Lo-Quality WoW

I finally got myself into a 10-man Trial of the Crusader last night. Only problem was, I was half asleep when we did it. Fortunately, I didn’t make too many mistakes, especially since it was the first time I saw the majority of those fights. Maybe I should be half-asleep more often on the raids.

But first a few other things I accomplished the past few days. I’m getting closer to getting my Brewmaster achievement. Fortunately, they also extended Brewfest itself by two more days so I’m certain to get it this time.

I finally got my Argent Confessor achievement, defeating Vashj, VanCleef, Delrissa, Eck and Ignis. I still have yet to see Hogger though. Why is that guy hiding from me?

Joined in on an Agency-led raid on Onyxia, 25-man. I’m glad I fought her once before she upgraded. For the most part, the fight went pretty well. We did wipe a few times though. On one of them, it was when Onyxia was in the air, phase 2. I’m firing away when I see the flash that warns me that I’m pulling aggro. I figured I pulled the aggro on an add somehow, so I did a feign death. However, when I popped back up, I still had aggro on something. That’s when I noticed I was one of only three or four people left alive. Oops. So it did take us three or four tries but we finally took her down and I got my Onyxia’s Lair (25 player) achievement.

Last night I logged on, not even fully awake, when I get pulled into a Vault of Archavon 25-man run. Kind of funny how fast we’ve adjust to Koralon and his fight. Of course, I didn’t quite realized how wiped out I was until I glanced at my recount window and saw that I was severely under dps. Then I realized that my dps would be better if I would remember to get out of Aspect of the Viper. And if you’ve actually been reading this blog, you know one of my pet peeves is hunters who forget to get out of Viper. To me to slip out that badly, meant I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.

Anyway, we finish there and I head off to Ironforge to run back and forth on a riding ram, delivering kegs over and over like some lunatic when I get a whisper for an Agency Trial of the Crusader 10-man. Considering I’ve been trying to get into any ToC 10 for a month, I decided to push aside my weariness to give it a go.

So first was the Northrend beasts encounter. Last time I was in there, we were barely getting past Gormok the Impaler. Having read the strategy though, this time I made sure to focus on picking off snobolds when they appeared. Then I got one of the little leeches tossed on to my head. But considering I really don’t have many attacks they can interrupt, and it wasn’t hitting all that hard, I just ignored it and kept shooting. And it really didn’t affect me until we fought Acidmaw and Dreadscale. The snobold managed to stun me in range of some AoE and a I died.

We do wipe but again we go. Again, I get a snobold but I call out about it and one of the warriors came by to whack it off me. Which was funny since the same time he’s doing that, I’m shooting the heck out of a snobold on our mage. That’s the life of a hunter, ignore the small stuff hurting you so you can dps the heck out of something at range. This time, I again die during Acidmaw and Dreadscale but a quick battle resurrection and I’m back in the fight. Icehowl was almost an afterthought. I was worried that I would run the wrong way when he charged someone, and I did once, but otherwise it went pretty well. I even managed to get my butt out of the way when he charged me.

Lord Jaraxxus was next. I thought we were supposed to keep in a loose circle around him but everyone kept running around, especially one of the healers that after awhile I didn’t worry about being too close to someone else. That fight is mainly one that the healers really need to be on their game. The only difficultly I had was that for some reason Jaraxxus would spawn his adds on the far side away from me. So I ended up having to get close enough to shoot past him at the add, but not near enough that I slipped into melee range by accident.

The Faction Champions was interesting, mainly because it does require a brief reset of you mindset. Of course, it doesn’t help when one of your healers decides to stand by himself, away from everyone else, but still close enough to aggro the horde npcs. I’ve learned over the years that if everyone in your group is gathering to one side or place of a room, it’s probably a good idea to stand near there. So that was one wipe. Our second wipe happened when the horde rogue decided to pick on our healers. Third try, we managed to accomplish it. I even managed to do something I hadn’t done since Burning Crusade, chain-trap something. Otherwise, it was a typical PvP fight, burn down the healers, then take out the most dangerous opponents in order.

After them came the Twin Val’kyr fight. I wasn’t worried about the whole light/dark aspect since it’s almost like the various polarity fights. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to remember which one I had on me at any given time but the visual effect made it very obvious. For the most part, it wasn’t that bad, although while I was affected by the light buff, it seemed that the dark orbs kept slamming into my back over and over. But I know this was the last group I should be saying something like “the damn balls keep hitting me in the back!”

I can’t remember if we wiped just once or twice on it. But what we ended up doing on our last try was to forgo the usual split party fight and just did a focus attack on one of them. We switched buffs as necessary but otherwise we pretty much just burned the one boss down. Also didn’t realized that if you stacked a few of the like-aspect orbs, you would get an additional buff to things. But the focus fire burn down worked and I’m guessing that’ll be our strategy from now on.

Then it was on Anub’arak. They had our mage on permafrost duty. So we go in and it goes pretty well. We would take out one add as soon as it would appear but not worry about the second until Anub’arak submerged. This worked out pretty well, plus I would help out the mage by shooting down the orbs in the air to get as much permafrost on the ground. That worked pretty well. Phase 3 was mainly a chore for the healers again. Since my guildmate was a healer, I asked him about it and he said it was kind of difficult since expect for the tanks, you have to keep everyone “just barely” alive or else you heal Anub’arak too much.

Now here’s where it became very obvious I was half awake for this. We loot Anub’arak and I think “hmm, plate…forget it. Oooh, hunter shoulders. And an axe. Okay, go for the shoulders.” So when the shoulders were up, I rolled and then got some odd questions. I couldn’t understand why until someone re-linked the loot. The third item wasn’t an axe, it was Baelgun’s Heavy Crossbow! I almost passed up a chance to get an upgraded ranged weapon? Fortunately, since I was the only hunter, it defaulted to me anyway and one of the shaman got the shoulders. Not that I could complain about a nice ranged weapon upgrade.

Which led into my second sign that I really needed sleep. I got my shiny new crossbow and then thought to myself, “dammit, I need to switch ammo again.” Except I was already using a bow. With Saronite Razorheads. You know, the same ammo my new shiny crossbow can use?

Yeah, I was pretty out of it. But I got my Call of the Crusade (10 player) achievement and that’s what’s important right? I just hope I’m awake for the next time I go in there.

Otherwise, I thought the fights in Trail of the Crusader were pretty challenging and interesting, especially the fight against the faction champions. The only weird thing is that it felt to me as if the fights got a bit progressively easier, with the Northrend Beasts encounter being the most difficult. And even that fight, Gormok seemed the hardest with Icehowl the easiest of the three. But then again, maybe it was just my perception of things.

So tonight is the usual Ulduar 25 with Destinis Lords. We’ll see how far we get this time. I just wish I had time for a nap or something….