Tidewalker 1, The Oroborus 1

Written by Osprey

Picture Credit: 

Norrec, via WoW Head 

No, we didn’t one-shot Tidewalker. Nor did we two-shot him: We only had time for one attempt. But I’m going to call it a draw anyway. 

We started invites promptly at PM server time. Again, I was the first healer invited, and we had plenty available. I’m going to continue to take that as a good sign.

It took us only about 45 minutes to form up tonight, which was quite an improvement over last week’s attempt on Magtheridon. I was pretty jazzed about going to SSC already, although I know I’m geared well enough, and I believe my healing is now up to the standard needed to at least warrant a raid slot. (Yes, I’m Egotistical now, and I know some of you are raising an eyebrow and saying "Only NOW?" Shush.)

We had a good group, including at least 5 healers: 4 priests (one shadow) and a tree. Might have had a shaman healing as well: I confess I wasn’t clear on that. In addition to our Feral Druid MT, we had several prot pallies in tanking slots. Our DPS was well distributed among hunters, rogues, mages, a couple warlocks, and one or two shamans. All in all, a very solid group.

We handled trash fairly well, outside a couple inadvertent pulls, which naturally resulted in some inadvertent deaths (including mine, on two successive pulls). We had a wipe on the first group of shadow casters, but once we got past that, we handled the remaining groups well. The raid felt good at this point, although I’m not naive enough to have started thinking downing Tidewalker was a sure thing.

One of our rogues pulled the murlocs before we were ready: That got pretty ugly. He gamely admitted his error; I’m fairly certain no one was upset. He also offered 4g for repairs to anyone who died on that pull (we did prevail, and I’m going to take some credit for this, as I was the only healer still up when the fight was over), but I don’t think he had any takers. Mistakes happen; we learn, and move on. I doubt he’ll get quite that close again, stealthy or no. 

So now comes Tidewalker his own ugly self. Our RL explained the fight in detail, moving to each location he wanted people to be in, and indicating from where we could expect murlocs. We were ready, the pull started. I was a bit slow to get behind TW: I thought the tanks were going to turn him. Fortunately, the two or three seconds I wasted didn’t impact the fight. Unfortunately, being one of TW’s "random" targets for a watery grave three times in a row did have a rather negative impact, especially on my health. 

I’m afraid I spent as much time healing myself in that fight as I did healing my tank assignment and the raid. I don’t know if Levitate is necessary when one is released from a watery grave, but I did have the presence of mind to use it. Unfortunately, the last time I was banished, I was also hit by a pretty nasty AOE (or something) just before ending up in a bubble. This was right after our resto druid had died. As soon as I was released from my watery grave, with only about 850 health, I was dead as well.

The raid continued on, but being down two healers with Tidewalker only about 25 percent down was not a good sign. However, the fact we were able to reduce him to 33 percent was a very good sign. I’m sure in one or two more tries, we’d have nailed him. Unfortunately, it was 10:30 server time by now and people needed to leave. But as the RL said, he’d spent a lot more time and not gotten as far on more than one occasion. I don’t think anyone was overly disappointed by our performance, and I’m confident our leaders were encouraged considerably.

My less-than-stellar loot luck continued, more or less: On one of the trash fights, Pattern: Boots of the Long Road dropped. I was offered the pattern, being a tailor. Of course, I already have the pattern, and the boots, having purchased the former a few weeks ago from the Auction Hall. Ah well, the pattern is now in the Guild Bank, and some lucky tailor-priest will be able to make the boots for a lot less than I did!

Now that I’ve had a taste of SSC, I’m eager to return. And this time, I want to dance on Tidewalker’s corpse.