So I was in Icecrown, doing a couple dailies (my Mechanostrider obsession means I will get the Argent Tourney Mechanostriders as well), when I somehow wound up in a PuG for the new 25man. Trial of the Crusader? Dunno, all the names and modes throw me off.
The PuG was kind of a failure, although I now know more about killing Snobolds and giant Jormungar than I ever figured I would.
So anyway, I was trying to figure out a sneaky way to weasel out of the failure PuG when I got a whisper from my guild. “We’re throwing together a 10-man Ulduar, want to come?”
…
…
/raid “Hey uh guys, thanks for the fun, I’ve got a guild raid now.” *poofs*
So this… okay. Basically I just spammed 1 and 2 and occasionally spent more time than I probably should’ve trying to figure out how to pick little blue glowy buckets off of the ground. I was basically informed to just shoot stuff while sitting passenger in this tank thing. It gave me Halo vibes. You know, sitting in the back of the Warthog? That was fun…
This fight, I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, shooting the dragon thing when it landed. I think there was fire and stuff but I couldn’t see it half the time (My Windows version of WoW likes to conveniently not show important things like buildings and fire and void zones.)
This fight… hmm. I think I just stood there and shot him. There were other people doing a bunch of running around but I just sort of… yeah, stood there. OH, I totally got an Achievement without even trying, cause the guy picked me up or something.
I’m also pretty sure this is the boss that yielded a sexy new polearm that a paladin won the roll on, but he gave it to me because MY GUILD IS WAY TOO NICE TO ME DARNIT.
This guy was really annoying, and I’ll tell you why. It’s cause every so often he’d pull a Curator and stop attacking and his “heart” would show up and you’d have to DPS it, but guess what… your pet refuses to attack it.
Other than that, it was Grobbulus 2.0. Get the debuff, run away, then come back.
I think he and Patchwerk would get along well. “OOOH I WANT TO PLAY WITH MY TOYS!” “PATCHWERK WANT TO PLAY TOO!”
Oh right, this guy. There were three guys and they all took forever to kill. And the last guy would every so often turn into Doctor Octopus and walk around the room on these electric spider legs. There was stuff that you weren’t supposed to stand in, and stuff that you were. That’s about it >.>
Oh wait, he also did a Falcon Punch every so often. Actually I don’t think that’s what it’s really called, but that’s what I called it. *nods*
“Tawyn! Walk across the line!” said my guild.
So I did. Big huge scary guy popped up. Like from a pop-up book.
So this is another one that reminded me of Curator, in that you stuck your pet on the main guy while you shot other stuff. Every so often he’d do a laser eye beam thing like in Old Kingdom and Halls of Stone. Freakin’ scary when it happens, I would high-tail it to the other end of the room. XD
At the end of that fight everyone said “Tawyn wins!” and I was like “Buh-wuh? What did I win?” and my guildies said “On Recount, duh!” So I pulled it out and I had! I was happy to see that even though I had no freakin’ clue what was going on, I was still pulling my weight.
This chick had a bunch of kittycat adds. Of course, the very first thing I did when we pulled was Beast Lore to see if they were tameable. …what? >.> They weren’t. They’re level ?? anyway.
I don’t really remember the details on this boss much. Honestly what I remember more was the pull riiiiight before it which was a cross between Romeo and Juliette and Curator (again). That pull was crazy.
At this point I informed my guild that I was turning into an all tuckered out lil’ hunter, having done such a crazy Raid Boss Tour, but they informed me that they were stopping for the night anyway. I think they may go back to finish tomorrow; I’m not sure if I’ll go or not because Yours Truly is having the BlizzCon Live Stream beamed into her computer. (Confession: I ordered it almost exclusively for the Murloc Marine minipet.)
A month ago I was dinking around feeling like I’d hit a glass ceiling as far as my ability to see content was concerned, and now here I am: Champion of the Frozen Wastes, wearing a polearm from ten-man Ulduar, and slated to go to the 25-man counterpart on Saturday. I’m really starting to feel like a raider. It is… a very odd feeling.
I also feel like… you know in the Matrix when they upload stuff into Neo’s brain and he goes “Whoa… I know Kung Fu!”
That’s how I felt today after getting about a dozen new boss strats crammed into my head… x__x
*curls up in a ball and falls asleep*
We’ll be explaining the fights a little bit better in 25-man on Saturday. When you go with 25 people instead of 10, you quickly realize that in the ensuing chaos, people tend to do exactly what you did in Razorscale: running around like chickens with their heads cut off. In order to curt this a little bit, we actually have to stop and tell people what to do. Takes more time, but eh.
