Russta (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} russta) wrote,@ 2009-05-20 16:08:00 |
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capillarian host
About the only thing I disliked about this fight was that dropping down to five healers made a massive difference. I've never really enjoyed the concept of arbitrarily shifting uncomfortable numbers of specific roles around to meet specific demands of a specific fight that drastically changed from what came before and after it. At least dual spec has made life infinity easier in that regard.
Yogg-Saron himself was a very entertaining and worthy end to Ulduar. I remember when we first starting poke around in phase one and thinking it was just a formality to blaze through to get to the real fight. Boy, was that wrong. It wasn't exactly the hardest aspect of a fight I've ever done but when I think back to the precedents they set with Illidan, Lady Vashj and Kael'thas having a first phase where you'd only really lose people if they were dribbling into their keyboard, it's a few levels over that. It's possible there are better tactics than the one we were using but everyone needed to be composed and in control to get through it in a timely manner without taking too many guardians with us. My biggest gripe about this phase was people getting released from their mind control in the middle of a cloud and spawning extras. That sucked. I also got mind controlled once and put Hand of Protection on a guardian but that was just straight up funny. There seems to be a small degree of luck in how well you do in phase one though discrepancies were easier to clean up as we dropped healer after healer.
I wish I was able to experience the visions in phase two but alas the life of a tank. I was surprised the roleplayers in my community didn't seem more excited about them to be honest. To each their own. My role was simply to mark the Crusher Tentacles and direct people into them while smacking them in the face when they started casting diminish power. Pretty simple job but one Protection Paladin is pretty amazing at due to being able to spam cleanse on people while giving the wrath deprived casters 3% extra crit and mana returns. Carrying the really shitty aspect theme into phase two, we had one or two times where the melee sent out of the portal went careering into an untanked Crusher at 99 stacks. Oh, and the time where BTB got hit with Death Coil just as he entered a portal and got feared through the brain room door causing Yogg-Saron to regen to full health. Penelo also got feared through the world once but was flinged back up top somehow.
The final phase was excellent. It was so tense as a tank knowing that stuff could spawn where I couldn't immediately spot it, that the three of us couldn't mix up who was grabbing what, that we likely never had time to renew our sanity. I remember on our kill looking at the main tank list and seeing Yogg-Saron still at 11% and feeling like it was going to be forever until he dropped only for him to just die. The bizarre actions of time for me were inexplicable. We weren't really sure whether we wanted melee or casters on Yogg or the Immortal Guardians and were discussing the pros and cons for both. In the end we went for melee on adds, casters on Yogg and it obviously worked pretty well.
I enjoyed Ulduar and I'll enjoy working on the hard modes (even if I do have my doubts) but best of all was how much our raiding community evolved over the period. We've managed to get rid of some pretty poor players under fortunate circumstances and replace them with very good ones. We got a new Holy Priest and Adarinkin this week, threw them in at the deep end and they floated spectacularly. With how awful our first week of raiding turned out compounded with the absolute shit luck our ten man faced, I'd be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind to make a hard decision and uproot myself to a poopsock guild. Then I remembered who I am.
And the day after the ten man version died.
When I say our group has had shit luck, I wasn't joking. We should've had this kill weeks ago but due to a combination of real life commitments, graphics cards blowing up, connection issues between continents, patching a US client the day before EU gets it, power going out, someone preferring arena, a tree falling on power lines and fuck knows what else, it had to wait till today.
There's not a whole lot more to say about Yogg-Saron that I didn't already cover above. The fight is embarrassingly easy in ten man. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that phase one was the hardest of all three by some distance. When we first started, the Guardian's HP was going down in blocks of 10% and we couldn't adapt the strategy we use in twenty-five to fit it. We ended up evolving it to spawning an extra one, killing that and having me run in with it then I simply taunt them off Calira and drag them into my camp in the center. I had a fantastically awesome idea of everyone just camping on top of Sara and healing through the explosions but no one was too hyped for that. Phase two we stood around doing nothing constantly and phase three I was able to solo tank while our disconnected tank ran around trying to kill our healers.
I think it's going to be a while before we start rampaging our alts through the place. I'm still paranoid our ten man group isn't 100% stable and have had to instill a planning and confirmation system for them, something that leaves a disappointed bitter taste in my mouth. We've already began working on hard modes and achievements with the greatest being Thorim thus far. I'm planning to have us do Hodir and Deconstructor this week which I know will be a formality for us if someone doesn't spontaneously combust before Friday.
