Breakfast Topic: Hitting your stride
by Zach Yonzon 
Mar 23rd 2009 at 8:00AM
We finally did it. Heroic: The Twilight Zone. I thought we'd get it much sooner than yesterday -- and we had come close a couple of times -- but thanks to shoddy third world Internet, things often don't go the way we plan them. Several key raid members would get disconnected mid-battle, and we were never quite sure what caused it. We'd just blame it on a bad connection and hope for the best. So imagine the great luck we had when we finally got it all together.That was an awesome night, and we headed to Naxxramas to clean up and ended up making quick werk of Patchwerk without even trying. I guess when you hit your stride, things just fall into place. Have you ever had a really good run where everything just worked out? A good day of playing where things just go your way? Gunning for Battlegrounds Achievements, I've had bad days but also excellent days where I felt like I just couldn't be beat.
What things have worked out for you? Selling stuff at the Auction House as soon as you put them out? Successful Heroic dungeon farming? Mike asked the other day if the RNG worked out really well for some of you, but what about stuff that isn't so random? When you're right on top of your game? I wish all my Arena sessions were like that, but well, nothing's perfect. How about you? Have you hit your WoW stride lately? Tell us how good things have been going in-game so far.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Cyanea Mar 23rd 2009 8:18AM
The time my guild and I trounced Heroic OK, UK, Nexus, VH, and HoL with no deaths. That was a great night.
Cyanea Mar 23rd 2009 9:53AM
Or the time I did six Northrend heroics in a row (I can't remember which ones) with a PuG. THAT blew my mind.
Don't really have any raiding strides, cause I've only ever pugged raids or played fill-in for other groups. Bunch of my friends and I formed our own guild about a month ago with our first scheduled raid as a guild this Wednesday. Hopefully we'll have our own stride stories to tell. :D
Adorialea Mar 23rd 2009 8:35AM
I like to think I have pretty good luck in the auction house. I've had people (i.e. one person) tell me things won't sell, and I not only sell them almost immediately, but get insane amounts of gold for them. I then promptly rub it in their faces how much I made. Nana-nana-na-na!
Unfortunately I don't think I've ever been "on top of my game." Usually I trip at some point and fall mid-way down my game, hehe.
Sakinah Mar 23rd 2009 8:38AM
Happened to our guild last night in our progression raid. We're working our way through heroic Construct and had yet to take Patch down. Figured we'd give it one more try since we kept getting closer.
Last attempt before people had to head out for the night: Everything went smoothly, didn't hear him say 'No more play?' more than once (droods with combat res for the win...), and he died. It was great. :D
Then we went to run WG and took it down on offense in less than ten minutes.
Best night so far for me. :D
Jmoney Mar 23rd 2009 8:41AM
Well, our guild was clearing 25 man Naxx like every other week and someone pointed out that we had reached Sapphiron without any deaths...which resulted in 25 people losing their minds before the KT fight... after about 30 minutes of planning and talking it through, we got the Immortal title...luckily KT's MC didn't get the important people.
We then decided to do maly and cleared it..
it was getting late so we disbanded...ran AN with some guildies, go the Gotta Go! achievement in 3 minutes 58 secs....
at this point its about 4am...i decided to fish in dalaran... sewer rat came up in 58 casts
needless to say i was a happy camper that night
Tifereth Mar 23rd 2009 8:43AM
Our Undying attempt a few days ago was a perfect example of this. We achieved Arachnophobia, Make Quick Werk Of Him, Shocking! and The Safety Dance on this run. No deaths, high dps und everyone focused on the task at hand made this a very enjoyable evening, one of the best runs I've ever had.
Jay Mar 23rd 2009 8:45AM
Wrath PVE is pretty easy given the gear accessible, so repeated success in raids is not really an eyebrow-raiser. However, when the RNG is clearly rolling in my favor (e.g. 3-4 frost lotus/arctic fur/nobles card in a row), I take notice.
Grak Mar 23rd 2009 8:53AM
Joined a new guild last week, and on Saturday they took me on an epic heroic dungeon tour (being just in levelling blues I badly needed gearing up). We did every heroic 5man over the course of the day, and only wiped on Occulus (it took me a few tries to get the hang of green drake healing). So got not only all the achievements, but some great gear and about 50+ emblems. Most successful day I’ve had in WoW for a long time.
ScottyD Mar 23rd 2009 9:05AM
We had the EXACT opposite happen yesterday ALL day. To top it off, we had two new guildies we were running through heroics to help them gear up (and get an idea for how they played). The worst part: It was not the new guildies fault at all, but we were unable to finish even a single heroic ALL day. One boss in each instance we were in would cause a huge issue for someone and we'd wipe repeatedly. I can't think of a worse WoW day ever!
RetadinMan Mar 23rd 2009 9:05AM
I respecced Prot last night, and I've been finishing quests up way faster than usual, clearing instances as my guild's lvl 60 5-man tank without falling below 40% health. I even Main Tanked Onyxia. That was a good feeling.
ghola Mar 23rd 2009 9:07AM
I had some great fishing recently. I picked up the Rare catch (Dark Herring) in Howling Fjord, the Sewer Rat, and Mr Pinchy all within 2 days and about 200 casts of each other. I did spend quite a bit of time on all of those things for a few weeks beforehand, but to have them all finally come in so close to each other felt great. Now if only I could get into Orgrimmar without being constantly harassed by Thrall's thuglings...
