Commence Primary Ignition

With my mage Amperage being the first caster I'd ever played, it didn't take me long to learn that Blizzard gives magi many, many crowd control and slowing options for a reason. Abstain from using them at your own peril. Now, coming from a background of a 60 warrior and 40-something rogue, wearing cloth proved to be my undoing over and over. Right from the start in Deathknell, my technique was sound. Frostbolt, Fireball slowed mob, Fire Blast, die.

Wait. That's not supposed to happen. He only hit me a dozen times. I don't understand. Then I look down at the robe I'm wearing and it dawns on me. Slowly. See, in my head, I'm in plate. In many respects, my entire WoW experience has been flavored by hiding behind 6500 AC. At the moment, that couldn't be further from the truth. Dress = dying with teh quickness.

I've dabbled in leveling Amp over the course of nearly a year, taking a bit of a break from Echuta whenever dramatically-appropriate, but for quite some time, I hit patches of mage-malaise. I couldn't get motivated to play him for love nor money. I've had other characters: Missmayhem (46 NE rogue and where I developed my love for the quick takedown), Elunatique (24 NE Priestess and the other half of my bustalicious NE mantraps fondly referred to as The Brass Pole Patrol), 2 x Gamorr (one on WW, and again on Cho'gall- now unified and lvl 32 back on WW), and I've toyed with the highly inaccurate fantasy that I'd be able to make an adequate shaman (Islero, I hardly knew ye). Over the 15 months that I've played Warcraft, I've had many alts, and if she knew the extent of it, I'm certain that Renata would give me no quarter as I tease her about her myriad ones rivaling that of the cast of extras in Ben Hur.

The moment of truth came, however, when I had leveled Gamorr up to within striking distance of Amp's current progress. I had a decision to make. In spite of the fact that I don't know anyone that truly enjoys taking 2 characters through the same area, Blizz makes a point to give players the opportunity to take their toons through radically different, yet equally-scaled areas of the world at the same point in their careers. This effectively allows you to bypass an entire zone, if you truly despise it. For both Horde and Alliance on Player vs Player servers, this desire is often fostered right about the time that one discovers Stranglethorn Vale. That's not to say that Player vs Environment adventurers don't have a hard time with STV, too. The difference is, if a PvE person has a bitch of a time in STV, it's because of the quests, not because of the other faction. PvP servers make it a bit difficult to kill 10 Stranglethorn Tigers while being repeatedly sheeped by some 60 troll mage who is farming herbs, or stunlocked by an NE rogue who decides that they want to hear the sound you make when you die. At the time when ZG came out, I was Varice on the Alliance side of Magtheridon, and the first thing I remember thinking was, "Wonderful. That's the last thing that STV needs, is 19 lvl 60 Horde standing around Grom'Gol looking for action as they wait for the last guy to show up for their ZG run. This will not end well."

As a matter of form, when bringing Echuta through the ranks, I made a point to try this level-around-STV-and-join-the-show-already-in-progess-in-Tanaris method and am pleased to report that it works swimmingly. For the curious, it goes Thousand Needles/Desolace-> Swamp of Sorrows-> Feralas, or your own approximation therein. (Caveat: the downside to taking this approach is that you don't get the numerous quests that net you good rep with the 4 goblin towns of the Steamwheedle Cartel, and I can report from experience that having better rep when standing around the goblin Bruisers when somebody gets froggy and feels like jumping your shiat while they're killing time around Booty Bay or Gadgetzan can pay off bigtime in the long run. Granted, that was on a PvP server, but there is some danger on PvE. The difference is, if somebody manages to get flagged for combat on a PvE server, then they did something to deserve it).

What I needed was a determining factor in choosing which character to progress next, and it hardly came down to a matter of equal enjoyment of the classes (although sodium pentothol would likely reveal a bias toward the hunter, given that I had no rogue in that level range). All things considered, I decided to give Amperage the green light and bench Gamorr for the immediate time being. I would love to level them both equally, but I don't hate myself that much at the end of the day. The guild has been woefully lacking in a wide variety of DPS, in that 90% of it has come in the form of Warlocks and Hunters. Although I love playing my hunter, I also acknowledge that I would be standing in a considerable shadow of the pro critter-killers that we have in the Pod already- not the least of which are (alphabetically) Cimmerius, Guinsoo, and Tuscansalami. My best friend Dagobah has one, too, and with all that competition, it just makes for difficult assembly of groups.

