Best Laid Plans

You know you've been blogging too long when you have to go back through your old posts and make sure you haven't used the same title before.
Last night was SSC night for Mal Katai. 1 shot our Farm Bosses (Hydross, Lurker) and maybe get Tidewalker down for the 2nd time.
Well, that's how it was supposed to go.
Add control was a constant issue. We were using 4 tanks. Brindall (Warrior)on Nature, your humble author on Frost, Blankz (Feral) and Lanorah (Warrior) on adds. I'm not sure if Blankz had been an add tank previously or not. He was trying to use Demo roar to pick up his adds, but it wasn't working. After some discussion, we got that worked out. He would Mangle one, taunt one, and swipe spam.
Our first attempt was foiled when the adds went and destroyed our healers.
Our second attempt wiped when one of the mages (who wasn't on vent) pulled aggro on a transition. This mage uses a Mac which apparently Vent doesn't like. Our Raid Leader was spamming a Raid Warning of STOP DPS! yet there flew the arcane missiles to Hydross as we transitioned him.
I wonder how other guilds handle Mac users. My opinion was that he should not have been in the raid, if he couldn't have been on vent.
Also our Raid seems to be very dependant on Dora (our incredible Raid Leader) verbally telling people when to stop refreshing their DoTs and to stop all DPS.
Our third attempt we seem to get the add control down, but I could see we are behind the enrage timer. We haven't had an issue with the enrage timer since our first kill.
As the fight progressed, I could tell we weren't going to beat the enrage timer. My hope was that we'd at least be in Nature (Brindall's) phase when the Enrage hit so he could Last Stand and Shield Wall. No such luck.
Hydross hit enrage at Mark#2 in Frost form with 8% life left. Dora called for spam heals on me. At Mark #4, I popped my Scarab of Displacement to try to increase my parry and dodge, and kept one finger hovering over my Lay On Hands button.
The seconds seemed to take minutes as Hydross health slowly, slowly ticked away, and my health yo-yo'ed between full and nigh dead.
34s into the Enrage timer Hydross went down. I got a couple of "nice tanking" comments, but what they should have said was "wow, incredible healing."
It's been over a month since we did a proper 1 shot of our "farm" bosses. Is it possible for a boss to come off "farm' status? Sure seems like it.
We have gotten 2 Progression Kills in the past month, Tidewalker, and DoomWalker, but last nights performance gives me great concern over our planned TK raids this weekend.
I've started gathering some mats for a new Frost Resist set and to sort of pay Mal Katai back for the Frost Resist gear they've given me. I wonder if I wouldn't be better to pick up the Adds in a mix Nature/Frost set with Consecration, Judgement and Avengers Shield. Plus, if one add gets loose, I can Righteous Defense and pull it back in without have to chase it too much.

Comments

Farmer Rob said…
Ted..

Thursday will be a different raid then the last few..

I will ensure I am on early and have the grp set up..no one gets an invite with out my ok..if they do not know the fight they will get a 10 min timer to read a strat and watch a video..if not../boot

I will pay for a new vent that supports mac if need be:P

and after me "talking" with Sic he didnt pull again..
Anonymous said…
My guild is going through the same thing. We have killed Void Reaver 4 times and Hydross twice. We had an easy enough time downing them each time. Everyone understands the fights and what to do when. I think it is an issue of complacency and not focusing on "farm" content. They think it is "easy" mode. But, in reality, it took a lot of focus to down him the number of times we have. I dunno, we are taking a few nights off, might be burnout, and regroup in a couple of days. It is definitely frustrating to not kill the bosses you think you have down pat.
Lakini said…
I use a mac and have and vent issues in the past. It the codec used that's the problem. It needs to be on Speex.
Matticus said…
Pretty much what Lakini says. Only the Speex codec will allow Windows users and Mac users to communicate with each other. The codec should be selectable from the server side.
Anonymous said…
I am a Mac user and i use Vent easily. The Vent admin should choose Speex codec at the webside admin page.

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