Molten Core run on Monday

[Bolty]

How did Molten Core go last night?

I apologize for my connection problems. It led to me being just about useless last night and got me pretty upset.

Basically Comcast was dropping me for 5 second intervals every 10-15 minutes - just long enough to kick me off the Internet and boot me from WoW. Combined with the login/authentication problems the WoW servers were having, my frustration grew significantly through the night as it would take 10 minutes or so to get back on.

It finally came to a head when I dropped just before the Lucifron pull and missed that ***entire*** fight. I reset my cable modem, router, and computer, and signed back on. Everything was stable through two core hound pack pulls, the setup for Magmadar, and the start of that fight - when my connection burped AGAIN. Nothing moved for a full 10 seconds or so, I thought for sure it was another disconnect, and then it came back - only to see me on the floor. I heard through teamspeak that I had stood still in a fire spit. Great.

So, after being ressed, I got to watch Magmadar rip through three tanks before things got stabilized again. Seiki was caught by a frenzied Mag right as he was in Berserker stance, and things went a bit downhill until Skybreak got aggro hold and I continued a Fear Ward rotation on him.

Nothing frustrates me more than people dying on my watch. The last two Magmadar fights had gone pretty smoothly, in part because I was on Fear Ward duty with Anadrol and stance dancing wasn't necessary. So Seiki finally gets his moment to shine as main tank and I couldn't give him the same advantage. This infuriated me.

We port out to Ironforge, and I get dropped AGAIN. I practically slammed my fist on my keyboard. Realizing this just wasn't healthy, I signed back on, gave my raid slot up to anyone else who wanted in, and logged off in disgust.

In short, Seiki, you did great - sorry you picked an unlucky night to tank Mag. Hope the rest of the night went well for you guys.

-Bolty

[Kevin]

The raid was successful. We killed Gehennas, Garr, Geddon, and Shazzrah after you left, though nothing was smooth. Treesh got home pretty much right after you gave up and came in for the last four bosses. There was also a server issue when Treesh was trying to zone in. Mobs weren't dropping any loot at all, the warlocks got stuck in the drain soul animation, and we basically had the raid on hold for 10 to 15 minutes at least.

I agree that Seiki did a very good job on first go. We were just short on healers for some of the boss fights since the entire paladin core (all 3 of us) were out of combat on rez duty, leaving 4 to 5 priests and 2 or 3 druids as there were some other peopel that had disc problems and I know we invited some people that were in raid but not in MC for a few of the fights. This also meant that pally buffs just weren't there for many of the fights as well and I think lack of kings for many people, which is 300-600 HP, made a difference in some of it as well. People also seem to forget the extra healing that paladins bring to a raid as well, we were missing some of that.

Garr was incredibly easy with 6 warlocks though. We normally have 2 for him making him a tricky fight. 6 makes it just silly easy.

But on every boss fight the paladins were doing a lot of rez, rez, rez, drink, rez, rez. There were several warriors who ended up tanking on the boss from people going down. We wiped once on some trash when a surger punted some people by some giants, we had them under control but we hadn't really worried about position too much as it was a scramble to get them locked down, then a dog wanders in on us. When I realize it's wipe time I go looking for a healer to DI which would have been Starkos since he was the only other rezzer alive. I get aggro and bring the mobs over by Quark and a couple of hunters who had gotten out of combat so I kill them too. :( Then it turns out that Starkos (who I had somehow run past) was soulstoned anyway. Sigh for me. Trying to do a good thing and just adding to some repair bills instead.

I was glad to see the life of a paladin in MC as well. I've seen it in Onyxia before but that was my first go in Molten Core with him. I also made out like a bandit getting the set gloves and legs pretty much by default on Balador. It made me wish that we had some of the more standard paladin crew there, even if they replace +12 int +12 stam gloves and +14 int +14 stam pants for me.

