Tyrk: Fall of the Lich King

I never planned on fighting the Lich King. I mean, I wanted to help the Ashen Verdict in what ways I could . . . but whoa. Man. So when the Crimson Dragon said, "hey, we're assaulting Ice Crown again, do you want to come along?" Of course I went. I just didn't realize they'd already cleared their way to the Frozen Throne.

It was a rough fight. Arthas killed us all. Fortunately Tyrion was there to save the day.

Tyrk: Disappointment

The Blood Council drops a very nice polearm. So I was kinda stoked to take Oom's place raiding Icecrown this week for that fight.

Then we ran into a snag. You see, Oom is usually on disco ball duty. Kinda' makes sense for someone with multiple good DoTs. Every tick knocks the orb back up. So it's usually him, plus Sholandria and Finola helping out when she can conveniently get off shots on nearby orbs. Shol wasn't there this week. And with me taking Oom's place, that meant only Fin with any experience. Another hunter, Darkroney, was the only other ranged dps in the group and it was his first time in the fight.

So it didn't go well. Not to point fingers or place blame or anything. I mean, it was tough on Oom his first times through. It's counterintutive for dps to enter the fight and not try to kill the boss right? But that's what you do. For whoever is on disco ball duty, hitting the Blood Princes is secondary to watching for orbs, getting in range and keeping them off the ground. That takes some practice.

We wiped three times before deciding to let the main raiders back in. Then we beat it no problem.

And my polearm dropped.

Or Darkroney's polearm now, I suppose.

Tyrk: Cat DPS

A few days ago in guild chat, Sukiko I think it was, asked a question that touched a nerve. "So, what happened to cat dps?"

What?! Well, I can't speak for all cats, but I can certainly speak for myself. My dps is just fine.

Well, you know, considering.

Hm.

I guess that qualifier, "considering", is what Suki was getting at. I mean, my brother recently ran his daily random with a cat that maintained an average 8K dps. What's usually the very top of the charts in heroic 5 mans? 5-6K? 8K is insanely good.

You know what? I'm not going to just speak for myself. I'll stand up for cats everywhere. Our dps is just fine. Considering.

But considering what? First thing I consider is that while levelling, my dps was almost always at the top of the meter. When it wasn't #1, it was at least comparable to whoever was there. In other words, when my gear was comparable to everyone else's, I could excel at my role. The next thing I consider is how many cats do you see raiding? I see lots of trees. Oom was in Onyxia 25 once with 4 other moonkin. But feral druids in a raid? All I see are bears. I think I've only ever seen a cat in a raid once. Ever.

My theory is that cat is a fun path to follow. We're fast, good looking, we do well in a fight and heal up quickly when it's done. Therefore it's a path people follow if they just want to kick back, relax and enjoy their experience in Azeroth. Serious raiders need to belong to guilds, guilds need tanks more than dps, therefore serious feral raiders end up going bear. And it's the serious raiders who get the serious gear and can do the serious dps.

But that's all just theory. Now I feel like I have to represent. You know. Get some gear and prove that cat dps can really be all that.

Fortunately, the Crimson Dragon is at the point where they sub in alts for the first wing of ICC. So Oom let me go in his place this week. What would probably provide the biggest dps jump for me, would be to upgrade the weapon I've been using since the first week I hit level 80 with either the staff Rotface drops or the polearm from the Blood Council. But those not even being in the first wing . . . well it didn't happen this week. However, I did get a new ring and the final frost emblems I need for a new cloak. We'll see where it goes from here.

Oomshakalaka: Leukemia

Heading into ICC for a progression night, Sholandria broke the news to us. Condon's 13 year old daughter had died Sunday morning to Leukemia. What do you say? Of course there was an outpouring of love and concern for Con and Shol. There was a moment of silence. Tears. Unfortunately, we know that no matter what we say or do, it doesn't change things or fix things.

There was this whole welling of emotions. Personally, I was angry. I wanted to rip through ICC, find a boss named Leukemia and kill him right there on the spot. Then come back next week and kill him again. And again the week after that, and the next week and the next and the next and when the Cataclysm comes and we've levelled on up past where raiding ICC serves any purpose, keep coming back anyway, every week, just to kill Leukemia.

Yet somehow, "let's go kill things" seemed like a hollow response to the death of a loved one.

So perhaps, in some cosmic, karmic way it was appropriate that our current progression is at Valithria Dreamwalker. We have tried the fight several times, mostly for a change of pace after beating our heads against the wall on other bosses. So we've seen it. Healers have to heal up Valithria while a continuous stream of adds come into the fight. Some are Suppressors, whose job is merely to apply debuffs to Valithria that slow down the healers' work. Most are just various types of undead come to kill us, drive us out.

Now that the other bosses are down, though, it's time we actually figure out how to save Valithria. We got into it and learned more about the fight. I learned Typhoon won't knockback the Suppressors, but it does slow them. Enough to kill them before they can begin channelling their debuff. We learned that there is an "enrage timer" equivelant. Eventually, the pace at which adds enter the fight increases dramatically. Too many swarm in for us to kill quickly enough before we are overrun. We tried switching up which healer was the primary on Valritha, how many entered her portals at a time to get the healing buff. Even, before figuring out the the acceleration of adds was actually an enrage timer equivelant, we had me try healing until the acceleration hit. My heal-fu simply is not strong enough.

Most importantly, I think we figured out that the if we let the tanks pull close to the center where it was easier to AoE all the adds together, and used ranged AoE to take down the Supressors, then the dps and tanking was not too difficult. So we tried bringing in a fourth healer. And it worked. While the rest of us kept the Undead occupied, those four healers were the night's heroes and we saved Valithria.

How I wish, I wish, I wish we could have done something like that for Condon.