Monday, September 29, 2008

Kaos!

Midnight's Children welcomes Kaoskid to the fold - another Rogue to partner Stroeb, which should ensure that all the T4 and above loot is ninja'd by one or the other.

Welcome, and May the Dark Lady Watch Over You.

We killed the prince and then killed his dragon

(Blackheathen reports, with snaps from ET)

Right at this moment, the once great and terrible tower of Karazhan is a very very quiet place. Walking around inside you could get the impression that the place is entirely empty but for a nagging feeling that something nasty might still be lurking about in the skies above.

That's right, another nice run last night where we one shotted Ilhoof, Chess and Prince who this time dropped a nice new head piece for Chivdoc (poor Spencacon) and a neck piece for Olrotty.


We then headed off to face Netherspite. It took us a couple of goes to get the tactics and beam rotations down but in the end it was a pretty easy kill and one I think we will not have much trouble with on subsequent clears.


Next up was the infamous Nightbane. This time at least we could summon him thanks to a quick last minute blast through Sethek Halls to get the final quest item so Irational and myself could ge the urn. I must admit I was not at the peak of my game last night on Nightbane. Prince is a walk in the park as far as tanking goes, Nightbane is a whole new level. I can say I did learn quite alot as did we all I think and the tactics we had down by the last attempt showed we can do it so long as the 2nd healer stays online. That's right, we had him in the bag until poor Darkdruidcow DC'd right at the worst possible time and once again we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

If we have enough personel online tonight I say we go back and give it another go. It shouldn't take long, even if we wipe a couple of times. Would be awesome to finally clear Kara. Bring on ZA.

Are we up for it? Can we manage to bandage our wounds from last night and together once again make our way up to that lonely terrace and face our fears?

What say you?!!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Prince..done!

(Irational reports in)

An awesome Sunday night Kara run. 2 Shots Shade, 1 Shot Illhoof, 1 Shot Chess, 1 Shot Prince and 2 quick attempts at Spite but no success.

We have now as a guild seen every fight in Kara and conquered most of them. The only two fights left Spite and Bane are both pattern fights and once we get that pattern right they will be a cake walk. Fights which were once the bane of Midnight's Children are now becoming easy, Maiden is now a one shot affair.

Great work on Shade last night everyone. Once we got those elements controlled we were back to a state were we can handle the fight the way we want, and although we had a few deaths we took him out pretty easy.

So that brings us to a new week and a new Thursday night run. We did well last week getting Curator down and having a few shots at Nightbane, this week I say we push forward. If we can keep the run going smooth I reckon we can get to Prince in one night. We have done Shade in one night before, if we can keep on track I don't think Prince is much more of a stretch.

If we can all aim to be Good to Go at 8:30 again, pots, elixirs etc, and try and make your own way there, I reckon we will have a good chance of almost finishing Kara in one night.

Then we can start working on getting everyone Bear Mounts.

Well Oiled

MC is turning into a well-oiled Kara machine, with another hugely successful run through last Thursday, despite only having the one tank.

We ran smoothly all the way to Curator, downing everyone in one shot except Wolf where a Blackheathen Riding Hood - Blackheathen Stun - Blackheathen Riding Hood sequence meant we went down in a heap.

And just to prove the first time wasn't a fluke, we pulled the audience again! And this time we got a hurried screenshot for posterity:

Opera Audience!
Some heavy statistical analysis initially pointed the finger at Irational's Multi-shot, but further work revealed the likely culprit to be Rev & his pulling heals of wonder.

Revhammer
The night saw some amazing ninja looting by Olrotty, who picked up about 15 Purples on his journey from worst to best spec'd in one night. 'grats! Not to be outdone, Stroeb got her 4th pair of T4 gloves, which cheered everyone enormously.

Four attempts at Nightbane followed, and whilst we didn't get him down, we did make significant progress each time: Damage done 430k -> 740k -> 860k -> 990k. By the last attempt we had him through to Phase 3 - his time on this Earth is limited.

Before

During

After

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Welcome

A wipe-filled Midnight's Children welcome to Olrotty, newly joined Undead Shadow Priest (and another member of MC's Tailoring Specialty Service). As you would have read below, Olrotty's initiation into the Guild was Sunday's Prince wipe-fest. Anyone who can make it through that is gtg!

Welcome, and May the Dark Lady watch over you.

Prince and his fu#$ing Infernals

Blackheathen reports

7%.

That was the best we did on Prince last night I think. After a great run on Thursday we finally had time for some genuine attempts at the last Kara bosses.

It was awesome to see a full guild turnout (a big welcome to Olrotty who made up the final place) on Sunday for the very first time. We made pretty good time through trash and Chess (where we got some more useless drops although Irat did pick up some boots that at least were main spec even if a sidegrade) to reach the very top of the mighty tower of Karazhan and eye off the infamous Prince.