[Tal]

It made me wish that we had some of the more standard paladin crew there, even if they replace +12 int +12 stam gloves and +14 int +14 stam pants for me.
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Its all good GG. The better geared the individuals are the stronger the whole becomes. :)

[Kevin]

Its all good GG. The better geared the individuals are the stronger the whole becomes. :)
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Yeah but what good does Balador having that nice gear do when Taranna or Gnolack is there? As the raid council knows I'm deeply disturbed by this even if it isn't rational. :)

Edit: And yeah I don't need a lot of posts explaining it and saying it's OK. I know it's OK. I'm just GG and not always rational or stable. :)

My arguments for points per toon were to prevent stuff just like this from happening. Though as mentioned better that I got them than they were DE'd. I'm just saying it would have been better for Garrin or Altrius or Rayen or Sharanna or whoever that is there more often got them defaulted to them.

But I'm done with this issue now. It was fun. I'll deal with having too many epics (Balador the new Anadrol of the alliance, he'll always be more negative than you! :) )

[Zippyy]

Despite the bumpy boss fights, the server hiccup, being unable to log back in for 30 minutes, and all that goofy hunter loot, I still had a good time.

I took a few screenshots.

1. Ouch


2. Anadrol vs Zippyy



3. Zippyy vs Everyone's Favorite Imp


4. Darian takes a nap on the ceiling B)


5. l33t h4x
Throughout the entire raid, Itto (disguised as the warlock Malarauko) was trying to get a 1337 shadowbolt crit. He hit all around it, 1336, 1334, 1338, 1340's, 1320's, but his admittedly m4d sk1llz were just not up to par. In the previous MC run I had gotten a 1337 crit witnessed by both my roommates. Then, while fighting Geddon, my l33t sk1llz again manifested themselves.

[Pesmerga]

Despite the bumpy boss fights, the server hiccup, being unable to log back in for 30 minutes, and all that goofy hunter loot, I still had a good time.

::stabs Zippyy:: I go cuddle with the wife for an hour, and come back to find out that Giantstalker Boots drop. :P

::ponder;: Wait... I enjoyed the cuddling a bit more than I did killing stuff. Go figure. :P

[kandrathe]

How did Molten Core go last night?

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I had 3 or maybe 4 disconnects and each time waded through the connection slough to get back in. Mostly once I was in everything was good, until the Shazzrah fight. My FPS slowed down to about 1 FPS. Fast enough for me to see sort of what was happening, but I felt torn between helping to kill or just feign death. I saw shaz was on me at one point, but by the time my Feign Death triggered I was real dead. After I was rezzed and I self buffed, I would shoot 3 or 4 shots and FD. Until the end, there were so many dead I didn't want him to wipe us to I figured for the last 10% to just fight until death.

Once I hit IF, everything was at least IF speed.

[Zippyy]

::stabs Zippyy:: I go cuddle with the wife for an hour, and come back to find out that Giantstalker Boots drop. :P
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Better you hear it from me than from someone with tact!

[Treesh]

Darian died more often than I cared for (which would have been anything over one death ;) ), but I survived being the bomb. Then I died twice in rapid succession. The first death was because fade was in cooldown so I was tanking Geddon for a bit. Then after I was resurrected, I was eating and drinking and the bomb ran straight for me (and a lot of other folks apparently). Didn't even have time to stand up and pop a shield on myself. I didn't have to see Killion naked. Oh, and to start off the night, when I was getting to MC I decided to not risk taking the short cut so I went down the chains. Somewhere along the chain, I fell into the lava. A quick shield/renew/holy nova did well enough to allow me to swim through the lava to where I could get out. :)

So, overall, it was fun, but I didn't play as well as I would have liked.

[Mirajj]

I think that last night will go down in the annals as one of those weird "We did it..I don't know how, but we did it" nights. Seems like everything was going 'off'. But with it being Halloween, that might have been the cosmic intent.

After thinking some about it, I'd be willing to wager that our entire main problem was the lag. It was just enough to pick at the effectiveness of the raid. Because, as best as I can remember, the last time we had a raid as "interesting" as we did last night, it was becuase we were dealing with all the lag issues associated with several different types of CTRA.

