Lo-Quality WoW

Friday night we gathered to continue our raid.  Instead of starting off with Blood Prince Council, we decided to tackle the Plague bosses since we were pretty sure we could do that.  So first up was Rotface on Heroic.

As I’ve stated before, Heroic Rotface has become rather easy for us.  Just to be sure, we had both of us Hunters, the off-tank and our Shadow Priest at range.  I don’t think we had any problems with that fight, everyone did their jobs correctly and Rotface went down easily. 

We also took on Festergut in Heroic mode.  Initially, we tried with the tanks tanking him on the far wall, away from where the Malleable Goo was being flung from.  Unfortunately, that seemed to give almost too much space for the rest of us and we had trouble gathering for the spores. 

We went back to tanking him in the middle, but we rotated our dps to be on the far side.  Usually we center on the door, with me being on the right wing and closest to where the goo would spawn from.  (And ironically, I rarely did get hit.)  I think we wiped on our second try because our off-tank died unexpectedly.  It was either the third or fourth try when we took him down.  Again just barely before the enrage timer.  That should be an easier fight, I’m just not sure what else we can do other than having people more aware of what’s going on around them.

Putricide we took on in normal mode.  We are just totally undergeared for him on Heroic.  We altered our basic strategy for the fight.  The tank more or less tanks Putricide by his table for most of the fight.  For some reason, this just seems to work better, even if it makes it more difficult to run away from the orange add.  

Then we got setup for another run at Blood Prince Council on Heroic when my Druid guildmate suddenly dropped off.  Later I found out that he had a blackout in his area.  I probably could have seen a dark spot on the island if I had looked out my window, not that I could have done anything for him.

So we waited awhile and then we finally decided to just take the Council out on normal mode instead of trying to dig up another healer.  We still tried it with a three tank setup, mainly to give our third tank some practice on his duty.  Even then, I know I had to be careful of my aggro on the boss he was tanking.

With one person down, we decided to clear the mobs going up to Dreamwalker but then called it a night.  We figured we’d be able to pick things up the next day.  Boy were we wrong.

Despite the fact that pretty much everyone said they’d be on and available, we were missing almost half our raid when we gather on Saturday.  We ended up calling it off, which was annoying since I had rushed back home from a meeting with friends in town. 

Sunday we did get the main people we needed, the tanks and healers.  We had to pug two of the dps though.  We ended up with a Boomkin and a Mage instead of the Warlock and Death Knight we’d been running with for most of this instance. 

So we started with Blood Queen Lana’thel, this time on Heroic mode.  For the most part, this fight is generally the same, it’s just that she has more hit points and hits harder.  And unfortunately, the Mage managed to get bit first.  The Mage was an alt, and the player usually plays a healer so was a bit confused as to what to do with the bite and ended up getting mind controlled.  For instance, the Mage completely stopped his dps!  Then was running around trying to find someone to bite before his interface had even changed!

Second try went a bit better.  This one was a bit more chaotic.  For instance, the Boomkin died almost immediately after we pulled and we weren’t sure how it happened.  The Mage also got mind controlled again.  This time, I think it was because he didn’t target the person he needed to bite, he thought it would just cause him to bite the nearest person.

So we stopped and regrouped.  Third try was just as chaotic.  This time it was because people died.  For instance, my target, our healing Druid, died before I got to him and I had to bite someone, anyone else.  Took me awhile and I ended up biting our Holy Priest.  And I worried that it meant that someone who probably had the Priest as their target was left out, but in this case, the person who was assigned to bite the Priest, our other Hunter, had died before he could do it so it worked out.  Although, as became the norm, the Mage did get mind controlled because he misread the whisper to him on who to bite and tried to bite someone already bitten!

We finally managed it on the fourth try.  Still a little shakey, mainly because the fears come almost on top of the bites but we did it.  Definitely doable, just need a bit more practice at it.

We then tried Dreamwalker on Heroic, which was terrible.  Apparently mobs come out faster, hit harder and have greater health.  Each time, we just got overwhelmed really fast.  I mean, both of us Hunters had to act as pseudo-tanks at times, just to give others time to clear out other mobs. 

After three tries or so, we realized it wasn’t going to happen.  We switched back to normal and pretty much cleaned house.  It’s just simply amazing how the jump between Heroic and Normal modes is for certain encounters.  Although our raid leader proudly pointed out that we had cleared 7 bosses on Heroic so far, which was better than most other guilds short of the high level guilds on the server.  (And if I’m not mistaken, I think the other 10-man Palidrons raid team has only done the Gunship battle on Heroic.) 

We took a few swipes at Sindragosa, but a couple of guys, mainly the two PUGs, hadn’t really seen the fight.  Well, the Mage had seen it, but on his healer.  And even then, you have to adjust to how the group you are with does their particular strategy.

Actually, one, slightly humerous thing did occur and more or less illustrates how Rodman and I have developed a decent playing relationship.  Our raid leader was discussing how we handle the ice blocks for the air phase.  He was trying to describe where to stand when Rodman and I both shot are flares within a second of each other.  Not only did we time it almost pefectly, we also managed to target the two different spots rather than both of us flaring the same spot.  Okay, so I thought it was cool. 

We only did two or three tries but called it a night.  Not sure if we’ll raid again tonight.  Sounds like the raid leader is leaning towards reseting the instance next week rather than trying to shoot for downing the Lich King again.  I still want to take him down but we have shown that we can take down several bosses in Heroic mode and it would be a shame not to better ourselves on them at the same time.  I know the Saurfang and Marrowgar fights could definitely use some polish.  Plus, it means more chances for loot!