Rockstar Promoted
Thanks to the decision-making nucleus of the Eternal Force leadership, Rockstar received a promotion to the rank of Officer this past weekend. The other contender for top-tank in the guild, Promeus, was also promoted to the rank of Officer. It looks like Eternal Force is placing some value on its great tanks…often promotions are a way of keeping people involved.
Personally, I hope my duties as Officer are limited…I’m not sure how true that will hold as time goes on. Rockstar’s rank officially exceeds Kruenor’s rank in Apex of War (Kruenor is a raid leader); I now have access to officer chat in two different guilds. Hopefully it won’t be too confusing…the worst case scenario is a cutting remark intended to be sent to officer chat mistakenly gets sent into guild chat. Mental note, cut way back on making cutting remarks.
Eternal Force has signed on a couple of new tanks. The protection Warrior (Handofblood) has an excellent gear set. Assuming he can play, he will be an immediate contender for top tank. He actually received a couple of epics this weekend at the Magtheridon slaying. The other is a protection Paladin (Irimmune), and he seems to be pretty good as well. Eternal Force has also lost a couple of tanks…Doomsday and Mischievous have left the guild because of real life issues. This leaves the guild with 4-6 active tanks…it’s going to be interesting to see how busy all of these tanks can be kept.
A Bit of Drama
It sure seems like Eternal Force can’t go any length of time without a bit of guild drama. Someone is always coming and going, or just going, or just complaining about this piece of loot or an invite to that particular raid group. As I was trying to kick off our weekly Karazhan run last night by doing some speed clearing on the Attumen trash, more guild drama developed.
Sainte (a holy Priest) and guild master Blackelement (a Warlock) took their mains and alts and left the guild. No real explanation was given, although Blackelement did make a short speech right before he left. He said that he felt he had done quite a bit for the guild, and that the guild would continue on, but it would be without him. He said he felt there were some very selfish people committing very selfish acts.
All of this is probably true. All of this is probably true for most guilds out there. None of this makes any sense to me…there’s no logic in giving up the title of guild master and leaving over the matter of a few selfish people. There’s a rumor that he quit because he didn’t get into our Karazhan run…that doesn’t make a lot of sense either, as he and Sainte are very well-geared and don’t have anything to gain by running Karazhan further. I think logically he must have some other option in mind…perhaps a new guild to join, or friends to join up with. Perhaps the disbanding of Singularity in the last week has something to do with this decision? It’s possible, and we’ll see in the near term.
In either event, Trivia (our Karazhan raid leader) has been promoted to guild master. I’m not sure if this is an interim thing, or a permanent thing. It’s going to be interested to see how much (if at all) our raiding schedule will be affected. Hopefully our roster continues to expand out. World of Warcraft is a social game. People arrive in clumps, people depart in clumps. Sainte’s departure was clearly tied to Blackelement’s departure. I hope the number of people following them will be limited.
Karazhan Group With New Members
Tonight I ran Kruenor with an Apex of War Karazhan group. This was a new composition, with Muttonchops (protection Warrior) and Licserra (feral Druid) tanking…Ahonor (protection Paladin) was in reserve as well, to practice AoE tanking pulls and off-tanking as needed. Healing be Romtz (holy Priest), Restalaan (holy Paladin), and Grantaar (restoration Shaman). The DPS team included Kruenor (marksmanship Hunter), Flynti (beast mastery Hunter), Darkmaidenn (warlock), and Minnieme (mage).
Clearing towards Attumen, I found that I had to throttle DPS quite a bit, often times doing nothing. Muttonchops threat per second seems a bit low…I’m not if it’s because if his technique or because of the gear divide. In any event, the clear to Attumen was nearly flawless…only one death along the way. The Attumen pull was good, I misdirected to the Warrior to help ensure he kept Attumen to himself.
We dropped Attumen in 4 minutes, 11 seconds with no deaths. I spent some time auto-shotting. Attumen dropped the Bracers of the White Stag (disenchanted) and the Spectral Band of Innervation (greeded by Romtz for offset).
Clearing towards Moroes wasn’t bad, and it shouldn’t have been. The paladin tank had plenty of opportunities to throw down his Consecration and protect the AoE casters…against single targets he was doing about 200 TPS, which is pretty damn low. Nevertheless, we had a few mage deaths and a warlock death during AoE pulls.
The Moroes adds included Baroness Dorothea Millstipe, Lord Robin Daris, Lady Keira Berrybuck, and Lord Crispin Ference. The plan was to shackle Lord Robin Daris. Ahonor would tank Berrybuck and Crispin, while DPS burned down Millstipe with the beast master’s pet tanking. The plan worked perfectly. Moroes was dropped in 3 minutes, 23 seconds (with no deaths). He dropped Moroes’ Lucky Pocket Watch (won by Ahonor) and the Belt of Gale Force (disenchanted).
Right before the final pull to the staircase leading out of the ballroom, I saw an Avenger Shield go awry and the group of elites were pulled. I called for a Consecrate and heal the Paladin over Vent, and everyone made a nice recovery on the fight. Only the Shaman died.
