actually my first time killing Mag (though my guild had done it before without me). Our Kara clear was the fastest ever (at least since we started timing it) - 2:27.

Last night, we headed into Al'ar with victory on our minds. We had gotten him lower than ever before and he simply wasn't going to live one more night. We also had fewer healers than ever before - down to 6 on this attempt (we have had as many as 8). We had a couple of botched attempts at first, but finally, with all but one of us standing at the end of the fight (although two battle rez's were used during the fight), Al'ar fell! Woot! We had FINALLY killed that annoying bird! And we still had lots of time left in the raid!

So what else but to head off to Solarian, who we had never killed before either! We had about two attempts, I think, while folks got used to what it looked like to "be the bomb". Incidentally, I was never the bomb - only the one who got blown up! On our third or fourth attempt (it's really a very easy fight), this happened:



Yay! That's two first kills in one night! And lots of DKP for Deressy! Nothing dropped that she wanted, but other folks got some nice loot!

And tonight you ask? What's on the agenda? Why...Kael, of course!

The Guild

I find it hardest to post when things are going badly. I suppose I should realize that part of being in the guild involves a bit of drama and certainly changes occurring. (Think "The Guild"). When I first joined my current guild (which I love by the way, even still), it was relatively small, but moving into 25-man content, so expanding. There appeared to be some resistance to the changes, but overall, we were progressing and many seemed happy.

Long story short, a small contingent (but with several core raiders) decided they couldn't live with the changes or direction or something and staged a "mass" exodus. Mass was about 14 players by the time it was all done, however, many were not raiders (or at least, not consistent raiders). In many cases, that would be the end of it, and it would be up to those that were left behind to continue and rebuild or to dissolve and go their own ways. Sadly, things aren't always so predictable.

One has to wonder the motivations of people when they intentionally spread false rumors, attempt to recruit as many members as possible (even those who have expressed no desire to come with them), claim members have applied (who haven't), and even relentlessly harass existing members in whisper. To me, it appears to go beyond simply being dissatisfied with a guild and moves more into vindictiveness.

The really good news, however, is that despite all the difficulties and the actions of a few, our guild is doing quite well and thriving. In fact, even though the walk-out was midweek and during our raiding schedule, we still went into the 25-man the very next day - and downed VoidReaver. More on that in another post!

Badges Badges Badges...Loot!

So 2.4 arrived, but the badge vendor had not yet. We did our dailies - every day, and every one, on two toons, no less! And now, the BADGE vendor has arrived. Deressy has been hoarding her badges for weeks now, in anticipation of this moment. Still about 200 badges short, she did go and pick up a few items!

Of course, what every healer has been ogling since it was first announced, Deressy's first purchase was Gavel of Naaru Blessings. Now, she had to decide whether to wait and save 100 badges or pick up another slightly less expensive item. Deressy chose to spend spend spend and finally got rid of her T4 gloves, replacing them with Oakleaf-spun Handguards. It was an obvious choice due to the fact that she was using her T4 shoulders (even though she had better shoulders, Gnarled Ironwood Pauldrons) in order to take advantage of the set bonus with her T4 gloves/shoulders combo.

Deressy's +heal is now a whopping 1961! She can also regenerate 195 mp5 while casting.