Welcome to the real game, Pike. We’ve saved a spot just for you. 🙂
Just wait until you guys start on hard modes! :O
Really funny article :)) I’m really glad you finally get to see Ulduar. Good luck in your future adventures and Hard Modes!
Nice to hear the fun in the frontline Ulduar bosses, good job! XD
Expect more fun on the rest~
– Chibikeni
Yay! Glad to hear you’re having fun with your new guild and raidiness 🙂
Congrats on the Ulduar-fu!
our little guild is just peeking our heads in 10-man now, getting stuck on Ignis. Can’t wait to see the rest of the bosses, even if we wipe. I’m one of those “we raid to enjoy ourselves, and hang out pushing our limits eventually” raiders.
I had the same problem with XT’s heart. When it is about to open (there’s a voice saying “So tired, I’m going to rest”), change your pet to defensive. It will run to the heart an chew it. 🙂
Relentless Edge, squeeeee!!
I swapped it out recently for a staff with some armor penetration, because the Interwebs tell me that’s what I should be stacking 🙁 But that polearm is what first pushed my crit rating into the stratosphere and really got me started as a feral DPS druid. I love it, and it has a bank slot reserved for it, permanently 🙂
A few tips for the Keepers from a fellow DPS (albeit a melee one) who’s helped his fair share of newbies through the raid …
Thorim: If you’re in the arena, use Misdirection to keep the tank sane, and Feign Death / Disengage to keep the healers sane. If you’re in the gauntlet, remember not to stand in oncoming waves of fire 🙂
Hodir: Make sure you’re standing near a campfire so that you don’t have to worry about the ticking cold debuff.
Freya: If a tree starts sprouting up from the ground, shoot it!
Mimiron: Don’t stand in fire, don’t stand in lasers, and don’t stand next to bombs. THEN worry about shooting.
It’s exciting to hear about your first forays into Ulduar! moar storehz! MOAR STOREHZ!
Really enjoying your writing style these days. I don’t think it’s changed, other than becoming a little more informative maybe, but your blend of quirky honesty and views on raid content are really working, for me at least.
My two favs here: Checking to see if the cats are tameable, and the Neo raid boss upload. Excellent.
“A month ago I was dinking around feeling like I’d hit a glass ceiling as far as my ability to see content was concerned, and now here I am: Champion of the Frozen Wastes, wearing a polearm from ten-man Ulduar, and slated to go to the 25-man counterpart on Saturday. I’m really starting to feel like a raider. It is… a very odd feeling.”
That is what happens when you step out of your “comfort zone”. It usually turns out a whole lot better than we think it will. Works in LIFE, as well as WoW.
Congratulations.
great job Pike! it’s easy to see that your new guild really likes and respects you–natch.
our 10-man guild run just got back into Ulduar after being side tracked by tournament runs and it felt great! We finally got to take the tram to Mimiron and the General is getting closer! Grats on Relentless Edge too! That dropped for us last night too (first time) and everyone was yelling at me to take it–but I just picked up Marrowstrike in heroic 5-man ToC (some of the drops are just SICK!).
That stupid stupid stupid stupid STUPID XT-heart bug: Put your pet on aggressive/defensive before just before the heart drops, and then remember to put it back on passive like a good hunter.
What do you mean your pet refused to attack XT’s heart? You should starve him for a few days for some discipline!
Last time I was BM for XT hard mode, my pet totally did 6k dps to the heart all by himself.
@ Neil – Ironically, my crit went down a little bit when I equipped it. Everything else went up, up, way up though, so it made up for it! It’s smexy! <3
@ WB - Aww, what a great compliment, thanks!
@ All the people giving me tips on XT's heart. Hmm. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks a bunch!
@ Lupius - Yes, it would appear that because I keep my pet on Passive, he doesn't attack the heart. >.> I’ll put him on Defensive for that fight next time.
Pardon the semi thread-jack, but there doesn’t seem to be alot more chat here anyway. And maybe nobody will read this anyway lol!
I’m just curious what exactly is so bad about keeping your pet on defensive instead of passive. Passive requires several extra actions, and I can’t ever recall a fight in which a pet on defensive has caused a problem. Not solo, 5-mans, raids, etc. Now, I haven’t done much raiding to be sure, but Ive run quite a few heroics, and again it hasn’t been a problem.
I open up on a mob, the pet goes and attacks. When the mob is dead it switches to another in the same combat. I suppose there’s some possibility of it pulling aggro or something, but in practice it doesn’t seem to happen. The last mob dies, he comes trotting back to me.
So, AotH community, I’d like to ask what advantages passive has for you.
Thanks!
@ Jarnow – it’s an old habit from when hunters had to do a lot of pulling, trapping, crowd control, etc.
