Friday Fun Night – Saviors of Azeroth

This past Friday night, the guild went back into Dragon Soul to work on more achievements towards the Glory of the Dragon Soul meta.  We had most of the FFN peeps on: myself, Lyss, Slice, Van, Stunnah, Bocat, Shirl and Vaunt.  Yep, that’s two pallies, two priests and 3 warlocks…I’m glad this isn’t our regular raid comp, can you imagine the competition for tier tokens? ><  No Navi and Lush time around, so I invited Luxy to come along and Lyss brought a warrior friend, Critixix, who turned out to be an alt of Njeri, our long time guild hunter back in Wrath when we raided ICC.

We decided to leave the entire raid on Heroic, so we could do both Heroic Spine and Madness of Deathwing.  Solo-tanking Morchok and his twin was easy and so was Yor’shaj; we even left up two sets of blobs and those who needed the remaining combinations for Taste the Rainbow got that completed.

I guess we really like playing Ping-Pong on Zon’ozz’s fight, we just kept bouncing that Void Orb back and forth so much that a second one spawned right before we killed him.

Hagara, Ultraxion and Blackthorn went smoothly and then it was time for Deathwing.  We had a couple hiccups on Spine; on one attempt, we got to the final tendon, but we had too many people on one side and Deathwing rolled over and threw everyone off.  Another attempt, Van let Blood Corruption: Death run its full duration on someone to see if it would really wipe the raid…which it did. ><  The next attempt went much smoother and we finally got Heroic Spine down.

For Madness of Deathwing, we started out on Nozdormu’s platform to knock out another part of Chromatic Champion.  Everything was going great until we hit phase 2, when the Congealing Bloods came out.  We didn’t realize that they would heal Deathwing up 1% for each blood that reached him.  We tried to brute force it by burning Deathwing down while ignoring the Bloods, but we couldn’t catch up on dps and I eventually got smashed tanking the two Elementium Terrors and eating too many tetanus stacks.  The second attempt, we focused on the Bloods first, killing as many as we could and then the Terrors and used Lust after we cleared the platform.  Soon after, Deathwing fell and Heroic Madness was complete.

For killing Madness of Deathwing on Heroic, you’re rewarded with a pretty nifty title, Savior of Azeroth.

So all that’s left for the meta is doing Madness with Kalecgos’ platform left to start on and then we should have our mounts.  Looking forward to this Friday to finish this up!

The Heroic Tier 11 Trifecta

A couple of days ago, Adoe and I had a conversation about going back one night and doing some older raid content, like Throne of the Four Winds or Bastion of Twilight, for achievements and titles.  We attempted to get a Heroic Cho’gall kill towards the end of Cataclysm, but we just didn’t have enough dps to burn through him for a shot at Sinestra.

We didn’t have enough people on last night to do more progression work on Wind Lord Mel’jarak and we already cleared MSV the night before, so we decided to head out and do some Tier 11 content instead.

Our first stop was at the Bastion of Twilight.  We quickly brute forced, SR style, through the etinn Helpus Whinebreaker, the duo dragons Therma and Valouise and the Barbershop Ascendant Quartet.  We did the first three on normal, because we wanted to get though it as fast as possible, but looking back, we probably should have just done all of them on heroic.

Cho’gallbladder was more of the same, 30 seconds and he was down and we promptly fell through the floor, a la Trial of the Crusader-style, to meet P Deathy’s booty call, Sexy Sinestra.

We thought we could just mow right through Sinestra, but we were so wrong.  She still has abilities that can even one-shot the best geared level 90 raider, like Wrack and the beam from the Orbs.  You also are forced to deal with all three phases of the fight, so no killing her in phase one.  After the first three wipes, we took a break to watch a video of the fight to learn the mechanics.  After that break, the next attempt had everyone making it through to phase 3 and even though a couple of people ran the orb beams through the raid (lol), we finally killed Sinestra and got what is probably one of the best titles in the game, probably because we kill and ride so many of these damn things!

