Resto Nation

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Tuesday for Covenant is 10-man day. For my group this means ToC and ToGC back to back. Yesterday we started off as we usually do, except we were one man light. Our resident feral druid had some RL issues to take care of so we decided to 9-man ToC (10) on normal mode to farm badges while we waited.

We one-shot everything straight through with only a few deaths in 33 minutes. It was beyond trivial. The was no challenge at all. When we were done we still had no 10th for our Tribute run. We waited a while, and then we waited some more.

People were getting antsy and annoyed, and some, more inebriated by the minute. We ended up shuffling people around and taking the Raid Leader of the guild’s Bravo Group, a DPS Blood DK. Healing was also switched around and instead of our usual Tree Druid our Enhancement Shaman went Resto.

Things went bad right away with 2 stupid wipes to Beasts. People were pissed and dropping vent so it looked like we were going to have to call it for the night. We took a quick break and regrouped.

Some how in the meantime we managed to pull our shit together. We got Beasts down on the next pull. Then Jarraxis, Faction Champs, and Twins were all one-shot. This put us back on Anub. After all the fail of the last two weeks we were eager to get the kill behind us. We had 47 chance left to do it.

When he died we had 39 left and it was 2AM. We did it. Not only had we cleared ToGC (10), we also claimed the second ever Undermine-US Horde A Tribute to Skill. I was elated. The giant monkey was finally off our back and we could rightfully claim our place as a top raiding guild on the server.

Here’s a breakdown of the final attempt. We ran with 2 tanks, a DK on Anub, a Paladin on adds, 6 DPS, a Holy Priest, and me on Koramoor, my Holy Paladin. The tanks and healers were using Flasks of Lesser Resistance.

The goal was a a hard DPS burn to 55% before the first burrow phase and then another burn to 30% before the second burrow phase. During the burrow phase we had 4 ice patches down in the corners of the room and kited in a modified X pattern (facing the back of the room, bottom left, top right, bottom right, emerge in route to top left). Scarabs were target priority over the Burrowers.

We got through the first two phases perfectly and were burning down to 30%. We hit our mark before the second burrow and Anub kicked off Leeching Swarm. I popped Divine Shield and Divine Sacrifice right away. The Enhancement Shaman popped Bloodlust. At 28% the Holy Priest died.

This left me to solo heal possibly the hardest part of the hardest 10-man encounter of the game. For the record I had 4500 HPS. I was also using Egg of Mortal Essence to haste my Holy Lights. I had a full mana bar at 32K. I only lost one other toon.

Aside from Anub’arak’s hard enrage timer he also has a soft enrage in Phase Three. Through all of Phase Three the OT is off-tanking 2 adds. 2 new adds spawn every 45 seconds. Because of the stacking damage buff the adds get it is impossible for the OT to tank more than 2, So basically when the last 2 adds spawn they will one-shot the OT and wipe the raid. You can see this at the very end of the TankSpot.com video guide for this encounter.

When Anub was at 1% the last two adds spawned. It looked like a wipe. Then Anub died, achievements popped on the screen and vent exploded into violent screaming cheers. As I took my shaking hands off of the keyboard I looked up and saw we had one toon alive, the Paladin OT surrounded by a Divine Shield bubble. He almost single handedly saved us from, and almost caused, the wipe. Here’s how:

At one percent he knew two things, the last two adds had spawned and were coming for him, and once they hit him he would die and we would wipe. So he bubbled. This let the 4 adds loose on the raid killing everyone instantly. It also gave 10 seconds for DoTs to tick and Anub was not getting healed. He landed the killing blow with a Hammer of Wrath. All I can say is pure fucking genius.

I would like to congratulate the entire team on this kill. It truly is a tribute to your skill as players and team members. We have achieved an elite level of play that the vast majority never will. You should all be very proud.

Now we have time to focus on the other monkey still hanging around, Algalon. In the meantime we’ll tighten up ToGC and aim for Tributes to Mad Skill and Insanity. I know we can do it and I can’t wait. I am one very happy Belf.

Heya everybody! I’m back!