If my pet runs up to attack something that I’m trying to pull into a specific position, to trap or whatnot, it’s a Very Bad Thing.
If a raid boss looks at my pet funny and my pet runs off to attack it, it’s a Very Bad Thing. Doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.
I want my pet doing what I tell it to do, when I tell it to do it, and no sooner and no later. A hunter is a master of time and space, that includes being able to fight a mob where I want to fight it. My pet running up to attack it while I’m trying to pull it would nullify that.
Besides which, I have to use Hunter’s Mark anyway, and you can send your pet in to attack on the same cooldown, so there’s really no reason not to do it, in my opinion. My pet not attacking something is a good reminder that I don’t have Hunter’s Mark up on said mob yet.
You do have to be very aware of your pet to pull it off, or you’ll lose DPS, but it’s doable if you’re good, and attentive.
To be honest I think I am one of the few holdouts of the Passive School… nobody else really does it anymore =P
Ah that helps explain the disconnect — you are right that sort of stuff doesn’t matter much in the content I do. On those occasions I do trap, or pull, or whatever, you are right it’s really important to put him on passive.
I must say though, that while it would indeed be a very bad thing, I can’t recall ever having my pet (on def., not agro) aggroing a mob I wasn’t already in combat with.
Reminds me of a month or so back when I was playing a super-lowbie alt mage (~14), and teamed up with a hunter who would NOT take his pet off aggressive. Was driving me nuts and nearly got me killed a couple times. We finished up the one quest we were doing and I moved on.
Congrats on the new pig-sticker!! Good to hear that the guild you chose is working out for ya. From an ex-raid hunter to a “new” raid hunter: there’s no where to go but up. Just do what you do best and everything else will fall into place.
Have fun in the 25 man run tomorrow!
Pike,
This isn’t exactly on-topic for this particular post, so I sincerely apologize for that; but I wanted to jot this down anyway.
My computer went “kerblooey” literally the day before 3.1 hit, and only in the last week have I been able to get back up and running. I was able, during that time, to use the Internet at the local library, but the (understandable) time constraints that they place on Internet use prevented me from doing anything more than e-mailing and keeping tabs on a handful of characters in the Armory.
Needless to say, I’ve missed quite a lot. In addition to 3.1, we have 3.2, and all of the little Patches in between. This means that there is a LOT of stuff that I’ve missed, plus God knows what stuff I don’t know about yet at all. Plus, BlizzCon just so happens to be going on now, and with all the news about the next Expansion coming out, I have quite the backlog of stuff to catch up with, and I’m still racking my brain trying to figure out the best way to approach it all. Some of the more recent stuff I’ve been able to gather is mind-blowing to an extent, at least to me.
Compound that with the fact that my Guild pretty much disintegrated in the past four months (for reasons still a bit unclear to me), with people moving off in every which way, and some of my friendships dying along the way, it leaves this poor Hunter; still in the Naxx-10 mindset, feeling a bit lost and confused, in addition to the happiness of finally being “back in business”, as it were. And I haven’t actually logged back into the game yet!
But I digress. I just wanted to let you know that you’ve been one of my favorite WoW bloggers, and it’s great to see you still writing. I’ve done a little bit of blog surfing after coming back, and there have been some pretty big changes to the scene since I’ve been gone. Lassira’s exit from the spotlight, for example.
So, it’s good to be back, and good to see you still going strong. I look forward to eventually, hopefully, somehow catching up with all of the blogs I like. (Let alone the podcasts…) Rest assured that yours is right up on the top of the list, Pike.
I wish you all the best, and, since departures seem to be rather frequent these days, don’t you dare quit blogging right after I come back into the fold! 😉
Will
“To be honest I think I am one of the few holdouts of the Passive School… nobody else really does it anymore =P”
Amen, sista! I see Warlocks and Hunters with pets on defensive now and cry a little inside 🙁 What happened to straining your fingers with the ctrl-1-9 buttons!
To further emphasize Pike’s point, pet control in a raid environment can’t be overemphasized. There are several places in Ulduar where the pet will go bonkers and do crazy crap. The entryway to the hall leadign to Vezax was a great example of that.
The main reason is just responsibility to your fellow raiders. Players inadvertantly pulling aggro or pulling another group is bad enough. When a pet does it, you can expect massive amounts of grief. There are several places where defensive makes sense – XT and Thorim’s arena are two. But, I’ve left Thorim’s and gone to Freya and been tasked with MDing a group to the tank. Shot it, pet takes off becasue it was on defensive (from Thorim’s) and despite pulling it back quickly with a Cntrl-2, the pet still aggros a second group of trash. We’re good enough to survive the double pull now, but it still looks really bad.