It seems like a lot of guilds out there have stopped progressing really this summer, which makes me proud of my plucky little guild that we’ve continued plodding along in ICC 25 even in the middle of the summer doldrums. We racked up a latest progression kill last night, on heroic Lady Deathwhisper 25. Obviously the 30% buff is a big help, and helped us cheese a few aspects of the fight (I’m specifically thinking of making ghost explosions 30% less deadly than they could be) but ultimately I don’t think that diminishes our accomplishment. Just reduced how much wall-head-banging was required.

In any case, we started working on this mouthy lichess last week and put about 2 hours in before I switched it back to normal so we wouldn’t fall behind for the week. Our best attempt we got her to around 30%, which is not to shabby.

Then this week our very first attempt and we got her to around 23% before the raid wiped in a ghost-ignited explosion. I was filled with hope, but then on the second go we had some serious issues with ghosts and wiped at around 40%, which me start to Frank out a bit, like Bruce Banner after getting a paper cut. I reiterated my philosophy of “ghost=death” and insisted that melee get away as soon as they come up to prevent a ghost that was perhaps zeroing in on a tank from turning them into a puddle.

Third attempt was much, much better on the ghosts. It still ended ingloriously, but seeds were obviously planted. There was little to no tunnel-visioning and I heard very few tell-tale ’splosions from the raid.

Fourth attempt we got it down to 7% before we were completely overwhelmed by adds and the raid was finished off. I was officially in full-blown “we can do this” mode.

Fifth attempt I set up a dedicated adds team of three ranged and two melee, rather than just assigning people on the fly based on their position in Omen. Adds as a result went much smoother, and ghosts were awesome, but it got really sticky at the end. As her health plummeted we had a really bad ghost explosion in ranged that took out a couple of healers and a few ranged. We steadily worked our way down to the 3% and I was holding my breath just doing whatever I could via Hands, Raid Wall, or screaming “GHOSTS” to keep the raid going. A cold sweat pouring down my face, we finally knocked her over dead.

We didn’t even have to do the first kill via bubbles post-enrage. I think that’s a first for progression.

In any case, another few seconds and we surely would have wiped, we were severely overwhelmed. So you can imagine how proud I was of the raid for holding it together in those crucial last seconds.

Next week I’m sure will see a much, much cleaner kill.

On a different tangent, I was also really happy with the two newest recruits we brought into raid last night. One was a DK who did great dps, and the other was the equally awesome Antigen of Haz Mace, Will Raid (I am collecting paladin bloggers it seems) who had a great first showing in his first 25man with us. I love when recruits click.

Great night over all, and the best thing is we’re ahead of schedule this week. I think we can turn that around into a full clear of ICC25 tonight.

I had forgotten how much fun 10man is. And no, that isn’t sarcasm, last night’s ICC-10 was the most fun I’ve had in WoW in a while.

25s is all business for me (I can’t help it, I’m too focused on the success of the raid to really ever enjoy myself), but 10s is where I let down my hair. So to speak.

Last night was the first time in a long time I’d managed to get “Team Alpha” together for an ICC run. We initially were going to go and bang out some more hardmodes, and hopefully catch up to the much-more progressed Bravo Team. Unfortunately, the OT didn’t show, so Cendra got on his 232-geared Druid tank and we still went through the first three hardmodes. We opted to skip Saurfang’s hardmode, because the general consensus was both Cen’s Druid and the healers weren’t equipped to handle a frenzied Saurfang mashing up some bear paste.

As we were headed towards Princes to maybe get the guild first heroic kill for that (our 10s are woefully unprogressed, as you can see) the OT logged on. We did a quick roster shuffle with Gulliveig dropping out, since he was having router issues. Cendra got back on his hunter, and Nordic came in to OT.

We then proceeded to one-shot heroic Princes.

It was a little hairy, with Princes being one of those fights that is markedly harder on 10man than 25. The room stays the same size, and you have to cover orbs that spawn throughout the width and breadth of it with fewer people. Rather than having one pet class watching each corner of the room, I had one on each half. A little too close for comfort!

