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Elegon 25 Heroic

10.1.2013

The Stone Guard 25 Heroic

Dead transparent dragon is dead.

It likely comes as a shock to realise that this webpage is updated largely infrequently. Presently we have killed 5 heroic bosses and only two appear on the front page. Willing to hire a photographer so I can get them up here. Also looking for members! Turns out killing this many bosses wears people out. Who would have thought it blizzard.

The Stone Guard 25 Heroic

25.10.2012

The Stone Guard 25 Heroic

Down boy!

The farm (sorry I meant grind) is starting to really kick in. Farming has never been so literal and with the ridiculous amount of bosses released this tier I am looking forward to a cataclysm-esque collapse in raid numbers. Dogs are dead.

Madness of Deathwing 25 Heroic

22.04.2012

Spine of Deathwing 25 Heroic

Here's looking at your Garrosh!

So yes, spine was the cockblock that everyone else said it would be. Shocker. Although we by no means breezed the madness encounter it did not require the degrees of finesse required in the previous fight. Once he was dead and we had sorted out the loot (a long time given our loot distribution!) we started to set up for a screenshot. At this point we realised that we already had a photo of this exact spot, so we decided we would go and take one looking at the end boss of Mists of Pandaria! I gave up trying to organise a decent screenshot. Somewhere in the above screenshot is a complete random who is not even in the guild, "Wheres Waldo" style. Expansion over? Bring on the pandas and kungfu!

Spine of Deathwing 25 Heroic

01.04.2012

Spine of Deathwing 25 Heroic

April fools deathwing! Your spine is ours!

So, nerfs aside, tonight was not going as planned. One maintank had to suddenly work (wtf real life?!), the only standbys were more healers, and we were light on mages (our go to corruption interruptors). We also had a lot of warlocks and hunters (don't seem to do so well on spine). All of this forced some serious changes to our strat, 7 healers are in, two mages soloed each corruption, an alt warror took over kiting and at the last moment our most undergeared dps was called to plate when she shouldn't have even been in on progression. Turns out that was what you need to kill this boss. Amusement entailed raidcalling who was meant to be using the damn lightwell, some fantastic play from the mages, excellent kiting and some true raid carrying DPS from the guys lucky enough to roll a class who can dominate this boss. Jokes aside, we ran right to the wall and beyond time for the raid. Each try was good and progress was well deserved. I did not expect a kill tonight, truly proud of this raidgroup at the moment.

Warmaster Blackhorn 25 Heroic

07.03.2012

Warmaster Blackhorn 25 Heroic

Sapper sapping mah flying boat!

I actually enjoyed this fight, until the boss actually landed. Then it became a case of, "is there fire where you wanted to stand?" followed by "is there also fire on the backup location?" followed by "wtf there wasn't this much fire last time?!?". Either way it was enjoyable, our new recruits get to gear up while we progressed on it and aside from some "communication" issues for stepping into the blasts it was pretty good progress. Then we suddenly killed him. There was fire, it was not in the way, so the boss insta-died first pull of the night. Even our teamspeak spies from other guilds were surprised, but as we have long said. First pull or last pull are always the best!

Ultraxion 25 Heroic

29.02.2012

What are we mean't to be taking a screenshot of?

I have no real complaints here, it was certainly not a difficult fight conceptually, and the raiders know what to do and just did it. Meeting the dps check was slow and steady (assisted by the monthly nerfs no doubt). We dropped healers as we started to settle in and as the tanks completed their four set bonuses. Wait what?!?! You see, we didn't do any of those silly 11 alt runs with 3 mains in strategies. We didn't do crazy exploits on LFR. We are only now completing 4set on our raiders and it shows. Those superproguilds who came in on the first week with fourset on 90% of their guild have had an astonishing advantage, it's something we simply cannot compete with. Boss died, we didn't screenshot it. What were we taking a picture of? A ledge?

Hagara the Stormbinder 25 Heroic

09.02.2012

Hagara the Stormbinder 25 Heroic

So about that who is the easiest boss thing?

So by the time we heard that this boss was stupidly easy we had already put serious time into the preceeding two bosses. I'm pretty stubborn about these things and we just kept beating our faces against the wall that they represented. Obviously having gotten here, and annihilated it, they were clearly correct that it was easier. I wouldn't have done it differently though. Lightning was fun, Minilisa seems to be a lightning magnet. Or possibly healing repellant. Either way he needs to bribe someone to stay alive!

