What a productive raid week from last weekend.
After stepping into Amirdrassil for a quick Fyrakk mount sale, we switched over and completely wiped out Vault of the Incarnates (Heroic) just to finish out any last minute rings and Whispering Incarnate Icons for anyone who still needed them. This would be our second crack at Mythic Vault just after the first week of the season. Last time we were here, I think we only had time to clear Terros. Maybe we got Sennarth? I can’t remember. After some significant upgrades, we cleared just about every boss up to Raszageth.
- Dathea was still a pain in the butt as always, but our DPS still allowed for only one platform to be cleared. It was definitely a messy kill with maybe 40% of the raid or something alive towards the end.
- Terros was great, except I played Shadow on this one and ended up dying early forcing a grieftorch reset.
- Kurog muscle memory still coming in strong with the fire phase moves, and the lightning elemental positionings, and everything else that came with it. Probably one of my favourite Mythic encounters of the tier.
- Broodkeeper fell over in two pulls. I’m surprised I still remember the movement and the different intensive healing parts of the encounter. I healed the add group as we traversed around the room. Our tank died once (whoops) but we were able to recover and get him back on his feet . I completely mistimed a Mass Dispel though (or just misplaced it). Whoops. It’s not an easy one to reprog even though we defeated Diurna quickly.
- Raszageth took all of day 2. We spent the first few minutes undergoing video review because only 12 players currently on the team had killed it on Mythic. It isn’t as challenging as the original variation (with the reduced wind speeds), and we’re still able to phase through comfortably. The team had to get reacclimated to doing interrupts, and the raid leader continued to stress positioning throughout the whole set of pulls. Inversion is another mechanic that we had to relearn and get used to. I suspect our guild is growing tired of hearing him talk about the importance of positioning even though it’s critical. What if he used other words like placement or location? We didn’t get Rasz down until the last pull of the night.
Anyway, solid week! On the recruiting side, we picked up a new Balance Druid and hopefully they’ll be able to start with us in the next week or two, and our latest Hunter has survived about 3 weeks of trialing so far (poor guy needs to work on just living in raids though). Our latest set of trials haven’t worked out well for us over the past month which has been a little discouraging. I’ve been trying to restock the cupboard for Season 4 and get a foundation for War Within (especially with summer coming up fast). Our goals will be to continue raiding in Season 4 and hitting up all raids on Awakened in Mythic. We may not clear every instance, but we’ll tackle most of the skips. The biggest needs continue to be a DPS Warrior, a Rogue, and a DPS Evoker. We could also add another caster ranged class.
Let’s talk about the Panda in the room, shall we?
That’s right, I’m referring to Mists of Pandaria Remix. Off to a somewhat sputtering start with some controversy on scaling and currency gains. I’ve been having some fun with it and took a bit of time away from retail. They have made a few buffs and changes to it recently, but the conversation continues to revolve around the Bronze gain.
Should it be used for transmogs or upgrades? Because I can see how it can suck to have only one currency gain and only use it for item buffs or stuff that you want. I don’t have any real advice or guidance here. I’m in the camp of upgrading items to make your next raid runs that much easier. I’ve been alternating between spending bronze on mounts and upgrading my gear anyway. I’m averaging around 360 ilvl right now on… a Warlock. My suggestion is that they just increase Bronze gain across the board. I’m a little sad that alts don’t have an amazingly overpowered cloak to start with. Even then, it’s still fairly quick to level the second time around since you already have that experience gain to start. It’s possible to hit 70 within a day or two. I get that it may or may not be as efficient as leveling a character in retail, but this is an alternative way to make another character. I imagine most of us are sick of leveling through the initial BfA (or Chromie time) zones anyway.
Yes, I chose to make a Warlock alt. After twenty years of playing this game, this is the first time I have selected a Warlock. I feel like I need a shower every time I log off that character. It’s been a blast replaying some of the older raids and watching people die to snails in Throne of Thunder again though!
In the meantime, we continue to recruit for the rest of Season 4. Current needs are:
- DPS Warrior
- Rogue
- Mistweaver Monk
- Dev and Aug Evoker