So after much frustration from Sunday night’s ridiculous failure of trying to down Valiona & Theralion, and my inability to stay the hell out of the Twilight Realm, we all came back on Tuesday with some pretty amazing attempts. So our fearless leader decided to change things up a little bit when we got there. This required some explanation because of the changes to how we were going to deal with the Blackout‘s that are being dished out.

Last week, the way we were attempting to deal with these two dragons requires two different marked guild members. One in melee and one ranged. When the blackout went out, if you were ranged you’d stack up on the ranged target, and if you were melee you did the same but staying near the dragon. The problem this was causing was that there weren’t enough bodies to distribute the damage, usually resulting in at least one death (and possibly more). One of the major problems with Bastion of Twilight is the ridiculous quantities of trash mobs that need to be dealt with. By ridiculous quantities of trash I mean so many mobs per group that you run out of raid markers and have to designate “left unmarked” and “right unmarked” or the “unmarked behind circle”, etc. Get the idea?? It’s ridiculous. The first time the guild went through there I was not around to see what “epic trash” actually was, so I had no idea what to expect. Sadly, when I get asked to do something like hibernate a dragonkin, I freeze.

“You want me to what?” Hibernate that mob. “What’s a hibernate??”

I’m kidding. I know what hibernate is, and have actually used it quite a bit during Grim Batol while grinding Heroics, but I hadn’t used it in awhile. It’s just not something I’m used to doing. Ever wonder what happens when your hibernate fails? The raid ends up with a dead druid, that’s what.

One of the problems we were having outside of people just being off their game* there simply weren’t enough melee to soak up the damage. For the first couple of attempts we lost a couple of melee dps. Some of the ranged were told to run up and help soak up some of the blackout damage, but by that point the loss of bodies meant that a wipe was called.

Now, I am not even going to lie about being one of the few people to consistently eat face to Devouring Flames like an effing nubcake. There are few excuses to taking so much damage (and luckily not dying, but that also meant my poor healer or I was spending time healing me when we should have been healing other people) and I knew this needed to be changed. The worst part is that the hooker Valiona actually turns to cast it, so I can see what direction she’s facing. Still I ate it. Mind you, I didn’t know you could just run away from her an take less damage. Apparently the closer you are to her the more damage you take. I didn’t know this, and so I kept trying to run around towards her backside in an attempt to get out of it. Sometimes dying, sometimes not. Either way, avoidable damage that I wasn’t being very effective at avoiding very well.

Something else to remember is that ranged is supposed to be so many yards away from each other. Okay. I can do this. I know I can do this. Except, I ran into melee for blackout and upon running back out again I stopped paying attention to the direction Valiona was facing. I was only paying attention to who was near me and making sure I was within range to heal, but away from people to avoid unnecessary damage. Then there’s my healing.

Ah, fak, Devouring flames to my face!

On Tuesday’s raid, we decided to all collapse on melee. This meant the priest(s) were able to drop lightwell’s near the center, within clicking range for everyone. This also meant that we had the entire platform to spread back out again. The difference between how things were on Sunday versus Tuesday is that all ranged went into melee, not just the ones who chose this time to run in. There weren’t areas of the platform already occupied by people upon the run-out phase. I didn’t spend precious seconds looking for a clear area of ground. We all moved out together. This also meant that we were able head towards her tail.

The guild had a few wipes, but overall I had a much better experience with how things went on Tuesday’s raids. I also felt that I wasn’t nearly as distracted and was able to concentrate on what was going on on the computer screen. Mind you, it’s often hard to give WoW my undivided attention while at home, no matter what room I’m in.**

All in all, I don’t hate the event nearly as much as I did on Sunday. It’s still not one of my favorites since the swirlies that suck you into the Twilight realm have a much bigger reach than their graphic shows (and I have all my graphics turned up). Or not knowing what the portal to get out of the Twilight realm looked like. Or the north, south and middle flames. Ugh, actually, on second thought, these dragons are hookers still.

I did get Drake of the Twins off them, so I can’t hate them too much.

* I was definitely one of those people. I even said so on the guild forums with an apology. I felt as though I were completely distracted nearly the entire night and should have asked to be swapped out with a healer that wasn’t so completely and utterly distracted. Although I was not the only one, according to guildie’s posts on the forums as well.

** I have started playing while in bed, there is another who pays in the same room and a 13-year-old running around the house somewhere. Usually asking fairly ridiculous questions and talking loudly causing me to not hear stuff going on in Mumble.