The Great Onyxia Race

[Tal]

Congrats to Mongo and the rest of the raid on this accomplishment. :)

[Boutros]

Congrats. Nice writeup too, it was exciting to read even though I already knew the outcome.

And congratulations to me for appearing in one of your screenshots! I still haven't made any more progress on Warlord's Command, the very next day my computer died and I still can't get it to work :( . If I can ever fix it maybe someday I can participate in an Onyxia kill of my own.

[Taran]

Congrats. Excellent write-up. It speaks of a great team effort and success which is nice.

[Drasca]

*applause*

We at Mannoroth regularly get Onxyia buffs... but I've yet to do her in myself. Maybe one day. Only certain guilds are able to do it... but one day. One day, I'll organize multiple guilds together. I'll start slow, but I'll build reliable friends. I've already impressed several players with my die-hardedness.

I've done scholo 5 man past rattlegore (until respawns at hour 7 killed us from a pyromaniac replacement mage... and the entire party replaced except for myself and a shaman, who tanked successfully in lieu of warrior in a rogue/mage/shaman/warlock/priest party with max CC options. It was beautiful how we established an CC'ed attack order, decided who's main assist in oh #$%& situations, and generally mopped the floor with any group we encountered. At hour 2-3, we'd killed jandice, cleared quite a bit, and two players disconnected in sequence. Power problems as I assumed. Spent maybe a total hour waiting, and another hour recruiting more. Found others, but only in desperation. These recruits were not so good in quality. Got to rattlegore, new impatient rogue decided to bail, and old priest too. ld mage gone, but all stayed just long enough for me to summon a new warrior and priest in. Two reliable playersm, the warrior & priest. Unfortunately, I picked an unreliable crazyed pyromaniac maged that jumped everywhere and had no clue what she was doing. Its one thing to be an ice god which can snare, or wait as necessary, but generally dancing around trash mobs precision pulling against aggro radii.. its another to run around aggro'ing everything and getting us wiped. That ended us after rattlegore and plagueling hatching respawns on top of us. I had the same respawns not once, but twice in some rooms.

Maybe one day I'll actually complete scholo 5 man. 5 manned LBRS already. Made some good friends this way. The shaman that stayed with me throughout all 7 hours was certainly impressed. Was the scholo run a failure? Nope. We did fantastically against incredible odds, and defeated creatures few think or have done 5-man. Learned the importance of aggro management, and renewed tactical coordination. Got rattlegore's viewing room key for next time too. I'll get you *shakes fist*! Oh yeah. Soul linked warlocks who sacrifice, fel domination summon another void walker, soul link, healthstone, heal pot, and resacrifice, don't last long, but a lot longer than most.

As a warlock, I could afford be die-hard in finding replacements others couldn't. Lost two members and the entrance respawned? Nearly whole party needs to go (repair, or just go)? No problem! Have them ride to the entrance, enter, and summon intra-instance. I'm pivotal to continue going where others can't. All I need is goblin jumper cables, and I'd be set with a druid only rezzer. He rez me, I rez someone else, then start summoning from entrance.

Ok four of my items turned red by then, and the rest were ready to go, but I'll fight naked if I have to. I'll just need to use life drain / life tap more often for in-combat mana regen.

[Phoenix]

Wow. This is the best write-up you've done so far, and with the quality of your previous stories, that's saying a lot. Thanks for taking all those screenshots and writing all that. Congratulations on the kill, and I'm glad a Lurker and Basiners were the first Hordies to kill her!

I'm looking forward to Onyxia myself, and the fact that there are 2 rogues in your group gives me some hope. Otherwise I guess I should start leveling my priest. Seems like the invites comes flying when you're a priest or a warrior.

I wonder when Blizzard will allow transfers from European servers to American servers. They said it'll come after launch. :rolleyes:

[Brista]

Lovely story Mongo and I agree with Phoenix that it's your best so far. (From the perspective of a recent complete re-read)

From my limited experience so far, WoW seems to get better and better as you progress and this certainly confirms it

I hope that some of the people who are naturally inclined to solo or play in small teams read this and feel encouraged to try raiding. It seems quite hard to get a foot in the door but very much worth it

Btw Blizzard couldn't buy better publicity than this, I wonder if there's some way you could get money out of them for doing some publicity work, perhaps freelance, if your study and wow schedule permits

[Zippyy]

An inspiring story. The good guys won! Go Basiners/Lurker/Etc! :)

I an only imagine the adrenaline rush/goosebumps/tingling/disbelieving/pride when the deed was finally done. My admiration to you and all the members of the raid. Kudos!

The video playback is extremely jittery.. is this a problem on my end? It's almost like it advances two frames, jumps back one frame, advances two, jumps back one, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc (you get the idea :P). I've tried it in Winamp and WMP10 and they both have the same issue. I want to see this period of history in motion without getting a headache. :(

[Bolty]

Btw Blizzard couldn't buy better publicity than this, I wonder if there's some way you could get money out of them for doing some publicity work, perhaps freelance, if your study and wow schedule permits[right][snapback]73912[/snapback][/right]

Money? No, but gee wouldn't it be swell to see this and other Mongo spot reports up on the main LL site? Yeah! That would r0xx0r! :P Then everyone could link to it and navigate around to other WoW content instead of just various forum posts, and the Lurker Lounge would be known as the Place To Go™ for all of Mongo's great reports. Heck, Blizzard might even link to it and crash our server again (although I'd like to see them try - this time I think we could handle it).