So it’s been a little over a month and a lot has happened. Well, that’s kind of an Understatement.

Covenant has grown into a thriving 25 man raiding guild. We have had many guild firsts and the gear reset has given our progression a quick kick in the ass. We have many new toons who are working out splendidly and the old folks are doing well too.

Personally, inthe past month I have grown into the GM role and finished my 4th toon, The Priest. My healer collection is now complete. The new toon has given me hours of fun and I’m sure there are more to come.

Since so much has happened in the past month, here are some sceenshots to sum it up. Stay tuned there will be more back here shortly.

Guild First Heroic Auriaya

Guild First 25 Man Beasts of Northrend

Soop in a Tank

Toon #4: Priest Dings 80

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Last night was a good night. Much better than the previous. Due to a RL crit at work I was unable to post yesterday about our fail Monday on General Vezax. Do not worry I have notes and I will write a post-mortem strat soon. But until then, I have the good news of last night.

I t was a night of firsts and Acheivements. We got started a little late and took a couple players who don’t usually go on the 10-man run. We down Flame Leviathan with both Tower of Frost and Tower of Storms up after a few tries and earned Orbital Devistation.

From there we ran in and destroyed XT-002 Deconstructor as usual although it was a little slow this week (3:40 vs. 3:20 last week). From XT we cleared trash and downed Kologarn.

This week instead of heading straight to Auriaya we decided to work on our boss progression and attempt Iron Council again. We were a little more well informed than the last time we tried and I was prepared to spam Cleanse the MT when Stormcaller dropped Fusion Punch.

We wiped a few times but got the hang of the fight. On the fourth run we executed perfectly. Not one death. We killed Steelbreaker first and Stormcaller last. Next week we can try try doing Runemaster last.

We decided to cap the night with a quick Razorscale kill and called for the evening. A very solid run and good work from everyone involved.

I finished up my dailies after the raid and hit Champion with my new found past-time, the Argent Tournament. Kora is now an Exalted Champion of Silvermoon. Undercity is next.

I’m looking forward to more fun tonight with the Keepers and hopefully we can clear through Vezax again tonight. Good luck to everyone. We’ll need need it for the Giant Robot of Fail.

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Last Friday was my Birthday and it started out with the best present I could have hoped for, a dead robot.

I normally don’t get a chance to raid on Thursday nights due to my travel schedule with work. However last week has slow so I was able to get home early.

I was hoping to drag my newly minted Shaman through a Naxx 25 guild farm run since my wife was going to be at a kickball game. Raid time came and only 15 people of those who had signed up were online. We waited for bit and then just decided to 15 man Anub’rehkan. We had two tanks, too many healers, and not enough DPS. The disconnects and real life we ended up with 12 and just decided to call it after a couple of wipes to his enrage time.

On a side note, who even knew that Anub’Rehkan has an enrage timer…

This effort was fail, but we had the folks on to continue our progression 10 man Ulduar group instead. Wednesday we had cleared through Freya and were on our current brick wall, Mimiron. Readers of the blog will what happened last week. It was not pretty.

So back into the fray it was. We had a few folks who did not know the encounter to we explained it and they watched the video. Then we wiped. And then we wiped again, and again, and again. Although we were making progress through the phases with the new folks it was not looking promising.

I was getting late, quarter til midnight,  and I decided to give a pep talk. I said:

“Guys, It’s 15 minutes until my Birthday and all I want is a dead robot!”

Then we wiped again. We kept at it though and people started to get a little burnt out. The attempt was called for as people had to get to sleep before work on Friday. We made into Phase 4 with no deaths. All three parts of the mob were around 20% and we lost the off tank . At 5%, 8%, and 11% we lost the main tank. We had most DPS and the healers alive and started a frantic kite and burn. We lost a couple DPS and had the bottom and middle at zero and the head at 2%. Ranged DPS finished it off and we had done it. I got my dead robot.

It was messy. It was frustrating. It was epic.

We have now beat what is widely considered one of the most difficult and complex normal mode encounters in the game. It was a Major Lift! It was a “This is why I Raid!” moment. We got a hat and some clothie gloves for our efforts and called it for the night.

