4 62 The Worst Encounter in the World
4 62 The Worst Encounter in the World
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| Raid Finder is buried amongst the new dress-up features of 4.3 (Source: MMO-Champion.com) |
Weeks 1 + 2
Night 1 - 8/21/2011
Spent two hours on Heroic: Rhyolith today. Not much changed in heroic. Fragments/Sparks have more health, hit harder. Liquid Obsidian emerges from active volcanoes, and reconstructs Rhyos armor, but are easily snared/slowed/killed. Superheated comes a bit faster. Theres also an eye beam we have to deal with in phase two, but havent seen that yet. For the most part, inconsequential changes. Well get this in no time.Still sifting through the deluge of 4.3 patch notes. Tons of info up on MMO-Champ talking about the new Darkmoon Fair, Transmogrification, Void Storage, Dragon Soul, and the new CoT dungeons. Unsurprisingly, gaming media is glossing over this new "raid finder" addition. Why spend time on that when you can focus on barbie doll dress-up mode? If it gives the same loot (as I suspect it will), it will be the end of guilds and the end of WoW. Blizzard, always ready to put its faith into its community, vehemently disagrees. In other news, water is wet.
Night 2 - 8/26/2011
Two more hours on Heroic: Lord Rhyolith today. May have underestimated how difficult the new heroic mechanics are. Bad enough the gimmick of "attack the left foot, make him turn left; attack the right foot, make him turn right" is less fun and more annoying, but in theory, heroic should not be as hard as it is. Should actually be very straightforward.
Steering should not be as much of a problem as it is. Blizzard even built a custom gauge for the fight, so we can see which way hes turning. Practically a non-factor in normal mode. Yet steering Rhyolith over each subsequent volcano in order to wear down his armor isnt going as well in heroic over the long term. Trying to steer him over active ones while avoiding dormant ones is practically impossible. Eventually, we begin missing actives, and the attempt spirals from there.
Summer vacations are still taking their toll on the roster. Laradas out on account of exams, which sucks, because his mage Doja is one of the top number generators. Boggles my mind how subtle changes do or do not affect our ability to progress. Mangetsu was out the week we killed heroic: Shannox; his absence didnt affect that fight, although in retrospect, we did have one person alive at the end.
Summer vacations are still taking their toll on the roster. Laradas out on account of exams, which sucks, because his mage Doja is one of the top number generators. Boggles my mind how subtle changes do or do not affect our ability to progress. Mangetsu was out the week we killed heroic: Shannox; his absence didnt affect that fight, although in retrospect, we did have one person alive at the end.
Jungard politely reminded me that he is now two months away from his schedule permanently changing. Bonechatters training is going well. Am confident hell fill the absence left by Jungard.
Night 3 - 8/28/2011
No training for Bonechatters today, he is out sick. I have to give the kid some formality bonus points. His message read like that of an employee tendering a resignation. "It is with great regret that I must step down from tonights raid, as I have an ear infection." A far cry from players that simply say nothing and just dont bother to show. May seem silly, but its the little things that count. Being perceived as too formal isnt the worst thing in the world.
Drecca started talking shit in /general channel today. Had to tell Deathonwings to get out of the channel again. Bad enough /general is a distraction with all the bullshit Enigma d-bag chatter. Now we have to listen to Herp Derp taunts while dying to Concussive Stomp.
Night 3 - 8/28/2011
No training for Bonechatters today, he is out sick. I have to give the kid some formality bonus points. His message read like that of an employee tendering a resignation. "It is with great regret that I must step down from tonights raid, as I have an ear infection." A far cry from players that simply say nothing and just dont bother to show. May seem silly, but its the little things that count. Being perceived as too formal isnt the worst thing in the world.
Drecca started talking shit in /general channel today. Had to tell Deathonwings to get out of the channel again. Bad enough /general is a distraction with all the bullshit Enigma d-bag chatter. Now we have to listen to Herp Derp taunts while dying to Concussive Stomp.