*poke* :)

-Bolty

[Tal]

Money?  No, but gee wouldn't it be swell to see this and other Mongo spot reports up on the main LL site?  Yeah!  That would r0xx0r!  :P  Then everyone could link to it and navigate around to other WoW content instead of just various forum posts, and the Lurker Lounge would be known as the Place To Go™ for all of Mongo's great reports.  Heck, Blizzard might even link to it and crash our server again (although I'd like to see them try - this time I think we could handle it).

*poke*  :)

-Bolty
[right][snapback]73931[/snapback][/right]

Subtle. ;)

[lfd]

The video playback is extremely jittery.. is this a problem on my end?  It's almost like it advances two frames, jumps back one frame, advances two, jumps back one, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc (you get the idea :P).  I've tried it in Winamp and WMP10 and they both have the same issue.  I want to see this period of history in motion without getting a headache. :(
[right][snapback]73921[/snapback][/right]

Sounds like a codec issue. Try using VideoLAN Client to view it - it uses its own codecs, and worked fine for me.

Well, I say "fine", but the video doesn't appear to be complete - it stops suddenly towards the end of Phase III, short of the Big Death Scene :-(

[vor_lord]

If you look at the screenshots just as Onyxia is dying/dead. you might notice what I noticed:

No Rogues
No Hunters

I also only count 31 on your raid assist screen... Is that just the way you have CT_RaidAssist set up? (I have never been in a raid yet).

Or were there really no rogues or hunters?

[Zippyy]

Sounds like a codec issue.  Try using VideoLAN Client to view it - it uses its own codecs, and worked fine for me.

Well, I say "fine", but the video doesn't appear to be complete - it stops suddenly towards the end of Phase III, short of the Big Death Scene :-(
[right][snapback]73935[/snapback][/right]

That works, thanks. :)

Mine went all the way to the credits. Maybe the site you downloaded it from had an incomplete version? I can send it to you over AIM.

[Gurnsey]

Does this mean you'll have time to finally finish the LBRS journal?

Just kidding. Awesome read as usual - keep it up!

[mjdoom]

If you look at the screenshots just as Onyxia is dying/dead. you might notice what I noticed:

No Rogues
No Hunters

I also only count 31 on your raid assist screen... Is that just the way you have CT_RaidAssist set up?  (I have never been in a raid yet).

Or were there really no rogues or hunters?
[right][snapback]73939[/snapback][/right]

If you look at post #20 Mongo has a screenshot of the entire raid group. CT_RaidAssist allows you to resuffle groups for display on your own screen and Mongo is taking advantage of this. That is how he has raid members lined up by class. There were definitely a share of rogues and hunters in the group that succeeded.

- mjdoom

[MongoJerry]

If you look at the screenshots just as Onyxia is dying/dead. you might notice what I noticed:

No Rogues
No Hunters

I also only count 31 on your raid assist screen... Is that just the way you have CT_RaidAssist set up?  (I have never been in a raid yet).

Rogues and hunters outside of my party can take care of themselves or get taken care of by the healers in their own party). I just can't handle the extra information and loss of viewing space that including them on my screen would take. If I'm in a fight that requires debuffing the whole raid party, I'll turn those tabs on, though. If you counted 31 people on my raidassist tabs, then that means we had nine rogues and hunters. You can see how many there were of each by looking at the full raid list that I connected to one of the shots of Onyxia being dead.

I highly highly recommend seeing the video. It's absolutely beautiful and worth the 100 meg download. I was able to view it using the regular Windows media player after installing the codec that Media Player prompted me to download the first time I tried to view the video. (Something about an Xvid format).

[ima_nerd]

Excellent write up. I haven't finished DLing the video yet but I imagive DivX would be able to play it. DivX can pretty much play whatever Media Player and Quicktime can't.

http://www.divx.com/

[Icebird]

Excellent write-up Mongo. I agree that Rubix did a terrific job with the video. The write-up and the video complement each other very well, in that you can track the different phases of the Onyxia encounter. The switch to the Team Speak soundtrack at the end is a nice touch.

I think its funny how your loyalties are to the group you're working with at the time. When you were raiding with the Offenders, you hoped they would get there first, but when you joined the Grim Vengeance team the situation was reversed.

Apart from the punctuality issues, did you notice many organization differences between the two teams? On the one hand you have a large single raiding guild, and on the other hand you have an alliance of multiple guilds. As a member of a small guild that will have to inevitably team up with other guilds for large raids, its heartening to see alliances can work.

Looking forward to the conclusion of the LBRS report and further "Adventures of Neriad".

Chris

[Malakar]

Not to down on this one - it was great, but my favorite is still Irene the Infirm. :)

[Munkay]

An amazing read as per usual :)

I enjoy your write ups immensely Mongo, and I don't even own WoW ;) .

Cheers,

Munk

[Bird]

Great read! And congratulations, by the way.

I'll keep all this stuff in mind if I ever try to take on the beast.