The Stealthin' *Essys

Rage Winterchill

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:43:00 +0000

Last night we decided to make a quick foray into Hyjal for a change of pace. The fact that we had two pally tanks certainly helped the decision along. Most of us had read up on the fight a bit.

The interesting thing about this fight is that rather than fighting your way through trash to the boss, it comes to you in waves. Think Black Morass - except all in one spot. If you kill a wave fast enough, you have time to take a drink before the next wave comes along. If you don't, then you'll be overwhelmed by adds (nasty ones at that). Another interesting thing is that it's a very good fight to have your PVP trinket equipped. Rage has a number of abilities that you'll want to trinket (or shapeshift, when possible) out of. One of those abilities is his ice bolt - it does 4250-5750 frost damage AND encases the target in something much like an ice trap - except that it does an additional 2500 damage every second. While I was able to shapeshift out of the frost nova he often did, I couldn't shift out of the frozen tomb...hence the trinket.

So our first attempt(s) went like this:

Wipe on trash wave 6.
Kill all waves of trash and wipe on Rage at around 34%.
Boss kill!

Woot! He's dead!

We'll be heading back to Tempest Keep and SSC the rest of this week. The plan is to return to the fights we haven't seen in a while (in particular, Al'ar, who we haven't attempted since our first kill of him) and get these bosses to the point of truly being on farm. Then we'll start focusing on Vashj and Kael.

On a totally separate note, at the end of the raid, I found myself pulled suddenly (and without notice) into the officer channel. I was stunned...WHAT DID I DO?!? I even blurted that out, I think. And suddenly, I had 3 or 4 officers saying "You're in TROUBLE, Essy!" Argh. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what it might have been... Well, I found myself drafted. No longer can I listen to someone and then say "well, have you talked to an officer about it?" C'est la vie.

Bye Bye FLK!

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:05:00 +0000

We are now 5/6 in SSC (and 3/4 in TK). Vashj and Kael are the only ones that have escaped our wrath!

Leo Down!

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:25:00 +0000

Well, Leo is officially dead! It was a rough night, but after wiping at 3% on our first attempt when Leo enraged, 2 stupid wipes, and then wiping twice in a row at 1%, we finally got him down! Hooray!

Today, after the reset, we went back in and killed Hydross, Lurker and Tidewalker in quick succession. (YAY!). Then we got our first look at Fathom-Lord Karathress. There was a bit of confusion at the beginning of the fight and some of the misdirects didn't go off. We tried two or three more times, but it was near the end of raid time, so we decided to knock off for the night and come back tomorrow, rarin' to go.

On a side note, if you remember my post The Guild from a while back, the guild that was formed when some folks split off was also heading into SSC tonight as we were going in. The second we were inside, suddenly /1 (the local channel) was flooded with spam and unnecessary comments, clearly trying to distract us and/or get a reaction. My reaction was to move that channel to a separate tab in Prat (I love Prat!) that I easily was able to ignore. It's sad that people can't just walk away and focus on building a guild instead of tearing down another.

Tidewalker Washed Away!

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Thu, 01 May 2008 05:06:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:18:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:26:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:09:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:47:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:51:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:34:00 +0000

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.

Lurker Down

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:40:00 +0000

I find myself starting post after post, but then getting busy farming, raiding or just plain chatting with folks in my new guild, and hence I have many partially completed, but mostly abandoned, posts.

I'm going to aim for a bit less detail in order to get some updates on the site. On Wednesday, we made our first foray into SSC. We really beasted through the trash - very little problems at all. We were pretty shocked when, only moments after the first bobber hitting the pool, Lurker came flying out of the water - we had been prepared to wait even as long as 20 minutes. We made several attempts on Lurker, but it was taking us time to get down the timing of things and adapt to the fight. On our best attempt, we got him to... 2%. Dang, we should have had him :( He only had about 200,000 health left at that point. A couple more attempts, but folks were tired and we decided to hold off for the next night.

