One Light with a Side of Knuckle

This week we took a break from ICC, like most were just getting tired of the same raid every week so we set this weekend as a week dedicated to Ulduar 10 and our Rusted Proto-Drakes.
The week started with our standard RS run and the addition of a new trial Healer to the guild, another paladin that makes the total number of Paladins in guild 1/3. The from there we went into Ulduar and started working our way down the hardmodes including FL+4 and Assembly of Iron for the Key to Algalon. On the way down I kept removing my weapon once I had a threat sorted, I have been working on my 400 unarmed skill for months now with no luck but finally on the last trash to AoI.


From there we kept moving down the hardmode list knocking out Kolo, Cat Lady, Hodir and Thorium before calling it for the night. I have to say even now in our current gear when you 7man Hodir with one ranged it gets close, we had mear seconds left on the clock when we pushed him over that threshold and got the hardmode.

The next day we decided to push for Yogg and knocked out normal Freya and Mim then it was off to Trade to hope like the crazy people we were that we could pick up 2 DPS with the gear and skill to kill him without weighing us down. Obviously it was a long wait particularly since Uld was the raid weekly but near an hour later and many many disappointing whispers we had our team for General HM and One light. What is it about people that makes them think that "LF1M Melee must have done at least normal Yogg" means we need ranged, healers or anyone who has never been to Ulduar before? Its just crazy how many whispers I got from people that in no way fitted what I asked for, many couldn't even understand why I wouldn't invite them.

We quickly two shot general with the first being a wipe due to my own stupidity, I failed to pick up the Animus when I accidentally clicked General before throwing my shield. Of cause I had no threat when people began nucking and being taunt immune I never got it back and everyone died.
Once we had General down we moved to Yogg, we have had bad luck in the past with ether two few players or pugs that just can not do what they need to.
It was a long night of wiping as many got used to what they needed to do and the Pugs got used to us and the fight. As the night's close came closer we were now hitting phase 3 with most people alive usually but with no Druid any dead stayed that way. The attempts we had on phase 3 went rather well until I got over run with adds and died, you see we had chosen our keeper down as Freya which while learning came in very handy but now that we were in phase 3 we desperately needed Thorium.
Eventually we called it a night and left it wondering whether two tanks were needed, while people drifted offline I stat looking for strats for One Light and Alone in the Darkness to see where we went wrong. Then it hit me, I had completely forgotten that the more health the adds have the more damage they deal up to and over 1500% extra each. Least we knew now for the next night.

Finally Sunday came and when raid time hit...we had 4 people online. We knew one member would be late but it was not looking good, however soon we had more on and despite those that came online but would not come to Ulduar we had a group up 2 hours later with the two pugs from last night a new Ret Pally and Druid who both had the Achieve on their mains.
We ran in with desire brewing in our veins we knew we would have this achievement, first shot was straight to phase 3 and despite a ranged dropping early we nuked him down to 10% before wiping first try. Next shot went all to hell with many cloud spawns in phase 1, and people being feared into death lazers but we did again hit phase 3.
With people confident in our next attempt we rebuffed, a slight change of strat to move me and the adds to the back would keep the healing off Yogg and without the melee cleaves to help all range would keep the adds down low while the four melee burned the Death God.
It started a little messy we lost the Pug Ret Pally early to Sara's Fervor and a volley, but with a B Rez he was up again and we pushed a clean phase 2. We hit phase 3 with everyone up and quickly hit our positions. One by one the adds started to build and as each new one came it became harder to keep them at low health, Yogg was pushing low health and our Trial Pally and Pug Priest were healing with all they had as Fire Elementals ripped around and I dropped every CD I had.
People started to get confidant they could see the death coming but we had to hold on and kept it for a few more seconds when

We had done it Yogg was finally down and after all this time we had our Rusted Proto-Drakes.
We may have run with 5 Pugs but they worked hard, fixed their mistakes and came back for the second day to get the mounts.

Congratulations to all those guildies who got their Drakes finally and a very very big Thank you to those pugs who worked so hard to help us.

Uneventful Recap

Its been a slow week in WoW for me with little Cataclysm news after the reveal of Holy Power. Most of my time has been spent ether on other games or working my Priest through Outlands with my Partner.
I did however have big plans for this weekends raids aiming to possibly look at Halion hard mode and spend some time knocking out Putricide hard as well. Unfortunately for us this weekend was plagued once again by real life and several raiders were not able to make it on. We went first and took down an easy Halion normal with only one wipe mostly due to my forgetfulness on boss positioning.
With Halion down we took the fight to ICC clearing out LDW, GS, DBS and BQL all on Hard mode before calling it a night.
Saturday was even worse with one more person away we were to be officially under the 10 we needed for ICC so instead we took 8 of us to Ulduar for some Drake catchup and gear collecting for the Herald of the Titans achievement.

