Pretty Birbs

Posting this a week after the fact, but...

Image from Ru

IRON CIRCLE DEFEATED HEROIC ARGUS!

Congrats to all that were there on the first kill (March 29, 2018)! I'm hoping we can get the mount for some more guildies. A few folks have poked officers about it, and I think they're concocting something along the same lines as the Moose? I hope so, anyway.

We've only downed him once, so far. But I'm sure we'll get him on farm soon, so long as we can skip Coven. We've also only downed them once, and they are murder for us, apparently. I think I might be the only one in guild who enjoys the Coven fight.

Image from Moo

We skipped raiding on Monday, and we struggled a bit last night just due to lack of numbers, but we're pushing back through for another full clear.

Maybe one of these days I'll get my final piece for my four piece of tier... (That's at least something I am looking forward to in Battle for Azeroth—no tier.)

Buh-Bye KJ

This post is a part of #IntPiPoMo 2017. You can find more information and sign up to participate here.

A bit delayed, but just a quick hurrah that Iron Circle finally said buh-bye to Kil'jaeden on November 6th!

Some people are blocking other people, but I tried my best! ;P

Congrats to all that were there on our first kill, and our second kill yesterday! Hopefully we can get in another kill or two to get achievements for a few more folks in the raid team. It's exciting to have him down. It means I can start working on my gaming to do list a bit more!

So proud of Iron Circle.

#IntPiPoMo Count: 15/50

Wednesday Boredom

Blaugust

This week has been busy, and I am now just getting to a place where I feel able to blog about events that I'd sort of half-ass pre-written about as they happened.

I've discovered through Blaugust, that even when I have the best of intentions and put together thoughts/images in a post as pre-writing, I don't always get back to it in a timely manner if I'm feeling overwhelmed, or that I just need downtime. Which isn't a bad thing to discover about my blogging habits.

Heck, blogging 2-3 times a week isn't a bad goal to keep towards, especially with my busy schedule. It feels manageable, and like it's something I can continue to do. And if I post more, cool! If I barely get two posts in... well, that's cool, too!

When One Doesn't Raid

This week was a weird one. Monday, I don't even remember what I did! I don't think I was able to really settle into playing a game. I think I hopped into both WoW and WildStar for a bit, but I wasn't really feeling either. I do remember hanging out in TeamSpeak with folks and just shooting the breeze.

Tuesday I had a hair appointment which took longer than expected (it's normally two and a half to three hours, but it's DragonCon time here, so she was booked solid and it took me four hours to get my hair colored), so I didn't really sign on for Legion. Which was fine—I expected things to be buggy and laggy and stuff, so I hopped into WildStar for a bit to get my T3 contract done.

Wednesday was raid night in WildStar... but we didn't have enough folks to raid. So instead... well, we had shenanigans. A picture is worth a thousand words...

We eventually ran some dungeon groups, but it was fun sitting in TeamSpeak for over an hour joking around and talking and making a Snarfelynx line on the wall and showing it off to Caydiem. Goes to show that sometimes, you really don't need the game to have content for you and that you can make your own.

Stepping into Datascape

On Tuesday, our raid group stepped into Datascape as a whole for the first time.

I sadly wasn't around due to the project at work that's currently going on, but based on our logs, we made some pretty good progress on System Daemons. Plus, it's always fun to see guildie reactions on Twitter during raid.

It's like a bad dream sequence ... all those floating bodies. #wildstar #raiding pic.twitter.com/dX9QwVghix

— SpousalUnit Fitch (@CirindeFitch) August 11, 2016

So, I just have to point out, to those that might not raid in WildStar, this is what the first boss of the second raid looks like.



We stepped in again last night, and I had a lot of fun wiping constantly to the bosses. It's fun getting back into progression, and based on how we've been doing, I don't think it'll be long before we're done with System Daemons and onto some more Challenge Rooms and more bosses.

I know our raid group is "behind the curve" of raiders, but for a group that is more "take it at your own pace" about the whole raiding thing, I think we've done a pretty amazing job as a whole to get where we are, and I couldn't be prouder of the raiding circle. I'm looking forward to smashing more high fiving robots next week!

