Ragefire Chasm (Take 2)

“LF2M for RFC, have tank.”

I sent a message to the person saying that I’d like to join them, and they invited me to the group. It consisted of…

• Level 13 Troll Mage (leader)
• Level 19 Tauren Warrior (guild)
• Level 16 Troll Mage
• Level 14 Undead Mage (me)

I ran down and met the other two mages by the summoning stone, and started to summon the warrior. “He’s close,” the leader said. Glancing at my minimap, I saw the warrior running down one of the ramps into the Cleft of Shadows. “I never noticed those stones,” the leader added. “That’s neat.” The Tauren arrived and said, “they’re by every instance.” Indeed. This gave me the impression the leader might be pretty new to all this.

The leader advertised a few times for a healer while we all buffed each other, took bio breaks, and got settled. When we were all ready, the leader suggested that we go ahead and kill some stuff in the front of the instance while we waited for a healer. Three mages and a warrior — sounded like fun to me!

As you can imagine, we had ample DPS. The warrior did a pretty good job of holding aggro despite all the fireballs being lobbed. The level 16 mage drew it a few times with some massive opening attacks (the level 13 mage seemed to be delaying his first strike to let the tank get a few hits in, as I was), and I got a little worried about the frost novas that he was tossing out whenever he got attacked. When we approached the first set of mobs where we’d definitely be pulling groups, I made sure I knew exactly where my potion and bandage hotkeys were, fearing it could get ugly any second, particularly without a healer. Then, to my surprise:

“Kill order is skull, star, circle, then diamond. Please sheep the star, circle, and diamond only if they’re pulled,” and then there were instructions about which symbol matched each mage. WOOHOOOOO!

This is where the fun really began, and let me tell you… everything went pretty much as you would hope. Fire was focused on the tank’s target. A few sheep were accidently hit but then quickly sheeped again. There were no panicked frost novas, and a few resists on the second and third rounds of sheeping meant that the tank took a few extra hits, but everybody did a really great job in following the leader’s instructions. Sometimes, if it was unclear what we were going to pull, the leader marked things slightly differently and we’d toss up a test sheep to see what would come to us.

This is what I really love about doing instances. You have a limited set of resources based on the classes and specs of those in the party. The pulls are like puzzles where you need to determine what will be most efficient (or least damaging!) for your party, and then execute the plan. In this case, for example, we had no healer but lots of crowd control. The strategy was to polymorph as many mobs as possible on each pull. We used small waits between breaking the sheep to take turns bandaging the tank. Teamwork!

It was going great, but the tank expressed some doubt about our being able to take on the bosses without him getting killed. The leader advertised again in the LFG channel, but kept saying, “already have uber group… looking for healer.” They said it over and over the same way. “Already have uber group” was making it sound like we didn’t need any help, frankly, but I didn’t say anything. I was having fun.

We got to the first boss, Oggleflint. The leader expressed some hesitation and suggested that we wait for a healer. “I think we can do it,” I said. There were just two mobs aside from the boss, and we’d taken on bigger pulls earlier. From recent experience, I also knew that you could pull the mobs in front and the boss would stay behind, but I stayed quiet when the leader marked Oggleflint with a skull. No matter — we killed Oggleflint pretty handily, and then squished the other two mobs one by one. No problem. The leader updated the LFG with the progress of our uber group.

It was pretty clear to everyone how well we were doing, and there was a lot of cheering and encouraging comments all around. We did have to stop and eat and drink quite often, but we went on to kill Taragaman, Jergosh, and Bazzalan, all without a single death. Someone commented that it would be fun to create a guild that was all mages, “and a warrior,” our tank added. Heh… At the end, we all ran out of the instance together, exchanged more congratulations and thank yous (and I even got hugged a few times), and a few noted that all were being added to their friends lists. Nice.

I whispered to the leader and told him what a great job he did leading the group. “About a year ago I led raids,” he said. Oh! After he started marking mobs, I had tossed out the idea that he was new, but … I now remember hearing on a WoW Insider podcast a while back that the summoning stones didn’t always function like they do now (they were just meeting stones, and weren’t useful in any way, really), so maybe this was someone who’d been away from the game for a long time and was coming back to it. That could be why he was surprised we could summon folks.

