At last we meet, for the first time, for the last time!

I've never actually mentioned it specifically, but our guild's name is <Bleeps Sweeps and Creeps>. If it seems like I go overboard with the Spaceballs humor, there you go. We're a small guild of IRL friends that have known each other forever.

Last night BS&C and Origin teamed up for Kara. Our BS&C Prot Warrior and Hunter had never been, and it was about time. Origin contributed the other 7 members, including a Paladin MT so that our guy could learn the ropes. We didn't have a Mage or a Rogue, and the only Priest was my shadowy self. Some of the Origin guys had been once or twice, but hadn't seen all of the bosses. The players ranged from early-T5 down to our two guys, with a nice spectrum in between.

We set the expectations for the raid from the start: this was to be a learning run. We would not be moving quickly. There would be lots of narration and exposition. Everyone was expected to explain what they were doing and why they were doing it. We also fully expected that we probably wouldn't get through a full clear in one night — our BS&C guys were expecting us to split the run across two nights, and only run for maybe 3 hours the first night.

For those that want to follow along at home, the WWS report is here.

As you would expect, the first few pulls were a little shaky. Nothing memorable, just the standard first-timer jitters. Attumen went down in one shot without a hitch — only the Warlock died, as he was the most OP person there and wasn't keeping an eye on his threat. We all had a good laugh about it and kept going.

Moroes went about the same — the Hunters (we had one from each guild) had problems getting their mobs out of the Paladin's Consecrate, but we all recovered and had another one-shot. (Vanish, Shackle, Garrote, Repeat.) I have to say, I love Moroes' voiceovers. “Now where was I? Oh yes ...”

Our first wipe of the night was because our Warrior was too busy looking at his shiny new Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch to remember that we hadn't completely cleared that first hall before Moroes. Again, everyone knew exactly what had happened even as he was fessing up to it, and had a good laugh over it.

Maiden was completely flawless. The Paladin handed over the MT reins to our Warrior, and the RL explained how to kite Maiden around to pop the healer out of the Silence. Our Warrior was completely on top of it, and had it down the very first time. Our third one-shot.

Our second and final trash wipe of the night was the pull on the way to Opera. We were handling it until we got the patrol. Everyone acknowledged that particular pull was one of the toughest in the instance, and we were up and moving again.

For Opera we had Romulo and Julianne. The RL gave a quick synopsis as the event began, and ... you guessed it, another one-shot. Yours truly, along with 2 others, forgot that you have to loot both corpses and had to run back after making it all the way downstairs for repairs.

Curator — nothing exciting here. Another one-shot.

I will say this, though, to my fellow Shadow Priests: stay on Curator. No matter what the RL says about downing the adds, don't worry about it. The RL is not talking to you. Not only do you need to work on keeping Curator dotted up, but when he goes into Evocate and you get the damage bonus, the extra punch to VE will help keep the party up as they deal with the rest. Just stay on Curator the entire fight and keep an eye on your threat.

By now we had been in for just over 3.5 hours. I checked on guild chat to make sure that our BS&C guys were doing okay. I told them to speak up if they wanted to call it for the night — everyone knew we were going to split it.

Their response? They were digging it. They wanted to finish it all.

Kara. The first hit is free.

Illhoof — another one-shot. We forgot to mention to our Warrior that Kil'rek respawns. Oops. But he figured it out and we got through it. (In this fight, fellow SPreists, do switch to the Demon Chains when they come up. Squishies go down fast, and they need all the help they can get. And, really, you'll probably only get a single MF off so it's not a waste of too much time.)

Shade.

You're expecting me to say that Shade was our first boss death, right? Between the Flame Wreath and the Elementals and the Blizzard and the Arcane Blast, surely one of the n00bs screwed something up and we wiped, right?

Nope.

Shade was another one-shot. No one moved during Flame Wreath. I don't think anyone got hit with the Blizzard or the Arcane Blast. A couple of us dropped because we pulled aggro on an Elemental, but that was it. The band played on and Shade went down.

Chess was the usual mass chaos. No wipe, of course. Can you wipe on Chess?

