Now that folks have been in level 70 End Game for so long, and a billion guilds are doing Kara and beyond, and many people have more than one toon epic’d out… I’m noticing there’s this big gap between “epic” and “EPIC”.

I’ve gone into Kara and SSC PUGs (SSC was a guild who picked up a few PUGgers to fill out numbers for the night, so not a true “PUG” by my standards) with my mage where very few people topped 800-900 DPS, despite being geared predominantly in purples (1-3 blues left, no greens). In those PUGs I sit on top of the damage and DPS meters, being able to maintain 900-1200 DPS over the course of a raid, depending on how many AOE fights there are.

Then yesterday afternoon, a well-known raiding guild on my server headed into Tempest Keep - The Eye, and I just happened to be in the city when the Guildmaster and Raid Leader did a call-out for 2 DPS to fill their raid. I had a few hours I could burn, so I whispered in response, and got an invite.

Going To TK As A Guild Outsider

The raid was mostly formed, and when I joined their Vent server (which worked with my Mac, oh joy), most people were already in vent.

I hearthed to Netherstorm and made my way to the stone, and then announced to the raid chat that I was going to disconnect for a moment to check addons.

While I was reloading the game, I offered my Magely services on the vent line - saying that even though there were 3 other Mages in the raid, if they wanted to give me a buffing or sheeping assignment I was all for it, just let me know.

Just as I finished checking over my Addons and was about to re-login, someone asked on Vent whether anyone had an offline timer on my character. I spoke up to let them know I was still there (as did the raid leader), but it did make me smile to know that they pay attention and take action on people who d/c from a raid. It’s a pain in the ass to everyone else to have teammates missing, so I appreciate the sentiment even though it was aimed at me.

When I got back online, about half of the raid was already in TK. Nobody was yelling out for summons (another plus), and only one had to be summoned once we were in the instance, save for a few toon swap-outs for the different boss fights we faced. Swap-outs were done efficiently and quickly.

Vent was mostly quiet, and the voices that spoke on it were calm and relaxed.

And It Begins…

Marks went up, assignments went out. Four Mages, so I was the only one not assigned a Polymorph marker. Fine with me since it’s been a while since I was in TK, and the guild I was in with before only downed Loot Reaver (before it was broken and then fixed) and Solarian a couple of times when I was there. (I’m sure they’ve progressed now, but I left back in May).

And as it turns out, I needed all the time to concentrate on DPSing that I had available, just in order to try to keep up a LITTLE bit and not look like some “noob” off the street they picked up and dusted off!

With my 900-1200 DPS output in various fights, I was generally hovering around 7-9 position on the charts. (to note, I was in position 2-3 of the 4 Mages) Seventh to Ninth position!! There were all sorts of people cranking out more damage than I was in that raid, and I was really impressed and inspired by the whole thing.

By The End…

By the end of the raid, we had downed Al’ar, Void Reaver, and Solarian, but didn’t go after Kael because the tanks didn’t have the proper resist sets, and we didn’t have a proper fire-spec’d Warlock. (this is where I nod my head and say “okay”, because I don’t know the fight specs at all)

But the raid had gone so well and nobody had to leave halfway through, nobody AFK’d during it, and everyone was still there, so we went and downed Doom Lord Kazzak in Hellfire Peninsula, and Doomwalker in Shadowmoon Valley!!

Both went down with very little problems, and it’s neat to note that you get 2 heroics badges from each of those world bosses (plus a few gear drops).

Wow, that was a lot of fun (to do once in a while)! Maybe I’ll watch again another afternoon to see if they need DPS or a healer to fill out raid ranks. But in the mean time, I’ve got some more gems to upgrade! :)

Tags: al'ar, doom lord kazzak, doomwalker, frost mage, kael, raid pugs, raiding, solarian, solarian the astromancer, tempest keep, void reaver