Warlord Zon'ozz 25 Heroic

08.02.2012

Warlord Zon'ozz25 Heroic

Was that the nerfstick or should we have stayed here earlier?

It was the nerfstick. Also more gear on the healers and dps let us put out with the exact same strategy that we used months ago when we first tried. Certainly we performed better than we did, but it was gear that killed Warlord Zon'ozz. Balancing for heroics seems to assume dps that we seem unable to meet, looking at other kills, our raiders need to produce at least 10k more dps than a 10man guild and about 10k more than they already are. 10 seems to be the magic number.

Yor'sahj the Unsleeping 25 Heroic

01.02.2012

Yor'sahj the Unsleeping 25 Heroic

Which boss was mean't to be the easiest again?

We spent a few weeks after the Christmas-NewYear break trying out different bosses looking for a target. Initially we felt that Warlord might be worth some investment after we came to a decent strategy that seemed to work for us. Turns out the healing there is interestingly hardcore and our dps wasn't up to killing the tentacles fast enough to compensate. So we moved around the instance, passing on the glitchy exploit strat for hagara and settled on Yor'sahj. In 10man, this gets solotanked. It is frankly ridiculous that both 10 and 25man share a loot table, but the tanks in 25man get hit for over four times the damage. BRB farming more gear, boss nerf, got a kill, bittersweet.

Morchok 25 Heroic

08.12.2011

Not worthy of a picture! Also forgot...

The week after normals we down first boss heroic! Shannox flashbacks! It should be pointed out that left side totally owned and carried right side who clearly need to shape the fuck up. Inhouse rivalry is always fun! Merry Christmas! See you in the new year!

Madness of Deathwing 25

04.12.2011

Madness of Deathwing 25

Instance clear! Take a break! wait wut..?

We pushed hard to clear this in a week, and the effort paid off. Certainly the raiders did a good job of learning encounters promptly but our base heroic gear level from firelands clearly helped carry us. Speaking of firelands, we didn't get enough time to clear in there, though progress on heroic Ragnaros was slow, it was present. Frankly most of the time it felt like we were fighting player computers as they lagged or disconnected at key moments, looking at you here million fire add spawns!

Majordomo Fandral Staghelm 25 Heroic

25.09.2011

Majordomo Fandral Staghelm 25 Heroic

Wasnt this boss number five?

We had pulled this twice in the previous week (so we had an idea of strategy once we killed Beth'tilac) but the difficulty of this encounter meant that the size of its following nerf really broke it. We should not accidentally kill bosses in heroic. On to Ragnaros! I really hope Blizzard gives us the time we will need to kill it, not that optimistic though.

Baleroc 25 Heroic

22.09.2011

Baleroc 25 Heroic

Everyone is a raidleader!

Even after the nerfs the sheer randomness of this encounter is quite challenging to raidlead. Since we were running with more healers the DPS check was still vaguely present (though clearly nowhere near the un-nerfed original) but the pleasant surprise to me was the adaption that the raid needs to do. I have never been happier to hear so many people taling on teamspeak and trying to sort stuff out as it happens. Great fight design as far as I am concerned.

Alysrazor 25 Heroic

21.09.2011

Alysrazor 25 Heroic

Was that the nerfstick or should we have come here earlier?

We hadn't bothered pulling this boss before tonight, and it is now dead. We have no real way to establish if this boss was much easier than we expected or the nerfstick was ridiculously overdone. Dead pidgeon.

Beth'tilac 25 Heroic

15.09.2011

Beth'tilac 25 Heroic

Last boss before the nerfstick hit!

Working hard and downing a boss before he gets nerfed is always much more satisfying than knowing you were close to a kill and then it was handed to you. That said we were unlikely to get close to clearing this instance within time without a nerf so I won't say it isn't good for us.

Lord Rhyolith 25 Heroic

25.08.2011

Lord Rhyolith 25 Heroic

Remembering to take a picture shouldn't be such an achievement

We pulled this, hit phase 2 with millions of stacks and assumed we were close to a kill. Turns out once you start trying to meet the DPS check the encounter becomes more punishing of driving mistakes, and we had loads of them. That said the DPS took the opportunity to man up and took control, telling the raidlead to "Shut the fuck up and leave them to drive!". Since Chill now does the DKP the only job-role left to fill before I can retire is the "who should be tanking this boss" antagonist. Applications through the forum please.

