04-11-2005, 07:35 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-11-2005, 08:25 AM by MongoJerry.)
The Fifth Attempt
By the time we got around to starting the fifth attempt, it was already very late. We lost several people due to the time (damn east coasters and all their "work in the morning" excuses), and we were down to 34 people. Some people asked if we were going to try to recruit replacements, but we decided it wasn't worth it to make everyone wait while we found people, got them down here, and explained to them how the encounter worked. We knew we weren't going to kill Onyxia this evening, so we figured we would make one last attempt to figure out Deep Breath. We could do that with the 34 people we had.
![[Image: Onyxia_o14whelps1.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_o14whelps1.jpg)
We got to Phase II, and I and others tried to help out the groups killing whelps as much as we could. We were definitely getting better about focusing more aoe power on the whelps as they came out.
![[Image: Onyxia_o14whelps2.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_o14whelps2.jpg)
Still, I could feel how shorthanded the raid was when a couple people died to the first wave of whelps. After this screenshot, I faded, of course, and continued to help the shaman and mages you see here finish off the whelps. But I was damaged by the whelps and died when one of Onyxia's fireballs hit me for 2176 damage.
![[Image: Onyxia_o14drinking.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_o14drinking.jpg)
A druid combat resurrected me (that is such a nice skill in a raid situation), and I drank as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, I got hit again and placed in combat before I got a chance to resurrect anyone else. We were struggling, but we were managing. And then...
![[Image: Onyxia_o14deepbreath.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_o14deepbreath.jpg)
One of the ideas we had was that perhaps we could avoid getting hit by Deep Breath if we could quickly figure out where it was headed. So, we had one person ping the minimap periodically to show exactly where Onyxia was. (She slowly flies around the chamber during the fight). The theory was that she breathes toward the opposite end of the room, so we figured when the emote came, we could try to run to a side of the room out of the direction we thought the breath might go. It didn't work. Or at least, it didn't work well enough.
![[Image: Onyxia_o14aftermath.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_o14aftermath.jpg)
The Deep Breath cut a swath through an already shorthanded raid. The remnants tried valiantly to keep things going. (I'm confused by one of the screenshots I have. I think I may have been rezed again and then instantly killed by another fireball). Another wave of whelps came, and it was too much for the remnants of the raid to handle. The raid slowly but surely fell.
This was obviously the last run of the night, but we were feeling OK. Even with a shorthanded raid, we managed to get Onyxia down to 47% health. We still hadn't figured out this Deep Breath thing, though. It was getting obvious that the only way to deal with Deep Breath was to make sure Onyxia never used it in the first place. Looking back at my screenshots from the perspective of another eight attempts under my belt, I can see some of the mistakes we were making. We were bunching up way too much, and we should have told our shamans to not use any totems at all during Phase II. Instead of having someone ping the map to show us where Onyxia was, we should have had someone direct people where to go to make sure they didn't cluster too much. Oh, well. That's the kind of thing that a few wipes teaches you.
By the time that our fifth attempt was completed, it was getting late, even by pacific coast standards, so that was our last run. As we broke up, it was decided that we would meet again at seven o'clock the next day to see if we could kill this *expletive deleted* dragon.
![[Image: Onyxia_o1friday.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/Onyxia_o1friday.jpg)
Friday, April 1st
At this point, I should mention that I had received a major take-home graduate physics exam that week, which was due on the following Thursday. I made a schedule of what problems I would work on each day and even scheduled breaks and rewards for finishing them. One of the things I scheduled was that if I finished problem #1 (an admittedly easy problem that would only take a day to finish) on Friday, I could then spend Friday evening taking a break guilt-free. An evening of Onyxia runs fit the bill nicely.
On Friday, after successfully finishing the problem, I logged on to WoW at a quarter to seven and found the server strangely devoid of Offenders. None of the main raid leaders were on and when I did a "/who offenders," everybody was in instances runs of some kind. After putzing about Orgrimmar for a bit, I finally messaged one of them asking about the Onyxia raid:
Neriad: Hi! What's up with the Onyxia raid?
Name_Withheld: It's at 7, I think.
Neriad: It's 7 now.
Name_Withheld: Oh, dunno. Nobody's on.