GOOOOOLD!

Yesterday was the first time I've been in-game since... the 30th of August? Wow. That was almost two weeks without games. Oh boy was it rough, haha.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!

But I had some fun in WildStar! One of our guildies is working on attument and is at the Adventures stage, so we decided to hit up Malgrave to help him out.

It was nice to run some stuff with guildies, and it was even nicer to get Gold for the first time while in there! I've run Veteran Malgrave Trail quite a bit in my time playing WildStar, and I was glad to finally be able to get gold out of it! I also managed to pick up two new achievements I didn't have, plus a title. We also got the Speedster run, which I already had, but we got it for the guildie who needed the run.

Birds of Prey

There was also a mini-pet that dropped, and I ended up winning the roll for him! It is the Vulcarrion Scavenger mini-pet, and apparently only drops off of gold runs. It's a really pretty pet, actually. I'm hoping that the more we run it, we can get it for more guildies that need it, since only one person in the group out of the guildies there had it.

Raiding Fun

Raids seem to be like everyone is hitting burnout for various reasons, though the big one seems to be that we don't yet have a full and complete group (second seems folks are dying for F2P!). I completely understand that real life happens--I myself am the prime example of real life happening and not raiding. But some folks have just stopped altogether.

But that's okay, because we've some members that just hit 50 and are looking forward to raiding for the first time! We're not a progression guild, so we'll get there when we get there. We're not going to force people to get to 50 and raid if they don't want to, because it's not what we're about. But I am glad that folks have been having fun and are excited to try raiding out! It makes me a happy guild leader to see folks trying new things, and excited for new challenges and endeavors.

And it was great to see some folks who needed upgrades get some really great ones out of raid last night, even if we only got a few bosses/mini-bosses down.

Algoroc Done

I also spent some time putzing about in Algoroc. One of my goals for the month is to finish out either Algoroc or Celestion, and I was much closer to finishing out Algoroc's achievements than I thought. All I needed was the I Like It Rare achievement. So I killed the last five Primes I needed, and I've finished it out!

Well, as much as one can finish it out before F2P. They've added in acheivements for Public Events on Live already, but the public events won't come out until the 29th with F2P. (EDIT: I'm a scrub and didn't realize that the events are already out there, at least in Celestion, so I'll be checking out Algoroc again to finish those two out...) But don't worry, I'll be going back to do them because I'm a completionist. Now, onto Celestion! Let's see how much I can finish before the month is over!

Phagemaw... So Close!

This is post 24 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Saturday night was raid night. I got the chance to tank some, which was a lot of fun. I was able to re-rune a bit before raid to replace a piece I got, but instead of selling it, I put it into my bank. Maybe I'll get the four rune slots back as tokens. It's an idea... we'll see if it actually works.

I didn't get to re-rune my DPS set, though. There wasn't enough time before raid, and I had two pieces to try to finagle instead of just one. I probably won't get it done before raid on Tuesday, either, but I'll have plenty of time before I'm able to make raid again, so maybe sometime during the week I can get it in.

On Tuesday we got through the first floor, with one mini-boss left. Saturday I got to see the second floor for the first ever time! It was so neat! Similar but different color scheme to the first floor. It's more techno-phage and less strain-infested.

I downed two new mini-bosses for the first time, too! Phagetech Guardian C-148 and Phagetech Guardian C-432.

They're fairly simple fights, actually, compared to a lot of the other mini-bosses we've encountered. Honestly, I think the hardest fight in the whole raid that I've seen so far has to be Kuralak. Especially since we're still using the Engineer trick to get her, rather than being able to do the pillars ourselves fully, yet. I'm hoping we can get there soon, though!

I also got to see Phagemaw for the first time ever! I mean, yeah, I've watched videos, but it's different to see a boss and learn the dance. I was in the non-bomb group, so it was fairly easy. Though honestly, from what I saw of the bomb group, it doesn't look too much difficult either, as a DPS. I can't imagine the hell the healers go through during this fight, though. I'd be interested in one day trying these out as a healer, though I don't know when it'd ever happen because we have a lot of our healers DPSing already.