After taking out One tower FL and Ignis, Razor and XT on Hard mode where we could we moved to the Assembly of Iron normal with no Deaths and then made our way to the Cat Lady for a new Achievement.


After that we took out Hodir and then to Thorim for yet another new achievement.


We called it a night after that with some people having dinner coming.
Sunday we went back into ICC 1 man down and after clearing through Festergut and the Rotface achievement It was obvious that we were one man down. Luckily for us one of our first applicants was online and not only was he unsaved but was keen to do his trial on the last half of ICC.
With a full raid team we quickly moved through normal Putriced, Valithria and Sindragossa to face off against the Lich King for the first time in months.

After a break and a quick explanation of the fight the those that hadn't done it before we went in. It was messy and several time we lost someone to something stupid I even nearly wiped us twice when getting Defile on myself and having no warning or /say cloud for it. Despite the mess the group managed to stay together and 10 minutesish later we had the guilds second Lich King kill, 5 people got new titles, the guild had a new member, my partner scored a new Spell Dagger and I picked up Troggbane the tanking Axe to upgrade my normal mode Scepter from Marrowgarr.

Next week we should have more people on and be able to knockout Putricide on hard mode, especially with the increase of the ICC buff to 30%.

Also keep tuned for my thoughts on any new changes coming in the next beta build that should be out later today.

Divided and Dissapointed.

So I started my week with a little stint in Outland Soloing some old Heroics for memory's and realised I was very close to Exalted with Aldor. After a quick pop to the AH and 200g later on Fel Arments



Friday came around and once again we were short a few for 25mans. Its strange how despite heavy recruiting we are still in the same place. We went as we normally would and knocked out an easy 6 bosses before having to call it a night due to a few being called away.
Saturday came and raids were called on account of to few on, however this time we were short the tank to do two 10mans and instead went to Ulduar to work on those elusive drakes. We made easy work of most of the place even picking up a one shot Freya HM with several who had never done her on normal. For our efforts we were awarded


We had some minor difficulty with Mim but Firefighter was soon down and the General HM followed.
Then we hit Yogg the last wall between half a dozen of us and our drakes. It was messy with people in clouds a lot but this time we weren't carrying anyone and all 10 did their work getting through phases despite all the adds. Several occasions we got to phase 3, once was even a 8% wipe but it started to get messy with even more mistakes. With my partner sick in bed we left it there and Yoggs toothy face smiling at us, still mocking as he keeps our drakes. We will get them though and now we are at his door again we can extend and work him till hes down.

Sunday ended up sharing Fridays fate with raids called early due to people leaving. Although one positive came and that was the failing of a rather annoying guildies trial, we can finally be rid of him and maybe there will be a little less drama now.
On a similar sad note we did lose a long time friend of mine. For the first time ever Festergut dropped his hunter belt in 25man and a guy I have known since level 40 has been waiting a long time for it to do so. However with pugs in raid there was always going to be a risk and this time a pug rolled a 96 far beating out anyone else. Being a strong item the pug of cause (and rightfully so) would not hand over the belt to guildies and my friend go angry. Now he is prone to the occasional rage and has rage quit once before and seeing it coming I would not let it happen again. He may have picked me up from the airport when I went to Oz, but halfway through his "I'm out" speech in guild "/gkick" and he was gone. Its sad to do it but really we have no choice in pugging a few people and they will often want gear you do.If the choice is not run because you wont pug or risk loosing an item to a pug most people would choose to risk it.
All we can really do is move on and hope that soon we wont have to pug again.

Return to Ulduar

Had an invite from a guildies friend to come to Ulduar 10 hardmodes last week. Started on Thursday with just some clearing and Bosses I had already done, then monday comes. We went in with our sights set on Mimiron the last watcher left up from Thurday.


Had a few interesting mistakes but every time we got one phase further than before, people keep on dieing to silly avoidable things but each attemp most lived alittle longer than the attempt before.


Then after 4 wipes on him we almost had him its late phase 4 and everythings below 15% bar the head still at 22%. The enrage is coming and most of us are dead, then we lose our last ranged and we realise were going to fall so short hitting the enrage at 10% or less on all parts.


Then attempt 5. Its messy but were doing it, we make phase 4 and everyone is still alive. Then it goes all wrong people start falling left and right. Were closer to the kill than ever before and we lose one of our 2 healers. Our melee are mostly dead all ranged are gone and the Bottom and Head are at 0% with 2% still on the middle. Then mear seconds before the other two parts come back to life...





Finally completed my Algalon key for 10man.
Next up General and One Light Yogg the last achieve I need for my drake. This should be interesting with half the group never having done those fights on normal modes.