Wednesday, December 16, 2009

I Survived...

Hola blog lovers!

I know everyone was worried and interested to know if I survived the three day roadtrip bachelor party. Well, I am sorry to tell you that I did in fact make it home alive and I will still be updating my blog lol.

Fun, fun, times were had. This isn't the place to talk about them however, for this is a WoW blog and lets get into that shall we?

ICC 25 Raiding

Last Tuesday, patch day, our guild went into ICC 25 for the very first time and it was a blast. It was very refreshing to have new content to explore and new bosses ready to kick our asses. Trash pulls went pretty much to plan. We wiped once from being silly and not being used to trash that can actually kill us.

When then rolled up on the first boss....the Gate Keeper, aka Lich King's biatch, aka Lord Marrowgar. We wiped about 2 times before we all understood what needs to happen. It was very clear that half of our raid did not look up the fight before hand and had no idea what to expect.

It was also very clear that some of our raiders forgot / never knew how to raid in the first place. ICC so far in my eyes is a raider's raid. When I say that I mean that it is challenging, requires lots of teamwork and coordination, and needs a good raid leader.

Ya, remember raid leaders? You didn't really need them Naxx, but they did re-emerge with 3.1 dropped and Ulduar came out. Then the need for them dropped off for 6 months while everyone, including the majority of pugs, steamed rolled the Tournament. Well, now they are needed again and I am happy to announce that I am not leading the raid. The responsibility of the raids success does not weigh on me. Hooray!

We wiped two times before I completely understood my role and what I needed to do. It took about 10 other people, mostly melee dps, about 3 additional wipes =(. However, the attempt that we killed him was ezmode, even with only 22 people in the raid. It's amazing what happens when DPS spreads out and actually kills the people who are spiked /shock.

The loot that drops in 25 man ICC is no joke. Straight sexyness! Two 2hander Axes dropped and went to our top two melee dps. (More on this a little later)

Lady Deathwhisper

Yes, this ho was no joke. It seemed to me that this fight was Blizzard's way of saying

"Hey, in order to continue to get phat loot and experience bosses in ICC, you have to have very good dps and excellent coordination."

Fair enough Blizzard. In fact, I really like it that you took a stand. Hopefully you will stick to your guns and won't nerf it too much before we kill her. Noticed how I stated "before we kill her"? Yeah, that is because she whooped our ass. Like I said, alot of coordination and dps to kill her and we lacked a little of both. The closest we got her is to about 5% left before phase 2. Pretty good for only 22 raiders right? Eh..not really, but it was still fun.

Healing is pretty intense for her. If a melee dps pulls add aggro from AoE'n or being stupid, they will die. Not to mention that the left side reanimated mobs can 1 shot your tank if they aren't quick enough to run away while ranged dps kills him. On our best attempt, we got to 5% left on the mana shield (1st phase) and our 54k hp druid tank wasn't quick enough to see the mob coming and got 1 shotted.

Yes...one shotted. It isn't like you have a whole bunch of time to see them coming either. You have about 2-3 seconds from what I could tell. All you hear on vent was "Ranged switch to....nevermind...I just got ass-punched for 58k.

Deadly

We would have gotten more attempts on him, but our top two melee dps had other plans...

ICC will change things...

I stated a few months ago in one of the random articles about patch 3.3 will change alot of things. One of the things I mentioned was that a new raid will cause many guilds to disband and break up.

Now, my current guild has been around since Vanilla WoW and has alot of the same people still in the guild. I never would have ever thought that ICC would destroy them and so far I am right, but we have taken a mighty fine blow.

Our top two melee dps (6.5-7.5k DPS), DK and Ret Pally, which were also our best geared tanks (45k unbuffed HP in plate), decided to leave and apply for the top guild on the server.

Bah!

Worst thing for a guild to hear...EVER. Both of these guys had the top gear score in our guild and there was a reason for it. They got first pick at everything. They been in the guild and been on every raiding night (give or take a few) for over a year. They earned the right to get pimped out with gear by our guild. I am not saying that, but I am saying is that no one saw it coming and it did alot of damage.

The only thing that would have been worst was if our 3 main healers decided to bounce. Even then it wouldn't be such a huge deal....we have lots of healers in the guild that can step up in my opinion. It would suck to lose them, but I am saying that losing the Paladin and the DK was worst.

I'm not mad at them for leaving or trying to get into a more hardcore pve guild. I am pissed that they took the two level 268 2handers that dropped off of Lord Marrowgar 12 hours before they left.

/rawr

We were already in a rebuild process because we can't seem to get 25 geared people on at the same time. Now this? I am trying to stay positive, but when we only had 16 people online yesterday for ICC 25 and couldn't even break into 2 10 mans....

Outlook is looking gloomy. I swear to god I am a guild killer. Hopefully this guild will change that and make it through this rough patch.

Warlockin Mage Style - I make this look good!

My Lock has no surpass my Mage in gear thanks to the LFG Tool and the triumph badges falling from the sky.

I can now successfully rock out 4.2 dps in a 25 man and I love it. I was rocking a staff for awhile from the last boss in one of the new 5 man heroics, Pit of Saron. However, I got my hands on the sexy Polished Mage Blade from 25 man Onyixa.

Figures that the toon that I have raided Onyixa the least on, got the first 621 sp weapon. Damn RNG. Not that I am complaining! I really only need a few trinkets, one ring, and the off-hand from Heroic Halls of Reflection and I will be rocking damn near the best stuff besides drops in ToC 25 and above.

Exciting to say the least.

Now, if I can only get myself a Battered Hilt to drop....

Blogroll

I was out of the blogging world for 7 days and spent the good portion of my work day so far catching up on everyones stories on patch 3.3 and how super dope boy fresh bling bling w/ bbq tangy sauce the new LFG tool is.

I am glad that it is going over so well and I love it that Blizzard finally came up with something like this for the live servers.

I have been trying to find some good new blogs to put on my blogroll, but haven't found that many.

Darraxus's sister started blogging again and this time its about WoW! Come to find out, she is a good writer and very entertaining. Check her out if you have not yet.

Also, for all my Shaman lovers out there, make sure to check out Drug's last few articles on Shamans in regards to patch 3.3.

I should have a post on Friday that deals with all the elemental shaman changes out there with 3.3. So if you interested in that, make sure to stop back.

I now leave you with random .gifs that I find entertaining. Peace out!



3 comments:

Arioch said...

I need a raid leader!!!

I'm back to doing it for my guild it looks like. I'm just lazy deeps, I dun know nothing about other classes and roles. Why me????

I'm beginning to wonder if my guild will be one of the ones to fall to the power of ICC. I really want to buckle down and get this shit killed but I've got too many raiders that are just along for the ride.

River said...

I love ICC, it's back to seriouz raiding buziness. It's time for the real raiders Man up.

Darraxus said...

Welcome back brotha.