Author: Laura Highcove

Who would’ve thought it would be this hard to break into Sunwell? I mean seriously, the place was only tuned for guilds who had been farming Black Temple and Hyjal for 6+ months and we felt the strain. Our healers were pushed to the absolute limit to keep our tanks up and somehow they kept finding more.

And since I’d rather not try to explain the stress we all went through to make this kill happen, I’ll instead talk about the fight itself. Kalecgos is a dragon of the Blue Dragonflight. He’s pretty cool and all, but a demon, one Sathrovarr the Corrupter is attempting to live up to his epithet and corrupt the dragonkin’s mind. Enter <OOB>, the group of plucky heroes who are attacked by a half crazy dragon as they’re wandering the beautiful halls of the Sunwell Plateau looking for a stupid pattern to drop instead of [Wand of the Demonsoul]x4.

With his will weakening, Kalecgos uses what power he can to create a portal that allows access to his mind, where Sathrovarr is generally making a mess of things, and trying to kill the last bit of Kalecgos’ sanity. So as plucky heroes, we have to subdue Kalecgos, kill Sathrovarr, and do it fast enough that Kalec doesn’t succumb to the pain of 0 hit points.

Took us a while, but we managed it.

In the end we got one of each bracer, which went to Llewyna, Whiteliter, and Spriz, and a [Dragonscale-Encrusted Longblade] for Koivu.

And so…

So we’re done with Black Temple. Illidan’s down, Outland’s free, and those malformed draenei get their dank little temple back. I suppose all was not for naught. I now get a 15 min hearth back to Outland. (Take that shamans!)

Learning of Illidan was a bit bumpy, what with tanks randomly popping in and out of existence, healers moving to different states, and three days being only…well three days. We plowed into the Illidan fight to learn to not crash and burn during phase 2, holding on to the knowledge that phase 2 was the hard phase, and that it was all downhill from there.

Two nights worth of wipes to Koi dying, parasites going on a rampage, forgotten raid healing, and melee getting a little too close for comfort we were almost ready to turn over our ID to Recon. However, Koi wasn’t ready to give up for the week, and another raid was organized, healers were called, a new resto shaman was recruited and we had that near perfect attempt that turned into a kill.

Man this fight is long and boring. Here, see?

As for lewts:
[Cursed Vision of Sargeras] to Mtitanz
[Zhar’doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer] to Nyobe
T6 Chest to Amberh, Azurmahn, and Rosalind.

Amebil: Level 66 Human Warlock (9/43/5)

Name origin/meaning: Ebil is a ‘cute’ evil. As such she is ebil: Amebil.

Reason created: Two reasons. First off, the guild had no warlocks when started leveling her. Rosalind was the only warlock we had that raided, and the idea of more than one soulstone was a novelty concept. Secondly I wanted a character with alchemy. Mongoose elixirs were expensive as crap back then. I planned to get her to whatever level was required for level 300 alchemy, and just use her for that.

Key moments:
Accidentally killing the chicken in Westfall when trying to feed it.
Taking down four mobs two levels higher than I at once, which made me realize the warlock class rocked.
Deciding to level with my brother’s mage.
Getting my succubus.
Getting [Elixir of Dream Vision] for 40g.
Getting my t2 helm her first and only time in Onyxia.
Deciding I didn’t like raiding with her.

Comments:
Like I said above, I created her for alchemy and ended up loving her so much she was my second character to hit 60. Her personality was one such that she wanted to be evil (as warlocks should be), but could never quite manage it, as she always kept helping people. She also got the mechanical chicken, and keeps it in regret of the chicken she killed trying to feed it back in Westfall. Never did end up getting that chicken pet on any character…

Currently:
Working on getting her to level 68 at some point to be elixir master. (She already knows Pure Death and Relentless Assault.) She’s really easy to level; I’m just pretty burned out on leveling in general. I recently dropped herbalism in order to level skinning after Near became a jewelcrafter.

Screenshots:
Say no to DWUGS: Once again my first screenshot is one I took because of something amusing. Wonder what level she was…
Bats kick butt: Getting run through Stockades by Easterber with my brother. It was Halloween, so I was having fun with a bat costume.
Mechanical Chicken: I take screenshots of the mini pets I get. This was when I first got this chicken.
Stupid Weed: So yeah…BC was coming and they changed the Dark Portal’s landscape a bit.

Sometimes I wish that I could go back to Pre-BC with the knowledge I have now about my class. I was very lucky in many senses of the word. I got into a guild that started raiding about when I hit 60, made up of mostly people who had never raided before, and as such we all learned together what raiding was about. But still, when I look back on those times, as much fun as they were, it still pains me to remember how little of a clue about my class I had.

In fact it wasn’t until Gruul that I was even aware of the concept of a shot rotation and clipping auto shots. The improvement to my dps just from knowing that, not even studying shot rotations or spamming macros improved my dps by crazy amounts. To have had that knowledge in MC…well it wouldn’t have given us more time, (Four months after we started ZG, BC came out.) but perhaps we would’ve gotten a little farther.

I was lucky to get in on a guild like this at the ground floor, and support it all the way to Illidan like I’ve been able to. Of course there are very few people from the original guild anymore, but it still feels just as friendly as it did back then. And I’m glad I’ve learned as much as I have, though this is in no way the end.

Melannie: Level 62 Human Priest (6/0/46)
Tailoring/Mining

Name origin/meaning: Melanie is a character from a story in the Universe Matthew and I created together. She is the healer at a fighting tournament.

Reason created: By the time I was in my 20s on Nabith, I already knew priests were a rare commodity. As such I picked the only healer character I had at the time, and created a priest. (Couldn’t do the blue hair, and had to add an extra ‘n’.)

Key moments:
Realizing that Gnomeragon was one of the most horrible instances in existence.
Being invited to <Order of Bahamut>.
Learning to aoe fort a group that was not my own.
Hitting 60, having been Holy the entire way.
Realizing I hated this character and rolling another priest.

Comments:
Keeping in line with Melanie, she is shy, apologetic, and aims to please. Because she was a healer, I never specced her out of Holy until Outlands. Despite shadow pwning face, I still hated the character. It’s my own fault for remaining Holy, but eh.

Currently: She is permanently stationed in Zangermarsh, making primal moonclothx2 whenever I remember. I doubt I’ll level her any more unless I get really, really bored.

Screenshots:
Tuesday: I took this screenshot because of the quote, but it’t the earliest picture I have of Mel. Considering the spells on my bar, I wasn’t even level 10 yet. (No resurrection.)
Buddies: The only way I got to instance level was my friend Jenn leveling a warrior with me. She is since then back on her own server of Elune, horde side.
Dancing: This was in Gnomeragon while our party leader was for the umpteenth time trying to find a fifth member. Later this day I swore off Gnomer and joined <Order of Bahamut>.
Melannie: I wanted a shot of her in her robes and belt from SFK, which I was very happy to get.