WoW Journal - 30-Jan-2006

I had quite a nice weekend in World of Warcraft. I'm trying to concentrate on leveling Kyroc, my priest, who made it to level 47, unfortunately using up all of his rest xp bonus. But often there are guild activities that require a level 60, so I'm still playing my warrior a lot.

The greatest thing was a guild mate organizing a LBRS 5-man for me, so I could get the remaining gems for the UBRS key, and the first quest in the Onyxia key quest chain. That was one of the best groups I've been with for some time, we totally owned the place. 3 hours in LBRS and not a single wipe. We took a couple of shortcuts to the end boss, and arrived there is record time. There I got the first of two missing gems, but we couldn't find the documents for the Warlord's command quest. So we went back to the start and killed the other two bosses that normally have the documents, found the other missing gem, but still no documents. Meanwhile monsters had respawned, and we had to kill the pyromancers and spiders again. Passing the ogres for the second time I finally found the documents there. They must have despawned elsewhere and respawned there, I'm sure they weren't there when we first passed. On the whole trip we were quite lucky with loot, found a libram and a codex, a couple of nice blues, and a recipe for greater fire protection potion that I was missing.

The really interesting thing with that group was that I was one of two warriors, the other members being a priest, a mage, and a rogue. Two warriors turned out to be a lot more useful than I would have thought. True, when fighting only one mob, the second warrior is only a mediocre damage dealer. But during a long dungeon trip, there is always something going wrong, a surprising patrol, a resisted or breaking spell, somebody accidentally targeting a sheeped or sapped mob. And then when you fight more than one mob at a time, having a second warrior buys you the time to get everything back under control. As I said, 3 hours and not a single wipe.

On Sunday I participated in a raid to Molten Core. That was actually part two of a raid that I hadn't participated in on Friday, so Lucifron and Magmadar were already dead. Magmadar dead meant no more patrolling doggies, which enabled us to reach the next boss, Gehennas, in a very short time. That was the first time I fought that boss. We killed him on the first try, although at the end 90% of the group was dead as well. Lets call it a draw. He dropped two epic items, one of them being plate boots for warriors, but with 8 warriors in the raid I ended up losing that roll. I didn't mind that, it was nice to have at least had a chance to roll on it.

But what I did mind was that as one of eight warriors in a MC raid I felt like a sheep in a big herd. Although technically 2 warriors in a group of 5 is a higher concentration than 8 warriors in a raid of 40, in the group of 5 I was feeling as if I had a big contribution to the success of the group, while in the raid I was just chugging along. So when another guild mate logged on and asked if he could have a spot in the raid, I left, and let him have my spot. Which turned out to be a wise decision, as the raid had difficulties killing the next boss, Garr, which lead to the usual unpleasantries: repeated wipes, lots of waiting, and bickering between the participants. I was happy I came and had a look at Gehennas, but equally happy when I got out again. These big raids are just not my thing, even if they go well.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:01 AM Permanent Link