We got Phagemaw down to 13%, and while I'm sad that I didn't get him down this week, I know that the guild will have him down in the next week or so, and I'll get him down for my first kill soon after.

Kuralak Down

This is post 19 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

Last night I got to hang out and raid with the guild, which was a lot of fun. I enjoy the raids in WildStar, but quite honestly, I think I burned myself out on raiding back in the WoW days. Doing two days a week is almost tedious, and doing it weeks in a row is not something I get great joy out of like I used to. So I'm kind of glad that I take it slow with raiding. Regardless, I really did have a lot of fun! Got to run with some folks for the first time, which was great!

And I got Kuralak down for the first time! The guild has successfully downed her about three times now, but it was my first time seeing her hit the ground. She's a really tough fight, and I'm interested in seeing how the guild will handle her once the devs fix the whole "Engineer Strategy".

I also got down a new mini-boss for the first time: Fetid Miscreation. And... I also kind of made out like a bandit on gear with three purple pieces--two for DPS, and one for tanking. I'm not really looking forward to re-runing everything, especially right before F2P drops with all new runes. Maybe I can make use of the few I have sitting around in my bank, and just fill in with some cheap purples for now so I can at least take advantage of the tokens when folks get refunded for runes.

I'm looking forward to seeing Phagemaw for the first time, Saturday. He looks like fun!

Under the Platforms

This is post 7 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

The guild has been raiding twice a week for about the past month. While we're not past the first area in Genetic Archives, it's still been a lot of fun. Knowing the fights now, it's kind of a bummer when you die to silly mistakes. But sometimes it can be fun, too, because you have the opportunity for neat screenshots on the way to your doom.

This screenshot in particular is underneath the platform in Experiment X-89's room. I got this when I fell through the platform one time. I knew I was about to plummet my death, so I had to make the most of it. I love the colors used in this raid. The strain in general are very purple and yellow. But I love the utilization of different colors underneath.

You see strain in the typical colors, but you also see a lot of Eldan influence (this is the Green/Gold scheme). This is the case because we're in Genetic Archives--a repository of all the eugenic data of every species on Nexus, compiled by the Eldans, specifically a certain one. The blue is what gets me, though. It's so bright and almost out of place. I wonder what parts of the Strain utilize this blue, and why we haven't seen more of it.

Impromtu Prompt: Have you taken any screenshots that were opportunities from a death? Have you ever died because you were taking a screenshot? Share the shot(s)!

First X-89

This is post 4 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

On Tuesday night, it was raid night! We usually do Tuesdays as a trash farm night to help folks newly attuned get in on some gear, and try out X-89 for the first time, as we usually don't get him down. We went in and steamrolled the first two mini bosses. We were on fire! And then we wiped on a pack of corrupted Dawngrazers. It was actually kind of funny that we wiped on trash just before the last mini boss, rather than the mini bosses themselves.

We hit up Gravitron Operator, and got her after a few attempts, as we'd some new folks in the run. It was our second time getting her, and we completely forgot to get a screenshot the first time, so I made sure to take one this time!

Then we went on to X-89. We got him down after a few attempts!! It was my first X-89 kill, and the guild's second kill. I do feel really bad, though, because I had terrible bomb placement as I wasn't focused on my feet at one point, and I dropped a bomb in the middle dropping one of our healers. I feel really, really, bad about it. But she was avenged, because I got stuck in another bomb that someone dropped correctly.

I wasn't really playing to my full potential on Tuesday. Part of it was I was distracted by the cats being dicks. The other bigger part is that I was tired and stressed, and my mind just wasn't in it. Normally I can push those feelings aside and settle into raid mindset easily--and I just couldn't on Tuesday. I've sort of been in a funk since, which has made it difficult to even write this post. But I have, and it came pretty easily once I got over the malaise of writing it.

