Laid Back Dungeons

Last year, I started up the Laid Back Dungeons as a way for folks to get together and have fun in a relaxed environment, much like the Amateur Azerothian Laid Back Raids. In fact, it was JD who suggested I go ahead and run those.

For a number of reasons, I’m shutting down the LBDs for the foreseeable future.  There’s been less interest since Mists of Pandaria opened up new content and made some of the previously unsoloable content, well, soloable. There’s e been less interest with raiding getting back into full swing.

Additionally, my guild has become more active again, and so I am turning my focus inward in that respect. We have seven people with level 90 toons, enough that on any given night we may need to pick up only one person to do current 5-man content, or go do small groups in Cataclysm 5-mans. Enough that if we’re all on, we can go do some of the older 10-man raids as a guild.  Enough that the likelihood that there are 3 of us on to do Scenarios on any given Wednesday is much higher.

I’ve enjoyed running the LBDs, and helping various folks get their protodrakes while working towards getting my own. When this expansion starts to taper off, I may pick them back up. But rest assured, if you’re on my friends list, you may see a call go out for a healer, DPS, or even a tank. I’d rather run with friends than strangers.

And truth be told, my guildies and I are not the most adept players. We try hard, we learn slowly, and we try to have fun while we do those things. That means the impatience of strangers can be difficult, a thirty minute run can take the better part of the evening, and we aren’t even always able to finish what we start.  That being said, we are still a guild, and it’s time for me to take up the mantle of being a good guild leader and lead by example. So I will be playing with my guild mates.

Thank You and You and You

When I woke up on Saturday morning, the first thing I did was consider whether I was backsliding into the bug I’d had for the two previous days. Feeling fairly good for the early hour, I then wandered out to my computer, and checked my email.

Early Morning Gifting

In it was a notification from Blizzard that I’d been gifted with an item from the Pet Store. It did tell me who sent it, but sometimes suspense is fun.  So off I went to retrieve my first gift of the day:

Still trying not to Destroy Pandaria

Doesn’t Kerridwen look lovely atop Heart of the Aspects?  Thank you, Navi!

RNG Gifting

A bit later, I decided that, since I wouldn’t be running raids with Bear any more, I needed to create a mog that Breige would enjoy wearing, and that I had half a shot of obtaining:

Purty Bow! Surprisingly, from Karazhan

The jury is still out on the hood.

One of the few drops in this set comes from Magister’s Terrace. The bow is, surprisingly, not the item. It’s the chestpiece.  So, off I went to Quel’Danas, to try my luck at getting the silly thing to drop. Each time I got to Kael’thas, I asked him for something pretty. You know, a bit of mail armor, a brightly glowing mount…

A pretty little bird!

The first time through, he thought I’d like a ring. He apparently has no idea how easily I could tear a finger off if I were wearing a giant gem! The second time, though, he provided me with a Phoenix Hatchling! Thanks, Kael.

The Best Gift of All

I took a bit of a break from hunting things to relax a bit before the scheduled run, and then after a most scrumptious supper (Shepherd’s Pie!) I hopped back online to start my birthday party.  We started with about a dozen people in Obsidian Sanctum, and a very strict loot rule: Just because the birthday girl wants it doesn’t mean you have to pass. Need if you want it for Mog/Mounts/Bags/Quests/Patterns. This was important to me. While yes, the raiding was all about my enjoyment of Wrath content with my friends, there was no reason to keep people from their shot at pretty shiny pixels. Krys won the roll for the Twilight Drake.

Off we went to Ruby Sanctum.  We actually wiped the first time, and switched off of heroic 25 to get the kill. Much easier that way.  Then I announced the next step was going to be Naxxramas. A few people bid us adieu at that point, including Phinkbunny and Mr. Amateur (who missed Obsidian as well, but I’m glad he could stop in for 15 minutes).

People were surprised that I wanted to run Naxx. It’s long. But, well, I had mog plans that required a certain drop from a certain Heigan. Not that he ponied up, but I got other things that fit in nicely with another mog I’m working on, and replaced the need to farm two dungeons.  Also, I had one raid boss to kill for a Title. And he’s in Naxx.

Besides some small things like an early pull on Heigan, and forgetting to go kill Maexna for a little while, things went quite well, and I got 6 achievements, including the coveted Champion of the Frozen Wastes. Sadly, no pets dropped, either.

We Win!

Thank You, Jelexie, Jackoby, Yawondergirl, Matty, Seraphinity, Tyledres, Wontan, Danea, Phinkbunny, Magik, JD and Krys. 

Also, thank you Kel’Thuzad.

I was completely satisfied with my birthday. It is one of the happiest I’ve had in memory.

