News

Another few weeks go by, and it’s time for another update to the front page. This time we’re dealing with the Illidari Council, the second-to-last boss of Black Temple, and the so-called "super bowl of not standing in shit". And indeed, there’s many different things you have to watch for and avoid. This sounds easy on paper, but poses a unique challenge to us. Before you argue remember that we are a guild that embraces and even respects people like Pezz, who last I checked was being pursued by police from 3 states due to the "hey guys give me a number to call and I’ll talk shit to them" episode earlier this week. He was drunk, there was vent, and the result of that is about 1.5 hours of epic recorded footage and the 6 people involved nearly getting a hernia laughing.



Not that hard of a fight quite honestly. We spent about an hour 2 weeks ago learning what all the abilities did, then came in this week (having forgotten everything) and wiped at 90% twice, then got them to 2%, and on next attempt collected epics despite having to 24-man the fight due to a "hunter glitch". It’s all about situational awareness, and thankfully that’s something we’ve been able to learn over the course of our raiding career.

When somebody does something dumb and wipes the raid, people get angry. Some people get angrier than most. Like Benix. Do it enough times, and he enrages. And if you’re the clown responsible for this particular instance of fail, then the tapping noise you hear on vent is him punching his screen with both hands trying to uppercut you over the internet. One day that will be possible, and as you stand in a blizzard or doomfire and attempt to heal yourself with bandages your door will fly open, and to the blaring sounds of Master of Puppets you will be charged by a very angry man with a cardboard viking helmet and axe:



And now that Council is dead, we can begin work on Illidan. It might start a little slowly, since people are still taking finals and writing papers and we may not have the ideal raid group every night. But soon summer will start, and he will be dead - faster than Vashj and Kael and Archimonde, most likely.

Speaking of finals and term papers, here’s an excerpt of an essay written by one of our "special" members, on the topic of "Inter-family Psychology". Remember kids, if you need to write a paper, take the night off from raiding. If you raid on one screen and compose essays on the other between trash pulls while talking on vent, you get this:

You know, after Archimonde every fight seems easy. Gurtogg, initially, took only a few attempts. Reliquary of Souls took a single laid-back, casual evening. There’s about 5 people total that need to pay attention that fight, for everyone else it’s "stay off the ramp, DPS hard in phase 2, DPS harder in phase 3". Mother Shahraz consists of "tanks stand there, and other people run AWAY when you get teleported". We had some issues explaining to several individuals what exactly "away" means, but even then we 2-shot her.

Just like many other fights in this game, these two encounters were defeated through the use of creative thinking rather than just brute force or luck. Even Nevvy had a good idea in there somewhere I’m pretty sure, which is surprising to say the least.



Lost yet? Well, if you’re someone that doesn’t regularly raid with us, you probably only know Nevvy as the bad troll in trade chat that says "banned" after every statement, or as the person in Skettis that chooses to wipe you on the escort because he disagrees with the shoes you wear. You may or may not know that he has a kitten in his freezer. But here in Addiction’s raiding scene, we primarily know Nevvy as a veritable fountain of bad ideas. These suggestions are usually delivered at the most critical moment of a fight, when everyone else is desperately trying to focus, and Nevvy himself is lying face down on the ground due to an earlier attempt to put one of his ideas into action. I think this says it best:

The humor may be lost on some of my readers. In that case, I recommend you find a shiny ball to play with, or maybe a slinky. Or play one of the many creative games that our star raiders invent in their free time while running circles around Shattrath at 4 a.m. on the weekend.

Game one is called "Get On Your Mount And Fly Up As High As You Can And Dismount, Whoever Lives Wins". Another is called "Make A Level 1 Alt And See Who Can Get To Stormwind First". I swear, playing a DPS class gives people Downs. I can just imagine these people in real life, coming up with things like "Poke The Alligator Until It Flips Out" and "Lick The Electrical Socket". Or even worse, congregating with other idiots on the internet and bringing that sewage to guild chat. If you don’t believe me, scroll back up and read the first word of every paragraph of this news post. Then tell me what you think.

…well, yes you kind of do. After Archimonde, this fight is nothing. Anyone, including for instance, all 3 tanks, can die without too many problems. We should be fine until he starts gaining Soul Charges.

Meanwhile, in Zul’Aman:



Secret cells are already laying the groundwork for a fearsome thing known only as the Bear Cavalry. If you don’t know what it it is, google it - the picture has already been posted on this main page once, and I’m against reusing old jokes.

All I have to say is that it’s serious business. And only has one answer.



Fortunately, the only sniper I know of is already in the guild and works for me, so we’re safe. Speaking of which, I promised a picture of Crickit, since RL pics seem to be the new trend here. Well, she has the intelligence and foresight to not post pictures of herself on the internet, since that NEVER ends well. Or it means she’s actually a man IRL, but that’s an unpleasant thought so we won’t go into it here. Instead, I give you an artist’s rendition:



Remember this next time you start yelling "omg heal the tank! heal the tank! Kain needs heals!" in vent. ESPECIALLY when you’re some useless class like a warlock or hunter, and by rights shouldn’t even have other people’s health bars on your screen. You too may end up with no head like the unfortunate gentleman here. Or worse, fed to Rooraman’s bear.

And finally, Rule 34. What is it, you ask? Well, simply put, Rule 34 states that "if something exists, there exists porn of it". Think about that for a second. Now think about the cartoons you used to watch as a kid. Think about the toys you used to play with, and think of your fondest childhood memories. Rule 34 aims to desecrate those memories. If you look hard enough on the internet, you will find all kinds of harmless things twisted into hardcore pornography: Disney princesses, Super Mario Brothers, Pokemon (the actual pokemon, not the people… what do you think "so I heard you like mudkips" is referring to?), transformer robots, and everything else you can possibly think of. Be afraid.

