Began the evening with the Brewfest dailies and totally botched the ram run, only delivering nine kegs of precious booze to the festival. My runs typically follow a ‘banana-shaped’ path allowing me to catch the two apple barrels along the path and, if things go horribly wrong I can usually tag the barrel by the keg-giver. This time, I managed to:
· Get stuck on a fence for a few seconds
· Not get credit for an apple barrel
· Hit 100 exhaustion while in the process of leaping over a barrel, giving me the 15 second debuff but with no exhaustion counter
· Annoy the keg-provider to the point where he won’t give me another barrel until I run off and come back
· Fall off a hillside.
In retrospect, it was a miracle I got as many delivered as I did.
Afterward, I grabbed a random party to slay Corin Direbrew for the billionth time and after he defeated 20 seconds later, I decided to stick around and explore the rest of the dungeon. It was amazingly fun.
It turns out I –had- seen the end of the dungeon years before, I was just pretty clueless at the time as far as what was going on. After navigating a few tunnels I made my way through the inky depths, fought seven spectral dwarven ghosts and discovered I –needed- that damn Shadowforge Key at some point. Further in, I obliterated a room with a thousand dwarves in it to grab a couple of torches to light braziers to open the final door (this is when I realized I’d been here before—my first run was very traumatic) and stood in the throne room with the dark iron King and his court.
Being the tactical equivalent of Conan, I went straight for the throne and attacked. Every single dwarf began rushing to the King’s defense as he started lighting me up. For the most part I ignored the throngs as I focused on the King. Once he was down to a fraction of his health, he became immune to my assaults and continued wailing on me. At this point I noticed I was nearly dead. I hastily shifted from “God mode” to “OMG! OMG! OMG! mode” and dashed around exploding everything I could while quaffing a potion and using trinkets.
In the end, the broken bodies of the dwarven consul littered the floor like dark iron scraps and I sat upon the throne proudly. Afterward I climbed down and back tracked a bit until I found the molten core entrance and broke off a fragment to attune myself. That’ll be an adventure for another day.
Back in Ironforge, I realized that I’d miss Thursday’s guild run for the weekly raid due to wifely commitments. Instructor Razuvious needed killing again and I really wanted the rewards, so I when I saw the opportunity to join a pug, I did so.
We met up in Naxx and it was a bit dicey—our tank was squishy and half of us died on trash before someone swapped out for a warrior. As we went along, we discovered there was only one person who had ever used the control orbs before. I was low man on the DPS totem pole (it happens), so I was volunteered to take the other. I reluctantly agreed, but assumed no responsibility for any fatalities incurred. They laughed and agreed. Silly pug.
After we made our way to the Instructor, I diligently positioned myself near the control orb and waited for the signal. When it came, I grabbed it and my consciousness was transferred into a death knight chained to something. With a odd array of icons now inhabiting my spell bar, I desperately started clicking things to see what would happen.
In seconds, the Instructor was charging the party and I was fighting hard to get control of the fight. Cyandra aside, I’m REALLY used to fighting from a distance and having to chase the Instructor down as it was wailing into the party was a bit embarrassing. The alternate tank started tanking and started screaming after a few seconds to pass off aggro. I grabbed the instructor, but my bone shield was still on cooldown. This would end poorly.
My controllee was slain and I flipped into my much more comfortable DPS role as the alt tank got the stuffing beaten out of him. Fortunately for all concerned, the Instructor was down to a sliver when we lost the second Death Knight and we polished him off without loss of life. I apologized and summoned a portal to Dalaran so people could turn in the quest.
It was a learning experience. The little pug learned never to let Strev near the control orbs.
Afterward, I ran my daily in Occulus (note to self: repair armor first thing today) and fished in the coin fountain until I achieved the Grandmaster Fisherman title.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Into the Depths, an Anyth Tale
Monday saw the exploration of the Sunken Temple with Karthex, Zyrial, Myrial, and Some Shaman named Sinfulcrit. This was my first time in the Temple and I was vaguely impressed by the layout for the first thirty seconds. Afterward, it was all pretty much reduced to “staircase up, staircase down, staircase up, staircase down” as we went on a wild hunt for various scaly mini-bosses that were little more than reptilian speed bumps for our Ball o’ Hurt. I honestly can’t recollect any part where we were in any real danger.
