After 10 wins in a row, we finally ran out of clever improvisations and failed to complete the bear run last night. We probably went too far from the known dps composition, we ended up swapping in 3 relatively newer people and seemed to be falling behind. On top of this, we had some role confusion and then a tank d/c during the Bear trash that cost us precious seconds.
I had noticed we were falling a little behind, but I'm always optimistic that we might find a way to pull it out. But when a certain mage jinxed us by announcing we were doomed mid-boss fight versus the Bear, I think we got a few people slightly distracted and suddenly found ourselves faced with a serious case of multiple-tank death syndrome. We actually scrambled through the fight without a real wipe, but the mount was doomed from there.
We completed the 3-chest run and got the ring and it looks as if we'd have had just under 12m to do the Lynx if we had kept trying after the Bear. On easy runs, we are at 16m there and even 14m isn't a problem. With our full-bore best dps, we could probably do 12m, but if we're behind because the dps is a touch slow, under 12m is probably not doable.
We'll go back on Wednesday and try to get another mount. I'm planning to log on tonight nearish to 11pm and see about a 25 person raid. I have a hunch it might be hard to fill since we haven't raided big in a couple of weeks. I probably need to get the word out that we're going to try to knock off a few more bosses before the patch so people know to show up. Otherwise, everybody will probably just keep playing warhammer or levelling alts or something.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Mount #14
Goes to Sariana. An unusual group for us, no shammy for heroism or water walking, no hunter for MD, no spirit buff (but a second pally buff). Was tight on time but no real excitement aside from a few random deaths (but enough brezzes to recover them on the fly).
We had some discussion as to how many in a row that made it last night. I checked the old blog and I think that's 10 straight now. I think a few of the regulars are getting tired of the run now, but we might still be able to squeeze in a few more before the 3.0 patch hits and takes the bear out of the game.
A history of bears
X: The *Chickenfeathers* run (7/21), wiped on last trash pull
X: Not quite there (7/28)
1: Darsonsind (7/30)
2: Beros (8/4)
3: Bloc (8/5)
X: Tank D/C, wipe on Lynx (8/14)
4: Wiseman (8/15)
X: Missed by 1m (8/18)
5: Dethnotronic (8/22)
6: Hawksy (8/25) *
7: Kyoka (9/1)
8: Islowlykill (9/5)
9: Sherider (9/8)
10: Lenina (9/10)
11: Uglykid (9/14)
12: Gnez (9/17)
13: Barantir (9/22)
14: Sariana (9/25)
I think #6 was the best mad scramble with Uglykid logging on, flying across the world and arriving just in time to help finish the run at the Lynx. Somewhere in the last few runs there, we also worked out how to recover from sudden-tank death on the Lynx boss. I think we finished the run after losing the MT two different times there by improvising like mad. Two times we've also recovered from losing a tank on the Bear boss and still closing it out.
Next reset should be on Sunday. I suspect we have another week before the patch, but who knows?
We had some discussion as to how many in a row that made it last night. I checked the old blog and I think that's 10 straight now. I think a few of the regulars are getting tired of the run now, but we might still be able to squeeze in a few more before the 3.0 patch hits and takes the bear out of the game.
A history of bears
X: The *Chickenfeathers* run (7/21), wiped on last trash pull
X: Not quite there (7/28)
1: Darsonsind (7/30)
2: Beros (8/4)
3: Bloc (8/5)
X: Tank D/C, wipe on Lynx (8/14)
4: Wiseman (8/15)
X: Missed by 1m (8/18)
5: Dethnotronic (8/22)
6: Hawksy (8/25) *
7: Kyoka (9/1)
8: Islowlykill (9/5)
9: Sherider (9/8)
10: Lenina (9/10)
11: Uglykid (9/14)
12: Gnez (9/17)
13: Barantir (9/22)
14: Sariana (9/25)
I think #6 was the best mad scramble with Uglykid logging on, flying across the world and arriving just in time to help finish the run at the Lynx. Somewhere in the last few runs there, we also worked out how to recover from sudden-tank death on the Lynx boss. I think we finished the run after losing the MT two different times there by improvising like mad. Two times we've also recovered from losing a tank on the Bear boss and still closing it out.
Next reset should be on Sunday. I suspect we have another week before the patch, but who knows?
YABMR
YABMR = "yet another bear mount run" for anybody for whom that isn't obvious. The next bear mount run was another "by the skin of our teeth" affair.
On Monday, I got on late and probably because of that we didn't have 6 of our usual bear mount run dps crew around. We debated 2 improvisations -- either Dethno goes dps, or Bloc brings Phage to replace the sleeping Sherider. The former is actually probably higher dps, but we're used to having a second mage for sheeping and only one melee dps (and we had one since Uglykid is enhancement this week). I realized that I don't remember anymore why one melee dps is better and I think it might only be true for Malacrass actually, but we went with Phage anyway for sheep and AoE.
