Well, the 1st 20 minutes at least, but let me come back to that.
I was accused during the week of being vain! Can you believe that!
- Sure I like myself, a lot…
- Sure I am a handsome Gnome, very…
- Sure I like to take screenshots, of myself, from all sorts of angles…
- Sure I like to run down my teammates (or kill them, whichever makes the better story), to make myself look better…
But vain?
Ok, maybe a little.
Squishing Spiders
Ok, where was I?
Ohh, Friday night. Got home late, ruined dinner with the family, PC was playing up, addons weren’t behaving, I felt out of sorts…
I wasn’t going to be a good night!
Once again we started with the spiders. This time we were going to take down those 3 bosses in 20 minutes, or I was going to DE all my gear just to give Zupa competition on the loot rolls when he catches up.
Roles Assigned
The primary roles were assigned. Mr. tree was Master looter, I was Master DE. What other roles do you need?
We took the advice of Priestgiblet, and left the bosses with their loot, so all 10 of us could move on. Slow and steady was the call, no need to rush and wipe.
2 bosses down in 7 minutes, all going smoothly. Mr. Offspec asks if we are going to do Maexxna on hard mode leaving her mates alive for an additional achievement.
No, let’s focus and get this achievement under the belt
Sung a chorus of voices over Vent.
Gnomes on the Adds
As usual, Gnomeaggedon was assigned to the adds, to butter them up a bit for easy kills when the time arrived.
Things going perfectly, boss goes nuts, 1st add goes down. Gnome butters up the last 3 until they are 15% from death, then switches to the boss.
Everything going perfectly…
Gnomeaggedon pops his IWIN button and launches into maximum damage mode, ably assisted by his 3 mirror copies… Or not!
1,2,3 the adds go down under a volley of frostbolts and fireblasts!
Whoops, focus fire on the boss little Gnomes… Never mind, time for you to drop down to the ground and dissolve…
Time for the boss to do the same!
Got it!
Smooth Sailing
The rest of the team continued on to clear the trash while our loot recovery team (Mr. Tree and I) ran about and dished out the loot, or produced some shards.
We kicked on perfectly from there. Trash group after trash group. Boss after boss. Nothing was either stopping us or slowing us down…
It was going to be a perfect clear tonight… Even Undying maybe?
There was no doubt we would clear Naxx, and we were already discussing where to go after.
Maybe Kara so Zupa could join us…
Everything was sweet…
Hurdles
Until we hit a wall, or more to the point, some hurdles.
What followed was wipe hurdle after wipe hurdle.
Instructor Razuvious
I don’t know what it is with Razuvious, but for some reason we have to fail before we succeed. It’s gotten to the point now where I face the stairs rather than the boss on the 1st attempt, just to make it easier to run to the ramp and reset the fight.
This time we put it down to one of the henchmen not being selected for mind control at the pull.
He dropped his leggings again… WTB spare Mage to soak up the DE items.
Gothik the Harvester
I’m always the sacrificial lamb for the Gothik pulls. Not that he attacks me straight off, but I’m waiting for the day he bugs out, or gets tired of waiting for his minions to be sacrificed and joins the battle immediately.
Anyway, I have developed a new pulling method, a new taunt. The /rasp Ice Lance technique.
Works every time!
20 Horsemen
Four Horseman – usually so easy… 5… FIVE! attempts…
Things just broke down.
Dancing in the streets
Just before Heigan the Unclean, Mr. Tree tells us all that a friend’s account is getting hacked. So now we are down to 9 semi focus players while trying to assist Mr. Tree and his friend in recovering the account before all is lost.
Attempt 1.
Ready check on Heigan, everyone’s ready.
Tankadin rushes in…
Wait, Mr Tree’s ready, but not in the room yet!
One healer down, 2 healer’s down. Shaman goes heals, 3 healer’s down… Wipe.
Attempt 2.
Ready check. Everyone’s present and ready…
Let’s dance.
Let’s wipe.
Attempt 3.
Ready check…
Let’s dance…
I felt a little like I was in the movie Strictly Ballroom.
Ugly, uncoordinated Gnome takes on the glitter and the dancing shoes.
I really paid attention during my earlier two deaths. Although I know the tactic, I always seem to find myself caught a long way from the next spot. What I realize is that where I normally dance has some big bad gaps. So I move closer to the “stage” and…
Sapphiron
Getting late now, lost one raid member, pulled in another one… A Mage…
3 attempts before Sapphiron hit the ground, strangely the same number of times I was ice blocked.
Kel’Thuzad
Real late now, but so close to the end… Let’s give KT one shot.
Trash no problems, good in fact, took Mr. Offspec out early… Maybe that isn’t so good… Main Tankadin DCs, OT picks up KT, OT down, healers down, DPS down, umm wipe it up
Bloody Windows updates and their automatic restarts! Seriously Microsoft, the PC will get restarted, just shut up and leave the MT alone!
