Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Hoooray! Illidan is dead!

Okay okay, I guess all of these posts about winning and stuff were initiated due to the fact that my guild HAT finally took Illidan down on Monday March 10th. (Um yeah, 2 days ago). I didn't have time to post anything until today. I have a few afterthoughts about our epic experience that I would like to record right here for my buddies to ponder over.. ... First of all, it took us several weeks to work up to the point of even getting to Illidan. Once we were able to get to him on a weekly basis, the actual fight itself required many hours of practice ---> particularly with kiting of the Flames of Azzinoth. Two tanks get to do this fun job that has been called "The hardest tanking job in the game" by some. I was one of them. I was decked out in full fire resist gear which included: The full set of heroic badge gear (chest, gloves, leggings, and boots), I still had my Lava belt that my friend Whitefire made for me from the days of Molten Core, I also had my Onyxia neck piece, and the Blood of onyxia trinket. I had a few slots left to work with to get in as much armor, dodge, defense and burst damage as I could get to help with survivability and holding agro. I selected my T6 helm, plus the T6 Shoulders for the 2 piece bonus, and I have my new Pillar staff from Mount Hyjal for the most damage I can do. This set of gear seems to work out okay except it is still very fragile regarding Agro, and our DPSers had to be very careful about watching their own threat. I learned how to do the kiting from the very helpful informational YouTube video that you can find links to from Bosskillers or other WOW resource sites. Um yeah I guess this blah blah isn't really important unless you too are a feral druid who is either about to tank Illidan in fire resist gear, or has been kiting him and likes to compare methods with other people... But.. I just wanted to note something about the kiting pattern around the concentric circles on the ground that the raid is standing within. There are lines that basically mark the range limit for each elemental, but they are not exact. The exact markings are the small double lines that are at regular intervals on the inner ring. The north west line that marks my north limit is just outside of the limit range for my Elemental, and whenever I stretch this limit, the other elemental will immediately charge me just before or during the time that I turn it around, and it is flaming at me.
....so there I was... just an innocent little bear... (with sharp 4 inch claws and razor sharp teeth, and a vicious bite to go with it).... Minding my own business.. just toying with the cute fuzzy little flaming elemental (who was flaming me for ticks of 3-4k fire damage of which I could resist 2.5k or so each).... Just pawing at it playfully.. luring it in my direction.. playing with it like a cat toys with it's prey before it pounces and breaks the poor mousie's neck.... and suddenly a giant blue laser beam ray shoots down from the sky where Illidan is ominously hovering over us... It sears the ground behind me in a path heading straight toward the innocent little bear... so I dodge outward.. jumping gleefully into the safe zone... and ( *ZAP* -19000 ).. my poor innocent bear tail gets seared right off.... I LIVE.. ..but my little toy elemental gazes at me with it's evil eye that says "I don't think so" .. and .. I .. die...
I am proud to report though.. that of the seven attempts that it took for us to take down Illidan that night, only on that attempt and one other attempt where I discovered the north line border, did we not make it through the Flame of Azzinoth kiting phase. So 5 out of 7 near perfect kiting phases courtesy of myself and our other brave and valiant fire-resist tank: Morphinicus. Not too shabby.. eh? So after a few tries to get through the final phase of the fight.. one of which the parasites went out of control at the last 3 percent left of Illidan's waning life bar.. on our seventh try for the night we finally saw him drop.... and then there was rejoicing.... So.. now what? I guess we do it all over again! But next time.. even better! (like I said in a previous post.. there is no end of the game truely)... It's all about taking on a challenge and through excellent teamwork and execution of a carefully devised plan... achieving our goals.

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