Written by Sil
Wednesday, 27 June 2007

Umbrage raid tactics revealed

1) Always use protection (wipe protection that is). The person you select should be aware of their surroundings and move to a safe location in order to res the raid as quickly and efficently as possible. This saves the raid valuable time and gives more time for progress. For the sake of clarity it should be noted that you should never pick suicidal taurens who leap from bridges just as they get DI.

*Sadly a warlock saved him instead of leaving him to the fish.

2) Teamspirit is an essential component, respsect for the lives of your comrades. If you don’t care about each other you can never hope to succeed. In some cases it is a good idea to recruit a morale officer. Probably not this guy.

*We would like to think he is cheering for us but due to the fact the boss was on 97% it is unlikely.

3) Communication is key. A raid leader needs accurate and relevant information as soon as possible in order to make informed and intelligent decisions.

Following whispers I was able to make an informed and needed decision; open warlock recruitment.

4) Leading from the front. Officers should stand proudly at the head of the guild, facing the same dangers as their members

Of course there is something to be said for observing from a distance to fully appreciate a "test" pull.

Despite our obvious handicaps Umbrage has enjoyed the bountiful loot of SSC the last few weeks, indeed we have noticed that void crystals seem to be a generic and common drop from bosses.

After the mind numbing boredom of Morogrim SSC finally coughed up a highly enjoyable fight in Hydross. Unforgiving of individual errors and full of action, the fight often goes down to the last few seconds. After a night of learning him the giant elemental lay dead, and even after multiple kills the fight remains fun (plus you get to hear "but i didn’t have any dots ticking" way too often).

Leothras is another encounter high on the adrenaline and offers ample opportunity for one of our favourite pastimes, Battery baiting. The fight itself is a good one, reminiscent of Battleguard Sartura - one of AQ40’s better Bosses, and demands both movement skill and controlled dps (or 24 others in your guild who can so so while you lie there watching). After two 1% wipes we felt it was time to relieve him of his loot and add him to the list of vanquished bosses. This was followed by the pleasureable experience of not dusting the first kill loot, something of a rarity for us in SSC.

SSC has not been the only place to entertain Umbrage. The Eye had a visit last week and we would like to personally thank Blizzard for removing the attunement 2 days after we keyed the entire guild. A slightly unbalanced raid (read as one mage) made the first pull entertaining but the trash was swiftly learnt and we took a look at Void Reaver.

We would like to praise the encounter for its dynamic design, groundbreaking challenges and gameplay, but sadly will have to settle for saying it has nice loot.

The subtle charms of Lady V await!