Russta (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} russta) wrote,@ 2007-10-08 23:48:00 |
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How long must we fold by hand?
209th World Kill, 92nd US Kill, 8th Battlegroup Kill
In all honesty, this should've happened weeks ago.
I've long held a dream of raiding with the same twenty-five people every day. It's one I just wouldn't let die. I came close to it, floating us at around twenty-seven people for a month, but, ultimately, when just three people needed the same day off, we were left in an unpleasant predicament. No matter what anybody told me, I felt it would be better to miss a day or two of raiding and let everyone share in benefits of the same vision than upset a ton of people I couldn't guarantee raiding spots to.
Then we got to Illidan.
Standing in front of his slouching form without enough people being online to even make attempts on him, let alone stand a chance of killing him, was humiliating. To think that we'd worked so hard to get to this point only for a few people with more of a life than a majority of us to ultimately ruin it sucked. It then happened a second week and, instead of risking it a third, I decided to recruit and attune people and bolster ourselves to the point where this would stop.
I hate recruiting, I really do. I was never scared of it, I just hated it. Seldom does anyone agree on who would be best for the guild, everyone wants to push their friends in beyond all reason and it doesn't help my conscience struggles to deal with allowing people to transfer over to us only to tell them they suck. Not that the latter was a problem this time around as we've disallowed transfers while the cooldown of Inffest, Qubits and Strep disappear so we may get off this backwater server and onto the far more populated and advanced Mal'ganis come November 9th. Maybe then I can slink back into the level of anonymity I enjoyed when first starting WoW. Or maybe not.
Illidan could never be the kill that Kael'thas was to us, at least not to me anyway. Five weeks of struggle and barely keeping the guild alive upon having the mantle thrust onto me was just never going to succumb to mere logistical issues. Truth be told, Illidan isn't even that hard, it's just overcoming some very obvious personal boundaries for certain members in phase two then a mild degree of coordination for the rest of it. It's fun, oh boy is it fun and a very fitting end to the current tier of progression, but not hard.
I really didn't enjoy watching phase 2 learning. It took Zylch a very long time to "get it" and, as much as I understood, it drove me crazy that there was very little I could do about it. At least once that phase was coined, all issues from there were just minor things - me blocking Sheer, the Mage dealing with Parasites not getting doubled up on constantly, melee timing their DPS on Shadow Demons around Flame Burst and the whole raid being super-efficient on spreading out while waiting for them. Last night, we would've actually killed him on our second pull had he not instantly destroyed me the second we were released from the Shadow Prisons at the start of phase 5. That was quite humorous and I hope it makes it into Bus' video as she hinted at.
I'm not sure how I'd rate my actual tanking performance on him last night. I'd promised myself before the raid that I wouldn't take a single sheer and I sorta stuck to that. The only one I took was on the time we actually killed him. Maiev teleported behind me, the raid called the trap and I started backing him up into it. The only problem was she'd fucking dropped it half way inside a wall and as I tried to get him to run into it he ran around it and Flame Crashed me as my camera jammed in the wall behind me. This along with the raid screaming about Parasites made me completely lose my composure, take a sheer and die. Suffice to say I would've felt like shit if they hadn't managed to whittle down his final 3%. Oh yeah, as seems customary for many guild's first Illidan kills, we completely wiped to Parasites after beating him.
Drops were okay, I guess; Cursed Vision of Sergeras, Shroud of the Highborne and Paladin and Warlock bodies. Aside from one of the Warglaives, I'm not sure what everyone was expecting but the silence on Vent when he was looted was eerie. And we're a guild (read: Kuai and I) that have a habit of screaming when anything drops from trash. I was a little disappointed Bulwark of Azzinoth didn't drop but the satisfaction of knowing I didn't fail as leader is quite the consolation prize.
Here's to three day raiding!
209th World Kill, 92nd US Kill, 8th Battlegroup Kill
In all honesty, this should've happened weeks ago.
I've long held a dream of raiding with the same twenty-five people every day. It's one I just wouldn't let die. I came close to it, floating us at around twenty-seven people for a month, but, ultimately, when just three people needed the same day off, we were left in an unpleasant predicament. No matter what anybody told me, I felt it would be better to miss a day or two of raiding and let everyone share in benefits of the same vision than upset a ton of people I couldn't guarantee raiding spots to.
Then we got to Illidan.
Standing in front of his slouching form without enough people being online to even make attempts on him, let alone stand a chance of killing him, was humiliating. To think that we'd worked so hard to get to this point only for a few people with more of a life than a majority of us to ultimately ruin it sucked. It then happened a second week and, instead of risking it a third, I decided to recruit and attune people and bolster ourselves to the point where this would stop.
I hate recruiting, I really do. I was never scared of it, I just hated it. Seldom does anyone agree on who would be best for the guild, everyone wants to push their friends in beyond all reason and it doesn't help my conscience struggles to deal with allowing people to transfer over to us only to tell them they suck. Not that the latter was a problem this time around as we've disallowed transfers while the cooldown of Inffest, Qubits and Strep disappear so we may get off this backwater server and onto the far more populated and advanced Mal'ganis come November 9th. Maybe then I can slink back into the level of anonymity I enjoyed when first starting WoW. Or maybe not.
Illidan could never be the kill that Kael'thas was to us, at least not to me anyway. Five weeks of struggle and barely keeping the guild alive upon having the mantle thrust onto me was just never going to succumb to mere logistical issues. Truth be told, Illidan isn't even that hard, it's just overcoming some very obvious personal boundaries for certain members in phase two then a mild degree of coordination for the rest of it. It's fun, oh boy is it fun and a very fitting end to the current tier of progression, but not hard.
I really didn't enjoy watching phase 2 learning. It took Zylch a very long time to "get it" and, as much as I understood, it drove me crazy that there was very little I could do about it. At least once that phase was coined, all issues from there were just minor things - me blocking Sheer, the Mage dealing with Parasites not getting doubled up on constantly, melee timing their DPS on Shadow Demons around Flame Burst and the whole raid being super-efficient on spreading out while waiting for them. Last night, we would've actually killed him on our second pull had he not instantly destroyed me the second we were released from the Shadow Prisons at the start of phase 5. That was quite humorous and I hope it makes it into Bus' video as she hinted at.
I'm not sure how I'd rate my actual tanking performance on him last night. I'd promised myself before the raid that I wouldn't take a single sheer and I sorta stuck to that. The only one I took was on the time we actually killed him. Maiev teleported behind me, the raid called the trap and I started backing him up into it. The only problem was she'd fucking dropped it half way inside a wall and as I tried to get him to run into it he ran around it and Flame Crashed me as my camera jammed in the wall behind me. This along with the raid screaming about Parasites made me completely lose my composure, take a sheer and die. Suffice to say I would've felt like shit if they hadn't managed to whittle down his final 3%. Oh yeah, as seems customary for many guild's first Illidan kills, we completely wiped to Parasites after beating him.
Drops were okay, I guess; Cursed Vision of Sergeras, Shroud of the Highborne and Paladin and Warlock bodies. Aside from one of the Warglaives, I'm not sure what everyone was expecting but the silence on Vent when he was looted was eerie. And we're a guild (read: Kuai and I) that have a habit of screaming when anything drops from trash. I was a little disappointed Bulwark of Azzinoth didn't drop but the satisfaction of knowing I didn't fail as leader is quite the consolation prize.
Here's to three day raiding!
