Don't Worry, Li'l Buddy

I'm a vegetarian.

New Directions, Shameless Plugs

I haven't had much of interest to comment on lately, though I fully expect that to change once 3.3 goes live and the guild starts hitting Icecrown. We've been spending a lot of time gearing people up in Ulduar, and farming ToC and Onyxia.

As there is little in either raid in the way of upgrades for Eidtalheg, and to avoid burnout, I've been spending quite a bit of time running heroics on my Death Knight, whose Armory link I've added to the sidebar, and learning the intricacies of tanking. It's fun! With luck, I'll be bringing her to an Ulduar gear-up night soon.

I've made a few changes to the blogroll; a couple of much-loved bloggers have decided to move on to other things, and I wish them the best. I've also added a few DK-centric blogs I enjoy.

Finally, I want to draw your attention to a webcomic drawn and written by tabletop-gaming cheerleader, guild-leader emeritus, and rather nice guy, Shawn Gaston. It's set in the grim dystopian steampunk future of a fantasy world, and features a mix of action, intrigue, and humor. You go there now!

From Hell's Heart, I Stab at Thee!

Yes, at long last, I've gotten my very own Yogg kill. Even after clearing the next tier of raiding content, and knocking out a number of Ulduar hard-mode encounters, finally beating He Who Haunts Orthodontists' Nightmares was still a supremely satisfying experience.

The night began with our guild's first attempt at the Assembly of Iron's hardest mode, killing Steelbreaker last. After learning and mastering the frantic shield-tranqing and add-killing of medium-mode over the past couple of weeks, the general impression was that taking down Steelbreaker last is, well... pretty easy. Yes, he has a 100% chance of killing whoever tanks him, but realistically, with fair DPS, he will go down soon after the first tank explodes.


We then made our way through Mimiron (within seconds of a death-free victory) and a repeat of Hodir and Vezax hard modes, and moved on to the endgame. This fight really comes down to execution on the part of the brain-room team; as long as everyone on the surface can stay alive and sane, getting to phase three well before the enrage is entirely a matter of pounding on Yogg's brain, and after a couple of false starts last night's group performed admirably.

Upon seeing phase three for the first time, my first impression was, "gee, there are a lot of Immortal Guardians!" This was followed quickly by, "gee, there are a lot of dead raiders!" But, with fewer missed portals during phase two the next time, and better damage allocation between Guardians and Yogg himself, our victory was secured.

Does Anyone Else's Pumpkin Smell Like Tangerines?

...I licked mine...

We're Coming For You, Giant Constellation Man!

Last night's raid was a thing of beauty. Now that we'd got a handle on Yogg, it was agreed that there was no time like the present to begin pushing through the requisite hard-mode boss fights to unlock Algalon, as well as those needed for Glory of the Ulduar Raider along the way. So, with some trepidation as we were lacking a couple of key raid buffs, we undertook the initial task of retrieving the Archivum Data Disk from the Assembly of Iron. It took a few tries, but once we saw how Molgeim's adds behaved, we realized they could be AoE'd down before they had a chance to do much damage. Step one...

...complete!

Next up was Hodir. Since this hard-mode simply requires defeating the boss under a certain time limit, it is much like its normal counterpart - only moreso. Stacking all of the available buffs is non-optional. It is also necessary for the raid leader to know when to call for a wipe, to avoid accidentally killing Hodir after the timer has expired. Again, after a handful of tries...


...bam! We were rolling now.

Despite our newly-inflated confidence, we weren't quite intoxicated enough to push the Big Red Button, so after dispatching Mimiron the old-fashioned way, we decided to spend the last half hour of the raid on Vezax and the Saronite Animus. Without saronite puddles to stand in, mana efficiency becomes even more important for healers, which also means that not getting hit by life leech and shadow crash is even more important for the rest of the ranged. We gave it several attempts, the clock ticking ever closer to midnight, until, on what would have been our last attempt:


Victory!
/dance on a big dead lobster

So, yeah.

Gang of Miscreants Declare God is Dead!

When reached for comment, Friedrich Nietzsche said "told you so!"

Yes, after eight weeks, and at least as many hours, worth of attempts, The Pig and Whistle Society of Kirin Tor has defeated the Old God of Death!

...I was not present for this raid. FUCKING HEADACHES.

But nonetheless! I am profoundly proud of my guild. Where some might have jumped ship in frustration, we went back, week after week, until we got it right. And it never became a matter of banging our heads against a wall; every week saw marked progress. We went from wiping on phase 1, to wiping due to missing the brain-room timer, to making it well into phase 3, until finally... we just didn't wipe at all.

Now, on to hard modes!

You Are Going to DPS Very, Very Slowly...

Some might call me a masochist, but sometimes it feels like a victory just isn't worth claiming unless it's been preceded by hours of futile, mind-numbing failure.

That's what we encountered in Onyxia redux Tuesday night. We had enough interest to put together two 10-man raids, each led by someone who was at least familiar with the encounter at level 60. And, truth be told, our strategy seemed sound: phase 1, burn the dragon while standing well away from her huge ass; phase 2, group up around two tanks to AOE the whelps, dodge Taco Breath, and kill the Guards from range to avoid their Blast Nova; phase 3, burn the dragon while positioning ourselves so as to avoid being feared into the pits-of-many-whelps. E-Z.

Only, not. We spent three hours regularly dieing at the phase 2 -> 3 transition. From my perspective, it seemed that we were losing too many people to Blast Novas and Deep Breaths. This led to an overabundance of adds due to lack of DPS, or, when a healer or tank was the victim, well, we know what happens then. Eventually, we just had to give up.

The odd thing is, when we gave it another shot last night, with many of the same people from Tuesday and a basically identical strategy, we took her down in one try. The only difference I could detect was perhaps a marginal increase in DPS over night one, as the Guards seemed to be dispatched slightly more cleanly than before.

Anyway, after banging our heads against a wall all night, victory was that much more glorious once we found the door. Now, mount farming!