On Thursday we went back in - had trouble all the way in. Silly deaths on trash, really sloppy work. But we made it in to Lurker and got him down on about the third attempt. We had a few folks with us that had missed the night before, but all in all, it was really fun and a great way to end the week of raiding... almost.

It was too late to go start on Void Reaver, so a few of us decided to run Kara - a speed run through. Apparently this guild has pretty much always run 3 healers in kara. My friend Mondas (yay, he and Cianna were some of many that came over from Asgard recently) had put up a little challenge on our guild forums and got our MT really itching to try a run through with only two healers. Mondas and I went in. We had a great time - and full-cleared. It should have been in about 3 hours, but we had a couple of issues on Nightbane and it ended up being a 3.5 hour clear instead. Oh well, next time will be faster.

To Rez or Not to Rez

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:22:00 +0000

Essy was in Kara recently with a druid healer and a boomkin and began pondering the timing/use of battle rez's. Of course, playing a resto druid, I'm subject to all sorts of second-guessing, though I do try not to. In the three boss fights we did (with more than one attempt on two of the bosses), not a single battle rez was thrown.

This got me to thinking about the all-too-valuable battle rez (BR) and how/when I use it. I was certainly surprised that neither of the druids in that group used the rez, particuarly as it would have been well-spent, at least on one or two of the fights.

Now that the BR has a 20 minute cooldown (instead of the previous 30 minutes), you can theoretically throw 3 an hour per druid, which is effectively (at least in lower level raids), one per boss fight.

There are clear times when you wouldn't use a rez:

- when you are clearly going to wipe, even if you use the rez
- when it is clear you will down the boss in very short order and you have enough dps/tank/heals (with the CD, better to save it for the next fight)
- when you are fighting Shade of Aran and he does flame wreath (note on this one that you CAN rez, but the person should not accept until flame wreath is over - otherwise it counts as someone moving and you wipe)
- when you are fighting trash and almost to a boss fight. I find it is better to save the BR for the boss fight rather than waste it in a trash fight

When you *should* use a rez is a little less clear, but nonetheless important. It certainly can be subjective. Here are a few of the things I look for in making that decision:

- what percentage health is the boss? The lower his percentage, the more likely you're going to kill him - and the extra dps could make a difference in getting it done
- healer goes down. If a healer goes down and you're not clearly in a wipe situation, that person will nearly always get my BR.

On a separate note, whether to BR a tank is entirely dependent upon the situation. In some fights (like Prince), the tank will probably never be able to get threat back. In others, not only will he, but someone else can tank in the meantime until he's up and his health is back. In fact, last night in Mag's (that attempt still ended with a wipe, but it was a really good try), our main tank went down. One of the other tanks grabbed him, so I BR'd the main tank and he managed to get threat back rather quickly. Our problem in that fight was more with everyone being so knocked off balance by our MT's death, that we missed the next click when a dps or two died.

I'm sure I've left lots of other situations out, but these are some of the main elements in deciding whether to use by BR. If you have other things to add, I'd encourage you to mail me or comment.

Gruul's and Mag's

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:46:00 +0000

So, a lot has been happening lately. On Tuesday, Deressy went to Gruul's Lair for the first time with Distant Beliefs. Her only other attempt there had ended rather quickly so this was her first time to see anything beyond the High King. We had a couple of minor wipes, but downed both Gruul and High King! Woot! Since she wasn't part of the guild, she wasn't able to roll on the T4 gear that dropped (others were wanting it), but she did manage to pick up Cowl of Nature's Breath, which was a very nice upgrade for her.

Tonight she headed into Magtheridon's Lair. This was a progression run - her second time into Mag's (both times with Distant Beliefs). The first time was really not very successful - we had a hard time with the clicking, the staying alive etc. Tonight, the Raid Leader was trying a new strategy - 8 healers. I lost count of the number of attempts we made, and don't really want to count 2 of them at all; not once, but twice, someone right clicked a warlock to start the event - when not everyone was ready or even in the room. If you total up my durability loss for the night, I'd be somewhere around -80%.

