Far Too Busy Being Delicious

Distractions are a horrible thing, they throw you off your A-Game and always result in a waste of time. Lesson learned random women who add you on Facebook wanting to chat since we have 1 friend in common does not equal time well spent. During the raid this is exactly what happened to me a friend of a friend wanted to add me so i went with it. All well and good talking to her seems like a very sweet woman. 

Tab into game and do a couple of bosses, tab back to find...

For somebody you've known for a grand total of 1 hour this was a little intense. Not noticing she was also continuing the conversation on her own while i was tabbed out, saying how "Handsome" I am and how my "amazing eyes" caught her attention. I don't know about the rest of you but complements like this are seldom in my life - especially from people you've just met. Get a call an hour after we exchanged numbers from another friend, telling me that she's been sleeping around with the social circle I've been in and "You're next on her list". Well that's just awesome... I'm either going to die a horrific death tomorrow when i meet up with her or be pounced on. 

With all life dramas comes great friend mocking.

Nagrenol you're a star for making me laugh 1 last time before my end comes.

Nothing new to report on the WoW front. Cleared content last week, guess that's all the challenge gone from this tier for us now, slightly sad but at the same time something to be happy over - free time over Easter! 

Good to see the translator did its job well.

Al'Akir

Now that Sinestra and Cho'gall is on farm status the powers that be decided it was about time to put all the free time we've been having to good use. They decided to best if we once and for all take down Al'Akir the most RNG fight you will ever encounter on this raiding tier.

The fight consists of 3 phases, the first being the easiest and yet the hardest. During phase 1 Al'Akir has 4 ability's which effect the platform he stands on. 

The first is Squall Line, this summons a wall of tornadoes which rotate around the platform in either a clockwise or anticlockwise manor. There will be one tornado missing in each Squall Line, allowing you to let it pass by without dealing any damage to the raid. Tip: If you're at the edge of the platform and do not have enough time to avoid the Squall Line you can jump off the side of the platform and it will return you back to the fight.

The second is Wind Burst this ability knocks each raid member back. I'm unsure of the exact distance it knocks back in yards but it's just over half the radius of the platform. If knocked off the edge of the platform you're unable to cast or respectively be healed without a healer moving to the edge of the platform.

The third is Lightning Strike this ability is cone effect, it selects a random raid member and makes him the center of the effect. You do not want more than 3 people getting effected by Lightning Strike due to the more people effected the greater the damage, so you need to assign 1 person from each position to move from the group to another group at either side of the effect. This is why raid spacing is very important on phase 1. If you don't have good positioning raid members will die due to lack of healing or joining groups together. I would recommend the people assigned to movement are ones that have the ability to continue damaging Al'Akir while moving. (Hunters, Melee... etc)

The last of his AE ability's is Ice Storm this has the same look as Blizzard but leaves a trail of ice on the ground. This trail both slows and deals damage, it can be easily avoided by multiple ability's 

[Blink, Rocket Jump, Hand of Freedom, Heroic Leap... etc]

Hand of Freedom cancels the slowing effect of Ice Storm but also cancels the damaging debuff as well. 

I explain this to give you a slight insight into how annoying this fight can be on phase 1. 

Thankfully however we overcame the RNG that was phase 1 within about 10 attempts, but soon realized that we need all 25 members alive when we hit phase 2. This is due to the fact that Al'Akir and the Stormlings need to be attacked simultaneously. With each Stormling that dies Al'Akir gains a debuff that increases damage taken by 10% (this stacks) but the debuff only lasts 20 seconds, therefore another needs to die before the 20 seconds run out else the debuff is lost. This was a very easy concept and very well played out by the raid, and after phase 1 this was a walk in the park. 

Once you take Al'Akir down to 20% he breaks the platform you're standing on and you are granted the ability to fly. During this phase Al'Akir does not directly attack any raid members but instead creates storm clouds at the level where the raid member is flying. It is important to stand on the same level as each raider during this encounter else you will run out of space to fly away from the clouds. Each cloud that spawns will dissipate over time but to keep from running out of space keep the raid as close as possible to the cloud above or below.  

When done with 0 flaws this fight isn't as difficult as it's made out to be. Although the pain of phase 1 is defiantly something to be afraid of. It took Enraged Revolution 15 attempts to get used to the RNG of phase 1, after that it only took 5 attempts to kill Al'Akir.

