Lo-Quality WoW

Tonight we continued with our ICC 10 run.  So we start where we left off, getting our heads handed to us by Saurfang in heroic mode.  Since we had a slightly different raid group, we decided to do a modified tactic.

 Last night we had two healers, who would have  lined up in the center, one behind the other.  The two hunters were side to side on the left, focusing on the left blood beast while the melee would stun lock and kill the add on the right.  The shaman would use an Earthbind Totem while us hunters would use traps to slow the beast down.  And while it did alright, we would eventually lose someone with the Mark of the Fallen Champion on them and we’d wipe.

 This time we were doing a 3 healer configuration, with a death knight dropping for an extra shaman.  The two hunters were still on the left, except this time there was a healer between the two of us.  The melee would still stun lock the right add but the extra shaman’s duty was to pull the aggro and drag that add out and away from the tanks.  They would still stun lock it, but if it did break free, it would give the melee a little more time to work on it.

And for the most part, it worked pretty well.  I had a little difficulty because I was the hunter between the healers and that meant I had to keep an eye out on who had Boiling Blood on them since I would have to run near some people as I moved forward to drop my Frost Trap.  And I mis-timed a Feign Death once and got one-shot by a Blood Beast.  But otherwise we were getting deep into Saurfang’s “frenzy” zone.

Unfortunately, the best we got him down to was about 5%, or a little less, health.  We almost had him but then we ended up losing two people to the Mark of the Fallen Champion and had to wipe it at that point.  Rather disheartening to be so close but still not get it.

Eventually we decided to just take him on normal.  Our raid leader felt that it wasn’t a problem with technique so much as gear.  We’re strictly a 10-man raid team, and as he pointed out, many other guilds running heroic ICC10 have done ICC25 and as such, would have generally better gear than what we would have just doing straight 10-mans.  Plus, I know a couple of our healers got really close to empty on their mana bars, and better gear would probably have helped that situation out as well.

But once we switched to normal, Saurfang was paste.  In fact, we managed to kill him fast enough that we didn’t even get one Mark of the Fallen Champion.  That’s actually pretty fast for us, usually we get at least two.

So it was on to the Plagueworks.  And we decided to take on Rotface on heroic mode.  I actually hadn’t read up on how he is in heroic mode so it was a bit of a surprise.  Someone warned us to watch out for more slime pools, but didn’t mentioned that we would be dealing with Vile Gas, as we would in the Festergut normal fight. 

So the first time we did it, myself and the other hunter bunched up as usual and then got hit by the Vile Gas.  That in and of itself was fine.  The problem was when we would get hit by Mutated Infection and the Vile Gas at the same time.  Actually, I got hit by both and was in the quarter of the room where the slime pipes were fixed, causing a quick death for me.

To adjust, us two hunters would stand on the outer ring and dps from there and staying far enough apart from each other not to get us both hit by the Vile Gas.  Which made this into a more dynamic battle for us that usual since we would have to move forward so that the off-tank could kite the slime behidn us, but not too close where we would bring the Vile Gas attack into melee. 

And you know what?  We did it!  Granted, I and a few others died, but we did take him down.  And I managed to win the need roll to pick up the Shaft of Glacial Ice!  Which was nice since it usually takes me awhile to find a decent agility staff.  Too bad it was only a short-lived thrill.  (More on that in a bit.)

We then switch over to Festergut.  I had to point out that we needed a third range since we didn’t have either a mage or shadow priest like we would normally.  As far as I can tell, the main difference is that Putricide throws Mallable Goo into the fight.  Since it’s coming at us from the side, it’s a little harder to deal with, plus it seemed to target melee most of the time. 

We tried it a few times but then decided we were getting too tired again.  (Heaven knows I was.)  So we called it a night.  I then proceeded to gather up the gems and enchantments to bring my new staff up to par.

But just before I was going to apply them, I got a mail message from the raid leader asking if I wouldn’t mind handing the Shaft of Glacial Ice over to our druid tank, since it was primarily a stat bonus item more than anything else to me.  Which bummed me out about it.

Now he did say he was only asking and that I didn’t NEED to do it, so it wasn’t like he was being a jerk all of a sudden.  And if he had asked on behalf of the other hunter, I probably would have been more pissed than anything.  Not that I have anything against the other hunter, in fact he’s given up items when it was obviously a bigger upgrade for myself.  But I had won a roll fair and square and the other hunter’s already generally better equiped than myself, so if I was being asked to hand it over to him, that would have been completely unfair in my opinion.  However, in this case, especially since it’s a tank, I’m willing to give it up even though we had “equal” rights to the roll. 

“Why?” you may ask.  Because to me, it’s more important to have the tank have the best gear possible than it is for me to eek out a few more points of dps.  While it made me a bit sad to give up such a nice piece of loot, it’s for the greater good of the group and I can live with that.  But damn I really would like to get some nice heroic loot on this run.

Unfortunately, by the time I got the message, the druid had logged off which means I need to catch him tonight.  It also means I have to be careful not to run past the 2 hour trade time limit in case I log on early.  I guess I’ll just have to channel my disappointment into some extra dps as we take on Festergut tonight!