When asked, I said that "We seem to be having an off night, but we got it done." That's my take on it. It was an off, odd night...but we got 6 bosses down, and I still had fun. As well, most of the raid seemed to have fun. That's the most important thing, to me.

[Tuftears]

There was definitely something tweaked with the server! Over in Stratholme, we were seeing anywhere from 20-60 seconds of lag on such things as trying to zone into the instance, rez pets, etc. So it's more likely it was the server causing problems than anything on your side, Bolty.

We wound up cancelling the Stratholme run. Should have just gone to MC, then I could have had a shot at the Cenarion helm that dropped! :whistling:

[Kevin]

There was definitely something tweaked with the server!  Over in Stratholme, we were seeing anywhere from 20-60 seconds of lag on such things as trying to zone into the instance, rez pets, etc.  So it's more likely it was the server causing problems than anything on your side, Bolty.

We wound up cancelling the Stratholme run.  Should have just gone to MC, then I could have had a shot at the Cenarion helm that dropped!  :whistling:
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Bolty was losing Teamspeak as well. It was his net connection.

More healers is always good. Druids can fake being a DPS class if they don't need to heal as well. :)

[Legedi]

It was an interesting night to be broken into the MT role :P . It may not have been the smoothest run ever, but I had fun, learned a ton, and got four bosses while I was there. The only time I got frustrated is when the server crapped out for 30 minutes, forcing us to re-kill that surger, which then we some how aggroed the giants, and then some how got the dog :rolleyes: .

I'll make some adjustments on boss fights for the next time. I'm used to MT in ZG. And there a lot of the bosses are if I die we are screwed. So I try to save my specials until near the end of the fight when a few healers might be dead or OOM. MC is almost the opposite. Lucifron, Gehanis, and Gar are all harder at the start than the end. So I should have been more liberal with the specials to try to just survive as long as possible. As we saw from the first three bosses the MT doesn't have to live through the entire thing :wacko:.

I think everyone did as well as they could considering the conditions. See you all again on Thursday. :)

[TheDragoon]

As we saw from the first three bosses the MT doesn't have to live through the entire thing.

Actually, I think we saw that on every single boss we faced (with the exception of Garr who was a pansy with 6 warlocks along). Lucifron killed both you AND me before everyone got settled in for the long haul. Magmadar killed you, Anadrol, Darian and Cybitar before he finally settled in on me for the end. Gehennes took you out along with at least 2 other tanks (I forget who). Geddon took out a number of tanks (Anadrol twice, I think). Shazzrah also was ping-ponging along as he killed me, Anadrol, someone else and me again by going super-Shazzrah and cursing the main tanks before he finally died.

However, I think it's a tribute to how far we've come that there wasn't THAT much confusion and chaos despite how many tanks we saw die during each boss fight. Plus each of us got a chance to main tank at least 2 of the bosses that we fought (for at least a short period of time). :whistling:

[martini]

We killed Gehennas, Garr, Geddon, and Shazzrah [snip].[right][snapback]93758[/snapback][/right]

Awesome. :D Though, on a selfish note, I'm hoping to be back on Thursday, so it's too bad that you guys got Shazzrah, since I've never been in on a kill of him, and I still need to get him for my Hands quest. :P

[Tuftears]

Actually, I'd think you'd want to save the shield wall on Golemagg for when he goes nuts at 10% damage... Other than that, yeah, the initial moments are the hard part.