MT says one more go… Healadin gets too close to HealyPriest (Mr. Z!), Mr Z! Moves to avoid the inevitable, moves too close to one vain Gnome. Inevitable happens. Healer and DPS gone… Gone…
Night folks!
A Disenchanting Night
I was a busy Gnome. Mr. Tree kept handing me things to DE. 10 things in the end, one shard per person.
I even grabbed one or two things with the intention of doing some alternative gemming… Got to be better than sharding…
WTB Mage to soak up Tier tokens
If there is one thing we can guarantee about our Naxx runs, it’s that the tokens for the Mage Shoulders and the Mage chest will drop.
It’s getting somewhat tiresome… Of course by the time Zupa joins us, they will dry up…
Gnomish All Sorts
As I mentioned at the beginning, I was a bit out of sorts, my mind really wasn’t 100% on the game, and I made my apologies for this early on.
On top of that, my PC was behaving badly… You know when you start casting and nothing happens until you see your spell hit the mob. It was all guesswork, I really didn’t know what was happening for a while there.
A lot of mods weren’t function either. Power Auras and Recount amongst them. You would think it was power auras that would trouble me the most, but it was actually recount.
No counting on Recount
It wasn’t an epeen thing, it’s just that I monitor my performance on every fight, just so I know whether I am pushing it as much as I can.
Between the stuttering PC and lack of recount, I just wasn’t getting any feedback and I as troubled by this.
I wasn’t even in the mood to change specs for the different fights. Like I say, I was in a funny mood, and I figured that no matter what spec I entered the combat with, it would be 50/50, much of a muchness, whether I performed better or not.
Due to our 20 minute race, I didn’t want to reboot either, so I just lived with my issues until after spider wing. Mr Z! Was suffering similar problems with his UI, but he was forced to restart…
What’s a rogue without an energy bar?
At the end of the night, I had a quick look at WWS. Mind you, I only captured the action post-spider wing, but sure enough my DPS was low, around 2k average on the boss deaths.
That is when I noticed something else though.
It harks back to my When is your DPS too low post.
Yes my DPS was low, there were plenty higher than me… But, I was still in 3rd place for damage done, with only a single % point difference between each of us. (I have just looked at a full report, and my 1st 3 fights were atrocious.. lucky I rebooted)
- Low DPS, yes.
- Lived to do the damage… Damn right!
XP karma
Zupa is closing on 80. With a bit of luck, he will join us this week for some phat Naxx loot.
So send him some of your spare XP karma to get him over the line. I need at least one week with him undergeared so I can maintain my 3rd meter position!
Speaking of Zupa
Don’t say this too loud, but I have been AoE grinding worm meat. I have been doing it FFB specd, so I don’t have all the tools at my disposal.
But I have found if I am going to have any chance of getting the worm meat, I need to tag as many as possible before the other farmers pinch them.
So tag ‘em up, round ‘em up, and take ‘em down. Only taking 3-5 at a time, as I am finding they like to run off before too long, and they are pretty spread out. Still, I’m doing it… For better or worse.
3 more days to get your Blogday gifts to me… (but I will give you until Sunday 21st… 5 days in total!)
Gnomer and Out!
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http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/06/16/20-minutes-of-naxx/
Grats on the achievement, i bet you guys had a blast doing it
Yeah I did have fun… with the PC and UI as wonky as it was, the edge was taken off the 20 minute run… but still, after so many attempts, it was great to nail it.
As for the safety dance… I had resigned myself that this was one achievement I wasn’t going to get.
Wasted my 1st death by cursing at the screen… wasted 1/2 the 2nd death doing the same thing…
Then it occurred to me to watch where the others were, noticed that they were running closer to the stage and then nailed it…
Me dancing was the best bit…
the achievement was just cream on the cake (or is that icing…)
congrats on the achievements! our guild was testing the naxx waters this past weekend, and… we are NOT prepared. it was a wipefest. but a fun, educational wipefest.
always nice to know where you stand!
It really helps to have a few along that know the ropes… if you do, then it can mean all the difference
Grats!
Our little group is getting ready to pug a few guildies for our first Naxx run soon. Here’s hoping they’re kind to the five of us that don’t have any idea what’s going on. ^_^;;
With the right crew you should be fine… You will be pumped when it all comes together.
I think often it’s the trash that bring the dramas… they can just pop up out of “no where”.
Then the ego is bruised and the bosses look a whole lot harder.
Awesome on the achievements! For the first time in a long time, I actually check how I was doing on recount while in Naxx25. Since taking on raid lead, I haven’t done much watching for myself on recount at all. However, I recently got the hook up with some nice gear (2 Ulduar pieces as well as Naxx25 upgrades) and am interested in seeing how I stack up on things next week.
And PS. . .taking ridiculous amount of screenshots is not vain b/c you are doing it for your most interested fans
As for running down your teammates? ummm. . .you might be on your own there lol
Thanks…
Ahh it’s all becoming 2nd nature now hunh?
Great write up on having fast yet smooth raids BTW!
yeah… the screenshots aren’t for me are they
I don’t really run down my team mates… more like train mobs onto them…