The next stop on our Heroic tour of Tier 11 was a visit to Uldum to the Throne of the Four Winds.  My first heroic kill of the Conclave of Wind, aka the Three Airmigos, was in an OpenRaid night I did last September.  So we broke some wind, quickly dispatching the trio, and met up with Big Weird Al.

Now I missed killing Heroic Al by less than a percent in the previously mentioned OpenRaid night, so I had no doubt that I would have my revenge this time around.

After riding like the wind for a bit, Sorak suggested that we do some OS3D for mounts for those that needed it.  I mentioned Nefarian and Blackwing Descent and some thought I was kidding.  Well, we did clear the first two T11 raids easily and we had about an hour left in the raid, why not? =P

Blackwing Descent was the last raid Moog/Wok did with us before he left to play something called Rift or Aion or whatever, so this was kinda of a homecoming for him.  Moog came back to us for MoP and has been an awesome monk co-tank with me and I can’t thank him enough for it, Cayle was just tanking the floor way too much, lol.

We again made quick work of another T11 raid, doing it all on heroic, defeating Mag-AwHellNaw-Maw, crushing Omnomnomnom-tron, putting Chimerella to sleep for good, gonging Altomedes and squashing Maloricrack.

Oh, if you kill Maloriak on Heroic difficulty without dying, you also get a nifty title.

Yeah, I had to grab Slice’s title, because I died at the end of the fight and didn’t get it.  I would say this is best title ever, even more than Dragonslayer, but the title is only a temporary one.  Booooooo, lol.  I guess Blizzard didn’t want us clogging up screen space, running around with this lengthy title, but nonetheless, it is still pretty awesome.

And here’s more achievement spam for BWD:

I got my Heroic Atramedes and Heroic Chimeron achievements in a run I did with the Frostees last July too. =)

At last it was Nefarian and Zombie Onxyia time.  Nefarian, the harbinger of Nightmares for me back when he was current content.  We had countless wipes on him, mainly because I couldn’t tank the Animated Bone Warriors right.  And there were night where I couldn’t sleep, just thinking about that fight.  Eventually, I got my act together and got those warriors to die properly, finally putting those nightmares to rest.  Still couldn’t sleep that night, though, only because the adrenaline was still pumping, hours after the kill, lol.

We made several attempts on Nef, most of it were trying to remember how to swim and jump up on the columns again.  And as with standard SR operating procedure, we finally got our kill on the last pull of the night.

So with all our achievements, titles and transmog gear in hand, we called it a night. Next up for another time is Heroic Rags for the Firelord title (which I already got =)) and maybe Heroic Deathwing for the Savior of Azeroth title.  Grats and thanks to all for a fun night!

OpenRaid – Extinguishing the Lord of Fire and Heroics, Heroics, Heroics Galore!

I have…..LEGS!!!

This past weekend was a very busy OpenRaid weekend for me, probably the last one for a while as we focus and progress through the land of Pandaria tomorrow.  All the raids were mostly successful; one was a miss and one was heart-breaking, sub 1% miss.

My OpenRaid binge started on Thursday night, where I got invited to tank a Bastion of Twilight Heroic Cho’gall 10 man raid, with possible work on Sinestra.  This raid was led by Agrophobia from Azshara, who made a comment during the raid that he’s been working on this fight for quite some time and had about 150 pulls under his belt with no success.  I think SR attempted this boss a couple of times, but we weren’t able to kill Cho’gall either.

We gave it a good shot, putting in about 10 attempts and getting to phase 2 three or four times, but we could not kill the two-headed monster within our allotted time.  I guess my date with Sinestra will have to wait for later. =(

Friday night, I signed up for two raids back to back; a Heroic Trial of the Grand Crusader 25 man and a Heroic Ragnaros 10 man.  The Heroic TotGC 25m was scheduled for 7:30 pm to 8:00 pm and was hosted by Zzigg from Zul’jin.  I figured this would be a quick run, since we had a full raid and we were not attempting The Traitor King achievement.