I rolled my eyes and continued to putter around. It was hard to figure out what to do. I couldn't join an instance run, if there was a chance that the raid would be starting up sometime soon (if a bit late). And anyway, after an exhausting day of solving physics problems, I didn't feel like it. I was either going to do an Onyxia run or log off for the night. I did some auction house stuff and learned fishing for the heck of it. At around 7:30 with no sign of any fresh activity on the raid front, I messaged another Offender.
Neriad: Heya! What's up with the Onyxia raid?
Name_Withheld2: Dunno, nobody's on.
Neriad: Yeah, I noticed.
Name_Withheld2: I think they wanted more people to get their keys.
Neriad: Ah, that makes sense. Too bad. Well, I'm going to log off and do some homework, then. Could you send me a message saying when the next run's going to be when you find out?
Name_Withheld2: Sure thing.
Neriad: Thanks
I was disappointed. I was looking forward to the Onyxia raid very much, but hey, things happen. And I could understand if they wanted to get more of their guildmates to get their keys. At least 15 people in the raid on Thursday weren't Offenders or part of their regular raiding group. They might have been thinking that they'd have a better chance if more of the regular crew was involved.
I later found out that this wasn't what had happened, though. It turned out that the Onyxia run did happen -- only a couple hours later than the scheduled time, when people actually started logging onto the server. When I found out about this, I was annoyed. If you say the raid is at 7pm, then show up at 7pm. Or if people can't show up until 9pm, then schedule the raid for 9pm. Don't say 7pm and then show up at 9pm! And understand, this wasn't just a few people. This was the raid and guild leadership who did this. I was pretty damn pissed. (And yes, for a moment I did consider the possibility of an April Fool's Day joke. No, that's not what happened).
Oh, well. It was a busted evening, but Real Life happens. I logged off and started working on problem three of my physics exam (I skip around on tests). I figured I would log in the next day to find out if there was another Onyxia raid scheduled for the weekend, but it turned out that I got into "the zone." Seriously, all I did for the next four days was eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and do physics problems. I may have taken a shower. I'm not sure. As far as World of Warcraft was concerned, I was incommunicado. In that time, Grim Vengeance/Basin and The Offenders may have held some Onyxia runs, but I wasn't a part of them. The Great Onyxia Race continued without me, and I would have to wait until my own Real Life issues were resolved before I could pick up the baton again.
UP NEXT: Entering Phase III
By the time we got around to starting the fifth attempt, it was already very late. We lost several people due to the time (damn east coasters and all their "work in the morning" excuses), and we were down to 34 people. Some people asked if we were going to try to recruit replacements, but we decided it wasn't worth it to make everyone wait while we found people, got them down here, and explained to them how the encounter worked. We knew we weren't going to kill Onyxia this evening, so we figured we would make one last attempt to figure out Deep Breath. We could do that with the 34 people we had.
We got to Phase II, and I and others tried to help out the groups killing whelps as much as we could. We were definitely getting better about focusing more aoe power on the whelps as they came out.
Still, I could feel how shorthanded the raid was when a couple people died to the first wave of whelps. After this screenshot, I faded, of course, and continued to help the shaman and mages you see here finish off the whelps. But I was damaged by the whelps and died when one of Onyxia's fireballs hit me for 2176 damage.
A druid combat resurrected me (that is such a nice skill in a raid situation), and I drank as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, I got hit again and placed in combat before I got a chance to resurrect anyone else. We were struggling, but we were managing. And then...
One of the ideas we had was that perhaps we could avoid getting hit by Deep Breath if we could quickly figure out where it was headed. So, we had one person ping the minimap periodically to show exactly where Onyxia was. (She slowly flies around the chamber during the fight). The theory was that she breathes toward the opposite end of the room, so we figured when the emote came, we could try to run to a side of the room out of the direction we thought the breath might go. It didn't work. Or at least, it didn't work well enough.
The Deep Breath cut a swath through an already shorthanded raid. The remnants tried valiantly to keep things going. (I'm confused by one of the screenshots I have. I think I may have been rezed again and then instantly killed by another fireball). Another wave of whelps came, and it was too much for the remnants of the raid to handle. The raid slowly but surely fell.
