Lurker

Last night, before we went to sleep Kuanchichi and Viljo made a speedy excursion to Serpent Shrine Cavern. They hopped, skipped, and water-walked to the islands Lurker Below inhabits.



Once there they donned their fishing gear, and fished the Lurker Below up. It was pretty easy do to. We both remember when Kuanchichi and Smoovesta were the only two in the guild who had the skill to pull that boss.

all about Kuanchichi

I tried out this spec for Kuan last night in SSC and was beside myself with the waste; he never really dropped below 80% mana. On the other hand, his DPS suffered a lot. And, he did drop at times to like 15% health on Nature damage. (Well, there were a few 0% health too, but at that point I blame the group-assigned healers.) It's quite disturbing to see the green bar far far below the blue bar in a raid, and the number 14 in front of my toon's name on the damage meters. Especially when the main tank was at #13, and the secondary tank at #7:


Here's what I will try tonight in Hyjal. I don't do this lightly. I am usually pretty careful about Kuan and I don't respec him often, I expect it to cost maybe 15G.

I've only loaded the Flamtongue Weapon Glyph for him so far. I will probably take the Earth Shock and Chain Lightning glyphs as well. I haven't decided what is more important for now vs lvl 80. Chain Lightning would be pretty handy on Hyjal trash. Earth Shock with a shorter CD is just pretty handy all around (just not 5 talent points' worth of handy). So really it's a question of meters vs usefulness I guess. sigh I s'pose that answers that question.

Anyhow, about that SSC run. They really did nerf the hell out of it. We cleared 5 bosses and Kuan got to see something he never has before:



...And just in case this post sounds like I'm exaggerating for melodramatic effect, yes both those images are cropped from the exact same screenshot, taken before we tried Vashj.

Motivational Drama

How do you motivate someone who isn't performing? What if they are an actual coworker?

Last night Darkfall ran SSC. It was an OK run. We downed Lurker and Leo in one shot each. But then wiped until we called it on Karathress. Basically because we were having coordination issues. Mostly due to healers not being able to keep the tanks up.

When we killed Lurker and Leo there was meter spam in the healer channel. As in an officer was running recount and used it to spam the /darkheals with healing done and overhealing done.

I don't like the meters. I think that they miss stuff, and can easily be biased if people are spread out. However despite that I do always run them myself, just to get a rough estimate of where I am. Last night I was doing an ok job healing, one of the wipes on Karahtress was my fault, I had a little bit of lag combined with a little bit of inattention and the tank I was healing died once. I also usually keep track of them as a dps. I know generally where on them I am supposed to be and if I'm not there, I'm missing something: buffs, food, oil, etc.

Anyway after the raid I asked the officer who had been spamming meters why he was doing that. He said they were trying to motivate people to perform better. There was a pally, who was at the bottom of the healing done meter and at the top of the overhealing meter. I asked why they don't just directly talk to that pally. He said that had and that he hadn't changed. This led to a rather large blow up between myself DraNgNon, the first officer and a second officer.

In general I like Darkfall, but there are two problems right now. First there are too many officers. I think there are more officers than raiders now. And really you don't need two officers each for rogues, or priests, or warriors. Too many officers leads to an us versus them mentality. The second issue I see, is they need to decide how they are dealing with people. Either we are all responsible for having good values, per the meters, and the people who suck will get booted. Or we aren't. The officers can't just use the meters to make one person shape up, things don't work like that. If the meters are used against one person they will be used against anyone else who is "underperforming", which hasn't been defined.

Also our old raid leader, who I miss, had a rule about no meters during the raids. he would look at them himself and talk to people as needed, but he wouldn't try to shame people in public. And that is what I feel like happened last night with the meters being spammed. Or was attempted anyway, I think that what really happened is that the person who was doing crappy healing just shrugged it off, and the rest of us started stressing about having an officer spam meters.

A new boss and an old hangout

Since Darkfall downed Karathress last night, enabling Viljo to get his new pants, we were all set to try Morogrim tonight. We had a few ideas how to make it happen, but given the guild strengths and raid makeup weren't sure how to make it happen.

I think we ended up with a good strategy, but the plan to have a healy pally hold aggro on the Murlocs kept backfiring when he was sent to a watery grave, or whatever. We called it when the trash respawned.

At loose ends, we decided to finish up an aborted Kara run from over the weekend. That was Kuanchichi and Teltanara, and we picked up the run at Nightbane. However we had some troubles getting everyone gathered, and hung out on the terrace for a while until everyone got there. The other ele shaman in Darkfall, has an holy undead priest alt, and I thought this capture of them chatting with our tank Isd was great.



Also - Rahlenti offtanked for the half-run, he'd signed off but we called him and got him to log back in. Then Prince kindly dropped the druid T4 helm. Woot grats!

Kuanchichi now has 145 badges, and after spending some time poking at the badge vendors, I think he has all the onspec PvE badged gear I want for him. Time to consider offspec and PvP gear, or play with theorycrafting the tradeoff between haste, spell crit, and spell hit.

