If at first you don’t succeed at raiding…

…Keredria will tell you why.

Amirite?

Mana? Who needs mana.

I thought it might be fun to see if I can beat Keredria to a kill post. But I’m sure she’ll do it better anyway.

General Vezax went down for us after only a few attempts on a second night of working on him. Once everyone got the mechanics down this fight went really well. This was one of those rare times I respecced, picking up Improved Disciplines and the glyphs for Last Stand and Shield Wall to shorten my cooldowns for those abilities. It seemed to work great. I was always prepared for a Surge of Darkness and no kiting was necessary. Protection warriors ftw.

I had spent quite a bit of time thinking about our second attempt on General Vezax, so I got all “raid leadery” and starting giving very specific instructions for this fight — more so than usual. I even told Keredria what to do (although I’m not sure she listened). But whenever I get like this I think the raid gets more amused than anything, but again they like to humor me.

Druid duel.

Friday nights in Ulduar: Adults only.

How did things get this bad?

Exhibit A: Our warlock Buns is sporting her Jenkins title.

anonymous raider: You know, “Buns Jenkins” sounds like the name of a porn star.
Jess: But it wouldn’t be standard porn. It would be some sort of niche fetish porn.
anonymous raider: Maybe midget porn? Buns is a gnome after all.
Jess: So anybody want to play “hide the soulstone”?
Keredria: Jess!

Exhibit B: Someone puts down a Brazier of Dancing Flames while we buff up.

Chachi: I’d like to desecrate that fire!
Veloreynn: /emote cleans off Brazier of Dancing Flames.
Raid: ewww!

Exhibit C: During an Auriaya encounter, I was trying to get people to stack up on me while I was tanking her. I kept saying “please get on Jess!”.

anonymous raider: Jess, if I were any more on top of you we’d have to be married.
Jess: O.o

Blizzcon.

So Keredria wrote about our failed attempts in May and June to get tickets to Blizzcon. So here’s a little sour grapes: the top ten reasons why it’s best that we are not going to Blizzcon.

1. Veloreynn might stage a mass coup d’état and form a rival guild known as The Right Claw.
2. Drenden’s economy could collapse.
3. Assassination plots against us — the ugly side of guild drama.
4. Hotel coffee is too weak.
5. Disney has a 50-mile restraining order against us after we tried to do an “emblem run” through It’s a Small World. (It was the best AoE tanking evar.)
6. No costumes due to an acute duct tape allergy.
7. I’m not geared-up enough yet to tank Keredria’s stalkers.
8. The raid would fall apart without us stalling it periodically to argue silently via whispers about boss strategy.
9. We don’t want to steal the show from other bloggers.
10. Anaheim is too hot in August, and we are too cool for Blizzcon.

WTB sedatives for RL.

So last week our progression through Ulduar was a little slower than usual so we raided again Monday to do a couple of leftover bosses. Freya was one of them and took us a few attempts. I tend to get a little too excited during this encounter. The only problem we usually have with this encounter are the phases with the Snaplasher, Stormlasher, and Ancient Water Spirit adds. After a few attempts Keredria whispers me to let me know that I’m getting a little too excited on Vent and am sometimes mixing up the Snaplasher and Stormlasher when I call out for changes in targetting. Sigh. Words hard. Veloreynn commented that the funny (and maybe disturbing) thing was that despite the fact that I was getting them confused she still knew what I meant. Sigh again. Sometimes I think maybe I’m not necessary to lead the raid, but they are polite enough to humor me.

An odd thing about this Freya kill is that she didn’t spawn any exploding seed thingies. I’m not sure if that was a nerf or a bug. It would be a surprising thing to nerf since if a raid can get past the adds it’s a relatively simple fight.