Dragons Aren't so Tough

Yarr, for her to make an appearance that means Malygos be dead. Was quite a fight too. Took several tries, two of which got him to less than 5% before enrage hit. Well he enraged on three, but on the third we managed to eke out the kill. I fell right as he did, it ended with one person still alive! I'm glad that we have taken a nice step in progression. Unfortunately I haven't been able to raid much lately because of work so I'm falling a bit behind gear-wise, hopefully my DPS isn't faltering too much with it.

Here's some food for thought. Alexstrasza has 140 million HP. She's the dragon Queen. She looks mighty fine in her humanoid form. Why doesn't she just come in and smack around Malygos' 20 mil and call it a day?

Not Too Shabby

Since I began raiding, I've been fairly content with my DPS. It's been up there, nothing stellar, not topping the charts, but getting the job done. So that's why tonight's WWS report of Sarth+1, Archavon, and 2 wings of Naxx surprised me a little.

We started with Sartharion +1 drake. The fight can be a little hectic and messy, and you're dealing with a dragon, a drake, whelps, and elementals, so the report may be a bit off, but it was fairly standard.

4th, not too shabby, I usually float around 6th at best to 10th at less than best.

Naxx was a little more surprising.

First Anub'rekhan,

Then Grand Widow,

Then Maexxna,

Then Noth,

Needless to say, I was rather surprised. The rest of the fights was more where I was used to, 7th for Archavon, 6th for Heigan, and an icky 10th for Loatheb. In my defense, Archavon and Heigan are more range-DPS friendly with Archavon jumping all over the place and having to avoid his clouds, and Heigan offering the safety of his platform for the non-dance part of his fight. On Loatheb I got only one spore, so only enjoyed 95% crit for a couple minutes while most probably got a lot more.

On the flip side, I shouldn't get full of myself. BRK was raiding as BM, testing their post 3.09 viability. His DPS was on par with the rest of the raid, though he generally topped it as SV. But I'm sure he'll have more to say on it than I ever could. Also our two other SV Hunters weren't attending tonight, or our top mage. So I guess that all considered would put me back around 6th... well that's kinda a downer.

Now I know DPS charts don't tell nearly the whole story, there is a whole lot more to being a good raider. But I think I performed as I should have. No standing in the fire, no deaths during boss fights. Always rather low on incoming damage and offering a decent spattering of my own healing into the mix. Well there was Archavon...

See, I can tank! I wear mail, that's made of metal, just like plate, so I'm practically a warrior. So not sure if I screwed up there, or it's just that no tanks picked him up after eating the MT, or whatever, I'll play it safe and say it's my fault. But I didn't die, so it's all good.

Progression, Achievements, Titles!

I need to update more. Too much to say! Though all this happened within two days so guess it's forgivable.

Let's start off with raiding. It seems like we just started Naxx and we've already moved into our first official Naxx-25 last night. It went very smoothly. Our raids only last about three hours so we only had time for Spider and Plague wings and Patchwerk but all went swimmingly. There were no wipes on bosses, just one on trash when we got a little overzealous pulling gargoyles and agroed 3, and then the rest of the room too. I was proud that I didn't die once excepting the wipe. My DPS was, well average. I was only averaging around 3k DPS on fights where you have to actually do stuff, and about 3.5 on Patchwerk where I just stand around and beat on him. I suppose that's pretty decent but perhaps we just have a solid DPS base as I was generally around 11th in DPS.

I guess I need to just keep telling myself that I'm not pure DPS, and it's my nifty tools that's making everyone else's DPS that high.

I did nab a goofy looking beatstick, which is nice. Goes well with my goofy offhand.
Onwards!

Achievements. I got a lot today. Like 10 probably, several of which were towards Glory of the Hero. I still need 18, I likely will never get it, but it's still cool.

With those achievements I got two titles. Two! One was Elder, from the Lunar Festival achievement. It's cool but nothing big, a lotta people will have it, replacing their Hallowed and Merrymakers. I am looking positively stylish, however.
The other was a biggie. Loremaster. No easy feat. It involves doing enough quests to get the questing achievements for every Northrend and Outland area, at least 95% of the quests in each zone, plus 700 quests in both Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms (for Alliance). Along the way I also got the Seeker title, for 3000 quests. I'd be surprised if you can get Loremaster without Seeker, though I did more than just the required amount in every area, because I have no life, and quests are interesting.Now I'm an honorary quest giver!
Oh, and if that isn't enough, I finally stabled my Netherwing Drake!

Mr. Bigglesworth Won't Save You

I haven't done a lot of posting about my raiding (well, I haven't done a lot of posting in general). I did a post last week about my foray into Naxxramas and how much I sucked, but I've since deleted that because I don't like being so negative. Now that lag is cleared and I'm a little more raiding competent, this week in Naxxramas went quite swimmingly.

We (that is Aetherial Circle)do two 10-man Naxx raids on Sunday and Monday evenings. We have only done "official raids" for a few weeks. We're not hardcore raiders, we waited until January to do official raids so everyone had proper time to level, gear up, and enjoy the scenery. We've plugged along. Last week we cleared all four wings despite the lag, and as I said, I was quite disappointed with my performance. This week went much better. Both groups cleared the four wings on the first night, leaving only Sapphiron and Kel'thuzad for Monday.

The group that I was in trashed Sapph quite well. 1 shot, our first try. I personally didn't think the fight was difficult at all. Just stay out of the blizzard, position yourself correctly, and hide behind your frozen compatriots.

Kel'thuzad was a little shakier but we got him down in a few tries. It took a bit of time to just work out positioning and whatnot, plus we had some back luck/oopsies. Our main tank once didn't get out of the shadow fissure in time, so kersploded. Twice our add tank got frozen, leading to death. We repositioned our healers and that seemed to fix it. We got him down soon enough, with the second 10-man following suit a few minutes after.

So we departed Naxxramas with only one survivor.

Since it was quite early, we decided to do Sarth-25. We started it last Wednesday but that was before the lag was fixed and it was a bit too ridiculous. The drakes were still dead though so we just cleared the trash and then made short work of the dragon. Hopefully we'll do +1 next week. The only thing about that fight that annoys me is that I can't get the Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows achievement. I keep my spell detail up about halfway on that fight and still don't see the meteors until they pretty much hit and so if I'm in them there's no way that I can avoid them. I'm not sure if there is a better way to see them or what.

So goings are good. I think in a week we're going to start 25 man Naxx, for which I certainly believe that we are ready. From what I hear, a lot of those fights are easier on 25 than 10 and we've got a competent group of raiders so I don't think we'll have issues.

In other news, I'm fudging around with my spec a lot. With 3.08 I got a free respec so tried a spec using Static Shock and lightning shield. It upped my DPS a good deal but my mana suffered way too much. Perhaps once we're always doing 10-mans and I know that I'll be getting Replenishment and Blessing of Wisdom(we have approximately 42 paladins) it will be less of an issue. Though I'm getting ahead of myself, that will be a post in itself.