TWIW - Week 2

This Week in WoW...
Raiding News

Monday was a great surprise as, despite having only a few signed up until the last minute, we ended up with 28 players online at raid start!
Out of the window went the plans to go for a Garrosh 10man kill, we were heading back to Thok to take him on mob-handed!

Would Thok be able to withstand the might of our burgeoning 25man team?


Well... yes is the short answer, and quite comfortably.

I'm sure people will disagree with me but I've always considered Thok to be the most difficult boss in this tier.  The combination of damage increasing as the healers' opportunity to heal decreases can so easily lead to seemingly random deaths, even when you feel like you are doing everything right.

As our dps as a whole group is still fairly low, we had to extend all the phases as much as possible to even have a chance at the kill.  Although it was necessary, it put even more pressure on the healers and also allowed more opportunity for mistakes in the fixate phases.

Still, it was good to give the newer guys some practice on it and we did make some progress through the fight as the night went on.  Eventually though, we decided to let Thok live a little longer and went to flex instead.

Wednesday
Have we begun to turn the corner?  25 people signed up, in advance, and online at raid start time!  And what a difference it makes!  We were in the instance actually killing stuff less than 10 minutes after raid start time, and that impetus carried us to 7/14 on the night.  A new record for the 25man team, and we were close to killing Nazgrim on our one and only attempt too!

Only a couple of ragged attempts (I'm looking at you, Iron Jug) marred an otherwise excellent night.  I was especially pleased with the movement and communication on Sha of Pride, where we had suffered on previous nights with people stuck in prisons or not moving out of bad stuff. 
A few silly deaths on Nazgrim (Get out of the god-damned fire!) and maybe slightly low dps on the adds was all that made us reach the enrage and I'm sure he would have fallen pretty quickly if we'd had more time.

Renewed optimism and confidence for Thursday!

Thursday
Extremely disappointed to see that the raid wasn't full but we grabbed a couple of friends (Mr T on his shammy and the super-rogue from last week came on his super-dk!) and managed to get going pretty quickly.  Still some work to do but I'm going to slowly bring the invites earlier and earlier to allow more time for the group to form up.

On to the raid... Nazgrim went down without putting up much of a fight. 
A few people still standing in the fire or hitting him in Defensive Stance led to some frustration which lowered the mood. 
It irritates me that new people are just expected to follow tactics perfectly from the beginning.  Of course I am frustrated when people stand in that fire, it's not hard to see and you have plenty of time to move.  However, I remember when we did this on progression and people were being hit by it all the time.  The same people that are now moaning about these new raiders.

Malkorok caused us a few more problems. 
I think it's great fight design, simple mechanics to follow but extremely harsh penalties for failing them. 
Compare it to Paragons which is incredibly complex but allows much more room for error (I'm not looking forward to sitting through that tactics explanation in 25man, maybe we should start now).

We've always found that it takes new people some time to get used to Malkorok and the movements needed but, as experience increases, it becomes incredibly simple.  The main obstacle to overcome seems to be the psychology of running away from the markers when we call to stack rather than towards them.
The kill, when it came, was virtually flawless after eight wipes. 
As with Nazgrim, this is the first time that quite a few people have seen this boss on normal mode so I class it as a great achievement.

A couple of good attempts on Spoils rounded off the night.  We would probably have killed it very soon afterwards but ran out of time.  Supremely confident  that we will kill it without an issue on Monday and again face off against our nemesis, Thok!

Elsewhere in WoW...

Undead Rogue
The 'dream' rogue is now up to 64 and on his way to visit Nesingwary in Nagrand, should hopefully put a few more levels on him over the weekend and maybe make it into Northrend.

I'm really enjoying just questing along, killing enemies with ease due to my heirlooms and soaking up some of the horde lore along the way, but this is where I always slow down.
So many of my toons have languished in the 60s or 70s for a few weeks (or months even) before I find some gimmicky way to push through to 78 and Icecrown.  I have no idea why but it then seems to go very quickly to 80 and Cata.

Last time my 'gimmick' was the free boost to 90, the time before that I pet-battled from 68 to 78. 

This time my gimmick is the XP potions...
I really am expecting a lot from these potions but, at 300% XP increase on everything, they have a lot to offer! 
Do you think it's possible to level through Northrend in 2 hours?  Let's find out.

The man with the wooden underpants
An excellent raider and a great guy to raid with, he helped us out last night but really struggled with lag, playing with 2fps most of the time. 
His computer can't handle 25man raids apparently and I think this is the main reason he hasn't moved over to join us... yet.

He is replacing his computer in the next couple of weeks and I'm hoping that will be the first step in him joining us full-time.  He might decide to stay where he is though, I know he also enjoys it there, but it would be great to have him and his wooden underpants on board.

Bags...
Minor, yet irritating, setback on the whole bag plan this week. 
The farm is now mine so I am doing the daily work order for August Celestials to reach Exalted a little faster. 

The daily quest comes in 3 parts: plant 8 Striped Melon; harvest 8 Striped Melon; deliver 40 Striped Melon.

I assume this is to stop people from just buying the melons from the ah and skipping the whole point of the quest, which makes sense to me and I'm happy with that.

The thing that irritated me was when I got a 'bursting' crop, it didn't count towards my 8 harvested for the work order.  The planting obviously counted, the melons themselves counted towards my 40 to deliver, but it didn't count them as being harvested.  I don't really understand why to be honest.

This would have been nothing if I had noticed at the time but, oh no, I just thought "Bonus!  I can plant another Songbell!"
Harvesting time came and I obviously only had 7 Striped Melons to harvest.  I couldn't complete the work order and, therefore, couldn't collect it again for that day.  As I said... minor, yet irritating.

The Big Profession Overhaul has come to a bit of a standstill in recent weeks but I hope to get that going again over the weekend. 

Comedy Moment of the week came from Furious (one of our many Fury Warriors) who, despite being notorious for lying down and waiting for a rez, called for everyone to run in when he actually (and surprisingly) survived a dodgy trash pull that killed half the raid.  It was almost poetic when he then died on the very next trash pack.

Star Performer of the week goes to Darknesses who has really stepped up in recent weeks under difficult circumstances, playing with a variety of co-tanks as our traditional main tanks have been taking some time off.