About the only thing I disliked about this fight was that dropping down to five healers made a massive difference. I've never really enjoyed the concept of arbitrarily shifting uncomfortable numbers of specific roles around to meet specific demands of a specific fight that drastically changed from what came before and after it. At least dual spec has made life infinity easier in that regard.
Yogg-Saron himself was a very entertaining and worthy end to Ulduar. I remember when we first starting poke around in phase one and thinking it was just a formality to blaze through to get to the real fight. Boy, was that wrong. It wasn't exactly the hardest aspect of a fight I've ever done but when I think back to the precedents they set with Illidan, Lady Vashj and Kael'thas having a first phase where you'd only really lose people if they were dribbling into their keyboard, it's a few levels over that. It's possible there are better tactics than the one we were using but everyone needed to be composed and in control to get through it in a timely manner without taking too many guardians with us. My biggest gripe about this phase was people getting released from their mind control in the middle of a cloud and spawning extras. That sucked. I also got mind controlled once and put Hand of Protection on a guardian but that was just straight up funny. There seems to be a small degree of luck in how well you do in phase one though discrepancies were easier to clean up as we dropped healer after healer.
I wish I was able to experience the visions in phase two but alas the life of a tank. I was surprised the roleplayers in my community didn't seem more excited about them to be honest. To each their own. My role was simply to mark the Crusher Tentacles and direct people into them while smacking them in the face when they started casting diminish power. Pretty simple job but one Protection Paladin is pretty amazing at due to being able to spam cleanse on people while giving the wrath deprived casters 3% extra crit and mana returns. Carrying the really shitty aspect theme into phase two, we had one or two times where the melee sent out of the portal went careering into an untanked Crusher at 99 stacks. Oh, and the time where BTB got hit with Death Coil just as he entered a portal and got feared through the brain room door causing Yogg-Saron to regen to full health. Penelo also got feared through the world once but was flinged back up top somehow.
The final phase was excellent. It was so tense as a tank knowing that stuff could spawn where I couldn't immediately spot it, that the three of us couldn't mix up who was grabbing what, that we likely never had time to renew our sanity. I remember on our kill looking at the main tank list and seeing Yogg-Saron still at 11% and feeling like it was going to be forever until he dropped only for him to just die. The bizarre actions of time for me were inexplicable. We weren't really sure whether we wanted melee or casters on Yogg or the Immortal Guardians and were discussing the pros and cons for both. In the end we went for melee on adds, casters on Yogg and it obviously worked pretty well.
I enjoyed Ulduar and I'll enjoy working on the hard modes (even if I do have my doubts) but best of all was how much our raiding community evolved over the period. We've managed to get rid of some pretty poor players under fortunate circumstances and replace them with very good ones. We got a new Holy Priest and Adarinkin this week, threw them in at the deep end and they floated spectacularly. With how awful our first week of raiding turned out compounded with the absolute shit luck our ten man faced, I'd be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind to make a hard decision and uproot myself to a poopsock guild. Then I remembered who I am.
And the day after the ten man version died.
When I say our group has had shit luck, I wasn't joking. We should've had this kill weeks ago but due to a combination of real life commitments, graphics cards blowing up, connection issues between continents, patching a US client the day before EU gets it, power going out, someone preferring arena, a tree falling on power lines and fuck knows what else, it had to wait till today.
There's not a whole lot more to say about Yogg-Saron that I didn't already cover above. The fight is embarrassingly easy in ten man. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that phase one was the hardest of all three by some distance. When we first started, the Guardian's HP was going down in blocks of 10% and we couldn't adapt the strategy we use in twenty-five to fit it. We ended up evolving it to spawning an extra one, killing that and having me run in with it then I simply taunt them off Calira and drag them into my camp in the center. I had a fantastically awesome idea of everyone just camping on top of Sara and healing through the explosions but no one was too hyped for that. Phase two we stood around doing nothing constantly and phase three I was able to solo tank while our disconnected tank ran around trying to kill our healers.
I think it's going to be a while before we start rampaging our alts through the place. I'm still paranoid our ten man group isn't 100% stable and have had to instill a planning and confirmation system for them, something that leaves a disappointed bitter taste in my mouth. We've already began working on hard modes and achievements with the greatest being Thorim thus far. I'm planning to have us do Hodir and Deconstructor this week which I know will be a formality for us if someone doesn't spontaneously combust before Friday.