The Guest Chambers pulls were a little sloppy, but we managed them without issue. The Maiden of Virtue dropped in 2 minutes, 18 seconds. Perfect fight, no deaths. The Maiden of Virtue dropped the Bands of Indwelling (disenchanted) and the Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden (greeded by Muttonchops).
We drew Big Bad Wolf for the Opera Event. Big Bad Wolf got a few lucky shots in, and we lost 2 healers and the mage in the opening minute of the fight. A call for dying at the front of the stage was made…so that’s what we did. We wiped in 2 minutes, which is pretty long…we just didn’t have the DPS to finish him off.
The second attempt was victorious in 4 minutes, 26 seconds…but it was tough. I died early, and Flynti died twice during the fight. Romtz was stellar, and was able to kite Big Bad Wolf three out of four times…Romtz died right at the very end when Wolf was at 10% health. Big Bad Wolf dropped Red Riding Hood’s Cloak (Grantaar) and Trial-Fire Trousers (Minnieme).
I died on the Broken Stair when I fat-fingered my Feign Death button…I was busy getting into my rotation, went to Feign Death, and then ended up moving as I cast it. In other words, I wasted it.
Clearing trash to Curator went pretty well. Curator dropped in 4 minutes, 57 seconds. No deaths. The Curator dropped Garona’s Signet Ring (Muttonchops) and the Gloves of the Fallen Defender (greeded by Romtz for off-set).
Another Stab At Magtheridon
Following a short visit to Gruul’s lair to finish off Gruul this week, Eternal Force and a few others gathered up for an attempt on Magtheridon tonight. This would be only the second time Eternal Force has attempted Magtheridon. The first experience ended up being a lesson in how we weren’t yet ready for this encounter. Hopefully tonight things would be different.
Marluce (now with Prime) would be the main tank, with Rockstar, Sohelia (a pickup druid) and Thadril (an impromptu paladin tank) tanking the other channelers.
The first attempt ended with a quick wipe. DPS was only able to down one of the three clustered channelers…three channelers were clustered together and too many heals were getting off. They probably killed three channelers’ worth of health on the one guy. Hopefully this would be an icebreaker, a chance for those who had not yet been here to see how things work in the early phase.
The second attempt lasted 3 minutes, 57 seconds…four channelers were killed before Magtheridon got loose. A much better try. I was disappointed no one was calling out for deaths in the kill order…the off-tanks were supposed to rotate their targets clockwise to assist in bringing subsequent targets to the DPS group. (Quick positioning of the targets can speed the DPS). I ended up having to taunt an infernal off my healer, and dragging my target across the floor. The first Blast Wave ended up nuking about 20 out of the 25 people in the raid. That’s no good. The designated clickers were having trouble knowing when to report to their stations, and that would have to be addressed.
The third attempt lasted 3 minutes, 7 seconds. The big problem continued to be getting to the cubes on time…and then clicking and holding.
The fourth attempt was insane. We got him to 28% before a mistake was made on the cube clicking and the raid ate a Blast Wave. It ended up being pretty fatal. Marluce went down, and I had a chance to pickup Magtheridon and get him in place and do some tap-dancing on his face. That’s good practice for me, as I will possibly have the task of tanking him in weeks to come. The fourth attempt was 11 minutes, 10 seconds. Some of the raid wanted to go to bed (late on a Sunday night), but we decided to give it one more go.
The fifth attempt was great…it started similarly to the fourth. The fight is so long, you never know how things are going to turn out. The channelers were going down, and weren’t getting heals off. Magtheridon emerged, and Marluce took him. Finally the last channeler (mine) was killed, and I was quickly moved into place and switched to dual-wield and started hacking away at Magtheridon’s underbelly. The clicking was going smoothly. The Cave-In struck…I still think it’s tough to figure out where things are landing, it seems like the blocks are landing everywhere to me. Magtheridon’s body and large fires in the area weren’t really helping visibility. After 15 minutes and 45 seconds, Magtheridon was slain, and Marluce had tanked him the whole way. Everyone rejoiced, as this was our first kill of Magtheridon, and was truly an unprecedented kill. No one thought we were going to get further than a few minutes into the fight, much less actually slay him.
Magtheridon dropped the Girdle of the Endless Pit (won by Rockstar for offset), the Eredar Wand of Obliteration (won by Shria), Chestguard of the Fallen Defender (won by Elest), and a pair of Chestguard of the Fallen Hero (won by hunters Coydog and Zaroo). Magtheridon’s Head went to Shinryu, and the Pit Lord’s Satchel went to Shadowknives.
This run was one of the finer raids I’ve had since The Burning Crusade came out. It wasn’t necessarily smooth. During the fourth and fifth attempts, some of the leadership qualities of Marluce, Trivia, and the Eternal Force guild master Blackelement were really emerging. Warnings were being given. Clicking assignment were being clearly assigned. Contingencies were being addressed. The raid leaders were really on the same page and on top of their game, and that is going to take us deep into content. I’m looking forward to it.