Having two melee for the attempt made it a lot easier. Rather than a pack of floor-huggers-to-be scattering like cockroaches when the kitchen light is turned on, I had to worry about two Rogues breaking in opposite directions every time Valanar went to do an empowered vortex. Indeed, tanking Valanar is a pretty boring affair. I mostly spent the encounter just watching other people and agonizing over perceived eventual demises that would be visited upon them. And judging when possible to get the Heart of the Crusader debuff up.

We then plowed through heroic BQL, Festergut, and Rotface until we reached Putricide. The goal was to put away an actually meaningful hardmode kill, and match Bravo Team in the tennis game we call competitive progression. It was about an hour before end time so we’d have to move fast.

It’s a pretty hectic fight, to say the least. But a lot of fun. There’s so much crap going on you’ll find your head spinning.

We did about six attempts, getting it to 27% our last try. The biggest thing we need to work on execution (obviously) considering this fight is like an execution ballet.

What usually did this in was diseases being passed to the wrong person, or hitting one person in melee, then another immediately, throwing off the order. We got six solid attempts in, making progress each time. Despite having to call it, we’re all pretty pumped for future attempts and will probably end up downing the sucker on Sunday.

And then the 264 Unidentifiable Organ will be mine. Oh yes.

The menu that night was Heroic Dreamwalker, then normal Sindragosa and Lich King. Assuming we made it to Arthas, this would be the first time we’ve faced him since our first kill a few weeks ago. We’ve been bogged down progressing through hardmodes, and with our two raids a week schedule, didn’t really have the time to get to him on the second night. However, after our amazing showing on Wednesday, he was definitely within reach.

Anyway, Heroic Dreamwalker first. If you’ll recall on Wednesday (last callback to an earlier post for now, I swear!) we had some wipes. In hindsight this was clearly because one of our best portal jockeys was having connection issues and DCing, based on the success we had when he could actually stay on and heal. Last night, we were going through the paces, as I frantically tried to manage adds on my side and keep healers from getting eaten (I think a zombie got through).

I honestly thought we were going to wipe that attempt, we hit the 75% mark–”Press on heroes!”–and then a blazing skeleton got three ticks of Lay Waste off. Miraculously, no one died. Probably thanks to the warbling solo provided by Garrosh. In any case, we pressed on, and before I knew it the dragon stood up and blew the Scourge all to bits.

At the moment we succeeded I felt like I was drowning in a rotting sea of zombie parts, all hope lost. It was kind of amazing seeing the dragon suddenly lift up and end the encounter. Like Gandalf cresting the ridge, but less dramatic, and I don’t remember any white light.

Dorkiest simile ever; I apologize. Either way, it was pretty sweet to one shot the fight after the initial trouble we had Wedne–DAMMIT.

After Dreamwalker came Sindragosa and this was going to be the first time we did her since AVR was broken. As I’ve always maintained, I loved AVR for its ability to put marks on the ground, which removed a lot of the thinking from Frost Beacon placement. … Ok–ALL the thinking. Nonetheless, I read off the beacon placements and everyone wrote it down on a piece of paper in front of them (how… antique) and we got to work.

We didn’t have much of any issue with the beacons and easily dropped her. There was a short hiccup at the end where I disconnected but thankfully I’m not that critical. It was at like 3% and everyone autopiloted the encounter to its conclusion.

Two one shots and we were only like 45 minutes into raid time. That gave us a solid (almost) three hours to go tussle with the Lich King. And, dontcha know it, we one shot him too. Scored achievements for a swath of folks that couldn’t make our first kill, along with the 2H sword and the caster staff. Of course, by the time that was done we still had about two and a half hours left in the raid.

There was some discussion what to do with the rest of the night and we eventually we decided to go to Ulduar and bang out some hardmodes and hopefully grab some more shards for Ildara’s Val’anyr (heh, now that’s a work in progress to say the least).

We ended up getting Orbituary, additional Ignis and XT achieves for those who needed them, and then spent about 30 minutes working on the Iron Council. A lot of people left between ICC and Uld and unfortunately we didn’t have enough folks to push that last 20 seconds of the fight. On the bright side, we did get a shard for Val’anyr, so that expedition wasn’t a complete wash.