We did, however, get better and better with each run. Our best attempt had him down to 10% - unfortunately, we lost a bunch of people to cave-ins and then some folks missed clicking their cube (likely because they were dead), and it ended up our tank and offtank (both pallys) trying to kill him and stay alive. We'll be trying it again on Tuesday, so I'm quite looking forward to that.

Now, I don't use damage or healing meters at all - have always been a bit concerned about people focusing more on the meter rather than on what's best for the raid. But twice last night, I had one of the other healers whisper me to let me know I was 'catching' him on the meter - later I found out I ran second in every fight. Not sure if that's good or bad - I was on raid healing though, so it's no surprise I'd have high heal numbers. What I don't know, and would have like to have seen, is how much of that was overheal. Oh well...maybe if I can find a semi-reliable and very non-intrusive meter, I'll install it.

On a separate note, after a very long and difficult process, *zul and I decided to leave our guild and join Distant Beliefs. We really loved Asgard and the people in the guild, which made this decision even more difficult. However, given some real life issues which may limit our time playing this game, we felt as if we would progress more and see more end game content by making a move. Everyone at Asgard has been incredibly encouraging - I can't recommend that guild enough if you are on Runetotem looking for a guild. They've also picked up one of my favorite resto druids - and one who I learned a lot from (grats, Asgard and Mondas).

Guild Loot Systems

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:40:00 +0000

So, I've been thinking about various loot systems used by different guilds, and trying to figure out what really is the 'best', if there is such a thing. It all really came to a climax tonight when Essy went to Kara with another guild. She was on standby with one guild, but they didn't need her, so when a friend was having internet connection problems, she stepped in on his behalf. She saw three events - Shade of Aran, Chess and Netherspite. There was some confusion on what loot rules applied, since she was not part of their guild, and it turned out she was not permitted to roll when Drape of the Dark Reavers dropped. She was told that Mr.X would be allowed to pick up an item first, and she could roll on anything after that. So, Mr.X got the loot and on we went. The Chess event only dropped plate items, both of which were sharded. Then we went to Netherspite, who dropped Skulker's Greavers and Mithril Band of the Unscarred. The rings Essy has are better but the leggings would have been a substantial upgrade. She asked again if she could roll on the legs, and was told, no, another rogue would be getting them.

Essentially, this guild's loot rules are members first. I can understand this in a way. However, Deressy's guild has different rules, and I agree with them too. In her guild, anyone in the raid has the ability to roll on items. There is no member/non-member distinction. Sure, someone may be running Kara over and over for a single drop. I've seen this happen, actually. In one case, a hunter had been running Kara weekly for over 7 months for the chance to pick up Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix. This hunter was not in our guild, and yet when it dropped, not only did she get to roll on it, but she won it (she was ecstatic). But essentially, anyone who is spending the time and money to raid with us (once they've come in, they are saved to the instance and essentially can't go in elsewhere) is eligible to roll, as if they were a guild member.

Our guild did recently make a change to a rather interesting/odd set of rules - I have been worried it would be hard to enforce, and I've seen a certain amount of exploiting of the rules, but in reality, there have been no "real" problems. In each night of raiding, each person has 1 need and 1 greed roll available. Then, if any item is going to be sharded (no one needed or greeded) then anyone who can use the item has a "free roll". If you roll and lose, it doesn't count against you. The idea is to keep one person from walking out with all the loot. For the most part, this system has been successful. (One of our guild members even went so far as to give away the T4 helm he had just won to someone else who had been trying for it for several months longer).

But then there's also the issue of folks (we had one recently) who join the guild, come on one or two runs, pick up a bunch of loot and then quit the guild. How does a guild prevent this? I'm not sure other than making people wait for loot, but that won't keep them from quitting once they *do* get it. And often it's the newest members who are most in need of new gear. Some guilds, particularly those who have progressed beyond Kara, farm Kara and take new members in there for the specific purpose of gearing them up.

To a degree, I think the loot system a guild uses is somewhat indicative of the character and values of the guild itself. While dkp systems might make some of the issues go away, smaller guilds and/or smaller runs (Kara, ZA) might not find dkp worth the hassle until they get into 25-man instances.

