Archi Down

Fire and Blood took down Kael while I was sick last week. We finish the week reset with the next two bosses in Mount Hyjal and then take a good hard look at Archi.

This week, we down Doomwalker and Kazzak, then Friday night, we finish MH. Yes, Archi is down, the world tree is safe on our watch.

On QD, we are the second Horde side guild to take down Archi, according to the server forum progression thread. Horde side guilds tend to blow up during progression.

Sunday night is BT. We are hoping to take out our normal first three bosses and then move on to Terron Gorefiend. Oh Mr. Gorefiend, you gave me an ugly hat, but I want more stuffs. Drop loot!

3/9 BT now

2 shot both High Warlord Naj and Supremas and 3 shot Shade. No loot for me though. Closing in on the badges needed for the chicken on a stick.

Notice to Kael: Prepare to meet Fire and Blood!

Hey you! Blood Elf, are you prepared?

Fire and Blood is bringing it's A game and we are going to take you down, steal your vial and your loot and (if I can swing it) your legendary bow.

6/6 SSC and 2/4

Last week we ventured into Mount Hyjaal and this week we did a complete clear of SSC to finish off Vashj. No loot for me other than T5 pants Friday night on the Karathas fight. 3 months and a few days after the guild rerolls and starts gathering folks and we are 6/6 SSC and 4/5 TK and 2/4 MH.

2 more bosses down in SSC

Last Friday was my birthday and I had some family obligations. So, of course, Saturday, the guild drops VR and Solarian. And yes, T5 shoulder token drops for hunters and they end up sharding 2 of them. WOAH is me....

Monday night I chose raiding over watching the KU Jayhawks win the national championship. (I did get to see the end of the game though) We one shot Tidewalker on our first try and move on to Karathress. Okay bad crazy pull. Takes us a few shots but we finally down the entire council.

No loot for me. :(

Ran MrT on normal to help a guildmate get his heroic opened up. We got to the pull before Kael and one of the locks said, you know Halk, I appreciate you much more after grouping with a Huntard, because of how much you don't suck. High compliment to me in my mind. Sure it's probably harder for a hunter to wow the rest of the raid, but sometimes, folks get to see what it's like to work with a huntard and appreciate how good they have it. ;) This probably easier to accomplish in 5 mans than it is in a full blown 25 man raid.

How does one avoid the Huntard label? In no particular order.

1) Know your role.

Sure BRK has claimed that the role of the hunter is to provide mass quantities of sustained ranged dps and to be sure that is true. But, there are other roles you may or may not have to do. For example, I don't trap much on our raids. Most of the time, my responsibility is to MD the tank on pulls, and provide the raid with good solid DPS. If you don't know the role you are set to play, ask. Don't wander through a raid wondering if you are supposed to do more or less. Find out beforehand what the raid leader expects of you. Sadly, the role of the hunter is probably limited by the amount of trust your raid leader has in you. Which leads to ...

2) Learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others.

As you learn a fight, you will make mistakes. Heck you'll make mistakes in fights you know real well. One mistake is forgettable (unless it's falling off the bridge in SV before the mech boss--cuz you never live that one down) Two of the same mistake is forgivable, but three starts hacking into the trust factor. Let's be honest, in most raiding guilds DPS is something you have in large quantities. Sure having a hunter along in some fights is a good thing but not necessary. DPSers have to EARN their spots. Can your raid leader trust that you'll target the mobs in the kill order? Oh and btw, if you are the hunter mark hunter, remember your raid leader gets to see the bouncing arrow tattling on you.

3) Learn your class and your shots and what works and what doesn't.

This includes controlling your pet. Know what resistances to spec your pet for the raid. Know when and where to stand. Know how to get the best DPS you can from your rotation and use macros when you can. I know some folks hate the macros, especially the shot rotation ones. That's fine, I don't judge them for not using them, they shouldn't judge me for using them.

I am not saying you need to know all the theory craft or what minute percentage you'll get from X hit or whatever. Know the concepts of what makes the hunter class tick. Understand that in a raid you have a great lot of tools to bring to the table, providing mass quantities of sustained ranged dps to the raid is one of them, but also remember that DEAD DPS is ZERO DPS.