Tonight we play for all the marbles. It is our first shot at the last section of Ulduar and we are going after General Vezax and then, gods willing, Yogg Saron. I very much want to complete the clear tonight and I think we can. However, win or fail we have come far and if not this week, then next.

If I have learned one thing with this group it is that we shall overcome. We have torn down many walls in our quest for progression and we will keep tearing them down as we find new ones. Patience, dedication, and practice do make perfect.

On this my birthday weekend, the dead robot was not the only present I got. Last night during our 25 man Ulduar run I received my first Fragment of Val’anyr. I was very honored that the guild thought I should be the first of us to collect them. I usually don’t care that much about loot. I like shiny things as much as the next guy, but I am all for spreading the wealth. Val’anyr may be the one exception. I want it badly.

Right now it’s assembly is my endgame goal. For me it represents the ultimate for what I’ve tried to be in this game. It is truly legendary. You can track my quest for Val’anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings in the sidebar of the blog under Countdown to Val’anyr. It is going to be a long path. One that I am very excited to take. Wish me luck.

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Congrats to the NO DRAMA 10 man Ulduar team for downing Freya last night!

Strong leadership through calling out target changes and totem drops led to a decisive win and some shiney new tier 8 gloves for one of our DKs.

We’ve come a long way with the Watchers and very clear progress can be seen. We have gone from multiple wipes on each of the watchers to one-shots. First Thorim, the Hodir, and now Freya. Mimiron is next and started last night.

I was impressed the first time I saw the Kologarn encounter. That was epic. Travelling from the Observation Ring to the Spark of Imagination blew that away. One of the raiders said it was a straight rip-off of Final Fantasy 7. He’s right and it’s a good thing. Without spoilers, all I can say is it is awesome.

Mimiron is every bit as hard as people say he is. It is much more of a healer check than even the pre-nerf XT-002 Decontructor fight. We had 7 attempts with various degrees of success, all of them ending in wipes. We need to change a couple of things. We have Main Tank healing during Plasma Blast down, but we need to keep focus on Raid healing during phase one Napalm Shells as well. Once we keep everyone alive through Phase 1 we need to focus on Raid Healing through Phase Two and moving out of the way of Rocket Strike. If we can make it phase three with everyone still up I think we can finish out.

We plan to start early tonight and buckle down so we can get to General Vezax and hopefully Yogg-Saron as well. Wish us luck.

  Here is the WoL Report for the run.

The past two nights have seen real progress for the <NO DRAMA> 10-man Ulduar team. We downed Thorim two nights ago and Hodir last night.

These fights have been the most difficult for us yet. We wiped on Thorim a total of 21 times this week and Hodir a total of 13. Kora had some serious repair bills, but even so, downing hard fought bosses is why end-game raiding is worth doing.

Each of the two victories had keys to sucess. Here’s how we won:

Thorim

After defeating Thorim I half-jokingly said that Thorim is 100% add management. Our Arena-side Tank did not find this as funny as I did. However, it is kinda true.

The key here is for the gauntlet team to finish the second mini-boss and be running to Thorim at 3:01 into the encounter. Since we did not want to engage hard-mode just yet this leaves just enough time for Sif to leave the Arena.

The second key is that the Arena team needs to survive for 3:30. At least.

When both teams complete their tasks Thorim drops to the floor and should be a fairly easy kill at his point. We got him in one shot once we could actually hit him.

For our troubles we got Tier 8 Paladin Shoulders and Legacy of Thunder.

Hodir

The first key to Hodir is to not stand in the fire falling ice. The encounter is all about where to stand. The Cliff Notes version is:

1. Keep Moving! Biting Cold is bad.

2. Do stand under Icicle. Treat the blue rune warning as a void zone.

3. Stand on Snowdrift when it appears. Flash Freeze is bad.

4. Stand in Tor Greycloud’s Starlight and next to Amira Blazeweaver’s Toasty Fire. This means freeing the NPCs is a priority.

