Thursday, July 17, 2014

Getting groovy with Garrosh

We had a few days off from this sucker. Coming back refreshed and ready to get him we assembled at the shrine in preparation to go into the raid.

Nanutza was currently gap filling on the 25HC raid and we went to clear trash while she got to a suitable point to leave so she could join us.

We got the through the first two packs of trash just fine, on the third and final one we ran into trouble. This time it wasn't me as I had taken my cape off to sort the rabble out. It did mean that my dps was appalling so things were not going down as fast either.

Flinkan (who has since said that he's going to charge me for using his name!)  decided that we needed help and asked for Nanutza to come in now and also questioned where Ant was. Ant had just got home to join us and was just 'sorting himself out'. We found out later what the sorting himself out meant!

I realised early on that I had been blessed with Balls and enquired on TS why I had them. There wasn't much of a reply other than 'I hope you don't!' Continuing onward through the gloom and the pesky blobs we came upon the last trash and it all kind of fell apart...

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'The Shammy' decided to make an announcement to the raid. Unsure if it was to see if anyone was paying attention or if he had prepared himself in a very special way for tonights raid. Needless to say we were all paying attention and several confused noises erupted over TS.

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This became the tone of the conversation for most of the night.

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Several team members pointed out that what he had just typed was going to end up surely on the blog. They weren't wrong. As I informed 'The Shammy' of the screen shot I had just taken he realised the safest place to communicate might be on TS.

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Seeing the doorway in sight we got the last of the trash down and moved onwards.

Nanutza was in the group on her DK and we wondered what would be better for her to bring, her DK or her Warlock. We decided on her DK just to see how the attack speed boost helped us out.

Treehouse put up a portal to get her in and had a run through of the tactics. Unfortunately as we were all discussing things we failed to notice the 'The Shammy' needed help with something...

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With Nanutza safely inside we got organised. 'The Shammy' put up a cart for us. I had a look in my bags to see what I could vendor while I was at it and spotted I had two Golden Lotus I'd been hanging on to for Nanutza. I asked her if she had space in her bags.

"Sure, what did you want to trade?"
(I opened up a trade window and put the Lotus in there)
"Oh!"
"Surprise!"
"I always have room in my bags for those!"

As everyone had heard about the Lotus I informed 'The Shammy' that I could offer him a carrot for the food, when he replied that he liked carrots I just added in "all goats like carrots don't they?"

The trading done, the cart went away. I asked everyone to make sure they were flasked up. Jolly piped up on TS "Ah. Next time a cart is up remind me to buy back the flasks I accidentally sold please!"

I put a GB up to get some out for him. Ant also put a GB up on the other side of the room. He then said that he had to be right back and we heard a very loud opening of a beer can over TS. 'The Shammy' was not happy about the level of dedication he had put in and that Ant was getting drunk...

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I too was about to go and get a drink and after hearing Ant open a can it made my mind up on my drink of choice. Seeing as this raid was fast becoming a 'What the hell Wednesday Raid' I decided to get a beer as well.
Blunnerz asked the obvious question of how shaving your balls aids your focus, we're still waiting for the forum post so I can only assume its because you don't get distracted every five seconds scratching them. Marv then came back and announced that he had just had a drag on a spliff so was well on his way to stoned. It all sort of went downhil from there.

"Just to warn you ive had a bit of a spliff so I'm almost stoned. I'm sure Ant knows all about that"
"Well, I have my special smokes here..."
Just to add in what else was going on in the raid I added in the fact that two of us were also getting drunk.
"two of us are going to be drunk as well. It will be fine!"

'The Shammy' showed his disapprovement with the use of capital letters and spaces.

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It was at this point that he also mentioned that it was nearly an hour later after we were due to start and we hadn't even pulled once. It was a good point and we all stacked up and set to it. I realised that I still had Balls on me so asked again why.

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We got to pulling and sailed through the first part. Fortunately I had put my cape back on and also had the right aspect on, unfortunately 'The Shammy' became the first victim to the Annihilate. He was most annoyed about that. Although for the life of me I cant work out why you would put a purple cleave zone on a purple floor. Nevertheless, his little goat legs had not carried him out of the area and he curled up at Garroshs feet.

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With only one down we just got him to res after we got back down and we carried on.
Once down we got 'The Shammy' up but then lost Treehouse and then Marv got hit by a ton of shit and dropped like a stone. Cue random wailing over TS as we all ran around trying to avoid being killed. Fruitless venture as we all got bashed in the head by Garrosh and our corpses littered the floor.

 

I cant for the life of me remember the conversation that lead up to this screenshot but I do know that I asked 'The Shammy' something and that was the reply I got!

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Onwards we went, lining up again in position to get the big man down. I had clicked 'not ready' on the check as I needed to eat and get Snuggles out. I was asked what I was eating and was it Ikea meatballs, I explained that I needed to in game, Ant said that he had had some dirty Belgian food for dinner and started telling us about these chips with meatballs and a sauce on them. 'The Shammy' asked if it was dirty had he eaten rat. (and heres a glimpse into the crap I carry around with me!)

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It was another case of 'this will end up on the blog' and 'The Shammy' realised that there was no hope for him.

Marv asked me what I was thinking.
"I'm thinking we have to get this boss down tonight as I don't think 'The Shammy' will be able to raid with regrowth"
The whole of our raid channel on TS lit up as everyone laughed.