But Wait, There’s More

On Sunday, I decided to go ahead and go on JD’s Laid Back Raid. Since I wasn’t bound to run with Bear any more, it seemed the perfect time to get back into the runs.  We hit up Firelands, and did a few of the bosses, but got stuck on Beth’tilac. I just don’t know the fight well enough to steer him around in his circle. Also, I don’t put out all that much DPS on Breige. I guess I’m just an average hunter. 🙂  When we called it a night, JD asked if I’d gotten my drake, and I said I hadn’t. So he suggested we do a run. I protested, because I’d already been in there this week, but then was reminded that alts can try too. Well, what the heck! So Breige and several others made their way to Obsidian Sanctum, while a few bid us adieu. Somebody else won the drake.

We discussed additional alts, and I hopped over to Shoryl. And JD finally won his drake.

Pulling from the dregs, I hopped over to Sveala, and attempted to heal. That run didn’t go well. We just didn’t have the firepower to kill him before the drakes joined him. But then Matty came and saved the day.  We swept through, though with a few deaths, and

I won the drake!

I don’t know if I only won because I was the only one rolling. When JD won his, I rolled an abysmal 17 to his 85.  I was too excited to care, and then discovered Sveala didn’t have the riding skill. So I had to hop over to money-bags (also known as Breige) to get the funds for some training.

Thank you, JD, Danea, Matty, and all the others who brought in every alt they had!

The Light, the Dark, and Lady Vashj

Laid Back

Laid Back Dungeons ended up being a laid back raid instead last week. I wasn’t in the mood for current content; and am looking for only a few more pieces for my sword set for Gurdrid. Since she’s carrying a sword right now, it seems to be a good one to work on.

So Tyledres and Gurdrid stormed Serpentshrine Cavern. Hydross went down with almost no sploosh.  The Lurker Below was dead fish pretty easily. Leotheras the Blind became Leotheras the dead.  And then there was Fathom-Lord Karathas. Who killed Gurdrid, but not Tyledres. Much like the last time I was in SSC, where the raid killed him, but the tank died.  After the Fathom-Lord, Morogrim Tidewalker was a walk in the pond. I don’t think we really needed to clear out his murloc minions first.

We were then at Lady Vashj, who has an annoying mechanic in phase two, where you have to pick things up off of mobs that have to be killed really fast.  But we were one-shotting mobs, shouldn’t be a problem, right? Until the fear-masters (Coilfang Striders) came along and feared us all over the place. We attempted twice, the second time trying to ignore one side of the room so that we could get to the tainted cores faster; to no avail. Lady Vashj may have won, but next time I’m bringing a shadow priest with me.

Site Update

I think the site update is pretty well completed. Widgets are in, and I’m pretty happy. I have a page to write for the guild; but otherwise, I’m pretty satisfied with my new look.  The blog name got shortened because of spacing issues. Now that little grey bar makes so much more sense. Also, the subtitle is more readable.

I’ll be trying to continue to work on my blogroll. I added both the Amateur and the Godmother to the page this evening.

I know I haven’t been the best at blogging recently; this is due in varying degrees to the site redesign; being at once too busy and not busy enough at work (it’s odd, I know); and an utter and complete adoration of Mists of Pandaria – so much so that I want to be playing, not writing. Also, there’s laziness and procrastination.

Friends, Dungeons, and Drakes (oh my!)

Last night’s LBD started with three of us: Tyledres, Magik and myself. Since finishing off the Occulus for me, Tyledres and I have been making regular trips to Violet Hold, and never managed to see Hydross. This time, however, we were rewarded with the boss at the first opportunity. Quite exciting! We’d decided beforehand that Magik was going to handle the crystals, since he’s a caster and all. We kibitzed a bit about when to hit them, and decided on right after Hydross splits. Magik was pretty nervous he was going to stuff it up, as the Frostwolves would say; but he didn’t, and Gurdrid got Dehydration, and her protodrake.

Gurdrid’s a Hero!

When we were done, Flagsworth joined us. I could tease Magik and say that he brought his buddy along so he wouldn’t feel like we were hunting down more achievements just for him, or maybe it was just a guildie having fun, inviting his friend along.  (At this point, I need to mention that it’s all JD’s fault I know these guys.)

We headed next to Gundrak to attempt to get Less-Rabi for both Magik and Flags. Having failed it the last time Magik was along for an LBD, we wanted to make sure we got it right, so we handed out interrupt assignments.  I mentioned that I was going to open with a 3-second silence. I think he was dead in two. At most 4. Anyway, 3 90s and an 89 make short work of that one. Flagsworth mentioned in passing it was too bad we only had four, because he needed Share the Love; but Jelexie was on, and said she’d come to help with that one. So we summoned her when we got to Gal’Darah.  And I went and stood on him. We were terrified, since this is such a random achievement, that even white damaging at 90 would cause a miss; so no one did any damage until Jelexie finally got impaled (tip: if the tank doesn’t start tanking until after they get impaled, it goes a lot faster.) I started to just taunt him as soon as I got impaled.