Raid Night is awesome

So, tonight was raid night for Fire and Blood.

As you recall we downed Gruul's lair last time and moved into Maggy.

This time it was SSC. First we did the fishing pull for Lurker down below. Oh and BTW, got to 375 Fishing earlier in the day. We wipe a few times, I die on a spout that hits me while in the water, blah blah. But Lurker is down.

On to Hydross. Not a hard fight for me, but it is taking some work to get the timing, dps and such down. Omen being finicky doesn't help either. Overall, I am sure we'll take him down soon. Then probably we'll go after Void Reaver and friends. Kinda hoping they fix a few of the bugs first.

25 mans? did anyone say 25 mans?

Last Saturday went in and cleared Gruul's Lair and then tried Void Reaver. Oops, learning the orbs for the loss.

Last night, patch night, we went in and cleared the Magistrates Terrace on 5-6 groups.

Tonight, began our raid schedule. Gruul's cleared. Maggy down. Wiped on the High King twice due to bad timing on the pulls. Gruul was one shotted. Maggy the raid leader missed a call on the cube clicking, but second time was Maggy down!

Pics? I has them..let me show you them.

Gruul's from last week and Maggy's head on a stick from tonight!

Fire and Blood Group 2, Kara one night clear

So this guild has been recruiting and getting a great group of folks, over 80 members now. I sign on tonight and some of the new transfers wonder about a Kara run. Heck yeah!

4 1/2 hour run only missing Nightbane because no one can summon him. 3 wipes, 2 on prince and 1 on Curator. Yeah I caused one of the Prince wipes. FD dumb huntard. 2nd wipe was someone else's fault. Curator was an odd thing. Tank got crushed twice because we had blown through his health so fast and mistimed it.

20 badges is nice. A couple more weeks and I can get some more badge loot. Although I have the Rip-Flayer so we'll have to see. Also picked up the Tier 4 helm and the necklace from Attumen.

Congrats to the raiders of Fire and Blood

Fire and Blood did a first run into Kara this weekend and did a full clear on the first try!!!

I think they had a couple of wipes, but nothing major.


I suspect it is because they didn't take a hunter. :(


NO actually, I am pretty well geared from Kara and only have a couple of upgrades I still would need from there. I worked on fishing while they raided. WOOT I made 350 in fishing!

OMG where the @#&@($ have you been FTP?

Well...

I've been looking for a new guild. I found one. Amazingly enough I am still one of only a couple hunters, one of which is an alt, I think. Saturday, after getting all the people keyed and somewhat geared up, we are hitting Kara for the very first time. Stay tuned as I'll post kill shots if I am in there.

Guild has a lot of folks who are rerolls from other servers or transfers from other servers so in many ways a very experienced guild.

Welcome to http://fireandblood.yuku.com/directory Fire and Blood.

My guild leader is an enhancement shammy (yeah I know shammy gear as quest rewards blahhhh Go check out his blog. http://enhancementshaman.blogspot.com/

Timidly, we enter Kara

My new guild, Death by Healer, had been working through Kara earlier in the week, but tonight they had Hal go in with them for the final three bosses to down.

Nightbane, Illhoof and Netherspite were on tap.

Nightbane..well let's not talk about him, shall we?

Illhoof is next, cuz Nightbane can have his silly ledge.

A couple of wipes later, cuz we are learning and bad things happen when the healers get chained. :(

Illhoof is down! Woot. First kill in Kara..woot go us.

On to Netherspite but first a hearth to Shatt City cuz I am at 0 durability. Woops.

2nd wipe kills the group because it's late and folks need to run.

But but...we have our first kill in Kara, life is good. Even if our bank account is depleted. We will never get an epic mount. (sigh)

Armory Bug I has it, let me show you it.

Apparently Halkale is one of the few...err many folks whose characters aren't updating well on the Armory.

Suffice to say, I am 70, have my flying mount. I'll post a great screenshot I got in Hellfire later today (of course I am sure it's nothing new for all of those who have had their mounts since 4 days after TBC release).

I am one successful run in Black Morass and a Hearthstone to Shat from being keyed for Kara.

I finally finished Ramparts. Go me! I believe it was 2 months from start to finish for that quest.

