Firefighter!

Battling server outages, we were able to gather for long enough to battle Mimiron for yet another attempt at Firefighter. We had been working on it for weeks now, and with 3 hours on Sunday of attempts, we gathered again and finally got him down. It took just a couple of minutes past one hour as my flask wore out during the last fight. So I now sit with just a couple of achievements left for the Iron-Bound Proto Drake. And our group is moving forward quite nicely and it's actually been great fun to work on these achievements and hard modes.

More screenshots here and here.

Mimiron Down + Tier 8

So last night, after a week of waiting, I got to participate in a Mimiron kill. After a few weeks of banging our heads against the wall, two weeks ago, the Gold Team took him down. Unfortunately, I was not raiding that night, so I missed the fun. Last week, due to a freak power outage, we didn't get a shot at the "Tier 8" bosses. Well, last night, we got our revenge on Mimiron again. After a couple stupid wipes, we got him down and I was lucky enough to receive my second piece of tier 8. After defeating Mimiron, we headed back to Vezax. When you unlock the first door leading to him, you get a really cool hallway to stare down...


After killing some annoying trash, you're standing face to face with the Faceless one and he is quite an imposing sight:


We only had time for two attempts last night, but I made the most of them, maximizing my DPS (and mana) in the second attempt to hit 4200 DPS. I think with a few more attempts, we could have gotten a lot further. I think he will be a challenge for us in the weeks to come.

But, back to my Tier 8, my new helm and gloves make me look pretty intimidating. Especially with the tabard to match.

Two Pieces of Tier 8 = New Spec

So, tonight I was lucky enough to roll the highest on my new helm, the Valorous Kirin Tor Hood (which of course means I got Mimiron down - our team did it without me 2 weeks ago). Combined with the Valorous Kirin Tor Gauntlets sitting in my bags, I realized that the only way I could equip them would be to switch talent specs. The Frostfire spec is nice, but I don't need Precision when my hit rating is 428 (420 is what I need with a draenei, but I can't get it any lower).

So with this switch, like I said, I'm at 428 hit rating, and that is after I "downgraded" my weapon from Firesoul to Life and Death. Even though Life and Death has 26 less damage, it has 42 more crit and 3 more haste (the 34 hit rating is ignored because I'm over the hit cap). With this switch I also had to re-gem quite a few items, switching from Potent Monarch Topazes to Reckless Monarch Topazes. I also broke a few gem bonuses, for example, I didn't need the +4 hit on my Kirin Tor Gauntlets, so I threw a Runed Scarlet Ruby in for extra spellpower.

Now I just need to figure out how to get Rawr to work perfectly so I can figure out how I can get back to the Firesoul with the T8 chest...

Another One Bites the Dust

Well, after a frustrating start to the night running into massive issues with Hodir, finally switching to four! healers on our tenth! attempt, we got him down. After Hodir, we quickly transitioned to Thorim and proceeded to take three attempts to learn his trash and take him down on the fourth try. I was actually a little disappointed with Thorim. Yes, it took us three attempts to learn his gauntlet and arena, but once you get that down, he's a pushover. Well, on to Mimiron next week! We'll get him.

P.S. Pushing the Mimiron button doesn't just activate a timer as we found out as we were about to leave Ulduar for the night. At least it provided a bit of levity as we all were annoyed with the repeated Hodir attempts (especially after we three-shotted him last week with three healers).

On a bright note, I am getting really good at picking up Hodir buffs as I earned Staying Buffed All Winter and as we took down Thorim, we all got I'll Take You All On. Last night, on the third of the Freya elders, I also earned (finally) Got My Mind on My Money (10,000). Just 15,000 more gold to go.

100 Pets and Hodir Down

Just a quick update...last night, I received word in game that there was a member of the horde who wished to trade Argent Tournament pets. In exchange for a low listing of the Mechanopeep on the neutral auction house, I would have a chance to buy the Sen'jin Fetish. And thus, I received my 100th "official" pet (I still like to count Don Carlos' Famous Hat and the Bloodsail Admiral's Hat as "pets"). Many thanks to Taranwayward for the trade!

