Progress started on Diurna for the first time this past weekend. We defined our goals early on here:
- Get comfortable with egg routing and egg breaks
- Control the ads as they spawn
- Move and adjust defensive CDs during big damage points
- Get to phase 2
We actually accomplished most of it. The first night was a challenge as the focus was on survival and moving around the arena. There are so many different things to get accustomed to that wouldn’t be given a second thought on Heroic. Every person’s DPS matters. By the end of the second night, we were getting to phase 2 but we couldn’t do it cleanly because we had two of the fire drakes up. Not having Arcane Torrent to help quickly remove the Cauterizing Flashflames didn’t help either. This week will be spent on refining the rest of our CDs and getting good looks into phase 2.
- I don’t think I’ve seen a longer list of cooldowns in my life. All defensives and Mass Dispels were included. Might have to edit MRT to show just my CDs to shrink down the footprint of the window.
- Mobility problems as a Priest continue to be a bane. With our ad tank being a Demon Hunter, there’s an early set of eggs that involves him leaping across the room. I’m struggling to keep up while navigating the Ionizing Charge and ensuring I don’t run into anyone else.
- Review the tank soaks with the Detonating Stoneslams. It’s been nerfed but it’ll warrant further discussion if we need to provide help with added soaks or defensives. Can’t soak it twice in a row due to a debuff on the first soak which would lead to lethal damage on the second.
- Chugging a channeled mana potion is hard. There doesn’t seem to be a safe time to use it to allow for a full duration. I have to keep experimenting and finding one that will work.
- We entered phase 2 with 61 million health left which is unfortunately too high. We need to enter that transition with about 50 million or so health instead. Lots of options being explored. We could take one player off of the ad group. We could also play with one person focusing on the boss at the start and then rotating to ads after the first wave. Testing will answer that question to see which one’s more feasible.
- Recruiting a Death Knight and a Warlock is next on our priorities list. But we’re at the point in the tier where raid extensions are all that’s left. With spring and summer coming up, I need to make sure we have a solid group of players do that no raids are canceled due to excessive absences and to help rotate breaks.
Looking forward to week 2 though! If we’re lucky, we’ll be in striking range of getting Diurna down. In the meantime, I’ve been grinding the new Diablo 3 season ever since it came out. My altar is almost complete. I’m just hard stuck at this Staff of Herding step. What a grind.