Learning to raid

So as previously mentioned, the head honchos of Cursed Earth have gone on to complete four of the outlands instances. We move on to Auchindoon later today. Schokti, however, is no longer a member of Cursed Earth, but rather a Hellraiser. The reason for this move is that realistically, Cursed Earth is just a few of us good friends and our alts. It will be a while before we are a solid enough guild to run events like Kara and the like. So Schokti made the switch.

Yesterday was the first time Schokti went into an instance in Outlands, and Hellraisers ran the Ramparts as well as Blood Furnace. Fortunately I went in knowing a little bit about pulling aggro and held off on my major spells, and things went well. A couple of things I learned:

1. Don't break the priest's line of sight when he is healing you. Bad news. FYI. Should probably note that on a big neon pink post it some where. Just so you know.

2. Announce when you need mana. The warrior/hunter-puller etc. does not think about that and will charge in when rage is high/mobs are clear, etc.

3. Have some heal pots and bandages ready, just in case. The priests main job is the tank. You may be on your own. Unfortunately Schokti has been grinding tailoring recently and all my available runecloth has been going to bolts and not bandages. I was caught in a tight spot for a few minutes without any bandaids. Oops.

4. As a mage - when you sheep a mob, do not follow it up with a dragons breath. Make sure your fingers are on the right buttons. FYI. Just so you know. Bad news. Should probably note that on a big neon pink post it some where.

5. Not everyone is good at directing traffic. Just because you may have run the instance a thousand times and have all the phat loot from the head bosses and you are only in here to get the one item that drops 0.000001% of the time, this may not mean you understand the tactics of the pulls. And if you do understand it, chances are there is someone in the party that doesn't. As a raid leader, make sure everyone is marked, lay out the plan before the raid for standard pulls and follow up the combat.

As an example. I have been spoiled running with my husband and friends because Scott, as a raid leader, marks everything and lays out combat thusly: Rogue sap circle, always. Mage sheeps diamond, always. Priest mind controls moon, always. (As a note - we run with 2 priests usually). If we happen to have alternate cc (which is rare), they get the X. Always. DPS on skull, always. Combat goes dps Skull, then X (since this is usually the first cc to break, then circle (usually second cc to break), then moon (cc can be redone if necessary), then diamond (cc which can also be redone, if necessary). Always. As long as all party members understand the timeline and take care of their jobs, the raid runs smoothly. Of course not all combat runs the way you want it too and accidents happen, we are all high on adrenlin, but generally speaking, know your job and stick to it. If your job is the sheep, keep the damn mob sheeped. Everything else is secondary.

In doing the BF run last night, we had two mages. We would both sheep one and everyone would dps the skull for a standard 3 mob pull. Then the party was at a stand still. Which sheep goes first? The other mage would start a cast and the warrior would charge the other one. Boom, the healer now has to watch both combats. And that is how wipes happen. So if you aren't clear on how the full combat runs, ASK. That way everyone knows.

All in all it was a great time, and I look forward to running Slave Pens. I imagine I will learn a few more things on that run.

Hmm, it's been a while.

So. Yeah. How 'bout that?

We have been busy. So sue me. Heh.

A couple of good friends of ours are back online and we have taken to running with them the last little while. Both Kaewhy and Himhotepp has seen quite a few hours of play, most notibly in the Outland instances. We have never run them, so we thought with our two level 68 (now 69, 40% until 70) priest friends, we could start from the bottom and fight up.

And so we started with Ramparts, then Blood Furnace. Seeing as these are both early 60 level instances, we managed them quite nicely. Running Blood Furnace was much like RFC for the Outlands - Sap one, sheep one, kill. Sap one, sheep one, kill. Oops, there is four in this mob. Mind control one, sap one, sheep one, kill. Hey, one resisted! Kill faster.

We also ran the Slave Pens, which gave us a little more trouble (specifically that boss with the totems. Dude is tough!). But we managed it and we plan to run Underbog this weekend.

Of course, being the levels we are the drops were good for disenchanting fodder. Which is good, since Schokti just finished a two week grind with the Timbermaw Furlbogs to get the +15 agility enchant for one handed weapons (side note - did anyone notice that in this latest patch they upped the rep rates for Cenarion Hold, Argent Dawn and the Timbermaw? Nice. The day after I got the reward for grinding. Very nice timing, Blizz.), and the cost for this enchant is EXPENSIVE!!!

I am all for expensive enchants, but I have a line up of 6 daggers to enchant for the top rogues in the guild. That is 36 large brilliant shards, 36 greater eternal essences, 24 arcane dusts and 12 essence of air. That is a hefty price tag. But its a +15 ag! How sweet is that!