Tuesday (5 Apr) - Hunter Fortress: "Human" After All

Tuesday (5 Apr) - Hunter Fortress: "Human" After All

There are no humans in Hunter Fortress. Bean is a blood elf. Shevils is a goblin. Speak and See are trolls. But Hunter Fortress has been inhumanly good since the formation of the team. Last week our perfect string of victories without a single defeat was intact. It was an unprecedented accomplishment.

It all came to an end on Tuesday night, as eventually, all things must.

See was indisposed and unable to make it, but the team has run with three members several times without breaking stride and we had every confidence. The first match was Warsong Gulch. We fought hard, but Shevils kept dying and there always seemed to be more of them than us. It was a strange coincidence that all three of us died exactly 8 times each, and all three of us had exactly 41 honor kills each. It was that kind of night. Even when we fell to 0-2, Shevils still thought that we would find a way to win it back, but the Alliance team had six players who could heal, two of which were priests, and between the healing and the priest shields it took forever to kill anyone. It was a scary sight, seeing an entire enemy team sporting shields every time we engaged. We lost 3-0. Our first loss ever.

Our second match was Arathi Basin. To put a positive spin on things, this was Bean's very first ever Arathi Basin match! Our team got off to a pretty good start, capturing three bases to the Alliance two and holding steady long enough to think that we would hold those bases until the end. Shevils and Bean held the Lumber Mill with a couple of others, defending it from attack several times.

Our lead in bases didn't last, however. One of our bases fell to the Alliance, and I don't think we ever got that one back. The Lumber Mill came under vicious and constant attack, and changed hands several times. The back and forth coupled with the deaths separated Shevils and Bean. Bean ended up back at the Mill with two others, doing a great job of holding on to it while Shevils hooked up with Speak to attack the Stables. By that time the Alliance had more bases than us and our points lead started to dwindle.

We fought back, earning a tie in bases for a bit. The stables remained in Alliance hands despite several attempts to capture it. It was a very hard fought campaign, but we lost by a slim margin, 100 resources short of the 1600 we needed for victory.

Hunter Fortress gave a great accounting of ourselves, with Shevils leading the Horde in killing blows (22) and Speak leading the Horde in total damage (over 17k). Bean's solid defense at the Lumber Mill kept the Horde in the fight until very near the end. Yes, it was another loss, but it was not from lack of effort.

It was time for Bean to turn in, and time for the team of Kire and Sista. But Kire had a new partner on this night. At level 45, Java felt that he was ready for some pvp and dungeon running with Kire.

The Hunter Fortress were Horde, battling the Alliance. Since Kire and Java were Alliance, perhaps our luck would be better than that of Hunter Fortress. It was not to be. It seemed like a pretty hard luck battle to Java. We went down 0-1 early in the Warsong Gulch match, battled seemingly endlessly, but then Kire made a successful run, capping a flag and tying it up 1-1. We couldn't keep the Horde out of our flag room, though. We killed the flag carriers four times, but they just kept coming. We grabbed their flag several times, but couldn't cap it. Seven times the horde killed our flag carriers as we tried to get it back to our base to cap. We lost 3-1. Kire (42k) and Java (39k) were third and fourth in damage among the Alliance, but we were both beaten out by the other two paladins (64k, 52k) in the group. It was not our night for pvp on either side of the war.

We hoped for much better luck in our dungeon runs. We even had a plan. It was time to go after our first relic. That hole in our gear chaffed at us both, and we were now - almost - at the level where we could earn it. The "almost" part belonged Java who, at level 45, was one level short of being able to get into Stratholme, the dungeon that held the quest we both wanted to do. Java was only 35% of the way to level 46, and without any rested experience left (Java's power leveling over the past several days had ended any chance of rested xp) we wound up doing back-to-back dungeons in Dire Maul North. We had a mage in that group (was he actually in both runs? It seemed so) who couldn't help pulling mobs and he died several times while creating havoc in the process. We were all getting flustered by it, to the point Kire asked the mage if he enjoyed screwing with us or if he was just that klutzy. The mage said something like "a little of both, I guess." We didn't kick him, and it smoothed out eventually, but it seemed we were a little out of kilter in both runs, even though we finished them.

