Birthday Party For Raistilan

I had an interesting situation come up on Saturday night. My plan had been to log on and maybe work on a little Netherwing rep. I’m only Honored and I don’t think I’ll make it to revered before Lich King.

I received a message from Leejenkins (aka Raistilan/Dotslover) from the previous nights Zul’Aman run. He wanted to know if I was saved to Mount Hyjal. I wasn’t. He invited me to a ‘trash’ party that he was putting together to help celebrate his Birthday.

(Happy Birthday Raist!)



Raistilan was one of my close friends in Mal Katai and we still talk quite a bit. I've helped him as he leveled up and then started gearing up Leejenkins who is a Protection Paladin. I also seem to have influenced by previous GM in Heroes Inc to roll a Protection Paladin, and he's even made a couple of posts on MainTankadin.

My guild, Dominion, is generally not really cool with you running 25 mans with another guild. I knew I wouldn’t be online again until the Tuesday reset so I knew there was no danger of locking myself out and being unavailable for Dominion. Plus it was just a trash party, no bosses were going to die.

But I still felt I should talk to my Raid Leader and make sure it was okay for me to run with them. I looked up and down the guild roster, looking for either my Raid Leader or my Paladin class officer. When I saw neither on, I looked for any officer I could find. I finally spotted the Warlock Class Officer and basically told him I was going to a trash party with Mal Katai and please don’t freak out.

He whispered me back saying have fun and then sent me another message saying he wasn’t an officer anymore. Doh!

Then I saw my Arena partner online, and I message him to let him know what was going on and that I would bail out of the trash party once it was time to do Arenas. He messaged me back and asked if he could come. I waited a few moments and then Leejenkins asked if I knew anybody who might want to come along. Next thing you know, Lakini is in the raid.

We started with 21 people. There were a lot of familiar faces in the raid that I haven’t seen since I left Mal Katai early in the Spring. Everyone seemed really friendly towards me, and it didn’t appear anyone had any hard feelings from my leaving them. It was great to be hanging out with those guys again.

With 2 Protection Paladins just made an AoEfest of the place.

We hadn’t really intended on killing any Bosses, but when we got to Winterchill it was kind of like “Why Not?”

The point of the raid was just to hang out with those guys and maybe get some people some epics to take into Wrath. The trash had been rather frugal so the Bosses would have to do.

I got to Main Tank Rage Winterchill as she floated into the camp. We lost Lakini right off the bat to an Ice Tomb. Mal Katai was actually killing Rage even before I left them so the battle was never seriously in doubt.

With Rage down, I was now ‘saved’ to their instance. People wanted to keep on going so we kept right on pulling.

I think Mal Katai had struggled with Antheron largely because they didn’t have a Fire Resist tank. I asked for a port and went and grabbed my Fire gear out of the bank. We blazed through the trash with little problem and soon we were at Antheron. We put Leejenkins on Antheron and I asked for 2 or 3 DPS to take down the Infernals. It wasn’t enough and soon we had multiple Infernals up and I was soon dead.

After that we decided to have ALL the range DPS switch to the Infernal. Either people logged on, or decided to come to the raid because the next attempt we had a full 25 man raid.

We pulled the trash again and started getting some trash epics: A spell power mail chest, a spell power neck, and a couple of patterns. I was hoping the tanking cloak would drop for Leejenkins but we had no such luck.

We get to Anetheron again and start banging away. At 20%, I told the Range to just stay on the Boss. At like 1% we lost Leejenkins, but range was able to finish him off before he killed everyone.

Loot was ‘free roll’ and the tanking sword dropped again but I rolled like a 17. I guess I’m destined to go into Wrath with Suneater.

Honestly, if I could JUST replace my dang boots, I’d be a happy camper.

Mal Katai had never seen the Horde camp, so we rode over there and said hello to Thrall. (Yes, I warned them to clear out before talking to Jainia). It took me a second to get my bearings and find the little road up to the Horde camp.

I explained Kaz'Rogal's trash and we pulled. For it being their first time there, I thought Mal Katai adapted well to the pacing of going back and forth between the front and the Gargoyles in the back. The Frost Wyrm has my vote for the single best trash mob in the game.

I had planned on tanking Kaz’Rogal. I was a little nervous about using a Paladin because I didn’t want to blow up. We mishandled the pull and Leejenkins grabbed him. Rather than try to pull it off him, I just said over vent to heal Lee. He did fine and anytime his mana dropped the healing brought it right back up. Mal Katai had no Shadow Resist gear to speak of, so the healers and mana based DPS were eating every Mark of Kaz’Rogal. Despite that, they still managed to down him before people started blowing up. That marked two progression kills for Mal Kati on the night, and a one shot on their very first pull of Kaz'Rogal.

I explained the Azgalor trash, especially the trick of banishing the Fel Hunter in Wave 5 to prepare for Wave 6. They did a great job and soon Azgalor was wading into the Horde camp.

We had significant trouble with Doomguards getting loose and destroying our healers. So I switched from Az to Doomguards. That worked great, until I got Doomed, and rezzed and Doomed again. Holy Bad Luck, Batman!!

Unfortunately, it was getting late and we had to call the raid.

I hope everyone in Mal Katai and Lakini from Heroes had a really good time Saturday night and got to see some new Bosses before the Expansion Pack.

I also hope I don’t get into too much trouble with Dominion for taking the run.