I'm curious what other systems are out there, and how successful they've been. If you have a system that you use, please post the details in a comment. I'd love to hear how it works and how successful it's been for you.

Humor in WoW

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:26:00 +0000

I was sitting here thinking of what to blog about...I seem to put a lot of posts up of raiding. But there are so many things that happen daily and much of it is hilarious. How much will be funny to you? Excellent question. Here are a few of my favorite moments in WoW (in no particular order):

1. Raid on Silvermoon - my friend Coco invited me along with her guild (the now-defunct Fate) to raid Silvermoon. I brought *zul and our pally tank, Lup. There were about 40-50 Alliance and wow! What fun!

2. Raiding on Coffee - a couple of weeks ago, our warlock/pally decided to make coffee for the raid. We raid on Friday nights. It was *extremely* obvious when the coffee kicked in. He went from "Ok....now it's time to move on to the next boss." to "Well,ICAN'TBELIEVEWEJUSTDIDTHAT!OMGTHATWASFUN!LET'SDO
MORE!PRINCE!COFFEECOFFEECOFFEE!" *zul even went out and bought him some Black Coffee for the next raid.

3. Bye bye Imp - this one is rather recent and one of my favorites! So, we were fighting Maiden - two druid healers and the pally tank in his healing gear to dispel the Holy Fire she does. Our warrior off-tank was tanking Maiden. People call our their names when they've been Holy Fired so the pally knows who to focus on. All of the sudden, Tom, our warlock cries "SHE HOLY FIRED MY IMP!!" There were a lot of laughs and Lup said "I'll dispel". Of course, it was MUCH too late - holy fire on an imp means instant death, pretty much. But hey, at least that was one less *player* that got holy fired! I wonder...what if we all brought out our non-combat pets...? Nawwww...

4. Pukefest in Lower City - I'm sure many of you have done this quest before... It's an extremely LONG quest chain that starts with The Hand of Gul'dan. Somewhere late in the chain, you have to go find a Rotten Arakoa Egg and take it to Tobias in lower city, who promptly eats it. Here's the result:

5. Running Black Morass with a Pally Tank - the picture says it all!

Blog Azeroth

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:50:00 +0000

So, if you haven't seen it yet, you must not have been reading your blogs lately. Cheers to Phae, Valenna, Bellwether, Kestrel and Galadria! Blog Azeroth is up and running - a fantastic resource and gathering place for WoW bloggers! If you have a WoW blog (or are thinking of starting one), I encourage you to check it out!

Zul'Aman

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:14:00 +0000

Well, I had my first peek at Zul'Aman last Sunday when a friend's guild was short a healer. They are in progression mode and didn't expect to get past the second boss, but I figured why not?

We had three healers with us and it was a good thing! Those guys hit hard! It was an expensive, learning experience and I had a great time! On one of our tries on the second boss, we had him down to 6% but then on one of the storms someone didn't come in and the whole group got hit with too much damage.

They asked me if I'd come back later tonight, and I said I would. Yesterday, however, I got a whisper asking if I could go in then too. A few negotiations (*zul is heading out of town on Monday and I was looking forward to spending time with him) and both Hunzul and Deressy got invites. It was a very different group of people that had been in with us before (although I heard they went back in on Monday or Tuesday and downed the second and third bosses).

Shortly before heading in, another friend of mine told me to "kiss his frog". Now, I thought that was a bit weird, but I tried it - giving Mojo a kiss...it was *hilarious*! I was polymorphed into a frog, he ran around following me, asking me "Your lilypad or mine" and throwing hearts my way. Apparently Mojo is a drop you can get using an Amani Hex Stick in Zul'Aman. Yay! Something *fun* to try for. Sadly, I didn't get a single hex stick.

We downed the first boss rather easily but missed the timer. We made a few attempts at the second boss, but for some reason, people just weren't moving quick enough and we couldn't get him down. We decided to try to move on to the Lynx boss. I managed to do a quest turn-in along the way, but before we got to him, folks were tired and decided to call it a night. Bummer.

Oh well...there's always tonight!