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| The progression team takes a sanity break from Heroic: Lord Rhyolith, and executes two achievements, Firelands |
Weeks 3 + 4
Night 4 - 9/2/2011
First raid of the September month. Have been in Firelands for 10 weeks now. Fourth week on Heroics. Got Bethtilac, Baleroc and Alysrazor (normal) out of the way quickly, so we could knuckle down on Heroic: Rhyo. Got 3 � hours in on him.
No dice.
No ranged officer this weekend, Goldy is out on vacation. Need to get with Goldy at some point. New position at work is sending me out to Cali in order to train the next group. Trip may coincide with BlizzCon. If I can crash at his house that weekend, I may be able to kill two birds with one stone. Would be nice. Save me the travel expense, at least.
Larada still has exams, Dewgyd and Vexx, also out. The new shaman Gharghael wouldve been great to use. No sign of him, either.
Lexxii was late again. First time it happened, at least she had the decency to text me. Now, not even doing that. Shes falling off the deep end. Dont know if this is a result of her breaking up with Bullshark, or her losing the healing officer position. Maybe both.
No ranged officer this weekend, Goldy is out on vacation. Need to get with Goldy at some point. New position at work is sending me out to Cali in order to train the next group. Trip may coincide with BlizzCon. If I can crash at his house that weekend, I may be able to kill two birds with one stone. Would be nice. Save me the travel expense, at least.
Larada still has exams, Dewgyd and Vexx, also out. The new shaman Gharghael wouldve been great to use. No sign of him, either.
Lexxii was late again. First time it happened, at least she had the decency to text me. Now, not even doing that. Shes falling off the deep end. Dont know if this is a result of her breaking up with Bullshark, or her losing the healing officer position. Maybe both.
Doesnt matter.
End result is shes impacting the raid, and is pissing off the crew more every day. Warning her has no effect. Will just try to get Charcassone, Mortalsend and Syphira a bit more gear, so I can pull the plug on Lexxii.
Thank God the Diablo III beta is about to start. Firelands is buring holes in my retinas. Am getting awfully sick of looking at Rhyolith.
Thank God the Diablo III beta is about to start. Firelands is buring holes in my retinas. Am getting awfully sick of looking at Rhyolith.
Night 5 - 9/4/2011
Three more hours on Heroic: Rhyo. Still nothing. Dropped it to normal, just to loot him and continue to gear people for their hard work. Amuses me to call it "work." What was Aters old joke? Were not here to have fun.
Oh, Ater. If only you could see us failing now.
Team isnt able to to get ahead of the Sparks. Health was manageable in normal. Now, its clear we dont have the top-of-the-line DPS that we should. Swapping in what little new folks we have is taking its toll on the bottom line. Damage isnt where we need to be. Blain insists on being the sole tank for Sparks. Cant help but wonder if Amatsus Pally would be better. Blain isnt dying, but neither of them have a DPS spec, so its probably negligible.
Three more hours on Heroic: Rhyo. Still nothing. Dropped it to normal, just to loot him and continue to gear people for their hard work. Amuses me to call it "work." What was Aters old joke? Were not here to have fun.
Oh, Ater. If only you could see us failing now.
Team isnt able to to get ahead of the Sparks. Health was manageable in normal. Now, its clear we dont have the top-of-the-line DPS that we should. Swapping in what little new folks we have is taking its toll on the bottom line. Damage isnt where we need to be. Blain insists on being the sole tank for Sparks. Cant help but wonder if Amatsus Pally would be better. Blain isnt dying, but neither of them have a DPS spec, so its probably negligible.
We need to kill adds faster, but any good attempt we make quickly falls behind after we lose people to random volcano damage and an unavoidable Concussive Stomp. The encounter is wringing the healers out like a sponge.
Night 6 - 9/9/2011
Would really love to know where all my rogues went. Blain has an excuse. The rest of them know when signups happen. Boney, Darth, Randy...theyre better than this. Boney claims I did the rotations a day early. I do them the same day every week. Nothings changed in years. Laradas done with exams, thank God. Meanwhile, Sarge blew his video card. Hes out permanently, as he has no means to replace it. One step forward, two steps back.
