Turtle

One of our best friends in WoW, Obento (who's main is now his mage - Konbawa) had a mission! Polymorph: Turtle. It was a ball forcing a coin onto a guild mate so he could purchase the reasonably priced tome in the auction house.

It was well worth it! Konbawa insisted on paying us back in record time, and crowd control has never been the same.

Champion of the Naaru

Today, Jondy and I earned the title Champion of the Naaru, by successfully completing what used to be the attunements for 25 man raids, SSC and TK.

The quest chains involved several heroics - Shattered Halls, The Steamvault, The Arcatraz and Shadow Labyrinth - the harder heroics in the game. I was particularly excited to tank through the timed event in Shattered Halls without losing a hostage, since everyone wants a pally tank for that instance.

The quests also require you to complete all of the T4 content, particularly killing Nightbane, Gruul and Magtheridon. We downed Magtheridon the hard way, in a full PUG group that Jondy and I put together. With some diligent screening, we were able to put together a 25 man group that was patient enough to let it all come together. Since several other toons were after Magtheridon as the last step toward the title, it was a great feeling to lead the raid to victory!

Zenborg goes raiding

Disclaimer: I'm writing this in October, enjoying reflecting on life before patch 3.0.2.

I made the tough decision to take Zenborg out of The Ancients, leaving the one and only guild I'd ever been in. It was clear that Zenborg after executing the dream, wasn't going to find a spot in The Ancients raiding schedule, since I can't play two toons at once (if only I could tank for myself!). So I made the move to a raiding guild that was in SSC, TK and MH.

My first night was Fathom-Lord Karathress in SSC. A little nervous and not knowing what to expect, I was delighted when my damage was competitive on the trash. Even better, when I got comments in raid and whisper that people appreciated having a shadow priest in their party! Between pulls, I got to take in the specticle of the cavern. The scale is impressive, and a nice contrast to the claustrophobic Gruuls Lair. FLK ate it after a few attempts, and we were off to TK to get owned by Alar.

My first week I got to see SSC, TK and MH - where Rage Winterchill and Anetheron both went down. Unfortunately, even though the guild was at 5/6 SSC, 3/4 TK, 2/5 MH things were already on a down hill slide.

RAIDS

The last few days has seen a LOT of raiding.

Thursday - Gruuls ------------------

We've been working with a couple of guilds to get some 25 man content up and running. The Ancients is a smallish social guild, with a bunch of toons who enjoy raiding, so to get into 25 mans, we've been making some new friends.

This week, we got a great Mage tank from the word GO. It made a HUGE difference. We still needed to fine tune the strategy or a wipe or two, getting more exposure to what happens AFTER the pull was good for everyone! High King ate it.

We fired through Gruul, and Jondy was rewarded with: [Cowl of Nature's Breath]. A first for some of the 10 Ancients that attended the raid.

Obento is pictured above [thanks for the screenshot].

Friday - Kara --------------------

Since we are a small social guild, we have more toons than can fit in our raiding schedule, particluarly toons that aren't geared to clear Kara. Since our first Kara group has ZA scheduled for this week, Jondayla and I decided to take some toons in for some Kara 101.

Elf had just leveled his pally healer to 70 and had worked hard on his pre-Kara gear. After Jossamine, Konbawa and Zenborg DPS'd him through his first Heroic (SP) days ealier, it was an ideal time to take him into Kara. Moonspirit, Moppet and Rage were able to help out, so after signing up a couple of toons who don't usually get a spot in Kara runs, and Fel's hunter alt - we were set to go.

We planned on a tidy run up to Curator, and call if for the week - which is exactly what we did. Each of the toons that had less exposure to Kara got a new epic piece of kit, including Fel's hunter with [Legacy] and [Garona's Signet Ring] - the later still eluding Elf, Oday, Lis, Barrath ... the list goes on. Adirix got [Bracers of Justice] from his first run.

Friday / Saturday - Magtheridon --------------------


In the wee hours, 5 ancients - Zenborg, Jondayla, Obento, Odayla, Mearaz - joined in on a Mags pug... and we cleaned up.

Zenborg: [Souleater's Handwraps]
Jondayla: [Magtheridon's Head] -> [Naaru Lightwarden's Band]
Obento: [Cloak of the Pit Stalker]
Odayla: [Pit Lord's Satchel]
Mearaz: A huge beating, and tanking Mags into the ground

Big thanks to Ferek, invited us to the PUG, and who has been a pleasure to play with over the last few weeks.

Saturday - Zul'Aman --------------------

We ventured into Zul'Aman again on Saturday night, to get our closest yet to the first chest at Nalorak. After a failed attempt at the naked gauntlet - we went on a scenic tour to get owned by Halazzi - turns out I shouldn't try and take the ~50k cleave by myself amongst the other melee damage.

