Lo-Quality WoW

Considering all the bad luck I’ve been having with Trial of the Champion with my hunter, I decided to focus on getting dailies done and building my cash reserve. And naturally, I didn’t quite get that far. It was a busy weekend in RL, so by the time I got a chance to get on to Wow, I didn’t always finish my dailies in time. But conversely, I did end up in Ulduar a bit so it was a trade off.

This time I got pulled into an Ulduar 25. The Agency had partnered up with PALIDRONS but still had a couple of open slots, of which I was one of them. From what I understand, several members of PALIDRONS was in the Agency previously, which is why they got together, similar to how the Plush Kitty Toys and Solitaires did stuff together for a bit.

As usual, the run seems to be heavy on druids and paladins. Mix of tanks with a warrior, a paladin and a druid acting as the tanking units. Healers were also a various bunch with druids, priests, and a paladin or two. Dps was a decent mix of ranged and melee. And instead of being the lone hunter, there were actually three of us total. I’d run with both of them before and I knew they were both marksman hunters and have an annoying habit of out dpsing me.

So the first night, as usual, the big game begins with Flame Leviathan. As straightforward as it is to be in the siege tank, I was determined to be in something else on this run. I ended up driving a demolisher. One of the PALIDRONS was my gunner, who probably was wondering what the heck his driver was doing but he didn’t complain to me. Took only minimal damage during the trash fights, which was nice. The FL fight was pretty straightforward, I stayed at range bunched with the other demolishers, lobbing an occasional pyrite barrel. When we got low on pyrite, I drove towards one of the pyrite containers and the gunner was on top of things in grabbing it as soon as we were near enough. FL went down with no loses and it was the loot game. Now to remember to grab a cycle the next time I’m in there.

Next was Razorscale. They did setup and then someone asks “so, should we have a hunter do the harpoons.” “Okay. Keya, you’re on harpoons.” And the first thing in my head was “please, please don’t lock up on this fight.” I haven’t done the harpoons before but it was pretty simple, just activate the turrets to bring Razorscale down. The main thing I had to do was to make sure there weren’t many mobs up when I did it. It actually was harder than I expected since it’s kind of hard to see who’s fighting what when you’re standing back there. Fortunately, Sentinels were up each time and I basically waited for them to go down before shooting the harpoons. After that it was the normal tank and spank with the tanks smoothly rotating the MT duties between them. Razorscale went down and I got my A Quick Shave (25 player) achievement.

XT-002 was next. This went pretty smoothly as well, although it could have gone a little better. We probably should have split up the ranged or assigned them sides for when the adds came out. We would go and focus fire on one group, turn around and then run to other groups of adds. As such, we let a few get through. I know I popped a bomb bot pretty close to XT-002 itself but there was no helping it.

After XT-002 went down, we hit Ignis up. This is where most of the night was spent. With 25 players running around and additional adds, it led to a lot of confusion during the fight. I know I managed to get the Hot Pocket (25 player) achievement for taking a dip in the slag pot. The ironic thing was that when I popped out of the slag pot, it was in the middle of the scorch attack area and I died about a second after I landed. Oh well. We wiped several times before it was decided to simplify things but having all the ranged and healers up on a ledge, off to the side. And naturally, once we were setup, we took Ignis down on the next try, allowing me to pick up the The Siege of Ulduar (25 player) achievement.

At that point it was getting late so we decided we’d take Kologarn but that was it for the night. And unlike the last time I was there on a Ulduar 25, where people seemed to take an almost demented pleasure in running the laserbeams through the center of the raid, we were well coordinated and managed to take him down on the first try. And that was it for the night.

The next night, I realized I had enough emblem of Conquest to pick up either the 8.25 tier chest or head piece. So I head to the vendor and realize I could also pick up the belt. Decisions, decisions. I reasoned that since my current belt was an iLevel 200 while the chest and head pieces I had were iLevel 213 at least, it made more sense to upgrade the belt first. You’ll see why this decision was important later.

So the next time in to Ulduar, we had a few composition changes and now we had 4 hunters. While this reduces my chances on any hunter loot it doesn’t really bother me. I just want the stuff to die. So first in and we head to the Assembly of Iron. This fight was pretty straightforward even at the 25-man level. We smash through all three members and I net my I Choose You, Stormcaller Brundir (25 player) achievement.

Next up was Freya. Having only just done the 10-man version, I was a little worried but everything was fine. The fights were relatively the same. We did wipe once against Freya herself. We had gotten the three elemental add group and we accidentally killed one of them before the others, which naturally resulted in them resurrecting and overpowering the group. Second time was the charm though and we sliced through Freya.

Then it was on to Auriaya. For this, they figured that since we have 4 hunters, we each would misdirect one of her accompanying cats to a tank. All good except we never really worked out who was misdirecting what to whom, especially since we only had 3 tanks. So I know we lost a few guys, including a tank, in the first minute but we were able to get everyone back up with some battle rezs. Otherwise, it was pretty simple fight, stand in front of her and stay out of the void zone if and when it spawns, which it did. She went down and I picked up the The Antechamber of Ulduar (25 player) achievement.

Here’s where my brief flash of jealousy showed up. Amongst the loot was a bright, shiny
Siren’s Cry bow. And I lost the roll, 37 to another hunter’s 45. Sigh, I bet if it was a gun I would have won the roll. After all, I’m finally sufficiently stocked up on Saronite Razorheads now.

Next on the list was Hodir. Always a bit of a chaotic battle as well. At least the 25-man version has additional npcs to help. Somewhere in all my running around, I did managed to pick up the Staying Buffed All Winter (25 player) achievement. I also managed to die, but at least half the raid did, so I didn’t feel that bad.

Now here, the 8.25 chest token dropped and I won this roll! I was so glad I hadn’t bought it with my emblems earlier, I would have been really, really pissed if I had. Now I’m just saving up for the helm token. Then I’ll have the 4-piece set bonus and it’s pretty decent for once. Just a little more…

At this point, my guildmate had to leave. I decided to hang in there for one last boss. This time it was Thorim. This time I was put in the arena area. Of the four hunters, they only sent one in to the tunnel, figuring the hunters would have a better chance of surviving the arena fight and they put all the cloth and leather ranged attackers in the tunnel. This meant that the tanks had to tank the adds at the edge of the circle with the hunters on the opposite edge to be able to do any reasonable dps. And we tried, and still failed.

A little more rearranging, another try, and another wipe. Third time’s the charm? Nope,. So we decide to call it a night since most people were pretty tired, including myself. And believe me, I’ve been paying for it all day at work today.

One thing I will note is that of the other three hunters, two were marksman and the other one was survival like myself. Now in the past, in multi-hunter groups, if I want the benefit of a marksman’s trueshot aura I’d have to run around looking for the MM hunter. With this group, although we didn’t discuss it, we made a concentrated effort of grouping all four hunters together. And it wasn’t the two SV hunting down the MM’s. The MM’s would also adjust to our movements during the various mobile battles. Especially during the Assembly of Iron fight when we all scatter to get out of the way of Stormcaller Brundir’s Lightning Tendrils attack, as soon as it was over, you suddenly saw all four hunters in a tight bunch, all shooting at the boss. It’s cool moment like that where you learn to appreciate other players who not only know what they’re doing, but work to the group’s benefit.

So I have a new chest piece and I’m getting closer to the head one. If they go in tonight, hopefully I’ll be brought along again. It’d be nice to get a clear although that may be asking for much with the weekly maintenance reset tonight. Oh well, we’ll just have to see how it goes.