Got off to a reasonable start, was able to knock out a couple of achievements needed for Glory. Dusting more of the normal drops from Bethtilac, Baleroc, Alysrazor, and Shannox. Were in that festive fucking spot where everybody that needs an upgrade isnt getting the one drop they could use. Extending the lock is a waste; resetting the lock is a waste. This was a good idea how? Thanks, Ghostcrawler. Thanks for taking a stand and advocating for a bunch of players that have already cancelled their accounts because "Grim Batol is too hard." We pay the price for your hopeful optimism.
More taunting from Drecca in instance chat today. Mr. "10-Man is the greater challenge" hypocrite fails to recognize the fact that HD swept through all the bosses by mid-August. Here it is September and we still cant get past our second heroic. Spare me your ignorance, Drecca. You know as well as I do that if 10 was the more difficult one, youd be stuck slaving over this insanely tortuous boss. Youre no Gods fucking gift to WoW.
Hells ranted at me today about the taunting. Hes probably got less control over his emotions than I do. I calmed him down and reminded him that we needed him, so he wasn�t allowed to go off on a drinking binge. Nothing is worth that, not even a fucker like Drecca.
Night 7 - 9/11/2011
Twenty hours clocked in on this godforsaken encounter. I want to wrap my fingers around my keyboard and choke the ever loving shit out of it. Maybe if I crushed it tightly enough Id come out with a mother fucking diamond.
Have now spent more time on Heroic: Rhyo than on Lady Vashj. This is ludicrous. No boss has come close to Vashj-level difficulty in years. Except perhaps Heroic Lich King, Halion and Anubarak, none of which we conquered. But those were all end bosses. They were supposed to be hard. This is a fucking nondescript walking volcano in the middle of an instance with no lore and no significance. What in the actual fuck is going on???
He actually made it to the lava today and wiped the raid. Steering is a colossal clusterfuck of epic proportions. There has to be a better way than this constant "left foot, right foot" shit in Vent. We sound like a bunch of casuals facerolling across our collective keyboards. Cue me getting on the Battle.net forums and complaining about "this boss is way too hard." The faint siren of the Wahmbulance can be heard in the distance.
Is this going to turn into some kind of Illidan / Kaelthas level shit?
Fred seems convinced that Drecca is viewing our log history on World of Logs and working out the times of the evening were attempting specific bosses, so he can taunt us at the most inopportune times. Seems very "conspiracy theory." More realistically, weve got someone feeding him this info, unintentionally or otherwise. I wouldnt put it past a number of our members that might just be messaging him privately. Hes phishing them, and theyre eating it up, giving him what he wants. Nobody would admit to that if I ever questioned them. Sucks that it is a possibility. There are definitely several people in the roster capable of that behavior. I wish I felt otherwise.
Apparently Blizzard nerfed the drop rate of Smoldering Essences, which is a shame. Goldy was making good progress collecting up mats for the legendary. Too bad. Dragonwrath might have helped put a bigger dent in Rhyo.
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| Lord Rhyolith makes it into the top five worst bosses in Cataclysm (Source: Engadget) |
Week 5
Day 8 - 9/16/2011
Week five of work on Heroic: Rhyolith. Three hours today. Nothing. I want to eat a gun. I want to gouge my fucking eyeballs out of my head. No matter how hard we insist that we cannot miss a volcano, we continue to miss them. We drag the fight out. Missing the occasional volcano should not have as much of an impact as it does. Sadly, theres no choice in the matter. This is heroic, we should expect less room for error. It should come as no surprise when were wiping after missing so many. And yet, it continues. But this isnt the worst of it.
Liquid Obsidian is always controlled well at the start, then spirals out of control every time we approach phase two. Its a vicious cycle. As Superheated nears, it takes longer for him to transition. Rhyolith is rebuilding armor faster than it can be depleted. This entire ordeal is a textbook exercise in attrition. Sparks die slower, apply more fire vulnerability to the raid. Concussive stomps hit harder, emptying the healers faster. People die, and Rhyolith gets his armor back before we can break his entire shell off and get him into phase two. The one time we actually do make it to phase two, its our only opportunity to see his eye beams in action. They slice through the raid like a knife through butter. We wipe at 3%. Somewhere in the world, kittens are killed mercilessly.