One day we’ll finish that stupid mace. I’d like to do it now, but it’s impossible with our two-night schedule to dedicate any time to a raid two tiers back, so the pieces that Ildara has now will continue to rot except for occasional half-hearted attempt to augment their numbers. Even if the mace still BiS, from the looks of it.

At least we’ll be making a Shadowmourne pretty soon! That’s a bright spot on my otherwise abyssal Legendary record.

Not to mention all the delicious HPs! I wants them all.

Er, but moving on… To add to our plate, the schedule called for adding Heroic Princes and Dreamwalker. I was initially (hell, still am) concerned about the raid schedule this week ever since Tuesday was a no-go. We have a make up night scheduled for Sunday, but even so I was very worried my all-important goal of Heroic BQL or bust every week was out of reach if we didn’t get to her last night. Mostly because Sunday has the possibility of being iffy.

So after two wipes on heroic Blood Princes, Frank started whispering into my ear dark tidings and it being an hour away from raid end I was beginning to debate in officer chat if it made sense to kill Princes on normal to guarantee BQL being down this week. The other officers (rightly) told me to simmer down and we did another go.

And killed them that next attempt. Egg on ma face!

As we running up the ramp and clearing to BQL I noticed my ShoR icon was faded out. My shield was also unequipped. I immediately panicked, thinking I sold it or destroyed it by accident, and searched my bags for them. I looked up at the top of my screen and my durability number was at 44%.

Not able to find the shield, and in near full-blown panic, I opened my character sheet and saw the shield still equipped, but at 0/120 durability. All my gear was at 44% but my shield was completely broken. Ye gods.

I don’t know why I announce these things in vent. I’m just giving Anafielle fodder for her eventual coup.

Anyway, we briskly one-shot Heroic BQL, which was pretty impressive. Though, after my moment in the sun, any plain-jane kill just feels so… pedestrian. Loot dropped and it was basically a carbon copy of last week. Anafielle got the heroic token, another Dying Light went to another mage, and everyone else groaned. At one heroic token a week right now, these things are hot commodities.

With about thirty minutes left in raid, the lot of us dodged over to Dreamwalker to start plugging away on her heroic mode. We had a few abortive attempts with one of our best portal-jumping healers disconnecting, so didn’t get very far unfortunately. 10 server rolled around and the sun set on our second, and best, night in 25 heroic modes yet. Very exciting stuff, 6/12 in one night.

Now let’s hope Sunday happens!

Because we were starting with BWL, of course a group of unattuned folks had to do the caravan through UBRS and the Rend event. I don’t know if anyone’s done this lately, but the bane of these trips has been that if you kill Rend before he jumps off his dragon, the event bugs and you need to reset the instance. Thankfully, we didn’t pull that this time!

Once finally in BWL we quickly shot through the whole place in like 30 minutes. My person interest in the place is limited to the remaining three pieces of T2 I need–boots, belt, chest. A few folks needed the achievement, and I think someone else wanted the Elementium. In any case, it was a smooth run and in no time at all we were porting to Shatt and flying off for Karabor.

The transit apparently proved troublesome for a few of us. Those with the Touring Rockets decided to dump their passengers, so while yours truly is like a cat with buttered toast on his back, Anafielle was not as lucky.

Splat.

I’m currently really liking Black Temple. It’s huge but not drawn out. Boss fights are still somewhat interesting (I say this as someone who never ran the place in TBC), and a complete run has a Goldilocks duration. Plus the stuff off of Illidan is pretty awesome–the blindfold, the shield I covet, the creepy staff, etc. I think it took us about 90 minutes to burn through the place, and once the Betrayer hugged the floor, we decided to dodge to Silithus for an AQ40 run. Because, why not?

Once we were done re-enacting Starship Troopers and I was satisfied with pissing everyone off by constantly asking in a drunken manner, “Is this the gauntlet? How about now?!” we then finally broke down to a 10man to get some folks their drakes. I wasn’t planning for this to take very long, so I told the five that had to drop group to hang around and we’d run Hyjal or something after. 20 minutes, tops.

Anyway, while the 10 of us ran Orbituary, Disarmed, and Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare, Anafielle was passed out on her keyboard. And then there were 14!

