Caliban has now officially completed 3 of the 4 wings of Icecrown Citidel, 10 man.
Thursday we did the front quarter, Plague Wing and Princes. We started off Friday with a kill of the Blood Queen, and then went on the Valithria. I had not successfully done either of those fights before.
Allow me to just say: those fights are NUTS. I really need to retain the presence of mind to snap screenshots at the time of kill. Mostly because I find it amusing the proportion of the raid that is often DEAD when that occurs.
1, 2, 4 (three sir…)
After Valithria, we of course went to look at Sindragosa. Many of us had not been there before, so it was a learning experience. I had fun soulstoning myself and jumping down the elevator shaft behind the green dragon room. (Sans equipment).
Luckily, I was able to get my equipment BACK on before the ambush threw me into combat.
Sindragosa is an interesting fight, and we were definitely getting the hang of the varying mechanics by the end of the evening. We got her below 30% at least twice, and the last attempt was dangerously close to 20%. I think they have a strong chance of getting her down on Monday evening.
It's a little chilly in here...
The Ice Tombs were by turns the most fun, and the most frustrating part of the evening. Whenever I would get blocked, I would try to get frozen in a fun position.
If only I’d been wearing the tenta-staff.
The problem with this, is that sometimes my guildmates had trouble counting to four.
You see, four is the number of Frost Bomb’s that Sindragosa drops during her air phase. Unfortunately, there were times (and do note the plural form of that word) where, for some reason, the frost tomb would be broken after the third of them.
When there was one bomb remaining.
Leaving my poor, adorable, gnomish behind to get frost bomb-ed before I could run to the safety of the other Tomb.
Jerks.
In all seriousness, I didn’t mind. I found it incredibly funny (usually). Especially when the guild leader started counting out the frost bombs after the 2nd time it happened.
Especially when his count was OFF.
The little things amuse me. ^_^
As stated, despite the silliness, and the occasional “why the heck did I die to her Frost Nova?”s, we did really really well for what was our first attempt. Good luck getting her down Monday, guys.
The Buff
This week saw the advent of the zone-wide buff in ICC. My guild is torn on it, opinion-wise. We have a couple folks who feel like they’re cheating to use it. They recall our pre-nerf kills on some of the bosses from previous dungeons, and how GOOD it feels to do that, and I totally agree with them.
And then you have the guild members who are okay with getting that little extra boost to get us through a fight we’ve been struggling with for a few weeks, and I totally understand that position, too.
I’m pretty much in the middle of the road when it comes to the buff. So here’s my position on the buff.
- Pre-buff, we can reliably get down the 1st quarter, the Plague quarter and Princes. (Reliably meaning with a minimum number of execution failures. )
- Pre-buff, the guild had gotten down Blood Queen and Valithria. So, we had, as a guild gotten 10/12 of the ICC bosses down without a buff. This is, in my opinion, NOT BAD for a guild who only raids 3 hours, 3 nights a week.
I have no doubt that we could eventually get those other two bosses down.
Note the use of the word “eventually.” We are a casual guild. While we have some folks who are there nearly every week, the rest of the spots are filled with a rotating menagerie of toons. I don’t want to say we have someone new every week, because that’s not the case. But we often have folks who haven’t raided in a week or two, and don’t have that boss “down”. We’re not that tight, cohesive unit who all know the intricacies of the fight inside out.
I have limited time to play, and the prospect of repeating wiping isn’t really a fun one for me. If the buff makes it easier for a week or two until we get more experience with the fights, and get a little more gear to the point where we can “fudge” a little when the RNG decides to throw us two blazing skeletons at once, then I’m perfectly cool with shutting the buff off.
For now, leave it on. It makes my damage look good.
Gears!!
DOOM.
We had sufficient healers so that Caliban was able to run both nights this week. And I got upgrades!
I traded Cold Convergence for Abracadaver.
Replaced Brimstone Igniter with Wand of Ruby Claret
And swapped in the Dark Coven Hood for Helm of Clouded Sight.
It’s hard to see in the screenshot, but the hood doesn’t cover your whole face, if you zoom in, you can actually see ‘your’ chin below the face part. It’s kind of cool.
Plus, I look like a freaky oompa-loompa. I may keep this hood showing for a bit.
I also got the Scourgelord’s Baton, if I ever get another main-hand weapon. Although, at this point, I think the Magharii Chieftan’s Staff is probably the best option available to Cali. Rawr says otherwise, but it’s ‘lock model is borked at the moment. I’m not sure there are any viable 1-handed caster weapons in ICC10.
I take that back, there are several. And one especially tasty one off of Arthas. Hmm. I’ll have to do some calcs to see what combos are better, stat’s wise.
Anywho, past the gnome’s bedtime.
Hope y’all had a good week.
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