Tag Archives: Firelands

Ragnaros Down! Plus I Got a Present for Someone Else’s Birthday!

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We finally downed Ragnaros and this time we had the entire A Team for the kill. Whew! Good job to the core people of the progression raid: Kestrin, Kyu, Kamigurucrit, Xerzes, Dakirely, Marrok, Ulthar, Duzen, Tyoz and me.

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Firelands Achievement



Grats to the following people on the Ragnaros loot:

Marrok – Arathar, the Eye of Flame

Dakirely – Sho’ravon, Greatstaff of Annihilation

Tyoz – Helm of the Fiery Protector

The last few weeks were unkind to us, with Real Life dragging away our key people, a few suffering from really bad Internet, and a host of other things. But this time our little guild managed to do it…and it happened to be on Xerzes’ birthday too, by the way! Happy birthday, man!

Speaking of Xerzes, he won the roll on Mantle of the Fiery Vanquisher that dropped from Majordomo Staghelm. My roll was second highest. I congratulated him and we took off for Ragnaros. Before the pull, good ol’ Xerzes surprised me for the second time in my raiding life by trading the token with me. I asked him why he was giving it to me.

“Well, you still have those 359 shoulders, you deserve an upgrade.”

Well, I’ll be… You sure are developing a knack for giving me shoulder tokens, LOL.

Xerzes, I could kiss you but my male belf kissing your orc would be kinda gay so I’ll just salute you instead.  /salute

Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

AT LAST MY ENTIRE GEAR IS COLOR COORDINATED!!!

Cloudrunner - Death Knight Tier 12

Until the next tier piece is acquired that is.

See you guys in Dragon Soul!

Taking Good Care of My Hunter

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My hunter (the former Anhur) got dragged into a 25-man Firelands run, which turned into a little loot fest for him, erm I mean, her. (Cripes, I really should get used to my hunter’s new gender!)

Cloudrunner's Alliance Hunter

Here’s what the Loot Piñata Gods blessed my neglected toon:

Lava Bolt Crossbow

Flickering Shoulders of the Windstorm

Sleek Flamewrath Cloak (finally hit Friendly with Avengers of Hyjal)

She’s now 6/7 in Firelands but has zero boss kills in Tier 11 dungeons, go figure.

Ugh, I’m such a bad mother to my hunter, I should play her more often!

Postscript: Someone asked me why I refuse to reveal my hunter’s new name and server except to a few trusted people. Let’s just say I value my being able to escape to that server without the “usual” faces following me there. Some days I crave for a different scene and I want to enjoy it by being with other people.

Firelands: Three Bosses Down and a New Helm

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Our little guild downed Alysrazor, Baleroc and Majordomo Staghelm!

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And the best part of the raid: I finally got rid of my FUGLY helm from Zul’Gurub….

Roaring Mask of Bethekk

…and replaced it with Greathelm of the Voracious Maw!

Greathelm of the Voracious Helm

Grats to the following people on their respective loot:

Duzen – Smoldering Censer of Purity

Dakirely – Mantle of Closed Doors

Marrok – The Hungerer

Xerzes – Helm of Blazing Glory

Kestrin – Wings of Flame

Skullstealer Greataxe!

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WOOT! Shannox dropped the Skullstealer Greataxe and I won the roll on it!

Skullstealer Greataxe Dropped

Cloudrunner with Skullstealer Greataxe

(Love what the art department did with this weapon!)

And rather than redistributing my Frost talent points to fit my new 2-hander, I kept my Dual Wield Frost build and unlearned my Unholy tree. From there, I made a new 2H tree.

I know DW Frost is still the way to go but since a certain someone *cough Bloodsoe cough* won’t buy me two Obsidium Cleavers, I have to make do with the new axe and adjust to my new build.

The last two heroic runs I did using my new axe saw me top the damage meters. So far, so good. New build – and new weapon – are working for me. :)

Back on Exodar: Beth’tilac and Lord Rhyolith Down

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I’m proud of my little guild on Exodar. Our progression, though slow, has been steady. I’m glad to be with mature people who don’t subscribe to the belief that “bigger is better”, and are averse to the idea of recruiting any Tom, Dick and Harry who only want in to enjoy the guild perks. Sure, this decision may cost us in terms of not having enough people to sub for our tanks (we have plenty of DPS and heals, but sorely lack meat shields), but we’d rather cancel raids than recruit people of dubious character to fill the requisite spots. Until we come across players who we can trust not to cause any drama, we’re sticking to our current roster.

So with our usual tanks available again, we continued our Firelands raid. It took us about three tries to get the strat right for Beth’tilac. Downing the old red widow spider elicited thunderous cheers – and sighs of relief – from us.

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Grats to Ronnie’s hunter Amberwatson on winning Widow’s Kiss and Nekura on his new staff Funeral Pyre.

Then it was off to — oh Lord — Lord Rhyolith.  >.<   I died 10x on this dude yesterday on my ally hunter so I’m still traumatized. Good thing we downed him on the second attempt!



Grats, Marrok, on getting Shatterskull Bonecrusher and Duzen on wining Heartstone of Rhyolith.

Awesome, albeit crazy, run, guys. Love you all!

My Hunter’s Baptism of Fire: 4 Firelands Bosses Downed

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My troll hunter formerly known as Anhur and now a female draenei hunter happily ensconced in my friend Natsu’s server got thrown into the lion’s den in Firelands.

Just to clarify, I thought it was going to be more of a guild trash run with an attempt at Shannox and possibly even Beth’tilac. My hunter hasn’t even been inside any of the Tier 11 dungeons, and since my RDPS skills were still rusty, I merely wanted to “break in” my hunter gently back into raiding, perhaps win a nice BoE from the trash to get her geared.