Shannox 25 Heroic

27.07.2011

About the picture taking...

For heroic Shannox they removed four abilities and added four new ones. The jury is out over which abilities were actually more difficult but I suspect that without the normal mode practice this would have seemed much more difficult. At about thirty five percent on the boss many players realised we were going to kill him however there was a significant group of six or more who ended the fight with "wtf he's dead?". Not really the sign of a challenging boss, but frankly he felt more "complete" as a boss in heroic.

Ragnaros 25

24.07.2011

Ragnaros 25

Re-killing old bosses is the new black

As much as we whine about reusing content it was surprisingly pleasant to see the Ragnaros encounter "cataclysmed". There is often talk about the "difficulty" or "tuning" of older bosses and how they would stand up to a current raidgroup. Enough that was old, and plenty that was new to easily put these debates to rest. With the broad availability of gear the feeling of being "tuned" like a vanilla boss would essentially be too punishing on RNG, so that tuning is out. In is five or more conflicting mechanics and abilities spread out over even more phases. Learning, executing and killing him was fun, well designed and a little nostalgic. "Remember when that knockback could kill you?! Only because you sucked."

Majordomo Staghelm 25

10.07.2011

Majordomo Staghelm 25

Shapeshifting causes epilepsy

I am still unsure if we could have killed this earlier if we did not "take it to the limit" In a mad drive to keep to as few shapeshifts as possible we really optimised our raid cooldown usage to maintain in each phase as long as possible. This undoubtedly killed the raid a few times. Perhaps for future reference we will see what happens and when we reach the "enrage timer" before we work like loons to avoid ever seeing it.

Alysrazor 25

10.07.2011

Alysrazor 25

Alysrazor gives you wings!

After attempts with casters flying, mostly due to pressure about how much they need haste. We swapped the melee upstairs and promptly got a kill. It is wierd and slightly unintuitive as a tank to optimise for DPS. The crazy swirl phases were amusing to watch players learn making for an overall interesting fight.

Baleroc 25

07.07.2011

Baelroc 25

Buff one applies buff two applies buff three

Repeated explainations of the nature of the multitude of buffs that cause other buffs that you use to gain additional buffs were not enjoyable. Frankly the major issue here was finding a clear and concise way to explain what the healers needed to do without losing and confusing one or all of them. Colour me unimpressed but still satisfying to kill.

Lord Rhyolith 25

30.06.2011

Driving games are fun!

I have heard many players whine that the RNG on this encounter ruins it, perhaps this complaint is mostly directed at the heroic version. Clearly we are simply a blessed and lucky guild so we found the encounter fun, and interesting. Also easy, but at least the melee got to do more than train a boss.

Shannox 25

30.06.2011

Professional photography skills on display!

With a few niggles in the raidcomp department to fix we set off again for the firelands. Eager to down Shannox we utterly overcomplicated our raid tactics and stifled our efforts until we realised we could easily brute force it. Having done so and looked at other guilds tactics it seems bruteforcing it was the tactic all along. Yay!

Beth'tilac 25

29.06.2011

Beth'tilac 25

It's not a dragon!

Honestly I was not expecting gigantic flaming spiders in firelands. The encounter plays out a lot like Razergore. The first phase feels utterly chaotic until you get some semblance of control over the adds, then p2 hits and you spank and tank the boss down. These are tried and tested mechanics and not really of note anymore.

Nefarian 25 Heroic

05.06.2011

Nefarian 25 Heroic

Double dragons again?!

This is the third time we have killed Onyxia but only the second death for Nefarian, I fully expect Deathwing to have a similar gigantic lightning generator to ressurect the pair for a phase one or two encounter. The black dragonflight simply cannot be killed, didn't we already kill Deathwing back in Warcraft 2: Beyond the dark portal?! Regardless, awesome dedecation from our raiders holding though all the healer recruitment and repeated relearning we endured killing this encounter.

Valiona and Theralion 25 Heroic

29.05.2011

Valiona and Theralion Heroic

Double dragons!

With Magmaw heroic dead we moved on to Nefarian heroic. However with the double dragons encounter similarly nerfed we took a break from Nefarian to gather our free welfare epics. We earned this guys! Heres hoping that the previous months of healer recruitment are finally over!

Magmaw 25 Heroic

23.03.2011

Magmaw Heroic

Nerfed encounter is nerfed!

