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Moving
I’ve been preoccupied lately getting ready to move.
My company is being relocated to the Muscle Shoals/Florence Alabama area at the end of the month. Unfortunately, not everyone who works there new it. Because most of them were being let go.
There were about a dozen of us that had been quietly invited to relocate with the company. We’ve been having after-hours meetings for weeks discussing the move and many other details about our company. Who else do we want to invite along, who should we definitely boot, how should we better handle situations that haven’t been handled so well in the past.
See, the company I work for hadn’t been doing so well. Mostly due to problems with the leadership (read: greedy, unscrupulous owner with terrible business sense and shady business partners). So a consultant was brought in to see if we could get pointed in the right direction. After about 8 months, that consultant ended up buying the company - at a bargain price no doubt.
Among the first steps in the long term plan is to purge about 75% of the employees and relocate. The previous owner loved to throw bodies at problems whenever they popped up, so we were severely overstaffed. Most of the layoffs are already done (there were a handful who were asked to stay until we move) and we are down to about 40% of the staff we used to have. And all of the work is still getting done.
So that is the main reason for the lack of action here. I have been busy tieing up all the loose ends here in Florida and making weekend trips to Alabama to find a place to live. Secretly.
I payed my deposit and signed a lease on a townhouse last weekend. I’m going to start packing and disassembling everything this weekend. I may make a quick trip next weekend to score the key to my new place and get the utilities turned on.
In the mean time, we did manage to kill Fathom-Lord Karathress. We had just killed Leo (with only 22 people in the raid to boot) and since we had never bothered to even go look at Fathom-Lord or discuss strategy before, the guild leader wanted to call it an early night.
I convinced everyone to carry on for the few more trash pulls it takes to get to Fathom-Lord (well, most everyone wanted to do it anyway, I just had to convince some of the other officers that we would be fine). The other officers and I briefly go over the strat in O chat and we give it the old dry run. Kill order is Hunter, Shaman, Priest, Karathress. When the hunter summons his pet it immediately gets away from the hunter tank and choas ensues.
“No big deal. It was a dry run. You all see how it works though? Ok, lets do it one more time.”
Frayed Tether of the Drowned
Leggings of the Vanquished Champion
Leggings of the Vanquished Champion
Leggings of the Vanquished Defender
Tags: Fathom-Lord Karathress, Leotheras the Blind, Progression, Real Life, Serpentshrine Cavern
Leotheras the Blind Down
On our third time clearing to and attempting Leotheras, he has finally been relieved.
We’ve been to see him twice before and gave him a few shots both times with no luck. One of those was a 6% wipe. Last night we made our way there and got his loots on our first shot.
Gloves of the Vanquished Defender
Gloves of the Vanquished Defender
Gloves of the Vanquished Hero
Coral-Barbed Shoulderpads
Pattern: Hurricane Boots
I was lucky enough to receive one of the T5 glove tokens.
After that we swung over to say hello to Morogrim Tidewalker. Most of us had never seen him before and very few had done any reading about him. Nevertheless there was a quick explanation, I was going to main tank him while two paladins picked up the Murlocs. We only had time for one shot and although we didn’t kill him I feel we did pretty well, getting him to 52%.
Tags: Leotheras the Blind, Morogrim Tidewalker, Serpentshrine Cavern
We really get around
On Friday night I crafted myself a pair of Boots of Natural Grace (bought the pattern on the auction house). I also crafted the Primalstrike Vest and Primalstrike Bracers for my Kitty set. Immediately after crafting my Primalstrike stuff I went on a Heroic Black Morass run for the daily and guess what? I had enough badges for the Band of the Swift Paw. I had intended for them to replace my Umberhowl’s Collar for my tanking set, but they also replaced the Primalstrike Bracers from my DPS set. What an incredible waste of 3 Primal Mights.
With some of my new gear I’ve lost a considerable amount of defense rating and resilience. I’ve had to supplement it with enchants here and there to keep myself uncrittable. I’m currently rolling with Enchant Chest - Major Resiliance and Vindicator’s Armor Kit on my gloves and boots to keep myself over the limit.
Ok on to the raid details.
As much as the majority of folks in my guild would love to stop running a weekly Karazhan raid and focus more on 25-man content, it’s just not practical right now. There are too many people (myself included) who still need gear from there. Not to mention the 22 Badges of Justice you get for a full clear.
I’m 3/5 for T4 now, but only one of those is an item that I will continue to use for any length of time (the Mantle of Malorne), and I still need the helm from Prince. Megalis has seen that dude die about seven times now and still no helm.
And speaking of badges, I need to save up 100 of them for Embrace of Everlasting Prowess which makes the T4 chest obsolete. Not that I have the T4 chest. I’m still rocking the Heavy Clefthoof Vest. That chest piece, plus a ring, a cloak, an optional necklace and some other odds and ends add up to quite a few badges that I still need. And 3-5 badges here and there from heroics just isn’t going to cut it. I need those weekly Kara runs.
