Not the Raid Post You Were Looking For

I know, I know, I said I would talk about raiding today like I covered heroics.

But two things happened.

First, I’ve written probably 5 drafts of that post. I have a LOT to say but I think the way I need to say it needs to be organized better. What with my recent promotion, how I feel about raiding not only affects me, but it now affects a whole truckload of people. I want to make sure I get it out on “paper” how it really is for me. You might have to wait a couple days while I work on that.

Second, my guild kicks ass.

I am teh fail raid leader for not obtaining a screen shot, but we downed Festergut.

Honestly, I was expecting a week about like last week.

Clear up to Saurfang, clear some trash, get chewed on by some puppies and then slam against the wall on Festergut until trash respawned.

Let’s compare:

Lord Marrowgar

• Last week: 2 attempts, was very impressed, beats the hell out of 10 tries the week before
• This week: 1 shot, was thrilled, and we did have someone who had not been present for that kill yet, he got the boned achievement

Lady Deathwhisper

• Last week: 3 tries, was very happy
• This week: 1 shot, even more thrilled

Gunship Battle

• Last week: 3 tries, but I call a Mulligan on the one where the tank’s UI flipped out
• This week: 2 tries, happier, but still need to figure out what the problem is, everything seems to be fine and then it goes downhill and unfortunately, the parse does not record this battle

Deathbringer Saurfang

• Last week: 5 tries
• This week: 1 shot and we were freaking heavy on the melee, I was terrified that we would not be able to pull it off, last night was the epitome of pro use of CC (roots, traps, Chains of Ice and probably more stuff that I didn’t even see since we were on those beasts and they were dead so fast), and get this – the bitch didn’t get to cast Mark of the Fallen Champion once, NOT FUCKING ONCE

So that was something like 8 attempts less just getting to the new stuff. Amazing how much time that saves and how better morale is getting to the new content.

And then we did right on the puppies.

Last week was a little chaotic on Precious, with people halfway down the stairs with zombies chewing on them and not moving up into range to get them pulled off.

Last night, it went like we were seasoned pros at this.

Festergut was 3 attempts.

My guys are great about picking themselves up and getting shit back in order after a wipe.

We release, fly back, run in, buff, and are already done discussing what happened and what needs to happen.

I do call Mulligan this week on attempt number 2.

There is a mechanic where the tank gets a buff that makes them uber powerful as they get closer and closer to exploding from the Gastric Bloat crap. So the tank that does not currently have threat switches to a non-tanking stance/presence to avoid stealing the aggro by virtue of being so cool. When the stacks drop and they pick up Festergut again, they re-pop the appropriate buff/stance/presence. Well… the second pull was with a tank still in DPS stance/presence. That was over very quickly. So that attempt doesn’t count.

We’re using what I’ve dubbed the “designated puker” strategy. Only 3 people need to be at range in 10 man to keep Festergut from tossing puke poison into the melee. So we had me, the hunter and the boomkin at range, spread out all nice. We were the only ones targeted, and boy does it suck, always after a proc or full stack of Arcane Blast and just long enough to lose it all.

On top of puking, from the time I entered the upper spire to our kill on Festergut I had some weird latency issues, quadruple what it is normally. I couldn’t tell if a spell was queued or not because I frequently couldn’t even see the cast animation. I knew I was done casting because I eventually got an Arcane Blast debuff. My cast bar was all red. No bueno. As soon as we made the kill, I was just fine. If anyone knows what causes this crap, please let me know…

Anyway, last week was a lot of scrambling about trying to get spores in the right place and /facepalming as healers were stacking and getting hit with the puke poison and dying.

Last night?

Well. Oiled. Machine.

I was ready to call people out for fail, raid leaders aren’t always nice… but they didn’t give me reason to.

I’m starting to get more comfortable with the leading, trying to do a better job with remembering what each role needs to know. I’m getting there. All the work I’m putting in on my alts is really helping, I’m leveling with the intent to raid on them so I’m paying a lot of attention to what a situation looks like from their perspective.

Rotface was a little crazy, but we did give it 10 shots and got him to 39%.

We tried a couple different strategies for the slime kiting, but it took a few just to really get the mechanics worked out.

Our biggest problem (other than getting the slimes to the right places at the right time) seems to be healers racking up the aggro against the little slimes, even if they aren’t healing the kite tank.

We’ll do some research today and show up tomorrow with a list of ways to succeed.

AND

There is more.

While our progression group was kicking ass and taking names in ICC…

We had a whole second raid tearing up ToCr!

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, we had two successful raids running at the same fucking time.

They even finished Trial, whereas last week they started it and had to call it on the faction champs. We brought in half the progression team to roflstomp it to completion Monday night. That wasn’t as much fun since there was hardly anyone there that needed the experience or the gear.

This week, they had a harder group composition to take on for the FC and still got all the way through in one night.

I wonder what they’re going to do on Thursday?

Maybe a little 10-man EoE or OS? Head into Uld?

Regardless of where they go, I’m proud of the entire guild.

Not so long ago I was wondering if I would ever see us getting anywhere. I actually considered leaving the guild.

Now I’m chomping at the bit to tear into Arthas, and I wouldn’t want to be taking him on with any other group of people.