Key number two is Frost Resist gear. Get some. Now. Your tank should have three pieces, everyone needs two. With the Paladin Frost Resist Aura you should be around 300. Don’t forget to Gem and Enchant this gear as well. We wiped 12 times without this gear and once with it.

The last key is to mitigate Frozen Blows. Do this just like XT’s Tantrum.

This fight looks like it will be easier now that we have the gear and know the movement. It should be one of the easier Watchers to down.

We picked up some  DK Tier 8 Legs and Stormedge from the Cache of Winter.

Tonight we are taking the guild on a quick Naxx 25 farm run and then we hope to do Flame Leviathan and XT on hard mode. Reports on this tomorrow.

The best part is that we one-shot her right after one shotting Kologarn. Wow that was awesome!

After having a rough night in Ulduar on Tuesday I really wanted back in. We had a Guild 25 Man Naxx run scheduled last night for the new folks and alts so we had to put Ulduar on hold. After pulling folks through Arachnid and Noth we decided we had 40 minutes to at least step foot into Ulduar and do something. I was pretty vocal that I wanted to skip Ignis and Razorscale and head to Kologarn, who most of the folks had not had a chance to kill yet.

We cleared the trash to the stairs and I explained the fight. We ran in and cleanly one-shot him. Very proud and a little surprised we ran across the newly formed bridge and grabbed our phat lootz, the Emerald Signet Ring and Mark of the Unyeilding.

Too stoked to quit now, we decided it was time for one more boss. Looking over the ledge at Auriaya I convinved the team to give her a shot. All I knew was that she had cat adds and was supposed to be a very tough pull. That was more than anyone else. Frost went and watched the Tank Spot video and explained it to us. We cleared two trash adds and setup to try our next brand new boss. 

Here’s how it went down:

We pulled here from the left side. The entire raid stacked on the edge of the curve to right of the top of the second set of stairs. Shaq dropped his totems and we waited for her to patrol back. When whe was just before the end of her route Frost ran down, dropped Death and Decay, ran back and stacked with us, breaking line of sight with the panther adds. 

Chor picked up Auriaya and Frost took the adds. All DPS on the adds as we all stacked right in front of the boss. The adds went down and DPS switched over. Frost picked up the Feral Defender when it spawned. We downed it and ran down the stairs from the Void Zone. Rinse and repeat the next time except we ran up the stairs this time.

 At this point it really looked like we were going to get her down. 30 seconds later she was on the ground and sparkley. For our well deserved loot we got Elemental Focus Stone and I picked up Shieldwall of the Breaker for Kora’s tanking set. 

Brand new boss… one-shot. That was very cool. Congrats to everyone. Hopefully we can down dome Watchers tonight!

After defeating Flame Leviathan for the past 3 weeks, we downed him on the first level of his four hard modes last night and earned the Orbital Bombarment achievement as well as two Emblems of Conquest instead of the normal Emblem of Valor.

I was sure we had the fight down cold. To prevent it from becoming a lolfest I suggested that we leave up Thorim’s Tower (of Storms) up. We did and wiped once. We ran back, did it again and got it down. Ironsoul’s brother Firesoul dropped as well as Might of the Leviathan. We will continue to leave up one tower next week and and soon as we are comfortable with that I’d like to work on two.

Here is an how the towers work:

To start the event including hard mode options the Raid Leader needs to speak with Lore Keeper of Norgannon before Brann. This allows you to keep the towers up and active. Each tower adds something to the encounter.

Tower of Storms (Purple): Thorim’s Hammer. Deals Stormstrike damage to all enemies nearby. Additional damage is taken if directly under the impact location.   Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and does 25% more Physical damage. 

Tower of Flames (Red): Mimiron’s Inferno. Deals 150000 Fire damage to all nearby enemies and leaves a flaming blaze behind.  Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and does 50% more Fire damage. 

Tower of Frost (Blue): Hodir’s Fury. Deals 150000 Frost damage to all nearby enemies, entombing them in ice.  Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and slows vehicle movement by 20%. Ice tomb lasts for one minute unless broken or melted by flames.

Tower of Life: (Green): Freya’s Ward. Deals 13500 to 16500 Natures damage to all nearby enemies and summons guardians of nature to surround the enemy.  Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and decreases his fire damage taken by 10%.