So what does this have to do with Gurtogg Bloodboil? Nothing yet, thankfully. Rule 34 on THAT is something I’d like to stay away from. But people often wonder what I do during raids, when waiting for people, or when I have a few minutes between pulls. Well, I draw. Here’s one of my recent pieces - don’t look if you want your innocent memories of Serpentshrine Cavern to remain intact.

Too late.

This one is called "Hug the Snake Lady".

Remember: Nothing is sacred. Nothing is safe.

Let’s have some numbers. There is a patch, and that patch is 2.4. This patch removed the need for keys and vials, which means that on a given night we have 30-35 people in raid instead of 19 and a half. So you take 25 people, and threaten to replace those that screw up more than once. Which leaves everyone with 1 chance to die to Air Burst, and that in turn means that Archimonde will die before 25 attempts.

As Dan would say, that’s some DELICIOUS math.



Quite honestly though, I don’t really understand how people can die to fall damage. Take Kazajin for instance. Do you know how he plays? I do. There is a small cup on his keyboard. The drool that doesn’t end up on Kazajin himself slowly fills this cup, until it becomes heavy enough to press the Steady Shot key, which allows for what some might call "dps". People like this can click Tears apparently, at least often enough to stay in the raid. Think about that for a moment.

It’s not the fight that’s hard. It’s the approach. Let me tell you a story:

Last summer myself and two friends went for a weekend to Maryland. Many adventures were had, but one day in particular we decided to buy some fresh crabs. The crabs themselves were frozen, but not dead - meaning that once they thawed, they became quite active and fierce. They began to attack us as we tried to cook them. In the end we, being (slightly) more intelligent, prevailed, and cooked those responsible for the uprising in oil and bad beer.

Once the leadership was removed, the situation became easier to deal with - when a crab got riled up and started causing problems, we verbally warned him to stop. We would then simply take one of his innocent friends, and, while the offender watched, put his friend in the boiling beer. When we were done eating several crabs remained among the living, and let me tell you, those were some of the most well-behaved crabs I have ever seen. They listened to directions and never talked back, even when ordered to fight a powerful House Cat in a makeshift arena made out of cardboard and beer cans. In fact, I guarantee that if we were to take these same crabs and put them onto a keyboard, they would outperform 95% of our raiders.

What does this have to do with Archimonde? Well, dealing with angry crabs is a lot like leading a raid. People get bored wiping to clowns that forget to click Tears, and stop trying. However, once they see a replacement policy enforced, they realize that "oh shit, pretty soon it may be ME swimming in that boiling pool of Miller High Life". And, well, you saw the rest yourselves.

So grats to those that were there, and especially those who stood by. We can finally post an update to the Realm Progression thread, and I can finally start listing helm tokens instead of names of squid in my notebook. Which, by the way, many people have expressed an interest in seeing. Here’s an excerpt:



And grats to Bake, Yukomo, and myself for entry into the "T6 Hat Club". It’s almost as if we’re using officer loot. Well, not really. If we were, would Roo be given the gloves in the below screenshot?



And finally, to those that still remember, a bold promise was made regarding the Archimonde kill. A special set of pictures was sent to me through secret channels, throwing light onto one of the greatest enigmas within the guild. With the help of Agent Rooraman, I present to you the one and only Mister Pezz. The REAL Mister Pezz, and not some Downs patient with a donkey I found on 4chan:



Sunwell is one big step closer, so let’s try to pick up the pace. A man named Conq told me, "Addiction has ‘mouthbreathers’ and ‘squid’, Synergos has ‘cripples’ and ‘vegetables’". Well, those vegetables in wheelchairs are 1 boss from Illidan now. And personally, I’ll take our mouthbreathers any day - at least they have hands (or tentacles I guess) to play with. If you’re still not convinced, next time we go to Archimonde try to break fear and click Tears by rolling a cucumber across your keyboard. Unless you’re a hunter, you will probably encounter only limited success.

Until next time, where by popular demand I may reveal some home-made warcraft pornography.

So after a casual run-through of some easy farm bosses in Black Temple, we decided to maybe move in the general direction of Teron Gorefiend. You know, to have a look at the fight, maybe give it a shot before attempting it for real the next day. There was a lot of trash. Frightening trash, with spinning swords and large skeletons and even a small battalion of orcs.

We decided to maybe learn the trash. Well, it was learned. And more:



Surprising, perhaps, maybe even a little lucky. I must say I didn’t expect the learning process to be this quick. As we were approaching Gorefiend, and as it became apparent that we’re actually going attempt him tonight, for real, the following horrifying sequence of events was playing in my mind:

Earlier that evening:

[Adobe] whispers: lol is it ok if i didn’t play the minigame or watch the video or read the fight?

Then…

Teron Gorefiend yells: I have use for you!
Raid Warning [Kain]: Adobe has Shadow of Death!

…and constructs run rampant through the raid.

And it didn’t stop there. We had to call in our Special Forces using a phone reserved only for emergencies. Let me illustrate roughly how the conversation went:

Thankfully the ghost minigame aspect is much simpler overall than anticipated, and it only really depends on the first person to get it. And we can pray that someone "rigged" gets it at the start.

Speaking of which, here’s the picture of Kazajin I promised:



By the way, that girl in the picture is his "asian valentine’s day date".

Next is Archimonde, which will test our problem solving intelligence and maze navigation to the fullest.



Beep.