Congrats to Marn and Blackhorn

[Kevin]

Marn Truehorn of Lurkers and Blackhorn of the Keepers of the Dusk both managed to get their Rhok's tonight. Congrats to both of them and many thanks to all the wonderful folks who helped out, whether it was supplying potions, mats for potions, buffs, or just helping clear adds and cheering Marn on.

The guild was wonderfully supportive letting me turn a Tuesday guild night into kill Marns demons. So here's the story.

I had avoided trying to read anything on these demons since this was something I really wanted to learn and figure out and have fun with and since they are only 20 minute respawns that is much easier to do. You can read my post in this thread on the Keepers board to see what I learned. Looking back at Bini's post in that thread and the TKA link that Drec posted in there it appears that I figured most of it out. And while I have some of the story in that thread I'm going to get pretty much all of it laid out here.

I got the leaf and the sinew 2 weeks ago on Friday the 25th (leaf) and Sunday the 27th (sinew). I made my first dry runs on the demons the following Wednesday. I tried the Winterspring demon first. I still can't jump shot to save my life even now so I did the strafe approach. I had done mob rounding up for Mirajj on this one on my paladin once and I did remember the path he used so that is what I tried. I had some luck on that first night getting him down to 30% on my last attempt but he despawned from too much time active. I figured he he wouldn't be too bad after that and maybe getting a few consumables might help. Boy was that a wrong assumption as you'll see later.

I then traveled to Burning Steppes to check out that demon. I spawned him on the road where there were no mobs to deal with and did some playing around. I got pwned by his enrage but I did learn about scorpid sting taking the tranq of and making him a major wimp by luck since on my shot test sequence it got fired right after he enraged and he got to close to me and hit me so I that made learning easier. (I tested tranq later on as well). Seeing that I adopted what appears to be standard strat naturally and without any buffs or consumables got him down to to around 40% before I made a mistake and just feigned him off. He despawned after that. So I rode back to the FP to get to a blimp and try the Un'Goro and Silithus ones. Well the server crashed just after I got back to town. When I logged back in after the crash I was back by where I had fought him in the condition I was just before I had tried my final attempt (about 1/4 healh and 1/2 mana because I had feigned him off then fired him up again before my very last attempt where I FD'd him with about 1/3 health and 1/3 mana). He also happened to be pathing up there so I thought. Eh what the heck.

So I spawned him still didn't have any buffs and didn't even have any healing or mana pots on him. I got into a grove and ended up killing him. Only using mana for wing clips and scorpid stings the rest was just auto shoot and auto attacks. I head my first head and a lot of confidence. :)

So then it was on to Un'Goro and Simone. I found her at the north of Terror Run and thought, bleh I'll never find a spot to even work on her. Well she kindly pathed all the way south so I spawned her by a big tree that only had a couple of little dinos and a one stegadon nearby. I killed them off dismissed the pet then started testing on her. Since she had a pet I played with freezing the pet, freezing her, trying to kite them both. Trying to melee them down. Toyed around with her lightning bolt. Noticed the silence effect of viper sting. Noticed that if I let her get too close she could hit me with a -1500 ranged attack power debuff (I note that most resources say it is 1400 but it was most definitely 1500 on me). But she looked like she was potentially kitable or meleable. Since I had no help clearing I did most of my practice on melee. She was easy to reset with FD. I managed to get her down to around 50% while never dipping below 1500 of my (at the time) just over 4000 unbuffed HP. So I figured that with buffs and a few pots, and some of my NR gear in case I didn't time things right to stop the lightning that I could kill her.

So I went off to Silithus to play with Solenar. I had to follow him around a bit and then spawned him just north of the southern most twilight camp since that looked like the only spot with any room without spiders or scorpions. This guy gave me some fits. Flat out killed me quick while trying to figure him out. The little blender that was the bugs, and the death coil like fears, the enrages. I found that pulling him into a slowing trap (mainly I was trying to slow the bugs more when I put it down even though they are slow to begin with). I did manage to get a wingclip on him and saw that made him not move, but he still hit to hard to melee. On my last attempt before he despawn though I did manage to knock him down to about 80%. But he had me worried.

