Rock Lobster!

Last week's raiding saw our first serious attempt on General Vezax. We ultimately weren't successful, but we did learn a few things; we all agreed that the fight isn't hard, but simply a matter of getting used to the correct positioning and movement patterns.

First of all, avoiding players afflicted by Mark of the Faceless is the number one responsibility of all ranged players. It heals Vezax for a huge amount per second, and, as with most boss fights, victory is a matter of ending the fight before your accumulated mistakes reach critical mass.

This brings us to the matter of bursting the Saronite Vapors. After a couple of attempts in which we had assigned a single ranged DPS (read: me) to Vapor duty, it became clear that this inevitably led to crossing paths with Marked people who were trying to avoid the rest of the raid. Simply having whoever happened to be nearest to a spawned Vapor take care of it was much more effective.

Finally, regarding Shadow Crash, move farther away from the impending impact point than you think you need to - 10 yards can be an unexpectedly broad area >_>

Making Friends

Egads, what a weekend.

Beginning Friday night, we cleared both the Siege and Antechamber, getting our first Orbital Bombardment in the process (Two emblems of conquest! Only ten more weeks, and I'll be able to buy something!). We are now beginning to hone our runs down to a level of efficiency at which we should be able to do a full clear in two nights of raiding, ala Naxx. I am especially proud of our progress in light of the fact that we have something of a rotating cast of raiders, with at least one or two Ulduar-virgins every week.

Saturday night was no less rewarding. We finally repeated our first Hodir kill (ok, so you don't actually kill any of the Keepers...), and even managed an accidental I Have the Coolest Friends. We then moved on to Thorim, who we had only faced once before, and not successfully. But, after a couple of attempts in which we got the hang of taking down the constantly spawning adds in time without pulling aggro off the tank (ahem... >_>), we defeated him quite easily.

Next was Freya, who none of us had actually attempted before. Our plan was basically to get some easy emblems from the three Elders, and then put in some time learning the main encounter. We went about clearing the trash (protip: according to one of our Paladins, the dragon mobs are immune to Repentance) and the Elders without much trouble.

The first couple attempts on Freya herself were indeed learning experiences; Snaplashers killing tanks, Gifts of Eonar not getting cut down in time, etc. But on try number three, everything just clicked, and, well...

(Protip #2: since the Snaplashers won't attack melee who are not on top of their threat list, Hunters can hit them with a distracting shot once their debuff roots them, allowing melee DPS to continue hacking with impunity)

Finally, we moved on to the Spark of Imagination (a.k.a. Mimiron's workshop, a.k.a. coolest trash pulls ever. I'm not going to spoil it for you - it was a neat little surprise for all of us :D). We rode the bullet train (You heard that right. Seriously, Ulduar really does get more awesome the farther in you go.) to Mimiron's inner sanctum, said hi, and were promptly vaporized. It was after midnight at that point, so we called it a night, content in the knowledge that the Old Gods and their minions will soon fall before us.

And, because I know you care, here's the weekend's hunter loot haul: Belt of the Blood Pit, Boots of Unsettled Prey, and Shawl of the Shattered Giant.

Don't You Wish Your Profession Got Loot Like Me?

I almost forgot!

Engineers - tired of getting useless gray items from "mining" mechanical corpses? Here's what I got from Flame Leviathan last night: 3 eternal Shadow, 2 eternal fire, 6 overcharged capacitors, and 19 saronite bars. It was totally unexpected, and I offered to roll to split it up after the fact, but hey - that's a lot of bullets. :D