Once the Ulduar fun ended we headed over to Hyjal and steamrolled through the place. After Archimonde fell, I realized it was way past my bed time and staggered off to wake up early the next morning, hungover, for my drive to the wedding.

The bug hunt

On Sunday, after having run AQ40 the other day, I noticed my reputation with the Brood of Nozdormu was around 31640/36000, within spitting distance of the next level and putting me one step closer to being able to really start the Scepter quest chain. So I flew down to Silithus to cash in my stockpile of Qiraji Lord Insignias and hopefully push it to neutral. As I was clicking through the multiple goes of the repeatable quest, I watched my reputation slowly trudge up to maxing out Hated.

After cashing them all in I was at 35640/36000. When I was done blubbering like a girl, I went back to farming carapaces.

Finally, 10 agonizing minutes later I had the 200 I needed, turned them and prepared for that delicious green swirl of neutrality.

Wait… that’s not right… Neutral is after… no… not more carapaces… NOT MORE CARAPACES.

/flex

I’m not much of a pvper, but when accidentally opening up the pvp window I noticed that it was AV weekend. So, on a whim I jumped into a match which was about to start. Someone asked in /bg who was the tank. Some guy in 232 gear speaks up first, but since I have a chip on my shoulder since the last time I was in AV, I volunteered as well. Some guy must have inspected us both, because he immediately decreed that I was tank.

We zerged right up to Vann, skipping the mage at the halfway point. Looks like Alliance was doing the same, because I never heard them engage our midway guy-person. Like I said, I never do battlegrounds. I don’t know these names.

Anyway, we get to Vann, I check to make sure people are behind me and I pull. 30 seconds later Vann went down, the results screen came up and yours truly was top damage done. Gogo aoe damage on five mobs at once.

Team Rocket Alpha Snowflake strikes back

We run two ICC-10 heroic groups on Sunday, which jokingly have adopted the names Team Rocket Alpha Snowflake and Team Bravo Sunshine Ponies, if I have those right. My team (Alpha) started an hour late because the second tank forgot we were raiding. Ana’s team meanwhile continued their lockout from last week, on time, which had gotten the guild-first kill of Saurfang 10H last week.

Swearing revenge, Team Alpha responded by spending ten attempts on the same fight while Bravo went to work on heroic Putricide. Finally, after about an hour we knocked over Saurfang.

Alas, Bravo managed to match our previous heroic kills (Fester, Rotface, and BQL) and then one-up us with Dreamwalker. While the rivalry flares up I’m just happy the guild is getting these progression kills. I’m a softy like that. Nonetheless, next week Alpha is prepared to take back the crown.

And, in other news, I really, really need to do strategy posts for heroic fights.

We started the night with Festergut Heroic, after about 12 wipes on him last night we were itching for a quick kill. It wasn’t a one shot, but every one of the five attempts we did we shaved a percent off his health each time we wiped to the enrage. 5%, then 4%, then 3%, then .9%. Then the last attempt we had this amazing go with no Goos hitting melee, no healers getting gibbed, probably a few ranged getting hit, but generally a great attempt.

As we got closer to the enrage we were riding the razors edge. It was obviously going to be very close. Anafielle hits 9 stacks a few seconds before enrage, I pull it off her with Righteous Defense, then as he turns gigantic and throbby red, I bubble, Hand of Reckoning, and do as much damage as I can. As soon as the fixate fell off, Fester turned and splatted Ana into a fine paste. With molecules of his hit points remaining, Valgard (a ret pally who also bubbled) and I did our best to whittle what we could down while Vili ankhed back up and continued to heal furiously. Finally, moments before aoe death overcame us, we chipped away that last few thousand hp and Festergut dropped to the floor.

Epic, to say the least.

And best of all we spent generally little time on Festergut, so we had a lot more breathing room for the rest of the night. My initial goal at the beginning of the week was a little bold, I thought: Heroic Marrowgar, Lootship, Festergut, Rotface, and BQL. Perhaps a boss or two too much, but it was a worthy first week goal. After the wipefest on Festergut last night, I dialed it back a bit in my head, just getting Festergut and Rotface down would be good enough. So, that’s the attitude I started the night with: just get the twin uglies down and we’ll be in a good spot. Right-o, off to the races.

