up.”
It had not been a good attempt. There’d been so much going on, and the chamber was sufficiently large and full of particle effects, that the raid just hadn’t coordinated properly. Nothing had gone down fast enough and they’d been overwhelmed by briars.
[Solace] whispers: You okay?
To [Solace]: yeah that was faster than i expected
[Solace] whispers: :(
[Solace] whispers: Honestly, we’ve only beaten this fight once and that was with a different comp
To [Solace]: oh
[Solace] whispers: But we didn’t have the best geared tank on the server :)
The second run was only marginally better. For Drew, this was where you really saw the difference between a casual guild and a hard-core one. Anni had flailed around like this the first time they’d done the fight, but they’d got over it quickly. It was complicated enough that you never really had it on farm, but they could pretty much guarantee that if they wiped, it was because something specific had gone wrong rather than because nothing had gone right.
To [Solace]: ffs
[Solace] whispers: This is really bugging you, isn’t it?
To [Solace]: kinda
To [Solace]: i don’t mind wiping but i like to feel we’re making progress
[Solace] whispers: We are. It just takes a little to see it.
To [Solace]: there you go being zen again
[Solace] whispers: You like that, though
To [Solace]: i guess i do <3
[Solace] whispers: Seriously, we’ll get it. We kind of go through a flailing stage, then a learning stage, and then it comes together.
To [Solace]: kk
To [Solace]: sorry i didn’t mean to be an elitist dick
[Solace] whispers: No, it’s cool. I suppose you’re used to things being different.
Kit was right, and pissing on other people’s learning curves wasn’t going to help anybody. So Drew got himself a second can of Dr Pepper and settled down for a long evening of wiping.
“Okay guys,” came Morag’s voice. “This isn’t really coming together for us. I know it’s the end of the night and the final boss, but we need to stay focused and work together, or we’re just going to be banging our heads against a brick wall.”
Of course, the other difference between SCDD and Anni was they had none of the recriminations and bullshit. After two wipes like this, Anni would have dissolved into finger-pointing and epeening.
“I don’t think we’re doing anything particularly wrong, I just think we need to be a little bit sharper and a little bit more responsive. Ranged, I think you’re spending too much time on Bloodrose and not enough helping the melee. Melee, I know you’ve got a lot of running around to do, but you need to keep on your toes and get where you need to be when you need to be there. This is a control fight, not a DPS race, so it’s better to do it right than to do it quickly. Let’s fish up, and try again.”
This time round they got to phase two, but the portal team was slow off the mark, so the area filled up with purple death fire and swarming minions. In Anni, they’d sent a seriously tooled-up assassin into the portals solo, and relied on stuns, invisibility, and smoke clouds to keep the portal guardians at bay while he destroyed the Realm Heart. Drew thought about suggesting it, but while he thought Jargogle knew her stuff, she probably wasn’t quite geared enough. It was sort of the weird paradox of hard-core guilds, that you were good enough at the game it allowed you to do things the easy way. Which, in turn, sort of took the fun out of it after a little while. Although, for Anni, first had been more important than fun.
[Solace] whispers: You’re not hating this too much, are you?
To [Solace]: i’m honestly good now
[Solace] whispers: Think of it as more time spent with me :)
To [Solace]: dude i really like raiding but if i had to pick a way to spend time with you it wouldn’t include bjorn yelling in my ears
[Solace] whispers: <3
[Solace] whispers: Maybe we can talk about that later :D
Attempt four, they lost too many people to Heartsblood, so they didn’t have the DPS to get through the final phase. The mood in the raid was better than Drew would have expected it to be. Every try had been better than the last, so there was a real “we’ll do it this time” vibe, even though it was getting on for half ten, or half eleven for Ialdir, Magda, and Bjorn.
As they were rebuffing, Bjorn took control of Mumble.
“All right, you