Category: ramblings

What a long road it's been.

Kurn / / apotheosis, general, raiding, ramblings

The last few months have been trying. Since summer, we’ve had trouble filling raids more often than not, people dropping off the face of the game, constant recruitment drives, constant pushing.

Frankly, I’m exhausted.

But. It’s been worth it. 4/5 Hyjal and 5/9 BT pre-3.0.2 nerf.

And since then?

– Battle for Mount Hyjal won.

– RoS one-shotted.

– Mother Shahraz down.

– Council down.

– Illidan to 17%.

It’s been worth it.

Let’s do the math. Since June 1st, 2007, Apotheosis has downed:

KARAZHAN (11): Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera (all three), Curator, Aran, Illhoof, Chess, Netherspite, Nightbane, Prince.

GRUUL’S LAIR (2): Maulgar, Gruul.

MAGTHERIDON’S LAIR (1): Magtheridon.

SERPENTSHRINE CAVERN (6): Hydross, Lurker, Tidewalker, Leotheras, Karathress, Vashj.

TEMPEST KEEP (4): Al’ar, Void Reaver, Solarian, Kael’thas.

HYJAL (5): Rage, Anetheron, Kaz’rogal, Azgalor, Archimonde.

BLACK TEMPLE (8): Naj’entus, Supremus, Akama, Gorefiend, Bloodboil, Reliquary of Souls, Mother Shahraz, Illidari Council.

That is THIRTY-SEVEN boss encounters in 17 months, or an average of about 2 bosses a month. Karazhan doesn’t really count, of course, but we all had to learn and farm various bosses over the course of the last 17 months.

We got Illidan to 17% last night. Standing there, looking at him, it occurred to me that we wouldn’t be there if not for every single person who’s every had Apotheosis under their name. Where would we be today if Grim and Guido hadn’t been there with us to clear T4 and the first half of SSC? Where would we be today if Fog and Netsuge and Kaiu hadn’t been there with us, showing up to raids to do whatever they could to help while helping to hammer out policy behind the scenes?

And what about all the new people? Where would we be today without the new folks who took a chance on us, coughed up 25 bucks and transferred?

The answer to all of those questions is… we wouldn’t be looking at Illidan again tonight. We would not be on the cusp of clearing Black Temple. We would not be able to even THINK about saying we achieved our primary raiding goal that we set when we first created the guild.

It promises to be a good evening. Apart from anything else… the zombies are gone. Thank God.

GM thoughts.

Kurn / / apotheosis, ramblings

More and more, as we push through T6 instances and as we rapidly approach 3.0.2 and the expansion itself, I think that the job of a guild master is to basically be on top of things. All things. But it doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself.

For instance, in a raid, letting someone else do DKP is fine, but confirm they handed it out before you start bids on loot. Or maybe having an officer be master looter but offer to give out the Marks of the Illidari yourself or something like that.

What I’ve found myself bogged down by lately is the details of titles and attunements. With 3.0.2 hitting next Tuesday (probably), and with Hand of A’dal and Champion of the Naaru no longer being accessible, the scramble is on. We did our last Karathress kill on Sunday, followed by 7 attempts at Vashj, to no avail. Only two people need a Vashj vial, basically, so I can’t ask my guild to be like “hey. Let’s go wipe MORE on Vashj just for these two people!”, despite the fact they both were there night in and night out while learning Vashj.

And then tonight, I’m planning on Al’ar, then the first four bosses in Hyjal, to finish off five people’s BT attunements. But one of them has class and won’t be on ’till 9:30 or so and it’s like… crap. I can’t reschedule the kills because of one person’s schedule, because that would mean 2 or even 3 people wouldn’t get their BT attunement done before 3.0.2.

I’m hoping for another Kael kill on Thursday or Monday and then being done with TK as well as SSC, but if we don’t get him down, that’s another bunch of people I’ve let down.

The details weigh on me. I constantly have to reign in my own “but.. but… we have to do it for this one person!” side versus the “I must do what is best for the guild!” side. But really, isn’t what’s best for the guild what will make the guild members feel valued and appreciated? Does everyone just want progress and loot for themselves without thinking about how bad other people feel when they see guildies with Hand of A’dal over their heads, and they don’t have that title?

I mean, I’m even running a guild-pug Magtheridon on Friday to help people get their Champion of the Naaru title, for crying out loud. I haven’t even done the heroics for it and yet I feel obliged to help my guildies who want that title.

I’m even tempted to go back to SSC and Vashj on Saturday, but I don’t think I could get the people.

What surprises me the most, though, is that I feel like I’m the only person who’s keeping track of this stuff for people. All the officers are Hands of A’dal. Most of the regular raiders are. But not everyone is, and, as we approach the patch, I can’t help but think that I’m the only one that cares, that I’m the only one who feels we’re letting people down. it’s not that my officers don’t care, but I don’t think it’s a priority for them. And it doesn’t have to be, I guess, not if it’s a priority for me, eh?