It took us a little bit to get everyone summoned and we didn’t get started until about 7:45 pm.  I got worried that we wouldn’t be able to finish the raid before I had to leave for my Heroic Rag run (which I preferred to go to and didn’t want to miss), so I whispered Zzigg that I would have to drop if we weren’t done by 8:00 pm, which she was okay with.  Thankfully, everyone cooperated and we zerged through all five bosses quickly and finished just in time for my next raid.

On to meet the Lord of the Firelands.

Prior to this run, I was already 6/7 in Heroic Firelands with SR and we also completed the meta achievements to earn our Purple Birdies.  I can’t remember if we ever attempted Heroic Rags as a guild, but this was definitely a kill that I wanted before MoP came out.

This raid was led by Wildlight from Hyjal and was supposed to go from 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm.  Wild had killed Heroic Rags quite a bit and actually put this raid together to get his buddy, who was helping him out with his OpenRaids, the Pureblood Fire Hawk mount (which Wild had reserved before the raid started).  Everyone was cool with it; I think we just wanted the kill for the achievement and title.

Even though we were decked out with DS gear, this fight was still not easy for us.  Wild started on his hunter, but moved over to his holy pally, and we also replaced a couple healers and dps that were failing to the easy stuff.  The first three phases of the fight are similar to normal Rags, except with increased damage and the World In Flames ability in phase 2 and 3.  It had been a while since I killed normal Rags, but I quickly remembered the “dance” of the fight.

It took us about 5 or 6 attempts to finally push Rags into Phase 4, where he finally gets tired of sitting in his lava pool hot tub and decides to comes out of it, where you can actually see his legs!  LOL.  And you get help from Cenarius, Malfurion Stormrage and Archdruid Hamuul Runetotem as well in Phase 4, how cool is that?  We had a trouble getting Rags caught in the Entrapping Roots that Hamuul Runetotem set out, which caused a couple wipes.  We kept at Rags strong all night, passing the designated stop time of 9:30 pm, but after a total 15 pulls and spending three hours in the Firelands, we came out victorious!

I was so excited about getting the Firelord title that even though it was getting late, I decided to sign up for another raid, Heroic Throne of the Four Winds, for a shot at another title, “of the Four Winds”.

This raid was led by Saltbutter from Zul’jin, and was scheduled for 1:00 am to 2:30 am, so this was already Saturday morning, lol.  Salt’s original plan was to do a 10 man version, but if he had enough interest, he would turn it into a 25 man raid, which is what happened.  I was originally set to go in as dps, but got asked to tank Nezir instead, which I was happy to do.

We had a lot of trouble with peeps dying on Anshal’s and Rohash’s platforms to basic mechanics and after a good hour, Salt decided to convert the raid to a 10 man version.  A lot of people were upset at this, but there was no way we could have completed the encounter with the some group not getting out of the bad stuff.  From what others were saying on vent, Heroic Conclave of the Wind is still one of the hardest T11 bosses to do, next to Heroic Ascendant Council and Sinestra.  I was thankful that Salt decided to keep me in for the 10 man run and after two tries, we finally got them down.

Next up was Heroic Al’Akir.

It was getting really late at this point, we were pushing it past 3:00 am my time, so we gave it about five tries before people had to log.  We had two attempts under 1%, which was so frustrating, but we just couldn’t push the dps over.  Oh well, gonna have to come back here later in MoP to get this one along with Heroic Cho’gall and Sinestra, lol.

The last OpenRaid I signed up for this weekend was a OS3D 25 man raid.  This was hosted by Saevia from Tortheldrin.  Now we’ve been running this raid in SR for the past month or so to get everyone their Twilight Drake mounts that drops from Sarth, but I haven’t been able to win it on my rolls.  Well, I guess it was my lucky night!

