Leiandra, Hand of A'dal

I think that amazes me the most about the nerf to all the raid bosses and post 3.0 patch is the amount of time it now takes to down bosses. (This is all pre-Wrath stuff obviously.) Raids that used to take days now seem to take mere minutes.

A perfect example is Al'ar last night. He didn't even need to go up in the air in phase 1. We killed him before he left the 4th platform. And then in phase 2 we only had 2 mages killing the adds, we used to have 4. So, since I was focusing on the adds, when one suddenly disappeared, I though maybe the fight got bugged out somehow. But nope.. it was just that Al'ar was dead in something like 3 minutes.

We did run on up and poke Kael with a stick or two as well. Same basic story as our Lady Vashj fight. We killed Kael on our second attempt, which is really good considering how quickly I ran through the explanation (for those that had never read or seen it, and a general "this is how we'll do it" thing). Again, I'm 100% sure that we could have done this pre-nerf had we had enough attempts and people online. Oh well. What's done is done.

Tonight we'll see if we can't clear Mt. Hyjal. Who knows? lol.

Progression Explained

So, after all the progression we've had in Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, we're now moving "back" and starting on Kael in TK. The plan for last night was actually to clear the 3 bosses we have downed in TK. We killed Al'ar, fine. We went and did VR...

Wait, what? VR? We've farmed that bad boy for months, are there really people that still need him? Unfortunately, this revelation didn't hit me until we were about to engage VR, so I didn't bring it up with the other officers. But then I started to really question Solarian.

Sure, there's like 3 people that need stuff from her, but I thought it would be better to move on, and start killing more bosses. So after one pull towards Solarian, we did a U-turn to head towards Kael.

It was already a bit late, and we still had trash to kill, so we only got two actual attempts on Kael. It's a 5-phase fight, so it's super complicated to explain. Our generally long-winded raid leader did a great job at explaining the minimum, and getting us moving. Phase 1 was pretty much a joke, but the legendary weapons fighting us got out of control fast. They wiped us on both attempts. And then we called it for the night.

So, why would anyone care about this? What's my point? The point would be that as guild leadership, you have to determine when is the best time to be moving on. You can wait until 100% of the raid gets all the drops they want, but then you're likely to be boring 24 people every week because that one warlock wants some random item. But if that's your guild rules/guild culture, then go for it.

For us, it's about progression. We want to see new content, kill new bosses. Al'ar, for example was great last night. I saw a number of people running around in their little Broken disguises, so they could continue progressing that quest line. Once we down Kael and Vashj, there will most likely be 25 people that will get an upgraded ring. And yes, there's still a few new people that need VR, but if we waited until everyone got everything, there'd be no way that we'd be in Mount Hyjal/Black Temple now. Heck.. I still need the Mongoose enchant. Let's go back to Kara! lol.

So, Progression for us is about going as far as you can go, as quickly as you can, while learning the necessary skills and obtaining the necessary armor to progress on to the next boss. Do we really, really need Kael and Vashj? No, but it's one of those notches in our belts that we'd all like to see. Give us one full night of tries, I'm guessing we'll down Vashj.

Note: Because we were only doing the 3 farmed bosses, we actually didn't have our strongest squad in there either. A number of people were on alts, etc. So, I see a cleared TK in the near future.

Bugs, Speed, and New Content

I think I just got out of the habit of blogging. What with Memorial Day here in the U.S. and all... yeah. But wanted to share a couple of things with the readers.

First off: Al'ar was slightly bugged for us on Sunday night. We had our paly add tank sitting up against the wall tanking the adds. In Phase 2, Al'ar would go up into his Meteor ability and then come down on our paly tank. Because he was right up against the wall, we discovered that it would consider Al'ar out of the room and reset the boss. Wow was nice enough though to also leave the adds (at 100% mind you) for us to finish off. After having Al'ar reset on us twice, we figured that maybe it was time that we tanked the adds against the ramp wall (at the bottom) instead of near the door where they're usually tanked. It was a relatively easy kill after that.

