Raiding - Trash farming? Since when have we gotten anything useful?

It's the end of the medical rotation year, so all our old trainees are leaving so last night I had a farewell dinner for them.  There was much amusement when I said that I had to leave at 8:15pm or so.

"Why do you have to go?  Aren't the kids in bed?"
One of my colleages gave me a sly look.  "I think she wants to go play World of Warcraft."
I gave him a rather direct glare, softened by a grin.  "Now how did you know?"
His mouth fell open in disbelief.  "You know, I was actually JOKING...!"
"Well," I replied.  "I wasn't."

So off I went home.  On the way home I got a phone call from Aimei, wondering where I was. I reassured him that I would be online to raid and he said that Una was not feeling well and might not raid.  My heart sank, thinking that Alca also would be busy looking after her so that would mean two people not able to raid, one being an amazing healer.

I got online, got myself settled and Alca and Una were in the raid but they wanted to leave early.  I did want them to stay, but if they left halfway through the raid I would be stuffed - I wouldn't be able to drag out replacements. Though, Bish said he was going to be late, so I could use him as a sub at 10.  But what about a DPS?

Dragonray was also having concerns about her gear and damage, and wanted to sit out. I knew Arelion was keen to raid and since he was tanking the weekends he would benefit a lot from seeing the fight and even rolling some gear, perhaps.  He was keen, in fact he was keen to be a sub most days of the week (except Wednesday) and was always ready on the standby in case we needed him.

Crooked also suddenly turned up a little late which threw the mix out even more especially when he said that he wouldn't mind sitting out because he wasn't feeling that well.  ARGH!

So, I made the tough decision, I made Alca and Una sit out (much to my distress, I would have liked to keep them), and Dragonray.  Bish made it online just after raid started and Crooked was made to stay to help heal (he was top heals on Kargath previously) and I got Arelion in.

Well.  Now this was interesting.

Tanks: Aimei, Snowcaller
Healers: Crooked, Navimie, Koda, Biship, Punchynok
DPS: Sevrus, Azadelta, Madcow, Fallnapart, Arelion, Kyjenn, Hwired, Discoisdead, Duckalot, Luxygaga, Cptsars, Kelthal, Lushen

I see 4 ranged.  And 9 melee.  That's just crap for tigers!

So our first attempt felt slow and poor Luxy was being eaten by tigers running THROUGH the flames to get to her... which was a bit crappy.  Also, we had a couple of times where some random people got sent up instead of Kelthal and the second time that people go up, it's always harder for me, there just seem to be more bombers and Bileslingers, but maybe that isn't the case, it just FEELS like that's the case.  Tigers were up for longer which was an issue since we had so few ranged.

I asked Crooked if he could DPS.  We probably didn't need 5 healers anyway.  He was a bit surprised, as he was the highest heals according to Skada (but according to Warcraft Logs he was the lowest - I don't understand these logs) but I said we needed ranged DPS more than we needed healing, and if I felt like we needed 5 healers again, I'd get Cptsars to heal so I could get rid of a melee.

And that second time it was much better.  I think the extra ranged helped.

The loot was very shiny.  Luxy got Treads of Sand and Blood, and Disco got Casque of the Iron Bomber.  There was a bit of fuss about the remaining loot, Champion's Medallion, which I'll mention a bit later.

There was one more item, Chestguard of the Roaring Crowd, but I hadn't made my mind up about it yet because I was thinking about that neckpiece.  And we were off clearing trash, which kept my mind very busy with healing and little time to be thinking about loot or whether I should be taking it. We made it to the stairs and there was no trash loot from the mobs - which was what happened last week.  I remember thinking "Trash farming? Yay for all this nonexistent trash drops and the big repair bill!" and just when I was about to open my mouth and complain about the lack of trash drops we had a shiny Milenah's Intricate Cloak drop.  Madcow snapped that one up.  And then when we were in the Twin Ogron's room, Hwired disconnected.  And there on the trash mob was a Gill's Glorious Windcloak.  I think I screamed that I wanted it.  Maybe a little too enthusiastically.  So we had to wait PATIENTLY until Hwired got back on so he could distribute loot.  It was around this time the healers started to discuss that cloak and the Champion's Medallion - I already had a Mythic Warforged one, Bish had a Mythic with a socket, and Koda had a heroic version.  So I tried to make her take but she refused.  Arelion also refused to take loot - I reassured him that nobody would think he didn't deserve any loot since he tanks on the Sunday and shows up to help with raids during the week, and he has a really high priority loot, but he dug his heels in and said no, because he didn't feel comfortable taking loot when it was his first time here and people had worked hard for the loot and he was a "ring in".  Kyjenn was also chatting to him a lot about it, encouraging him to take stuff but once Arelion has made up his mind he can be pretty stubborn about it.  I understand where he was coming from - if it had been me I would feel uncomfortable if it was my first time in the heroic raid group and I took a loot that others could have taken.

So after looking at that loot, I decided that I would take it, since Koda had a Heroic Warforged one and Bish had a heroic one (and I had a normal one). So that worked out very nicely for Koda and myself but not so nice for Bish.  He wasn't fussed though. Oh, and that Chestguard of the Roaring Crowd... since nobody took it, and it was the mythic version of my chest, I decided to take it.

But that wasn't the only trash drops, there was a mythic warforged Grips of Vicious Mauling that Kelthal grabbed as well!  So that was a good trash farm!

Twins was very hectic.  People were bad at dodging fire at first, but they improved as the night went on.  However, we were still well behind on damage I think and people were still dying despite healers best efforts. I was being an absolute ninny and somehow managed to die from charge 3 times.  Ugh. I think it was time to finish the raid!

One more night of Highmaul left!  Boy am I looking forward to it!