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The circle of life: Vashj down, site back up

Posted by: Tatertot » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:07 am

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It's been two strange weeks. Our site was hacked, we had some bad raids and people were frustrated with the little time our slacking raiding schedule left for new content. Vashj is simply not an encounter you can practice for a single night now and then - it felt like we spent more time remembering what on earth we were supposed to be doing than actually improving, not to mention having to introduce new people to the wonderful world of core tossing.

But Quartz wouldn't be Quartz if we didn't pull it together. We freed up some time to spend on Vashj, and promptly killed her, the site is back up, and trolls once more rule the world (and damage meters).

There's lots to say about Vashj - it's a fun encounter, a hectic dps check more than anything, with macros and/or proper TS communication being more or less essential. Sweaty palms and lots of 'here here, Thorny FREE THROW THE CORE TO ME!' make any Vashj night memorable. Special props to Gets for having full bags on an encounter that involves passing an item along - for anyone reading this that still has to do Vashj: yes, the core WILL disappear if you throw it to someone without bag space.

I'd like to find the guy that designed yet another encounter featuring frost immune mobs though, and the green bat droppings at the end are probably sponsored by GeForce and Kingston - your entire raid will be running for the nearest computer store after the first time you get there and find yourself lagging your way through ponds of poison.

All that aside, what I really want to say is simply this: I'm proud of you retards. We're back in business. On to Kael!


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Cawwww!

Posted by: Tatertot » Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:49 pm

The story of our grand victory over the Flaming Parrot is long overdue - which belittles the epic battle it was. Tanks jumping off platforms, staying in line of sight - it's pretty much a recipe for disaster. Since it's a two phase encounter (which encounter isn't these days) we figured the second part would be the extremely hard part - but really, once you get there it's just a matter of tank and spank - hardly any jumping needed. I have to admit I was happy with Blizzard's choice to start Al'ar easy, so you have a chance to get into the swing of things, but after a couple of wipes phase 1 is boring more than useful. Fortunately you can entertain yourself trying to blow up the rogues or mocking Bladewing, so all is not lost. Special thanks to Cookie for spending all his badges on fire res gear. You will be rewarded in a later life, I am sure.

Tempted as I was to head to Solarian, the masses called for Vashj, so expect the next update to be about the Lady herself.


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Sartura down.. again?

Posted by: Tatertot » Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:48 pm

With Karathress down, we only had one boss left in SSC before the great Lady, a Sartura wannabe called Leotheras. Nothing makes Morbo happier than feeling like he's playing a useful class for once (a tank) and last week's first attempts almost lead to a kill right away, with a string of classic wipes below 10%. I dare say the only tricky part of this encounter is not losing your head in the last 15%. For some reason the noble Quartz collective, faced with a boss that's 'almost dead' loses its senses completely and after trinketing and nuking and everyone getting aggro, we noticed he was at 10% with half the raid dead. Okay, so that doesn't work apparently! Who knew?

This week we tried, against our nature, to stay calm, cool and collected, and despite some shameful moments from members I will not name (not me, obviously), and a mind controlled MT, Leo quickly dropped before the might of the Quartz horde. Only Vashj left in SSC now - though with our number of raid days it might be a while before we have the time to do some serious attempts - expect updates from the easier TK bosses first.


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Karathress tanked and spanked

Posted by: Tatertot » Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:47 pm

The biggest challenge for any raid trying Karathress is going over all the abilities of the adds, how the pull will be made, explaining about hunter pets, totems and AE waterbolts. Once you get through that hour of your life, the fight itself is rather basic - decent dps is needed but in essence it's a good ol' fashioned tank and spank encounter. Mind you, tank and spank basically means the healers do all the work - and that's fine by me. Though killing a boss a few hours after engaging him for the first time is a little anticlimactic, I am, of course, not saying the boss is easy, but that the leadership was once again impeccable, inspirational, and most of all, insanely good looking in an orc costume. And was it just me or did Brick seem exceptionally skilled? Next up, Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury.


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Morogrim finds watery grave

Posted by: Tatertot » Fri Jul 27, 2007 5:58 am

A boss that summons endless murlocs to AE. Awesome. Everyone, and I mean everyone loves killing murlocs. I love it almost as much as sheeping ogres - but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a future sheep-the-ogre encounter. After the resistance and enrage drama of Hydross it was nice to get to a boss that has neither. It's an endurance fight, not a nuke fight, with the only priorities really being wiping out the murlocs as they come and keeping the MT up.

Of course, this near perfect encounter on paper was almost ruined by the fact that paladins - yes, you heard me - paladins are practically essential. It's bad enough that you need to have at least two locks for Magtheridon, or for clearing the trash in TK, or just to mock when they overnuke and die - but pallies? It's almost impossible to find one that isn't some 'I hate everything' reroller and even when you do find one there's a 90% chance he'll think retribution is a good spec. We happen to be blessed with a couple of active pallies - but I can see this being a problem for horde guilds who have had their pally stock ninjaed by guilds further along raidingwise. I get a little flutter myself every time I see an unguilded paladin, until I realise that you have to really mess up to be unguilded as a paladin on horde side now. Like being Dyanna.

In any case, as said last week, our first attempts on Morogrim proved to be so fruitful I fully expected him to cave after a bit more prodding, and fall he did, which opens the door for bigger, and better things. Preferably with ogres. Sheepable ones.


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