Achievement Earned: Firelands

Last night I killed the last of the Firelands bosses! I went about my progression strangely this patch; first I killed Ragnaros, and then I made my way in order through the first six. It’s odd to get the completion achievement on a boss that’s not the final. On my first night in Firelands, I did attempts on Alysrazor but didn’t down her. On my second night, which was the next week, I put in attempts only on Ragnaros. Again, no kill. Later that week I joined a PUG for Ragnaros and killed him. And this week, my third week in the Firelands, I saw the other five bosses for the first time and killed the six bosses besides Ragnaros for  the first time!

Shannox

Shannox

We started with Shannox. He puts has two adds, flame-dog-things, and throws down a bunch of traps. It was interesting fighting a boss that’s clearly a hunter. As most people know, you have to avoid the traps and get the dogs to hit them. We did wipe once because people pushed him into his enrage, but it was easy fight. Luckily I didn’t hit any traps!

He dropped the Crystal Prison Band, a ring that is technically an upgrade for me. However, our mage needed it, and it didn’t have spirit on it. I didn’t really want the spirit drop, plus my best-in-slot rings are from the Valor Point vendor and the Avengers of Hyjal quartermaster. I didn’t roll on it.

Beth’tilac

Next up we did Beth’tilac, the spider boss. I hated this fight. Terrible. Some people have to go up into her web to engage her while others stay below, fighting adds. Nothing complicated really. Why do I hate it? The people in the above area are within my healing range, so they are not grayed out on Grid. However, I can’t heal them due to line of sight. Most my clicks on Grid were on players I couldn’t actually heal! Angry! He dropped cloth chest armor, but my T12 chest from Valor Points is non-heroic BiS.

Baleroc

Third on the list – Baleroc! More interesting mechanics. Baleroc summons crystals. Each time a crystal appears, two DPS are assigned to standing near it. First one, for half of the time, then the second DPS. The next time a shard comes, it’ll be a second pair. These two pairs of DPS continually swap. The person near the crystal needs to be healed by a designated healer, and we had three healers swapping. What happens if no one stacks near a shard? I have no idea. But I guess I got some buff that’s good from healing them while they were there.

Lord Rhyolith

Rhyolith in Second Phase

Image from Me and My Epic Wood.

This boss doesn’t know how to turn, and we can’t hurt him. He summons volcanoes, and we DPS attack his legs to cause him to turn. They use this mechanic to get him to walk over volcanoes. The volcanoes do occassionally erupt, shooting five lines of lava out. Luckily, the game has been out for years, so the idea of “don’t stand in the fire” is pretty simple. When he walks into enough of them, he enters a second phase where he looks like a magma version of Megaman’s Yellow Devil.

Yellow Devil

Image from Mega Man Knowledge Base.

Alysrazor

Moving on to Alysrazor, I got to come back to a boss that I had actually attempted previously. This is a very fun fight except it ruins the rest of the game. It sure feels great to cast while moving!

Two stupid birds.

Also, does anyone else think that watching the two fire-birds spit at each other is hilarious?

Majordomo Staghelm

Finally we reached what was the last boss for me. Incredibly easy fight at this point. I wonder what it was like before the nerf. Stack up and heal. Spread out and heal. Repeat. Oh, sometimes I get a debuff, and when it reaches 5 seconds remaining, I run out. Not very complicated.

He dropped a shoulder token, and I won the roll. He also dropped wrists that I wanted, but of course I didn’t roll on them because I won the token. But then I was asked to let someone else have the shoulders. We ended up discussing it, and I decided it was better for him to have the shoulders anyways (mainly because I haven’t put much time into this tier). However, I would have rolled on the damn wrists if I had known I wasn’t going to keep the shoulders! My BiS wrists are from the Valor Point vendor anyways, so in the long run, it won’t matter.

Achievement Earned: Firelands

And that’s my tale of the Firelands! It was a cool raid, and I look forward to farming the place and hopefully moving on to heroic mode and achievements. That’s not usually how we do things in my guild, because it prefers to gear up other people and our alts (of which I have none!), but I still hope to get some more progression done. The game’s all about progression! I’m still pretty sad I didn’t get into the Firelands earlier, pre-nerf. I’m just happy I have enough free time to raid again!