I've been rather vocal in my lamentations that historically, I haven't been a very good mage. As a matter of fact, I'm really bad about breaking my own sheep. I forget that I have Fire and Ice AOE spells. I don't spam Arcane Explosion. It's hardly encouraging as an aspiring nuker. That being the case, I decided to respec. Even after the free respec after 1.11, I was hardly thrilled with the choices I had made. I was all across the board, with enough points in Arcane to get Clearcasting, and was Fire, otherwise. This wasn't cutting it for me, and I figured that I would forgo the 6 tier 2 and 3 points in Arcane and just stick with Improved Arcane Missles. I know that many folks wax poetic about Frost spec, but that usually comes from 60s that raid and don't have to worry about leveling any more. Didn't have that luxury, so I decided to go Fire/Frost. I had heard that it was possible to achieve much satisfaction from what was essentially an elemental build, specializing in either Fire or Frost and eschewing Arcane nearly completely. (I say nearly, because while I'm foolhardy enough to skip Clearcasting, I'm not getting interrupted during Arcane Missles. Screw that).

The oft agreed-upon downside to Fire spec is that it is seen to be largely mana inefficient when compared to Frost. I'm fine with that. I took a long hard look at the AH while I was there and invested in a few pieces that had improved INT and Spirit compared to what I was sporting at the time. In my reasoning, the increased SPI will help reduce downtime in between fights, and the recently acquired skill of Mage Armor will assist in keeping some of the mana regen going through the fight. I headed straight to Arathi Highlands after doing my respec, and Lord have mercy, does this build rock. I might change my mind later, but for the immediate time being, I have chosen wisely.

Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?

Well, the bell has rung for Round 1 of The Pod People vs Hakkar. We're bloody, exhausted, and somewhat dismayed by the complexity of this fight, but these were merely the opening shots in what will prove to be an ongoing war. The frustration kicks in when we look at the fact that we are going to be splitting our attentions between Zul'Gurub, Molten Core, and the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, depending on the way the raid calendars break down. Our primary concern will continue to be ZG, with scheduled field trips elsewhere to complete Perfect Poison, etc for folks. (All things considered, however, it's a great problem to have, as we have enough people to do this stuff). Bat, Snake and Spider are officially farm status now, so I'm hoping that our upcoming Rumble in the Jungle evenings will be spent taking Tiger and Panther to the cleaners, that way we can potentially wax all five Aspects and Bloodlord across 2 evenings, and free another dedicated night to Hakkar on a regular basis.

In a technical sense, it could be said that we got pwned by that serpentine bastage, but the tale of the tape has more to do with the learning curve and what we were able to discern about the fight. Were this fight to have gone easily, I have to be honest and say that part of me would have likely been disappointed. (There's another part of me that would've rolled on the loot and grin like the cat the ate the canary, but that's a whole other issue). The emotional journey of systematically executing the five Aspect bosses and then clawing our way to the top of that pyramid has been unbelievably fulfilling, though taxing at times. Having spent a significant amount of time on the fight itself, and watching the rhythm develop among the raid leaders, it was encouraging to see more and more of his health drop in the process. There's a wealth of resources out on the web by the various "experts" but there's little in the world like being able to visualize what's actually going on in the battle as you read some pundit's account: "OMG this fight is so e-z. Get poisoned, and let it kill him, kk?"

/wrist

The other thing to keep in mind is that the bulk of things written about any/all ZG encounters is that they were written by folks in hardcore raiding guilds that have already run the Molten Core gauntlet and have the place on farm status. As you might imagine, this is a considerable advantage, as most folks that have been there-done that in MC wear more purple than Prince. Never ones to make excuses, TPP understand collectively that we have chosen the road less traveled in our endgame raid progression. Yes, folks are usually getting in front of Hakkar wearing mostly Tier 1 armor, but when it comes down to a simple issue of numbers and age of the guild, I hate to tell people, but 20 comes before 40. We had arrived at a place in the history of the guild where a number of us were willing to flip the switch on making our Pods our mains, and had decided that if we were going to see MC then it would be in this guild, or not at all. It's that level of dedication that keeps me coming back. Arithmetically, we were able to get together 20 people for a raid far faster than we were on a 40 man, so that's what we did.

In many respects, I have heard tell that some of the boss fights in ZG are tougher and more complicated than a number of MC encounters. (This is the impetus for many of the Pods that have experienced MC on Whisperwind and elsewhere to beg for us to take the fiery plunge and at least dabble in there, which we will be doing for the first time on Aug. 4 :D) Should this be true, then that tells us 2 things:

1. We will be that better geared for future incursions into ZG as we are able to begin the process of chewing up and spitting out Lucifron and Magmadar on our MC nights.
2. If it is true that MC is easier than ZG, and also that most of the guilds that get Hakkar on farm status have already had their pick of the MC gift shop's offerings, the the fact that The Pod People were standing in front of Hakkar and wore that bastard down to 21% without those same gearing advantages means that we are OMGWTF 1337.