Loot Changes:

No Towers: 2 Pieces of Regular Loot and one Emblem of Valor

1 Tower: 2 Pieces of Regular Loot and two Emblems of Conquest

2 Towers: Same as 1 Tower plus a Runed Orb

3 Towers: Same as Two Towers plus an additional Emblem of Conquest

4 Towers: Same as Three Towers plus an additional Emblem of Conquest as well as a Hard Mode item

It is nice to see Blizzard taking this approach in design. Flame Leviathan can either be a loot pinata or a very big challenge and rewards you accordingly. I am looking for ward to more of this in other Hard Modes. It should help keep the content fresh.

OK Frost, here ya go…

Last night was many things. Most important was the Guild First kill on Kel’Thuzad and our first guild Heroic Naxxramas clear. Congratulations Everyone! The loot was a DPS-fest (with a side of tank love) with Betrayer of Humanity, Journey’s End, and Last Laugh as well as a couple of Tier 7.5 Helms. As a holy paladin is was kind of sad not to see any of the the plethera of near best-in-slot healer drops, but there is always next this week.

Reaching this level of being able to organize a full clear of a 25 man raid, even at the lowest tier of current content is a very nice accomplishment. KT took us only a couple pulls with the only real problem being bad luck during the phase three adds. The only thing standing in our way of farming the whole instance is timing, scheduling, speed. We have proven we can do it, now we need to do it faster.

Speaking of speed, next on last night’s agenda was Malygos. We did not down him, but we were killed by enrage every time. This is a good sign, but it means that we lost the DPS race. This is fixable. We brought some freshly dinged under-geared toons with us and unfortunately I think that’s not going to be doable. We need to bring our best DPS to burn phase one and two faster. On phase three we need less healing and more of the DPS to make the follow happen after the drop and then spam their macro. I really wanted this last night, but I’ll settle for tonight. I think we can do this.

I’d like to get back into Ulduar this week as well, but for now I am quite happy with the 25 man progress.

On a sad note, we also lost a core member and guild commander last night. Learn was a casualty of raid schedules and our general lack of organization as we try to figure out how to get these 25-mans together. He is a great friend, player, and leader. He will be dearly missed.

We are so close. With last night’s Guild First Kill of Sapphirion, <NO DRAMA> is on the precipice of clearing all 10 and 25 man pre-Ulduar content. Holy Shit.

The guild leadership has been busting our collective asses for the past months to pull this off and we’re almost there.

The Guild First streak of this raid reset started with the downing of Thaddius, previously our biggest block. Now last night we finally downed 25 man Instructor Resuvious Mind Control style then rolled through Gothick the Harevester (harder than I thought) and The Four Hoursemen (much, much easier than I thought). We could not stop there and it was on to Sapphiron. The commanders decided that we go in blind as we seem to do best on botched pulls anyway.

We wiped. Not bad, but wiped none the less. We got back quick and did it again, and again, and again. We decided to make another run at it and call it night. Sapphrion was at 4%, I got tail swiped, Chorizo, our main Tank, dies. We wipe. We do it again. He goes down. I get voted to receive the Key to the Focusing Iris. I take of my headphones and do my own priviate happy dance. Victory.

This kill is a big deal for us. Sapphrion means that we now do heroic Malygos and KT is open. It is also the first really hard fight in WotLK raiding. We showed real progression. We got better. I think we can almost do Ulduar. Heroic Style. This would put us in the top 10 guilds on the server. Holy Shit. All of our work and dedication is paying off.    

Before we get ahead of ourselves, we have to make the final push to the Summit. We have one night to down Kel’Thuzad and Malygos. We will do it tonight. If everyone drops at 2AM and I have to PUG 24 other people it will happen tonight. To sweeten the deal and stoke the fire, as soon as we down Malygos we are taking the raid to Ulduar, downing Flame Leviathan and getting Heroic Ulduar loots.

I am so very proud. We have done the damn near impossible. We have built a viable 25 man raiding guild from scratch. Grats to everyone. You deserve it.