Team PM report:
We've had a good week in Team PM - last Thursday, we did a tour of heroic Highmaul, first dispatching H Kargath in no time flat, and then getting back to the Butcher on heroic, as we had Rhetorica with us healing, recovered from illness. And we got him! We wiped a couple of times, but third time was the charm apparently - it was a very satisfying moment. We then went over to take a crack at heroic Twin Ogron - that fight is all about not standing in moving fire and falling rocks, and we made some progress but did not quite get there.
So this past Tuesday, we killed H Kargath (I'm not sure how many heroic boss kills are required to kick the garrison follower Highmaul mission rewards up to Mythic, but we'll keep killing as many as we can and hope to get there) and then went straight to H Twins. Well, straight through the very annoying trash, which did drop a nice piece of BOE purple loot that was an upgrade for one of us, so that kind of made it worth it. Kind of. Anyway, we spent quite a while in the company of the Ugly Twins, trying to dodge fire and stay alive. I changed up healing roles to put Crakzert focused on keeping Taklok, our whirlwind boss tank, alive thru that and that worked well, but the rest of us kept dying at inopportune moments.
Finally, Thanael said (I will not say yelled, but he was pretty emphatic) that we were just not stacking closely enough on the Enfeebling Roar (I think that's the name of it) in order to adequately split its damage among all of us. He also put the traditional last pull pumpkin on Pamena's head. And on that pull, we kept inching closer and closer (we had gotten him to 10% on a previous pull so we knew were in striking distance), stacking properly this time so that the raid was staying alive (well, except for the disc priest who still can't get the hang of dodging the fire, and spent most of the pull cheering from the floor) and Crak and Tak were handling the whirlwind in fine fashion...right up until disaster struck. We were down a healer and two or 3 DPS, when a freakish charge took out BOTH Crak and Taklok when the Twins were at about 8%. So now we had a whole cheering section on the floor, as Thanael solo tanked, Halitosis and Swyft (I think he was still alive and healing at that point) madly healed, and the remaining DPS pew pewed....and they got it done!!! It was epic!
We are still not quite geared enough as a group to handle Blackrock, I think, alhough we might take a peek at it later tonight. We'll go back to Highmaul and assuming we have the right people in the group, do H Butcher again, and then try either Tectus or Brackenspore on heroic, or look in on Imperator normal, just to get a taste of the fight. Or maybe look at Blackrock, we'll see. We are having a good time in our group, regardless of what we do - it's a fun group of folks, and once we get a bit more geared up, I'm sure we'll work our way thru BRF, laughing as we go. Good times.
Other Observations
I think people may be suffering from Garrison Fatigue, as I've noticed a marked drop off in guildies signed in the last couple of weeks - I think it's a natural part of the cycle, and I myself have been changing it up a bit by levelling some of my Alliance toons. Patch 6.1 drops this coming Tuesday, and while it has no new dungeons or anything like the wonderful storyline quests of the Dominance Offensive chain and dailes in MOP patch 5.1, there are some nice quality of life improvements and some new garrison quests. I am so looking forward to the heirloom tab! No more searching over all my alts on several servers looking for that heirloom I'm sure I have someplace! I do hope Blizz follows the pattern of MOP though in giving us more storyline quest chains in future patches - I've missed that in this expansion so far.
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