It was one of those nights when progress and eventually a boss kill seem distant, just like a fantasy. We were doing Archimond, the end boss in Mount Hyjal. Over and over and over again. I think we had 20 tries before we called it night. And we weren’t even close to get him.
Some of the other guys in my guild were pretty pissed off. They had spent not one night like this, but several. So I really can’t blame them. It seemed like it was the same people who kept dying first. (And in this fight, anyone dying is a huge problem, since it hurts the whole raid and tends to create a chain reaction with more people dying. So staying alive is really your first duty, doing dps is secondary.)
But for my own part I was happily smiling. I just kept focusing on what was good about the raid.
- It was my first time at this boss. I had to pinch myself understand that I was really doing this, that I had managed to replace Attuman by Archimond by one year of hard work and maybe a bit of luck. It was amazing to see him and really a fun fight.
- There were no trash mobs to deal with! We could just concentrate on doing the boss, over and over again, learning how to master it.
- The repair bills weren’t killing me. If they call a wipe and you die in the right place, the fire, your gear won’t take any damage. Thank you Blizzard!
- I did some great personal progress. Well not exactly during the fight, but in the river jumping! You see on the way from where you enter the instance to where the boss is, you ride across a little river. The water in the river silences you for 30 seconds, which is quite annoying if you want to buff up the party quick. In the beginning I kept getting in touch with this water and I thought it was impossible to avoid. Until someone told me to jump over the river in a straight angle instead of coming from the side. And from that point I managed to jump it without getting my feet wet, almost every time, if I was careful in timing the jump-off. That’s some progress, yay!
When we called it night, I was still strangely happy, even though this raid hadn’t given me or anyone else any more than a bill for repairs and consumables.
And I was even happier when it turned out that I’d passed my trial and was accepted as a guild member. It really couldn’t be much better.
Or… it could of course. We could nail Archimond. But we will. Next time. There's always this glorious, shiny "next time". That's what keeps us going.
8 comments:
I suppose that you had more at stake with this run than the regulars. You really needed to be on your game, and it seemed that you accomplished that goal as such. Congrats!
Sounds like your "Raid mana" was running high for the night... must be all those Arcane Talents.
Glad you had a good night and passed your initiation... by fire and water what's more!
I was telling someone this the other day, wiping can be fun.
It helps if you are progressing on a progression boss with your guilds A team of course.
Wiping can also not be fun. Murmur with a pug group where people can't seem to grasp the concept of what they need to do to not wipe the group.... not fun.
Seeing new cool stuff and goes oooeerr lookit that guy hes massive - fun.
fun fun fun!
I remember the first boss in BWL was like that for my guild... no trash so just wipe after wipe after wipe as we sought to master the encounter and get new people to understand the tactic and not to die.
Only problem was this was back when TBC was announced and raiding guilds were beginning to break up, including ours. So we always had new people to train/gear... got so that I came to BWL raid expecting to wipe 10 times and calling it a night without even caring about the repair bill ;p
Thanks for making me smile on this one. Lately the Archy wipes have been getting annoying, because, as you say, it's all the same people. I wish we could just put the time in and get him down. As you said, it's not even that bad a situation because of the repairs and no mobs. It's just such a long corpse run! But thanks again, really enjoyed reading your post.
Archimonde is really a good Mage fight, so you should have lots of fun doing it.
Blink will be your best friend. Blink away from fire. Blink through fires. Blink out of Air Burst. Blink to people who need Decursing.
Glad to see you enjoying yourself, even when wiping.
Good luck and have fun!
@krizzlybear and gnomeaggedon: thanks!
@zupa, yes it really depends on the circumstances. Still I think I resist wipe depression better than many other players I've met. Don't know why really. Is it something in the arcane spec? A special mental wall I put up? Don't know.
@solidstate: We're two guilds raiding together and I think we've had a bit of rotation because of that as well. It really must get to the nerves for those guys who've done it many times. Still you can't expect newcomers to be better than you were when you were there the first time yourself...
@avonar: yes the corpse run is grotesque. Doing it so many times I think I may even learn to find my way there. Usually I always get lost in caves.
@Spicytune: thanks for the hints! Didn't think about blinking out of air bursts though I think I saw it in some tactics guide. I'll see if I'll dare to give it a try. You can't really afford to fail...
I think we're well over 100 wipes on Archimonde. There's something about our guild and fires. We like playing in them too much.
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