So anyway, the guild ran two Kara raids on Saturday. My raid finished a full clear in about 4.5 hours. Not quite as quickly as the raid a couple weeks ago (3.5 hours) but we had several people on the bench that had to get swapped in and out as well as two or three wipes. I sat out for Chess and Opera. The Curator finally coughed up his damn gloves for me. Still no staff from Illhoof, helm from Prince or tank ring from Shade. The gloves do make me happy though. I was using one of those crappy PvP pieces you can buy at honored rep with all the outlands factions.
Sunday was a quick clear of Gruul’s and then over to SSC. Gruul dropped the Aldori Legacy Defender for the main Warrior and he had it gemmed and enchanted before we even got to SSC.
SSC was really fun. Lurker went down first try. As usual the new people were dead almost right away. Remembering that Lurker whirls after each spout as well as on a regularly scheduled basis is key and I see a lot of people who either don’t care about it or forget about it standing right up next to Lurker pounding away on him as he whirls.
We headed straight for Leotheras after that. We had one wipe on the two bog giants. It was supposed to be one, then the other but while we were fighting the first one the second one was aggroed.
Then there were the two trash pulls just outside of Leo’s chamber. We planned on sapping one but something went wrong and the Rogue was spotted. That would have been fine but someone pulled the other trash right next to the group we were fighting and it went downhill quickly. I didn’t stick around to even try and salvage it. I ran back up the ramp and jumped down to the previous level. The mobs had to run a long ways around to try and catch me and they gave up before that happened. One of the priests got bubbled so it wasn’t a full wipe and we were back in action a couple minutes later.
Once inside Leo’s chamber there are five or six more trash pulls before him. Incredibly, we had the Boots of Unending Courage drop on two of these trash pulls. Still no greatstaff for this Druid :(
The rest of the trash before Leo was cleared and we were ready. The fight was laid out for those that hadn’t researched it or done it before. Our Warlock put on his fire resist set to tank Leo’s demon form. Myself and a Paladin were chosen to tank the human form.
We lost a huge portion of our DPS on the first whirlwind, but I think some of them got a better idea of how to avoid it next time. The human form tanking part is rather easy. I just have to grab aggro before anyone else does, then let the Paladin take the aggro from me. If I get a demon summoned on me I can kill it very easily and get back to swatting at Leo.
We only had enough time for the one try, but we gained some insight into the fight that just can’t be gained from reading about it or watching videos of it. Next time we’ll give ourselves a better window and have time for several shots at Leo. Hopefully we won’t need them all though.
Three different raids this weekend. I had a great time and I think everyone else did too. Making that progress at the end was super nice too. We’ve killed Lurker several times now and we always just left after that. I’m glad we were finally able to press on.
Tags: Gruul's Lair, Karazhan, Leatherworking, Leotheras the Blind, Primalstrike, Serpentshrine Cavern
Leotheras is officially on notice
Sunday’s raid was delayed until Monday (last night) due to Mother’s Day.
That ended up being another trip to Lurker and no Wildfury Greatstaff for me. Our top Warlock has devoted an enormous amount of time and effort to creating a fire resist kit to off-tank the Leotheras fight. Over the weekend he finally reached the point of being ready to attempt it. Unfortunately his mother ended up in the hospital and he was not able to play. I haven’t heard the details of why she was hospitalized but I do very much hope that she is ok. A human being’s health is much more important than a game and I think the entire guild shares that sentiment. We will have our shot at Leo soon enough.
Lurker went down without much of a fight save for one warm-up wipe. My stupid ass got hit with the first spout on our second try so I spent the entire battle drifting in the water just slightly out of range of battle rez. Our tree druid disconnected while underwater and got scalded to death before he could log back in. Nevertheless, Lurker was killed without the two of us. The fight actually went really well considering I was a Guardian tank and the main tank had to pick up my Guardian then jump back to Lurker afterwards. Lurker dropped another Cord of Screaming Terrors, a Mallet of the Tides and the Ancestral Ring of Conquest.
Our main Warrior tank was all over the mallet and I don’t recall who took the belt because I was too busy comparing the ring to to my own. I had no doubt that the ring was an upgrade for me, but I wanted to know how much of an upgrade. I ended up taking it to replace Delicate Eternium Ring from my tanking set and Averinn’s Ring of Slaying (correction: it was the Band of Ursol that got replaced. I’m still wearing the other one) from my DPS set. I’m kinda being stingy with my EP/GP ratio right now as I am up against a warrior and a priest for the T4 tokens that still haven’t dropped. Those being gloves, helmet and chest.
And speaking of the T4 chest, after Lurker was down we ported back to Shat for repairs, restock, etc. and regrouped at Magtheridon’s Lair. We ended the raid at 11pm (cst) after four wipes. Each wipe was due to either early or late cube clickers which results in a Blast Nova. On our last attempt we made it to phase three (30%) just as the Blast Nova took most of us out. We still got him down to 28% before everyone was dead though.
It was a learning experience for many of us since we hadn’t been there before. The guild itself has attempted Mag before but that was long before myself and many other people that are raiding with us now had even joined.
Wednesday - if enough people show up - we are planning on paying a visit to Leotheras. Leo doesn’t have much of a loot table (mostly crafting patterns), but he does have T5 gloves (Nordrassil Handgrips for me specifically) and that’s nothing to complain about.
Tags: Leotheras the Blind, Magtheridon, Serpentshrine Cavern, The Lurker Below