Ragnaros

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Memories of Azeroth

Posted by Peter (Devee) on January 27, 2020
Posted in: Battle for Azeroth, Cataclysm, Devee, Holidays, Journal, Mounts, Raiding, The Burning Crusade, World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Memories of Azeroth, the special raid celebrating the 15th anniversary of WoW, was quite different than the LFR version of Molten Core that was part of the 10th anniversary celebration. Having three wings instead of one long instance is huge in opening it up to more players, and I think that’s a good thing. Molten Core LFR was tuned too difficult in my opinion: casual players should be able to experience an anniversary celebration. The tuning on Memories of Azeroth felt very much in line with LFR. There were wipes, but groups could consistently finish it.

The idea behind the raid was pretty fantastic. Three wings, each featuring one of the first three expansions in World of Warcraft. As far as I know, this is the first time WoW has had a sort of boss rush too. In each wing, all three bosses had to be downed without wiping. However, you only see certain phases of the bosses and not all. Between bosses, all CDs are reset, and anyone who died is rezzed.

What seemed off to me was that some fights were so boring and easy that I never saw a wipe on them.

Memories of Fel / The Burning Crusade: Lady Vashj, Kael’thas, Archimonde. This was the easiest wing. I’m not sure I saw a wipe on Lady Vashj or Kael’thas. If so, I didn’t see many.

Memories of Frost / Wrath of the Lich King: Heigan, Anub’arak, The Lich King. This was the weirdest difficulty. Heigan should be incredibly simple. The “dance” of the fight is to simply stand in the one safe quadrant, moving with the group. The safe quadrant shifts in order. But there were wipes. Then there’s Anub’arak. Not only were there definitely no wipes, but there was no challenge at all. That fight is incredibly boring. And then we get to The Lich King, with many, many wipes to defile. Aw, the memories. Wiping is frustrating, but adding some challenge made it fun, and calling out defiles and teaching people was satisfying. Anub’arak was the worst part of this wing. It felt like a waste of time.

Memories of Fire / Cataclysm: Cho’gall, Nefarian, Ragnaros. This wing mirrored the last one pretty closely, except Cho’gall is much easier than Heigan. I’m not sure if we had wipes on him or not. But Nefarian… I don’t even think I saw any mechanics because it was so simple. However, the room filling with lava and later draining made a fun sort of timer so we could be in a DPS race with out past selves in an effort to do better than last time. Ragnaros was challenging for some people, and I don’t mind some wipes as people learn an encounter.

It was a nice stroll through past memories and it makes me long to see full versions of some of those fights. Complex, multi-phase fights felt gutted. I miss the rest of Arthas! Memories of Azeroth makes me with we had more timewalking raids – but broken into wings so I don’t have to do them in one go like Black Temple or Ulduar.

And for my trouble – an Obsidian Worldbreaker! Who wouldn’t love a Deathwing mount of their own? It’s pretty cool!

Ahead of the Curve: Lei Shen

Posted by Peter (Devee) on August 9, 2013
Posted in: Achievements, Carpe Flux Capacitor, Cataclysm, Devee, Journal, Mists of Pandaria, Raiding, Videos, World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

Lei Shen

We did it! Two weeks after first having killed the Twin Consorts, we attempted Lei Shen for the first time. After seventeen wipes, we managed to kill him! I’m very excited and extremely relieved. I still want to repeat it for the people who weren’t there, get more gear, and maybe push some heroic bosses for gear, but this was the big moment. Especially considering that there’s no way we’re going to finish heroic mode by the next patch, this was the big “end game” goal for us for this tier.

It’s also special for me. I’ve been raiding this tier with the guild, Carpe Flux Capacitor, since the beginning, and now it’s completed. During tier 14, we finished Mogu’shan Vaults, but we didn’t complete the other two raids. In tier 13, we raided Dragon Soul, but we stopped raiding long before the end. I did manage to complete the raid before Mists of Pandaria was released, but it wasn’t with the guild.

I was taking a break from WoW for much of tier 12. In my first time in the Firelands, I joined a PUG at the request of a guildie. They needed a healer for Ragnaros. I pointed out that not only had I never killed him, I had never entered the raid. They discussed it and let me join. I pulled him by accident before we were all ready. They didn’t kick me. We killed him, and I won loot. The next week, we finished Firelands as a guild. At the time, the guild hadn’t yet killed Ragnaros. When we killed the previous boss, my achievement suddenly popped for finishing the raid. While I completed the raid, I didn’t work for it all tier.

In tier 11 I was with a different guild, Playground Brigade, made of friends I knew from out of WoW just for that tier. We fell apart in the middle of the tier. We were 5/6 Blackwing Descent, 2/4 Bastion of Twilight, and 1/2 Throne of the Four Winds.

Tier 10 was my first current-tier raid. I had just hit level 80 and joined Carpe Flux Capacitor. I was an alternate, and my first boss was Deathbringer Saurfang. Maybe I wasn’t there from the absolute very beginning, but we pushed the entire tier, and yes, we finished the raid (as well as Ruby Sanctum).

