So Apotheosis walked into Throne of the Four Winds last night and got Conclave down on 25m on our second attempt of the night.
Sweet.
And then came time to play with Al’Akir.
Not so sweet.
There are at least a couple of people in my guild who LOVE the Al’Akir fight. There are more than a few people who loathe it. Frankly, and I say this with respect, I don’t care whether they love it or hate it. We WILL be doing Al’Akir at some point. We want to clear the available content on regular and heroic modes in 25-man.
As for myself, I admit that I’m not a fan. I think the whole instance is ridiculous. Why on earth would anyone go get “randomly enchanted” loot (of the Undertow, Feverflare, etc) over the known loot tables in Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent? It’s not about loot for me, but with a 9-hour raid schedule, we have to be very careful about where we go and what we do and how that will benefit the majority of people. Will one belt or ring that is just a shade better than one otherwise available really be The Difference between downing heroic modes and wiping? Eh. If everyone got BiS belts/rings off Conclave, that’d be one thing, but not everyone has BiS gear off Conclave or even off Al’Akir. Add that to no tier tokens and the promise of more randomly enchanted stuff when you do the heroic version of the instance… Meh.
However, since we had extended Bastion and cleared it on Tuesday and then did 5/6 Blackwing Descent, we figured we’d do Conclave and play with Al’Akir on Thursday. You know, knock Conclave out (bringing us to 10/12, by the way) and get an idea of the mechanics on Al’Akir.
Wind Burst pwned me until I started watching the timers.
Squall pwned me whenever I had to worry about it and my Wind Burst positioning.
We got to 60% and made it to P2 several times, but I gotta say, it was not all that much fun. Still, it was better than I expected and we were just playing around and such.
Not my favourite fight. Not my favourite instance. Not my cup of tea.
And yet, I think we’ll probably be in this tier of content until May or so (judging by Wrath’s time frame on tiers). Wrath came out in mid-November and Ulduar came out in mid-April. So if Cataclysm came out in early December, we’ll probably be looking at 4.1 and the associated T12 raid content somewhere in May.
In just about seven resets, we’ve done 10/12 regular. That gives us roughly 11 resets (or ~33 raids, not counting this coming Sunday) to clear through things. That’s about 100 hours of raiding.
That’s a lot of time for Al’Akir, Nefarian and then the heroic modes, particularly since the heroic modes are really based on the regulars, most of which we already know. I feel that the more experience/knowledge/familiarity we have in the regulars, the easier the heroics will be.
I’d like to really make sure we focus on Bastion and BWD heroic modes, including Sinestra, so those are where my personal priorities are. I think we’ll try to fit Conclave in the schedule since we really didn’t have any issues with it and, worst-case scenario, we get more Maelstrom Crystals for the raiders. But I don’t anticipate a lot of time on Al’Akir in the near future.
Gonna be some fun times ahead, let me say!
I’m surprised how easy the Conclave was but I was a TOTAL nubcake with the squalls. lol. I’ll try better next time.
Also, that’s MEEEE in your picture. zomg.
The only thing I can figure is that the belts are meant to be an easy source of Maelstrom Crystals..?? YMMV I guess..
And, occasionally, a useful item (not necessarily BiS but you never know?).
Also, belated-like, massive congrats to you and your guild for taking down Cho’gall, that’s just fantastic. :)
My guild’s 10man raid is chugging slowly along, gearing up when we have folks available. I’ve done BoT up to dragon twins, the conclave of shardables, and Magmaw, Omnomnomatron and Maloriak in BWD. My first time there this past week, and we were trying Chimaeron for the first time.
It’s like Infest in reverse. ;_; So much hate for that fight right now.
Osephala – You’re not the only squall nubcake, it’s all good. ;)
Alfimi – A lot of the items ARE BiS for various specs and classes, though. Just definitely not for me.
Thanks, re: Cho’gall grats! Here’s hoping we can repeat it a little easier this week. :)
And yeah, Chim is … hilarious. Definitely go look through my past posts about Chimaeron to get some ideas about it. It’s fun when you get the hang of it, I promise! GL! :)
Hmm, good point! But once everyone has what they need… :)
Re: Chim, my raid group got him down this week (I wasn’t there, I sat out due to long work hours making me too tired for Tuesday night) — fewer wipes before they downed him, but I think we learned a lot from last week as a whole. I’ll definitely be rereading those posts you did, though. :D
We were having tons of issues balancing the squalls and the windburst…UNTIL we realized that if the tank is far enough from Al Akir to get the lightning bolt treatment, Al Akir will not cast wind burst! This allows everyone to run around the squall without worrying about getting blown off. They had me (Holy Paladin) on the main tank. Wasn’t a problem keeping him up and then everyone ran in for the wind burst. Makes getting to P2 with everyone alive and happy a lot easier.