Lo-Quality WoW

Well after the fun and games of the start of the 25-man raid, the next night was a no-go as most people didn’t show up, giving me a rare night off.  The considered going into the next night but reverted back to the 10-man teams instead. 

As usual, we ran the Lower Spire on Heroic.  It did managed to net me the Linked Scourge Vertebrae from Marrowgar.  Deathwhisper was a repeat of the tactic with the mage going to the center of the room with Blink and then casting Ice Block but at least this time the tanks were ready.   Gunship had me in one of the cannons but I’m familiar with it so it was no big deal.  Saurfang was mildly chaotic, which is where I spent the night being pissed off.

I was on the left, with  a shadow Priest to my left, on the extreme wing and our Shaman in center.  Now the Shaman decided to use his Thunderstorm ability, or at least I think that was it, which was a little different than what we do.  And would have been good, if he was able to get it off immediately.  When he didn’t, the knockback would push the Blood Beast I was trying to kite off to my left, avoiding my Frost Trap.  Then the Blood Beast would be coming at me at an angle I wasn’t expecting, without being slowed by my trap, and practically on top of the shadow Priest, and if I wasn’t on the ball, it meant the shadow Priest would grab aggro enough to pull the Blood Beasts’ attention long enough to kill the Priest.

Now if he got it before the Beast was past him, it was nice that it pushed it further away towards Saurfang, but when it pushed it completely sideways, it just messed things up.  And then I got a lecture about what Hunter’s need to do to the Blood Beasts.  I testily pointed out that if the Beasts are being knocked away from my traps and are chasing me full speed, there’s not much I can do.

I told the Shaman that his knockback was causing more problems then helping but he still did it for awhile.  Finally, he went to a straight stun on the Beast, which was actually better for me since it allowed me to stand still longer and trigger my Sniper Training.  Fortunately we stopped there because I just wasn’t up for it anymore.

The next night we blew through Plagueworks, Festergut and Rotface on Heroic, Putricide on normal.  Then we took on Crimson Hall in Heroic.  For Blood Prince Council, the first try was a wipe because somehow a Kinetic Bomb landed, one I apparently didn’t even see and then another one later on landed but I had just been blown across the room from it by an Empowered Shock Vortex. 

And the crappy part?  When I saw the warning for the vortex, I had already stopped  and was in the clear.  Someone else ran towards me just as it went off and kicked me across the room.  And then I got another lecture about how the Hunter’s can’t let the Kinetic Bombs touch the ground.

Still a bit pissed from the night before I pointed out that both Hunters had done it before but we can’t do a damn thing if a) we don’t see the Kinetic Bomb or b) we are blown across the room from where the Bomb is.  I mean come on, myself and our other Hunter have been through pretty much all the fights with them so we know what we’re doing and we’ve done it before.  Heck, we’ve been running ICC for months now, it’s not like we suddenly became idiots!

Fortunately we had better luck on the second try but I was still a little pissed.  Blood Queen went well although I lost out on the roll on Stakethrower to the other Hunter.  And that’s how that night ended.

The next night, it was decided to try Dreamwalker on Heroic.  And it’s also where we spent most of the night.  Initially we did our usual “everyone dps what you can in the right order” but we became a little unbalanced on adds.  I was then assigned to the “right” side of the room with our Death Knight tank.  Now in addition to my normal dps work, the Hunter’s were asked to kite the Blistering Zombies around since their explosions hit pretty hard.

And it worked out pretty well on our side.  I’d drop Frost and Snake Traps and the DK did a good job of using them as well.  Between the two of us, we usually could destroy the Zombies pretty well.  I did screw up once because I kited too far away from the healers, but otherwise it was good. 

But when it came down to it, it was a healer fight anyway and we wiped mostly when one of the healer’s would let the buff stack drop or something.  A lot of the fights it was “just hold out just 30 more seconds” type of things.  We were just so glad when we finally succeeded.

Sindragosa was almost anti-climatic at that point.  We managed to one-shot her again, and so we’re planning on trying her on Heroic next week.  For the most part, the fight is the same except when you screw up, you’re immediately dead.  Should be interesting.

We did a couple of tries at Lich King, mainly trying out a few adjustments to our strategy and some different placements.  But we were all just worn out by then so I don’t think we were fully serious about it.  Although most of the other got to see our Mage Ice Block, then get carried off the edge by the Valk’yr, still in the Ice Block.

The next night, our regular raid leader was back, who’s our main tank.  Who then decided we would just single tank the fight.  And the first time, we got to the transition phase after the second phase before wiping.  And that was mainly because we got scattered from a Defile cast, and when we entered the transition, half of us were on the wrong side platform.

But on the second try, we actually did it.  Even with the extra damage and life buffs, if you had told me that we’d be taking out the Lich King while single tanking a month ago, I would have said you were nuts.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I was the only Hunter on that night?  And the drops from the Lich King were the Tainted Twig of Nordrassil and the Windrunner’s Heartseeker?  I ended up with both but I ran the numbers and neither one really is an upgrade when you come down to it.  At least not for pure dps.  I may keep the Heartseeker around for the stats though. 

So, after two tries, we were done with ICC for the week and we then made our way over to the Ruby Sanctum.  We cleared the mobs and mini- bosses with no issue.  But for Halion himself, we had a long discussion on who would dps from the physical realm and who wouldn’t.  Oddly enough it centered on me, but I wasn’t involved with the argument itself.

Basically the raid leader wanted me in the physical realm because of my Sniper Training.  However the assistant raid leader felt that a Mage or shadow Priest should be outside because of their channel casts.  I just didn’t care, I just wanted to know where I would be.

It was finally settled on me being in the physical realm with the off-tank, his healer, and the shaman.  We actually wiped the first time but that was mainly because we hit the enranged timer when we lost one of our dps who hadn’t been in Ruby Sanctum before and didn’t know what we meant by “watch out for the lasers.” 

We did finally managed the kill, which was faster than last time but still a little rough around the edges.  Again, it was more for practice and skill development than anything else.  It also means a night off from raiding.  I could really, really use the break.