I think that's the hardest part for me as a blogger. I suffer from anxiety and depression, and I don't like taking meds because I don't like what they do to me. Most of the time, I do a pretty damn good job of staying positive, getting myself out of a funk, calming my axiety (it also helps I have a fabulous therapist who's taught me a lot of tricks to help with all of these), etc. But every so often, I get in a funk. And it's usually when life just smacks me in the face and I feel overwhelmed. And that's when I really could care less about doing anything...

I'm going to get through this challenge, though! I'm going to get 31 posts in 31 days, even if some days end up with duplicates (because I need to catch up). And I can't beat myself up for not keeping up with it, because then I won't finish. I got this, hold my beer.

Aurins Can Fly

Yesterday was a long and busy work day, and last night was just as busy. Got home, put together dinner, and did some packing for moving before Mini-boss night in WildStar.

We have two different raid nights in WildStar--Tuesday nights we go smash the mini-bosses as more of a gear-farm for folks, and Saturday nights we focus more on progression. Last night, however, was a bit of both.

We hit up the first two mini bosses as we have in the past. I think we wiped more on trash than we did on the mini-bosses for a change! We downed the Genetic Monstrosity in two tries (the first try being a butt pull and getting him to 2%), and we downed the Hideously Malformed Mutant in one go.

We also went in to try the Gravitron Operator for the first time, thinking that we would spend most of the night on her. (We've deemed it's a her, apparently, though you can't tell either way.) In about four or five tries, we had her down for the first time. We were all kind of surprised with ourselves. And after loot handed out, we were still kind of in shock, so... we never got a kill shot because we Bailed Out to the zone-in. Oops. We'll just get a shot of her next week!

We decided since we still had some time left for the night to give Experiment X-89 some tries, since we got him down to 22% last weekend. We didn't have a full group, but it meant some practice for folks still figuring out how to do mechanics, so it would be worth it no matter what. It came as a shocker to us all that we were consistently getting him down past 33%, and got down to 9% at our lowest (and sadly final) try for the night. We figure we'll get him on Saturday first thing, and be able to get some first attempts in on Kuralak the Defiler.

I love the Experiment X-89 fight. It's not a very difficult fight mechanics-wise. In fact, I feel that he's pretty straight-forward. But that means he's a great fight for those less-experienced folks to learn mechanics, and get better at them. During the fight, X-89 will put a Big Bomb (no idea what it's actually called, but so what?) on someone. You're supposed to jump off of the platform so you don't kill all the tiles (and thus the raid), and then you get blown back up into the air on top of the raid and fall back onto the platform (not taking any fall damage).

One of the times I got the bomb I decided to take some shots, and got a pretty good one. Who kew that Aurin (Aurins?) could fly?

Archer Time

WildStar

It has been an interesting week with all our packing. It's made gaming a little more difficult. Tuesday we would have logged into WildStar, but I had a crap day that was super long, and by the time I was actually relaxing after cooking dinner, it was after Genetic Archives mini-boss night had started. So no WildStar.

Wednesday I helped out some folks that needed Vet Adventures for attunement and ran a Vet Malgrave Trail. We got Silver for them, and it was lots of fun. I do hope to get Gold in there, one day. But for now, I just love helping guildies out that need it so that more can get to raiding!

Thursday our internet went kaput. Freaking Crapcast. It's like they know we're moving next week and are acting up. It took me a while to get it back up and running steadily, but I did. By that point, it was almost bedtime, so we crawled into bed and I watched an episode of Gilmore Girls (I never watched it when it was on TV), and Chaide watched some Arrested Development (which I can't watch because it sends me into anxiety-central watching not-so-great people do things that send their life cascading).

Friday was Normal Dungeon night, and Bauxyte got up to level 28. So close! Hoping to hit 30 today as I quest some in between packing. We also got some folks' alts through KV/STL that had not yet run them in any capacity, which was pretty cool.

Last night was Genetic Archives! Two mini-bosses were already killed on Tuesday, so we had a clear path to X-89. We got him down to 21% at his lowest for the night, and we're pretty sure that we'll get him next week! I was going to tank, but let another stalker from Blazing Saddles do so instead. So I'm hoping our internet works on Saturday after we move so that I can possibly tank next week. Y'hear that, Crapcast?