However we managed to make our way back to Akil'zon and mete out some swift punishment for The Ancients first 2/6 ZA run.

Sunday/Monday - Kara ----------------------

Kara, again? Really? Well it turns out with two toons, it can work out this way. Zenborg and Jossamine [Jondayla's lock] went in with our 2nd Kara group for some Kara goodness. We managed to hit 1 and 2 on the damage both nights, with Joss hitting #1 on night two with some Curator and Illhoof goodness. She is pictured in her SEEDing outfit.

The Ancients Pwn Kara

To give Beanie a great send off, we decided to give Kara a good pwning.

The line up:

MT: Borgthor (enough said)
OT: Beanie (Pally tank to the stars)
Heals: Moonspirit (Resident Priest), Jondayla (Tree)
Melee: Zandrewz (Rawr), Mortdemuzzie (Fury Warrior)
Ranged: Felock (Lock), Elfangor (Hunter (BM)), Odayla (Hunter (MM)), Moppet (Spriest)

With Beanie threatening the group with irritated gerbals...

1923 First Pull
1936 Attumen Down (2m36s)
1957 Moroes Down (2m15s) Don't forget your badge, Elf
2014 Maiden Down (1m24s)
2031 Opera - R&J Down (3m55s)
2053 Nightbane Down (7m58s)
2112 Curator Down (4m5s (our record is ...))
2146 Illhoof Down (3m26s)
2156 Shade Down (4m1s)
2220 Netherspite Down (7m39s)
2230 Chess Down (is that the right word - "done" maybe)
2247 Raid Dead - Prince still kicking
2259 Prince Down (5m19s)

All up 3h36m.

Tanking Kara with a Pally tank was a new thing for me when Beanie decided to respec - and it turned out to be a joy. AOE pulls were even more of a holiday than usual (over eager dps ripping to their death no longer bothers me (apart from the time it takes to rez and buff the blighters)). The reduced CC and increased AOE threat allowed me to focus my tanking a little more. I could tank one - and every so often disable another so the healers wouldn't have to work too hard to keep Beanie up.

Fel pipped Elf in the DPS, followed by Oday. Zand and Mortdemuzzie turned in grunty DPS warrior performances, with Zand a little ahead on the night. Jondayla and Moonspirit two healed with ease - a fantastic healing team that allows me to wear my sharper, pointier armor. Moppet, our resident mana battery, got to laugh at Prince Malchezar - who coughed up his mindblade after sucumbing to a soulfrosted blade of focus.

Thanks to Beanie for working so hard on his pally, both DPSing and Tanking with great skill; and for providing the inspiration for a very focused run.

Zenborg's First Week: Conclusion

Don't let the picture fool you. This is a tale of heartbreak.

On Wednesday morning, with Kara freshly reset, Zenborg pugged into a "full clear" Kara group. Ever weary of trade spam, but optimistic that toons going into Kara this early in the week would want to do it right.

As things got underway, I was relieved to be juggling shackling duties and topping the damage before Attumen was pulled. I was further relieved when I was pwned by the mage in the group for the boss fight - our overall dps was looking ... reasonable.

Moroes went down (I can no longer understand why a shackle would EVER get loose (healers excepted)). Maiden followed shortly after. Topping the damage on Romulo and Julianne (Opera) did wonders for my confidence.

Nightbane was a new challenge. It was a joy to actually see the great beast, after being stuck between the dragon's claws or almost devoured whole as a Tank. Nightbane was particularly challenging because it took us 11m20s to get him down - to date my longest fight on Zenborg. Potioning early (and often), symbol of hope and my freakishly awesome shadowfiend meant I could put in a solid dps effort loosing out only to the mage and lock in the group.

Curator and Illhoof were both very entertaining fights. On Illhoof the mage and lock did half the damage between them, making the fight a breeze.

I've noticed that hunters tend to come into their own on Shade, which is a good thing for me as I died relatively early to Elementals, but still got my first piece of Kara loot: [Pendant of the Violet Eye] - which has earned a spot for those fights where mana regen is an issue.

Wow! This is going great! Just wait...

... Netherspite.

What is it about this guy that is so terrifying? THE fight in Karazhan where you are rewarded far more for teamwork and co-ordination than any other. The fight spriests and locks LIVE for. The BLUE beam! Give it too me! I want it ALL... mwa ha ha ha...

Not to be. With the OT disconnected - we made our way back down to Chess. The conjurer on Chess was great fun, but I really wanted to get back to NS.

Prince. Another challenge for a new spriest. Getting in and out of range for Mind Flay was a challenge met well enough to come in second in damage, being completely spanked by the mage.

