Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Means to Kill the Lich King

I got to play with the Lich King in 25 man last week.

Oh. My. Gosh.

I think the encounter is sufficiently epic for what Blizzard has built him up to be through the expansion. I wasn't far enough in to see the end of the Sunwell when it was current content, so I can't accurately compare the two, but I am having so. much. fun.

I'm pretty sure this is the reason I was asked to go back discipline full time as well, another thing I am extremely excited about. I feel like the game has gone from the miserable grind it became on our brief stint away from Twisting Nether to something a lot more challenging and enjoyable.

I'm really hoping we get to visit him again this week. Yesterday went surprisingly well for the low attendance we had. Hooray for green beer and drunken raiders! We had a lot of people I'd never seen before filling the blanks, I think many were alts of guild friends so the dps was definitely lower than usual, but we managed to sweep out most everything except for Blood Queen and Sindragosa which we didn't have the DPS to bother trying. We broke early and managed to clear out a good chunk of our 10 man a little early even.

Sadly we had the DPS on Tuesday to clear the whole shebang, but excessive lag really crushed us (2-5 second power word: shield casts anyone?) when we got to Rotface. How embarassing...

Our first tries at the Lich King encounter last week were an epic wipefest, but that was half of the fun. It was definitely not something we could steamroll in a couple of tries. We will spend many more hours wiping and learning the fight, and when we wiped last week, we did learn and progress farther and farther every try.

We accepted the ICC buff even though it feels entirely too soon, but every little bit helps. For those concerned with ranking, we'd still be doing it before anybody who did it after without the buff. Personally I'm just impatient to see him dead for my own sense of accomplishment.

One thing that I'm less keen on is picking up an unlock for hardmodes before we down Arthas. This may or may not be in the works (arrangements are being investigated currently) and it feels a little like cheating. I'd like the sense of accomplishment in saying we followed the expected progression path. I can understand the opposing point that getting better gear will make us more likely to down the boss, but the way we were starting to progress last week makes me think we can do it without heroic gear. But then, we could probably do it without the Strength of Wrynn buff too. C'est la vie.

I just want to see what happens when he dies. I think maybe the true achievement so far has been avoiding any spoilers to know just what happens during the ending cinematic. I may or may not be an RP/Lore nerd but that's the real reason I'm pushing progression with jackasses instead of hanging back with friends and sociable players - I want to see what happens next, and I want to be the one doing it. I missed too much content in Burning Crusade and was unsatisfied because of it. I still find time to socialize and we all still chatter at each other in our special Octo-buddychannel which we couldn't do cross-server. But when it comes down to it, I'm a gamer nerd, and I want to beat the game.

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