Pants For Viljo

We killed Karathress again this evening. Viljo is now the proud owner of a pair of Leggings of Tirisfal.

After we downed the boss, there was a bio break where those of us who won tokens went to get the actual pants. We ported out, and I grabbed the pants from the nice lady on the Scryer tier. Then because Viljo is impatient I took him to Orgrimmar where he bought a lovely crit gem and the runic spellthread. So now Viljo has lovely pants to wear. :D

a new look for Kuan

Serpentshrine Cavern reset tonight, so Darkfall went in there and down'd Leo again. And he again dropped the shaman gloves x2... and nice mail healy shoulders. We had a healy pally in the raid, Crisara, who got the first pair, but everyone else was either new or depleted or much more interested in those shoulders. So Kuan has a pair of gloves to match his pants.

Darkfall's blueish-black tabard with the red and white details just doesn't look good with yellow and rust-colored gear, though. After some consideration, I decided since getting exalted Keepers of Time was such a pain I should wear the tabard. After all it also has a dragon logo on it, how appropos!



On another note, our guild leader has been lock-tanking Leo. Since his main is a warrior right now, seeing all these T5 gloves drop has been disappointing. Another lock has been working on gearing up for that, and all he needed was Magtheridon. So after we called SSC, we jumped into Magtheridon's Lair to get the other lock the Phoenix-fire band for completing the quest.

Why do I bring this up? Rahlenti went with us, his first Darkfall raid. I'm thinking he's not really been to Karazhan much with his gear. He ended up making out like a bandit, getting a couple pieces off Lurker and T4 Chest from Mag. Woot!

Karathress Down!

As DraNgNon has already posted we downed Leotheras for the 2nd time tonight and then went on to kill Fathom Lord Karathress.

It was pretty late so a bunch of people had to go. This meant that Teltanara was needed more than Viljo. This was sad, because 2 mage,warlock,hunter tokens dropped, and Viljo missed out. But it was also awesome because I've tried really hard to keep Telt geared up enough that she can be brought in when we have a lack of heals. And here she is, helping out against Karathress.

The first couple of attempts against Karathress were not so good. Mostly because I was put on healing a pretty difficult target. My favorite warrior tank, Isd, was tanking the shaman for Karathress. Walkietalkie (who just joined the guild) and Telt were put on keeping him up and we just couldn't deal. :( The shaman doesn't do a lot of damage, but what he does is very bursty, because of the windfury procing.

So Telt was swapped with another priest, and a pally got added to her new target, as apparently the previous priest hadn't been able to keep everyone up either. She was now healing the tank for the priest for Karathress.

And then the raid owned Karathress, hardcore. We 24-manned him with only one death. And that person got a battle rez, so the fight ended with everyone still alive. We were short one rogue who probably fell asleep. He's gonna be annoyed tomorrow, but ah well.

I'm so so glad that we managed to down him that last time. Otherwise I would have started seriously stressing about Telt's ability to heal. As it is I've decided that I will be patient and save her badges for the 150 badge healy mace. She managed to snag the t4 hat in Kara over the weekend, so I'm pretty pleased about that too. :D

PANTS!!!

"Once more into the breach dear friends..."

Darkfall tried yet again to down Leotheras the Blind. We tried and tried, and tried and tried, and then he died. Two pairs of Shaman T5 glove tokens dropped! Kuan bid the amount of DKP 2 raids' attendance was worth. Of course he did not win.

That left us with raid time left, nothing better to do than go after Fathom-Lord whatshisbutt, and everyone qualified for those T5 tokens depleted in DKP.

So now Kuan is in pants again: Cataclysm Leggings. omg, no more stupid skirt. omg, so happy.

Now, to re-gem, he's dropped below hit cap.

Fathom Lord Karathress

Kuanchichi and Viljo went to SSC with Darkfall last night. Lurker and Leotheras were already dead from earlier in the week. So we skipped straight on to Fathom Lord Karathress.

This was an interesting fight. The trash was just a bunch of bog giants, and really not all that painful, especially compared to Leo Trash, which is just excruciating. Once we got that room cleared we had 5 or 6 attempts on the Fathom Lord before repops happened on top of us.

We eventually got the fight down to the point where we had the 3rd add mostly dead by the time the tanks had started taking dirt naps. (Silly sleepy tanks.) Things started going better when we killed the shaman first, had an off tank ready for the hunter's pet, and had an ele shaman near the priest for interrupts, self-heals, and extra heals.

I think our main problem was that we were missing a few healers at the start so some alts got swapped in. And people kept coming in or leaving so we kept having to re-explain. That said I suspect that the next time we try him out we'll do a much better job, and the time after that we'll probably get him down.

Leo Down

Darkfall finally downed Leotheras the Blind. For weeks we haven't been able to get him below 20%, including the first attempt tonight. Then, second attempt, he was pwned. Kuan died at 1% having gotten whirlwinded twice. I was mad and started to yell, then Leo fell.