Friday I decided to go after the WS demon again solo. I never managed to get him under 50%. We had an MC run that night and we took down Rags for the first time but I was feeling like I didn't contribute as much to the run as I could have. So I broke down and read the strats on them that were posted in the thread I linked earlier. I learned that I was doing the Artorius, the WS demon, the best I could. I tried to do more jump shot stuff but I still suck at it. It looked like my approach to Simone in Un'Goro would work with buffs. And the whole use greater shadow protection pots for Solenar made me go, hmm maybe I can handle the bugs then.

So on Saturday I couldn't really get a full crew but Skky and Mogo were on and willing so we tried the WS demon again. I got some restorative potions to see if they would clear me since moist towlettes don't work as I found out on my first go (despite what some resources say). I tried a couple of different paths that I thought might make strafing easier. I never did better than about 40% health left, and while I found that resto pots did work, sometimes it didn't mater because I wouldn't have enough mana. I was starting to despair a bit. We spawned him 2 or 3 times and I just didn't make any progress.

Last night I got mats ready for pots and Skky made me a bunch of stuff and I got some stuff from other people and I told everyone that I was trying again tonight and would they be around to help. Tris, Xarhud, VorLord, Conc, Voiceman, and Treesh all said they would. I had priests, druids, mages, warlocks and shaman (warrior and another hunter too if people wanted to swap) at my disposal. I was ready. Since many of us were in Silithus we went to Solenar first. It went OK but I messed up positioning a few times or had bad luck getting feared right as I was trying to do some kind of AoE to the bugs and would get blendered. Feign was resisted every time I tried and I ran out of shadow protection potions. So Solenar still eluded me.

So we trooped over to Un'Goro. Simone took her grand out time spawning (I now believe that is because Blackhorn of the Keepers who got his leaf on Friday had just killed her). I got her to my spot, I got buffed, and I killed her with only 150 or so HP left I did a loot immediately but I hadn't shift click so the head didn't get in my inventory and her pet killed me but I got rezzed and looted her head so it was a win. 2 demons down.

The mage got us to Org and we hit winterspring. I tried a few methods again even tried jump shots again but I'm still teh suck and I failed. I even had the demon despawned on my by an alliance hunter that was pleasent. But I didn't make any real progress. On one attempt poor Necrali saw me get demoned and cleansed me despawning the demon. I was fine with that, I was frustrated.

So we talked and found out that I could get more shadow protection pots. Skky was kind enough to leave her instance run to whip some up since I had sent some mats to her to pay her back for stuff she had made me earlier and we got some more mats to make even more. Blackhorn ran into me in Org and mentioned he had his bow already and gave me some pots and EZ-throw (I already had crystal charges). I actually returned all the pots he gave me, but was cool of him to do.

So wo get back to Un'Goro more pots in hand. I get him and am placing my frosty trap to start but body pulled him since I was too close. I FD and see that he isn't enraged anymore so I put down an explosive trap and pulled him. (I just got done fully reading the TKA site as I'm posting this and see this is the published strat, LOL. Yeah even in reading about them I did some skimming). So that helped with the bugs. I had my full shadow gear and the buff on just like the other attempts so I was at 160, and the first pot I think chewed the full 3200 damage as well. I had a few close calls with the blender bugs thanks to fears but I was still at 1500+ health and he was down to 500, then he feared me. I come out of fear and see a mage winding up frost bolt (I think someone on TS actually pointed it out) so I though "Oh crap!" and fired a multi shot even though the bugs were on top of me, just hoping. The bugs blendered me and I didn't see the sparklies on the body so I thought I was boned that I had been griefed at the very last second. I was PISSED. I did a profanity in /say to the mage. Treesh whispered him. Then I noticed the body was sparkling. I got rezzed and got the head. The mage honestly didn't know the deal so I apologized as did he. It was an honest mistake and I felt bad for assuming a grief since I had been griefed before (when they attack the demon then do a /laugh at you that's a grief).