Whew, that was a lot of raiding this weekend, what a fun and exciting end to Cataclysm for me.  Now it time for the leveling grind to begin, see you all in Pandaria!

My First OpenRaid Experience – Heroic ICC 25 Man

I’ve been reading a lot around the internez about this website called OpenRaid, which is a website where you can organize or join cross-realm raids or PvP groups.  It’s pretty simple to join; all you have to do is create an account and supply your character(s) information and either your RealId or Battletag.  You then receive an email confirming your raid/group spot and off you go.  Easy enough, right?  I had some free time Sunday afternoon, so I signed up for a Heroic ICC 25 man run.  Here’s a description of the raid:

The raid was created/led by Travex from US-Khadgar.  The rules were laid out and self-explanatory and we started right at 2 pm.  We had a full 25 man raid and everyone was decently geared, so this was looking to be a quick run.

We killed Marrowgar so fast, none of the Bone Spikes came up, but we still got Boned, lol.

We had a hiccup on Lady Deathwhipser, there were some people in the raid that needed the Full House achievement, including me, but Travex apparently didn’t see that or misinterpreted the readycheck and we killed Lady so fast, so we missed out on that achievement.  Next was Lootship 1.0.  I already had the I’m on a Boat achievement, but it is currently bugged and you get it anyways even if people jump over more than once.

Deathbringer Saurfang also went down quick and he only got one wave of Blood Beasts out, and that was it for the first part of ICC.

Looting the gold off Saurfang also got me Got My Mind On My Money, the 100,000 gold version.  I know Arv had 70,000 of that on his own and with the new achievement sharing, my alts combined to make up the other 30,000.

Next was the Plagueworks, with Rotface, Festergut and Putricide, whom we all killed fairly quickly.  I rolled against another pally for a chance to do the Unholy Fusion part of the Shadowmourne quest and won, but I passed it over to him because he said that he tried to do it last week in this same raid group and wasn’t able to complete it.  Unfortunately, the encounter seemed bugged again for that part of the questline, because he was not able to gather up any of the pools. =(

Plagueworks done!

The Crimson Halls was next.  We lost The Orb Whisperer achievement at the last second when someone took a 7,500 hp shot to the face.  D’oh!  And I also missed out on the Once Bitten, Twice Shy achievement when a stupid feral druid bit me after I had said that I didn’t need to be bitten for the second part of the achievement.  /facepalm  Oh well, Crimson Halls complete!

The Frostwing Halls also went by quick, we had plenty of heals and people to cover the portals for Portal Jockey:

And Sindragosa was cake too, along with her meta, and Frostwing Halls was complete!

Onward to the Lich King!

We actually took about four attempts on this, as people were getting blown off the platform from the shadowtraps that were laid out in phase one.  But once we got everything right, the King finally died to our swords.

With that Heroic Lich King 25 man kill came one of the coolest, no pun intended, titles in the game, another one that I’ve been wanting to get for a while.  It even sounds paladinish too, lol.

The raid lasted about 2 hours; it would have been an hour and a half long, but we spent a little bit of time getting the Blood Fusion for a dps on the Blood Queen and obviously the wipes on Heroic LK.

After the raid is completed, you are sent a survey in your email that allows you to rate your OpenRaid experience and you can also rate your raid leader and raid mates as well.  The rating is then calculated and you’re given a sort of an ongoing OpenRaid reputation (Unfriendly, Friendly, Honored, Revered and Exalted) so that you can see who are the good players who play well with others from the baddies.  So you better be on your best behavior if you want to get invited to another, lol.

So after all that, this is what I needed left to get my mount:

I’m hoping to find another group before MoP comes out to finish this (and my other metas I’m close to finishing).  My first experience with OpenRaid was great and hope that others will also try it out.  Maybe I’ll see one of you guys out there, so go sign up!