Teron Gorefiend – your ass is mine.

Kurn / / apotheosis, hunters, raiding, ramblings

So, my computer sucks. No, really. It does. It’s a laptop, integrated graphics card, etc. It sucks. To the point where if I’m the first on the constructs on Gorefiend, I will probably lag as I die and will miss the shackling of the constructs. I still lag when I’m not first, but at least others can help out at that point.

I have, therefore, been sitting myself out of this fight whenever we have enough healers to cover for me.

Sunday night, we had like, 10 healers online, so I sat myself and asked a couple people to alt or swap out and such.

They did six attempts with a couple of people DCing, a couple of people who had never attempted it, and then one of our mages (who lives in Malaysia with not the greatest internet connection ever) DCed again and finally, I had to swap him out. But who else was available? No one but myself. And on my HUNTER of all things, because we had enough healers.

So I macroed the spirit shackle, spirit lance and spirit volley spells to F1, F2 and F3 respectively, and went in, expecting to wipe the raid. As I have done in the past.

Well, our resident fury warrior had suggested to me that I bubble at the pull to ensure I’m not the first one marked for death. Lacking a bubble entirely as a hunter, I did what any hunter does when he or she doesn’t want to die. I feigned death right after the pull. And got back up after someone else got the shadow of death.

So I’m DPSing merrily away and noticing that the timer for the shadow of death is approaching 30 seconds on the first person who was marked. And that my Feign Death is similarly about to cool down.

As soon as FD cooled down, I feigned again.

And again, someone else got the Shadow of Death debuff.

Popped back up. More DPS. Feigned as soon as I could again.

This continued until Teron Gorefiend was at 25% and I stopped feigning and just poured on the DPS. In that fight, I used drums of battle twice, my trinket once, rapid fire once and beastial wrath once. And had a mana potion.

And didn’t die or wipe the raid. We killed him, our first-ever guild kill. And I was part of it on my hunter. And I wasn’t worthless.

It was hilarious. I was giggling with glee.

That said, bad timing might cause premature triggering of constructs in the raid, so I’ll try to continue to sit out, but at least I know I can help if I need to.

Beta!

Kurn / / general, ramblings

Thanks to a very kind and awesome friend, I have found myself in the Beta test for Wrath of the Lich King.

As such, I will be posting beta details and screenshots and stories here. However, I’ll do my best to keep spoilers under the “more” section of the post.

More soon!

Ups and downs.

Kurn / / apotheosis, raiding, ramblings

I’ve (re)discovered that the life of a guild leader (be it GM, officer, class lead, what-have-you) is full of ups and downs.

Supremus down last Monday. I didn’t even get into the raid, because I had to go to my brother’s college graduation. So I got home and told the officers I was on standby… and they’re like “uh. Supremus down.”

Which, you know, is great. And I’m proud of them and I’m glad they could do it without me. I was called in after a pally had to go so there we went, clearing to Akama (we accidentally poked our noses into Gorefiend’s room first, oops) and gave it Shade of Akama a few tries before ultimately calling it. Good night, though. Progress!

Tuesday, it was back to Hyjal for some beating up of bosses, only we had a lot of trouble on Anetheron, which left me wanting to throttle most of the DPS, but eventually he went down and we went up and wiped on Kaz’rogal due to a bad initial pull on him. Meh, it was late, we called it.

Thursday… we cancelled. Because we had something like 10 cancellations and some “I may not be able to make it” type signups.

Then this Sunday was my mother’s birthday, so when I got home, they had just killed Azgalor. Again, a first kill without me there! I’m beginning to feel superfluous. ;)

Monday saw two tailors and a blacksmith hit honored with the Ashtongue Deathsworn as we killed Naj’entus and one-shotted Supremus and tried Shade of Akama a couple more times.

Don’t get me started on how we’re failing at “the chess event of Black Temple”. It’s the easy fights we have problems with. Lurker? Bitch and a half to learn. Vashj? Learned it quickly, took a while to execute, but ultimately, we got better just about every time we tried. All of Hyjal? Easy mode, thus far. (I have no illusions about Archimonde…) But BT is proving challenging for us. Naj’entus – people are killing others by not waiting for the heals to finish. Supremus – people are standing in fire. Shade of Akama – things are getting loose and eating mages and healers.

Practice makes perfect, I suppose, but it also makes for one hell of a rollercoaster ride.

In other news, Season 4 comes out today. I don’t much care for my own toons, except that I put up 37 gems last night and have a ton of enchanting mats, so I might make a fair amount of cash over the next day or two.

Wow.

Kurn / / apotheosis, raiding, ramblings

We did it. We actually did it. We downed Vashj and cleared SSC on Monday, June 2nd, 2008.

http://files.filefront.com/apotheosis+vs+vashjavi/;10483306;/fileinfo.html

I HIGHLY recommend you download the full movie to your HD and watch it full-screen.