I mention all this because it means this is only the second raid tier for which I worked the entire tier with my guild and still completed. Carpe, thanks for being a great guild (and taking me back after my one-tier stint with another guild). Here’s hoping next tier goes smoothly well. Let’s take back Orgrimmar!

 

Suggested Reading: Of Ragnaros, Karazhan, the New York Times, role playing, the Sunwell, and beauty

Posted by Peter (Devee) on May 9, 2013
Posted in: Suggested Reading, World of Warcraft. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

WoW Moviewatch: Lore According to Ragnaros, Dawn Moore, WoW Insider, 5/7/13.

There are two sides to every story. This is Ragnaros’ side.

Know Your Lore: Karazhan and why we went there, Matthew Rossi, WoW Insider, 5/8/13.

I didn’t know much about Karazhan, so this was fairly interesting to me. The comments are good too.

New York Times crossword references World of Warcraft, Robin Torres, WoW Insider, 5/2/13.

“World of Warcraft event.” Four letter word. Ah, come on, it starts with ‘R’!

Inside the fabulous world of blood elf roleplaying, Lisa Poisso, WoW Insider, 5/2/13.

Selama Ashalanore is an exciting blood elf roleplaying guilds. Themed RP guilds always sound so fun to me!

Know Your Lore: Anveena Teague and the Sunwell, Anne Stickney, WoW Insider, 5/5/13.

Who is the girl floating about the Sunwell?

The top 10 most beautiful spots in WoW, Sarah Pine, WoW Insider, 5/8/13.

This wouldn’t be identical to my list, but it still shows some nice locations.

Ragnaros Down!

Posted by Peter (Devee) on October 26, 2011
Posted in: Devee, Journal. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Sweet loot time!

We did it last night! I guess all it took was moving our Rag night to Tuesday. We were planning on calling it, but twice said “okay, one more pull.” In classic underdog style, that was when we killed him.

The night was fun even before a kill was entering our reach. On one pull, when we called a wipe I decided to trigger a trap.

Into the air.

For some reason, we had always had trouble on the transition phases with the adds. To be honest, I could never place what the problem was besides the obvious (adds hit the hammer and we died).  Things went much better last night, and we were consistently getting past it once we changed our strategy a little. Someone stepped up with a new idea that ended up working well. Basically each person was given a designated number, and each add was numbered. Obviously these linked up. Point is, we ignored the concepts of “left” and “right” and just numbered the adds.

I don’t think we had ever seen the Living Meteors previously. We struggled a bit there for a while. Once we had four Living Meteors running around, it was hectic and strategy went out the window. However, in the end we triumphed and even earned Ragnar-O’s (totally without meaning to do so).

Pop!

Some sweet loot dropped for us too, of course. Mushkin got Sulfuras, which is really awesome lore-wise in my opinion. It seems a bit smaller now though than when Ragnaros wielded it. Oh well. The priest/paladin/warlock head token dropped, and Harley won that. Lastly, and most importantly, Fingers of Incineration, nice new gloves, dropped for me!

Hopefully we can get this fiery jerk on farm!

Ragnaros Still Stands

Posted by Peter (Devee) on October 19, 2011
Posted in: Devee, Holidays, Journal, Raiding. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Last night was a particularly fun raid night! I don’t really know what does it always. I suppose it’s just the company primarily. I feel like naming people is kind of mean because it excludes others, but playing with Darth, Nate, and Lang is just so fun. Also, there was that Moogle girl. She finally made it to the first night! That means she went from 0/7 to 6/7!

Anyways, I was in a particular good raiding mood. Drinking that beer pre-raid might have helped! I also got to up top on the Beth’tilac fight, which was really exciting. We got in some Ragnaros attempts, but we didn’t make much progress. We can’t seem to get all the adds down. I can’t really say what’s going wrong. But Alysrazor gave me a delicious trinket! I was a happy priest.

In other news, after the raid I found that the Horde was holding Tol Barad! That’s rare on our server. I found a 25-man Baradin Hold and was the only priest in the entire raid! Of course, no PVE gear dropped for me, and only one piece of PVP gear. I didn’t win. I was so excited about being the only priest.

The best news though? Well, Hallow’s End started, of course! I love the entire holiday so much, but the Headless Horseman is just the best.

Horseman rise… Your time is nigh… You felt death once… Now, know demise!

It is over, your search is done. Let fate choose now, the righteous one.

Ragnaros Attempts

Posted by Peter (Devee) on October 14, 2011
Posted in: Devee, Journal, Raiding. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Last night held another evening of Ragnaros attempts. The Firelord almost defeated me before I even entered the Firelands: my computer didn’t want to boot, and I have expected it to bursts into flames! It wouldn’t even POST. It’s a problem I’ve been having between my video card and motherboard, but I’m too cheap to figure out what’s wrong with it.

An hour late, I make it to the raid. We were missing a few regulars, but we had Traykal, the alt rogue (not alt that happened to be a rogue – the player’s second rogue) of former CFC member, Kaytral. It was cool to see him again. My healing still isn’t anywhere near Syravia’s, but I was holding my own. I don’t think healing was ever an issue. Unfortunately, we still couldn’t down him.