A Race in Kara

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:36:00 +0000

So last night, Deressy and Hunzul went back to Kara. There was a bit of confusion as our raid leader had posted two groups, starting about an hour from one another. When he went to delete one, people had signed up for the later group - and so there was a LOT of confusion on the start time. Apoc (the raid leader) actually ended up stepping out of the group to allow one of our newer members, a shaman, to join when he arrived after being one of many confused by the time.

Then Apoc declared a race to Prince - he was going with his old guild (a guild currently raiding in Black Temple). Ha, yeah right. We *did* have about a 10 minute head start, but still. There was also a question of whether we'd be able to down Moroes without Apoc. Not *my* question, mind you, but the tanks weren't sure if they could do it. Also, we had a borrowed healer (one of our guild members had a toon in the guild Apoc was going with) who had never healed with our group before (more on last week's pally in another post).

We had a couple of silly deaths on trash, but no wipe (nice change). Attumen went down without much trouble and dropped his obligatory badge for everyone and a couple of items no one really wanted - Vambraces of Courage, which one of our tanks begrudgingly took, and Gauntlets of Renewed Hope, which were D/E'd.

On to Moroes. We actually one-shotted him, and had no real problems whatsoever. It was a beautiful thing. And we were *still* ahead of Apoc and his group. Moroes dropped Royal Cloak of Arathi Kings, which our new DPS warrior snatched up, and Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable, which went to one of our tanks.

On to Maiden. Our pally tank decided to let the off-tank take care of Maiden and he stepped back and healed a bit, dispelling the Holy Fire she does. Just as we were waiting to start the maiden fight (Lup was putting on his healing gear), Apoc messages me that Moroes is down. Maiden dropped for us in one-shot, too (we're having a very good night so far) and gave us Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden, which our off-tank needed and took, and Bands of Nefarious Deeds, which our warlock picked up without having to spend a roll.

On to the opera event. Now, I've done this maybe six or eight times now, and have seen Oz a *load* of times, and the Big Bad Wolf three times. I have never seen Romulo and Julienne. Until last night! W00t! A couple of the guys that HAD seen it explained it ahead of time so we'd know what would happen. There was a bit of confusion on who spawns first, but since you are only fighting one at that time, it doesn't seem to matter much. For the record, first you kill Julienne. Then Romulo. Then they both pop up together and you have to kill them both within a few seconds of one another. We put all our dps on one, then had the tank hold aggro on that one while getting the other's health down too. One thing we'd do differently next time, is that we got Julienne's health down first. However, she has a nasty habit of trying to heal herself. Next time, we'll do Romulo first and then Julienne - it will probably go a bit smoother. At any rate, we one-shotted the event.

Curator was next. This is the fight I'm probably most familiar with, as it's quite straight forward. He went down rather quickly and dropped Gloves of the Fallen Hero, which our warlock snapped up uncontested, and Forest Wind Shoulderpads. I don't think I've *ever* seen those shoulderpads *not* drop.

We made a couple of attempts on Illhoof, even bringing in a good priest friend of mine when our other healer couldn't stay awake any longer. However, everyone was tired, so we decided to skip on to Aran. We one-shotted Aran, who dropped Pauldrons of the Justice Seeker (which got D/E'd) and Shermanar Great-Ring, which our pally tank picked up with a need roll.

We decided to move to Chess and then call it a night. I was really hoping my boots would drop! My boots serious need replacing - I am wearing blues. I have a couple of purple cloth boots, but they are more spec'd for boomkin than healing. I had no luck though. We D/E'd Legplates of the Innocent and our off-tank picked up Battlescar Boots on a free roll.

Needless to say, we didn't win the "race" but we had a good time along the way. We've got a good bit to cover on Monday night now - and... (YAY!) I can now summon Nightbane! W00t!

Monday Night Clean-up

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:37:00 +0000

We recently reorganized the nights and times we raid to better fit into people's schedules. And we just concluded our second week of the new schedule. Essentially, we raid Fridays and Mondays. Friday night, our goal is to clear as much as we possibly can. Monday is clean-up day. No, I don't mean we clean our houses, computers, stray WoW add-ons...we finish up anything we might have missed in Kara on Friday.