So with Festergut dropped, we scurried off for Rotface. I heard this fight was easier than Festergut’s hardmode, but I had no idea. Our very first attempt turned into an utter clusterfrak at around 30% with 2/3rds of the raid dead, and yet we almost killed him. Thankfully we wiped, and could do it for real. The second time around we killed him with no issue. Another easily farm-able hardmode, I love it.

Then we tumbled over to the Blood Wing and dispatched the Blood Princes. I basically explained the BQL hardmode as “more dps needed, one mistake wipes us, don’t screw it up!” It was delivered lovingly, I swear.

Some were pessimistic about the dps required to drop her, but for some odd reason Frank was in hibernation and I was feeling sunny about our chances. It was probably some head trauma.

Anyway, off we went and on the first attempt we lost a few people in the air phase. And by a few people I mean the two that had the bites. Somehow no one noticed and right before the enrage someone observed, “hey we haven’t had any bites lately.” Woops, 30% enrage wipe.

The next time we lost some people on airphase, yet despite brezzes, eventually it was a wipe with the enrage hitting at 8%. The fourth go we had a really close wipe, something like 4% or so. We could so get this, just needed one flawless attempt. Just one.

The fifth attempt we had just that. No deaths, no mistakes, bites went to the right people. I had high hopes as we trudged through the motions. Finally as we came to the moment of truth, we were looking to be just shy of the enrage. About 2% left as it was going to hit. As we usually do, the enrage hit and all the Pallies bubbled. Eventually only Ana and I survived, BQL runs up for air phase at around .5% and starts blood bolting. Looks like a wipe as we furiously judged and tossed wrathful hammers.

In our darkest moment, a glimmer of hope. Vili bolts up and spot heals Ana and I, only to be struck down once more. Ana soon follows. Somehow I persisted and a lingering Rip from Purraj the feral druid got the killing blow.

When the dust settled, I surveyed my surroundings, sighed a heavy breath of relief, and then immediately tweeted my victory.

What? Rez? Oh, yeah, I could do that. I was duly chastened.

When rezzes were finished, the loot window went up, we all bid, and I managed to score my first 277 piece: the heroic t10 token. I am so excited to begin building my blue tier set. Even if it cost me nearly a kilo of dkp!

With the excitement contained and about 10 minutes left in raid, we dodged over to Sindragosa and one-shot her, which put us exactly where I started this week hoping we would be: all farm bosses dead plus those five benchmark heroic kills. And we did it, we totally did it. I am so proud of my raid crew, another fantastic week.

Heroic Marrowgar was a joke. Not much harder than normal Marrowgar himself. I found this shocking when, on the first attempt, he was at around 50% health, we were two Bonestorms in, and one person was dead. I was expecting a minor speed bump like when we first did this on Heroic 10 mode. But nope, easy one shot, and the slot machine burped out the purps.

We did LDW on normal, obviously, and then went on for Heroic Lootship. About the only hiccup there was being I was jumping over, a missle hit one of the spiky things on the side of the ship that a Resto Druid was parked on, and the game decided that despite being in midair I was hit as well, so I went flying off sideways into the gap in between the ships. I reappeared in the middle of the deck and sprinted back over to the other side, but by the time I got there and picked up Muradin, three melee were dead. I’ll never hear the end of that.

Normal Saurfang, which we could probably do, but my thinking is find what the baseline for how many easy hardmodes we can do every week is, and then build it from there. To maximize upgrades.

After Saurfang we headed to Putricide’s hallway and cleared the trash to go to Festergut first. This is where things got interesting. Once I was done explaining what was different on heroic mode, and how I wanted everyone in melee to stack on a marked person and switch legs every time a Goo got launched, we had an epic wipe where people consistently got hit. Bah. Eventually we settled into the ES model of progression: slow, steady gains. Within short time we were hitting the enrage timer, so now we just needed to up dps to actually drop the boss.

It was around this time the Fates decided to throw a monkey wrench in the works. First, one of the dps (a warlock) had to drop for a work emergency, so I invited one person to come in and got no response. The warlock that left dropped a summoning stone and hearthed out. I then invited another dps with similar results, no response again.