After that was finished, I headed up to Ulduar for our run. The night before, we cleared Flame Leviathan with one tower up, XT-002, Kologarn, and Freya in an abbreviated two hour run time. I was lucky enough to outroll Brellis by just one point and won my T8 gloves, Valorous Kirin Tor Gauntlets, and now I have more hit rating than I know what to do with (I resocketed some gems and now have no +hit gems...).

So last night, we went straight to Hodir and had little trouble with him. He dropped a couple of tanking items and we received Cheese the Freeze and I Have the Coolest Friends. We then went back to our nemesis, Mimiron. We spent the next 2+ hours wiping on him. We consistently got him to phase 4, but ran into issues each time. Learning how the P3Wx2 Laser worked exactly, how his ranged attacks work, etc. The problem also was, while we could consistently get him to phase 4, we had issues in phases 1-3 occasionally which would end up forcing us to wipe the raid so we could start over and wasting more of our time. During our best attempt, we got each section to about 20%, which is good, but not that good. I know we can do better, but our massive amounts of melee DPS on this fight make it very tough to master. We forced Vetarra to go respec boomkin, but still, that left 5 melee players as we had 2 ranged and 3 healers. With the rockets, proximity mines, and AOE effects, that's a lot to heal and avoid. I'm pretty sure next week, we'll do the same - clear through Freya or Hodir on night one, then hit up Thorim and Hodir/Freya and finally Mimiron on the next night.

That stupid bot will go down!

Antechamber Clear

Last night, the Gold Team, fresh off a stomping off bosses on Wednesday night went back in, eager to learn some new fights. First up was Auriaya, the Crazy Cat Lady. After a couple of quick wipes due to massive incoming raid damage and also another couple of wipes before switching strategies, we took her out. In the end, the strategy of not killing the Feral Defender (it does die due to raid splash damage), worked very well for us. We were able to get her down after two attempts with our finalized strategy and she was nice enough to drop the Raiments of the Corrupted. I wanted these as I knew they were an upgrade and I rolled an 85. Yes! So I tell Matnocuido to roll, figuring if they're an upgrade for me, they'll be an upgrade for him. And what does he go and do? Rolls a 92. Of course. I don't know how he does it, but he always out-rolls me. However, he was nice enough to pass them over to me (he doesn't want to break his 4 piece Tier 7 bonus quite yet) and I happily replaced the Gown of the Spell-Weaver. I gain 20 stamina, 3 armor, 11 crit, 4 hit, and 8 spellpower at the cost of 8 intellect? Hell yeah.

With the new item, I also resocketed a few items, throwing a Runed Scarlet Ruby in my new Raiments and also in my Sandals of Crimson Fury, replacing a Rigid Autumn's Glow. My hit now sits at 340, down from 368. At 368, I was hit capped regardless of who was in the raid - however, there's always a draenei in the raid, so my hit cap is 341 and I'm perfectly fine being 1 point under the hit cap. I like to live dangerously like that...

So after Auriaya, we thought, let's go see Mimiron. Bad idea. For starters, his trash is insanely hard. After a wipe or two here and there, we made it through and then we tried to read about the fight. Mistake #2. He is probably the most complicated fight in Ulduar. So we all paused, watched a video on him, and then thought, hell, we can do this. Wipe after wipe after wipe later, we could not do this. We did manage to get him to phase 3 one or two times (I can't remember - they all blur together), so I'm certain we can kill him with more practice. However, I think next week, I'd rather go see Freya and give her a little kiss.

Once you get through the Antechamber of Ulduar though, there's so many beautiful sights. The first here is just as you start to come to the Keepers of Ulduar, then two of the tram that takes you to Mimiron and then two of Mimiron's workshop.