As Jelexie headed out, Magik thanked her, calling her “Jex”.  Which she likes, so is therefore her new nickname. 🙂

After that one, we headed to Halls of Stone to pick up Abuse the Ooze – again for both Flagsworth and Magik. Strategy was explained, and implemented with perfection. Someone also picked up Brann Spanking New while we were in the Halls… I thought it was Flagsworth, but apparently not (according to the Armory). Sjonnir also dropped his belt for one of my sets.

Magik only had one achievement left, so we headed to Utgarde Pinnacle for a try at The Incredible Hulk. We were a little more nervous about this one, but once again, taunt tanking won the day. We also put a shot in on Skadi, to see if we could get the mount to drop, but alas, we didn’t.

Fancy Drakes

And here’s the four of us: Tyledres and Flagsworth in the back on their Violet Protodrakes, and Magik and me in front on our new Red Protodrakes.

That’s not all for Wrath, though. Should anyone come along who’s still looking to pick up their protodrake, we’ll head back out. If everyone has one, though, we’ll start in on Cataclysm dungeons. So far we’re not quite well geared enough to take on the heroics, but I’m sure with some time, and some upgrades, we’ll get there. (We could totally do it with a healer. Just sayin’.)

LBD Apology

For those of you who may have been hoping to hit up some LBD goodness last night, I must apologize.  I needed an evening away from WoW, and my life plopped last night in my lap as a perfect opportunity to do some hot tubbing with my dearest, and then we bought some music thanks to a $25 iTunes gift card I got from a work contest (obviously, we didn’t buy it all. After all, some of that is, um….)

Next week looks good for getting back into the runs, so here’s hoping it stays that way.

Short and Sweet

OMG Pandaria is PRETTY!!! 

Shoryl went out with Sona right out of the gate, and it says a great deal that we both played for the majority of Tuesday. We had anticipated we’d get started, Sona would want to get away from her computer, and I would move on to Gurdrid, who would then blow ahead.  Not so much. Sona wanted to play, so we played together. I’m very pleased.

When Sona was taking breif breaks, I hopped on Breige to check out pet battling. While I’d been interested in the pet capturing aspect of it, I wasn’t so keen on the battles prior to trying them. It’s so very 8-bit! (Just listen).  I love it!

Laid Back Dungeons will not be happening tonight. I have real life things to do that didn’t get done during the WoWathon yesterday.  We’ll be back at it soon, though, I promise!

Carefully Then Quickly

Last night, Tyledres (on her mage) and I were back at the Laid Back Dungeons, and got Gurdrid down to only needing two more for the Red Drake, for which I’m very excited.

We successfully completed Zombiefest, even though I died once on trash before the first boss. I’m not sure what happened there, because I was fine, and then I wasn’t.  Her mage picked up both Zombiefest and the heroic Culling of Stratholme achievements; which was a nice bonus.

Then we headed into the Oculus, where we swapped positions from our previous run and she rode the green drake while I rode the red (I needed red marked off for Experienced Drake Rider).  That looked at first like it was going to go off without a hitch, then an odd bug had Tyl stuck on a platform, her mount unable to move, and her unable to find the dismount button. She logged out and back in, and it fixed the problem; but I was pretty sure at that point we weren’t going to make the speed run (which we were only half-heartedly working on).  I wasn’t sure only two of us would have the firepower to get Eregos down quickly, because really, it’s still a little bit challenging, even if you can kill him once you’re on your feet.  We did, however, have a flawless kill, and much to my surprise, picked up Make It Count.

So Gurdrid is down to just two achievements to go, one of which is completing Experienced Drake Rider by riding a bronze drake; and the other is Dehydrated.  I fear the last is going to be my bane.   To be honest, I’d love it if we could pick up a few more regulars to the runs. Having more than two of us will both speed up the runs, and make it easier to have one of us on a bronze drake in Oculus.

Gurdrid also picked up some alternate (much more boring) shoulders for her Dragon Sword set – she still wants Hydross to drop his shoulders, because they’re significantly better.