The real fun of it came after we slew enough tiny draconian menaces and got to face down some proper dragons, complete with asparagus-shaped tails. The final boss was a transparent dragon a bit larger than the rest, but was a straightforward tank-and-spank kill. Given the complex boss fights I’m used to at this point, I left feeling a little disappointed.
Our second adventure saw the replacement of the shaman with the hunter Shotgut, played by our good friend Brian. We not-so-randomly selected the Black Rock Depths and teleported straight to the depths. After Strev’s adventures the previous week, I was fairly confident I knew how this should play out. I realized just after entering that none of us would have the Shadowforge Key quest, which makes deeper exploration much easier. Stepping back out would send us back to our origin point, so I silently hoped someone would die. As it turned out, within minutes I’d have just two wishes left.
BRD is a huge sprawling complex that I won’t describe again (see previous posts), but in the first room we somehow picked up a couple of extra packs of dwarves and ravenous dogs. Before we knew it, Zyrial had been reduced to kibble and his angel loomed over us, granting a few extra seconds of reprieve. Unfortunately, this meant that Zyrial was now at a graveyard halfway across a zone he’d probably never seen before and had no idea of how to navigate the mountain’s interior. Terrific.
I opted to play ‘Spirit Guide’ and told the party to wait as I led him back. I charged down a hallway and aggro’d most of it. As the critters happily nommed and seared Anyth, Zyrial calls out that “It’s cool—I’m following someone.” Terrific. I’m already committed to the plan, so I finish dying properly and jog back. I had asked Zyrial to pick up the Shadowforge quest on the way back and at some point he’s back and announces he’s sharing it. I don’t get a message pop, so I figured it was due to my “Dead Status”. I stopped along the way at the Tomb, started the quest, then took a lava bath to get back to the party quicker.
Once inside the tomb, things proceeded fairly well through the prison section. We clear the Ring of Law, wipe out a ton of hounds, and the party is a little confused on where to go next. Anyth to the rescue! I lead the party with mostly correct directions through the bowels of the dwarven city until we get to the Hall of Crafters. Until this point it was a pretty good run. A little dicey at times and we did lose Zyrial a second time, but otherwise the challenges were met and dealt with accordingly.
We killed the Key Boss and I instructed the party to loot Ironfel, needed for the key. The very next pull, it all went to hell. The tiny dwarves are hard to see under the large golems and we overpulled harshly. The golems are heavy hitters and took most of the party down before we could regain control of the fight. Party wipe!
At this point, there’s some dissension in the ranks. A couple note that we’ve “gone way too deep” for the Prison bosses. This was fine by me, since I was under the impression we were exploring what we could. After a minute or so of guiding Myrial back to the entrance (There was a lava incident), we delved into the depths again for the sole purpose of getting the Key.
Fortunately, there were no respawns and I quickly headed back to the short hallway with the key-dispenser at the end. We splattered the guardians and … found out that only Zyrial and I had the quest. D’OH! We got our keys and an insane amount of xp for doing so.
It’s a very rewarding dungeon and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to revisit it a couple more times and do the actual quests for the place. Time to do some research!
The real fun of it came after we slew enough tiny draconian menaces and got to face down some proper dragons, complete with asparagus-shaped tails. The final boss was a transparent dragon a bit larger than the rest, but was a straightforward tank-and-spank kill. Given the complex boss fights I’m used to at this point, I left feeling a little disappointed.
Our second adventure saw the replacement of the shaman with the hunter Shotgut, played by our good friend Brian. We not-so-randomly selected the Black Rock Depths and teleported straight to the depths. After Strev’s adventures the previous week, I was fairly confident I knew how this should play out. I realized just after entering that none of us would have the Shadowforge Key quest, which makes deeper exploration much easier. Stepping back out would send us back to our origin point, so I silently hoped someone would die. As it turned out, within minutes I’d have just two wishes left.
BRD is a huge sprawling complex that I won’t describe again (see previous posts), but in the first room we somehow picked up a couple of extra packs of dwarves and ravenous dogs. Before we knew it, Zyrial had been reduced to kibble and his angel loomed over us, granting a few extra seconds of reprieve. Unfortunately, this meant that Zyrial was now at a graveyard halfway across a zone he’d probably never seen before and had no idea of how to navigate the mountain’s interior. Terrific.