Prince, however, was our first boss wipe. To our credit, however, we had a series of Infernals that dropped right on top of the ranged party. We made it through the first one, but the second dropped only a moment after a Shadow Nova. I didn't make it out in time, and a few others went down quickly thereafter. The third took out everyone but the tanks. To our credit, we did manage to get him to 2% before we all finally dropped.

Prince to 2% on the first try! Not bad!

Instead, Prince was a two-shot. The Infernals didn't come near us the second time and we had him down.

Netherspite? One shot. Explaining the beams to everyoe that hadn't seen it (not just the BS&C guys) was tricky — you've got to see it to really get it. But get it they did. Our Warrior danced in and out of the red beam like a pro, then regained aggro after each Banish phase without a hitch. The Warlock and I got to switch back and forth in the blue beam. I do love that blue beam.

We hit Nightbane at just past the 4.5 hour mark. The clock tower in the background tolled midnight as the pull was made — it was the stuff of RP legend.

Unfortunately, we wiped on out first try, for our second and final boss wipe of the night. We didn't have good skeleton control during the air phases, and they took down first the Lock then me. The rest of the party lasted through to the next air phase, but the writing was on the wall.

The second try, however, went like clockwork. Skeletons went down with plenty of time to spare. Everyone stayed out of the Charred Earth. Misdirects kept the tanks holding aggro. Nightbane went down in just over 9 minutes. Not bad.

The final score: 8 one-shots, 2 boss wipes, and 2 trash wipes. Just under 5 hours total.

Not frickin' bad for an introductory run, I think.

Our Warrior got, I believe, 3 new pieces of gear. Our Hunter, however, was the clear winner of the night with 6 new purples. Best of all, almost all of the lot was uncontested — the rest of the party was geared enough that the drops went quickly to the new guys. We might have had to actually roll for maybe 2 or 3 items? No drama, just lots of gratz. The Origin guys got some gear, mostly off-spec, and I believe we had 10 Voids at the end of the night.

As always, Origin was a pleasure to raid with. I really can't say enough good about them.

You are a unique and beautiful snowflake ... just like everyone else

Have I mentioned that I PUG quite a bit? Maybe? I might have brought it up once or twice.

As my Server dropdown list in Ventrillo gets longer and longer, I realize that I am learning something about people: everyone is different.

Yeah, duh.

It may seem like I QQ quite a bit about bad PUGs. I don't mean to QQ — I really just enjoy sharing the horror stories of my bad experiences. Raiding is mostly the same. There are good raid and bad raids. But because there are 5x as many people, you can get a much better sense of the guild.

I want to share some of my insights. Compare and contrast, if you will. Lest I am misinterpreted, let me make one thing perfectly clear before I continue:

I have respect for each of the guilds I mention by name. I wouldn't name them, otherwise. There are plenty of guilds that I do not respect, and they aren't named here.

Got that? Good.

I'll take Origin first. Origin is a very cool bunch of folks. Even though I am not in their guild, most of them treat me like I am. There's a reason I have so many WWS reports with Origin: whenever I need something for a quest, Origin generally steps up and helps out. Even if it's a Heroic Shadow Labs at 3am, Origin is there. That's just cool.

If I had to use one word to describe raiding with Origin, it would be calm. There's a bit of joking around on Vent, but mostly everyone seems willing to STFU and listen to the RL. There are a few people that seem to not like the peace and break it at inopportune times when they should be taking in chat and not Vent, but not many. Everyone is generally respectful to everyone else. I cannot express how much I appreciate this kind of serenity on a raid Vent.

If pressured to say one bad thing about Origin, it would be that they might be too quiet. Because of the low-drama approach to raiding, it seems that some people will occasionally not get it when it is time to listen to a strategy. We'll wipe a few times because people are doing things they were explicitly told not to. Eventually, everyone gets it and comes together, but I doubt Origin will have too many one-shots. In the end, though, that's okay — Origin is also the guild most okay with wiping and trying again. Wipes don't phase Origin in the least. I'd raid with Origin any day.

