Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I spent the weekend offline (again!) in another city celebrating my raid leader’s birthday. Some things are more important than blogging. I know, I know…
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Still Alive
First up, this is not a complaint that getting The Undying is too difficult. It IS very challenging, but I don’t mind a good challenge and it’s nice to have something to sink our teeth into while waiting for Ulduar. Given enough time, we’ll get this achievement. Instead I’m more complaining about the concept in general.
The problem with Undying/Immortal as it stands right now is that the majority of the time someone is going to be the goose. I’ve been on two attempts and was fortunate enough to not be the person who died either time, but in both cases they were strong players with a history of being awesome and not standing in crap. They just made one split second wrong decision, and that was that.
Most of our usual 10-man team is pretty good about someone dying. There is some sighing, some awkward silence, but c’est la vie. A few people get a little grumbly and tense, but no one has yet devolved into finger pointing and namecalling. However, we’re a fairly mature, close knit guild. I can only imagine in some guilds where there isn’t as much emphasis on social niceties it doesn’t go as smoothly for the poor goose.
And what of the healers? These “no death” runs are simply terrifying from a healing perspective. I act like I imagine a new mother does around her child: “Don’t let them touch that!” “Stay away from there, you could fall and hurt yourself!” “You can play.. but don’t go out of my sight!” It feels like just a matter of time until I screw up. The Undying was actually a big part of the reason that I’m raiding as DPS until Ulduar… at this point in the game, I just don’t feel like putting myself through the wringer.
The very clear and easy alternative to the current system is to unlink everyone’s success. You have to clear Naxx during one lockout timer without dying on a boss. The dude beside you dies? No problem, he’s out, you’re still in. It’s slightly easier on the healers, and it’s not as much of a drama-generating pressure cooker. It does lessen the challenge of the achievement, but there is something to be said for maintaining an emphasis on an excellent personal performance without encouraging finger pointing and poor sportsmanship.
Between Undying and all the 8 and 20 man achievements, sometimes it seems like Blizzard has it out for those who play the WoW guild management meta-game.
I think being a good player is as much about teamwork and handling other people’s failures as it is about skill and dedication.
I think the achievements linking everyone together are more a measure of your worth than if they were simply a case of every man for himself.
Guildies are going to make mistakes, but the guild that can get past that, maintain morale, camaraderie and keep trying without it descending into drama is the one that deserves the achievement.
When doing the Undying it helps to run with 8 or 9 people for the majority of the instance. Gothik can be done with the entire raid on dead side except for one tank, one healer, and one very strong DPS (preferably melee)
When we did it we only had 9 people running with us until we got to the 4 Horsemen. Then we pulled in another healer for a total of 3. On Saph we donned one piece of frost resist and had a paladin aura up (We’ve normally been running the 100 club weekly)
It sucks because accidents happen, and sometimes things go down that you can’t prepare against like lag spikes and disconnects. The most important thing I think is to always have something in place if something goes wrong. We had our warrior tank DC during trash once and before we pulled Maexxna, I think it was, we decided to keep me in my bear suit in case he DC’d again so that I could taunt off and save his life until he got back.
Good luck, and keep trying!
Tigerfeet’s last blog post..Real Estate
I forgot to mention that a person only needs to kill KT without anyone having previously died in the lock-out for them to get the title, they need not have participated in any of the previous fights.
Our extra healer that we brought in for 4-horsemen, Saph, and KT did in fact get The Undying along with the rest of us.
If someone is having a bad night with connectivity it can help take the sting out of asking them to sit out for a specific fight.
Tigerfeet’s last blog post..Real Estate
Great blog! I might have been here before you changed your layout, but I’m not sure…
I personally have put a lot of effort into (mental) relaxation in every aspect of my life, because I really don’t “enjoy” stress, anxiety, anger and all those things.
In that spirit, I found that by the time we were doing our Undying runs the 3rd and 4th times, I didn’t really need to listen in vent – the other healer and myself coordinated in occasional whispers, and I just stuck on some relaxing stuff on iTunes and played.
I was forced to listen to vent for the last fight and was glad I had avoided it beforehand… everyone was constantly saying the equiv of “don’t die! don’t die!” like we needed reminders!
I muted them once the battle started because again, I didn’t need to listen to them in order to accomplish the fight effectively, I’ve got my UI set up for that
Shrimproll, Zul’jin-US
Shrimproll’s last blog post..Leveling The Frost Mage To 80, AOE Farming
Thanks for the feedback folks, and for the tips from Tigerfeet! I’m proud to say that a guild group got The Undying on Friday night. I wasn’t in the group, unfortunately, but I’m still happy as all get out for the team.
I spoke briefly with the three healers as they were getting ready for KT, and you have never seen such a group of anxious people.