I opted to play ‘Spirit Guide’ and told the party to wait as I led him back. I charged down a hallway and aggro’d most of it. As the critters happily nommed and seared Anyth, Zyrial calls out that “It’s cool—I’m following someone.” Terrific. I’m already committed to the plan, so I finish dying properly and jog back. I had asked Zyrial to pick up the Shadowforge quest on the way back and at some point he’s back and announces he’s sharing it. I don’t get a message pop, so I figured it was due to my “Dead Status”. I stopped along the way at the Tomb, started the quest, then took a lava bath to get back to the party quicker.
Once inside the tomb, things proceeded fairly well through the prison section. We clear the Ring of Law, wipe out a ton of hounds, and the party is a little confused on where to go next. Anyth to the rescue! I lead the party with mostly correct directions through the bowels of the dwarven city until we get to the Hall of Crafters. Until this point it was a pretty good run. A little dicey at times and we did lose Zyrial a second time, but otherwise the challenges were met and dealt with accordingly.
We killed the Key Boss and I instructed the party to loot Ironfel, needed for the key. The very next pull, it all went to hell. The tiny dwarves are hard to see under the large golems and we overpulled harshly. The golems are heavy hitters and took most of the party down before we could regain control of the fight. Party wipe!
At this point, there’s some dissension in the ranks. A couple note that we’ve “gone way too deep” for the Prison bosses. This was fine by me, since I was under the impression we were exploring what we could. After a minute or so of guiding Myrial back to the entrance (There was a lava incident), we delved into the depths again for the sole purpose of getting the Key.
Fortunately, there were no respawns and I quickly headed back to the short hallway with the key-dispenser at the end. We splattered the guardians and … found out that only Zyrial and I had the quest. D’OH! We got our keys and an insane amount of xp for doing so.
It’s a very rewarding dungeon and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to revisit it a couple more times and do the actual quests for the place. Time to do some research!
Monday, September 27, 2010
Pug Runners
The weekend was a fun little eclectic mess. Everything from Wintergrasp to Ice Crown Citadel with booze in-between.
Friday evening included Strev running couple of random dungeons with the guild and quite a lot of working on Cyandra. I had a self-imposed goal to get her to 60 before the end of the weekend and there were a few hundred buzzards between her and that. I wound up falling a few birds shy of my goal (though I hit it this morning out of spite).
Cyandra’s main issue has been damage output. This is hardly a shock, as she’s not retribution-specialized. I thus put “heirloom weapon” on Strev’s shopping list. Per usual, I had a choice between grinding tons of dungeons or doing a bit more PvP in Wintergrasp to collect stone shards. I wasn’t actually doing anything else with Triumph badges, so my thought process went something like this: I can get the PvP weapon, which provides a nice little stamina boost and a major jump in Cyandra’s spellpower AND get a PvE breastplate with badges in a week or so. That’s when someone in guild chat through a Cataclysm curve ball.
When patch 4.0.1 goes live (it is on public test at the time of this writing), there’s some pretty big changes to the badge/emblem system. Badges and Emblems that are less than Triumph will be converted to gold and gold will be used to purchase all rewards that could have been gotten with those types of badges. By that definition, it includes heirloom gear. Triumphs and Frosties will be converted to ‘Justice points’ AT EQUAL VALUE and used to purchase the same gear they used to. This is a serious “wow”, but it all hinges on whether or not the 4.0.1 patch goes live before Cataclysm is released. When Cata hits, the Justice points are pretty much worthless unless you need a particular trinket. So, I think I’m going to hedge my bets by hanging onto Triumphs for another week, spend Frosties if I can get to a nice piece of armor, and burn stone shards like the trash they are.
Earned enough Brewfest tokens to join the Brew of the Month Club, which granted Strev the Brewmaster title. I’ll still need to ride the rams daily to earn enough points for the Brewfest costume, but with more practice, I should be able to snag all three pieces before the holiday ends. My record so far is 13 keg deliveries in the allotted time. I’ve heard of some people getting 23, but I have no idea how.