Sakinah Mar 23rd 2009 9:54AM
Thrall doesn't have thuglings. He has obedient, well-trained soldiers and a group where everyone is ultimately answerable to him- including the other faction leaders. The strength of the Horde...everyone knows their place.
:P I'll take the Grunts over the Stormwind guards anyday. That said...I've seen plenty of Alliance folks fishing in Org, and so long as they're not griefing, I let them be. There is a way to do it, if you're determined. Largely, learn to love corpse-hopping.
BillDoor Mar 23rd 2009 9:07AM
Usually for me, it works something like this:
Pull 1: People remembering how to do the fight. Goes okay, but usually something dumb happens.
Pull 2: More of the same
Pull 3: Someone does something really dumb early on, forcing a wipe.
Pull 4: Declared to be the last pull of the night, execution is perfect, and we kill the boss with nobody dying.
GDkitty Mar 23rd 2009 9:28AM
I come from a rather small guild (under 25 active people), but we are close.
Our raid leader (MT) and two others (two of our 3 healers) descided to take an extended break from the game.. we thought alot of the raid progression would be shot.
Now dont get me wrong, everything would have been WAY easier if they were around still, but we tried to buck up and keep going.
Tried one combo of tanks/healers... didnt quite work well. Two characters respec, come back at it, and down sarth in quicker time than all previous attempts before.
TLDR; Sometimes things go wrong, sometime right. Its all in how positive you look at it :) AND how lucky you are with the RNG :P
TokenChick Mar 23rd 2009 9:36AM
After hours of having fun in BGs one night, I decide to cap and defend some flags in AB for the achievements where you do this 50 or so times. Well I got a lucky streak and got AB All Star, Overly Defensive and Disgracin' the Basin all in one go without much trouble. Needless to say we dominated that AB.
Thought I would never get those and I get all three in the same run. I was pretty excited.
Gronck Mar 23rd 2009 9:37AM
I think I have to go back to BC raiding to really get to heart of "my best night in raiding." We'd spent just over a month working on Lady Vashj, dealing with disconnects, poor reaction time on Tainted Elementals, bad timing on dropping the 4th shield generator, numerous mistakes on the striders and simply not having enough people up in phase 3 to get her down. Finally, one fateful night, we dropped her. It was a thrilling and joyous moment for all present as we felt we'd really worked for it. But that wasn't the moment that stands out so clearly to me.
You see, after we killed Vashj, the only thing we still had left was Kael'thas. We'd never really spent any time with him--in fact, we'd spent precisely *no* time working on Kael'thas. After dropping Vashj, we walked into The Eye and cleared to the Prince of the Blood Elves without issue (something we'd done many time before, but because we didn't want to take time away from working on Vashj, we never put in any attempts). We took 2 shots at him to get a quick feel for the fight and decided to call it a night. On our very next raid night all eyes were focused on the prize: Mount Hyjal and our Vile's from Kael'thas. We wiped 6 times to Kael'thas and his cronies--that's a total of 8 wipes if you include the 2 from the previous night. On the 6th wipe of the night (8th overall), we wiped at 9%. The 7th attempt saw him fall with all 25 raid members standing, Every ankh was available, every battle rez was available and ever Soulstone was unused--no one died. *That's* hitting your stride!
Going from just over a month of work on Vashj to killing Kael'thas in (effectively) a single night. It's a feeling I've yet to top, even though I a.) killed KJ pre-3.0 and b.) I am one of the lucky few to wield a warglaive.
ava Mar 23rd 2009 9:44AM
Yay! You gloated to the whole community that you got an Achievement and made it look like it actually a blog post!!! yay!!!!!
I guess that's the perk of getting your own column on a website...I demand to be an editor here!
Cyanea Mar 23rd 2009 9:50AM
I'd gloat too if my guild managed to get that.
Congrats, Zach.
Zach Mar 23rd 2009 11:55AM
@Ava - We're weeks behind schedule. Whereas we were the second guild Horde-side to clear 2 drakes, things went wrong from thereon and we fell way behind. That was a missed opportunity but I have to say I'm pretty proud of my guild despite being late on things. So yeah, everyone deserves a shout-out now and again.
ava Mar 23rd 2009 1:05PM
I never once said you don't deserve a congratulatory for clearing the hardest boss in end game currently. I am merely stating the fact that you through it into a breakfast topic disguised as a thread on hitting a stride. When the first statement was in fact, hey look at us, we did this yay us!
You guys made a heroic feat, and was able to pull a 25 man together to down a boss that requires near perfect execution to get down. I just think there is a time and place for that. Such as WoWInsiders: Guild Watch, and/or your local realm forums. I wouldn't want to hear how Bill Gates got to the 21st mission on Space Pinball in Windows wrapped around how Space Pinball is getting a huge upgrade. Well actually I would because it would be hilarious.
Congrats Zach, and Zach's guild on your triumph.
I still demand editorial privileges though.