The first dps I invited (who was having connection issues earlier in the night but assured me they were fixed) then accepted and we summoned him in. He starts running in place and looks like he’s DCing. I sigh and remove him, as the second dps I invited finally accepts and joins the raid. Unfortunately the DCing dps is still there, running in place, and we can’t summon the other guy since there are 25 people in the instance. As the guy finally disappears, the summoning stone disappears as well.

I sigh, and Zilga and I run outside to summon the dps who’ll give us 25 people. Unfortunately once we get near the summoning stone outside, we realize we’re both in different phases and can’t see each other. Another sigh and we both hoof it in as the 25th makes his way to us.

As we reach Festergut’s room again, one of the druids manages to somehow pull Festergut with a Crashin’ Thrashin’ Racer and starts the encounters. Some of us bolt into the hallway and hide while Festergut kills any unlucky afkers or those who stayed behind in the room. As the three or so of us that survived the wipe catch our breath in the hallway, someone trips a hidden trap, and a flood of geists come barreling down towards us. At this point I have to laugh, because it’s officially gotten ridiculous.

Eventually the geists die and we get back to business. Progress starts rolling again and by the end of the night we were wiping at around 4-5% on the last two solid attempts. Disappointing, but at least we know we can get it once people tighten up dodging Goos and the whole not-dying thing.

At 9:30, half an hour before end time, the trash respawns in the hallway. I decide to give everyone a break rather than spending 15 minutes clearing trash for two more attempts on the boss. We just want and quickly demolished normal Dreamwalker for a “shake off” kill.

So with the night over we stood at 2/12 heroics. Not godly, but we made good progress on number 3, who I’m sure we’ll brush off with little trouble tonight, allowing us to knock down #4 (Rotface) and put in solid attempts on #5 (BQL).

We downed the Lich King on Tuesday, after extending the lockout, which means that while we could enjoy our hard-wrought victory, we also were completely locked out of ICC25 for the rest of the week. The question became, what the hell do we do on Wednesday?

When we formed the raid last night I threw up a ready check and put it to a vote: Yes for ToGC25, no for Uld25. About seven people chose the latter, the rest were for the former. So the die was cast and off we went.

(Theme of the night: Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos… er, Ulduar.)

Even 23 manning it (some decided to take the night off after our victory), we had no trouble getting through Beasts and Jaraxxus. Faction Champs was a huge pain, giving us just about the worst melee comp ever: the Warrior, the Ret Pally, the DK, the Rogue. Only adding the Enhance Shaman could it have achieved a perfect storm of ballbusting.

Took us a few attempts to down that, but it got done. Then on Twins we went back and forth between trying the door strategy, doing a few attempts that way, then the normal way, then finally killing it.

After that it was around 45 minutes before raid end and we kind of half-heartedly putzed around on Anub before calling it.

So, on the down side, we basically ran progression rather than taking a victory lap. I would have definitely preferred the latter. On the bright side, the heroic Solace and heroic Death’s Choice trinkets dropped, along with another piece that was an upgrade for someone. So, there was some value to be had.

I’m willing to call this a wash.

I originally wrote this title in my head last week as the companion to the post titled “Line ‘em up!” My thinking was Tuesday was another easy 11/12 clear and Wednesday would probably be the coup de grace, so the two work well together. Alas, my hubris got the better of me, and Wednesday we spent most of the night working on Phase 2. I decided that night we’d take what we learned and roll it over to immediately jumping to Arthas on Tuesday. The lockout was to be extended, the Lich King was to fall.

And last night was definitely a long time coming. We’ve been working on the fight for a total of four nights now. Which, for a guild that only raids twice a week for about 3 hours at a time, is no mean feat. Lots of blood, sweat, and tears have been shed. Ulcers have expanded like an ill-placed defile. Slowly but surely we clawed our way up there.

Last night I noticed as we were working through phase 2 during the first two hours something seemed different. Defiles usually were a bit scattered in previous weeks, but last night there were invariably perfectly placed out of the way every time. There were a few slip ups but nothing as major as a Defile being accidentally dropped in the middle of the room (aside from the second Defile which was always iffy because of how it lined up with Valks), which meant I never had to act on my threat of immediately wiping raid if Defile was dropped in the middle.

