And the Weekend...
It wasn't really a lot of fun, with brief exceptions.
Saturday morning, I felt a little "bleh" with a slightly upset stomach. I did, at least, get a little cleaning done and break down several boxes that had been accumulating. This is good, because by midday I had to alter my self-diagnosis from "not eating real well" to "some variant of food poisoning." I was stricken with chills and muscle aches, so I built up a fire and bundled up on the couch for most of the afternoon. By evening, the chills and achiness had faded, at least, though I still wasn't up to par. Over the last day, I've definitely come to feel better, though my appetite hasn't returned in full and I'm keeping an eye on myself.
So I wasn't feeling great for Saturday night's WoW raid, but I felt well enough to sit at the computer and push buttons. We had too many people, including someone who I'd heard left the guild recently (no explanation there), but rounded it out without any serious drama.
Instructor Razuvious Must Die! wasn't hard, though we futzed the technique all up. We pulled too early, the understudies weren't healed and died partway through, and we really only prevailed by virtue of being severely overgeared for Naxx. Then it was back to ICC.
I think we got Marrowgar on the first try, and Lady Deathwhisper too - though we wiped on a trash pull before her and things got down to the wire in the end of phase two. Her threat-reducing debuff lasts so long our taunt-trading doesn't seem to allow for it to fall off. Perhaps trading at 2 is just too early, maybe waiting for 3-4 stacks? I did notice taunts work, albeit temporarily, even when the debuff is maxxed.
The airship battle was cleared in our first attempt, too, though poor Kyn got rezzed on the edge of the boat as it was moving and fell off by no fault of his own.
Deathbringer Saurfang again proved a roadblock for us. I accidentally hammered a couple blood beasts (I'm not sure I can blame that on being sick), but overall we're just not doing enough. We got him just below 30% a few times, but that last push is where we start losing people.
I hate to say it, but I think we're running into a roadblock with our current group's gear (and perhaps skill). I get the sense that most groups breezing through this encounter were doing Trial of the Grand Crusader and/or 25-man dungeons before hitting ICC, while we have people still not in full EoT gear in some cases. On the up side, if this is the problem, repeated runs through the beginning of the instance will help via EoFs and ilevel 251 drops.
Guild Wars last night was... non-existent? Well, the game was there, and some people were there, but they seemed to be busy with Wintersday (which the company was repeating because of some bugs previously) events. I wasn't told what was up, mind you, just sort of had to gather what the (lack of) plan was by characters shifting around and discussions going on. And I wasn't asked to go stand on a colored ring somewhere, so I called it a night there without accomplishing anything.
Saturday morning, I felt a little "bleh" with a slightly upset stomach. I did, at least, get a little cleaning done and break down several boxes that had been accumulating. This is good, because by midday I had to alter my self-diagnosis from "not eating real well" to "some variant of food poisoning." I was stricken with chills and muscle aches, so I built up a fire and bundled up on the couch for most of the afternoon. By evening, the chills and achiness had faded, at least, though I still wasn't up to par. Over the last day, I've definitely come to feel better, though my appetite hasn't returned in full and I'm keeping an eye on myself.
So I wasn't feeling great for Saturday night's WoW raid, but I felt well enough to sit at the computer and push buttons. We had too many people, including someone who I'd heard left the guild recently (no explanation there), but rounded it out without any serious drama.
Instructor Razuvious Must Die! wasn't hard, though we futzed the technique all up. We pulled too early, the understudies weren't healed and died partway through, and we really only prevailed by virtue of being severely overgeared for Naxx. Then it was back to ICC.
I think we got Marrowgar on the first try, and Lady Deathwhisper too - though we wiped on a trash pull before her and things got down to the wire in the end of phase two. Her threat-reducing debuff lasts so long our taunt-trading doesn't seem to allow for it to fall off. Perhaps trading at 2 is just too early, maybe waiting for 3-4 stacks? I did notice taunts work, albeit temporarily, even when the debuff is maxxed.
The airship battle was cleared in our first attempt, too, though poor Kyn got rezzed on the edge of the boat as it was moving and fell off by no fault of his own.
Deathbringer Saurfang again proved a roadblock for us. I accidentally hammered a couple blood beasts (I'm not sure I can blame that on being sick), but overall we're just not doing enough. We got him just below 30% a few times, but that last push is where we start losing people.
I hate to say it, but I think we're running into a roadblock with our current group's gear (and perhaps skill). I get the sense that most groups breezing through this encounter were doing Trial of the Grand Crusader and/or 25-man dungeons before hitting ICC, while we have people still not in full EoT gear in some cases. On the up side, if this is the problem, repeated runs through the beginning of the instance will help via EoFs and ilevel 251 drops.
Guild Wars last night was... non-existent? Well, the game was there, and some people were there, but they seemed to be busy with Wintersday (which the company was repeating because of some bugs previously) events. I wasn't told what was up, mind you, just sort of had to gather what the (lack of) plan was by characters shifting around and discussions going on. And I wasn't asked to go stand on a colored ring somewhere, so I called it a night there without accomplishing anything.
Lady Deathwhisper ... Her threat-reducing debuff lasts so long our taunt-trading doesn't seem to allow for it to fall off. Perhaps trading at 2 is just too early, maybe waiting for 3-4 stacks? I did notice taunts work, albeit temporarily, even when the debuff is maxxed. Lady D needs interrupts to keep tanks alive, not sure what fell out of sync/rotation but she seemed to bzzort Elly. Taunt trades shouldn't be an issue if both tanks stay up. The airship battle was cleared in our first attempt, too, though poor Kyn got rezzed on the edge of the boat as it was moving and fell off by no fault of his own. Got killed by an axe in the back when jumping away from the Horde ship too. Talk about annoying. Deathbringer Saurfang again proved a roadblock for us. ... overall we're just not doing enough. We got him just below 30% a few times, but that last push is where we start losing people. He tends to have a Mark on someone by then, so Healing is stressed. Might need more than 2 heals at that point. I hate to say it, but I think we're running into a roadblock with our current group's gear (and perhaps skill). I get the sense that most groups breezing through this encounter were doing Trial of the Grand Crusader and/or 25-man dungeons before hitting ICC, while we have people still not in full EoT gear in some cases. On the up side, if this is the problem, repeated runs through the beginning of the instance will help via EoFs and ilevel 251 drops. Tactics.. gear.. heh.. here's where our 'casual' side is hurting us for progress. Deathbringer is both a hard gear check and a bit of a gutcheck, "Do you have it in you to raid?" he seems to say, "Are you able and willing to put your concentration into the strategy to beat me, and do you have the right make-up of people in your group to pull it off?" Snares and movement CC on beasts, full tilt DPS on him and them, heals keeping everyone up who gets hit by the multitude of abilities, tanks quick to trade him back and forth. Deny him his resource to win. do we have it? Somewhere in our multitude.. somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Deathwhisper's debuff lasts 30 seconds. I think it gets applied a lot faster than that. To trade at 2, it would have to be applied no more than once every 15 seconds... Hmm... maaaybe. May just be easier to trade at 3 stacks or so. Had some trouble on the first jump onto the Orgrim's Hammer because Saurfang decided he wanted to stay at range. I tried to get him pulled over, and I think that got me out of the healer's range and deaded (briefly). I'm still not sure what else to suggest with DB Saurfang. I don't have a good view of the DPS side. I think the taunt trading is working okay for the most part. I do need to watch my hammer tossing - hard habit to break - but I think I was getting that myself. There's a lot to watch, though, with four-or-so DBM timers and a debuff to watch for on Elly. Still, watching for the Rune on a focus frame is easier for me to react to than calling it out, personally.
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