A Naxxty Evening

The old-school enthusiasts on Gilneas have been concentrating
on Naxxramas lately. I've never been that big on Naxx; it somehow
seemed to lack that endgame gravitas the Blackrock raids have.
Nevertheless, I am curious as to what the bosses are like, and
want to see them before they get buffed or entirely changed
in WotLK.

Cardrianala is my only realistic prospect for getting in; her
Argent Dawn rep is Revered, none of my other alts is much of the
way into Friendly. Arcane and Nexus crystals are dirt cheap in
the AH these days; in no time I am attuned. That Friday, 4/18,
I get invited and wait patiently for the raid to fill. At 8pm,
with around 20 people, we start.

Noth is not bad; many of us die, but we don't wipe. Heigan bugs
out on us, aggroing as soon as we start the gauntlet leading to him.
This apparently has happened the previous two weeks as well.
The raid leaders open a ticket and have us move to DK wing.

Our first attmept at Razuvious, we try it by the book. I
take first MC-tank...and have a hard time finding Raz when he
dives into the raid. When I do find him I can't hold aggro for
long, and he goes around killing people. Eventually my MC
breaks and the next guy finds it just as hard. We wipe, an
uncoordinated mess.

It looks like it may take a few tries before people get
comfortable enough to execute the fight properly. But as
we run back one of the tanks reports Raz wasn't hitting any
harder than your typical Arcatraz boss. We then try it as a
tank-and-spank, offtanking and killing adds one by one, then
Raz last. This works, and we move on.

Gothik is an interesting fight. The raid is split between
live and dead sides; waves of mobs attack the live side, and
for every one killed, two appear on the dead side. We now have
around 30 people; the raid leader orders groups 1-3 live, 4-6
dead. Of course some people get caught on the wrong side, we
end up with more on live side, and dead side can't keep up.
Second attempt the raid leader puts four groups on dead and
two on live, with group lineups slightly rearranged. This
works, Gothik falls. On to 4H.

By this time our ticket on Heigan is answered, and we head
back to the gauntlet while the GM keeps him under control.
But the GM can't figure out how to release him, and he keeps
bugging out. After half an hour or so of playing around trying
to get the fight to work, we give up and head back for DK.

We continue to advertise for members in LFG channel. The ad
macro used by the leaders mentions they had killed all wing
bosses except 4H the past two weeks. Now we go straight for
4H, hoping to make progress.

We do. First attempt is average, we down one horseman and
lose too many people who don't know what is happening.
Second attempt is closer, we down three horsemen but are
down to only 4 people on the last one, who is down to 25%.
Surely we will have it next time. But no - those four people,
two tanks and two healers, go the distance! 4H down, much
cheering - twice, as Corrupted Ashbringer drops. The guy
who wins it only dies of it once that night...

On to Abomination wing. Patchwerk is straight tank-and-
spank. Then some slimes crossing the path, Frogger-style,
and some people just can resist the temptation to run into
them and see how much damage they do. After they get rezzed,
Grobbulous isn't too hard, we learn to move away from the
poison clouds. On to Gluth, said to be rediculously easy,
yet we wipe there.

At that point it is getting too late for me; I log off
for much-needed sleep. I find the fights really aren't
that exciting if you haven't spent days struggling with
them. But it is nice to do some easy boss fights even
a PuG raid can deal with.

Dondle, 65 Undead Shadow Priest, Doomhammer
Firiona, 29 Blood Elf Paladin, Doomhammer

Cardrianala of <Omani>, 70 Night Elf Holy/Disc Priest, Gilneas
Dorandy of <Omani>, 70 Gnome Affliction Warlock, Gilneas
Keichan, 69 Night Elf Arms/Prot Warrior, Gilneas
Samery, 70 Human Frost Mage, Gilneas
Ayakochan, 68 Night Elf BM Hunter, Gilneas

EJH wrote:

> By this time our ticket on Heigan is answered, and we head
> back to the gauntlet while the GM keeps him under control.

The believability stops here. I have NEVER seen Bliz answer any ticket
in under 8 hours.