I love when no one calls my bluffs.

And, of course, it was key that even after weeks of defeats everyone stayed overwhelmingly positive. There were some lighthearted moments, mostly involving my propensity for letting Frank (my supposed ulcer has indeed been named) take over in vent. The first time we hit the Phase 2.5 transition with everyone up I yelled in vent to everyone “Don’t screw it up!”

At the time I meant aggro on the Raging Spirits, whom I hate, as you know, but everyone took that more existentially.

The running joke after some wipes was “Frank’s taking over!” which warranted a “There is no Rhidach, only Zuul” at one point. I’m glad no one took my spazzings personally, I’d rather people recognize that I tend to just get … carried away … so to speak. As long as everyone knows I’m not yelling at them, that’s all that matters. I’d be a terrible raid leader if everyone thought that I thought they sucked because of one mistake.

But, speaking of sucking, there was honestly not much of it to be had last night. I already mentioned how pro Defile drops were, which warmed the cockles of my heart. There were some clutch moments in Phase 3 with the Vile Spirits, which we basically had no experience with prior to tonight. Originally my plan was to kite them and have ranged burn them down, but that obviously wasn’t working, so we switched to the tried and true soaking method.

I worked out an order with the Paladins, and in one attempt that was generally leading to a wipe, all the Paladins were out of commission or dead, or Forbearanced, and in our moment of darkness I saw Sheepin (a mage) run into the fray and drop to the ground with a heavy thud, completely encased in ice. He then soaked up a huge chunk of the ethereal doom that was headed our way. It was a pretty clutch move, and something I completely didn’t think of. Major props to him for that initiative.

At around 9:30 server time, thirty minutes before raid end, I had to swap out a dps so we could keep going. Not a big deal, but it pointed out for me the mortality of the raid, we didn’t have much time left. I asked everyone if they could spare maybe an extra thirty minutes and everyone agreed down to a man (or woman). No dissent, everyone was gung ho on a kill tonight.

Right before the dps swap we had one attempt that ended with a 11.6% wipe. It was probably the third or so attempt that brought us into Phase 3, and the first that started with everyone alive in that phase. We kept losing folks to attrition, finally hitting around 15% with 10 people up. Every Harvest Soul fed Frostmourne, and I did my best to kite LK while hopefully the dps burnt down what remained of his health. Unfortunately I bit it at around 13%, though Anafielle sprung into action and picked him up. She, Sheepin, and Slorail (resto druid) did their best but the numbers were against them.

It was a heart breaking wipe, though it cemented for us all how imminent our victory was. Post-dps switch, we had a few more attempts consistently getting into Phase 3. Finally, at around 10 server, we had an amazing go taking us into Phase 3 with everyone up. Two attempts prior I really saw dps pick up as everyone seemed to hit a stride. Raging Spirits were dying before the next came up, Valks were only making it halfway to the edge, rather than 2/3rds of the way. There was an audible click, like someone hit the Pro button.

As we proceeded through that attempt, and steadily made our way through Phase 3, everything was coming together. Soakers were soaking, the remainder Raging Spirit died easily and no one walked in front of his screech. Arthas’ health was slowly but surely depleting.

At around 14% with 23 people up, this wave of calm washed over me. Time slowed down, that throbbing hum in my ears diminished, and I could hear a dulcet voice beckoning. It was Frank, mellifluously whispering, “you may have won this round, but I’ll be back.”

14% melted slowly into 13%; it was happening. You know that absolute moment of clarity you get the first time you are about to down a boss? That point where you realize that, holy hell, this was it. I could feel it, that endorphin rush paired with an enveloping wave of peace.

“Hold it together guys!” I shouted encouragement on vent. “We’ve got this, just lock it down!” 13 became 12. 12 became 11.”One percent to go!” Finally, 10%. “Oh, jesus, here it is! We did! Don’t release, ok?!”

Frostmourne was raised aloft and our lifeless corpses were laid low. You know the rest at this point.

When the dust cleared, there we were. Enveloping Shadows, 12/12 in ICC25 normal. Hot damn. Not bad for a plucky little guild that a year ago couldn’t clear Ulduar!