Last Monday, we had three bosses to finish - Illhoof, Nightbane and Netherspite. We started with Netherspite and never got him down. It was a bit demoralizing.

This week, we didn't even get to Prince on Friday. Folks were just a bit too tired, so after Chess, we stopped - which meant we had four bosses left for Monday. In addition, we had a brand new healer with us - one of our guild members that picked up some healing gear (that was off-spec for him) on Friday and decided to respec. To be honest, I was completely nervous about running Kara with two healers and one of them being completely new at healing.

Our start was rocky. We wiped a couple of times on trash - stuff we clear every week and shouldn't have problems with. The healing was suddenly very hard for me - indicating we weren't working well together. I can't emphasize enough how important communication is. A quick chat with the other healer, a few directions and the healing was immensely smoother. We still had a couple of bad wipes when he was AFK or got disconnected, but on the whole, he did a good job.

To be totally honest, I wasn't sure we'd get anyone down but Prince (and possibly not even him, with the new healer)...and he sometimes depends on whether the infernals decide to drop on your head and cut you off.

As it turns out, the Prince fight went pretty well. We had some new folks with us, and it was the first time they'd seen the fight. Luprey tanked it this time - he'd never downed Prince before as the Main Tank (MT). On the first try, it was a definite wipe - the enfeeble got about 3 people on the very first one. Second try was also a wipe. The third try, we had it down pretty good. He was at 6% and I was pretty excited, we were all still alive. The roaming axes took out a couple of people and then an infernal dropped on our heads! We had nowhere to go but to Prince, so we moved up (I was the marker, with a big blue square over my head) and stood right on top of Prince and the MT. I couldn't stand the idea we'd have him down to 4% and not down him. 3% I mean. Well, 2% and a couple more people died. Those who were down were hollering over vent to "Do it! You can do it!" "Down the...(use your imagination, this is a family-friendly site)!" And Prince went down! I've got a nice long list of things I'd like to roll on from Prince, but the only thing I wanted he dropped was the T4 Helm. There was no doubt in my mind I'd use my need roll- and I did. One of our new tanks, Bromstein, won the roll. Grats, Brom!

Next, we decided to head down to Illhoof. We had attempted him once before - but at that time we had low dps and essentially no AoE other than our warlock. While we still didn't have a mage with us tonight, we figured we'd try it - we had a shammy, two hunters and the warlock. We wiped the first time - many folks had never seen the fight before at all. Wiped the second. I think the third too (I'm terrible at keeping count on how many attempts we've had - probably a bit of a defense too - it keeps me from getting discouraged). However, we *did* kill Illhoof - we "worked it out" as our raid leader would say. By the time he was down, so was the other healer and several others. A small crew was left to kill Kil'rek, but he went down too! Our first ever Illhoof kill! Yay! The one item I was hoping Illhoof would drop, the Cord of Nature's Sustenance didn't drop. Oh well.

On to Netherspite! Upon arriving in Netherspite's chambers, we explained the fight to all the new folks who had never seen it. This time, we decided to attempt the fight without any of the healers stepping into a beam. Non-mana users were going to be taking care of that beam for us. And you know what? We one-shotted him! Woot! Someone had suggested running through the green beam if you got low on mana, but that was never an issue for me - with the banish phases and everyone bandaging during that phase (although I did throw a few heals on the way to the windows), my mana never got that low. We lost Hunzul early in (he was out of range of both healers), but after another banish, I rez'd him - we were doing really well and wanted the DPS. No sense in saving the battle rez for another attempt. Again, he didn't drop anything on my wishlist but yay! (Hunzul did get a really nice drop though).

Now I was really hoping we'd head to Nightbane next - I was feeling lucky! Unfortunately, we had only one person who could summon Nightbane (and on an alt), so we called it a night.