Fidelis grew in a most unexpected way late Friday night. I’m up a bit later than normal and I get the message that new member has joined the guild. This is always a happy thing and I offer my welcomes. A minute later another person joins…and another. They weren’t announced as alts—maybe a few close friends? I’m given a two word explanation: Pug runners. Confused, I guess they meant these were unguilded people in a pug they just ran More welcomes sent. I’m halfway through typing a message telling the 2nd person that ‘Good news—he’s no longer the new guy.’ when three more people join up. I’m now perplexed and a couple of us are wondering if an Officer has gone on an insane recruiting spree through Ironforge. The flood gates open with new members and I get a more detailed explanation.
Pug Runners was a guild whose people often padded our raids when we were a few short. Likable and friendly, some of them were even former members of Fidelis. For reasons unknown, The Runners decided to disband and merge their guild with ours to make a larger and stronger team. This works out well for everybody and I’m glad to have them on board; it was pleasantly stunning to see 28 people in guild chat without a raid going on.
Saturday night, we took the combined forces into ICC again. I now had a good idea of how these fights worked and was eager to test my mettle. We blew through the first few bosses with little effort and although I blew the roll on a staff I really, really needed (“Strev: I got a one!” “Looter: I guess you REALLY didn’t want that staff.”), I wound up getting some incredibly good gloves instead so I’m not heartbroken.
The Plagueworks was where it got rough again. We barely missed the enrage timer on Festergut (again) but downed him through the power of DoTs and thus avoided a raidwipe. Rotface chewed half the party, but we brought the abomination to the floor. At last, we were face to face with my arch-nemesis, Professor Putricide.
I had promised this bastard a rematch a while back and I was finally going to have my revenge. We reviewed the strategy and the tank pulled. In seconds I was dead from having stood in the fire like a newb; I couldn’t make it out of the ooze that was ticking off 5k a second. Sigh. Battle-rezzed and killed again in seconds. Sigh. I wasn’t the only one having issues by far, so we regrouped to try again.
This time, I easily dodged the plague splotches and when the oozes erupted from the floor, I flawlessly shifted from target to target to save the pursued. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, someone exploded an ooze in the middle of the raid and wiped most of us in a single fell blast. Time was running short, so we opted to pass on a third attempt and instead fought something…Norse… for an easy frostie.
By Sunday evening, I had nearly enough stonekeeper shards to get Cyandra’s mace, so I hit Wintergrasp to work the weekly quests I had missed. By the time the battle started, I was 5 shards shy and had one quest remaining: destroy three siege engines. This is utterly cake, since normally the Horde sends many tanks against our fortress and I’m very diligent about blasting them to pieces. This time, the Horde had other plans.
In WG if a side is outmatched or their opponents have held the keep for a couple of goes, they get a stackable buff called ‘tenacity’. It grants extra health, damage, and probably keeps their teeth sparkly clean. When the other side’s tenacity score exceeds ‘6’, we’re in for a rough ride. This time they had 20. With an amazing buff of 20 tenacity, the Horde players had something like triple health and damage, yet they just could not get it together.
The Alliance utterly steamrolled them. We controlled all of the vehicle production sites and within ten minutes kept them locked down to their graveyard spawn point. Amusing, but it kept me from getting the mace. It wouldn’t be until nearly midnight that I’d be able to complete the quest, but it was a good feeling to mail the shiny heirloom to Cyandra just before going to bed.
Friday evening included Strev running couple of random dungeons with the guild and quite a lot of working on Cyandra. I had a self-imposed goal to get her to 60 before the end of the weekend and there were a few hundred buzzards between her and that. I wound up falling a few birds shy of my goal (though I hit it this morning out of spite).
Cyandra’s main issue has been damage output. This is hardly a shock, as she’s not retribution-specialized. I thus put “heirloom weapon” on Strev’s shopping list. Per usual, I had a choice between grinding tons of dungeons or doing a bit more PvP in Wintergrasp to collect stone shards. I wasn’t actually doing anything else with Triumph badges, so my thought process went something like this: I can get the PvP weapon, which provides a nice little stamina boost and a major jump in Cyandra’s spellpower AND get a PvE breastplate with badges in a week or so. That’s when someone in guild chat through a Cataclysm curve ball.
