Lo-Quality WoW

Although I’ve been sort of under the weather for awhile, it was only a few days ago when I began to run a fever. So on Tuesday night I just did a 10 man and a 25 man Vault of Archavon runs, both relatively quick and easy. Emalon is so much easier when everyone pays attention and attacks the overcharged add. For some reason it was a lot of druid gear dropping, but I can live with that. Last night I was just going to log on for a little while to run a daily or two and then go to bed. Naturally, that’s when I got the opportunity to do a 10-man Ulduar run, from the start!

Of course I’ve been in there a few times, but it was usually on a run’s second night so I had no idea what the first couple of fights were like. I’d read up on them but it always makes the most sense when I’m actually doing the fight. But with this being a brand new run, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, no matter how achey or feverish I was.

Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one unfamiliar with some of these fights. One of our healers kept asking for refreshers or briefs on each fight. I did admit I didn’t know them as well. The last thing I want is to be blamed for causing a wipe, and if I went in hiding my ignorance, that would just make it worst.

So first up was Flame Leviathan. I knew it was vehicle fight for the most part. I asked if they wanted me in any place in particular, although I knew I’d be best off in a passenger/gunner slot more than anything. Fortunately, I saw one of the others standing by himself by a siege tank and figured he could use the gunner, so that’s where I hopped in. I believe I did well for the trash, I was able to easily switch from main cannon to anti-air shots relatively easy. And since I wasn’t driving, I didn’t need to know where we were going. There was some brief talk about getting an achievement on this run but the others decided against it. I was just excited to be in on the fight.

Then came the Leviathan itself. For the most part, the fight is “pound on it unless it decides to chase you”. The one time when the Leviathan had switched to our tank, I immediately popped our shield and the driver made an “expeditious retreat”. To be honest, I’m not sure if I should have waited on popping the shield since it’s on a 1 minute cooldown but considering we didn’t take much damage and nobody yelled at me, I assume I did it right. Flame Leviathan went down and I got my new Shutout achievement. Considering I have no idea what causes the System Shutdown, I’m glad we got it.

The next thing we went up against was Razorscale. Similar to Nightbane fight I’m familiar with, this had an air phase with a bunch of adds and a ground phase where we pounded on the dragon. I think was a little slow on switching over to blasting Razorscale, but at least I know what to expect next time. No achievement for it but we were able to down her.

Next up was the XT-002 Deconstructor. This fight I did mess up a little. I was assigned to take out the scrapbots, but I had trouble targeting them correctly. I need to remember to put together a macro for it. Fortunately the Boombots were a lot easier to hit. I know I also got hit by the bomb debuffs, and the main problem I had was to remember not to run too far away from the healers. Either way, it went down and I got the Nerf Gravity Bombs achievement.

Then we went against Kologarn. I misheard the instructions, I thought they had said right arm, left arm, then torso. Good thing I double-checked, they said to ignore the left arm. This fight was more than a little insane. I seemed to get the eyebeam attack quite a bit and it’s hard to run, make sure I’m not accidentally dragging the eyebeam through someone else, and still do my dps. I know he also did the Stone Grip thing on me at least once, which was sort of interesting since I personally got a little disoriented when I was released. And I wasn’t sure if were taking out the adds, since initially I didn’t see anyone else attacking them. However, when the tank holding them spoke up, I switched over immediately. But despite the chaos, we took him out and moved on. I always wondered where that bridge had come from…

Auriaya was next. First we took out some keepers and that took a little getting used to. Again with the “kill them at the same time” thing. Again, I probably need to put a macro together to target the orb that pops up. I know we were focusing on one until it was called out to switch targets, I even pulled Mudgie over just in case. Usually I’ll leave him to keep attacking the original target but I figured I’d better be sure. We took out the second one and as I turned back toward the first target, it died.

Auriaya herself was an annoying fight since I was told to bunch up with the rest and not to shoot. At least the raid realized that was going to be a limitation for me and was alright with it. Too many times I’ve been told to “bunch up” with the melee and still somehow do my normal dps output. I did cheat a little but dropping volley a couple of times and also using the brief few seconds after getting feared to hit her with a DOT and usually an exploding shot as I ran back into position. I still keep my raptor strike handy but it’s been awhile since I’ve used it so much. We cleared her, and since I had previously taken on the Assembly of Iron, I got the The Antechamber of Ulduar achievement.

Next up was Hodir, one of the few fights I already knew. And naturally, this is where we had problems. I think this one was a little confusing for the healers since I do remember having to blast a tree out of the ice at least once and I know I usually saw the angel pop up shortly after the first flash freeze attack. The frozen blows attack also seemed to take people out on a regular basis. We wiped a few times and since it was late for most people, we called it a night at that point, picking up tonight where we left off. All night doing fights I never saw before with no wipes and multiple wipes on the one I have seen. It just figures.

Didn’t get any loot the whole run. The one “hunter” item that did drop was a Bind on Equip item that I had previously purchased from the auction house. Then again, it was more important to me to experience the fights rather than get loot, so I was okay with that. They did indicate that I was still on the run tonight, we’ll have to see. I’ve been bumped for guild members before. Ah well, we’ll just have to see.