This was obviously the last run of the night, but we were feeling OK. Even with a shorthanded raid, we managed to get Onyxia down to 47% health. We still hadn't figured out this Deep Breath thing, though. It was getting obvious that the only way to deal with Deep Breath was to make sure Onyxia never used it in the first place. Looking back at my screenshots from the perspective of another eight attempts under my belt, I can see some of the mistakes we were making. We were bunching up way too much, and we should have told our shamans to not use any totems at all during Phase II. Instead of having someone ping the map to show us where Onyxia was, we should have had someone direct people where to go to make sure they didn't cluster too much. Oh, well. That's the kind of thing that a few wipes teaches you.
By the time that our fifth attempt was completed, it was getting late, even by pacific coast standards, so that was our last run. As we broke up, it was decided that we would meet again at seven o'clock the next day to see if we could kill this *expletive deleted* dragon.
Friday, April 1st
At this point, I should mention that I had received a major take-home graduate physics exam that week, which was due on the following Thursday. I made a schedule of what problems I would work on each day and even scheduled breaks and rewards for finishing them. One of the things I scheduled was that if I finished problem #1 (an admittedly easy problem that would only take a day to finish) on Friday, I could then spend Friday evening taking a break guilt-free. An evening of Onyxia runs fit the bill nicely.
On Friday, after successfully finishing the problem, I logged on to WoW at a quarter to seven and found the server strangely devoid of Offenders. None of the main raid leaders were on and when I did a "/who offenders," everybody was in instances runs of some kind. After putzing about Orgrimmar for a bit, I finally messaged one of them asking about the Onyxia raid:
Neriad: Hi! What's up with the Onyxia raid?
Name_Withheld: It's at 7, I think.
Neriad: It's 7 now.
Name_Withheld: Oh, dunno. Nobody's on.
I rolled my eyes and continued to putter around. It was hard to figure out what to do. I couldn't join an instance run, if there was a chance that the raid would be starting up sometime soon (if a bit late). And anyway, after an exhausting day of solving physics problems, I didn't feel like it. I was either going to do an Onyxia run or log off for the night. I did some auction house stuff and learned fishing for the heck of it. At around 7:30 with no sign of any fresh activity on the raid front, I messaged another Offender.
Neriad: Heya! What's up with the Onyxia raid?
Name_Withheld2: Dunno, nobody's on.
Neriad: Yeah, I noticed.
Name_Withheld2: I think they wanted more people to get their keys.
Neriad: Ah, that makes sense. Too bad. Well, I'm going to log off and do some homework, then. Could you send me a message saying when the next run's going to be when you find out?
Name_Withheld2: Sure thing.
Neriad: Thanks
I was disappointed. I was looking forward to the Onyxia raid very much, but hey, things happen. And I could understand if they wanted to get more of their guildmates to get their keys. At least 15 people in the raid on Thursday weren't Offenders or part of their regular raiding group. They might have been thinking that they'd have a better chance if more of the regular crew was involved.
I later found out that this wasn't what had happened, though. It turned out that the Onyxia run did happen -- only a couple hours later than the scheduled time, when people actually started logging onto the server. When I found out about this, I was annoyed. If you say the raid is at 7pm, then show up at 7pm. Or if people can't show up until 9pm, then schedule the raid for 9pm. Don't say 7pm and then show up at 9pm! And understand, this wasn't just a few people. This was the raid and guild leadership who did this. I was pretty damn pissed. (And yes, for a moment I did consider the possibility of an April Fool's Day joke. No, that's not what happened).
Oh, well. It was a busted evening, but Real Life happens. I logged off and started working on problem three of my physics exam (I skip around on tests). I figured I would log in the next day to find out if there was another Onyxia raid scheduled for the weekend, but it turned out that I got into "the zone." Seriously, all I did for the next four days was eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and do physics problems. I may have taken a shower. I'm not sure. As far as World of Warcraft was concerned, I was incommunicado. In that time, Grim Vengeance/Basin and The Offenders may have held some Onyxia runs, but I wasn't a part of them. The Great Onyxia Race continued without me, and I would have to wait until my own Real Life issues were resolved before I could pick up the baton again.
UP NEXT: Entering Phase III