Speed: On Tuesday night, we had everybody online and invited by two minutes before start time. We had the first pull by just after 5 minutes. And we smoked through Hydross, Lurker, and Leo. It was a good night. Wednesday night was back to the old "who can we borrow" game so that we could hit 25 people. I know people have RL issues and whatnot, but I really wish we could start at 8:30 each night like is scheduled.

New Content: And with us breezing through (mostly) TK and SSC, we're going to start on Hyjal this next Monday. It's not so much about the loot as it is Hearts of Darkness and epic gems that we need/want to farm. We won't go past the second boss until we down Kael and Vashj, but we want/need to start farming the Hearts for our resist gear. And the rate we're going through these bosses, we'll hopefully have enough resist gear for everyone by the time we need it. In my opinion, the speed of the game has changed quite a bit with all the Badge Gear. While you had to farm "lower" raids for a heck of a lot longer before 2.4, now you can just get your badges and have most of your items epic'ed out and almost walk into Mount Hyjal and further. So, we want to make sure we're ready for future fights asap... hence the Hearts of Darkness farming.

Lightbulb Fights

There are a lot of boss fights in Wow that I would consider lightbulb fights. They're those fights where you seem to be pounding your head into the wall, but you just can't seem to kill the boss. You get to the point where you feel like you just can't take another wipe, but yet you still do. It's the fight that has become the bane of your Wow existence. It makes you want to stick puppies in the microwave. You're contemplating cancelling your Wow account because of this one boss, and then... you kill it. Furthermore, you go back in the next time, and you 1-shot it. That's the lightbulb fight. It's the moment that something clicked, everyone has finally figured out everything they're supposed to do, and it's as if a lightbulb has finally gone on in everyone's brain. The fight is then practically farm status because it's become so "easy".

There's a few lightbulb fights that are like this in World of Warcraft. I would say that Shade of Aran is kind of like this. Once you figure out all the things you have to do AND deal with the elementals... it's usually cake-walk. Netherspite is another one because it's so hard to stand it beams. High King Maulgar: positioning. Magtheridon: clicking (although do people still have problems with him post 2.4 nerf?).

And now, to add to that list, Al'ar. Well, maybe not completely "easy", but still. Last night, we walked in and smacked Al'ar upside the head on our first shot. That's only the second time we've killed him. And yes, only the first attempt after our last kill. We still had a few deaths by the end of the fight, but the whole thing felt very controlled and when somebody died, it was easy to assign another person to the position. I doubt our gear has improved that much in the week and a half since our last kill... it's just that the lightbulb went on.

Side Note: My DPS is now officially sick. I'm still learning the best way to use my super combo of IV, trinket, AP, AB spam. Originally I was told to use mana gems/pots in the middle of that, but I think my quick evocation (when IV is still on) will probably take care of most of my mana. At any rate, if I can get that one down and using it every 3 minutes, I'll easily top the charts.

Side Note 2: Went with a guild group into ZA last night, and pretty much pwn'ed the first 4 bosses. Got the Hexlord to about 20%, but then we were all getting pretty tired. It reset this morning, so maybe we'll go play again tonight. (We'll see when the SSC run ends.) Also got 2 of the timed bonuses. So much fun to have runs that are fast paced like that.

Pay Day

Since about the beginning of the year, Primogeniture has been tackling some "hard" stuff. We've wanted to create a "better" guild, and so we did things like Magtheridon (pre 2.4) to help people learn that you don't always DPS; sometimes you just click. We've then focused on The Eye to take down Void Reaver (pretty easily) and Al'ar. We haven't set foot in SSC yet so that everyone could learn pulls and boss fights and not get confused by spreading out our time and attempts on too many bosses and instances. Overall, we've been forcing people to be aware of their surroundings and focus on surviability (not just a healer role anymore).

Over the past month or so as we've been attempting to down Al'ar, and everyone has learned a ton about raiding at higher levels. There's just so many things that are going on all at the same time with Al'ar. If you have that fight under control, it seems to make other encounters almost trivial.

