Kael'thas Finds His Keep Empty...

<Good Guild> had yet another solid night of raiding last night. We moved our sights onto The Eye and focused our attempts there for the evening. Being the type of guild we are, we HATE skipping bosses just because they are hard. From what we have seen, if you hammer the hard boss while everyone is awake and paying attention, you get better outcomes than going straight to the easy bosses and downing them, then back tracking. We did Hydross before Lurker, and last night we made Al'ar attempts before anything else.

We made the pulls to Al'ar smoothly. I was more comfortable here, as I've actually ran pugs in TK, so I knew what was going on and what could go wrong. The other two pally tanks also had this going for them, so needless to say, the trash was easy and trivial. We pulled our way into Al'ars room, and stared up at the Phoenix god, discussing strategies. This is the thing I love most about this guild, the raid leader, unlike many, is open to discussion and advice. He tells us that if his way doesn't work, then we need to find a way for it to work, and we do. We decided the two pallies were going to pick up adds, and myself and the feral druid would be on the platforms. I had 1 and 3, and Babyjoker had 2 and 4. Neither of us had done the fight before, but the guild trusted us. Our first attempt, we had Al'ar at ?38%? if i remember correctly in phase 2. One thing I will say about this guild, they are very redundant, we all trust in each other's abilities, and we each seem to know our own class. Our tanks, espcially the prot pallies and the feral druid, are some of the best I have every co-tanked with. I am proud to be apart of that group of people. We sync VERY well together and watch each others back. Lets not even talk about the healers...wow... is all I can say. They have managed to keep me alive so many times when I have nubbed up and taken a crushing blow or two due to me trying to do too many things at once and forgetting my shield block. My fault, but they saved me...many times. The dps...well, the dps is the best group of dps i have ever tanked for. I have not ever seen things blow up as fast as they do...its very very refreshing. Anyway, back to the al'ar fight...

We had to adjust our strategy a couple of times. I got myself killed once by running in to get knocked back by Al'ar in phase 2, then the raid took flame buffet. Was my fault, but I learned. We adapted our strategy so that everyone spread out around the purple circle in the center, with me in the center. Even if I had the melt armor, I would run in and smash al'ar and the prot paladin would taunt him off me instantly. With spell reflect I could ensure that no flame buffets occured. GG Al'ar. On attempt 5, the Phoenix God lay before us lifeless.



To be honest, I enjoyed this fight. It relied heavily on the tanks doing their job, one mess up causes the raid to be in a pinch...two mess ups could wipe it. It made sure we were on our toes. I would definately call this fight a tank check, and we passed!

From here, we moved on to VR. We actually wiped on trash in VR this time. We nearly wiped again, but yet again the resiliency of our tanks cleaned up the mess. I fell on the big destroyer, one of the prot pallies was able to pick it up just as he got loose. Then Babyjoker died too, just as the one that killed me died. The destroyer got 2 healers before it was able to be picked up (and we were already down 2 from the demons) so the pally tank died, leaving only the other tank alive... He managed to snag the agro and with 7 people they finished off the destroyer, the demon, and the humanoid. Not bad for our last VR trash pull.

Another thing about this guild. We hammer the hard bosses out like they are nothing, but when we get to the trivial bosses...we sometimes fail. Void Reaver gave us a fit at first. We actually got into an argument because people were getting upset over the fact that we did not do well on him due to his "lootreaver" title. Things have changed in 2.4, as they moved a bit faster and mods no longer worked. We had to adjust our strategy a few times after we calmed everyone down and told them to relax. We had people arguing and such, but it died fast. I reminded everyone how we have downed every boss thus far. We strategize with one another, and not assault each others ideas. Needless to say, attempt 3 or 4 (i dont remember.) we brought VR to a hault. Three minutes remained on the enrage timer...

(No picture. Void Reaver does not deserve a kill shot.)

From there, we moved on to Solarian. I wont go in Detail. It was a one shot, a few people blew up a few people, but meh it happens and we moved on. Again, no kill shot as Solarian is not worthy of one.

After words, we all disbanded raid..and someone went into vent "We should go kill Rage...we have 50 minutes left on raid. Just have people put 1 in raid if they want to go or something..." and well...all i saw was 25 people scrolling my chat box with green 1s. On to Hyjal we went! Hyjal was interesting, and definately awesome to see. We two shot rage (after we got everyone to go get their trinkets and we learned the fight) and called it a night.



After 3 back to back to back nights of raiding, <Good Guild> has went from just stepping into 25mans, to being 5/6 in SSC, 3/4 in TK, and 1/5 in MH with Gruul and Mag added as well. On Sunday, we start our attempts on Vashj. I honestly cannot wait to see the fight. This group has a solid chance of downing her quickly. We communicate well together and work together very very well. It is sooo refreshing to be in after the months I spent guild hopping and pugging. I am very very very grateful that they begged me to join and I caved. If I hadn't, I would have missed out on one of the best guilds I've ever been in during my WoW career. I have seen more content in the past 3 days than I had in the last 9 months...

Hopefully Vashj dies Sunday and we start Kael on Monday...