It was a lot of fun, actually. Though I did spend most of yesterday runing both my sets and trying to get as many AMP/AP as I could. I only have a few more of each to get, which is awesome. And now I'm fully runed on both sets (until I get an upgrade). It was a lot of plat, so I'm going to try to focus on getting in some dailies this coming week so that I'm not so poor anymore (I spent about 15 plat altogether--yikes!).

FFXIV

Tuesday we gamed a bit over on Lamia (we haven't gamed since Tuesday--silly packing for moving), mainly because it was a very long day so we missed raid in WildStar, and we knew we just needed a short spurt of something. Chaide rolled up a new character and is trying to catch up to me in levels. So I just kind of meandered around and puttered in FC-chat. I did work on a bit of questing, though, to try to hit 10, which I'm just short of.

First, I started with some main story. I had to pull a sword out of a tree stump. Though I can't exactly remember why. It reminded me of Sword in the Stone and all that and I got a good chuckle out of remembering some Arthur lore and how it's presented in various media.

At that point, I ran into Papalymo and Yda and their Moogle.

And then bad things happened with a ground tremor or some such. So we had to fight them!

And fight them we did! But, that's when I saw a shard on the ground...

And then I passed out as I had this... vision? I guess you could call it a vision.

Afterwards, we found a dead Ixal, but not a normal kind--I think it was a leader or some such. Regardless, folks think something is afoot because of the Ixal. Which I'm sure there is something up, no?

After this quest, I just sort of went around killing things for other quests until it was time to log. I'm hoping to get in some various aspects of gaming today before World Boss night in WildStar. Maybe I can hit level 12 on the Archer, too!

Daggers' First Raid

Last night, the Daggers (and some Blazing Saddles) went into Genetic Archives for the first time ever. We had about eighteen people total throughout the night (dipping to fifteen at our lowest), and we had a blast!

We spent about four hours total inside, and beat up lots and lots of trash.

We also downed the Hideously Malformed Mutant miniboss...

...as well as the Genetic Monstrosity miniboss.

We even took a couple stabs at Experiment X-89, and got him down to about 80%.

But then he bugged.

All in all, it was a fabulous night, and I'm looking forward to our next casual foray into Genetic Archives on July 5!

Attunement Done!

I've been spending a large quantity of time in WildStar since Thursday (though Friday I pretty much just binged on Gilmore Girls, which I'm enjoying, as I never watched it at the time it was on television).

I've helped run a lot of dungeons, worked on contracts, reps, and dailies... and I finished my attunement for Genetic Archives!!

I'm glad to be done, honestly. Though the hardest part wasn't the adventures, or dungeons, or bosses, (though they were are difficult). The most difficult part was finding the desire to finish it. To find a group of people I'd like to raid with, and not just "put up with" or what-have-you.

While there have been some changes in-guild recently, I think we've gained some pretty awesome members who are looking for the same type of things the rest of us are. And that's half the battle.

Having a good guild is the most important part for me when it comes to raiding. I'd rather take it slowly, once a week for a few hours, rather than farm through it for the gear. The gear isn't what makes it fun for me (though it can make things easier)--it's the people you complete the challenge with.

Even dungeons I've run a bunch feel fresh and new and exciting when you have the right group together personality-wise (despite how much you do or don't wipe). While it wasn't a specific goal for the month, it's definitely a huge accomplishment. I'm looking forward to this next chapter in game-play. And I'll be sure to take a bunch of shots when we hit up Genetic Archives for the first time next weekend!

Wait, What's the Word Again?

The bird IS the word. The birds before Alysrazor, that is. Our guild doesn't do research on trash. We like to kind of figure it out on our own. Except that the birds before Alys completely stumped us. Even after multiple attempts.

I won't ruin the gimmick mechanic of the fight for those that don't want to know, but all I can say, is that is the most fun I've had on trash in a very long time! Alys is also quite fun... compared to Lord Rhyolith. Rhyo can suck an egg. We must have a busted strategy or fail drivers because he is not getting past 30%, despite our successes on Shan and Beth. Though research suggests it's hit or miss with Rhyo depending on his volcanoes even after hotfixes.