Our kung fu is strong. And it only gets stronger.

Sir, we've analyzed their attack...

Hakkar, get out while you still can.


As of last night, the Pod People took down Arlokk, the last Aspect priest that stands in between us and the big, snakey, winged-thing that is Hakkar the Soul Flayer. Best of all, this wasn't just our first panther boss kill. Oh no. This was the culmination of two nights of focused efforts in Zul'Gurub (and about a week of frenzied planning and considerable mental efforts on the forums) where we had already decided that we WERE getting to Hakkar this weekend. Thursday evening we started with Thekal the tiger.

I'll admit, having only taken him down once before, I was pleased with our level of ambition that was developing, but I won't lie when I say that that one kill was simultaneously one of the most exciting, and one of the ugliest that we've ever pulled off. (If I remember correctly, Vespasian and Zayd were the last two standing, and it was a final Frostbolt from Zayd that took Thekal down before a few errant tigers bent both of them over and broke it off). It was the Mexican standoff scene from Reservoir Dogs. Because of this, I was rather concerned, but emboldened, nonetheless.

Getting to Thekal was interesting, because we decided that we weren't going to bother with that whole crowd-control nonsense thru the trash mobs. AOE was the word of the day, and we burned through those snakes and trolls like a Katrina evacuee with a FEMA charge card. This put us in front of Thekal in 30 mins, and we were much richer for the experience.

What we did, however, once we got there, was get the farker down to about 16% when he inexplicably began to evade our attacks, and regened up to 60-ish%. The tigers that spawn were giving us quite a time, but we were good mammals and adapted our strategery. Since Thekal loves to charge the group with their backs against the wall in Phase 2, then we figured that we'd treat him like the Spider boss, and whichever tank could grab him (since he wipes aggro when he does the Thunder Clap/knockback) would call that they had the aggro and pull him out of the squishies. Other tanks engage the tigers while they get AOE'ed. Done.

One cool thing is that I picked up my first rolled epic: Seal of the Gurubashi Berzerker. It has a 6-8% drop off all 5 aspects, so chances are, you're gonna see it numerous times if you clear to Hakkar. And that we did. It dropped off Panther and Bat, last night as well. It's certainly not one of those situations where I was secretly hoping to be unique for a long time, being the only Pod to have it. Screw that. I'd much sooner save that for Thekal's Grasp and Arlokk's Grasp. Yeah, they're fist weapons, but I'm a Fury warrior, so shut it. Here's a terribly cool video of what this pair can do when it procs: Additional Pod joke, FTW.

With Arlokk having been on the menu for last night, we got over to her and had her down within about 3 or 4 tries. We have more warlocks than we have sense, so there's always a soulstone up. Pair that with a handful of pro shaman to pop when there's no SS up (has that ever happened with us?), and the scope of our wipes is only limited to our durability, baby :D.

As an aside, that is what I love about this guild more than anything else. I already have a full time job. I spend as much if not more time in WoW as I do there to balance this. I'm here to have fun, and were I to be in a guild where the 50 DKP MINUS style reigned supreme, then that'd last about seven seconds, and I'd be logging in to a blank ta-bard. (There, Bill). Bad things are going to happen in this game. Don't make everyone else's experience suck because you can't be flexible and deal. Develop a coping mechanism and move along. When the game doesn't get fun for you, it often doesn't become fun for others, too.

/Cast BackOnTrack (rank 4)

As a note for those that haven't done the Panther boss, I highly advise you bring 3 competent tanks with you. Here's why: There are 2 pens along the side of the room that happen to face the gong. MT engages Arlokk in the center of the room. OTs get in the pens, with a dedicated healer for each. Ranged DPS (i.e. rest of raid) gets their backs to the wall against the shield by the door down in. In the pens, panthers will begin to spawn every few seconds. This is where the OTs spam Demoralizing Shout. Since the panthers haven't engaged anyone, the debuff on the Demo Shout is enough to keep them on the OTs, and they stay in the pens. There gets to be about 20 panthers that hit you for about 30 each, and the Rage generation flows like milk and honey. Any healer that is worth their salt can keep you up while you handle this. The only thing is that it's really hard at the start of the fight to keep rage generated to spam Demo Shout. There are a few cats that escape at the beginning of the fight, but so long as everyone knows that they're going to be getting out, then hunter pets can engage them. The fight gets much easier as the number of panthers increases. Arlokk drops, and then you just DPS down the remaining panthers. (Note: I'm completely marginalizing her Vanish and Cleave but I didn't have any experience with that part, as I was in relative safety with the kitties),

On to the Blood God tonight.