When patch 4.0.1 goes live (it is on public test at the time of this writing), there’s some pretty big changes to the badge/emblem system. Badges and Emblems that are less than Triumph will be converted to gold and gold will be used to purchase all rewards that could have been gotten with those types of badges. By that definition, it includes heirloom gear. Triumphs and Frosties will be converted to ‘Justice points’ AT EQUAL VALUE and used to purchase the same gear they used to. This is a serious “wow”, but it all hinges on whether or not the 4.0.1 patch goes live before Cataclysm is released. When Cata hits, the Justice points are pretty much worthless unless you need a particular trinket. So, I think I’m going to hedge my bets by hanging onto Triumphs for another week, spend Frosties if I can get to a nice piece of armor, and burn stone shards like the trash they are.
Earned enough Brewfest tokens to join the Brew of the Month Club, which granted Strev the Brewmaster title. I’ll still need to ride the rams daily to earn enough points for the Brewfest costume, but with more practice, I should be able to snag all three pieces before the holiday ends. My record so far is 13 keg deliveries in the allotted time. I’ve heard of some people getting 23, but I have no idea how.
Fidelis grew in a most unexpected way late Friday night. I’m up a bit later than normal and I get the message that new member has joined the guild. This is always a happy thing and I offer my welcomes. A minute later another person joins…and another. They weren’t announced as alts—maybe a few close friends? I’m given a two word explanation: Pug runners. Confused, I guess they meant these were unguilded people in a pug they just ran More welcomes sent. I’m halfway through typing a message telling the 2nd person that ‘Good news—he’s no longer the new guy.’ when three more people join up. I’m now perplexed and a couple of us are wondering if an Officer has gone on an insane recruiting spree through Ironforge. The flood gates open with new members and I get a more detailed explanation.
Pug Runners was a guild whose people often padded our raids when we were a few short. Likable and friendly, some of them were even former members of Fidelis. For reasons unknown, The Runners decided to disband and merge their guild with ours to make a larger and stronger team. This works out well for everybody and I’m glad to have them on board; it was pleasantly stunning to see 28 people in guild chat without a raid going on.
Saturday night, we took the combined forces into ICC again. I now had a good idea of how these fights worked and was eager to test my mettle. We blew through the first few bosses with little effort and although I blew the roll on a staff I really, really needed (“Strev: I got a one!” “Looter: I guess you REALLY didn’t want that staff.”), I wound up getting some incredibly good gloves instead so I’m not heartbroken.
The Plagueworks was where it got rough again. We barely missed the enrage timer on Festergut (again) but downed him through the power of DoTs and thus avoided a raidwipe. Rotface chewed half the party, but we brought the abomination to the floor. At last, we were face to face with my arch-nemesis, Professor Putricide.
I had promised this bastard a rematch a while back and I was finally going to have my revenge. We reviewed the strategy and the tank pulled. In seconds I was dead from having stood in the fire like a newb; I couldn’t make it out of the ooze that was ticking off 5k a second. Sigh. Battle-rezzed and killed again in seconds. Sigh. I wasn’t the only one having issues by far, so we regrouped to try again.
This time, I easily dodged the plague splotches and when the oozes erupted from the floor, I flawlessly shifted from target to target to save the pursued. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, someone exploded an ooze in the middle of the raid and wiped most of us in a single fell blast. Time was running short, so we opted to pass on a third attempt and instead fought something…Norse… for an easy frostie.
By Sunday evening, I had nearly enough stonekeeper shards to get Cyandra’s mace, so I hit Wintergrasp to work the weekly quests I had missed. By the time the battle started, I was 5 shards shy and had one quest remaining: destroy three siege engines. This is utterly cake, since normally the Horde sends many tanks against our fortress and I’m very diligent about blasting them to pieces. This time, the Horde had other plans.
In WG if a side is outmatched or their opponents have held the keep for a couple of goes, they get a stackable buff called ‘tenacity’. It grants extra health, damage, and probably keeps their teeth sparkly clean. When the other side’s tenacity score exceeds ‘6’, we’re in for a rough ride. This time they had 20. With an amazing buff of 20 tenacity, the Horde players had something like triple health and damage, yet they just could not get it together.
