10-23-2005, 05:57 AM
Concillian,Oct 22 2005, 05:21 PM Wrote:We used the remainder of the ale to pull the rest of the top floor of the bar and all that was left was Phalanx and his buddies. Quite a difficult group with one destroyer, Phalanx, and three High level anvilrage officers. I'm not sure what the proper tactic would be on this group. We mind-controlled one of the officers, and I'm not sure if he broke early or if he was totally slaughtered by the other 4 elites in no-time flat, but chaos erupted. I believe we killed everyone but Phalanx, maybe an officer was left, I'm not sure, but we wiped and called it a night at this point.
Mind control broke after just 10 seconds or so. It rarely seems to break early, and there were enough mobs in this pull that it should have been safe as the MC'd mob should have died quickly but it wasn't to be.
I can add a brief recap of the other group:
Since we were only four, and none of us had ever set foot in the instance (man that place is huge) we also spent some time wandering around killing things we didn't need to (we should all know to just listen to Octord).
We had no offtanks, but reasonable DPS and excellent CC. Lots of 5 pulls. MC one, sheep + seduce + banish sometimes. We were operating without much margin for error, and Octord and Yuri were both periodically suffering from lag spikes and outright connection drops.
We didn't complete Gor'shak, but we should have been able to. I needed to adjust to the speed at which even a well-equipped warrior can get worked in there. I reached for the Flash Heal instead of the shield. Even still we had nearly done it -- I didn't realize how close we were.
At any rate we killed Fineous Darkvire despite getting him with a group of regular mobs, in one of many close calls. We mistakenly thought we had to take the hammer back to the ghost outside, so we hearthed out, repaired, and came back. Octord and Durambar even killed themselves unnecessarily and we discovered that we didn't need to do that at all.
Oh well, no repops yet. We made our way to the Shrine when Octord dropped off completely. After a while we decided he wasn't coming back. We were so close to getting the key, but two pulls faced us. The first was 3 elites (with two of those nasty nasty arcane missilers) and 3 nonelites. I used up the soulstone in an educational experience that taught me I couldn't get in MC range of an elite without aggroing a non-elite in this pull.
Our second try I mind soothed the near non-elite, MC'd the other, and we managed to pull it off. The next pull looked impossible for three of us to handle. With nothing to lose, I shielded everyone, and we charged up to the altar. Once there, I psychic screamed and Yuri and I were able to complete the quest. Unfortunately there were too many mobs to fear them all, and Durambar was unable to complete his with his first shield due primarily to ranged damage.
Yuri, once he completed his quest, went on a rampage trying to get aggro from every mob so Durambar could complete. Another shield, an intimidating shout, and Durambar squeaked it home. I don't think I quite made it to a second psychic scream, but we got our keys.
Since this was our main goal for the night we were feeling pretty good despite our lapses.
As far as analysis: we didn't use some of our tools as well as we should have. The three pulls of fire elementals in the later part of the instance are very very nasty. We did them by splitting them apart so the AoE of all three didn't hit the tank. Even so, I used a mana pot and trinkets on each of those pulls, and even with two healers we both were empty. A warlock is an unbelievable advantage in BRD for the banish.
What we should have done was have Gorkuk freeze trap. Even 15 seconds (since Gorkuk doesn't have improved trap talents anymore) is a awful lot of HP saved, and a FD/reapplication (if successful) would have really helped us out.
Another thing is a bit more experience with MC pulls. Mind control generates more aggro than any skill I have seen in the game, and an early break means real trouble for the priest. We need to make sure that everyone has the MC target targeted and is ready to rain max destruction on it should an early break occur (like vs. Phalanx). I think by that point fatigue was also setting in (why did I talk to Ribbly without thinking? I was fogging up at the time....).
We also might want to consider getting our hands on some fire protection potions.
At any rate, I had a blast despite confusion and many miscues. Much more action than a priest normally gets, as I was using mind control constantly, and in a four man also needed to contribute DPS and help stop runners. We learned a lot about the instance and some of us made considerable quest progress. Fun place and very instructive. I was feeling pretty cocky recently since I successfully 5 manned LBRS with a group that knew the instance really well, but played a lot sloppier than our lurker groups. Goes to show that knowledge is a very powerful thing.