We’re now the 10th guild on our server to down LK25, and once we start working on hardmodes we’ll probably end up being the 3rd most progressed Horde guild overall. I honestly need to confess that such a possibility was unthinkable to me a year ago. I saw a guild that couldn’t even get passed Ulduar and thought we were doomed to be backbenchers for the rest of the expansion. A lot came together though, we brought in some awesome people, developed as players, brought in some amazing folks to round out the core, and improved as a guild. We deserve every inch of our victory. I am so very proud of each and every member of this guild.

Moreover, I am so very excited for the future. I always knew we were going to get to this point (though there were disagreements about the time table), and I’ve been mentally preparing myself for hardmodes for a month now. Our time has come, let the 277 loot flow like wine.

This was the most satisfying post I’ve ever written.

We were killing bosses more slowly than we did last week, and we had some annoying wipes on BQL thanks to one guy getting the very first bite and then DCing, and then the second attempt when a swath of dps died because they absolutely had to run through everyone during air phase to bite others rather than wait six seconds.

The most infuriating part of the night was at the very beginning. We have a guy in guild who is deaf and was generally a player who DC’d every 30 seconds and did terrible dps for the longest time, and as such never got raid invites. Of course in his mind, he was being discriminated against, not we were protecting the raid from someone with a terrible connection, attitude, and performance.

Last week I got ambushed into a meeting with this guy and he threw down the gauntlet demanding a raid invite, claiming he fixed his issues and even got a program that can convert Vent speech to text on his screen, so he won’t have issues with getting directions or whatever over Vent. In fact, he went so far as to accuse me of ignoring him the last time he tried to tell me about this program a month or so ago, which I had no recollection of. I suspected he was lying about that, but I could have been wrong.

Nonetheless, I felt bad that I might not have been giving this guy a fair shake, so I confirmed him for the Tuesday raid. And, just to clarify before anyone thinks ill of me, I was not keeping this guy out of raids because of his hearing. But him saying that that would not be a hurdle for his performance put me more at ease with his being there.

So, imagine my surprise when as we’re buffing up to start the raid this guy types “Damn, [random hunter] isn’t on tonight. He was going to be my translator.” My eyebrow cocks and I ask, “Translator? What happened to that program of yours?”

“Oh,” he replies, “it only works on phones, not on Vent. I told you that.”

What. The. Frak.

If only I wasn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel to get the raid going tonight, I would have kicked him so fast he head would spin. I was seriously contemplating a gkick as well, because that kind of duplicity is utter bullshit. Anyway, on the bright side, I am completely free of feeling guilty for this guy. I have washed my hands of this.

On a happier note

I finally got the Last Word off of Putricide. Finally. And I love it, such a sick weapon. My only complaint (and this is hardly a complaint) is since the proc happens so much, watching your character in melee is like watching them getting spammed with a spell. The Blessing of Light animation is constantly popping up, every time you melee.

It’s a great weapon though–awesome proc, slow speed, good chunk of strength, nice chunk of stamina. I’m very happy with it.

Tonight’s the night

I’ll refrain from posting a Rod Stewart video, but … actually … eh, yeah, I’ll refrain. Anyway, tonight’s our next night of attempts on the Lich King.

I’ve assembled a pretty strong team, assigned some slight respecs to pick up some slowing talents, and devised a new strategy which I hope will take some of the “oh crap, where do I go?” out of the fight.

I call it the Highway strategy, and it will probably fail miserably, but for the time I like it. I know the lines will disappear during Phase 2 and thus not help at all but this should help point out what I have conceived in my head. Basically star is always and forever the stack point. When the Defile cooldown hits about one second left we all scatter (in an orderly fashion) north or south of the lines so Defiles are dropped out of the way, then everyone back in.

Likewise, with a better slowing arsenal this week, I think Valks should be much less of an issue. So combined with better Defile management and better Valks management, Phase 2 should be less of a teeth-grinding ulcer-fest and generally proceed more smoothly overall.

I have high hopes for tonight. And, if worse comes to worse, we’re extending the lockout next week. Cause this frakker is gonna die. I’m Andrew Jackson and he’s the Federal Bank. It’s go time.