What did go outstandingly well is that we killed Captain Kromcrush both times we faced him. This is the boss mob that usually requires the Ogre Suit to slip past him without a fight. Last week we wiped on him several times trying to kill him. Not this time. We had a great healer, and Kromcrush was crushed. Twice.

Java made it to level 46, and we specifically signed on for Stratholme. The dungeon is rated for level 48-51; Java's level 46 was the minimum level to get in. Java's tender years showed in the battles. He had a lot of misses, deflects, and blocks that kept his attacks from hitting. We had a better group than the two we'd had for DM, but Stratholme is lined wall to wall with mobs and traversing through them created a constant danger of aggro. Some of the squishier players in the group started complaining about the tank (Kire) not pulling mobs off of them. However, we were dealing with sometimes dozens of mobs at a time and both Kire and Java were doing our best to keep them rounded up. Players who draw aggro have a responsibility to kite the mob that's hitting them to the tank. I don't know how many times Java had to leave the center of the fight to take a mob off of a player who was just standing there wringing his hands.

The complaining was a minor event, though, when it came to perhaps the funniest thing I've ever seen in a random dungeon run. Sorry, Kire, I just have to tell this story.

We were working through a series of bosses when one of our group got mind controlled, and the mind controlled player used what I think was Iceblock on Kire. Kire was engulfed in a large block of ice, stunned into immobility for several seconds. Java could barely see Kire inside the ice, it was that thick. We still brought down the boss.

Kire was still encased in ice. He started moving. One should not be able to move when encased in ice. We waited for the ice to melt. It stayed stubbornly frozen solid around Kire. Hmm. The giggles started.

Kire tried combat. One, to see if he could actually fight inside the ice. Two, hoping it would break up. The answer to part one, can you fight? Kire said - it seems so, as he started killing mobs. The second question, will the iceblock go away? was no.

Kire tried logging out and logging back in. That didn't work, either. Kire seemed resigned to finishing the dungeon encased in ice, as we continued to fight our way through the dungeon. I have to admit, though, that while Java kept his silence, inside Java was laughing hysterically to the point of tears. Just looking at that block of ice tanking a mob would start Java up again.

Somewhere along the way, the ice block went away. I think Kire teleported out and back in and that might have done it.

"Iceblock" Kire

Strat is a lot of fun even without the added iceblock attraction, and we pretty much cleared the huge place. Both Kire and Java got our first relics. Java also picked up two other gear upgrades and saw some others he would love to have from Strat. We should be hitting up that place again. Java can't wait to see "Iceblock" Kire in action again. :P

2009-01-01 Epitaph

The following is from the New Year's report which Wild produces each year:

On the 4th of January, 2008, the "Grunt Foundation" became a reality, led by the undead priest Phillyperdue, french for "lost girl." It was the start of a grand vision for five players who got together just twice a week and intentionally leveled at the same pace. It was an incredible, glorious effort with the goal of seeing and doing everything together that WoW had to offer. The tiny guild cleared Ragefire Chasm, Wailing Caverns, Shadowfang Keep, Blackfathom Deeps, Razorfen Kraul, and all wings of the Scarlet Monastery. But the concept proved too frail. After one member slipped away over time, it all ended on 9 Apr when two of the four remaining members decided it was time to hang up their gear. Philly and Kon, the last of the guild, would quest together for several more weeks, but it just wasn't the same, and ultimately, we too ended it. Kon took over the guild leadership of the Grunt Foundation, and the last I heard he was still active and a level 53 on the Scryer's server. Arq and Huld are still officially members, but have never returned to the game. Braeco no longer exists.

Postnote - As for Philly? Well, she has her own story to tell.

2008-04-09 Wayfarer's Rest

It was early Sunday morning. Jovia dusted a few tables and made sure there was plenty of ale behind the counter. She considered sweeping the floor again, but knew she was just killing time.

Soon, perhaps this morning, perhaps the next, a fresh faced but confident young lad or lass will come calling with a bit of leatherskin to present. And it will begin again.

Jovia wept.

2008-04-09 Fatal Fracture

The below post was waiting for Philly when she logged on for the Tuesday night Grunt Foundation run.