Only thing keeping me sane is Blizzards mention of an upcoming nerf. Nothing fills me with confidence more than knowing we are failing so miserably, we have fallen back into that bucket of "cant progress, contents too hard." Nerfs are a crutch. Weve pushed through them before. Why we cant now is beyond me.
Day 9 - 9/18/2011
I want to know who is responsible for this boss. I want to know what employee at that billion dollar company thought this was a good idea. Seriously. What drug were they smoking? It kills me that they continue to make claims like "Ulduar was great but practically nobody got to see it."
Week five of work on Heroic: Rhyolith. Three hours today. Nothing. I want to eat a gun. I want to gouge my fucking eyeballs out of my head. No matter how hard we insist that we cannot miss a volcano, we continue to miss them. We drag the fight out. Missing the occasional volcano should not have as much of an impact as it does. Sadly, theres no choice in the matter. This is heroic, we should expect less room for error. It should come as no surprise when were wiping after missing so many. And yet, it continues. But this isnt the worst of it.
Liquid Obsidian is always controlled well at the start, then spirals out of control every time we approach phase two. Its a vicious cycle. As Superheated nears, it takes longer for him to transition. Rhyolith is rebuilding armor faster than it can be depleted. This entire ordeal is a textbook exercise in attrition. Sparks die slower, apply more fire vulnerability to the raid. Concussive stomps hit harder, emptying the healers faster. People die, and Rhyolith gets his armor back before we can break his entire shell off and get him into phase two. The one time we actually do make it to phase two, its our only opportunity to see his eye beams in action. They slice through the raid like a knife through butter. We wipe at 3%. Somewhere in the world, kittens are killed mercilessly.
Only thing keeping me sane is Blizzards mention of an upcoming nerf. Nothing fills me with confidence more than knowing we are failing so miserably, we have fallen back into that bucket of "cant progress, contents too hard." Nerfs are a crutch. Weve pushed through them before. Why we cant now is beyond me.
Day 9 - 9/18/2011
I want to know who is responsible for this boss. I want to know what employee at that billion dollar company thought this was a good idea. Seriously. What drug were they smoking? It kills me that they continue to make claims like "Ulduar was great but practically nobody got to see it."
Ulduar was nothing.
Ulduar was enjoyable. Ulduar was some fucking half decent design that any competent guild could execute. This is something else entirely. This is the stuff of motherfucking nightmares. You tested this? You gave this boss the greenlight? You mean to tell me a billion dollar company can axe Starcraft: Ghost after half a decade of work is put into it by simply saying "sorry, not fun," yet give this fucking boss the go-ahead? At what point did design decisions go so horribly fucking wrong behind closed doors?
Am beginning to think Cataclysm was entirely some kind of sick fucking, low budget joke. Its like someone at Blizzard said, "Sorry, were going to have to reduce your staff for this next expansion," so they just turned over this shit, gave us five levels instead of 10, recycled ZG/ZA, cranked up the difficulty and "merged the locks to reduce burnout" -- just one entire fucking joke of a sponge they are desperate to wring out.
Just watch. Theyre going to come out and say "Lord Rhyolith was bad design, in retrospect." Mark my words.
Am beginning to think Cataclysm was entirely some kind of sick fucking, low budget joke. Its like someone at Blizzard said, "Sorry, were going to have to reduce your staff for this next expansion," so they just turned over this shit, gave us five levels instead of 10, recycled ZG/ZA, cranked up the difficulty and "merged the locks to reduce burnout" -- just one entire fucking joke of a sponge they are desperate to wring out.
Just watch. Theyre going to come out and say "Lord Rhyolith was bad design, in retrospect." Mark my words.
Another 3 � hours down the toilet. Ater was right all along. We really arent here to have fun.
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