Another thing I noted that was kind of amusing — the leader kept referring to me as a “he.” I suppose with the undead sizes/statures, it isn’t all that easy to tell the males from the females, and my mage does have a short sticky-uppy hairdo. It didn’t bother me, but given that I chose this appearance to ward off flirtations, I think it’s funny that in this case, it resulted in gender confusion.

Now that was a good pug!

Total time spent in the group: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Total time spent in the instance:  1 hour, 30 minutes

Ragefire Chasm (Take 1)

I finished collecting all the RFC quests last night, including Hidden Enemies, which requires collecting a Lieutenant’s Insignia from the Burning Blade cultists in the cave east of Orgrimmar. The drop rate is terrible, so I always save this one for last, and ordinarily I’m so far above the level of the cultists that I don’t get any experience for the kills. I was getting a little bit of experience this time, so of course the Insignia dropped on the sixth cultist I killed. Heh… so, I made my way back to Orgrimmar to turn in the quest and hop in the LFG channel.

There were two groups in LFG looking for more, one with three people and one with four, and then a handful of other people waiting separately. I started clearing out my inventory to get ready to go, when one of the group leaders invited me to their group. I accepted, and said hello to the group, which consisted of…

• Level 17 Undead Warlock (guild) — leader
• Level 18 Troll Shaman (guild)
• Level 15 Blood Elf Paladin
• Level 18 Blood Elf Priest
• Level 13 Undead Mage (me!)

They were all already in Orgrimmar, and offered to summon me before realizing I was in Orgrimmar, too. I said I could be there in a minute, but it would be quicker if they summoned me. “We’ll meet you inside,” one of them said, so I ran. I didn’t see anyone taking any damage, so I figured they were waiting for me to get started.

I ran down into the Cleft of Shadow and joined them inside the instance. After the greetings, I offered everyone conjured food and water, and just one person, the shaman, accepted some water. The average level of the party was pretty high for the instance, so we could probably make quick work of it without stopping for food and drink.

We ran down the first path in the instance, and … no mobs. Hm. We got all the way to the first place where the path forks and hadn’t killed a thing. I asked if they’d already finished part of the instance, and was feeling rather disappointed because it was pretty clear that they had and … you know, I wanted to blog about the whole thing, and really didn’t want to have to do this instance twice if I could help it. Nobody answered the question. I guess it wasn’t a huge deal as long as they hadn’t killed any bosses yet. A few minutes later, I tried asking again in case folks had missed my query. Nothing.

And then we came to the dead body of Taragaman the Hungerer. Dammit. I pointed to the corpse. “Already killed a boss, eh?” “Yes,” someone finally said. I asked how much further they’d gotten, and … no answer.

So, at this point, I’ll add to my list of instance etiquette — if you are inviting someone mid-instance, it’s a nice thing to tell them how far you’ve already gotten to make sure they still want to join you. I know some instances need multiple run throughs because of quests and such, but RFC isn’t one of these. One really should be able to do it in one shot. I asked several times here what the status of the instance was, and I was getting nothing. If they had told me, I may have joined them anyway and helped them, but it’s annoying to think that I may have been able to join the other partial group and actually get the whole thing done instead.

We made our way toward Jergosh over all the little bridges, and finally came to some groups of cultists. There were a lot of skeletons on the ground. “This is where we wiped,” the shaman said. At last, an answer! I waited for a moment to see if any strategy would be discussed, but there was none. The warlock pulled a mob, and everyone else ran in in Ghostbusters fashion. “Get her!”

I sheeped a caster that was standing off to the side, and the paladin ran over and hit the sheep almost immediately. Oh-kay. So, I just tried to focus fire on whatever the shaman was hitting, because he seemed to be doing the most damage. We survived the fight, and continued along up the path. Every pull seemed to go the same way, just charge right in. For this instance, that’s fine, I guess, though it’s not really teaching anyone technique. I was pleased that I managed not to steal aggro at all. (Nobody else appeared to be running Omen.) Of course I wasn’t doing nearly the damage that everyone else was doing, but I still could have drawn aggro had I targeted the wrong mobs. Thinking back to my first RFC runs, I’m sure I did that. Understanding the concepts of aggro and threat are key to clothie survival in group situations.

We approached the area adjacent to where Jergosh is, and someone said, “Why way?” “Left,” said the warlock, and led us up the path away from the boss. Hmm… going to get him later? I decided to just wait and see what happened. We ended up at a dead end, and all stood around for about a minute before someone said, “Are we done?” Oh lord. “We missed boss,” someone said, and started running back toward the area we’d passed up before. Good good.