Raiding with We Raid Naked is the exact opposite of raiding with Origin. It's very high-drama, high-excitement, and noisy. It seems like everyone talks on Vent. Talks, tells lewd jokes, curses other players, etc. Patience is in no way a part of We Raid Naked raiding. If you aren't there 100% or aren't paying attention, you get kicked and replaced within minutes. They are a steamroller, and raids are the road.

But none of that is necessarily a bad thing. We Raid Naked will one-shot many bosses. They have to, as they don't take wipes nearly so well. The RL is strong, and loud, and there can be no doubt when you need to listen. Organization is accomplished with an iron fist, but it is also air-tight and unbreakable.

I've only gone on one raid with Totem Totem Totem, but they seem to be somewhere in the middle of the other two. The Vent chatter is raunchier than Origin, but nowhere near as much as We Raid Naked. Organization and leadership isn't as cutthroat as We Raid Naked, but is still much more heavy-handed than Origin. These guys are more about throwing themselves into the mix and hoping one or two people are still standing at the end. The organization is mostly front-loaded, with the vast majority done before combat and somewhat-controlled mass chaos during combat. They are a "just do it" group.

I've only done a couple of 10-man runs with Gank This, but from what I can see they are no-frills, balls-to-the-wall, get-the-damned-thing-done type people. It is assumed that you know what you are doing and know all of the strategies, so Vent is used mostly for casual chatter. They are cool to raid with, but the speed completely wipes me out for the night. I have to assume that raiding with T6 or late-T5 guilds would be like this.

I guess that's why I don't get all of the turf wars that go on between guilds. Each guild has their own personality, so why don't people get and respect that? Do you want hardcore? N00b-friendly? A Vent to tell raunchy jokes? High or low drama?

I guess that's one more nice thing about being the PUG master that I am: I can choose to run with a guild that suits my mood for the day.

Magtheridon, round 2, fight!

Tonight was Magtheridon with Origin.

Long story short: we totally win at the WoW.

I got #5 overall for damage done, and #7 for damage on the final try. I might have taunted the other SPriest, Casprin, a bit too much about not mashing his buttons hard enough. After beating him squarely on the initial attempts, he got me by 3k damage, or about 0.7%. Still, I'm extremely pleased with my performance. I still need to work on my rotation under pressure, but I'm getting noticeably better.

Also, I am now completely convinced that SWD is uber for raids. WWS says that I did 31k self-inflicted damage, but healed myself for 61k. If I'm reading it right, I also gave each of my party just about 20k in mana, or the equivalent of 7 Super Mana Potions each, or 160 MP5. Win!

SSC, take 2

This weekend marks my second foray into Serpentshrine Caverns. I am not in a raiding or progression guild, but the good people in Origin have been kind enough to invite me along for their last two runs. Good times!

Our Main Tank and guide for SSC was Luxora of Tempest, the #1 Horde guild on our server. She and and Vigaut, her MH, had been brought in by Casprin, the Origin GM.

Let me just say this and nothing more about Luxora: if you want 20+ people, mostly young guys, to STFU and do what they are told, have a smart woman with a soft British accent whisper in their ears, giving orders and telling them to stay calm and that they can do it. It helps if she can tank and hold aggro like superglue. 'Nuff said.

The Friday night run was for The Lurker Below. We'd wiped a few times on him last week, as we couldn't quite get the rhythm down. This run was similarly frustrating, but for a different reason: one of the adds kept bugging and going into Evade mode, teleporting around and one-shotting casters until the raid wiped. This happened twice, and we never could figure out what was causing him to do it.

Our third attempt looked like it was going to be another wipe. Luxora took a bad knockback and went out of LOS of the healers, going down at around the half-way mark. Honestly, though, it was the best thing that could have happened and pretty much guaranteed a win—it freed her up to talk everyone through the encounter. She issued concise orders, calling out timers and targets. The OTs were picked off one by one, but we adapted and knew we had it.

There was a bit of chaos as Lurker went down, as too many people were busy celebrating to remember that we still had adds to handle. Yours truly was the last fall, excepting only a Rogue who Vanished.

We called it for the night, as it was late and everyone was pretty well fried.