The Alliance utterly steamrolled them. We controlled all of the vehicle production sites and within ten minutes kept them locked down to their graveyard spawn point. Amusing, but it kept me from getting the mace. It wouldn’t be until nearly midnight that I’d be able to complete the quest, but it was a good feeling to mail the shiny heirloom to Cyandra just before going to bed.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Brew-Ha-Ha
Well, the joke was definitely on me. After the previous day's pain that was Blackrock Depths, I discovered that I could just queue up for the damn event in the random dungeon finder. I was mildly annoyed at myself and gave it a whirl. In under two minutes, I'm teleported to an instanced basement of the Grim Guzzler.
I greeted the party and threw on the Obligatory Party Buffs. When I turned around, I saw the tank had already engaged Direbrew and had gnawed him down to 80%. All righty then! In a matter of seconds, the Dark Iron Dwarf was vanquished and we were picking over his dubious treasures. The trinket (a pickled egg) was of no interest to me, but the Victory itself granted us a couple of frosties each, so for the time expended, it was amazing.
Heady from the win, I ran the Brewfest daily quests. Although the 'Defend the Kegs' and 'Brew Barking' quests went flawlessly, I completely failed the keg run. I missed not only the dropoff point for my keg (and didn't notice until halfway back for another one), but every single apple basket that would've refreshed my poor mount. In annoyance, I jumped off the steed only to find I wouldn't be able to restart the run until the next day.
There's still a number of days left in the festival, so I'm confident by the close I'll be able to join the Brew of the Month Club, which gives free booze throughout the year. Additionally, the brews grant different unique buffs based on flavor, so we'll see how all of that goes down.
I had some time to kill, so I queued up for a daily heroic, which led to Azjol-Nerub, a cavernous dungeon crawl infested with creepy-crawly things. This is normally a relatively painless dungeon run. About a third of the way in, however, the tank plopped down in the middle of a cleared hall without a word of explanation. A bit unusual but not unheard of in a pug, the rest of us waited for a couple of minutes near the top of the next ramp, eyeballing a pack of nasties.
Since we had the down time, I decided to make myself useful by summoning a table to provide tasty mana strudels for any who wanted them. I began casting and the portal began to form. The portal requires two other players to click on it for the casting to complete and our rogue diligently rushed forward to help. This put him in aggro range of the nasties at the top of the platform which descended on us en masse. Tankless, we were slaughtered and I can now say I'm possibly the first person in Warcraft history to cause a party wipe with a mage table. Fortunately, I had much better luck with a quick run through the Trial of the Champion.
The main event for the night was a trip to Tempest Keep, the biggest and baddest of the Burning Crusade 25-man dungeons. Our guild had scraped together 10 of the best and brightest, plus me, and we were ready to take it on!
Tempest Keep is a very bright and hideous cathedral type dungeon very reminiscent of an Exodar if it were designed by a colorblind child with watercolors. The layout was simple enough (large rooms + large halls) and the packs of enemies were, for the most part, easily neutralized. We had a couple of characters in their mid-70s which met with a number of unfortunate ends due to the sheer volume of AoE attacks, but most of the 80s survived the trash pulls with minimal discomfort.
We did learn the hubris of attacking 25-man scaled bosses without foreknowledge of the encounters. The first boss, a stunningly beautiful phoenix god, led us on a merry chase from platform to platform around the top of a large vaulted room before exploding in a feathery blaze, causing our first raid wipe. As we regrouped, we took a moment to learn valuable knowledge ("Fire BAD!") and how to avoid cataclysmic damage ("Jump in pit when bird make spinny move!"). Consequently, the second run went a lot better.
On the whole, the rest of the keep went smoothly until the final encounter, a three-phase battle against the blood-elf leader(?) SunStrider and his court. With five of them versus eleven of us, it seemed hardly fair. After all, they only had around 200-300k health each, right? What could go wrong?
Nanubren, our fearless leader, gave us our strategy and we readied ourselves. Plua and I, the mages, were to tackle the Astromancer, who was a caster that spammed nasty arcane explosions. Sunstrider would be tanked along with Nasty Fear Guy (yeah-- I don't pay attention to names) by Nanu. Our offtank would pick up the engineer (who threw bombs), Scary Walking Guy wasn't tankable, so whoever got randomly picked would just have to kite him. A kill order was set and targets were marked. This plan lasted all of four seconds.