We’re having a lot of trouble with mechanics. Besides little dumb mistakes or general flukes, adds weren’t dying, we weren’t collapsing right, and seeds were placed everywhere. Harley, our guild leader, reprimanded us a little at the end of the night a bit, and I think she was spot on. It’s a delicate thing – make people realize how you’re feeling and how they’re doing without making them feel pissed or stupid. It just made me want to play better next week.

We had some fun attempts though! I like that fight. There are things to do! Still, I don’t think it’s a very complicated fight honestly compared to some previous final bosses. I’m sure we’ll get him down soon.

Ragnaros Attempts

Posted by Peter (Devee) on September 29, 2011
Posted in: Devee, Journal, Raiding. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Wednesday night was a continuation of our raid from the previous night. I wasn’t expecting to come, but we didn’t have enough healers. Hooray for me then! We were a DPS short for a while because he was stuck in traffic, so we cleared up to old Ragz and discussed strategy. A little over an hour later our DPS made it home, so it was off we went!

Things went decently enough, and we changed things up a few times to see if we could improve. Harley would call out when to set off traps, but we realized that sometimes she’d call it out when DBM gave the announcement, a few seconds later it would actually spawn on the floor, people would have taken damage, and then Moogle would hit it. At first I started interjecting to let Moogle know current conditions. Easy for us to communicate when we’re playing next to each other. Then I told Harley what I was doing, and I just took over for her. That was fun!

There were multiple times in which a tank fell over, and I feel terrible about that. I guess my throughput still sucks sometimes! I was asked to go Discipline, so I hearth’ed to Orgrimmar and respec’d. I think I’ll start doing that before every raid. It’s only 66 gold to respec, so 132 gold per week to bring Holy and Discipline to my raids, assuming I don’t want to PVP between the two raid nights. As long as the raid nights are adjacent, I can’t imagine wanting to PVP after the first night when I’m sure I’ll just be wanting to sleep. Still – feel bad about the tank deaths!

We struggled a couple times with downing adds before they got to the hammer, and we also struggled with the stacking phases. At firsts we tried stacking in the middle, but we swapped strategies to the switching sides method. At the end of the night I realized that we’d spread on the right and stack on the left every time. I wonder if it’d be better if we just stayed on the side we were? Spread on the right, stack on the left, stay on the left and spread, stack on the right. I don’t know if that’s viable. There might be aspects of the fight I don’t fully grasp.

Leap of Faith! I used it correctly! On the trash pull someone shot into the air from the lava, and I pulled him back down. Amazing! I love finding uses for it!

I could tell poor Harley was stressed out. I feel bad for her because I can only imagine how much work it is to lead a guild. Hopefully she knows how much we appreciate what she does. She even gave me BoE wrists that are BiS! I’m not even sure why, but it was super nice.

Anyways, we didn’t down Ragnaros, but we got some good practice done. I’m sure we’ll down him soon!

Great Week

Posted by Peter (Devee) on September 25, 2011
Posted in: Devee, Journal. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

In place of writing some of the actual content that I’ve been outlining and brainstorming, I’d like to mention what an awesome week this has been. Boss kills, loot, and new mounts!

Wednesday Mooglegem and I were needed for our guild run. Unfortunately, we’ve only been needed on the progression nights, so we got to try Ragnaros (after trying and not killing Alysrazor the previous week). It was a fun fight, and I love Ragnaros’ model, but we were unable to down him. It seemed like we’d get him soon, and I still had fun. Still, how can we gear if we haven’t been able to get in the farm night and PUGs won’t take us?

After the Ragnaros attempts, we did a Baradin Hold run. While I didn’t win any PVE gear, I did manage to get a new cloak for PVP! Later I saved enough Valor Points to buy by T12 chest piece, which is BiS non-heroic. That same day I found a trash run and spent a couple hours clearing Firelands trash. I made it to friendly with the Avengers of Hyjal and purchased my BiS cloak. So far, so good – for me anyways. Another small thing we managed to get done was something that’s almost embarrassing. We finally won Tol Barad. Alliance are definitely in control of that damn prison more than the Horde on our server!

Mooglegem hadn’t been so lucky this week. We also missed our Coren Direbrew run one day, which definitely made me angry. However, the next morning Mooglegem won the Brewfest Ram! We were both pretty excited. I managed to snag a new mount as well – the Amani Battle Bear! I can tell you, I’m pretty thrilled to finally get it. At first I didn’t like it as much as the classic Zul’Aman bear, but it really grew on me.

There was one other bit of awesomeness this week: I killed Ragnaros! A guildie asked me I wanted in on a Ragnaros kill because his PUG was looking for someone with experience downing him. Of course, I didn’t have that, and I was honest. I explained that I had done attempts, but I hadn’t killed any Firelands boss nor the final bosses of any T11 raid. He talked with the raid, and they let me in anyways. After four attempts, he went down. And I won the T12 headpiece! Stupidly, I forgot to take a screenshot, but trust me, it happened. Now I have two-piece T12 and two-piece T11!

Here’s hoping next week is as satisfying.