Lo-Quality WoW

Nothing is more frustrating than getting yourself psyched up to go raiding and having that desire smashed.  Earlier we had to drop out because our off-tank had computer issues.  Then most people couldn’t show up the next night.  Then on the rescheduled night, we didn’t have an off-tank at all!

Well, actually we did but the Death Knight admitted that he really wasn’t geared to tank Icecrown Citadel.  It was our “regular” off-tanks who were MIA.  So, instead of doing nothing, we decided to try and do Sartharion with 3 Twilight Drakes up in a 10-man.  Which is unfortunate in that I already had the achievement on my Hunter but I couldn’t justify using my Warrior since the dps drop would have been quite severe.

It took us several tries to get it.  Usually it was the tank dying and then the rest of us getting wiped.  Considering we decided to go with one tank and one healer, it wasn’t really surprising.  We were mainly counting on massive dps output to beat it.  When we eventually did kill Sartharion, half the raid was dead and if it wasn’t for DoTs (Damage over Time spells), we probably wouldn’t have made it.

Then, because the group was feeling particularly insane, we decided to 10-man the 25-man instance.  And to be honest, I probably could have switched my Warrior for this part but decided against it.  Good thing too since the Sartharion fight itself took awhile with so few people to do dps. 

Then we decided to go pick a fight with Onyxia.  Again, looking at our group makeup, I couldn’t justify switching my Hunter out for my Warrior, I was going to be one of the main guys during the air phase after all.  This was a more humerous attempt since most of us hadn’t been there for awhile so we forgot a few things.  Didn’t matter much since Onyxia still went down.  And I ended up with the Onyxia’s Lair (10 player), She Deep Breaths More (10 player), and More Dots! (10 player) achievements.  Actually the first one was pretty surprising until I realized that the last time I did Onyxia as a 10-man, that was before the encounter was upgraded for lvl 80 characters.  Since the upgrade, all I’d run it as was as a 25-man raid!

But that was it for that night.  And actually the next night I was afraid it would be the same since it took awhile before an off-tank logged on.  But it looked like we were going to get another crack at the Lich King.

And here is where I started losing my temper a little.  For one thing, we had a different Hunter than my “normal” hunter partner.  And while this Hunter is good and puts out major dps, it was the other parts where he slipped up on.  For instance, I suspected but didn’t confirm until after the raid and looked at my logs, that he wasn’t bothering to do a Tranquilizing Shot on the Shambling Horrors.  It didn’t happen fortunately, but if two Shambling Horrors are up and both enrage, it’s very possible for the off-tank to be overwhelmed.

The other thing that irritated me was that he kept using his Frost Traps when we long ago decided against using it when Defiles are an issue because it blurred where the defile was.  And nobody called him on it!  It’s little stuff like that that just irks me. 

Although it wasn’t just him that was causing some aggravation.  Our Shaman kepting getting disconnected and considering he was one of our healers, that was a very bad thing.  I think our Off-tank also disconnected once but I think that one was a wipe either way.  One of our Paladin’s would almost always be dead center of the platform whenever he got defile, making it very hard to manuever. 

And I was also getting annoyed to get scolded “all dps needs to be hitting…” either the Restless Spirits or the Val’kyr.  The first ones because during the transition phase, I’m actually responsible for the frost orbs, so I can’t focus on the Spirits.  The Val’kyr because a quick look at the logs showed that I was dpsing the Val’kyr and to be told “nobody was hitting her” just pissed me off.  And even that was twofold.  One, to claim “nobody” was hitting her when the logs clearly showed that at least I was hitting her, and two, that people should know to dps the Val’kyr when it appears anyway!

I think we only successfully managed phase 2 twice.  The first time, we actually got to phase 3 but since nobody had gone over the strategy for it, the new people had no idea what to do during that phase.  The second time, we actually wiped during the transition phase. 

 I guess I’m just a bit frustrated in that I was there for most of those weeks when we first got to the Lich King, helping to figure out and develop our strategy, and that only through happenstance we had three Hunters the night they do down him and I had sat out.  Since then, it been cancelled raids because of missing tanks or healers.  Or slow progress as people are either new and learning the fight or are experienced and for some inexplicable reason have forgotten what to do during the fight. 

And I’m not sure if we’re running tonight, we usually don’t on the night of the scheduled reset.  And if we don’t, I don’t know if we’re going to reset the instance or keep the lock.  On one hand, I don’t really need the emblems for gear but there are still drops during the various fights that I could still personally use and would love to get my hands on.  But if I’m busy doing the Lich King fight all week, it means one less week where the possibility of one of those drops occurring has passed.  Frustration all around.