Client Boss Soloed – Impales Imminent

I will admit, I was a little surprised when 6:30 rolled around and my current favorite Death Knight (no offense, Maurice, or Morai!) was nowhere to be found.   Magik arrived on the scene, and we were just getting ready to head into Azjol-Nerub to work on his red drake some when Tyledres made it online.  Apparently, she was having client problems.    That gave us 3 of the needed five to complete Share the Love.  We started into Azjol-Nerub, deftly completing the entire fleet of achievements (Magik needed Hadronox Denied and Watch Him Die). Meanwhile, Magik and Tyl looked for folks to join us, and I put another call out over RealID.

We were joined by Hottotemseks from Tyl’s guild, and decided that since Sonaira had said she would join us if we needed a fifth, but she was out getting stuff for our lunches, we’d hit up Violet Hold and see if we could get an Ichoron spawn. No luck, but by the time we were done, Sona was on and ready.

Off to Gundrak we went; picking up Snakes, Why’d it Have to Be Snakes for Hott, but missing on Less-Rabi for Magik. We’ll have to be more coordinated in our interrupts on that one for a future attempt.  It took a bit for us to get everyone impaled. It seems that he doesn’t like to impale the one with aggro, so it was handy that we had two tanks for the fight. Afterwards, I actually remembered to get a screenshot, so here’s the gang. If you can’t read the names, Tyledres is on the left, Hott is sporting his drake on the right, Magik is on the white hippogryph in the back, and Sonaira and Gurdrid are sporting the Cenarion Hippogryphs in the center.

Cheers, Tyledres!

It Really Isn’t All About Me!

Tonight we had a foursome for the Laid Back Dungeons. JD Kenada took a break from judging the Transmogolympics to join us, and Mrs. Amateur came along as well. Our fourth was Tyl, whose full name I would butcher if I tried. (Ok, I tried. Silly me, I got offline before I wrote it down.)

The plan was to start with Utgarde Keep and Pinnacle, which we did. Giving Gurdrid all the achievements, and also giving Tael Incredible Hulk. After that, we were planning to head to Dragonblight, but Tum talked us into going to Occulus instead. Everyone was game, since we all needed achievements there.  On our way through, we stopped in at the Violet Hold, picking up two more of the required six bosses for Gurdrid’s Lockdown; but sadly not picking up Either A Void Dance or Dehydration since the bosses weren’t there to be fought.

We were unable to quickly dispatch the Ley Guardian for Make It Count but we did get both Ruby Void and Emerald Void by all riding Bronze drakes. Sadly, Tum and Gurdrid did not pick up the Bronze drake for Experienced Drake Rider because we’d taken too much damage during the fight and weren’t on our drakes when he died. So there will be trips back into the Occulus to finish that up.

Since we were there, we dropped down into the Nexus, Getting Split Personality in what may well have been the fastest time ever. I think  I clicked 2 buttons, so less than 5 seconds from start to finish? We tried to get Intense Cold for Tum and Tael, but an inopportune freeze made another miss there.

Tum, Tael, and Tyl all picked up mog pieces, as well.

4x5x34 LBD

Tonight, for the very first time, the Laid Back Dungeons pulled in a complete group. There was JD Kenada and his lovely wife (on Tumunzahar and Taelainne respectively); my dearest on Morai, an old friend from a previous guild on his lovely rogue Kyuusoku; and I rounded out the fifth spot on Gurdrid.  I joked that Kyuusoku would actually be tanking with his Fangs of the Father, but he behaved quite well. Must be all those years of being the tank.

We set to work on Glory of the Hero in Drak’Tharon, figuring with a group of five the hard part would be waiting for the gores for Share the Love; and we were right. Gurdrid got impaled twice, while Tumunzahar got impaled three times.   We completed all of the Drak’Tharon achievements, with varying numbers up to four of us needing at least one of them.

Then we moved on to Gundrak, since it’s right there.  We presumed these would all be quick, and were not disappointed. The only difficulty was Tael seemed to always be on the wrong side of Eck to get spat on. Not that I blame her one bit.  We all needed something here, and were not disappointed with our clear.

Gundrak down, we moved on to Halls of Stone. Last time we attempted this, we killed the wrong kind of oozes, and therefore didn’t get Abuse the Ooze, so this time we wanted to be certain. We did do a complete clear, since some of us needed to actually kill the Maiden of Grief (who did, in fact, die in less than a minute) to get the dungeon completion achievement. We managed another clean sweep here.

At this point, Morai and Kyuusoku needed to head off, so Tum, Tael and I went and did a quick Violet Hold. We were hoping to get Ichorus for Dehydration and were rewarded on the second boss. Sadly, we didn’t quite get it pulled off due to timing; but Tael did pick up the Water-Drenched Robes, and Gurdrid added a tick mark to Lockdown!

Quite a nice run, indeed, with a total of 34 achievements completed across all 5 toons.