Case and point: Last night was our first night at High Astromancer Solarian. On our third attempt, she was dead. It was so incredibly easy compared to Al'ar that we even forgot to take a screen shot. So, I made one myself. :) I don't recall what she dropped, but I know it wasn't the wand.

Now, I don't expect to just be able to steam roll over everything from this point forward, not at all. But we've developed some solid skills that should really help to minimize issues in the future. Next week we'll look to start on some stuff in SSC. I know there's a lot of gear checks, and we're still working to complete those sets (resistence gear mainly). But we've put in some solid work, seen some pay offs, and I expect to see a few more very soon.

And for the record... we're not planning on taking on Kael yet. Well... the MrT version, sure, but not The Eye version yet.

Snuffing the Flame

Warning: Kind of a long post.

One of Primogeniture's leadership's concerns about our attempts on Al'ar was that we really only got one night per week to try to down him. On Tuesdays, we would head straight to Void Reaver, and if there was time, we'd plan an attempt on Al'ar. Well... there was never time because there was enough people would always want to log after Void Reaver.

We knew we were very close on Al'ar. So, one of my raid leaders brought up the idea we'd had last week that we'd give try a couple solid attempts on Al'ar before heading down the corridor to Void Reaver. I told the raid we'd give two solid attempts.

Here's the basic strategy that we used: 4 tanks, 3 of them up tanking Al'ar, and a tankadin controlling the embers. 1 tank helped gather embers in phase 2, while 2 were on Al'ar. 7 healers, 1 was permanently on the tankadin with the embers. Our 4 mages were full time on the embers, both phases. (Controlled DPS so that we didn't accidently kill an ember when Al'ar was in the air.) We had 3 warlocks that took turns Soul Stoning the pally tank. Then we had a good mix of melee and ranged dps. If the mages needed help downing the embers, we'd individually call ranged dps members to help us. If it got unbearable, the warlocks would come over to Seed them for some Aoe damage.

First Attempt
On the first spot, the healers had a line of sight issue with the tank and he died before Al'ar left the platform. I told everyone to die, and said that that didn't count as a solid attempt.

Second Attempt
Corrected the los issue, and had only 3 of the mages on the embers. One of the tanks was learning the new rotation thing, and everyone was kind of settling in to this. The embers were a bit too much for the 3 mages, so I went over to complete the mage army. It helped, but by that point we were kind of too far behind. We still got him down to about 50% (somewhere around there) in phase 2, but the whole encounter just felt so much more controlled with this strategy. Relied on a couple of Battle Rez's to get tankadin back up this time.

While running back and buffing, we had a few members say that they wouldn't be able to stay for Void Reaver if we didn't go to him "right now". It was still quite early, so we kind of chewed them out for not letting us know they'd have to leave early (they deserved it). We were still on schedule to end by 10:30 (earliest we end) to 11:00 (generally the latest we end) even with another Al'ar attempt. The poor attitude (as that's what it appeared to be to me) was a little frustrating to say the least.

Third Attempt
Did everything as I initially described, and it was almost easy. So yes... we downed Al'ar. Loot drops were Talon of the Phoenix, Phoenix-Ring of Rebirth, and Fire Crest Breastplate.

After that, we went and 1-shotted Void Reaver. I got the Cowl of the Grand Engineer. And we ended well before 11. (I think it was actually much closer to 10:30.)

So... tonight, we get to go play with Solarian. Fun times.

Loot Reaver Becomes Void Reaver

In case you didn't read yesterday's post or you didn't log in yesterday or you only casually play World of Warcraft, Patch 2.4 went live yesterday. And as was to be expected, there were many changes. Also to be expected, many people had connection and latency issues last night. We ran our "normal" Tuesday night Void Reaver run, but we were way short on people. I don't believe we started until about an hour late, as people were trying to take care of mods, trying to stay online, or various other misadventures. So, we had a less than optimal group of 25, but it would have still worked pre 2.4.