04/11/11

Good Luck!

Touched by an Elemental

Kudos to Detha, Icyone and Zoï 

for the entertainment during raids and the idea for a fantastic movie!

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Touched by an Elemental: A Cho'gall Tale

Thinking the shower scene from the movie Psycho (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock would be a fantastic fit for this film... "NO! NOT AN ELEMENTAL! NOOOOOO!"

Droxie-kins

Almost a week has passed since the Sinestra kill, with no other content to clear most of the drama has come to a halt. We have cleared everything this week again and killed Sinestra on our second attempt, showing that the first Sinestra kill was not just luck but an actual understanding of the fight. An old friend of mine [Droxin] got in contact with me a few days back letting me know that his 6th PvP video was just published on Youtube. I met Droxin when I joined Lotto on Twisting Nether, his first impressions of me wasn't the best seeing as on my first Lich King kill I ended up running into the raid in a mad panic with Defile. Later given the title "Lt. Defile" that one stuck with me for awhile, In my defense I was thrown in the raid as Retribution and not given much explanation as to what to do with Defile.
... this is what happens when you don't explain tactics with the raid

Woops, my bad...

 I personally enjoy watching his triumphs in battlegrounds but I've always wanted to witness the long battles he has in his arena teams. I get a sick pleasure knowing I "kicked his ass" on my crappy PvE geared mage. Even though that's true it was part luck and part good planning. I had dueled him a few times prior to that victory to make him waste most of his cooldowns. Still there is no excuse...

 

Props to Zoi for digging those screenshots out for me @4:00am. 

Enraged Revolution vs Sinestra

4 Deaths the whole fight, 1 CR. 

Not too shabby + half of those deaths are Colafizz. 

FEEL ASHAMED!

Whose Hand Is That?

Sinestra Celebrations were had by one and all in Enraged Revolution. 

Or at least that's how I imagine an Enraged Party...

 

Mine went a little something like this:

The long weekend allowed me a very nice long weekend of booze, energy drinks and sleep deprivation from Saturday to Monday. A winning combination if i do say so myself. The night involved all 4 Alien films, 10 cans of Relentless, hundreds of your mum jokes and a lot of JD / Coke. 37 Hours later crawling into a foreign  bed and drifting off to sleep, after about a minute or so of being in the bed i felt a hand run along my body. Trust me after 37 hours of sleep deprivation you lose the ability to be sexual and being a raider I need all the sexual-ness-osity I can get. This was the 2nd time in my life that I've declined the invitation. Quote "I feel as sexy as a toaster, sorry." since when did i start apologizing for not having sex... it's normally the other way round (lolololol) a sex joke, yes I'm just THAT funny.

ANYWAY...

Finally broke my 2nd achievement target of 12000 points - my last one was 9000. I'm coming for your Madlax 

(One of the people I was fortunate to raid with during my time in the old guild Lotto with Zoi)

In other news....

 Um... WTF? First off I thought the day of the beggar was over. Last time I saw a beggar ask for anything was back in The Burning Crusade. When did it come back into style? My other point by telling him to essentially to GTFO I have made a new friend. Moch lojic he haz teh manies!

I Am Number Thirteen

Once upon a time...  there was a boss called Sinestra.
(I hope your happy Coolstorybro)

The amount of adrenaline that surges through your body as a tank when tanking a tier ending boss is immense. My body actually started to shake at this point and the end result was me somehow pushing Print Screen - that's how bad it was. Regardless of the damage that that level of adrenaline did to my body, the ecstasy that you feel once the boss is killed is indescribable. Since it's something that you and 24 other people are all striving for you feel somewhat of a connection between the raid and yourself. Thankfully she went down @ 11:49 (server time) giving us the server first for Sylvanas, unfortunately the feat of strength was locked for me due to me moving to this server under 2 months ago. [Sad Panda]

“Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.” Malcolm S. Forbes. 

This fight was a challenging one for a paladin having to switch some of my spells so that i don't Silence or Stun the Twilight Spitecaller during phase 2. Moving 1 of my major tanking spells Avenger's Shield to a bar that is barely visible with a key binding near impossible to click, was just enough to stop me from using it. Also breaking the habit of using Arcane Torrent every time i see a cast is a hard one to stop. 

Arcane Torrent & Avenger's Shield highlighted