Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Misadventures In Raiding: We Got This

Yesterday while doing our standard valor cap thing, now that it is worth doing again, myself and the two people I was spamming heroic scenarios with to cap our characters got an invite from a friend of one of us to join in on an SoO pug.

Normally we would not do something like that, it is valor cap time but figured what the heck.  We all jumped on alts, me a druid tank, one of the others a druid tank and the third a damage dealer on a hunter and we joined the group.

It was a pure pug, all people from different guilds except for us three of course.  I am sure a few of them knew each other because that is how pugs usually go.  A friend invites a friend invites a friend.

It was a slow moving run because after the first boss someone dropped and we ended up waiting near 30 minutes to get going again.  We had a few more delays along the way, but otherwise everything was running smooth.  Bosses were falling over despite the raid leader using strategies that at least the three of us had never used, but he is the raid leader so we followed his lead and did as he said.

Like I said, with the exception of a lot of wasted time, which no one complained about, things were going nicely.  It seemed as if the group worked well together.  At least until Galakras.  It was where we hit our first bump in the road.

Side note:  To anyone that is not a raider, please be advised, this is not the right way to do things.  This is a misadventure and pure luck.

Towers went fine but when the protodrake landed all hell broke lose and the entire raid died near instantly.  Don't ask me how because I have no clue but you do not need death note to tell you it probably had something to do with standing in the fire.  Okay, bad joke.

It was just me, my co tank and one damage dealer still up.  The raid leader said it was a wipe to which I responded the way any person that has tanked a lot would admit they have responded at least a hundred times by saying, don't worry, we got this.

I was not trying to over rule the raid leader, it was not my raid.  It was his decision, but I figured it would not hurt to try and go for it.  At that point it was, in my mind at least, we are either going to manage to pull this off, or we are going to finish it off and die quickly, so lets have a little fun and I must admit, there is nothing more fun than saying "I got this" and somehow managing to get it.  This seemed like one of those times it could be pulled off.  Even if those chances were really slim.

Galakras was around 78% with the raid went poof up in flames.  Did I really believe we had this?  Yeah, I guess so, I did believe it was possible.  While me and my co tank were on alts we were on very well geared alts.  For normals anyway.  So it came down to, do we think we can heal ourselves enough to survive because his breath was going to start getting really brutal really fast with only the three of us alive and us using all our rage for healing instead of damage.

I said to the other tank, who do you think I should bring up.  He said our other guild mate.  So I battle revived our guild mate and we kept at it.  How he, on a hunter, survived so long without any heals is was amazing and the other damage dealer, the one person beside the tanks that managed to not go up in smoke instantly was a priest, managed to at least keep themselves alive.

At around 50% the shaman healer, who apparently did not want to waste their pop decided, what the hell and popped up.

We said, don't worry about us, keep you guys up, and myself and the other tank kept pounding away, rotating cooldowns, and keeping ourselves alive and low and behold, we got it.  You could hear the excitement on vent and the see the dead people typing in raid things like "I can't believe what I am seeing", "how is that even possible", and the funniest line you ever hear in a pug "this is the best group ever, I love you guys".

It wasn't the greatest thing to ever happen in a raid but it sure was fun to have something like that happen.  It was not pressing content, it was not something that was out of the realm of possibility, but it was definitely one of those raid stories you will go on to tell for a long time.

I often complain about pugs but sometimes fun things like this can only happen in a pug.  It was a good group and really you could tell that from the get go when no one complained at all about the long wait between the first and second boss.  I guess their patience was rewarded with a story they can tell their friends.

Side note: Both myself and my friend were on druid tanks.  If you do not play a druid I'll just explain how we did it nice and easy.  Druids rocks.  It reminded me of our first kill of Al'Akir at the beginning of cataclysm.  Somehow the entire raid got blown away at the beginning of phase three except me tanking on my druid, a feral druid DPS, and a restoration druid.  So the three druids did the third phase all alone for out first kill.

We got this.  Yes, we did.  Sometimes misadventures are the best adventures to have.  Misadventures indeed.

6 comments:

  1. What I see time and again on Galakras in lfr or flex pugs is people who get the fireball running sideways out of the group.

    That is where all the aoe damage comes from, and why pugs tend to wipe on this boss. Simple mechanics that people are just not aware of.

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    1. Yeah. Sometimes it is the most simple thing that becomes the biggest problem.

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  2. Nice job! I had a similar experience recently, but it ended up as a 3% wipe.

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    1. Thanks, it was great fun, but 99 out of 100 times that would have been a wipe. We just got lucky with procs and such to stay alive as the tanks with no substantial heals for such a long time.

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  3. Great story!

    I made a cardinal mistake and resubbed several days ago. Guilty. :-)

    Then I made another cardinal mistake and went to SOO normal via OQ / OR. The group on Friday was relatively good, we downed 8 bosses. Groups on Saturday and Sunday were bad, no bosses down. But the worst of all were groups for the new reset on Wednesday (yesterday). 3 different groups, lots of wait time, and 5 wipes on, wait for it, Immerseus! No kills!! Well, at least the reset is still clear. And that's OpenRaid, which is supposedly used by guys who can tell their arm from their leg (yeah, totally, one of the groups was basically a *guild* of guys who don't care enough to use even meta gems yet alone flasks or food, and were looking for someone to carry them, never seen anything like that before, lol).

    I think I will stay away from PUGs for a bit, it's just amazing how much stupid can happen there. Better do some spring cleaning of my own. :-)

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    1. NOOOOO!!!!!!!!

      Well, you are stuck with us now. Wow is like drug addiction, no one ever really quits. They just take breaks and try not to get sucked back in.

      The worst thing that ever happened to OR was that the blues started talking about it on the forums. I really hope that does not sound elitist but I can understand if it does.

      When people that wanted to raid were the only ones using it because it meant something to them the groups were so much better. Those were the people that could tell their asses from their elbows.

      Now that everyone is there because the blues directed them there it is bad. There are people that come to troll, people that come to be carried, people that come unprepared.

      When only "raiders" used it reputation meant something. Sure there were still bad cases here and there but they were rare. Now they are the rule, not the exception.

      Blizzard killed OR. As for OQ, that was always a steaming pile of cow dung from the get go. At least in my opinion.

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