Results tagged “Raiding”

Last night the Shattered Ravens returned to Ulduar (our second guild visit, though some people have done it independently), but first more important things: Andro's fashion sense.

For the last few months Andro has been kitted out in T7/T8 and then T8/T9, including the Tier 8 chest. While a nice piece of kit, it's a tunic and so Andro has (in the words of our gnome rogue, Rivelinho, been "showing off her legs"). Being a modest kinda gal she's not been too fond of the various flavours of tights she's worn during this time  but thanks to all the Emblems of Triumph she is finally kitted out in four pieces of T9, including the robe. Yep, back in a dress at last! Oh, and shiny new dagger, wand (x2) and staff!

The Ulduar trip was slightly delayed by work-related issues and so after some personnel substitutions we quickly visted Obsidian Sanctum and promply salughtered the inhabitants (with, IIRC, only one death). In addition to a super-speedy kill of Sarth Andro managed to get Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows!

With out group finally ready, we headed to Ulduar and had something of a mooch in vehicles killing everything and generally being chaotic before taking a pop at Flame Leviathan (which we failed at on the first attempt, but did handily on the second. next up was XT Deconstructor, who was a boss many of us hadn't fought before and who proved to be good fun (even though Andro died).

Next up was Ignis, who we'd seen on out previous visited and whom was promptly one-shotted. Following that we headed to Razorscale who, despite a little bit of harpoon confusion and Leafshine needing to force a reboot mid fight ended well for the Ravens with both the armoured drake felled and the "Siege of Ulduar" completed.

More personnel substitutions followed as the hour was getting late, but we wanted to see more of the complex and so pushed on into the Antechamber of Ulduar. After the trash pull from hell (prompting comments of "so that's why they leave those up") we paid Kologarn a visit. This proved to be the most troublesome fight of the evening (as fatigue and/or alcohol took its toll) but on the fourth attempt we got him down. A couple of notable moments here: the tank discovering that Kologarn really was sitting in a bottomless pit (splat!), a rogue following him in the next fight (oops!) and a mage who can't tell her left from her right (who, me? Looks innocent).

And that's where we left it for the night (it being gone midnight, not that that stopped us taking a quick trip to Pit of Saron HC) but with plans to return to Ulduar in the near future to continue where we left off.

Work has been taking its toll on my playing recently but I've still managed to do a fair number of runs and get Andro her second piece of tier 9 (and some new trousers, prompting a revision of her enchants and gems) and for Buliwyf to slowly gear up and head off into the Epic 200+ territory.

Though I wasn't scheduled to participate (but was down as a reserve) young Buli found himself tanking the Plague and Spider wings of naxx on Monday (save for Loatheb which Awl, a druid tank, handled) as well as Sapphiron and a couple of cracks at KT. I'm still something of a novice in the tanking stakes, but it's a fun change from Andro's DPS-age. A lot to learn still (like don't turn the big icy dragon!) but my confidence is increasing and his gear has benefited greatly from 5-man TocH and Naxx/OS loot drops. I do need to work on some of his repuations (currently Sons of Hodir and Argent Crusade) after which point he'll hopefullt be a useful member of the Ravens.

In other news, the guild are trying to run 2 Raids a week - one progression-oriented on Mondays and a more general "fun" one on Fridays (though that one is heading to Onyxia tonight and is oversubscribed while Monday's Ulduar is rather healer-light!) Fingers crossed both raids will go off well (particularly as the coming Monday is the first one in 3 weeks I've not been down as reserve for - the Ony run already had 12 by the time I knew I'd be free) and that we continue to keep up the impetus. Fingers crossed too that the increased raiding keeps the guild's "high flyers" happy and that we dont' have another bout of departures to more raid-focussed guilds. We'll have to see.

The Raven's haven't done much raiding in Wrath, and its beginning to look like we're not going to. As a small guild, we've always struggled for numbers but in recent weeks in particular it's been an issue due to the general case of 'WoW ennui" and a dearth of players. As a result of this, one of our healers decided to go and play with his friends (ex-Ravens) in a raiding guild on another server, and now another player (albeit a less active one) has decided to move his healer toon to join the same group.

I fully understand why they want to do this - they actually want to progress rather than idle, but in doing so life has become somewhat harder for the Ravens - we're rather short of healers (and, oddly, ranged DPS at the moment). It may to a degree be irrelevant as getting even 10 people together (let alone 10 people of the right class) is proving a challenge.

 If I'm brutally honest, I'm half expecting a couple of others to head off too, which'll totally scupper any plans for raiding. We'll have to see ...