Silver Team, Take Three

What was supposed to be a quick, two hour pre-clear for Sunday's longer raid turned into a fun four hour three wing clear, including a new wing clear, the Construct Quarter. All that's left for Sunday is the Military Quarter and then Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. After quickly blowing through the Arachnid Quarter and the Plauge Quarter, we ran into some troubles on Globbulus (more learning the fight than anything) and on our 4th (maybe 5th) attempt we got him down - almost had him on the second to last attempt, but our DPS was just a little behind.

Only one item dropped on my upgrades list, the Tier 7 shoulders, but I lost a roll to the rogue in our group, and I just hope he can use them (I think he may be swapping them in and out on trash/boss fights). I guess we just need more people to realize that not all Tier 7 pieces are better than items found in heroics just because they're Tier 7. So while the rogue might use them on bosses only, it's a significant upgrade for me and with the gloves, which I hope to get soon from Obsidian Sanctum, I'd almost have the 5% increased crit damage, which, since I crit almost 50% of the time, is a huge DPS boost. With a 310% crit modifier on Frostfire Bolts, I'm not sure if the increased 5% goes before or after the 310% crit modifier, but either way, it's a large DPS boost, but I'm still two pieces away.

On another note, man is Loatheb fun. I got in about 25k damage before getting my buff from the spore and I didn't lose the buff for the duration of the fight. What's that mean to me? Oh, just 90% Frostfire Bolt crits. Hot Streak here, Hot Streak there, Hot Streaks everywhere! It's a great fight (though the healers seem to think otherwise).

But all in all, great progress for the Silver Team, we might have a full clear on Sunday should we master Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad which would put our clearing of Naxxramas at three weeks. Not too bad, considering we're still switching people out at times and we don't have a set 10 man group every day yet.

On a final note, yay for mage DPS. The following chart is my damage done for all bosses in Naxx tonight while clearing the three quarters.

AchievementTracker.com

Finally, I've been waiting for a site like Achievement Tracker.com for a long time. I can now see where I stand on my server, in the United States, or in the World (104, 17455, and 36,662 respectively). Of course, it hasn't been updated since December 26th and I now have 4,235 achievement points - which puts me at #80 on the server.

But I'm working my way up. I plan on finishing the Outlands Dungeon Hero and the Northrend Dungeon Hero achievements this weekend and I'm also working on bringing my rep back up with the goblins through Dire Maul runs so I can get back to work on my Loremaster title (there's just too many goblin quests on Kalimdor).

Then, not sure where I head for more achievements. Maybe PvP? It's not my favorite thing to do since I'm really not all that skilled at PvP, but it would be fun to knock out some of the easier achievements for quick points - and even start to work on some of the tougher ones.

And for the curious, here's a quick link to my realm's achievement tracker.

Silver Team Continued...

We headed back into Naxxramas for a quick run tonight - starting from scratch due to the holidays, and we quickly blew through the Arachnid Wing and then went over to the Plague Quarter where we had to learn Loatheb as most of us had not seen him before. We had one wipe while we quickly learned the fight; the three seconds of healing, the spores, etc. But after one wipe, we quickly got him down and I got to have a lot of fun with the spores:


My Frostfire Bolts crit 70% of the time on the fight and I was able to put up 3929 DPS :) And that was without my Flask of the Frost Wyrm as we had 45 minutes to go in the night and I didn't want to use a 2 hour flask.

But after the Plague Quarter, we once again hit up the Military Quarter and quickly blew through the Instructor and Gothik. Emboldened by our victory over Loatheb, we continued to the Four Horsemen. Again, it was a learning experience, and we wiped twice as we learned the fight, but we easily took them down on our third attempt and we should now be able to clear those three wings without any issues in the future.

Overall, a great night. Two more wings cleared, one more to go before we can hit Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. Plus, the trinket I lusted after dropped for the second week in a row and it is finally mine, Embrace of the Spider. The Grieving Spellblade also dropped, but it went to Eirama who was much deserving of it. Hopefully next week, it or the Blade of Dormant Memories will drop. Then all I'm really looking for is Tier 7 items and loot from the last two bosses.

Sometimes, It's Deserved

Yesterday, after finishing up a Wintergrasp victory, I saw a team forming for 25-man Vault of Archavon. I had done the 10-man earlier in the week, so I figured I could easily do 25-man if we got a good team together. I joined in, waited about 20-30 minutes while they put the rest of the team together, and we took off.

On the single-target trash leading up to Archavon, I averaged 3300 DPS - it's amazing what a full raid group will do for your DPS. Then we got to the boss. It took a bit for the fight to be explained (which I mostly ignored since I knew my job - DPS). And we took off. We had a wipe due to lack of DPS (we were 2 men down) and some other people just couldn't be bothered to watch out for the dust clouds. So we quickly regrouped and tried again. This time, success. On both attempts, I led the DPS charts and was always in the right position and never needed emergency heals.

So when the Valorous Frostfire Leggings dropped, I felt I deserved them. I contributed the most in the way of DPS and felt I should be rewarded even though it was a PUG. However, you know the other 4 mages there didn't share my thoughts on the matter, so it was down to the luck of the dice. And the dice gods smiled upon me with an acceptable roll of 78. None of the other four mages could beat that, and here they are:



And here's the overall DPS chart for our final attempt at the boss (names removed to protect the innocent):



And finally, a breakdown of my damage on the fight. Note: I missed 2 Frostfire Bolts. Luckily the new pants have 43 hit rating on them, so that should help. I'm also carrying around some old shoes with extra hit that I should use on bosses, but I usually forget to do so.

Click image to enlarge.