20 badges! The Demonic Presence Destroyed! [Violet Signet] [Violet Badge] Woo Hoo!

... WAIT ... THE ... D R E A M ...

The tank wants [Mantle of Abrahmis] (boy, do I know that feeling). He's been a good tank, let's get it for him! Why are you hearthing? Stop... wait...

LF9M - Kara - Netherspite Only - help an spriest live the dream.

Executing the Dream

Here's the plan:

1) Ding 70
2) Kara geared within minutes
3) Kara attuned in the first day
4) Kara clear the first full Kara week

Here's stages 1 - 3:

Ding 70

I convinced Jondy to have an all nighter, in order to get the first three stages accomplished. We headed into The Steamvault just after midnight on 27th July for our second frag, and dinged on about the 3rd mob [yes, a lot of execution comes down to pre-planning].

I managed to get myself killed on the next pull, while trying on all my new spanking gear ....

1) Ding 70 - 0011 27/07

Kara Geared within Minutes

Due to my aforementioned death ... it took me almost a minute to whack my gear on.

Thanks to the [Spellstrike Infusion], [Shadow's Embrace], the [Belt of Blasting], [The Bringer of Death] and some diligent questing, I hit well above the Kara minimum stats with:

Health: 6.3k
Mana: 7.6k
Shadow Damage: 800
Crit: 14.53% [29.53% with MB and SW:D]
Spell Hit: CAPPED


2) Kara Geared - 0012 27/07

Kara Attuned in the first day

Attunement was also planned well in advance. We had done Durnehold Keep serveral times from level 66 - 68 to free us up for Black Morass later [Keepers of Time reputaion leads to +12 spell damage to rings]. As soon as we hit 68 we tore through the pre-quests, and had our first frag in the Shadow Labyrinth not long after.

Experience from questing caught up with us, so we planned to ding in The Steamvault on the way to our 2nd Frag. The Steamvault wound up at a little after 1am.

2nd Frag - 0032

By 0136 we were down in SMV shopping for our flying mounts. We wanted to do this right, so with 900g in hand, we bought our transport to conquer Tempest Keep instances.

Unfortunately, we didn't have room on our XP bars to quest for the Key to Arcatraz, so we took some time to run through that, and by 0348 we were flying up to The Mechanar. So by 0530 it was time for bed...

But wait? Didn't you mention an all nighter? Yes, but a slight planning glitch was that we had cleared the final bosses of Kara the previous evening on Borg and Jondy - so weren't able to sustain more than 24 hours straight world of warcraft - we had to sleep sometime. PUGs tend to get a little hard to put together in the wee hours of the morning.

So after a luxurious 6 1/2 hours sleep, I bounced out of bed, announcing, "you make the coffee, and I'll start putting together a group for Botanica". With Bot soon out of the way, retaining the services of both healer and tank from that run, we obtained the Key to Arcatraz, and behold - our 3rd Frag.

3rd Frag - 1540

All that was left to do, was go back in time and ask Medivh nicely to put the Master's Key back together. We had a little hiccup with our add melter in BM, when they started the event early, but on the second attempt (and with a new add melter) breezed through Black Morass - rewarding Jossamine with [Mantle of Three Terrors].

3) Kara attuned in the first day - 1839

Going through an accelerated attunement process has cemented my view that Blizzard did the wrong thing by removing the attunement process for Kara. Going through this process meant that shortly after level 70, the only normal instances we hadn't done were Shattered Halls [done soon after] and Magister's Terrace [since completed several times]. Is it that much of a burden to see each instance only once? Do you really want someone in Kara that isn't able to complete half the 5 man content?

Jossamine is a particular case in point. With absolutely ZERO craftables; quest rewards and drops from the instances in the attunement chain were all she needed to gear for minimum Kara specs, and perform admirably in Kara on the day of hitting level 70.

Kara Clear in the first full Kara week

It was Sunday night, we were attuned and our 2nd Kara team was about to do battle. However, they were a little short on numbers, and so Joss and I had a chance to get a taste of Kara before the full week even started. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the multiplicity of face melting, but starting Kara on the first day of level 70, both attuned and geared was a little surreal.

Stepping into Kara - 2020

Much to my delight and surprise... I pwned. Although I was nervous, shackling went very well, and didn't take too much of a bite out of my DPS. I managed to top the damage on both Attumen and Curator [narrowly beating out Joss with her huge curse of doom for Curator]. We missed out on the loot, but 7 badges later [I missed out on the 2 from Opera due to a server restart] and Curator down - it was time for another sleep!

The most ambitious part of this plan will be concluded ... next time. Stay tuned.