A Bit of This and That and a One Night Clear (Mostly) of Kara

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:53:00 +0000

So it's been a while since I've posted - I've actually started several posts that I never finished. Why you may ask? Well, it started with a bit of a frustrating week in Kara. Despite getting some nice loot (Shard of the Virtuous", Ruby Slippers), we had some issues downing bosses we normally down with little or no problem. We got Oz at the Opera again (that wasn't really a problem, other than that it glitched on the start and we had to reset and start it over), but we just couldn't seem to down a couple of others.

Being a relative noob to our guild, I've been (thankfully) rather ignorant of the politics (read: drama) in our guild and prefer to remain so. On Friday night, there were a few things that happened and by the next morning, our main raid leader, shammy healer and mage had walked out. Because of their departure, we lost some others, including another mage/rogue and our main holy priest. Now, I think if they had just left we still would have lost a few, but there was also a big hubub when they left. And of course, that just made things worse.

I hate drama! Have I said that already? But really I do! Part of me wonders if our guild will survive. Part of me feels obligated to stick it out to the bitter end to try and MAKE it work - particularly since a few of my friends have joined there now too. Am I keeping my eyes open? Yes. Am I leaving now? No. Am I stupid enough to think this will be an easy road? No. But I'm not a quitter - once I join something, it is VERY hard for me to walk away. Too bad, really - the easy way out would be to quit.

On a positive note, we did a fairly complete clear of Kara last night - we missed a couple of bosses, but we cleared Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera (Little Red Riding Hood - YAY, it wasn't Oz again!), Curator, Aran, Chess and Prince. We also did a couple of attempts on Nightbane and one on Illhoof, neither fight I'd seen before. I think we could take one or both on another night - we had virtually no AoE - and only one warlock. Our group makeup for the night was two warriors (the offtank was brand-newish in Kara), two shadow priests, two resto druids, two hunters, one warlock and one rogue. The great news is both Hunzul and Deressy (Gloves of the Fallen Defender which I used to get Handguards of Malorne, Aran's Soothing Sapphire and Girdle of Treachery, got some new gear! AND Cianna, one of our friends, got the Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix to drop off Prince that she's been trying for since July!

So Deressy went instead. It was, however, a rather frustrating week there. We downed Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, got Oz at the Opera (again!) and chess. Deressy walked out with some nice new gear - . Not bad, eh?

It wasn't terribly late but a few of our folks had to leave due to early work the next day, so we put the rest off until Friday.

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:11:00 +0000

It's true, isn't it? I mean, all the commercials say so, so it *must* be true. So from this, we can extrapolate that WoW, like many other folks who operate on the internet, think girls just don't exist on the internet, right? I mean, yeah, they give you free gems once a month (if you are at least friendly with the Consortium) but are there *ever* any diamonds in there? No! I mean, what's up with *THAT*?

Druids Invade WSG

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:02:00 +0000

Ok, I'm sure many of you have seen this before, but it's too funny not to post!

Essy Goes to Kara

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 07:50:00 +0000

Did I say Essy?! Why yes, I did! Despite all doubts to the contrary, Essy finally stepped foot into Kara. Was she planning to do so last night? Heck no! Her bags were full, her poisons weren't stocked up, she had a few healing pots but no other potions... Deressy, on the other hand, was completely prepared. Why the sudden change? Well, again, we had to PUG a couple of people and one of the ones that came happened to be a resto druid. A fully-geared, heal-til-you-are-exploding-with-health resto druid (yes, I was, in fact, drooling over his gear the entire run).

We picked up where we left off on Friday night - with Shade of Aran. We had to clear a bit of trash on the way. Now, I think I really like trash - not only do you get rep from killing trash but you occasionally get purple trash. Deressy has purple trash. Now Essy does too! She grabbed the Grips of Deftness to replace her green Caustic Feelers.

Now, I'd heard before that the Shade of Aran fight is rather awful and that folks hate it. I had no such view of the fight, as my one time running it (with Deressy), we one-shotted it. However, this time, well...