Gloves for each class dropped. I didn't bother going for them as I knew at least one shaman and one rogue who wanted them badly. They tied on bids, and the rogue rolled a 2. Now the shaman feels guilty, but does, after all, have spiffy new gloves.

I figure, there's always next week. The rogue can get them then. Or, I'll take a shot at them.

Meanwhile, last night we downed Maulgar, Gruul, Magtheridon. The latter two were oneshots. Maulgar, though, just can't get him right, and it took 3 tries. Maulgar however is officially considered On Farm so Kuan got his T4 shoulders without needing to bid. Becuase who knows when they will bother fixing Void Reaver.

Leotheras and SSC

Last night Viljo and Kuan went into Serpentshrine Cavern with Darkfall. Lurker had previously been downed, so we went straight for Leotheras. However Leotheras was not so cooperative. We got him down to 19%.

Kuan and Viljo were some of the last to die on each attempt. I was quite proud of this as previously Viljo had a lot of trouble with the Inner Demons. This time I had learned the wonders of Arcane Blast, and Viljo killed his demons.

It seems that our issues with Leo are twofold. First, there is the aggro problem. People are not good at waiting until the tanks have control of Leo. So half the time is spent waiting while the tanks chase him around. Second, people were having issues with their inner demons. There were a couple of healers and a hunter who were either dying to their inner demons, or getting mind controlled.

You know the raid isn't going well when the Raid Leader keeps telling everyone how easy a fight it is. Which always amuses me, because all I can think of is: "This is an easy fight guys, just do these 5 things perfectly, while standing on your head, and balancing a full bowl of water on your foot."

Anyway to help his mood afterwards Kuan and Viljo and a couple other people smashed through heroic SV. He needed it for the Trial of the Naaru quest. Hopefully this evening we shall down Mag and lots of people will get the title.

It's rather amusing. The first time we downed Mag, only three people got the title: Kuan, Viljo, and one of the resto shamans. And it had been really hard to get people to help run the heroics for those quests. Everyone was wondering why we bothered with those quests when it was easier to farm badges from other instances. Once we got the title, and cheered each other whenever we met up for the raids, well then everyone wanted those titles. :)

Desktop Computer

Darkfall went into SSC this evening. We downed Lurker and made a few attempts on Leotheras.

Lurker was a one-shot, aside from Viljo dying twice. But I got not one but two battle rezs. So when all but one other mage died I was able to keep a sheep up. It was pretty embarassing to die twice in one boss fight though. :( I am blaming switching to my desktop computer. It's got a Kinesis keyboard and a slightly different layout due to a bigger screen. So there is a lot of adjustment as the keys I'm used to reaching for are in a different location. :(

Anyway we went on to try for Leotheras. It was actually a pretty good set of attempts. Our last one we got Leo down to 23%. I really need to look up how fire mages are supposed to survive getting an inner demon. I died to mine both times I got it. :( I guess there is a draw back to being a glass cannon, when something comes after you, it's kinda hard not to die. :(

Leotheras

While everyone else in the World of Warcraft looks at the new zones and patch content that was released Tuesday morning, Darkfall decided to explore new content is a more guild-specific way, and made their first attempt at Leotheras the Blind last night. It was just to look at the fight.

Tonight, we are about to try again, and hopefully will manage it. We certainly have the firepower. The question is do we have the coordination.

I'd post some screenshots - I have so many now I need to devote some time, but I don't really have any means of cutting them on this computer. I will be fixing that soon...

Lurker Down!

We just downed The Lurker Below! I am so excited at our first boss kill in SSC! It took a lot of work and coordination but it was so worth it to still be standing when that giant fish died. :) It is also pretty good because one of my favorite tanks got the Mallet of the Tides.

In the process we lost a bear tank who, well, I'm not terribly sorry to see go. Apparently in our last failed attempt she was one of the people not listening to the RL's directions. Instead she was listening to her bf, who was standing behind her. He had quit the guild some time ago and I was quite glad to see him go. Anyway after Wednesday's attempt and the RL shouting on vent about people who weren't listening (but not naming names) apparently she cried. So she qguit before our tries tonight and wonder of wonders it took us only 2 tries to down Lurker. First one we got him to 20% and the second one we had one a couple of people down when we killed Lurker.

Then of course we tried Hydross a couple of times just so everyone could see him. We've got the resist gear for that fight, but our tanks need to work on the hand off between phases. And our dps needs to work on not dotting him too close to the hand off.

Just a side note

We did not, actually, down Lurker last night.

We did get him to 3%, with fishies in the water. But at least three of the guild top DPS'ers were "off their game." That makes some sense, considering Kuan topped the meters for caster DPS for all but one try. Including a try where I'd forgotten to flask him. For all of them, his DPS was lower than normal for a 25-man, even after getting the lovely Mindblade Monday.