Secrets of Shadowbolting

Last night was a good attempt on Sarth with 3 drakes up. It was a completely different attempt than the last time I was in there as the atmosphere was completely different. We had about 10 wipes getting Vesperon, the last drake, down to 35% before deciding it wasn’t happening and going back to 2 drakes.

As usual, there was a bear tank keeping sarth up front and alive and moving him around. The rest of the raid in the back waited the 30 seconds for Tenebron. He was warrior tanked along the back of the encounter while a pally tank stood with the healers in the center of the rectangle in the safe spot from waves coming from the right. Ranged and melee was spread out closer to the hole made by the left wave until the tank firmly had Tenebron. From here it was a tank and spank, heroism was popped and he was burned while the raid avoided the lava waves and void holes. Ten was slowly moved along the left side so the tank could pick up Shadron as he landed as Tenebron was not always dead before Shad landed. While the tank is holding both drakes, the raid AOEs the whelps and fire adds down.

Shadron is DPSed down straight and the portal is initially ignored. As the waves keep coming, Shad is slowly kited across to the right side so the tank is ready when Vesperon adds. Once Shad is down, the raid takes the portal, kills the add to lose the buff and then pop out and work on Ves. This is where things get tricky as the pally tank is still collecting adds, the fire damage is making the fire cyclone – the meteors from above, hit on average 6-8k. That and Twilight torment made the raid take a lot of damage and we ended up losing too many people in this phase. Had all gone well – one attempt we did get him down but there were only about 5 people left standing – we would have popped in the portal, taken out the add and then burned sarth.

The biggest difference between the raid last night and previous raids was definitely the laughter. People were there to have fun and enjoy themselves. At the end of each attempt, the raid leader would call out “we had X avoidable deaths due to Flame wall/void zones”. This number spiked as high as 10, as low as 4. There was no name calling, no finger pointing unless your total count of times you died due to flame wall/void zone was ridiculously higher than the majority of the group. This was pointed out, asked if there was anything that could be done to help, clarify any part of the strat and resolved and then people moved on.

The biggest difference that I see in this new guild is that it’s mostly women. There are husband/wife teams, mother/daughter teams and everyone gets along and finds things to joke about to keep everything lighthearted, fun and enjoyable. At the end of the day it’s really just a game. People make boneheaded mistakes but it’s the ability to laugh it off, admit they were wrong and move on that really shows the strength of the person. Sure it was a little frustrating at times and yes, a couple people did wipe us – the DK who accidentally taunted Sarth who flame breathed the raid to death, the add tank dying by standing in a void zone, the drake tank dying by getting hit with every type of debuff possible and taking too much damage to heal. This is normal, stuff happens, people take responsibility and move on with out finger pointing and blaming others for their mistakes.

I’m excited to see this continue and hope that it all works out. Sarth with 3 drakes is a complicated fight, there’s a lot going on and a lot of potential for mishaps but being able to make it through and persevere with all our sanities intact is a goal worthy of achieving.