Things seemed to be going on the slow side intially, probably just due to some lack of focus as the run gets more routine. Then Hawksy died right before the bear boss. IIRC, one of the sheep broke and there was some confusion about dps/resheep/taunt. Just in case, I swapped in my healing weapon and supported Barantir through the rest of the mobs. We rezzed Hawksy and found ourselves about 2m behind pace starting the Dragonhawk trash.
Nothing went wrong exactly through the trash, but every single extra scout spawned on us and the pats were all in the worst possible places. Which was making us slightly anxious about time when we pulled Jan'alai. And then we had a "noob mage" confusion moment where Phage accidentally killed the wrong hatcher after pulling only half the eggs.
So that's a problem. We have 1.5 sides of eggs to hatch and we usually at the 35% release-em-all point during the second hatcher, so we're going to have to adjust the dps. We popped all the eggs on the other side, then quickly switch and popped the rest at 35%. Somewhere in there Phage got hisself blown up, which slowed the dps rate down to about the right level anyway. But we were at under 14m when the boss went down.
Normally, we're at 16m there and have a few minutes to spare/slow-down at the Lynx, but we're going to have to go balls out the rest of the way. So we did and we also finally got friendly pat placements on the way to Halazzi.
Even so, we were all chugging pots to avoid drinking and basically had to chain pull the 3 groups and boss in rapid succession in the Lynx room. I was worried about the healers' mana, so I spent every moment not taunting the Spirit of the Lynx with my hand poised over the LoH button in case of a spike on Dethnotronic.
And somehow we pulled it off with barely seconds to spare. So grats Barantir on the mount and I suppose even when it might not be exciting, it can still be exciting.
On Tuesday, I was feeling fatigued from both teaching and the cold I seem to be coming down with and couldn't quite bring myself to take a shot at forming up 25 for a l8raid. It's a bit challenging to generate the enthusiasm to try to fire up a raid with Warhammer and the expansion/beta as constant distractions for our raiders. Similarly, I took Wednesday off entirely and tried to catch up some on sleep.
Tonight, we'll do another bear run before people get distracted by the weekend. I'll see if I can get a raid going Saturday night maybe (more Vashj?). I ought to be able to get back in the swing of things by next week. We've got a month before the expansion and it'd still be nice to get in another kill or two, or maybe hand out a few last pieces of loot to level with.
On Monday, I got on late and probably because of that we didn't have 6 of our usual bear mount run dps crew around. We debated 2 improvisations -- either Dethno goes dps, or Bloc brings Phage to replace the sleeping Sherider. The former is actually probably higher dps, but we're used to having a second mage for sheeping and only one melee dps (and we had one since Uglykid is enhancement this week). I realized that I don't remember anymore why one melee dps is better and I think it might only be true for Malacrass actually, but we went with Phage anyway for sheep and AoE.
Things seemed to be going on the slow side intially, probably just due to some lack of focus as the run gets more routine. Then Hawksy died right before the bear boss. IIRC, one of the sheep broke and there was some confusion about dps/resheep/taunt. Just in case, I swapped in my healing weapon and supported Barantir through the rest of the mobs. We rezzed Hawksy and found ourselves about 2m behind pace starting the Dragonhawk trash.
Nothing went wrong exactly through the trash, but every single extra scout spawned on us and the pats were all in the worst possible places. Which was making us slightly anxious about time when we pulled Jan'alai. And then we had a "noob mage" confusion moment where Phage accidentally killed the wrong hatcher after pulling only half the eggs.
So that's a problem. We have 1.5 sides of eggs to hatch and we usually at the 35% release-em-all point during the second hatcher, so we're going to have to adjust the dps. We popped all the eggs on the other side, then quickly switch and popped the rest at 35%. Somewhere in there Phage got hisself blown up, which slowed the dps rate down to about the right level anyway. But we were at under 14m when the boss went down.
Normally, we're at 16m there and have a few minutes to spare/slow-down at the Lynx, but we're going to have to go balls out the rest of the way. So we did and we also finally got friendly pat placements on the way to Halazzi.
Even so, we were all chugging pots to avoid drinking and basically had to chain pull the 3 groups and boss in rapid succession in the Lynx room. I was worried about the healers' mana, so I spent every moment not taunting the Spirit of the Lynx with my hand poised over the LoH button in case of a spike on Dethnotronic.
And somehow we pulled it off with barely seconds to spare. So grats Barantir on the mount and I suppose even when it might not be exciting, it can still be exciting.
