Toon Update: 3/18/2009 - The Quest for Immortal

WoWInsider recently did an article on the toughest raiding achievements in the game and it is no surprise that The Immortal is number 1 on that list. According to GuildOx just 1.64% of rated guilds have that achievement so far. The next closest achievements are the two 6 minute Malygos achievements and they both have about 7% of the guilds having completed them. Couple this with the announcement that the rewards for Glory of the Raider and Heroic: Glory of the Raider are going to be removed from the game when 3.1 drops and you've got a very anxious Moonkin.

In general, I am not an avid seeker of achievements, (One of my in game friends calls them Nerd Points. I loled.) but I desperately want the raiding achievements. For the first 2 years or so of my WoW experience I raided as an "also ran." My guilds were working on SSC while other guilds were clearing BT. I never worked on content when it was cutting edge. That has changed now that I'm in Lords of Eternity.

I am now in a guild that is on the edge of content and we are competing to be one of the first guilds on the server to down bosses. While it is unlikely that we will get many if any server firsts due to our raiding schedule, its awesome to know that we did things almost as quickly, but raid only 9 hours per week. Other guild jumped out ahead of us by clearing Naxx and Sarth very quickly but we caught up by completing the harder achievements. Now the only thing standing in our way of clearing content before patch 3.1 drops is The Immortal, and we have been agonizingly close.

At first, it was odd to start looking at Naxx from the point of view of the Immortal. I had always looked at raid content from the point of view that the kill was most important. Losing one or two people along the way is no big deal as long as the boss dies. Now we have to pay close attention to things we have never really focused on before. We had to hone our skill on the Instructor Raz pull to minimize the risk of losing some one on the pull. We had to pay more attention to Holy Wrath on Four Horsemen so that we didn't chain it. We've also had our share of boneheaded moments, where someone pulls aggro or stands in the wrong spot, but if the Immortal was purely a demonstration of skill then we would have had it a long time ago.

I hate to blame luck for our failure because it sounds like an excuse, but it is impossible to deny that luck plays a huge roll in the achievement. When we first started working on the Immortal it was during the huge server lag from blizzard. It is impossible not to lose someone when a majority of the raid has 2000 latency. After that was cleared up we've started to get a lot closer but have had issues with small mistakes and unlucky DCs. A few weeks a go we were just 40% of KT's health away from getting the Immortal. What is so amazing about it is that we only had 20 people and a quarter of them alts because we were going for the Dedicated Few. Things were going great everything was going smoothly and then bad luck came and bit us. After the adds spawned the two add tanks picked them up and everything went to hell. Almost right off the bat one of the two add tanks got hit with Frost Blast. The other tank picked up his adds quickly but was then hit with Chains of Kel'Thuzad and mind controlled while the other tank was still in an ice block. The adds then proceeded to go munch on a Healer and blew our Immortal run.

We have run naxx a couple of times since then with frustrating results, but there are a couple of things that are hard to deny about the Immortal. On the negative side, it has a huge luck component. Even if no one DCs, the RNG can cause a boss to use multiple abilities in quick succession and kill some one. I've read some accounts of successful Immortal runs and some of them get lucky hand no one gets mind controlled during KT. On the positive side, I think the achievement has helped to make me a better player. I am much more aware of my surroundings now and I'm no longer hyperfocused on DPS.

Ultimately, I don't really care about the Black Proto-Drake itself. I have the Plagued Proto-Drake from the 10man version. It's nice to have a 310% mount but I'm a druid. Epic flight form is going to be more convenient 90% of the time. The reason I want the Immortal and Heroic: Glory of the Raider is the prestige. The last time I checked there was only one other guild on my server that had them, and it would be awesome to get there before 3.1. One last thing, I am happy that there are Immortal style achievements in Uluar, but I am also very happy that they are not a part of the meta achievements.

Anyway, probably have at least a couple of weeks before the patch comes out, so we have a few more chances. Hopefully we will pick it up tonight. Wish us luck.

Grayfel:
Things are going well for my lock. I've gotten him into a couple of Naxx25 runs that have been organized for our alts and to get the 20man achievements. Gear wise he is doing very well. I haven't gotten any tier items yet, but I have a respectable amount of Spell Power, and I am doing well on the DPS charts.

I am kind of anxious to see how all of the PTR changes are going to affect him. I realize Blizz is trying to make Affliction easier you removing Siphon Life and Immolate from our rotation but I don't think Affliction is that hard as it is. My GM posted some macros and things that make the rotation much simpler. By removing the two spells from my rotation blizzard hasn't reduced the number of buttons I will push. My big questions revolve around gear though. In affliction's current form Crit and Haste are very low in value relative to Spell Power. Now that Shadow Bolt is going to become much more important to the Affliction rotation those values should increase. I've been looking for some new math but haven't seen any. If you know of some please point it out.

Graypal:
I finally started to level my priest again and got him to just over 74 over the weekend. I'm really looking forward to having Dual specs with him. For some reason I want to try healing as a priest, and the dual specs will allow me to do that without abandoning Shadow. I still hope to get him to 80 by the end of March but that doesn't look likely. It might be possible if I can get him 3 levels this coming weekend. Then I will have my epic flyer again and leveling will go much quicker.