I've done all my frag quests. I've got my god-awful ugly looks like an orange octopus died on my head.Stalker's Helmet of Second Sight

I need to go farm for Beast Lord Pieces and Sonic Spear. Mostly the spear so I can gloat to BRK.

DING!!!!!! 70. Okay now what?

Get my training, which surprisingly wasn't too expensive. Equip my new bow. And...now what?

Oh that's right...800 gold for flying rider training, plus the mount.

Up to 300.

Working on quest chains that I never attempted before now.

Found an active guild on QD. I am now a Pup in the guild Underdog. We have 12 70's and growing. They are just where I need them to be, readying themselves for Kara.

I went into Blood Furnace Tuesday night and it wasn't too bad. The backup computer didn't lose it's mind and I did well I think. The pig off tanked or tanked a lot of it, I just couldn't trust the warrior to keep aggro or know what he was doing. PUG for the

Been questing in Shadowmoon Valley. Anyone got a few spots that pay well?

Oh, made a mistake and chose Scryer on Halkale. I am now rounding up stuff to switch to Aldor.

Squad 51, this is Rampart.

And it was a wipe.

So, Ace of Spades--okay 3 of us, Shadow Priest, Rogue and myself and my boar pig, plus a Pally for healing and a warrior. I was running the group, marked the first two just inside the instance and bam grabbed aggro on the PAT guy. We adjusted and got through it.

Overall, this was a good group, flexible and when a pull went bad or something odd happened, or someone screwed up (and we all did) we overcame it and moved on. A few deaths, the rogue had to vanish the first time on the 2nd boss to prevent the wipe. Warrior went to sword and board and I kept the healer in the back to heal him up. Of course a dang blue mace dropped. No loot for me.

Dragon boss, oh the huge mannatee. We wiped, twice. Apparently, the warrior wasn't geared well enough to stay alive and the minute he lost aggro, the priest goes down or the pally and usually meant I was the last one standing, with the rogue vanishing to keep the wipe from occuring. OH wait, that boss resets anyway.

Anyone have any idea of a plan for that boss? Do we just need to find a tank that can stand up to the dragon? How do we transition from the humanoid boss to the dragon boss?

Of course, I turn in the letter you get and DING, 62. Oh and I am now honored with Thrallmar. Woot, Leatherworking recipes! and now to get honored with Centarion Expedition.

Where in the world is Hal the hunter?

Okay it's been a few days since my last post. Ooops.

Well life has been busy for me. Work sucks, what's new... My friends and I left Blood Line and created our own guild called Ace of Spades. I've been developing our forums and working on a website, so I have that going for me. ;)

As you can see I also made 58, ran through the portal and made 59 a few hours later. Upgrades are plentiful.

Yes, I have had my first Fel Reaver death. That is a funny story actually. I avoided Fel Reaver deaths during my time soloing over the weekend. Yesterday, our 58 priest walked into Outlands and we were getting him caught up to me. We avoided a Fel Reaver and I called it a bad word and it NO LIE came back for me!

As soon as the website is more than just a filler website I'll link it.

Lost in a guild, how do you avoid this?

Blood Line looks like a really good guild, lots of activity, the 70's are working on getting everyone keyed for Kara and it seems the lower level folks are helping each other.

That's all well and good for me as I am used to working solo until I need help with an instance.

But, the question before us to day, is how do I not get lost in the guild. How do I work through the leveling process and not become just a member or a number? How do I become a positive addition to a guild and still have the ability to do what I want to do? I want to get into later instances and do end game stuff. I suspect I'll have plenty of time as I don't doubt I'll be 70 for an extended period of time prior to the new expansion coming out.

Merge to a new guild

I am level 49 now and finally got the Grimlock's Charge to drop. While farming the back part of Uldaman for it, we got an invitation to merge our guild with another. Most of us joined the new guild, including most of the higher level folks, as I see.

The problem? I went from being one of, if not the, top hunter in my smaller guild, to middle of the pack in a larger guild. Time will tell if I can make a spot for myself.

Apparently the armory thing above didn't update on last night's exit. hrm..

New guild....

Here's hoping that we found a new guild that has a bit more activity than the last one. So far looking good.