Saturday night found us back at SSC. First target: Morogrim Tidewalker. This fight is similar in nature to the Lurker fight, in that it's all about getting the rhythm down. Luxora called out when the murlocs were about to spawn and we all paused DPS to let her get aggro so that they could be AoE burned down. People cleared Vent and called out when they were hit with the Watery Grave (Priest bubble FTW). We really came together as a group. It took us another 2 wipes to really get it, but again on the third try we got him:

While I wasn't the last to fall on Tidewalker, as about half of the raid stayed up, I fell only two seconds before he did. (I suspect that, again, too many people were pre-emptively celebrating and not paying attention to what was going on around them, as I got rushed by what looked like several dozen murlocs.)

From there we moved on to Leotheras the Blind. Unfortunately, the Tidewalker fight had taken quite a bit out of us. I think we were all a little too burnt out and should have left Leo for Sunday, but I am not GM or RL so what do I know? The Leo fight didn't go nearly as well, with another 3 wipes before calling it for the night. Most of us had been told that we would be doing Hydross, not Leo, so almost no one knew what to expect.

But, of course, it was still fun. Thanks again to the guys and gals at Origin (and Tempest) for having me along!

Exalted, two new areas, one long night

Thanks to running the SSO dailies for the past two weeks, last night I got this nice message:
Which also means that I now get these goofy messages from the NPCs:
But that's not even the big news. Last night, thanks to knowing people who know people, I made it into some new content.

I was literally one minute away from logging out for the night when Udevil got on vent and said that Origin was running a Lurker raid (SSC) and had several open slots due to a scheduling snafu. (They had both Kara and SSC down for the same night.) I glanced at my whiteboard and saw that the Spell Damage requirement for SSC was 900. I just got my [Spellstrike Pants] the day before and hadn't had a chance to properly gem them, but I was standing at 856. I had just finished a boatload of dailies and had some 350g and 20 Badges on me. It was a theoretical possibility that I might get close to 900. I asked Udevil to confirm that 900 was the requirement, which he did, and the guys thought I should go for it.

Ranii stepped up and offered to cut some gems for me, as the selection on the AH was pretty thin for reds. 300g got me one [Crimson Spinel], and 15 Badges got me a second. Slons offered to whip up some [Mystic Spellthread], and Ranii had the [Primal Mana] for it.

Holy crap, this might actually happen.

Skipping to the good part, it did happen. I was summoned and within a minute had two [Runed Crimson Spinel] and my spellthread. I got off the second elevator in SSC with exactly +900 Spell Damage.
Hi, ma!Wicked cool, eh?

Unfortunately, 4 wipes later we still hadn't downed Lurker. On the first 3 wipes I was in the last 3 or 4 people to die (being the very last on the first wipe), so I felt pretty confident that I had it down. But then 90 seconds into our fourth attempt I was the first one down. I was falling into the water as the Spout hit me. I hadn't tried to cut it close -- I jumped as soon as I heard the call. But I hadn't been paying enough attention to DBM and thus didn't have enough warning, as I was only a few degrees off from the tank that bought it at roughly the same time. We were the only two down, but the truth is that we just didn't have enough DPS.

Eventually the RL called it, as the fish had respawned. Everyone ported to Shatt and was told to head up to Gruul's. Awesome!

Maulgar and his crew took three attempts. There was some confusion as to healers and tanks and Hunter misdirects, so the Mage tank kept going down. I macroed a PWS for my focus, set it to the Mage tank, and spammed it whenever the timer was up. I doubt it helped all that much, but every little bit, right?

On to Gruul!
Grr! Arrgh!

Gruul was a one-shot. We didn't have much time left on his Enrage timer, and the tank got to the point where he was being hit for almost 10k a shot, but the healers kept him up and the band played on. I managed to avoid most of the cave-ins, only missing the animation on two of them. I ran out of mana literally as Gruul went down: a Flay was cut short with an oom message (stupid bug), so I know I had exactly one left. Gruul dropped a second into it. That was just too cool for words.

I came out in DPS just behind the other Shadow Priest, Caspin, who was the raid leader. For it being my first time at Gruul and not being sure of myself, I'm not unhappy with that.

It was a long night, but it was fun. I honestly didn't think I'd make it into SSC any time soon. I'd been hoping for a Gruul PUG, but this worked out so much better.