WoW this weekend

[jameydee]

Well, I ran my first-ever raid in World of Warcraft Saturday morning. It was a Stratholme raid to kill the Baron, a 10-man run. When they put up the annoucement for the run, I sent a message saying, "I haven't done it before, but I would like to." The reply was, "We'll show you what to do." They didn't seem too terrible concerned about my neophyte status. When the raid started, I understood why...

10 people in a party: 3 mages, 1 warlock, 2 priests, and 2 paladins and 2 warriors. It was thinly contained chaos. The melee-types would go fetch a monster and bring it back to the group and everyone would beat up on it in their own distinct ways. No one was particularly worried about HOW you caused damage, only that you did. So one mage was causing blizzards, the warlock calling down hellfire, paladins were using retribution, I was using my fireballs and arcane missiles, there were so many special effects happening on the screen, it was hard to see the actual enemy combatants! We moved as a big mob from keypoint to keypoint. After each major battle, we'd pause, take stock of the casualties, resurrect those who had fallen in battle, heal up, and mana up. Then on to the next mob.

People who play will appreciate this. There was one spot where we had to get through a dozen creatures like "Stitches" in Duskwood/Darkshire. Each one had hit points in the tens of thousands. Sometimes we'd have two or three on us at one time. Warriors and paladins rock in the endgame! The piles of dead "Stitches" got to be a hindrance, as you could no longer see the battle!

We had one TPW (total party wipe), but thanks to the warlock, one of the paladins had a soulstone, which allows him to resurrect himself. The paladin is the best choice because he's heavily armored, basically a priest in plate mail--he can defend himself if the field isn't entirely clear when he resurrects, whereas a dedicated priest is soft and squishy and tasty to monsters. The paladin resurrected himself, then resurrected one of the priests, who in turn resurrected the other priest, so then we had 3 people able to resurrect us other seven. Because of this, we were able to continue from the spot of our wipeout instead of having to fight our way back.

Because of my last experience with the Dire Maul run, my first instinct was to think, "Okay, did *I* do anything that might have caused this?" :) However, it turns out one of the priests, in an effort to stay out of the battle in front of her, had backed up into another party of monsters just as we were taking on a major boss creature. We got squashed between the two sets of enemies. So it wasn't me! :)

When we got to the Baron himself, we cloth-wearers stayed well back. The Baron summons crowds of armed skeletons, so we mages and warlocks would use our AOE (area of effect) spells to take them out cleanly and efficiently. This kept them off the healers, who could concentrate on keeping the melee-types alive. I'd send fireballs over when I could, between bouts of AOE. We soon had the Baron down to a tenth of his hitpoints, success was moments away...

Server crash. Disconnected. "World Server Down." Blizzard obviously did a reboot, because after a few minutes, I was able to log back on. I was still up against the wall, well away from the Baron, but now he was back at full hitpoints. Our poor tanks, they reappeared right in front of the Baron and were killed immediately. The priests resurrected them and we all mustered at the back of the room. We lost one of the mages--he never got reconnected, so we were down to nine members. There was some debate as to whether it was still doable with nine rather than ten, but after 20 minutes, we decided to try again. No problem, the Baron went down in short order.

The loot that dropped was soooo unspeakably cool. I saw parts of the paladin epic set ("Lightforge"), the druid epic set ("Wildheart"), the caster epic set ("Dreadmist"), and parts of the warrior epic set ("Valor") drop.

The loot rules were very fair and the standard, from what I understand. At endgame, no one really cares about green (uncommon) items, so green items were yours to keep and vendor. As a courtesy, if you found a green item, you were asked to link it to the chat so people could see it, and if it was actually an upgrade for you, you could ask for and get it. You were expected to pass on all blue (epic) items. After the enemies were cleared, the blue item would be announced. If it was an upgrade for you, you could roll. If everyone passed, then they held a greed roll and you could opt to roll on it. Everyone was allowed one blue item and one blue set item. I misread one item for cloth, so I got my first blue set item--but it was mail--and as a caster I couldn't wear it. That was my one blue set item, so when the Dreadmist item fell, I couldn't roll. (Darn!) Still, wow, this was first time I had seen epic pieces drop, so next time I'll know and save my roll accordingly.

