The 'epic' Drakkisath run

[Kevin]

So several Lurkers have heard part of the tale of the now somewhat infamous Drakkisath blood run on Sunday July 10th. I'm not the greatest story teller and I have no screen shots :( but I will try to relay the story as best I can.

We assemble a group. We have 13 Lurkers in it, including the retired Boltress. We fill the last two spots with a couple of folks from The Basin: Alamanda a priest and Yukiko a paladin. It wasn't more than about 15 seconds after we filled the slots that TheDragoon comes online with Silverflail. Bolty, who was only along because we needed the healers, decides that he will step down for Silverflail since he really has no desire to play Boltress at all and Silverflail wanted to go.

So we are set. We have one warrior, 2 paladins, 3 priest, 3 mages, a warlock, 4 hunters and 1 rogue. We feel pretty confident with that group, plenty of CC, AoE, healing, tanking, and DPS.

We really have very little incident getting to Drakk. It was my first time in 6 runs where I was pulling the instance, though I had been the main tank with a different puller a couple of times before. We AoE'd the heck out of the early rooms (the only way I want to do them anymore if we can I think it is actually safer than CC on them if you can do it). Everyone seemed to be having fun and we made good time.

We had no problems on the Rend event no early jumpers, nothing like that.

So we get to Drakk. The plan is a tried and true one that has worked well for us. An off tank on one of the guards, chain fear on the other after a hunter shoots it so that the fearer has time to deal with a resist and 2 tanks on Drakk to hold containment on conflagerations. Kill the tanked guard, kill the feared guard, then kill Drakk. We start the battle. Things are going great. Yukiko pulls the one guard out. Gnolack and Sharanna hold Drakk in his alcove. Lissanna pulls the other guard, Arethor fears it. Celethirian, Starsong, Mio, Sabramage, Littledude, Rylea, and Ramala pour on the DPS. Aleri and Silverflail keep the healing going.

Gnolack gets conflagged. Sharanna picks up the tanking Drakk doesn't move. I'm not positive here, but I think Sharanna got conflagged and Drakk moved out some. Gnolack was able to get him and pull him back to the alcove before any real damage was done. This is where I think our biggest mistake happened. Sharanna and Gnolack ended up both standing right by the head because of pulling the breakout back. I think the first guard was burned down and the second was being chewed at this point, but I'm not sure. Gnolack is short so I pretty much had a screen full of Drakk and/or walls. Drakk does an AoE that burns the heck out of Sharanna and Gnolack and they die at the same time.

I really might have some of this timing off please correct me if I do. I also don't know when or how the 2nd guard died.

Drakk rampages, Aleri goes down fast since she was healing Gnolack. Silverflail dies next. Yukiko grabs Drakk. Sharanna has a soulstone and comes back up to rez Gnolack and others. It's a no go because Sharanna is in combat when she comes back. I think Alamanda had connection issues or wasn't running CTRaid or something because her mana bar was full but heals weren't going out. Sharanna tries to heal but can't keep it up. Yukiko dies and Sharanna dies again. Alamanda dies.

We now have no rezzers alive, but we have a warlock up, so a corpse run and summons can bring us all back if we need it. Massive kiting in going on, I don't have a view of all the battle because I was near the corner of the alcove but we lose a few more people (I'm not sure who anymore), but it looks like Drakk is going to die, we have enough mobile fire power to finish it up. Drakk is at the point of a dying if you look at him funny and he manages to kill Arethor. Our warlock is down. Drakk dies pretty much at the same time.

OK so we have no rezzers, we have no soulstone, we have no summoner. But wait we have two living engineers with jumper cables! Try one, fail. Try two fail.

Oh well we think, there are people who need blood who are alive. Let them check the corpse. The loot is Lightforge chest, and Draconian Deflector. Tal has been looking for Lightforge chest for months. Gnolack and Yukiko both really want Draconian Deflector. There are people that still need blood that are dead and only 2 were looted, there could be two more!

So, what can we do? We have enough dead fire power to fight through the respawn pats and groups. Sabramage volunteers to hold open the corpse. Lissanna heads back to see how far spawns have come back. It's clear all the way from the Rookery to Drakk! Hooray, lets run. Ghosts zipping everywhere. We get in and get enough people up and start doing some of the easy early pulls while the rest are running in.