We worked our way over to Void Reaver with only a few major problems, and then we engaged. Most of us had the updated version of Deadly Boss Mods, and a few of us had the Big Wigs updated version, but the Arcane Orbs were not being announced as they previously were. We even updated to the newest version of Big Wigs between wipes.

So, while there used to be indicators as to who was being targeted, there's now just the visual indicator of looking up at the sky and anticipating where the orbs will drop. I can pretty easily relate it to the Prince fight, because I was always the one staring up into the sky looking for where the next Infernal would drop. The difference here is that every ranged DPS and healer needs to be looking up into the sky to figure out if an orb is dropping on them or on a nearby player.

Being that this task is brand new to a lot of our folks, the night didn't go so well. Then again, even for me, a seasoned veteran in watching Infernals drop, I let a few drop right on top of my head. Sometimes, it seems that they're really hard to see. There's a console command that will allow you to zoom your camera way out; we'll try that tonight. Or maybe there will finally be a real need for the Soulcloth Vest pattern that I've had for so long. I'll keep you updated on our progress.

Oh, and I ran a non-heroic Magister's Terrace. Kind of a fun instance. We were way overgeared for it, but that's okay. And from what I hear from the Heroic setting... well, I think a guildie said it best when he said, "The heroic version is no joke."

Working on Al'ar

Over the past few weeks, we've been venturing into Tempest Keep: The Eye, and taking on a few bosses there. We've been killing Void Reaver every week; he's really not an issue for us. We generally burn him down on the first attempt, and well below the enrage timer. But the next boss we've been working on is Al'ar, the Phoenix God.

The point where we're at in the "progression" of this boss is that we can pretty easily burn him down in the first phase, but the second phase gives us some problems. Last night, for example, we killed him once, he rebirthed, and then we got him down to 40%... on two attempts.

Let me explain our strategy, so we're all on the same page here, and maybe somebody can learn from this post. :) First off, you should probably go read about the fight over at wowwiki and/or BossKillers, so you can get the abilities and the general idea of the fight. We use 5 tanks for phase 1. 1 tank stands at each of the 4 platforms where Al'ar can be tanked, and then one stands below to pick up all the Embers starting when Al'ar is somewhere around 50% health. Killing the Embers in the first phase only reduces the damage that they do; it doesn't do anything to Al'ar like it does in the second phase. Ranged DPS mostly focus on Al'ar, and also on about the second 1/2 of the Embers. Melee DPS focus on Al'ar and the first 1/2 of the Embers' life.

In the second phase, we have 2 tanks on Al'ar, 2 tanks rounding up the Embers, and then 1 tank holding on to the Embers while the ranged DPS take them down. Melee stay on Al'ar full time, while ranged stay on the Embers full time.

Here's some of the things we need to work on (all in phase 2). We need to make sure that people get out of the Flame Patches asap. It's a very mobile fight, and if you're standing in it... two ticks, and you're probably dead. I think I need to make better assignments on the healers. We keep losing a tank or two at times where we probably shouldn't. It doesn't seem like the ranged are maximizing their DPS on the Embers. We can't kill the Embers while Al'ar is in the air, because it won't damage him, but we can still continue to dps the other embers. Tuesday night, we probably had one of our best teams of 25 in The Eye, but we ran out of time on Al'ar after downing Void Reaver.

I keep telling people though... all we have to do is not die, and we'll kill Al'ar. :) Hmm... maybe I need to be more specific.

Into The Eye

Bah, works been kicking my butt a little bit these past few days and I haven't made time to post. But I did want to document that we went into Tempest Keep last night, and took down Void Reaver. On our first attempt, the DPS was a little slow, but 4 of our healers died. We had him to about 50%, and decided to reset it. The next attempt was us kicking the snot out of him. And I got my T5 shoulders.

We also got a number of epic patterns. And even 1 Vortex Nether. It was a really good night for Primo.

(Oh, there was a fake attempt when one of our rezzers got to close to Void Reaver. That didn't count.)