When it was all done, all of the items unclaimed were then offered to those who did not get any blue items. Bind on pickup items were disenchanted and the resulting magical essences were distributed.

A damage rating was then issued, so you could see how you stood. I was quite pleased. Two of the melee fighters were on top, the warlock was #3, and I was #4, the highest of the 3 mages. Not too bad for my first run. The warlock had done a tremendous amount of damage with her AOE, but she had to be resurrected after each major battle. I only had one gratuitous death (aside from the TPW). So I had the glow of satisfaction that I had pulled my weight in the raid and not been overly burdensome to the healers. :)

Saturday night my quest was to get my tailoring skill to 300 so I could finally make my "almost epic" robe, the Mooncloth robe. It required all kinds of fantastically expensive ingredients, including 4 pieces of mooncloth, which is made up of 2 pieces of felcloth, which is infrequently dropped by Jadefire creatures in Felwood. I had spent untold hours of time grinding in Felwood to get the felcloth required. Then, as it happens, you can only make mooncloth once every 4 days in real-time, as the recipe has a 4 day cooldown. When I finally got my 4th piece of mooncloth made, I was still only 289 in tailoring, and to learn the recipe required 300. Every recipe that might give me a skill point required at least 4 bolts of runecloth. Each bolt required 5 pieces of runecloth. Krantor and Tarrna not only donated all their runecloth to the cause, but they helped me grind for runecloth in the various places where it falls. I ended up also buying 100 pieces off someone in Ironforge and also purchasing more recipes off the Auction House when the recipes I already knew no longer would give me skill points. All told, I probably spent 20 gold in the mad dash to 300 tailoring. But in the end, by 8-ish that evening, I was finally able to make my mooncloth robe, a significant upgrade to what I was already wearing! :)

I saw Tedysix online at one point; he had died deep in the cave at Kurzen's camp and couldn't get his body out without dying over and over and over, too many mobs were on top of his body. We came out in force to clear the way out for him, then helped him with a few quests. That was fun as a level 60. :)

Natatat (Mike) has Zul Farrak and Maraudon quests, as does Grimmtooth and Krantor. I'm waiting for Grimm to make level 45 and Nat to make 48. We can do ZF at that point with no problem. Once Grimm makes 48 and Nat crosses into 50, Maraudon should be do-able, even without a dedicated healer. Farming Maraudon for drops would be very advantageous to everyone. Uldaman we'll just have to grit our teeth and DO at some point. It's not bad until you get to the bosses. The goddess isn't bad, but there's this "ill wind" that blows through and silences all casting. That includes the paladin's ability to heal herself (and others) and the mage's ability to do anything useful. Even as the hunter is down to ordinary arrows, not magically enhanced attacks during this time. The wind blows through and we don't know how to get rid of it. Then there's the clockwork guy at the end, Archaeous, we still haven't killed him cleanly--I don't understand how it's supposed to be a mid-40s level dungeon With me at 59, Krantor at 56, Tarrna at 54, and Natatat at 45, we still had multiple party wipes trying to kill him. Maybe with a dedicated healer, it'd be easier.

Comments

[grimmtooth.livejournal.com]

I'm about 1/3 the way to 45, but by the time I get it I'll be checking out for a week, so ZF is a couple of weeks out I guess.

You answered one question for me, though. Last night I finished up an Alterec quest to get some baron's head. I had constantly seen "LFG BARON" at IF, and was wondering if this guy was THE baron. I couldn't imagine it COULD be since I managed to solo him, and he wasn't even leet. So that clears that up - definately not the baron I was looking for ... :-)