From Huld: "Folks, I don't want to go into a lot of details, but due to real life issues wherein I'm voluntarily limiting my time spent in World of Warcraft, I won't be able to continue with the Grunt Foundation. I've had a lot of fun, and I'm sorry that I've been flakey at times. This in no way reflects on you (you being Kon and Philly); the times we've run around together have always been fun. I was asked to pass on for Arq as well that he will be giving up his spot in the GF also, and asked that I let you guys know that he's had a great time and hopes things work out if you decide to continue the characters."

Philly penned the following as she waited for Kon, who probably has not seen this post yet.

From Philly: "I had a lot of fun with you guys, that's for sure. We made quite a lot of progress in a relatively short time considering that we only played twice a week. Gotta love four manning SM Cathedral!

Hope your situation works out for you, Huld. I'm sure you are doing what's best and that of course is the most important thing. Best of luck to you and to Arq as well. My only regret is that I can't make you green with envy by riding circles around you two on Philly's new Skeletal Horse!

Just joking, of course. I'll miss you both. Again, good luck in whatever you do."

As for our little experiment, it may be that those of us in our situation are just not going to have the time to play even on a limited basis like this. I'll talk it over with Kon when he comes on and we'll see what we want to do. For some reason the movie "The Wild Bunch" comes to mind. It was fun while it lasted, though. "

I wrote the below account of our sunday GF run yesterday, before knowing the above. The only thing I changed was adding the comment after the title. The GF is no more.

Scarlet Monastery Again - The Last Hurrah for the Grunt Foundation

Part 2 of sunday's GF run - After a short discussion the four of us agreed that the morning's task would be the Scarlet Monastery once again. This time we were headed into the Cathedral, the toughest wing of SM. We didn't bother to look for a 5th, agreeing without saying a word that we would do it with four.

The Cathedral is one big pile of trash mobs with three Bosses at it's end. Mobs are scattered throughout the open ground areas, fill corridors, and are tucked away in every corner of the place. Groups were generally pulled in packs of three, so Arq and Huld would tank one each and Kon would have his succubus Seduce the third. Some of these mobs had an AoE attack that hit everyone in range for considerable damage, and Philly used Prayer of Mending (PoM) many times this fight. PoM heals everyone in the raid at once. It's costly to cast, but great when everyone is taking damage. We learned the hard way that at least kon and Philly could stand far enough away not to get hit by that AoE. An overpull with two of those AoE mobs caused the only full wipe we had on the trash.

It just took a lot of time to finally get all of the trash mobs cleared. Our first Boss target, High Inquisitor Fairbanks, had to be quaking in his boots. He hides in the Chapel, and can only be accessed by pulling a secret lever in the form of a torch. Some interesting lore about him, as he witnessed Mograine's son kill his High Lord father in cold blood, with his father's own sword no less, the famous Ashbringer. Not so interesting was the fight, which we easily won, or the loot, which was a "green" pair of leather bracers. Kon won the greed roll, and he said it for all of us: Leather - Yuk!

The main event for SM Cathedral is the battle with Scarlet Commander Mograine (the son) and High Inquisitor Whitemane, the fanatical priestess who runs the Monastery. Every mob in the area has to be dead, or they will join in the defense of Mograine when the fight starts.

Mograine stands alone. We engage. It's a relatively short fight and Mograine falls. Upon his death a chamber behind Morgraine opens and Whitemane engages. The fight is going well when she Sleeps Philly, cutting off the healing. Philly looks around helplessly and realizes that everyone else has been Slept and well. As we watch Whitemane resurrects Mograine and brings him back to full health before the spell wears off. Now we have to fight them both together.

Philly picked up the healing as damage was focused on bringing down Whitemane. Once she finally fell Mograine followed her shortly afterward (for the 2nd time).

Mail Leggings dropped from Mograine that the pally, Arq, won. Whitemane dropped [Whitemane's Chapeau], an oh so nice helmet. Philly won the roll over Kon.

Philly, Kon, and Huld had also finished the last major quest in SM - but Arq still needed to run the Armory and kill Herod. So we headed over to the Armory and just blew through it in about 30 minutes. Herod also dropped the Leggings, so Huld got a pair as well. A trash mob dropped the [Tabard of the Scarlet Monestary], a rare item that, well, doesn't do anything, but is kind of cool.

