Project Lore

In all my time raiding in WoW I have not seen an issue quite as polarizing as the Sartharion Encounter in The Obsidian Sanctum with all three drakes left alive (commonly called Sarth 3D.) This has been especially true in my guild lately as it is the last major hurtle we still have to overcome.

This encounter is commonly regarded as the most challenging fight in the current end game, and is something only a handful of guilds have accomplished. The incentive for winning this encounter is an achievement, an awesome title, and a rare mount that will only drop in this encounter. For me, there is also the sense that you have beat the hardest fight in the end game, but for many that is not enough.

See, there has been a lot of debate in my guild if this is something worth striving for. The guild has been split sharply into two separate camps. One camp, the camp I am a member of says: yes, this is important. My reasoning is simple. It is progression, it is the only fight we have yet to win, and I want to win it!

The second camp says: no, its is not worth all the time and resources we put into it. They say it is not progression, as it does not add any usable gear to the loot table, there are no new bosses behind him, and downing him will not help us at all in Ulduar. Essentially they see it as an achievement and nothing more.

While I am full aware that the 3 drake loot table adds no gear over the 2 drake loot table, I am going to have to express my opinion against camp 2. For me, raiding has never been about the loot. I’ve downed hundreds of bosses without the benefit of receiving loot personally. I play the game to overcome challenges. More importantly overcome challenges with my friends and guildmates. That’s why I play the game, to do something fun and challenging! This is the last challenge left for our guild.

Now I am aware that people have different priorities in this game. Some like raiding more than others. I for one love raiding and am not bothered by wiping for hours on end, as long as it is a means to an end. Some people clearly are bothered by it, it can be frustrating, and more importantly expensive (repair bills aren’t cheap!).

While we continue to grind away, and I am hopeful we are close, there is an undercurrent of internal conflict on every pull. For me it seems that Sarth 3D is something you have the motivation for or you don’t. My guild is unfortunately split on the issue. How about you guys? Is this a worthy goal, a waste of resources, or something you got out of the way a long time ago?

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Anub'Rekhan dead before the raid even started.

The spending spree that I went on wasn't just to make me feel good, I wanted my DPS to perform in raids. Despite being Mutilate, which is the butt of all Rogue PvE DPS jokes, I wanted to be able to lay waste to Naxxramas as much as the next guy.  Some 2000+ gold later and I felt that I was more than prepared.  Believe it or not, I was actually correct for once! My new guild has been running Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum and tons of heroics for a few weeks before I joined.  Their combined ambitions caused my spending spree to keep me in the range of acceptable DPS, rather than the realm of "ponzor."  Of course, I didn't expect to dominate the charts with only a few heroics under my belt, but some of the DPSers emasculated me.  They made me feel that I should have spent far more gold.  Personal failures aside, it was good to be raiding again. Naxxramas has certainly changed since the 40-man days.  We are only doing the 10-man thus far, but there are far fewer trash mobs in the instance than before.  If you triple the mob count for some of the corridors then perhaps you'll be back in the realm of the old school Naxx.  Yesterday's raid started at 8:00 PM, by 7:50 PM we had already downed Anub'Rekhan.  Yea, we had a boss down before the raid started. As a side note, I dunno how likely it is that we hit the heroic side of Naxx.  Unless we begin recruiting I doubt we will see the 25-man edition without a good collection of PUGs.  That'll make it pretty difficult to upgrade my Mutilate build with the Omen of Ruin/Murder and Webbed Death.  But enough about the future, let us get back to the excursion. Things went fairly smoothly through the Spider Wing, although we did wipe to Maexxna.  She eventually dropped her Femur, which was offered to me, but I love my daggers.  Still it hurts to see Rogue loot getting DEed.  The Military Wing, well that was a different story.  We didn't hit a wall on the content or anything like that.  No, no.  You could say that the Military Wing was a different story on a personal level.  You see, my face was repeatedly smashed by the mobs with Whirlwind.  Being the only non-plate wearing melee DPSer in the raid meant that my deaths stuck out like a sore thumb...that had been cut off.  I heard quite a few quips about it. "Oh look, that gnome is dead again." "The rogue needs buffs, again." "That midget owes me a stack of Symbol of Kings." "Holy crap, I lived through one!" The jokes didn't stop until a pack of mobs decided to desecrate every part of my body.  On the second leg of the upper level towards Instructor Razuvious, a triple pack of whirlwinding mobs came at the raid.  Letting my bravado get the best of me, I charged in to DPS the skull with reckless abandon.  My head was found 30 feet away, separated from my torso which was remained connected to my legs by what was left of my intestines.  I was whirlwinded by three mobs at the same time.  Uncontrollable laughter was all that could be heard on Ventrilo.  At least my failures lightened the mood. After Razuvious dropped nothing of interest - actually no one did, we have tons of Abyss Crystals now - we continued on until reaching the Four Horsemen .  These bastards troubled my pre-TBC guild till no end, stopping us from proceeding to the Frost Wing.  It was relieving to see them go down, but it wasn't much of a fight in 10-man.  After clearing two wings in a few hours time we called Naxxramas for the evening and cleaned up Obsidian Sanctum before closing the raid.  My next challenge is to convince the GM to run the other two wings next Tuesday rather than Thursday so I can finish them, then the Frost Wing, and Malygos.  I am coming for you slowly but surely Bastosa! We still haven't managed to take down Sartharion with any of his buddies alive, but we did have a pretty productive and efficient night.  Only nine more badges to go before I can get a much needed trinket upgrade.  Now if we could just stop getting Hunter/Shaman loot...

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