Volcanic Stone Drake!

The week after the 10% buffs to Dragon Soul rolled out my 10man raid was finished with Deathwing for the week on Thursday night. It seems that I managed to pick up the good pugs on Thursday night. Earthen's group had some pug trouble and ,unfortunately, still had bosses to kill on Sunday. So a few of my group swapped to alts and helped out with that raid. I considered trying to set up a Bastion or BWD achieve run with the rest, but there weren't enough people, and pugging for heroic raids just sounds like pain, especially on a Sunday night when most interested people will already be saved.

However, there were five of us who were looking for something to do. And Kuanchichi, Mornara, and Xildyne were each only missing a few achieves for their Glory of the Cataclysm Hero Volcanic Stone Drake. The other two people in the group, Swiftysarge and Phii were both missing many achieves from the meta. We decided to do a few randoms for some missing valor points, and then to do the runs that Kuanchichi, Mornara, and Xildyne needed.

Our first random was Deadmines. Honestly, it shouldn't be a random dungeon when DraNgNon and I ALWAYS get it on our characters. But it did have two of the achieves we needed: It's Frost Damage and Vigorous VanCleef Vindicator. The frost damage one wasn't too bad to get, though we did get an unexpected explosion that punted a couple of people far away. However, 3 vapors did their thing and achievery was had. One quick boss reset later and then a handy demon flasher to summon our puntees back to us and all was well. Vanessa and her gauntlet was also pretty handily done. All five of us were totally on the ball, not one of us died to either fire or the Mario section in front of Foe Reaper. There were some exclamations on Vent when all 5 of us managed to successfully navigate the Mario gauntlet. Of course, then DraNgNon and I had a horrible lag spike as we were running to the last bit of the Ripsnarl section. We both started swearing as we lagged out, but the rest of the group managed to engage Vanessa with time to spare. They started the fight while we unlagged and realized we were off somewhere in the water... We both calmed down when the achieve flashed across the screen.

Next we did random Stonecore and Throne of the Tides. Phii and Swiftysarge both got achieves in those dungeons.

After that it was starting to get a little late. I wanted to make sure that Kuanchichi, Mornara, and Xildyne all got their drakes so we queued specifically for Lost City of Tolvir. We did Acrocalypse Now, and Kill it With Fire, but the latter bugged out for Swifty so we'll have to get it for him later. Then we must have called for wipes four or five times trying to get Headed South from Siamat. Kuan had spectacular heals but the timing on the add death was tricky to get right. Finally we got it! Glory of the Cataclysm Hero popped up for both Kuanchichi and Mornara! There was much rejoicing! And much chair dancing!

After that we headed to Halls of Origination. I Hate that Song, Straw that Broke the Camel's Back, Faster than the Speed of Light, and Son of A... were all knocked out in short order. My trick for doing I Hate that Song worked fabulously. And all the other achieves were actually really easy to get for Phii and Swifty, especially with DragonSoul gear.

I don't remember the LFD tank who showed me the I Hate that Song trick, but I thank him every time I run HOO. Temple Guardian Anhuur will shield himself and start casting Reverberating Hymn. To get the achieve you've got to not let him sing for more than fifteen seconds total. Before pulling the boss, the tank needs to jump into the pit, grab aggro on all the Pit Vipers down there, and then pull them up to be tanked with the boss. The trick to the achieve is dps who will only single target the boss. If done correctly, all the vipers stay with the tank and two dps can jump down and each hit a lever, letting the remaining dps, tank, and healer stay with Anhuur and interrupt his song almost immediately. If done incorrectly, some idiot dps will cleave or aoe the vipers and when the lever people go down to hit the levers the respawned vipers eat their faces and stop them from pulling levers.

The last instance on the list was Black Rock Caverns. Phii and Swiftysarge both needed a bunch of achieves, and Xildyne needed Ascendant Descending. It was starting to get a little late, and we were all getting a bit sleepy. I accidentally let Steelbender Karsh get eighteen stacks of his debuff instead of just the fifteen needed for the achieve... We also had a bunch of trouble with the Ascendant Descending Achieve, the kiting was actually really hard to get right. But after a couple of calls for wipes we assigned a secondary kiter to make sure that one of the adds didn't fixate on me and it all worked out smashingly well.

By the end of the night we'd run six instances and racked up many achieves. Phii and Swiftysarge were only two or three achieves short of the meta. Fortunately the ones they are missing are relatively easy to get. Xildyne, Kuanchichi, and Mornara were proudly riding awesome Volcanic Stone Drakes around.



And even better, that drake is sent to us by Thrall, because we are just that awesome:


This is totally my new favorite mount.