“Breaking in” turned into a jaw-dropping baptism of fire when I discovered upon entering the raid instance that they had downed two bosses and the run was actually a continuation. AND they were heading for Lord Rhyolith!

I nearly had cardiac arrest. My well-geared super achiever Death Knight has never attempted Rhyolith, and there I was on my much-neglected hunter with an average iLevel of 361 facing him for the first time:

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I wanted to puke. It has been weeks since I last saw the Tankspot video on the Rhyolith fight. I had no clue on what to do from an RDPS standpoint. But since there was no backing out, I braced myself for a night of humiliation. My hunter was calm and collected on the outside but on the inside she was…

Janet Leigh - Psycho

But hey, after several wipes, we downed him! And I’m proud to say that I wasn’t the one responsible for those wipes!



We moved to Alysrazor whom the guild one-shotted while I spent most of the time as a corpse. (Hence, no screenshot to document the fight) Yeah, those fiery tornadoes hurt. >.< Again, I have never done that boss on my DK and to make it worse, I have never seen the Tankspot video on that fight. Good thing my hunter's guildies are so nice. I seriously thought I was gonna get kicked.

Then we moved to Baleroc...

Baleroc

…where I fucked up by moving to the crystal too early but good thing I was with such leet people that they still managed to one-shot him. I was so ready to die of embarrassment. No screenshot again this time. Nothing to be proud of. LOL. I whispered my apologies to my Raid Leader, explaining my nerves were getting the better of me. He said, no worries.

Then it was on to Majordomo Staghelm, where I did NOT die and we one-shotted him AND I won a nifty little trinket!! WOOHOO

The Hungerer

And then…



I came face to face with, as they say in the ‘hood, da man hisself.

Did we down him? Hell, I wish! LOL. Perhaps next time. Our Raid Leader had to call it as people were getting tired. I could even hear a couple of them on vent with screaming babies in the background. Real life called.

I’m really grateful to Natsu and the guild for being so patient with me and teaching me the fights. I take my hat off to those fine people who impressed me with their teamwork, focus and determination to get the job done. And to think they’re not even a hard core raiding guild! Their raiding ethic is a reflection of the general attitude of people on that server, so it’s really no wonder that realm is one of the top 40 (US) in terms of progression.

I have no regrets moving here.

Back to Nerflands, I mean, Firelands

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After a blah few weeks that saw me working more and playing less, I got to raid again. Our raid leader gathered the 10 best people to meet raid composition needs for Firelands. This time, it was a no-excuses affair. No more inconsiderate players going AFK every 10 minutes or so because the dog bit the visitor, Grandma was on fire, or the girlfriend wanted spur-of-the-moment kinky sex. No more carrying 7K DPS players whose only goal is to get to friendly status with Avengers of Hyjal. After several half-assed attempts at Shannox and a few sorry weeks when one of our two star tanks had to make business trips (in effect canceling all raids during that period), we were determined to get the bastard down this time around.

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I was happy to be back in the raiding scene, but my enthusiasm wasn’t the same given how Firelands was nerfed. Hardcore raider I’m not (and never will be), but I’m not exactly thrilled that the place was dumbed down. I like challenges when I’m with people who know their class. But when you’ve been raiding with certain individuals *cough (insert name of notorious player here) cough* who are too lazy to watch Tankspot videos or know their class’ rotations and stuff, well, this impacts your progression. I guess Blizzard saw the common denominator among the non-hard core raiding guilds and felt the need to nerf content so even the lazy ass clowns holding you back can down Shannox et al AND repeatedly go AFK to their heart’s content.

(If I were the GM and RL, I would kick those lazy, AFK-ing ass clowns myself but since I’m not, I’ll just keep my mouth shut and seethe in silence.)

So yeah, because the raid was composed of 10 very skilled AND dependable people, we one-shotted Shannox…



..who dropped – GASP – the Skullstealer Greataxe, which my guildie Xerzes won (grats, man!)…

Skullstealer Greataxe

…and Treads of Implicit Obedience.

We headed off to Beth’tilac but, um, a bit of a quarrel erupted between two players so yeah…to be continued on Friday night.  /awkward

I didn’t win anything but at the end of the day, I was happy to have gotten my raiding fix AND raided with the top caliber people in the guild.



Treasure Amongst the Trash

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I did my first Firelands run today. Trash run that is.

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Someone in Blizzard got trigger-happy with the Add Trash button while working on this place. Trash here, trash there, trash everywhere. “We heard you like trash, so we put trash in your trash so you can aggro more trash while you go pull some trash.” At least that’s the impression I got.

But hey trash in there drops epic BoEs, and one of them was the Firebound Gorget which I won (well, I was the only DPS who could roll on it, since the rest were clothies and mailies). We worked on everybody’s rep with Avengers of Hyjal up to Friendly status so we could get the cloaks from the quartermaster, and I got my nice new Bladed Flamewrath Cover, bringing my iLevel to 359.

But after resetting the instance what seemed to be ad nauseam, fatigue finally set in. Coupled with the fact that two guildies kept bickering throughout the run (it’s a complicated story of bromance, with one an unwilling partner, if you catch my drift), we ran out of energy to attempt the first boss.

Nevertheless, it was a run I enjoyed. I was with my guildies, including my good buddy and unwitting therapist Hordor, all whom I like and enjoy being with (except for one dude but that’s for another post). I got phat lootz. And I got an interesting first taste and look of the Firelands.

Interesting repair bill too.