We charged. I popped my trinkets and cooldowns so they'd be ready again by phase three-- when we're stopped cold by a wall of text as Sunstrider begins a long and rambling speech. To our delight, however, we don't have to fight them all at once. The Court activates one at a time and we burn them all down dizzily fast. Sunstrider was nonplussed as he stood among his dead advisers and bragged that he had many weapons at his disposal.
Enter phase two. It turns out Elfie-poo was quite literal as a whirling barrage of weaponry flew around like a macabre homage to Dragon's Lair's smith room. We blasted them to bits and the weapons fell to the floor. Each "body" allowed everyone to loot a copy of itself to equip in the coming fight. They were legendary weapons with powers and abilities that far exceeded anything any of us had ever seen...two years ago. Realizing the legendary staff would actually drop my DPS by a solid 20%, I stuck to 'old reliable' as did most of my compatriots. Unfortunately for all involved, most of us were all still huddled over the weapons when phase three began.
Phase Three: all of the court gets reanimated with double the health they had previously to fight us all at once. Hilarity immediately ensued. Fear Guy leads off with a Fear Bomb, catching nearly everyone, and Scary Walking Guy (whose sole power seems to be walking slowly towards a victim and beating the crap out of him in seconds) slaughtered people with impunity. It was a massacre of Custer proportions.
We regrouped and there was additional hilarity as we tried to raise the dead, accidentally triggering the fight again in the process. Scary Walking Guy was kited around the entire dungeon and refused to reset until his victim was slain and those outside the instance were locked out until the fight reset again. From my vantage point on the floor, I could tell when everything had finally reset again.
This time, we knew what to expect and planned accordingly. Phases one and two went smoothly and we repositioned ourselves around the room giving the soon-to-be-walking corpses wide berth. Phase three began and it was still ugly.
Scary Walking Guy fixated on me and I kited him around a bit before Ice Blocking. He turned away and I broke the block, only to have him 180 and slam me through the floor before I could do much of anything else. Eventually, one of the Court was felled and Nanu desperately called for ranged to take out the Astromancer. This proved to be impossible, as Plua was also sharing floorspace with me.
Try as we might, we just lacked the manpower to effectively down the forces against us before Phase four began and Sunstrider himself entered the fray. We wiped hard.
We'll be revisiting this guy. Win or lose, it was still a lot of fun!
I greeted the party and threw on the Obligatory Party Buffs. When I turned around, I saw the tank had already engaged Direbrew and had gnawed him down to 80%. All righty then! In a matter of seconds, the Dark Iron Dwarf was vanquished and we were picking over his dubious treasures. The trinket (a pickled egg) was of no interest to me, but the Victory itself granted us a couple of frosties each, so for the time expended, it was amazing.
Heady from the win, I ran the Brewfest daily quests. Although the 'Defend the Kegs' and 'Brew Barking' quests went flawlessly, I completely failed the keg run. I missed not only the dropoff point for my keg (and didn't notice until halfway back for another one), but every single apple basket that would've refreshed my poor mount. In annoyance, I jumped off the steed only to find I wouldn't be able to restart the run until the next day.
There's still a number of days left in the festival, so I'm confident by the close I'll be able to join the Brew of the Month Club, which gives free booze throughout the year. Additionally, the brews grant different unique buffs based on flavor, so we'll see how all of that goes down.
I had some time to kill, so I queued up for a daily heroic, which led to Azjol-Nerub, a cavernous dungeon crawl infested with creepy-crawly things. This is normally a relatively painless dungeon run. About a third of the way in, however, the tank plopped down in the middle of a cleared hall without a word of explanation. A bit unusual but not unheard of in a pug, the rest of us waited for a couple of minutes near the top of the next ramp, eyeballing a pack of nasties.
Since we had the down time, I decided to make myself useful by summoning a table to provide tasty mana strudels for any who wanted them. I began casting and the portal began to form. The portal requires two other players to click on it for the casting to complete and our rogue diligently rushed forward to help. This put him in aggro range of the nasties at the top of the platform which descended on us en masse. Tankless, we were slaughtered and I can now say I'm possibly the first person in Warcraft history to cause a party wipe with a mage table. Fortunately, I had much better luck with a quick run through the Trial of the Champion.
