The Dedicated Few...

Well, last night marked a first for me, and also for a few other of my Concedo Nulli (A-Khadgar-US) (NOW HIRING) colleagues. The Dedicated Few. The achievement wherein 8 people dominate KT and his boys in one raid lockout. No more than 8.

We did this in two raid nights. Knocked out Arachnid and Plague on one night before more of our Ulduar peeps got on. We set up a separate raid night to finish it up. Mind you, we're primarily doing Naxx to help gear up our newest Elemental Shaman, Shasu (who was late to her own raid, btw... <3). Our raid consisted of:

Kreeoni - Druid MT
Tracerec - Pally DPS/OT
Bloodevil - DK DPS/OT
Kathoid - Druid Cat DPS
Sahne - Rogue Healer... i mean.. uhh. DPS
Shasu - Late (ahem) Shaman Ele DPS
Nagrarok - Shammy Healer (my mentor)
Thespia - Yours truly...

We breezed through Construct, one-shotting every boss. I'm always a little nervous to heal Patchwerk because of my level of mana. It was just Nag and I, but I was determined to focus more on LHW and Riptide than Healing Wave. The one issue I'm still struggling with is remembering to keep refreshing Water Shield. As my Intellect goes up, and my Crit% goes up, I'm consuming Water Shield charges more often, so I need to refresh it more. Problem is... when I'm in the thick of it and both Kree and Trace are taking decent damage, I wonder if I'm able to spare the GCD to keep it up. Obviously it'll make me last longer, but could it unintentionally mean death for the tanks. I'll keep working on it.

The fight that we seemed to keep dreading was 4Horse. 8 people: 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps... hmm... Shasu and Thes in the back. Kree on his own, Trace & Nag with Sahne, Kat and Blood. Now, I've been a "healtank" on my priest before, but shields and renew's and Prayer of Mending are great tools to have back there, not to mention Binding Heal. I popped an Earth Shield on Shasu and we pulled. What I didn't take into account is because I was taking damage, my Water Shield was consuming charges faster than normal, which meant that my mana was reloading faster. Made healing back there a total breeze. She used her Earth Elemental in the beginning, and I still had mine on reserve. Everyone came back to help us shortly thereafter and we were golden! Phew! I was glad to have that fight over.

Sapphiron... psh... easy mode.

KT... well... It was a really rough pull. I understand that we're low on ranged DPS, but I hate having to throw lightning bolts at the Banshees and burning through mana in the 1st phase. I'll throw a couple, but I need to save my mana to make sure people stay alive. We had 4 Banshees up as KT became active. Got them all down, I think Trace died. Once we got everything down, the rest of the fight really couldn't have been better. We were communicating... everyone was pretty focused.

At the end of the night, it was just a FUN environment. Stressful maybe at times, but definitely fun. Hopefully, my next post will be about creating and maintaining a fun (but not sloppy) raid environment. Until next time...

Sartharion + (N)One

Tonight was the first attempt at Sarth1D. I've done this fight on my priest before, but with the shaman is a whole new experience for me. Again, we're 2-healing it. I remember needing 3 healers just to do normal Sarth. Even though I was late for the raid (stupid work), Nag wasn't there tonight. Shit. The normal raiding crew was there for the most part. A new hunter I've never seen before who left halfway through the raid, and a priest. Okay... well, maybe the priest will MT heal tonight (Apparently in my mind, all priests are discipline). *BUZZER* wrong. He whispers me before the first attempt "you wanna MT heal?", and I think I crapped my pants.

Kree does Sarth1D a little different than I'm used to, which is totally fine. I'm fluffing his ego here a bit, but he's a damn good tank. One of the best I've ever healed. He tanks Sarth AND Tenebron. Like I said, I've never seen that before. Luckily, the priest new to help me out on Kree since he was going to be taking double the damage.

Now for my favorite part of groups where I don't know everyone in it... the flame walls. One particular member that I'll call "Honda" got hit. Every. Single. Time. Not only do I have to heal them, but I have to heal them THROUGH a dot. I kept watching my mana bar go lower and lower. Popped my mana tide totem and kept going. I think we could've done it if the DPS knew where to focus....

...one attempt had DPS still focused on Sarth while Kree and the heavy hitters were on Tenebron, so Sarth got pulled and wiped us. Another attempt had us just trying to burn down Sarth and then take care of Tenebron later, but adds started piling up, and dear GOD I can't heal through those. It's so sad to watch Grid stay the same as I'm spamming chain heal. Then the really interesting thing kept happening. I was staying alive longer than the other healer. The priest (in t7.5 I think) kept dying!! I'm not sure if he couldn't stay out of the flame walls or something, or pulled too much healing aggro on the adds. *shrug* Not too much we can do.

I think after about 3 attempts, we as the defacto "officers" decided to just go for Sarth minus Tenebron. Even at that, "Honda" kept just sitting back and getting hit by flame wave...

No gear dropped for me tonight... I'm hoping for some sweet healer legs pretty soon. I also got the Cowl of Sheet Lightning off of Thaddius in Naxx10 the night before. Yes I know it's a clothpiece, but it's better than my blue. It's got decent mp5 and other stats I need. Still need to figure out what to gem it with. I also need to start grinding rep so I can get Arcanums and Shoulder Inscriptions. That should help a bit, fo sho!!

Did a UP run after Sarth which was pretty smooth. I'm having fewer and fewer mana issues, which is great. Now I need to keep getting my heals cranked up higher!!

Sleep is upon me. G'night world.... of warcraft.