Anyways, how is everybody else enjoying Firelands? Progression going as planned? I know some people are having issues because it's the summer, but I hope people are at least seeing it that want to!

Shade of the Elm: 10/12

I wanted to once again give a quick shoutout to my guild for downing Cho'gall last night. We spent a total of fifty-something attempts trying to down his butt, and it was very rewarding for everybody involved to crack that mutha.

I just wish I'd been able to grab a better screenshot!!!
In no particular order: Sellkies, Kanati, Sbayi, Wrink, Foolish, Wind, Bob, Mana, Chaide, Chest
Special thanks to: Everybody whom ever spent a wipe or two or more on Cho with us!

I also wanted to congratulate our new raiding group, "Avengers of the Elm" (they go in and smash things for vengeance on the group that starts the day before.... hehe) on their first kill!

In no particular order: Sbayi, Air, Chest, Raiz, Ury, Guul, Chef, Mana, Xeph
Special thanks to: Achillestone of Paradigm Redux

Keep up the great work everybody! I'm so proud of all of you!!! :)

Shade of the Elm: 9/12

I just wanted to give a huge shout-out to my guild, congratulating them on our ninth boss kill since we started raiding in late-January. We may not be the most hardcore progression guild, but we have a ton of fun, and we get stuff done!

This week has just been an amazing set of runs--we downed all of the bosses that were semi-progression easily this week, and I think we're starting to get over the hump. :)

I have the utmost confidence that this weekend we'll be 10/12 when we down Cho'gall (3% last week!). Again, grats everybody! And not just those that were there for the kill, but each and every one of you that puts the effort in with heroic runs, professions, and more! 

In no particular order: Chest, Chaide, Chef, Fed, Sbayi, Kanati, Bob, Sellkies, Ques and Wrink.
Special thanks to: Wind and Vara

Shade of the Elm, the Kingslayers

About twenty wipes over three hours. That's what Saturday night looked like. Aggravating for some (lots of wiping always is), and exciting for others. We almost had him. The valks just kept killing us. We called it a night at our normal time.

We started early on Sunday, in case we were going to have a repeat of Saturday. All of us stoked. Somehow knowing it was going to be the night. And it was the night! After about six months of Shade of the Elm grinding out ICC, we down Arthas for the first time. Vent was a riot. It was exhilarating. The title finally felt official, even though the Elephant and I had already nabbed it. We one-shot him. (We aren't counting the one attempt where someone was in the wrong spec. ;) ) Also, thank you to Slater from Iron Circle for filling our third healer spot for the night!

Foolish, Me, Wind, the Elephant, Cand, Cheezy, Digi, Sellk, Vara, and IC's Slater.

Congratulations Shade of the Elm! We did it!

Now, to switch around some people to get a few other dedicated guildies their titles...

Chestnut the Kingslayer

I still can't wrap my head around it. Nope, I can't. After being a hardcore raider and finally getting burnt out, and then moving to a server to just enjoy the game and all its aspects (read: Achievements!!!!), I never thought I'd get it. Nope. Not me.

Sure, I've been raid leading an ICC10 Saturday/Sunday with the guild, and the weekly, and some older stuff like AQ40, and helping to heal the second ICC10 Tuesday/Thursday group for the guild... but I never thought I'd get it. We've seen Arthas as a guild. Yup, casual little ol' Shade of the Elm has gotten their paws on Arthas. We just had two heals that night, and couldn't down him, sadly (but that shall all change this weekend!).

Kingslayer. Yep. I still feel like it didn't happen, even though my title is sitting up there and on my Armory.

Iron Circle, the Elephant Tree and Me!

I want to send a great big Thank You over to Iron Circle for asking us along for a Kingslayer run on an off-week for our guild. Thank you again, T, Steg, Ru and the rest! It's been a pleasure playing with you all, no matter the capacity. Hope we can still run things together come Cataclysm! ;)

And I'm still wrapping my head around it...

Kingslayer!