Affliction Guild

And so it was that Affliction zoned into Tempest Keep again last week. This time however, our intention was not simply to walk past Al’ar’s room, but to do some industrial grade pest control so we could finally have a place to park our mounts without finding them burnt to death by a stray blob of burning bird poo at the end of the evening.

As we cleared to Al’ar, the GM’s and Officers were deep in thought. The success and morale of the raid in mind, we were pondering important questions and their ramifications for the guild as a whole. Heated were the debates, lengthy were the discussions and bordering on the theological were the conversations as we talked in detail regarding each subject. Was Al’ar a mythical Phoenix, or was he bitten by a radioactive Spider in the Searing Gorge? Should we cook the corpse, or use it to power a Gnomish Airconditioner in Honor Hold? Could you actually cook a Phoenix, or would the oven explode from reflected heat? And finally, if you ate a Phoenix, would he stay eaten, or respawn later when you were on the toil- actually, we should probably leave that one out.

Suitably prepared for the encounter ahead, we forged on past the last couple of “special” hunter pulls involving some bad timing and very surprised healers, and reached Al’ar’s cage. Or perch. Or roost. Minus the straw. But he would probably set that on fire anyway.

Those of you unfamiliar with this fight will be comforted to know that it too follows the age old principle of raiding, which we have perfected and refined into into its purest form for you, right here, time and again, so that you may benefit from our wisdom and experience and carry it forth into your own raids. It is a timeless strategy, a mantra if you will - which can be depended upon to guide you in the right direction. I am, of course, referring to:

“Don’t die.”

You may take the customary moment for recovery and adulation.

The fight itself is fairly straightforward. Phase 1 consists of lots of running around the room, as Al’ar inconsiderately interrupts our attempts to bring him to a timely end by flying off to find a more comfortable spot at one of four positions along the upper level. Unfortunately, each position was occupied by either a very spiky warrior who insisted on poking him continuously with a sword (or in Testa’s case, a magical fairy wand) or a Druid, the latter’s stench being enough to prompt even Kael’Thas to pop round and ask if Al’ar had eaten a bad batch of giant bird seed. Some burnt fur and furnace-heated warriors later, we gained the hang of running around like a herd of lemmings and the tanks learned that sometimes, jumping off a cliff is a good idea.

On we went to Phase 2, which involves more running around, but for different reasons. Al’ar, tiring of the tanks hoarding the prime nesting spots, exploded out of the center of the room and decided to take matters into his own hands. Or feet. Inevitably, he headed straight for Netcode and pecked the living crap out of him. We can only assume that Net must closely resemble a tasty Mana Worm snack from one hundred feet in the air. As the melee chased Al’ar around like a prehistoric hunting party, and Al’ar’s adds chased the healers around, and the tanks chased the adds around, and the ranged chased the tanks around and various people exploded, were crushed or burned to death, we eventually got Al’ar closer and closer to looting time. Some frenzied action, triple somersault mid-air BR’s and disappointed calls over vent as someone lost yet another pair of pants to a flame patch later and Al’ar fell over dead.

We poked the corpse a couple of times to make sure he was staying down this time, and then nuked it a bit more just in case. Finally, we let Run loose on the feathered carcass. There’s no faking death through THAT. After lining up for the killshot, we got even more healer loot and a hunter trinket. I guess Phoenixes aren’t herbivores after all.

Big grats to everyone present for the kill, and to Affliction for another great achievement!

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 4:51 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.