Knowing that they’d previously wiped, I got a little worried as we approached Jergosh, but we ended up doing fine. We didn’t pull too many mobs at once, and Jergosh was downed with little drama. He dropped the Robe of Evocation, and the warlock rolled need. So, I rolled need as well, and the warlock won. That’s cool. Someone else looted a corpse, and a green cape turned up — all rolled greed except the warlock who rolled need again. Would have been an upgrade for me, too, but no big deal. (I’d probably see it again on my next RFC run anyway, right?)

But then the need rolling continued. The warlock rolled need on a bow. Wha? Now this is a situation where I normally wouldn’t stir up trouble unless it was something I really, really wanted, but I couldn’t help it. “Need that, eh?” I said, adding a smiley. The shaman said, “What do you mean?” and then a few seconds later, “Oh.” All eyes on the ninja. But, no other comments. The warlock didn’t address my comment directly, but did pass on a few of the other greens that dropped after that, but then rolled need again on a mace. They seemed to either roll need or pass, and never greed. Huh. Maybe they were just clueless. (Or, that’s what they’d have me think.)

I led the group to Bazzalan (I know, I said I wasn’t going to lead or interfere, but he is a little hard to find the first time you go into RFC) and we killed him. Curiously, he didn’t drop any blue items, but I see now looking at thottbot that there are no blues associated with him. (Kind of disappointing.) “Is that all?” someone said. Earlier, I saw the yellow question mark on the map for the satchel quest, so I knew that hadn’t been done yet. I mentioned the quest and the shaman said, “I need that, too.” The priest said, “Oh good! I’m glad there’s more.” The paladin said, “sry gtg” and hearthed out. The warlock said nothing.

We headed toward the beginning of the instance and the path leading up to the lost satchel and Oggleflint and all his trogg friends. I lingered way in the back. We were down one person, and I could totally see someone pulling more than one group of these guys and wiping us. We did have a bad pull, but the priest managed to keep all of us alive. After that, killing the troggs surrounding the body with the satchel was pretty easy, and when everyone went into the cave to complete the quest, they were such a high level they didn’t even grab aggro on Oggleflint! Of course I walked in there (now level 14) and battle commenced. Again, one mob, no problem. We crushed him. We all completed the quest. The warlock said she had to leave (inventory was probably full?), and hearthed out. I said that there was nothing left to do in there anyhow, and that I’d be running back to the beginning of the instance if anyone wanted to join me. The shaman and the priest followed me out. We said our thank yous and goodbyes and I left the party to turn in the Orgrimmar quests that I could.

I confess I am a little disappointed that I can’t press forward and ready myself for Wailing Caverns, but I would like a complete run of Ragefire to be on record for this project. (I still have two quests to complete, too, since I need Taragaman’s heart and a few more troggs.) So, next chance I get (hopefully before vacation), I’ll pop myself back in the LFG and try to get a group together to do Ragefire Chasm again, this time in its entirety.

Total time spent in the group: 45 minutes.

Total time spent inside the instance: 42 minutes.

Almost time to begin

My fire mage is almost ready to look for her first pug. She’s at 11 now, and has left her humble home in Brill to start picking up the Ragefire Chasm quests around Kalimdor. In the next day or so, she’ll make the long walk to Thunder Bluff to get the last of them, and enter the LFG.

If I had to sum up the experience of leveling her so far in just one word, the word would be “quiet.” There were only about 10 or so other people in Deathknell when I started her. (When I created my most recent Blood Elf, there were more than 20 others around.) I appeared about the same time as a few other folks, so it was kind of fun to run around together, casting our baby buffs on one another. I didn’t group with anyone (no point at that point), but a few of us did end up watching each others’ backs in the cave with the spiders. (Taking on more than one of those bugs when all you’re wearing is a frayed robe can make for a close fight.) I pondered the names people had chosen, and wondered about the futures of the characters. Some had the words “heal,” “tank,” and “melt” in them, so clearly the player had a path in mind for them. For the record, mine does not have “pug” as a syllable.