So another dungeon has now fallen. It has taken a lot longer to wrap up SM than it has any previous dungeon. Where will we go from here?

Philly knew where she was headed. In the short term, anyway. To Brill, the tiny town ouside the Undercity where Philly "grew up." There is a Stables there, and riding trainers, and lovely, lovely Undead Skeletal Horses. A lot of work went into earning that 85 gold, but it was very easy for Philly to turn it over, and then walk out of the Stables leading her new mount. Hi Ho, Giddyup!

PS - Philly and Kon decided to keep our tuesday and sunday game days and see how things go. We'll see if we can get others to join us. The two of us had our own adventures tuesday night which I'll get to in another post.

So we will continue. It won't be without a certain amount of sadness, though. I had such high hopes for this group.

2008-04-02 New Time, Better Attendance?

Tuesday night is Grunt Foundation night with our new 6pm server start time. Philly logged in around 5:40pm to visit the priest trainer for upgraded spells as she hadn't made it over there since reaching level 38. The warlock Kon arrived about five minutes later. Huld showed up right at 6pm and now all we needed was Arq.

At 6:20pm, still no Arq, and Huld gets a phone call.

At 6:40pm, Huld is still gone, and still no Arq.

At 7pm Huld times out and disconnects without ever coming back.

I'm thinking I could be in Tempest Keep right now, which is where Wild's guild was headed tonight.

Kon and Philly, once again on our own, hooked up with another group doing the Scarlet Monastery Armory. Philly has done both the Graveyard and the Library wings in SM. All that is left is the Armory and Cathedral. If we had time the group intended to do both those wings.

The Armory has just one boss, Herod, so we decided to start there. The group included a DPS warrior who did not want to tank, a resto druid who wanted to be main healer (how about that?), and a tanking warrior who had horrible connection problems and only actually participated in about half the fights. Highest level player was the tank at level 41.

Overall it was a fun group, and they played well. Only a couple of times did we over-aggro mobs and things got a little exciting, but the druid was a good healer and Philly rarely needed to back up heal. So Philly was pretty much in full shadow priest mode for this run as a ranged DPSer.

The fight with the boss, Herod, was a bit anti-climactic. He is in the center at the bottom of a tall room with a winding stair that leads down to him. The two warriors tanked him where he stood while the rest of us stayed at the top of the stairs. It was an easy tank and spank and a warrior helm dropped.

I don't understand why we had trouble with the Armory when the GF first tried it. A pretty straightforward fight.

We had fun, though, and there was a little hilarity even before the run started when a player outside the group started flirting with Kon, who plays a female blood elf. I told him to just roll with it, but he was too embarrassed. I teased him about using his "charms" to get people to join our group (both groups we have put together have been pretty good). Must be the female alt thing, he said. Yea, but nobody hits on me, I told him. Then again, Philly is just skin and bones, and more bone than skin.

Both warriors had to leave after we finished the Armory, so we called it a night. Philly hung around to do some herb and fish farming. Level 40 is getting close and Philly needs to make enough gold to be able to buy a mount when she gets there. Philly has 67 gold, but needs 85 gold to buy the mount and the training required.

2008-03-28 A Last Hurrah for Scarlet Monastery?

The Grunt Foundation hasn't had a get together since . . . well, I can't remember, and I'm concerned that our group is going to slowly disintegrate and fade away. After the patch wiped out our tuesday run this week, Arq and Huld asked if we could resked for thursday. I said I would try, but at the time I was unable to commit for certain.

On Thursday Philly logged in around 5:20pm (GF's usual start time is 5:30pm). Kon logged in a few minutes later. He was ready to play. I posted another message on the GF website letting Arq and Huld know we were in game and hoping they were going to check in. I took a quick afk to eat dinner with the Mrs and was back at 5:45pm. Kon said no one had checked in.

A little after 6pm there was still no sign of Arq or Huld, and it was looking more and more like they had decided we weren't going to run. Kon invited Philly to group, and when I accepted saw that there were two others in the group as well, a level 35 mage and a level 44 hunter.

Wanna do SM Lib anyway? Kon asked. Kon needed a book in the Scarlet Monastery Library wing to get the hot wand that Philly was already using.

Hmm, well, we would need a tank, I suggested in guild chat, not party chat.

