World of Warcraft Journal 10-06-07

10:21AM Ran a few Alterac Valley Battlegrounds

3:10PM PUG: Heroic ManaTombs

Dystopia 70 Night Elf Druid, <Rage of Alexstrasza>
Thumbjam 70 Night Elf Hunter, <Knights of Hell>
Mactovera 70 Dwarf Paladin, <Lunaris>
Prowarlock 70 Human Warlock, <Castlerock>

Notes: We entered Mana Tombs at ~ 3:10 server and started clearing. Right away it was apparent that this was going to be a good PUG. Dystopia tanked as a bear, Mactovera main healed, Thumbjam provided cc when needed as well as DPS, and Prowarlock and I nuked and dotted. With the exception of some simple bad luck here and there the run was smooth and was an overall success. Most of the loot was disenchanted. [Eight of Blessings] (Mactovera) was the most valuable drop at apprx. 200 Gold

The first boss, Pandemonius, gave us our first challenge. Dystopia acknowledged that he had never tanked him. We gave it a go and one-shotted him. Cake.

Next was Tavarok. Also a breeze. His earthquake (stun) was a bit of a pain for me because I was just inside the range. Crystal Prison got me a few times also.

We wiped a few times between Tavarok and Nexus-Prince Shaffar. At around 5:15 Server Time Thumbjam disconnected. We waited 8-10 minutes for him to return and replaced him with a guildmate of Mactovera’s.

Azodeus 70 Human Mage <Lunaris>

Upon his arrival we buffed up and took out Nexus-Prince Shaffar and discussed summoning the optional boss. This involves the quest Nexus-Prince Shaffar’s Personal Chamber. We all flew to Blades Edge Mountains and killed Gargolon for the Mark of the Nexus King. Back at mana tombs we discovered that we had to go back to BEM. Prowarlock left the group at this time (around 6:16), but Azodeus quickly got us a replacement:

Anneke 70 Draenei Shaman, <Lunaris>

On the way to BEM for the second time, Azodeus turned us back upon receiving his Eye of Haramad (The key we needed)

We gathered at the stasis chamber and summoned and killed Yor at around 7:00 server time.

8:00PM Raid: Gruul’s Lair. [Event WWS]

I was assigned to call the shots for the trash pulls this evening. It went well because I was too busy watching the kills to overcast, pull agro, and die. We’ve one-shotted High King Maulgar in the past, so expectations were high. Our first pull was a little mis-timed and caused a wipe. We quickly regathered and tried again and did a little better, but the pull was still not quite right. Wipe #2. On attempt 3 the Ventrilo server coughed up a lung. Few people heard the countdown. Wipe #3. We completely lost voice comms shortly thereafter. For attempt 4 Friday counted down the pull in raid chat, which is awkward for everyone, including Friday. Wipe #4.

For the final attempt we tried the integrated voice chat. Here’s a quote from raid chat about that; “Wow’s built-in chat sucks donkey balls”. Everyone agrees. We were able to clear the trash respawns well enough but alas, some of the players couldn’t hear the comms. Wipe #5

We called it at that point because we couldn’t get reliable voice chat working.

10:30PM Guild Group: Heroic Mechanar

Mildweasel 70 Human Mage
Blackstaffx 70 Human Rogue
Nightshifts 70 Night Elf Druid
Bogota 70 Human Warrior

Bogota needed a few more Badges of Justice, so I assisted with a fast 3 badge run. We tried using Ventrilo and it worked for about 5 minutes and died again.