I had chosen the scary black-strappy-things-across-the-face look because I hadn’t seen them on many of the Forsaken that I’d grouped with before. Most players seemed to choose the slightly more attractive looking faces. Looking around at the other players just starting out, it seemed like more than half of them, male and female, had chosen the same feature! But maybe it always seems like that. Like when you decide you’re going to start a shaman, for example, because there don’t seem to be many shamans in your guild/server, but then everyone in your starting area is also a shaman.

Anyway, it’s been so quiet, I’ve actually found myself getting a little lonely and looking for interaction. I’m on an RP server, but I usually mind my own business and don’t strike up conversations with others unless they start talking with me first. Without guild conversation to keep me company, I’ve found myself emoting more when encountering other players. I cackle wildly as I run through the town, I bow to the higher level characters on the zeppelins, and sometimes I even salute the NPCs after I accept a quest. I also bought a pet cockroach from the guy under the stairs in the Undercity. *Looks around self-consciously*

I’m sure I’ll have plenty of company once I start looking for groups, as I will be in the General, Trade, and Local Defense channels again. I don’t particularly enjoy the thought of this. I can’t stand the chatter there, so for all my other characters, I’ve left those channels as soon as possible, and relied solely on the official LFG channel for finding pugs. I know some view LFG as a n00btastic approach to finding a group, but I view the ability to use it as a sign of at least a minimal amount of intelligence. I hear that it’s sometimes much faster getting a group in those other channels, since that’s how it was apparently done before LFG, so I’ll just have to tough it out.

Next post: Ragefire Chasm!

The Year of the PuG

I’ve noticed that in writing in my main WoW blog, the entries I enjoy putting together the most are the ones about the pick-up groups I run instances with. Sure, a lot of it is complaining and venting, but every now and again the group really comes together and works well all the way through an instance, and it’s very rewarding. I think the dynamics of pick-up groups are interesting, and when I’m not so hell-bent on the getting the particular tasks out of my quest log, I like observing how people interact with each other. I often re-run instances with different groups, just to see how things go.

So, I’ve been thinking that a fun writing project independent of my main blog would be to pug my way through as much of WoW as I can over the next year. I’ll become a regular in LFG, and even stick it out in the other chat channels to help myself find groups. I’ll be staying horde side for this experiment, of course. Also…

- I’ve created a new alt for the project and have not connected them to my guild. If anyone asks if I have an alt, for the time being I’m going to say no, that this is my main. Being associated with a guild means that you represent the guild, and so I often hold back in these group situations (especially when someone does something ridiculous). I also want to resist the temptation to run instances with guild folks also starting new alts. I want to fly totally solo for this experiment.

- I’ve chosen a DPS role so that I can pay more attention to what happens during the run. I’m not much into tanking, and I’ve noticed that when I’m the healer, 90% of the time, I’m just watching the health bars of those in the party. I’ll be a fire mage, stand in the back by the healer, and blast things.

- I opted for a race other than Blood Elf to minimize the “u r hawt” crap. I decided to go with a rather disturbing looking Forsaken. The skin on her face is pulled back to bare her teeth and gums in a grisly smile, she has straps across her face to hold her skull together, and she has a really wicked case of bedhead. I think she looks awesome.

- I don’t plan to take on a leadership role in any of the groups. Instead, I’ll see how leadership emerges amongst the other four, and keep my suggestions to a minimum. (If I know a good strategy to get us through a fight though, I won’t withhold it.)

- I won’t focus my play time on this character. This is a side project, and really meant as a writing project as much as another fun thing to do in WoW. I’m thinking I’ll run no more than one or two instances a week at first, and it will probably be more time in between later, as I’ll have to level more and gather more quests. Even so, a year should be more than enough time, I think.

In this blog, I’ll also be tallying:

- Total # instances run.

- Total # wipes.

- Total time spent with each pug.

- Total time spent with each pug actually inside the instance (my prediction is that it will be about half the previous number in the beginning of the project)

- Anything else I think of before I enter Ragefire Chasm.

For each group, for my personal notes, I’ll probably keep track of the names of the other folks in the group, but for the blog, I’ll just note the classes that participated. (I’ll need this for the narrative anyway.) If there are particular things that you think would be interesting to note, I’m open to suggestions.

So! The scary little fire mage has been created, and she is currently lurking around Tirisfal Glades. She’s level 7 now, and as soon as she gets to 13-14, she will start collecting the RFC quests, and begin this journey.