Day Ninety Six - 14 Sep 2011

Kallixta's guild has recently talked about running Old World Raids during the week. Wednesday night saw someone ask, "Anyone up for Black Temple?" Kallixta joined in.

Now Martuska has actually run the Black Temple once, so this wasn't very new ground, but it was a wonderful opportunity to work with my guild mates and prepare for more old raids in the future. I also remember from our run of Ahn'Qiraj that Kallixta was unlikely to be needed as a tank or healer, but she doesn't have a Retribution spec. She ran as a tank and occasionally pulled a few mobs off the "real tank", but I felt like I contributed more.

We only had five, so this wasn't going to be a Guild Run. We had three paladins and two hunters, but at level 84, Kallixta was the lowest level and little in the run was a challenge. Well, little meaning only one spot was a challenge, the Den of Mortal Delights. It wasn't any boss. We just didn't take those scantily dressed ladies seriously enough and suddenly our entire party was charmed. We gathered way too many of the mind-controlling lasses and laughed at ourselves, helplessly watching our health wither. The hunters managed to feign death and one Mass Resurrection later, we had our chance to retry the encounter. This time we were careful to gather in small groups and we puzzled over why we had any trouble!

We took Illidan down quickly and before he changed form, and two of us got our Black Temple achievement. Ironically, Got My Mind On My Money  popped, despite my mind being elsewhere.

Our group was happy with the result and someone asked if we wanted to try Gruul's Lair. I was willing and we even managed to recruit another guild mate to join. I had done zero preparation, but in the few minutes granted to bio-breaks and for repairs and junk selling, I read enough to know we would have even less trouble.

We spent way more time on trying to decide on a kill order than needed. We joked the proper kill order should just be "Them before Us" and leave it at that. the sub-bosses died quickly and Gruul soon joined them. Again Kallixta was not the only one to gain Gruul's Lair. Someone else thought this was the last raid they needed for Outland Raider, but when it didn't pop for them, realized there must be another. The group decided this was sufficient for a mid-week run and stopped there.

While it was wonderfully fun to accomplish and I got to bond with my guild mates, it wasn't a real opportunity to learn anything about future raiding. Nothing was sufficiently challenging enough to provoke us to real effort beyond "don't aggro the entire room of mind-controlling mobs". It did give me confidence that raiding with these folk will be enjoyable.