The main event for the night was a trip to Tempest Keep, the biggest and baddest of the Burning Crusade 25-man dungeons. Our guild had scraped together 10 of the best and brightest, plus me, and we were ready to take it on!
Tempest Keep is a very bright and hideous cathedral type dungeon very reminiscent of an Exodar if it were designed by a colorblind child with watercolors. The layout was simple enough (large rooms + large halls) and the packs of enemies were, for the most part, easily neutralized. We had a couple of characters in their mid-70s which met with a number of unfortunate ends due to the sheer volume of AoE attacks, but most of the 80s survived the trash pulls with minimal discomfort.
We did learn the hubris of attacking 25-man scaled bosses without foreknowledge of the encounters. The first boss, a stunningly beautiful phoenix god, led us on a merry chase from platform to platform around the top of a large vaulted room before exploding in a feathery blaze, causing our first raid wipe. As we regrouped, we took a moment to learn valuable knowledge ("Fire BAD!") and how to avoid cataclysmic damage ("Jump in pit when bird make spinny move!"). Consequently, the second run went a lot better.
On the whole, the rest of the keep went smoothly until the final encounter, a three-phase battle against the blood-elf leader(?) SunStrider and his court. With five of them versus eleven of us, it seemed hardly fair. After all, they only had around 200-300k health each, right? What could go wrong?
Nanubren, our fearless leader, gave us our strategy and we readied ourselves. Plua and I, the mages, were to tackle the Astromancer, who was a caster that spammed nasty arcane explosions. Sunstrider would be tanked along with Nasty Fear Guy (yeah-- I don't pay attention to names) by Nanu. Our offtank would pick up the engineer (who threw bombs), Scary Walking Guy wasn't tankable, so whoever got randomly picked would just have to kite him. A kill order was set and targets were marked. This plan lasted all of four seconds.
We charged. I popped my trinkets and cooldowns so they'd be ready again by phase three-- when we're stopped cold by a wall of text as Sunstrider begins a long and rambling speech. To our delight, however, we don't have to fight them all at once. The Court activates one at a time and we burn them all down dizzily fast. Sunstrider was nonplussed as he stood among his dead advisers and bragged that he had many weapons at his disposal.
Enter phase two. It turns out Elfie-poo was quite literal as a whirling barrage of weaponry flew around like a macabre homage to Dragon's Lair's smith room. We blasted them to bits and the weapons fell to the floor. Each "body" allowed everyone to loot a copy of itself to equip in the coming fight. They were legendary weapons with powers and abilities that far exceeded anything any of us had ever seen...two years ago. Realizing the legendary staff would actually drop my DPS by a solid 20%, I stuck to 'old reliable' as did most of my compatriots. Unfortunately for all involved, most of us were all still huddled over the weapons when phase three began.
Phase Three: all of the court gets reanimated with double the health they had previously to fight us all at once. Hilarity immediately ensued. Fear Guy leads off with a Fear Bomb, catching nearly everyone, and Scary Walking Guy (whose sole power seems to be walking slowly towards a victim and beating the crap out of him in seconds) slaughtered people with impunity. It was a massacre of Custer proportions.
We regrouped and there was additional hilarity as we tried to raise the dead, accidentally triggering the fight again in the process. Scary Walking Guy was kited around the entire dungeon and refused to reset until his victim was slain and those outside the instance were locked out until the fight reset again. From my vantage point on the floor, I could tell when everything had finally reset again.
This time, we knew what to expect and planned accordingly. Phases one and two went smoothly and we repositioned ourselves around the room giving the soon-to-be-walking corpses wide berth. Phase three began and it was still ugly.
Scary Walking Guy fixated on me and I kited him around a bit before Ice Blocking. He turned away and I broke the block, only to have him 180 and slam me through the floor before I could do much of anything else. Eventually, one of the Court was felled and Nanu desperately called for ranged to take out the Astromancer. This proved to be impossible, as Plua was also sharing floorspace with me.
Try as we might, we just lacked the manpower to effectively down the forces against us before Phase four began and Sunstrider himself entered the fray. We wiped hard.
We'll be revisiting this guy. Win or lose, it was still a lot of fun!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)