It’s been long since the last time, but finally I got the opportunity to enjoy a raiding night with 20 wipes and not a single boss kill. And I enjoyed every single second of it.
It hasn’t happened since we were fighting Archimond last summer and I feel that I’ve missed it. Surely, conquering Naxx has been lovely in every way – especially for me, since I never saw the original Naxx instance. I can imagine it wasn’t quite as exhilarating for people who already have “been there, done that”. Going to a party in a dress you’ve had for three years never can give the same feeling as wearing a brand new one.
But even if Naxx, with all it’s variation of bosses and not too much of trash mobs to cut your way through, has been fun, something has clearly been missing. We’ve got it to farm status too quickly and we haven’t banged our heads into a wall many times enough to get the real super-cheer on TS when the bosses go down. Sometimes it’s more like a “meh”, “was that all”.
It probably sounds a bit weird to many of you, but I really like encounters that require you to suffer a bit. I also want fights to be varied, neither too short or too long (about 10 minutes is just fine) and not make me to corpse run over half of the continent or wade through a ton of boring trash mobs for every reset (thinking Kel Thuzad or the famous MH waves, sigh).
Malygos
Malygos has got absolutely everything I could wish of a boss fight. The other night I saw him for the first time. This was the first time the guild devoted a whole 25 man raiding night to him, and we had some 20 tries, with the best one at 7 percent, before calling it night.
The first time we made it into phase 3 was the most exciting moment for me. Of course I had watched videos, but they could in no way describe the feeling I got when the floor suddenly disappeared below my feet, I fell in space, just to be picked up by a dragon. I swear - it was like running a rollercoaster in an amusement park. You got the same sensation in the stomach. Not to mention all the psychedelic patterns towards the end which the developers have thrown in, apparently with the intention to make people like me completely disoriented and seasick.
This fight was so fun and so varied from the beginning to the end, that I would have been pretty disappointed if we had killed the dragon him at first sight. I want to make this ride not one, but several times! What if we had gotten him early? That would have left us with three hours of raiding time but nothing more to raid (all other 25 man instances cleared earlier in the week). Of course I wouldn’t have regretted if he had died in our last beautiful 7 percent fight. It would have felt well deserved and put a perfect end to a night, where we learned, tweaked a bit and improved with every try. Still, when we called it, I had a big smile on my face.
The reward
It hasn’t happened since we were fighting Archimond last summer and I feel that I’ve missed it. Surely, conquering Naxx has been lovely in every way – especially for me, since I never saw the original Naxx instance. I can imagine it wasn’t quite as exhilarating for people who already have “been there, done that”. Going to a party in a dress you’ve had for three years never can give the same feeling as wearing a brand new one.
But even if Naxx, with all it’s variation of bosses and not too much of trash mobs to cut your way through, has been fun, something has clearly been missing. We’ve got it to farm status too quickly and we haven’t banged our heads into a wall many times enough to get the real super-cheer on TS when the bosses go down. Sometimes it’s more like a “meh”, “was that all”.
It probably sounds a bit weird to many of you, but I really like encounters that require you to suffer a bit. I also want fights to be varied, neither too short or too long (about 10 minutes is just fine) and not make me to corpse run over half of the continent or wade through a ton of boring trash mobs for every reset (thinking Kel Thuzad or the famous MH waves, sigh).
Malygos
Malygos has got absolutely everything I could wish of a boss fight. The other night I saw him for the first time. This was the first time the guild devoted a whole 25 man raiding night to him, and we had some 20 tries, with the best one at 7 percent, before calling it night.
The first time we made it into phase 3 was the most exciting moment for me. Of course I had watched videos, but they could in no way describe the feeling I got when the floor suddenly disappeared below my feet, I fell in space, just to be picked up by a dragon. I swear - it was like running a rollercoaster in an amusement park. You got the same sensation in the stomach. Not to mention all the psychedelic patterns towards the end which the developers have thrown in, apparently with the intention to make people like me completely disoriented and seasick.
This fight was so fun and so varied from the beginning to the end, that I would have been pretty disappointed if we had killed the dragon him at first sight. I want to make this ride not one, but several times! What if we had gotten him early? That would have left us with three hours of raiding time but nothing more to raid (all other 25 man instances cleared earlier in the week). Of course I wouldn’t have regretted if he had died in our last beautiful 7 percent fight. It would have felt well deserved and put a perfect end to a night, where we learned, tweaked a bit and improved with every try. Still, when we called it, I had a big smile on my face.
The reward
Did I earn anything? Well, apart from increasing my DKP a little – nothing. I didn’t get any loot, just a high repair bill. Does it bother me? Not the slightest. I don’t evaluate the time I spend online in terms of efficiency. I don’t play WoW to gain gold. I play it to have fun. And sometimes the fun consists of wiping.
Now I’ll just practice my flying skills a bit more, doing Aces high. I haven’t yet quite got used to the idea of positioning myself in three dimensions and I think I’m not alone in this. But it probably won’t be long before we nail him. And what’s left then? I guess we’ll put up more dragons on Sartharion, waiting for Ulduar to come out. We are raiders. And raiders need a wipe night every now and then. That’s a part of our nature.
Now I’ll just practice my flying skills a bit more, doing Aces high. I haven’t yet quite got used to the idea of positioning myself in three dimensions and I think I’m not alone in this. But it probably won’t be long before we nail him. And what’s left then? I guess we’ll put up more dragons on Sartharion, waiting for Ulduar to come out. We are raiders. And raiders need a wipe night every now and then. That’s a part of our nature.
