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.\u00c2\u00a0 The considered going into the next night but reverted back to the 10-man teams instead.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
As usual, we ran the Lower Spire on Heroic.\u00c2\u00a0 It did managed to net me the Linked Scourge Vertebrae<\/a> from Marrowgar.\u00c2\u00a0 Deathwhisper was a repeat of the tactic with the mage going to the center of the room with Blink<\/a> and then casting Ice Block<\/a> but at least this time the tanks were ready.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Gunship had me in one of the cannons but I’m familiar with it so it was no big deal.\u00c2\u00a0 Saurfang was mildly chaotic, which is where I spent the night being pissed off.<\/p>\n I was on the left, with\u00c2\u00a0 a shadow Priest to my left, on the extreme wing and our Shaman in center.\u00c2\u00a0 Now the Shaman decided to use his Thunderstorm<\/a> ability, or at least I think that was it, which was a little different than what we do.\u00c2\u00a0 And would have been good, if he was able to get it off immediately.\u00c2\u00a0 When he didn’t, the knockback would push the Blood Beast<\/a> I was trying to kite off to my left, avoiding my Frost Trap<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Then the Blood Beast would be coming\u00c2\u00a0at me at an angle I wasn’t expecting, without being slowed by my trap, and\u00c2\u00a0practically on top of the\u00c2\u00a0shadow Priest, and if I wasn’t on the ball, it meant the\u00c2\u00a0shadow Priest would\u00c2\u00a0grab aggro enough to pull the Blood Beasts’ attention long enough to kill the Priest.<\/p>\n 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.\u00c2\u00a0 And then I got a lecture about what Hunter’s need to do to the Blood Beasts.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n I told the Shaman that his knockback was causing more problems then helping but he still did it for awhile.\u00c2\u00a0 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<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Fortunately we stopped there because I just wasn’t up for it anymore.<\/p>\n The next night we blew through Plagueworks, Festergut and Rotface on Heroic, Putricide on normal.\u00c2\u00a0 Then we took on Crimson Hall in Heroic.\u00c2\u00a0 For Blood Prince Council, the first try was a wipe because somehow a Kinetic Bomb<\/a> 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<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n And the crappy part?\u00c2\u00a0 When I saw the warning for the vortex, I had already stopped\u00c2\u00a0 and was in the clear.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone else ran towards me just as it went off and kicked me across the room.\u00c2\u00a0 And then I got another lecture about how the Hunter’s can’t let the Kinetic Bombs touch the ground.<\/p>\n 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Heck, we’ve been running ICC for months now, it’s not like we suddenly became idiots!<\/p>\n Fortunately we had better luck on the second try but I was still a little pissed.\u00c2\u00a0 Blood Queen went well although I lost out on the roll on Stakethrower<\/a> to the other Hunter.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s how that night ended.<\/p>\n The next night, it was decided to try Dreamwalker on Heroic.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s also where we spent most of the night.\u00c2\u00a0 Initially we did our usual “everyone dps what you can in the right order” but we became a little unbalanced on adds.\u00c2\u00a0 I was then assigned to the “right” side of the room with our Death Knight tank.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n And it worked out pretty well on our side.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d drop Frost and Snake Traps<\/a> and the DK did a good job of using them as well.\u00c2\u00a0 Between the two of us, we usually could destroy the Zombies pretty well.\u00c2\u00a0 I did screw up once because I kited too far away from the healers, but otherwise it was good.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00c2\u00a0 A lot of the fights it was “just hold out just 30 more seconds” type of things.\u00c2\u00a0 We were just so glad when we finally succeeded.<\/p>\n Sindragosa was almost anti-climatic at that point.\u00c2\u00a0 We managed to one-shot her again, and so we’re planning on trying her on Heroic next week.\u00c2\u00a0 For the most part, the fight is the same except when you screw up, you’re immediately dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Should be interesting.<\/p>\n We did a couple of tries at Lich King, mainly trying out a few adjustments to our strategy and some different placements.\u00c2\u00a0 But we were all just worn out by then so I don’t think we were fully serious about it.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n The next night, our regular raid leader was back, who’s our main tank.\u00c2\u00a0 Who then decided we would just single tank the fight.\u00c2\u00a0 And the first time, we got to the transition phase after the second phase before wiping.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n But on the second try, we actually did it.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Oh yeah, did I mention that I was the only\u00c2\u00a0Hunter on that night?\u00c2\u00a0 And the drops from the Lich King were the Tainted Twig of Nordrassil<\/a> and the Windrunner’s Heartseeker<\/a>?\u00c2\u00a0 I ended up with both but I\u00c2\u00a0ran the numbers and\u00c2\u00a0neither one\u00c2\u00a0really is an upgrade when you come down to it.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0At least not for pure dps.\u00c2\u00a0 I may keep the Heartseeker around for the stats though.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n So, after two tries, we were done with ICC for the week and we then made our way over to the Ruby Sanctum.\u00c2\u00a0 We cleared the mobs and mini- bosses with no issue.\u00c2\u00a0 But for Halion himself, we had a long discussion on who would dps from the physical realm and who wouldn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Oddly enough it centered on me, but I wasn’t involved with the argument itself.<\/p>\n