The hunter opened a LFG request looking for a healer. A healer? The hunter then declared in party chat that he would tank. And that we really didn't need five, we had enough with the four we had. The hunter then said it would be his pet that would tank. Marginally better. What kind of pet? A cat. Sigh. A cat pet does nice DPS, but it's definitely not a tanking pet.

Philly hadn't decided whether to get in on this. I sent back to Kon on guild chat: I want to help you get your wand, but I'm not really sure I want to do SM Lib with four and with a hunter and his armorless cat playing tank. Kon agreed that it was a risk and understood, but I was pretty sure he was going to stick around and try to get this done.

Well, I figured, if this was a complete disaster, at least I tried to help. Or, if we could at least handle the trash mobs, then we could probably get far enough in for Kon to get his book. So Philly allowed herself to be talked into this crazy scheme.

Once in the instance there was immediate friction between the hunter and the mage. The hunter was a know it all, I have five 70s kind of player. I have to admit he was pretty good, and that he was practically a twink with the gear he was wearing. Well, maybe this guy really can tank this instance. The idea of marking targets was a waste of time, according to the hunter. He did ask the mage to "tell me if you are going to sheep something." The mage laughed and said no. Oh boy.

As we worked through the initial trash it became obvious that we had the fire power (warlock, lock pet, hunter, hunter pet, mage) to bring down anything. And with the pets taking a lot of the up front damage and Philly healing in between adding wand damage, this started to look like it would actually work.

We got to the hunter boss and his three hyena defenders. Did we set targets, crowd control stuff, focused fire, or have any kind of a plan? Naw, that was too much trouble. The hunter waded in like they were just more trash mobs. Good thing Philly is a pretty decent healer. Philly kept all that fire power alive, popping Shield on both mage and warlock at times, and sheer overwhelming DPS brought the hyenas and the boss down. The gloves dropped, and there was no leather wearer to take best advantage of them. The hunter took them as the only person who could remotely do anything with them.

We blasted through more trash. The hunter wasn't completely out of control, and we managed to handle everything we aggroed. We killed right past where Kon was to get his book, and I couldn't quite remember where it was. We won't leave until you get it, I promised Kon. We kept pushing forward as the clock kept ticking past 6:30pm and toward 7pm. We got to the final boss. By this time I knew that the boss, Doan, had no chance. We crushed him. He always drops [Illusionary Staff] and a nice cloth shoulder. The mage and hunter didn't need either. Philly wanted the staff and already had better shoulder gear. kon needed the shoulders. How perfect was that? Philly got a new staff and Kon got a shoulder slot upgrade.

And of course, just as happened with our own group in the Library some weeks ago, the hunter headed back the other way so we could find the book and aggroed a whole room full of respawned mobs. It was as wild a battle as any Philly has been in. SM humanoids and their hyena pets were everywhere. Iced mobs, sheeped mobs, Shielded squishies, pets tanking, arrows flying, lancing arcs of spells and wand blasts filling the air. And when the crackle of energized air and the cries of battle faded we were all still standing.

Kon found his book, and went to get his wand reward. Philly was 97% of the way to level 37. Philly thanked Kon "for getting me into this," which brought a laugh from Kon. It was a crazy run, but it was fun. The specter of missing guildies, though, put a darker light on the hopes of the Grunt Foundation.

2008-03-18 Missing Guildies

The Grunt Foundation is going through a rocky period which started with one member bowing out semi-permanently due to changing work schedules. Since then getting the remaining four together for the twice weekly adventures has been getting harder and harder to accommodate. Having two of the four fail to show last sunday with no notice or explanation is troubling. More troubling still is that despite a website post from Philly asking Huld and Kon to let us know what the situation is, there has been no response. Neither have been in game for several days. This grand experiment may be in jeopardy.

Addendum to my Grunt Foundation report - The GF world is righting itself as both Huld and Kon have surfaced. Our warrior again slept through a sunday morning, and is having some guild issues on his other toons. I suggested we could consider starting a little later in the morning if that would help. Kon also reported back after sending him an email. He has been occupied with a lady friend (who can argue with that?) who has been visiting for a few days. He, too, is now available. So, real life intervened for a bit, but hopefully WoW is now re-inserting itself.