Many many attempts later and we call it, beaten, broken and battered. Raiding is a learning experience, you try, you wipe, you look at what went wrong and try to do better next time. Hopefully we can take some of the lessons learnt last night and smash him next time around. Maybe even out mighty (directionally challenged) guildmaster Paxmortis could remember the path up to him by then lol.

Prince is by far the hardest hitting boss I have tanked and I freely admit that moving him around was a pain especially when I had such a poor persepctive of the whats going on around me. I think I got the hang of it eventually, I just need lots of help as I can't see a fu#4ing thing up against that wall. Very dissapointing that I got myself in that little crook out of LOS of heals on our last go when we were doing so well.

With Rev stepping down from Sunday night raiding we will need to move fast this thursday (or risk having to pug a certain Kiwi LOL).

If we could all try our best to be online and GTG!!!!!!! at 8:30 it would be much appreciated. Get your consumables ready the previous night, come fully repaired etc, make your own way to the stone instead of waiting for a summon etc. It will all make a huge difference to the amount of content we can get through.

Yes we failed last night but do not dispair, the days are numbered for the Prince and his filthly dragon mates (Netherspite and Nightbane). The Midnights Children do not give up easily, we will return to the dilapidated tower of Karazhan and wreak havoc on those that reside in it's cavernous halls, death will come to all that oppose us. The blood of the fallen will mark our footsteps, chaos will reign.

Shaded

An epic run last Thursday, downing a Guild record seven bosses in the one night. which finally saw the accursed Shade downed thanks to a strategic swap in of Spinafex for Interseptre, which gave us four crowd controls of his Water Elementals. Even though there were plenty of wipes, it was almost all on trash, and we one shotted Attumen, Moroes, Wolf & even Illhoof for our last boss of the night. Maiden and Curator went down in two, and Aran three once we go Spini on the job.

It was also a record for Revelation, who managed a staggering 18 deaths for the run!

Which leaves just three bosses to go: Netherspite, Nightbane, and Prince...

Ready

Resting

Aran shaded

Illhoof down

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Ding, mon!

Rahjin, a guild charter signee, reached the (current) magic number Wednesday night. Much reggae was played as our first Troll, and first Shammy, arrived in the Elder. The melee DPS are already slavering at the thought of that lovely Windfury totem, whilst the clothies will be loving the mana batteries. Many congratulations, let the gear-up commence!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Beauty

Irational picked up possible the most beautiful thing in WoW in MrT the other night. We all need one!

Zero Kara

The Elder ventured a little further into Kara Sunday night, with three PuGs - including a US Marine in Japan playing a Rogue, an Orc OT, and the very helpful Shammy Kaneo who came armed with the awesome Windfury totem (hurry up Rahj!).

Our first stop was the accursed Shade of Aran, who is MC's latest nemesis. A very interesting PvP style fight - no agro table - where everyone needs to be right on top of what is going on, particularly with what Aran is casting. He casts various AoE spells that require specific responses - either charging out of the room to avoid his Arcane Explosion, or staying deadly still whilst being engulfed in flames from his Flame Wreath.

He also constantly casts Frostbolt, Fireball, and Arcane Missiles, so the interrupts have to keep coming. Even once you're on top of all that, at 40% health he summons some helpers, who aren't all that powerful but have a fatal attraction to clothies. And, to finish it off, at 20% mana he polymorphs the entire raid before Pyroblasting everyone for 7000 damage. Nice.

Shade try #17

We had about 5 tries at it, backing up from a similar number the last few Sunday nights. He just won't go down. We were really close, once in particular when we seemed to have the adds under control before Aran sneaked a totally unfair non centred Arcane Explosion out that wiped four of us instantly ftl.

Eventually, with much gnashing of teeth, we decided to press on and at least pick up some loot from Chess. Which we did - though the boots went to one of the PuGs, and the legs were pally plate! Aargh. DE.

Our knowledgeable chup-frying NZ-based Shammy knew Prince, so we decided to step up and try him. It was getting late, but it was pretty great to start poking ahead into new areas.

Up to Prince

On top of Kara

Without too much trouble we were soon faced with the big guy himself.

Watching The Prince

Very xool. Our first go we did pretty well, given we had no real idea what to expect. Unfortunately a particularly badly placed Infernal meant our melee DPS was out of action for most of the fight, leading to the may-as-well-be-a-wipe. The second try went pretty well too, but again it wasn't to be.

So a grand total of zero bosses down! But strangely it still felt like quite a satisfying run, as progress was being made, and these bosses should be hard. Aran really has to go though. Make it so.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Kara2

Attumen - two shot.
Moroes - two shot.
Maiden - two shot.
Opera R&J - two shot.
Curator - two shot.

Detecting a trend...?