Alright I need more head. But I'm honestly down on myself at this point. I'm not coordinated and the jump shot that everyone says is so simple I still can't do. But I had back to Winterspring with the crew anyway. I decide that I'm spawning him on the bottom of the hill nearest the road and just trying the road kiting again. I've still got my 7 mana pots, everyone is being very supportive. So I try again. There is an unguilded priest with Bene and most of the T2 stuff out there as well. He mentions he has an L60 hunter as well and that the Silithus demon kicked his ass for the longest time. We believe he was a member of one of the major horde raiding guilds that left the server a few months back because of the horrible performance but he didn't go for whatever reason. He stuck around as part of the clearing crew for quite a few bad attempts. Then when I knew we were getting close to him despawning again I was bemoaning my lack of skill at not being able to jump shot, which would make it sooo much easier becaause I could see where I was going I hunkered down and had a really good attempt going. I got him down to about 5000 life left but I had already used a pot and they were cooling and screwed up and he got too close and killed me.

But it was a really good attempt. My best ever actually finally did better than I had done on that very first night. So everyone said they would stay. I went to the bank and got the other heads out. I figured that might just give me the power. :)

He pops back up and I had a few bungled attempts with feign resets. Then I get one good attempt but I had to FD out of it late because of a bungle and the restorative pot didn't clear it. I would have run out of mana anyway though. I look and realize I have one shadow prot potion left. Since demonic doom is shadow I decide to drink it. I was getting mad. I knew I wasn't that bad. Sure I can't jump shot but I had to be good enough to beat this guy. Lots of hunters say he is the easiest (though I give that title to Kilnfran in Burning Steppes myself) and he's kicking my ass. Maybe a shadow prot potion would help me if I made a mistake it could absorb enough damage. Well I do mess up at one point but Treesh calls on on TS 'demonic doom resisted!' (I was running about 120 buffed shadow, not quite the 160 I could reach but I wanted a bigger mana pool) and I just keep going. I get him to the road things are going good, get down on mana and pot a mana pot. I'm still going good. I'm getting health updates and a few obstacle warnings on TS. I'm getting near everlook and I'm nearly out of mana. Necrali says "demonic rune" knowing that I always carry those (what horde hunter doesn't?). I pop it, I've got a healthstone still if I need it. The suddenly I'm getting alot of out out of range messages so I'm getting worried that I'm just running to fast. My heart is just pounding since the call went out that he had only a few K left. I fire my last shot and I'm out of mana and I realize the out of range stuff was because he was waddling from being wounded. So I run in, get demonic doomed and swing at him and he dies.

I was so happy and excited. That guy had kicked my ass so much. It was great that he was the last to die. I had to take a moment to catch my breath.

I got his head and we headed over to Felwood. I bungled around trying to talk to the trees (they are a pain to talk to sometimes) and finally got my bow and staff! I still don't have a blue sinew even though I've farmed those blues a crap load already but I'll get back on that.

We get back to org and after much bungling around I got my scope and encants done. So Marn is quite the uber hunter now. I just need a few ZG enchants to make up for the loss of +hit on the bow. :) (a +7 scope should be about 5.5 DPS more on a shot cycle and there isn't anyone that I know on Terenas that can do a Biznaks anyway).


And this bow allows me to be lazy with shot cycles as it does more DPS with a clipped shot cycle than a full shot cycle anyway. :) I can just let the cooldowns do the best cycle for me now. :) I may hat to start FD'ing on trash mobs in MC again or else I just have to poke the MT to put out more aggro. :)


And again I have to thank Caswyndiana, Xarhud, Necrali, Fazuul, Mogoraindyn, Conciliane, Liane, and Skky (toon names) for all the help. You guys rock. Was very cool of you all to give up your guild instance night to help me get that bow.