After a few weeks of trauma with a weaker healing team we finally found some decent recruits. As a celebration blizzard decided to nerf the encounters we were working on. Magmaw is significantly easier now. He is also dead.

Atramedies 25 Heroic

06.03.2011

Again failing to take a picture!

Running from the fire is hard work. Certain players demonstrated their awesome movement skills with repeated deaths leading other raiders to fear for their sanity. Thanks Schmoe!

Maloriak 25 Heroic

21.02.2011

Maloriak Heroic

For science!

Continuing the tradition of beating on harder bosses (read: Magmaw and Omnitron) then swapping to the easier one and gibbing him we spent a night of two sorting out the strategy and then waited for decent execution!

Chimaeron 25 Heroic

16.02.2011

25 man still won't die!

This is clearly a healer dependant fight. Placement is pretty simple and once the gameplan is established there is not a lot to it. Good job healers!

Maloriak 10 Heroic

03.02.2011

Maloriak

Slayers of an incompetant minon!

After two wipe nights and alot of randomness from the boss like; flash freeze on the tank kiting 9 adds, bugs with the boss in the end phase turning around with the fire. But one hour into this night we finally got him down. Tier legs inc! Cool fight, next on the list will be Defense system or Conclave of Wind.

Nefarian 25

19.01.2011

Nefarian

And on to the hardmodes!

Its amusing that we spent so long and got so close to killing Nefarian with what was essentially a 10 man tactic. Turns out there are significant differences in this encounter between 10 and 25. As soon as we had changed our tactic, the boss was dead. Halfus is next!

Cho'gal 25

09.01.2011

Cho'gall

25 man raiding is not dead, yet!

We only spent a year in ICC. A year. Here's hoping turnaround is not quite so slow this time. Naturally the almighty cataclysm failed to bring peace to all mankind but the new encounters have been generally fun and exciting. Al'akir is dead, and progress has begun on Nefarian. As usual I failed to take relevant screenshots, the wind zone is pretty. Happy new year!

Hallion 25 Heroic

29.10.2010

Hallion

Game over man.

Continuing our ongoing efforts to raid with a less than optimal setup we ensured to use an alt tank here to replace the slacking offtank who failed to show. Looking at you Vaile! Excellent work all round after far too many wipes. Fortunately cataclysm arrives soon so we can rely on it to fix everything and solve world peace. Time to go faceroll some Yogg'saron zero then relax until eighty five.

Lich King 25 Heroic

13.09.2010

Lich King

We remembered to take a screenshot this time!

This was one of those times where you are pleasantly surprised by raid performance. Even this week when asked I was pessimistic about our chances. We were definately closing on a kill, but it was suspected that we needed a little more time in phase 5 before a kill was likely. Then we seemed to make smooth progress, repeated close attempts, and a kill. Bamselisa remained dead for the entire final phase, so the 30% buff was clearly not as required as we had thought. Hallion next I guess?

Glory of the Icecrown Raider

10.06.2010

Glory of the Icecrown Raider

Someone had to have a different mount...

After all the dramatics over the repeated fails for the Icecrown ten man drakes (turns out that if you survive the sindragosa fight in an iceblock your stacks are not reset), this was depressingly easy. Repeated nerfs to the required achievements and the monstrous bonus of a ten percent buff all lead to an easy clear. It is always surprising how simple the normal encounters are after you become used to the hardmodes. Regardless! Drakes all round! Congratulations! Yes, that is Nastywarrior utterly annihilating the photo with some silly chicken mount. The humanity.

Sindragosa 25 Heroic

25.05.2010

Missing: One image of a dead dragon

Turns out all you need to kill this dragon is the AVR mod. Frankly its a good thing its being banned, it might as well push the buttons for you. Dead dragon. *edit* Turns out the mod wasn't a requirement! Grats us! *edit* I also seem to have lost the image, awaiting replacement!

Professor Putricide 25 Heroic

02.05.2010

Professor Putricide

You may recognise this image from the temporary frontpage we had for a *cough* short *cough* time.

A few test pulls on both Putricide and Sindragosa demonstrated that we would fare much better with the Putricide encounter. A few wipes later it became obvious that our raid dps was simply not up to the task in anything but a perfect run. Many attempts later the five percent buff showed up and proved us wrong in the theory that a little more dps would solve the final phase for us.

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