We get to the door by the rooms with all the orcs, it is still open. We go through and pull the group at the top of the ramp. One of the late arrivers pulls one of the orc rooms in on us, it happens very likely lagging as all the other players were loaded in, I see that all the time, I get little half second pauses when someone zone in the instace, so whatever, we do manage to kill them all and keep a rezzer up so we recover and move on.

We get to the rookery there is Lissanna standing and waiting. We run to meet her. Yay we are going to make it. Well it's not so easy. Respawns have started coming in. We have to do the fights on the ledge above the rookery again. Not a problem. Well I make a mistake with Gnolack. We are trying to move fast it was my first time pulling. I pull the right dragon guard at the top of the ramp not the left one so I get all the orcs that I can't see and forgot about. We fight through it. I call for an extra sheep a few times forgetting Saramage is holding a corpse open with a virtual cockroach crawling all over her!

We get up to the ledge in above the Rend event. A hunter jumps but had forgotten to put the pet away, not a problem cries of Feign Death are heard on Teamspeak. But then it's really too late dragonkin spawn on our heads! A pet has started running the long way and waking things up. Aleri tries to back up as far as she can so a Divine Intervention can get thrown on her for a recovery. But the paladin and everyone else is getting pounded and the DI goes on before Aleri can get enough distance, but the paladin threw it up just before they went down so we did what we could. We all die. Aleri sits in her bubble and watches as the mobs start racing back to their homes. One of the homes is on her head. Bubble bursts, Aleri dies too.

The ghosts start running again. We get back in, we kill the respawns. We jump down we run to Drakk. Yukiko and Gnolack roll on the shield. Yukiko wins. Sharanna gets her lightforge armor. There is no more blood.

So that is the tale as seen by Gnolack the crazy gnome warrior. There are parts that I missed I'm sure but I think I have the core covered. So if you hear a Lurker talk about it, this is the tale they are refering too. I'm already looking back on it with fond memories. Kind of like I look back at boot camp with fond memories. It sucked at the time, I don't want to do it again, but there was some character built with it. :)

[Pesmerga]

OK so we have no rezzers, we have no soulstone, we have no summoner.  But wait we have two living engineers with jumper cables!  Try one, fail.  Try two fail.
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::yells at his stupid Jumper Cables XL, thinks they should work more frequently::

[Treesh]

Drakk rampages, Aleri goes down fast since she was healing Gnolack.
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I took three hits from that bully! I could have taken more if the healthstone or desperate prayer actually went through. Either one could have kept me up for one more hit darn it! ;) The holy nova helped keep me up for the third hit though. ;)

[Hillary]

You poor people.

O.o

You're champions though for running through it again. Kudos.

[Arethor]

Another note, not only was it a pet taking the long path that did us in, but right as i was about to jump over the balcony i noticed the Flametongue and other dragonkin starting to materialize right under me. Respawning right under our feet. Talk about timing.

[TheDragoon]

One quick note: I think that I actually died with Silverflail before both of you tanks went down. I've done several UBRS runs recently, so I'm not sure which one of these was the case but I remember I died to one of the following:

1. Pulled aggro of the General off the tanks. I realized that having him running around was a bad thing and ran back to the tanks to get Drakkisath turned around, again. I succeeded in giving aggro back to the tanks and getting him repositioned, but I died in the process.

2. The chain-feared guard somehow got curse of recklessness applied to it and it came after me, resulting in a very dead priest.

Actually, in retrospect, I don't even know if these two ways to die were what actually happened in that particular run. I'll post this anyway since I think those are interesting ways for a priest to die. :)

[Treesh]

One quick note: I think that I actually died with Silverflail before both of you tanks went down.  I've done several UBRS runs recently, so I'm not sure which one of these was the case but I remember I died to one of the following:
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I was the first priest dead. I do remember that much and I remember it only came after Gnolack and Sharanna both went down at the same time because I couldn't keep up with healing both of them taking that much damage in such a short amount of time. And Gnolack and Sharanna were the first deaths. Now, I have no idea when Sharanna actually popped back up with the soulstone because I remember someone yelling over teamspeak to res Gnolack and that wouldn't be top priority on the res if there was a healer down. So I think Sharanna popped up immediately after death, but during the time I was trying to not be completely eaten by Drak. I don't quite know though. My world was Gnolack and Sharanna, they died so then my world was me and Drakk. ;)

I do wish I could have seen more of the kiting after all the tanks were down for the count. :) Even spinning the camera around I couldn't see all of it.