[Bolty]

After thinking some about it, I'd be willing to wager that our entire main problem was the lag. It was just enough to pick at the effectiveness of the raid. Because, as best as I can remember, the last time we had a raid as "interesting" as we did last night, it was becuase we were dealing with all the lag issues associated with several different types of CTRA.[right][snapback]93790[/snapback][/right]

Hmmm. We also had the fewest number of healers (by far) that I've seen on my three runs there. I know my viewpoint is healer-centric, but if people kept dying left and right, well...nobody notices healers until we're not there. HEAL ME NUB! WHER WUR TEH HEALZ??? :)

It was an off, odd night...but we got 6 bosses down, and I still had fun. As well, most of the raid seemed to have fun. That's the most important thing, to me.[right][snapback]93790[/snapback][/right]

Yeah, can't say I had fun, quite the opposite in fact, but that's not you or anyone else's fault. The only good thing that came out of last night for me was that I got the 18 freaking Hydraxian rep that I needed to get to honored. On the first kill. :)

Amusing anecdote: standing on a ledge, I noticed that we were pulling a Lava Surger. "Oh fun, a Lava Surger," I thought, and before I could even get to the word "Surger" in my mind, he charged me and knocked me into the lava. I didn't know they would knock people out who hadn't even entered combat. So as someone's coming over to res me after the fight, I lose connection, and by the time I get back I've auto-released. Gotta run back in as a ghost. Just another unhappy, irritating memory of a night of utter frustration.

Wouldn't be so bad if I were a mage or something, but when I feel responsible for keeping people vertical and I get knocked off the server, I know people are going to get killed and it really grates on me. I booted up KotoR2 and played my budding Sith Lord for a while to terrorize people indiscriminately and felt a bit better afterwards.

-Bolty

[kandrathe]

Amusing anecdote: standing on a ledge, I noticed that we were pulling a Lava Surger.
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I forgot about that time. :-) I lagged and ran right into the lava river and my pet Felix goes spastic trying to figure out how to get to me and aggro's the Molten Giants. Luckily (for the raid and OMG hunter reps) I died and my pet disappeared.

[Bolty]

So the problem is with my cable modem.

It's still happening Tuesday night, so I started running some diagnostics. Checking my cable modem logs, it's showing that I keep losing my synchronization.

The following log is in "reverse" order, e.g. the latest entry is on top. The first set of numbers is a date/timestamp.

051101193059 7-Information INITIALIZATION COMPLETE - MODEM IS OPERATIONAL
051101193059 7-Information B401.0 Authorized
051101193059 7-Information 7 I500.0 Registration Completed
051101193059 7-Information SEC: Co-Signer CVC from configuration file was verified
051101193058 7-Information REGISTRATION COMPLETE - Waiting for Operational status
051101193058 7-Information 7 D509.0 Retrieved TFTP Config SUCCESS
051101193058 7-Information Registration file - downloaded
051101193057 7-Information Trying to download Configuration file ...
051101193057 7-Information 7 D507.0 Retrieved Time....... SUCCESS
051101193057 7-Information Time of day - retrieved
051101193057 7-Information 7 D511.0 Retrieved DHCP .......... SUCCESS
051101193057 7-Information DHCP - parameters acquired
051101193057 5-Warning D03.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response
051101193057 5-Warning DHCP: Missing Syslog server
051101193045 7-Information 7 T500.0 Acquired Upstream .......... SUCCESS
051101193045 7-Information Trying to register through CMTS...
051101193045 7-Information SYNCHRONIZED - 729000000 Hz , ucd 11
051101193043 7-Information Starting Ranging On Channel 11
051101193039 7-Information Downstream Locked - Collecting Upstream Information
051101193039 7-Information 7 T501.0 Acquired Downstream (729000000 Hz)........ SUCCESS
051101193037 7-Information Scanning frequency 729000000Hz
051101193037 7-Information Trying to synchronize ...
051101193037 7-Information Synchronization LOST <729000000 Hz - ucd 11, Station Maintenance T4 Timeout or Ranging ABORT>
051101193037 3-Critical R04.0 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, but no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 timeout
051101192529 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
051101192528 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
051101192346 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
051101192344 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
051101192216 7-Information SNMP: Working in SNMP V1/2c Only NmAccess mode
051101192214 7-Information INITIALIZATION COMPLETE - MODEM IS OPERATIONAL


No changes have been made to my network configuration in months. My logs are full of these entries.

Got to get this fixed before Thursday...

-Bolty