Let's just share a quote with you from my friend Gadoraa (who went with us again)..."I'm beginning to not like this room." My response was "Beginning?!" I actually lost count of the number of attempts on this guy. I was lagging a bit and kept missing the kick on his firebolt. Then we he did the flame wreath, someone would inevitably move and we'd all be toast. A few folks died on the arcane blast. Over and Over. Rinse and Repeat. And yet, all it did was serve to make us annoyed enough to try again. Again. Again.

And finally, on the attempt when he shackled me right as he started his arcane blast (duh, cloak of shadows would have probably gotten me out and I forgot), I died. And we killed him! Yay! But ugh, a 7g repair bill on almost all blues. However, I did get a shiny new purple to make up for it! He dropped Rapscallion Boots just for me!

On to Prince. Prince did you say? Argh! Last time we attempted him (I was Deressy) we had the most infernally worst luck (pun intended) and after several attempts, never did get him down. Tonight however, we were golden. Well, almost. On the first attempt, an infernal dropped right on Prince and the group meleeing him. Wipe. On the second attempt he went DOWN! And I was soo.....ARGH! NOT HAPPY! Every single drop, I kid you not - every one - was a healing item. And both our healers were already geared! So here is a list of gear that Deressy DIDN'T get: Lights Justice, Helm of the Fallen Defender, and Jade Ring of the Everliving.

At that point, there was a little discussion about where to go next. Our mage got confused, ported to Shatt and logged off. We were off to attempt Nethersprite and realized he was gone. Oh well, we'll 9-man it. Many of us had never been there before at all, and so the blue/red/green beam thing was a bit confusing. Plus at least one player wasn't on vent. After our first wipe, Gad had to go - he was falling asleep on his keyboard. One more 8-man attempt and we called it a night.

Oh, and AFTER we killed Prince, Essy went and turned in some quests and picked up the quest to...

Kill Prince.

Bah!

Couples Night in Kara

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 05:03:00 +0000

Well, two couples anyway!

Tonight was our first time that *zul and I got to run Kara together. There was another couple running it with us - the other healer (a priest) and his wife, a boomkin. It was a fun run, although we had to PUG a couple of people. Actually, though, we grabbed a buddy of mine that hangs out on the essy channel (long story, and we'll have to leave that to another post), Gadoraa - a feral druid. He'd never been to Kara before, but was keyed.

So we headed in - our goal was to clear as much as we could in 4 hours. One had never been in before, and two had never been past opera. We had a really odd make-up: one resto druid, one feral druid, one boomkin druid, one marksman hunter, two beastmaster hunters (one was Hunzul), one warrior tank, one pally tank and one mage. Yes, I know that's only 9 people. We were waiting and hoping a 10th would show up. By the time we got to Moroes, we had another mage to fill the roster.

Attumen - one shotted
Moroes - two-shotted (not sure what happened, but oh well)
Maiden - one-shotted
Opera - ewwww, we got Oz, but we two-shotted it
Curator - two-shotted (the first time, the healers weren't well-positioned - it worked much better the second time around)

Then one of our hunters' internet dropped out, it was late and so we decided to skip the Shade of Aran for now, and go to Chess and call it a night.

I got some new shiny bracers, to replace my old-still-rather-shiny ones.

Spec-tacular!

noreply@blogger.com (SportChick) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 04:19:00 +0000

So, I want to thank everyone who provided advice and input on my re-spec decision. It was a tough decision for me - especially after Phaelia from Resto4Life made such a good case for a hybrid spec. I have never been a fan of change (yes, I know....EVERYTHING changes)...but to make such massive changes while I am just getting used to raiding - I thought that might be a bit much for me.

So, I did a bit of a hybrid based on Phaelia’s advice. I added points to improve healing touch and reduce its mana cost. I added some points in balance and went deep enough to pick up insect swarm. I put my single extra point in Natural Perfection (which seems to trigger a *lot* - I’ve been farming primals a bit lately).

And so, while I’m not saying my *spec* is spectacular - it sure has made *me* feel pretty darned good. I can’t remember a time when I was so confident (and daring) in my ability to solo and do regular questing. I’ve yet to attempt a heroic, but am cautiously optimistic.

Thanks for all the comments and emails!