We kept pushing and pushing. We were getting further in. In the third phase we wiped on the first empowered whirling corruption, then after more tries we wiped on the second. It was this practice that was getting us closer and closer. Seeing Garrosh with health that was low enough that Blizzard didn't need to mark it with a 'M' everyone was getting excited.
Unfortunately we were too far spread out to get the mc's properly and it ended with a wipe. After regrouping Ant decided to 'bare his soul' in a rather slower voice than earlier.

"I love you guys. No matter what happens we have fun and I have to say this is the best raid team I've ever been in"
While the rest of us went quiet, thinking about it someone piped up with a "thanks..."
We all laughed about it as it sounded like there was no appreciation to what had just been said, we did appreciate it. Jolly broke the silence by asking for a cart. Just after we had one up. 'The Shammy' also made a comment on Ant's statement.

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Ant was spreading his love with 'Marv' but only a little bit! Although Marv was having none of it...

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And then 'The Shammy' lowered the tone.

 

We started again and after several mishaps before (Cleave landing on the stairs in the Red Crane Temple, or on the stairs in ToES phase which caught out a few of us) this mishap was perhaps the most unexpected.
As we were minding our own business shooting Garrosh, the message for the iron Star came up. Watching the one roll past at the back of the room we were all caught off guard when our bodies flew through the air and the other Iron Star rolled past too.

"OMG that was me! I'm so sorry!" Danue exclaimed over TS.
"Don't worry about it!" Marv said.
'The Shammy' added that in all the times that she's been doing the engineer, it was the first time it had happened so not to worry, which was true. She hadn't failed once until now.
"It was to show you what happens if we don't kill one of them, so now you know!" She added
"Haha we now know!" Nanutza said afterwards.

The nice thing about this is that even though we have wiped on this over 60 times, we can still laugh about a mistake that in probably shouldn't ever happen but in reality its water off a ducks back for us, pick ourselves up, have a giggle and go again.
After the stalled start we did have another go and made some threats the 'The Shammy'.

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We got all the way through to halfway through phase three until again we got overwhelmed by adds. I ended up with three of them and couldn't do anything with them unless I misdirected them onto a tank.

I quickly put up a calendar entry for the next day as we were getting so close then only way forward was to practice our positioning. It ended on a rather nice note even though we had spent the past two hours wiping.

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Awwww!

Monday, July 14, 2014

Downtime! - An ode to Flinkan

I haven't posted in a while, I've realised. It's not because nothing has happened, we're battling our way through Garrosh's phases at the moment.

The concentration thats gone in has made me forget about the funny things that have been going on.
Like stunning everyone with Aspect of the Pack in the ToES phase....

 

 

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On the way in we had some upsets with the trash. By upsets, I mean we died, a lot.

It was decided on the last pack that no one should cross the rainbow, seeing as we had managed to pull everything while trying to get close enough to cc them. I had caused two wipes while missdirecting one of them onto Tsff with my cape still on. A shower of sparks rained down over the mob encased in ice and he was not happy with me at all. My origional target went running off to Tsff and his friend followed while I occupied myself with running round trying to avoid the one I had pulled.
Needless to say it didn't end well. We did not find our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we just spent gold on repairs instead.

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We did make it into the Throne Room and watched Garrosh beat the crap out of Thrall. This is where we have spent the last three days. In between our serious focusing on what we are doing and perfecting each part we have had a lot of what Flinkan refers to as downtime. We have become better at recovering after wipes, we don't have to call Jolly back from reading quite so much, Ant doesn't disappear for smokes as frequently. It has meant though, that when someones afk we have a huge amount of downtime all in one go. when that happens, we can but mess around!

 

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Case number one: All the smokers evacuate their rooms and take five to recompose themselves.

Theres a long standing joke here that I once said that I was going to 'roll a fag'. Where I meant I was going to roll a cigarette, some of the mainland Europe members of the team had never heard the expression before and wondered what the hell I was doing.

 

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Case number two: Nanutza wanted to ask Tsff about something in TS but couldn't find the right words in English. Excusing herself she asked him in Romanian, which resulted in a hilarious recount of what they had said in Raid Chat.  Pukka Pukka Break Time!

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Oh... 'Pukka' Break Time = 'Busy'. You need two hands to raid Flinkan!

 

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Case number three: Ant and his special pipe... sometimes if we are lucky/things are going badly we get to hear the special pipe.

 

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Case number four: If in doubt about whats going on and if people are afk. Just yell random things!

 

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Case number five: If you can't think of anything better to do then chuck as many zeppelins as you can at the resident priest.

 

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Case number six: Harrasment! Verdie had given us a macro to use to target the desecrated weapon quicker. Flinkan was away for the ready check so everyone started poking him and calling to him on TS. After a lot of poking from me, he decided to poke me back!

 

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Case number seven: Open a beer... in the middle of a raid. who needs to have good reaction times anyway!?!

 

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Case number eight: After being away for seven ready checks and countless yelling of 'DOWNTIME' both in game and on TS, Flinkan finally made it back. He was totally excused by us all as he actually did have something requiring his immediate attention (His daughter was fine in the morning!)

 

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Case number nine: Talking about the dps for this and if we can zerg through some bits. Flinkan helpfully pointed out that he was just poo, not dps, which warranted this conversation which took up five minutes!

 

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Case number ten: Which leads nicely on to the conversation about email addresses. Marvv put his up in raid chat and we all immediately told him that we were going to sign him up for all kinds of random crap, as you do. Flinkan then added in his email. To which Ant pointed out that it went so well with the caring father figure we had seen earlier!

 

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Case number eleven: We had spent a good half an hour going over tactics for different phases and trying to pin point where we could do better. After all of this Flinkan decided that the tactic he had enforced on all of the other bosses was the only one we needed here...