[Kevin]

Another note, not only was it a pet taking the long path that did us in, but right as i was about to jump over the balcony i noticed the Flametongue and other dragonkin starting to materialize right under me.  Respawning right under our feet.  Talk about timing.
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Yeah, that was what my "but then it's really too late, dragonkin spawn on our heads was about". But it may not have benn clear. Gnolack was inside a flametongue because it came in around him. We were very likely looking at a wipe there regardless of the hunter missing the pet. And we were trying to move quick and the pets were helpful so not putting it away is a very fogivable thing. :)

[Arethor]

One quick note: I think that I actually died with Silverflail before both of you tanks went down.  I've done several UBRS runs recently, so I'm not sure which one of these was the case but I remember I died to one of the following:

1. Pulled aggro of the General off the tanks.  I realized that having him running around was a bad thing and ran back to the tanks to get Drakkisath turned around, again.  I succeeded in giving aggro back to the tanks and getting him repositioned, but I died in the process.

2. The chain-feared guard somehow got curse of recklessness applied to it and it came after me, resulting in a very dead priest.

Actually, in retrospect, I don't even know if these two ways to die were what actually happened in that particular run.  I'll post this anyway since I think those are interesting ways for a priest to die.  :)
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It's possible you pulled aggro off after Tal got conflagged. I know i wasn't using CoR :lol:

Also as a note on the faceoff between Drakk and myself... I was kiting him as best i could popping back up immolate and corruption and burning him with everything i could while running, popped a healthstone and a health pot glanced up at my life saw 380-something health, glanced at his and saw he was down so low that if only Nightfall would proc.... I hit my Death Coil got some life back which was immediately swatted away by him. I could spit and knock him down, but I ran out of life. In retrospect I realized I still had Shadowburn and should've tossed up CoA. I don't know if the Shadowburn would've been enough, but i forgot one of the tricks in my bag which led to the "fun" that followed. A tough lesson learned, but I cracked under the pressure <_<

[Tal]

Gnolack gets conflagged.&nbsp; Sharanna picks up the tanking Drakk doesn't move.&nbsp; I'm not positive here, but I think Sharanna got conflagged and Drakk moved out some.&nbsp; Gnolack was able to get him and pull him back to the alcove before any real damage was done.&nbsp; This is where I think our biggest mistake happened.&nbsp; Sharanna and Gnolack ended up both standing right by the head because of pulling the breakout back.&nbsp; I think the first guard was burned down and the second was being chewed at this point, but I'm not sure. Gnolack is short so I pretty much had a screen full of Drakk and/or walls.&nbsp; Drakk does an AoE that burns the heck out of Sharanna and Gnolack and they die at the same time.[right][snapback]83212[/snapback][/right]

For a change I never got conflagged by the General in UBRS but I dunno how I avoided it when I was grabbing his attention away from you. I had just a titch over 100 fire resist for the fight but I don't think that was a factor. Incidentally the break out of the General was because I had to bubble as I had burned both the health pot and the healthstone and couldn't get a heal off. But we recovered nicely I think. The time we died was because I didn't space myself to avoid his cleaves. :(

Edit: Damn I forgot he conflagged me after the soulstone popup.

Sharanna gets her lightforge armor.
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Hurray! I wish you'd been able to get your shield. THAT would have been a happy ending. :D

[Kevin]

A tough lesson learned, but I cracked under the pressure&nbsp; <_<
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You didn't crack under pressure. Gnolack didn't get a shield wall up or get his healthstone eaten (I did drink a pot and used Last Stand). There were a couple of little mistakes here and there that got magnified and when there is that much going on you can't always remember or get to everything your bag of tricks. :)

[Arethor]

You didn't crack under pressure.&nbsp; Gnolack didn't get a shield wall up or get his healthstone eaten (I did drink a pot and used Last Stand).&nbsp; There were a couple of little mistakes here and there that got magnified and when there is that much going on you can't always remember or get to everything your bag of tricks.&nbsp; :)
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Yeah big scary dragon and almost no life = :o and :blink: and finally leads to :wacko:

:w00t:

[Kevin]

For a change I never got conflagged by the General in UBRS but I dunno how I avoided it when I was grabbing his attention away from you. I had just a titch over 100 fire resist for the fight but I don't think that was a factor. Incidentally the break out of the General was because I had to bubble as I had burned both the health pot and the healthstone and couldn't get a heal off. But we recovered nicely I think. The time we died was because I didn't space myself to avoid his cleaves. :(

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Ah ha! Yeah, I was not clear on that. I was conflagged and doing the gnome spaz at the time. I just knew that Drakk was moving very shortly after I got out of my conflag and I assumed that you got hit with it as well. And yeah, I think we contained it again pretty well many people don't even seem to remember it happening so that means we did do our jobs. :)

Again we had a small little mistake after that which magnified into the epicness. :) Like I said I made mistakes and I don't know of anyone who is perfect on any run. :)

[Treesh]

Yeah big scary dragon and almost no life =&nbsp; :o&nbsp; and&nbsp; :blink:&nbsp; and finally leads to&nbsp; :wacko:&nbsp;

:w00t:
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LOL! Sorry for the spam, but that just cracked me up.

[TheDragoon]

Ok, well then maybe I just can't keep the different times I've fun UBRS separate right now. :wacko:

[Darian]

Ok, well then maybe I just can't keep the different times I've fun UBRS separate right now.&nbsp; :wacko:
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And now we begin to understand why I can't stand that place anymore... ;)

[Drasca]

So we are set.&nbsp; We have one warrior, 2 paladins, 3 priest, 3 mages, a warlock, 4 hunters and 1 rogue.&nbsp; We feel pretty confident with that group, plenty of CC, AoE, healing, tanking, and DPS.&nbsp; [right][snapback]83212[/snapback][/right]

Hehe, 3 priests is overkill on healing, then again we'd have shammies :)

Only one war? Interesting.

Our general strategy varies a bit, we kill off-tanked guard, then drakk, chain feared guard is pretty much left alone because if fail to kill drakk, guards will respawn, while if drakk is killed only the seond guard is left. Try it this way sometime, maybe you'll like it. There's also the slight advantage of getting an earlier start on drakk before tanks go down and priests go oom, not wasting mana on the second guard as a warlock can pretty much fear-kite the sucker solo forever if necessary.

[Quark]

Our general strategy varies a bit, we kill off-tanked guard, then drakk, chain feared guard is pretty much left alone because if fail to kill drakk, guards will respawn, while if drakk is killed only the seond guard is left. Try it this way sometime, maybe you'll like it.
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When things go wrong, which happens, killing the General second hurts a lot. A few fears resisted, that guard is going straight for a healer.

[Kevin]

Hehe, 3 priests is overkill on healing, then again we'd have shammies :)

Only one war? Interesting.

Our general strategy varies a bit, we kill off-tanked guard, then drakk, chain feared guard is pretty much left alone because if fail to kill drakk, guards will respawn, while if drakk is killed only the seond guard is left. Try it this way sometime, maybe you'll like it. There's also the slight advantage of getting an earlier start on drakk before tanks go down and priests go oom, not wasting mana on the second guard as a warlock can pretty much fear-kite the sucker solo forever if necessary.
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I was the only warrior avialable for the guild run. Paladins can off tank the guards just fine.

Tonight we had 2 locks so we chain feared both guards and killed Drakk first. Worked just fine.

I've been on runs where both guards were off tanked and nothing was feared as well. I've seen attempted chain druid sleeps.

But the kill both guards before you kill Drakk is the method that gets the fewest (if any) people killed for us so we use it when we can.

[Drasca]

But the kill both guards before you kill Drakk is the method that gets the fewest (if any) people killed for us so we use it when we can.
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I must say, I've tried fearing drakk's guards with and without suppression talent, and I must say suppression (up to 10% less resist) translates into almost never resisting fears and full duration fear. I'm essentially giving a level 63 fear with suppression. This also makes the difference in chain-fearing.

Ah well, you have your preferences in what leads to least deaths, I have mine. For me, a warlock with full suppression talent means those guards are fear-fodder and generally kept very far away from the healers.