Ventrilo

Voice chat is what really makes MMO’s or any online gaming and raiding guilds fun. Even though our guild is really good about remaining quiet for the raid leader and officers during our raids, the sounds you hear when we beat something worked on is a big part of the fun in team play.

A guild member was nice enough to fraps Monday’s Heroic Anub kill…including vent. This is a transcript of the last 5% of the fight: (which may bore a lot of you, but I like having the record of it :D)

Main Tank Druid – Penetrating Cold 3 seconds

Melee Class Lead – Watch MT, he’s low!

(main tank dies – boss at 3%)

Warrior OT (raid leader) – Taunting, Shield Walling, Got it! Pally OT get all the adds!

Paladin OT – I CAN’T

(both rogues tricks and FoK the adds to the Pally)

Pally OT – Stunning the adds.

Warrior OT – I’m dead. 1% Burn him, go go.

(all 3 tanks, and half the raid is dead)

Main Tank Druid – WTF seriously? He’s almost dead.

Warrior OT – DISPERSION PRIESTS. DISPERSION.

(More people drop dead to either agg or penetrating cold)

(5 raid members alive – 2 rogues, 2 hunters, and resto shaman that popped back up)

(The rogues die, Shaman dies again, 2 hunters left)

Warrior OT – Go Hunters. Burn him!

(Hunter 1 dies, 10k health)

Anub dies,  Last hunter dies, Achievements pop

(various general screams, shouts, and other excitement)

Me – *laughs* That’s awesome, the whole raid’s dead.

Main Tank Druid – OMFG I love you Hunter #2! I EFFING LOVE YOU, MAN!

Shadow Priest – I’m screenshotting that. Just like that.

Resto Shaman (that popped up) – I rezzed! I THREW FLAME SHOCK AND LIGHTNINGS AND EVERYTHING I HAD AT HIM!

(various I’m so screen shotting this)

Raid Leader – Go ahead and release gang. We’ll loot after everyone’s in.

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Of Frozen Halls and Undead Bugs

I accompanied Jaina Proudmoore on her storming of The Lich King’s inner sanctum. Unfortunately, she still believed that Arthas was residing in the Lich King’s cold interior  somewhere. I guess she didn’t do the Matthias Lerner quest chain. Between Arthas and Kael’Thas, Jaina sure hasn’t been lucky in love. I think she should have stuck with the study plan.

My favorite part of the Halls of Reflection was the reveal we get from the ghost of Uther as he speaks to Jaina:

Uther: There is … something else that you should know about the Lich King. Control over the Scourge must never be lost. Even if you were to strike down the Lich King, another would have to take his place. For without the control of its master, the Scourge would run rampant across the world – destroying all living things. A grand sacrifice by a noble soul …
Jaina: Who could bear such a burden?

And the speculation begins. We receive another piece of the story in the Icecrown Citadel raid instance as we hear this exchange:

Highlord Tirion Fordring: Our march upon Icecrown Citadel begins now!

The Lich King: You now stand upon the hallowed ground of the Scourge. The Light won’t protect you here, paladin. Nothing will protect you…

Highlord Tirion Fordring: ARTHAS! I swore that I would see you dead and the Scourge dismantled! I’m going to finish what I started at Light’s Hope.

The Lich King: You could’ve been my greatest champion, Fordring. A force of darkness that would wash over this world and deliver it into a new age of strife.

The Lich King: But that honor is no longer yours. Soon, I will have a new champion.

The Lich King: The breaking of this one has been taxing. The atrocities that I have committed upon his soul. He has resisted for so long, but he will bow down before his king soon.

Highlord Bolvar Fordragon: NEVER! I… I will never… serve… you.

The Lich King: In the end you will all serve me.

When the next gate unlocks in January, it will be interesting to see the new encounters and further progression of the story.

In guild news, we took down Heroic Anub’arak last night to complete our Trial of the Grand Crusade. It was definitely a “Tribute to Mad Skill” as one of our hunters was the last man standing, delivered the killing blow, and died just after Anub fell. One of our holy pallies captured it in a vid for us with vent, it’s totally going on my list of classic raiding moments.

Enjoy the holiday season! Happy gaming. 🙂

Trial of the Grand Crusader – Anub’arak

You’ve made it through the 4 boss trials Tirion set forth to test our strength for the upcoming confrontation with The Lich King in Icecrown Citadel, but the fight isn’t over yet! After your raid defeats the Twin Val’kyrs and their orbs and shields of devestation, the Lich King enters and threatens to steal your soul.

Enter Anub’arak. This fight will test your raid’s ability to maximize positioning, tanking, healing, effective AoE damage, and ability to burn Anub to 30% and get to phase 3 with a minimum of burrow phases.

This is a great, intense fight for the rogue class and allows us to use our new WotLK abilities to their max potential. There is an awesome discussion going on over at the Rogue theorycrafting area on Elitist Jerks which you can read at the link posted below:

http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t77307-anubarak_hard_mode_tips/

We started worked on our first full night of attempts, and were pleased with the progress we enjoyed. All that’s left to continue building on our phase 1 and 2 success, and manage DPS and healing to finish out phase 3.

I chose to run two combat specs in our first night of attempts to get some raid testing on which would grant me the most success in achieving my role. Rogues are generally expected to help provide great initial threat for the add tanks through well-managed usage of Tricks of the Trade combined with our combat abilities and cooldowns such as Fan of Knives, Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush, and Killing Spree.

I ran the 15/51/5 Combat CQC spec, and for this fight I dropped glyph of Rupture for glyph of Fan of Knives. A good majority of my guild’s strat for this fight relies on quick burn of the 4 adds that spawn in two cycles in Phase 1. With three rogues in the guild and a three tank strategy, we had no issues with add tank threat. After completing some more research, I’ll be throwing the poison combat build 18/51/2 in my dual spec to test the increase in poison damage in conjunction with so much FoK spam.

Looking forward to more work on this fight over the next week, and best of luck in your raiding adventures!