Notable moments:

4:40ish – Dayden (whose POV this is from) takes a second from tanking a Naga and hammer of wraths the leaked elemental.

East side had the first tainted, but I believe all three others were on the west. Go Toga and Mass and Kam!

7:00 – Phase 3 – enrage in 4 minutes. You’ll note the length of the video is 11:12. Hehe.

The pallies do a good job of keeping Blessing of Freedom up on the tanks, too!

8:50ish – You can start seeing sporebats, oh dear.

9:05ish – Warthon starts getting beat on and eventually goes down. In the span of three seconds: static charge from a nearby raid member, a swing, a shock blast… with very few heals because we were all chasing them around.

He gets a battle rez about 10 seconds after he dies… and the druid who rezzed him had static charge. 3 hits of that, bam, dead Warthon.

10:40ish – 15865 heal from Madrana. That’s me. Lay on Hands. It crit. And, according to the logs, only overhealed for 7%. Ahahaha! This is my favourite moment and makes up for me dying in the green goo shortly thereafter. Like, 12 seconds after. Popped my SS, jumped out of the goo… and died in the goo again.

Vashj down.

Over 70 wipes, over 35 different raiders, way too many hours to count…

But Vashj down. SSC cleared. WOOT.

For anyone curious as to our raid makeup:

Druids: 1 (Resto)

Hunters: 3 (2 BM, 1 MM)

Mages: 2 (2 Arc/Frost)

Paladins: 4 (3 Holy, 1 Prot)

Priests: 4 (1 Imp DS, 1 CoH, 2 Shadow.)

Rogues: 2 (2 Combat/Swords)

Shaman: 5 (! 2 Enh, 1 Ele, 2 Resto)

Warriors: 2 (1 prot, 1 fury)

Warlocks: 2 (2 0/21/40, Destro/Demo)

How we laid it out for Phase 2:

West side: 1 BM Hunter, 1 paladin healing. 1 warlock going over to help with spawns whenever a tainted spawned.

East side: 1 BM Hunter, 1 MM Hunter, 1 paladin healing.

North side: 1 Enh shammy (w/ poison cleansing totem down), 1 priest (Imp DS) healing.

South side: 1 fury warrior, 1 paladin healing.

NW Generator: Resto druid

NE Generator: Resto shammy

SW Generator: Resto shammy

SE Generator: CoH Priest

Center: 2 Tanks (1 warrior, 1 pally), 2 rogues, 1 enh shammy

Striders: 1 ele shammy (kiting), 2 mages, 2 warlocks (one peeling off for west if needed), 2 shadow priests (for blackout, mindflay)

Here’s the anonymous report from WWS:

http://wowwebstats.com/pk445h5rn1uv1?s=7673-8333

JC Vendor on PM, Rage Winterchill, Vashj.

Kurn / / apotheosis, jewelcrafting, raiding, ramblings

So, my 70 priest is on Proudmoore, which is the first of all servers to finish Phase 4 and open up the JC vendor.

First of all, I respect the majority of players on Proudmoore as smart, good players. But dude, what pricks most of them seem to be. Alliance ninjaing nodes of everything from other Alliance, the vile Trade chat… It makes me miss Eldre’Thalas, even with its noobs. But the opening of the JC vendor on Proudmoore was… I can’t even express how loathesome it was. There was the usual flagged, mounted Horde, of course, but it was the behaviour of the Alliance that boggled me. People in General were complaining and they’d get told to shut up, to hit Ctrl-V and click on the quest giver’s bar to turn in the quest, told that it’s not a big deal, that they’re noobs… How is this any way to treat the people of your own faction? World PVP, isn’t that supposed to rally people of the same faction together against the opposing?

Instead, Proudmoore’s Alliance was rude, obnoxious and, frankly, it was embarassing.

I hope other servers will show a little more respect in the insanity that is the inn when their JC vendors open up.

And speaking of the vendor… 15 badges a gem. Seems like the official armory is wrong. And yep, at neutral, each pattern is 50g a pop. That’s 47.50 at friendly, 45 at honored, 42.50 at revered and 40g a pop at exalted.

Which is a lot of money. It’s over 1500g for all the patterns at exalted.

Which is why I’m really glad my guild went to play with Hyjal trash last night. I wasn’t able to be there on time, due to RL stuff, and wasn’t even supposed to be there, but they were short people, so they went to Hyjal instead of TK. Which is fine. ’cause I logged on, got a ninja-invite, a ninja-summon (in between Rage waves) and an hour and a half later, Rage Winterchill is dead and everyone in the raid is friendly, even me.

Woot, woot, 74g spent for all the friendly recipes (5g70s apiece instead of 40g!) and some unexpected progression. It was a good night for the guild. :)

Tonight: Vashj. must. die. We got her to 1% last week. 40,000 health. We put 2 DPS on east and west, 1 DPS on north and south, 5 DPS on the striders and melee on naga/leaked elementals. It worked out really damn well, to be honest.