On Tuesday, I was feeling fatigued from both teaching and the cold I seem to be coming down with and couldn't quite bring myself to take a shot at forming up 25 for a l8raid. It's a bit challenging to generate the enthusiasm to try to fire up a raid with Warhammer and the expansion/beta as constant distractions for our raiders. Similarly, I took Wednesday off entirely and tried to catch up some on sleep.
Tonight, we'll do another bear run before people get distracted by the weekend. I'll see if I can get a raid going Saturday night maybe (more Vashj?). I ought to be able to get back in the swing of things by next week. We've got a month before the expansion and it'd still be nice to get in another kill or two, or maybe hand out a few last pieces of loot to level with.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Things were looking bad for our heros...
The scene: the 12th Amani Bear Mount run, second boss, the bear boss Nalorakk. We had already had a random warlock death on the Gauntlet to the Eagle boss, then failed to sneak past the first bear mobs leading to a dead druid and more slowness as he ran back. Then Gnez d/c-ed right as the battle started leaving us with 9. Figuring our dps would be low, I was concentrating on maxing aggro so the rest could go all out and I didn't even notice right away that Dethnotroic died at 50%.
I'm not sure how he died, I might have been slow or silenced on the taunt and he got the Mangle on top of the Bleeds, but suddenly I'm the lone tank, troll form and we're light on dps. Now, some might just give up there and the whole mount run is hosed. But I'm thinking about what we might do to try to save it.
I tanked the troll boss as normal and right as he went bear, I warned the raid, bubbled, right-clicked it off and taunted the boss back. Wiseman was yelling something about let him get tops on threat, probably so he could iceblock and nobody would die during the GCD befoe I could taunt. I didn't wait around to see if that was happening, I just went. The bear did snap back to me pretty fast, so I either nailed the clicking sequence or Wiseman got his wish and iceblocked the bear back to me.
We cranked the dps as hard as we could, but eventually the boss is going back to Troll form and I've got both bleeds on me. That Mangle is going to hurt. I announced over vent that I was waiting to LoH myself at the first sign of trouble in Troll phase and tanked it with my hand poised over the key (Alt-0). I was worried that the dmg would be too high even so, but instead I managed a lucky string of dodge/parry/misses and my hp hardly dropped at all before the boss was down.
We rezzed, tightened up and Gnez finally got back on line just for the last couple of pulls to the Dragonhawk boss. It was smooth sailing from there and Gnez got his mount, the 12th for our group, in spite of his d/c unluckiness.
That was Tuesday and we're now in the middle of a non-raiding stretch since I'm travelling for work for a couple of days. However, it doesn't look like we'll miss a reset. I'll be back for another run Sunday and we should be able to go again immediately on Monday. After that we might scale back on the mount run frequency for a bit.
Maybe we'll get in some more T6 raiding next week. Or maybe I'll try to gather more people to try Vashj some more. Gotta do something for the next couple of months before the expansion releases.
I'm not sure how he died, I might have been slow or silenced on the taunt and he got the Mangle on top of the Bleeds, but suddenly I'm the lone tank, troll form and we're light on dps. Now, some might just give up there and the whole mount run is hosed. But I'm thinking about what we might do to try to save it.
I tanked the troll boss as normal and right as he went bear, I warned the raid, bubbled, right-clicked it off and taunted the boss back. Wiseman was yelling something about let him get tops on threat, probably so he could iceblock and nobody would die during the GCD befoe I could taunt. I didn't wait around to see if that was happening, I just went. The bear did snap back to me pretty fast, so I either nailed the clicking sequence or Wiseman got his wish and iceblocked the bear back to me.
We cranked the dps as hard as we could, but eventually the boss is going back to Troll form and I've got both bleeds on me. That Mangle is going to hurt. I announced over vent that I was waiting to LoH myself at the first sign of trouble in Troll phase and tanked it with my hand poised over the key (Alt-0). I was worried that the dmg would be too high even so, but instead I managed a lucky string of dodge/parry/misses and my hp hardly dropped at all before the boss was down.
We rezzed, tightened up and Gnez finally got back on line just for the last couple of pulls to the Dragonhawk boss. It was smooth sailing from there and Gnez got his mount, the 12th for our group, in spite of his d/c unluckiness.
That was Tuesday and we're now in the middle of a non-raiding stretch since I'm travelling for work for a couple of days. However, it doesn't look like we'll miss a reset. I'll be back for another run Sunday and we should be able to go again immediately on Monday. After that we might scale back on the mount run frequency for a bit.
Maybe we'll get in some more T6 raiding next week. Or maybe I'll try to gather more people to try Vashj some more. Gotta do something for the next couple of months before the expansion releases.
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