Raid in Review: By just a matter of days

And lo, the nerfs did come down from on high.

And there was much lamenting and gnashing of teeth and verily, the weeping of the damned could be heard echoing unto the heavens.

“Why couldn’t it have waited just one more week?!?!?!”

/sigh

I think we could have had it without the nerf last week.

Oh well.

Anyways, here’s my post-nerf impressions of Firelands.

…

Beth’tilac

In anticipation of needing a fourth healer for  the Dragon Soul raid, we were gearing up a recently-returned resto shaman. Since he was roughly in fresh heroic gear, we decided to 3-heal while he saw the fights for the first time and soaked up purples. (At least, that was the intent, I think he only got one drop the whole night. Stupid RNG loot tables – we’re DONE with spell plate, mmkay?)

We didn’t notice a measurable difference other than it actually took us 10-seconds longer to down than our previous kill, which had been 2-healed.

…

Shannox

Our returned MT already had a Rag kill so we took a couple pot shots at heroic Shannox. No one was prepared and things got messy. Trying a progression fight when you have a healer that’s never set foot in the raid probably isn’t the best idea. After 3-4 pulls we put it back on normal.

No real change.

…

Rhyolith

Last of the 15% nerfs.

Spark up.

Spark dead.

Fragments up.

Fragments dead.

Armor off.

Rhyolith turns bright orange, sits down, dies.

This one felt noticeably faster.

…

Alysrazor

I forgot who we sent up, but he hit something ridonkulous like over 50k DPS.

Whoopsie!

The birdie on my side died before the second set of worms spawned. This led to the other tank having to drag his baby all over the map, gorging it on worms, and screaming in vent that no one was to touch his bird. It was actually pretty funny.

The slower tornadoes were more annoying after I had fought so hard to get my dance steps perfected. I kept running into the damn things.

She landed.

We blew her up.

She got off the ground… I don’t think she made it all the way back up in to the air before crashing in a pile of epics to be sharded.

…

Baleroc

We had a melee DPS that hadn’t seen the fight before.

Had a wipe while the shard thing was figured out and then just destroyed him.

…

Majordomo

Someone STILL keeps running in on the trash and ruins the achievement for everyone else.

We didn’t even get to the obnoxious orb phase before he died.

…

Ragnaros – first night

Our druid healer was finally online so we pulled her in to replace the new healer and I stayed on my priest for 3-healing.

Had a ninja pull that we tried to salvage (I don’t think his aggro radius changed size, but the warrior swears it did).

Gave it another 2-3 shots but it was past our stupid time. (Our raids have an official “stupid time” where everyone starts making dumb mistakes and our chances of success rapidly decline.)

I’ll admit, one of the wipes was all mine. When 3-healing, it makes for the transition phases to be a bit shakier, especially the second one with the Scions. I thought the druid was on my side with one of the tanks. I saw a Son making a break for the hammer, I tossed a smite or two, saw the tank was low, had the mouse over the tank, but zoned out and had no clue what spells I actually was casting. The tank’s health did not move in a positive direction and by the time I realized things were bad, it was too late for “oh shit” measures to be effective.

Ragnaros – second night

Wednesday we showed up bright eyed and bushy tailed, fresh for the encounter.

Swapped my mage in for my priest.

Pulled.

I borked my pull sequence; this tank is infamous for pull counts that rival the speed a neutrino can be propelled at, and I got a little flustered.

Deep breath, recover.

Three traps and we’re at the first transition.

Adds melt.

Was that only 2 or 3 seed sets?

Transition with Scions.

Perfect. The furthest Son is crawling towards the hammer. Both Scions are dropped.

Ragnaros resurfaces and apparently the little guy explodes.

No big, heal through it.

Lust. (BLOODLUST!!! No “heroism.” God, that’s going to throw me if I ever raid with my bizzarro toons.)

First meteor is mine.

Drag it to the side, send it to the back.

Second meteor blows up in raid somehow.

Heal through it.

14%.

We’re going to fuck it up, I just know it.

Third meteor is mine.

Drag it to the side, it disappears. A huge chest is in the middle of the room, Rag is gone, and there is achievement spam cluttering up my screen.

Did that just happen?

Arioch got his Ragnaros kill before Selwyn. /happy dance

On the one hand, we’re all relieved that it’s done.

But we feel sort of let down.

After all the struggling we had, the 200+ wipes, to just walk in and 1-shot it felt cheap.

The raid fell apart after that. We didn’t have BH. People talked about maybe a heroic BoT. But no one could muster the effort to put it together. The giddiness of prior big kills wasn’t there. We didn’t feel like we were on a roll and could defeat any obstacle in our path.

We all just drifted off to whatever we all do outside of WoW, wondering if we really could have done it without the nerf, and never being able to find that answer.

(OK, I’ll stop being all emo now, but it really was a bit of a letdown.)