Obsidian Sanctum

Tonight’s raid of choice was Obsidian Sanctum.. this was a return visit as we’ve previously been unable to beat Sartharion..

We’re chasing achievements as well as mounts and other loot, so again we started by killing the trash but leaving the drakes alive.

As in previous attempts, we were wiped out when Tenebron joined in as he hit our Paladin way too hard.  In the end our Warrior went back into his tanking spec.. he was more able to take a beating to the face and we finally killed Sartharion and his friends off!

One of the prizes here was the Reins of the Black Drake, which was won by Vorlak to add another mount to his growing collection.

I won the Dragon Hide Bag, which means I have more room in my bags for random stuff 😉

After this success we headed back to Serpentshrine Cavern, to try and complete what we were unable to finish yesterday.
With an extra person in the team, the second phase of the fight with Lady Vashj was much easier.. we had less interference when passing the Tainted Cores between us and switched off Lady Vashj’s shield generators fairly quickly.  Killing her after that was no problem 🙂

I also grabbed the Helm of the Vanquished Defender, bringing my collection of Tier 5 Priest Gear to Helm, Gloves and Leggings..

Baradin Hold, Zul’Aman and Serpentshrine Cavern

Baradin Hold, a level 85 raid, was tonight’s conquest.. as the Horde had won in the PvP Tol Barad and therefore controlled the area, this rather short raid was available for a few hours.  Finding people to start with was a bit of a pain, as there were others looking to make groups of their own as well, with specific class requirements and so on.  Once the group was assembled, the worst of things was over.. we ended up with nice enough people 😉

At the moment the raid contains just one boss, Argaloth, though more may be added in time.. as well as only having the one boss, we split into two groups..  Argaloth’s Meteor Slash ability deals a lot of damage to whoever is in front of him.. this requires players to stand on the tank so that the damage is shared between all those players rather than all going to the tank and killing him.  The two groups then swap, so Argaloth hits the second group while the first recover.

(Screenshot taken from Wowhead)

By splitting into two groups with a healer in each, it just felt like I had my regular group to look after plus a few extra people to heal every so often.. so aside from the requirement for more players in the group, it didn’t feel very much different from a regular dungeon fight.  Our first two attempts failed, but we took him out on the third try.  I also won some new gloves 🙂

Zul’Aman, newly returned to the game, was our next port of call.. for now this is still a raid, but will become a Heroic dungeon somewhere down the line.

The guys gave me all the Amani Hex Sticks we found, with a mention of a pet being involved. 😀

These are for using them on frogs; this removes a hex and turns the frogs back into people, who then drop a box with loot, or are vendors for random items.  Eventually I hit the right frog.. and won Mojo, who rushed at me and jumped into my pocket.. I thought I was being attacked! 😀

The group found him irresistable.. kissing Mojo turns the player into a frog!  When you kiss him, he whispers things to you as well.. 😉

Finishing Zul’Aman was no problem for our overpowered group..

After Zul’Aman, we headed for Serpentshrine Cavern, a raid in the underwater Coilfang Reservoir.

Heading into this raid, I was shown the Tier 5 Priest Gear, and told I had to roll on it.  It is a fairly nice set, so I decided I would collect it.. and maybe see if we can catch anyone else out in PuGs..

Last week we met an idiot in a PuG.. he saw our tank in old gear and quit without asking or even waiting to see if he would switch into something more up-to-date.  I’m now thinking about turning up to these groups in the nice looking Tier 5, or even in a simple dress.. this might prove a good way of getting rid of impatient, annoying type players right at the start 🙂

Anyway.. Serpentshrine Cavern!

I’d been here with a friend before Cataclysm, and I had remembered it being a little tougher.. we cleared the packs on the platforms fairly quickly.

In a very interesting twist, The Lurker Below has to be fished up from his pool before fighting him.  With an achievement up for grabs we rolled to see who would do it, and I won.  It took a few tries, but eventually I caught a big one..

The Lurker Below’s knockback was annoying, as it came from more than one of his abilities, I kept being caught by it.

Fathom-Lord Karathress managed to kill us on our first attempt, resulting in a rather long run back across the water and down into Coilfang Reservoir.  Eventually we got the better of him.. and moved on to Morogrim Tidewalker.  His mechanics included teleporting us into the waterfalls, where we were temporarily incapacitated before being dropped and incurring falling damage.   This meant I had a bit more of a challenge in healing, so I enjoyed this fight most.

After killing all the bosses, an impressive looking bridge is lowered to get to the final boss, Lady Vashj.

We had no problems the first phase, which was all about damage, but in the second phase she becomes immune, with her shield generated at four points on the platform.  To knock out the shield we had to get Tainted Cores from Tainted Elementals which appear in the water around the platform.. the interesting mechanic here was that once you have a Tainted Core you are unable to move, so you have to throw the Core to the next person, who throws it to the next..

However, Enchanted Elementals continually appear and head for Lady Vashj, and need to be killed as they give her a power boost.. they weren’t hard to kill alone, but there were also Coilfang Elites, which took a bit more to put down, and then the Striders, who used Panic and disrupted us far too much.

We decided that four people wasn’t enough, so put this off for another night..