Progression update

Unfortunately we were short a couple of our core raiders in the kill. But we went into ICC, downed a lot of things...did horrible on the first attempt of PP, then killed it cleaner than normal. After that, it was on to progression, Sindragosa HM. We were all elated to have 1 shot it. I think we got helped out a bit here, because our shaman, who is one of the best healers we have, never got unchained magic in the fight. But, no complaints, really...if I can still output 5-6k hps through the course of the fight and take unchained off of most other heals by getting it...every...single...time...that's a good thing. :)

This now pushes us to 11/12 HM in ICC 25 (have long been farming that on 10 man), and RS down in 10 and 25 as well. HM RS attempts, and soon HM LK attempts should be coming asap as well. It is exciting to see and fun to do. :)

Loot Sanctum is go

Ruby Sanctum is out, and at least in normal is pretty easy to do, especially in today's gear with a decent raid comp.

There are lots of strats that say things like kite the dragon in a circle, make sure people run away, etc...
Don't count on pugs to do this, and quite honestly, for most of the mechanics don't worry about it for normal mode.

Let me break this down for you.
All phases: it is a dragon, so it has the usual dragon things...tail swipe (stun, didn't even seem to hit for damage...just don't be a healer getting stunned, or stunned at a horrible time in twilight), cleave, breath

P1: physical realm
This is a tank and spank for the tanks and dps, simply avoid anything on the ground and you win. Heals, and/or casters, get to make use of dispells/decurses (anything except remove poison effects will cleans/dispell the effect). This will drop a circle on the ground that will also knock everybody in it away, the longer the dispell takes, the larger the circle. In normal mode, this doesn't need to be worried about, just drop it where you are as quickly as you can, even if you're melee on the boss. There will only ever be 2 of these drops out at a time, as the oldest fades just as a new one comes out, and it is easy to shift to another place to keep dps'ing. While all this is happening, a spot will be chosen for him to drop a meteor on (easily seen by the fire ground effects for several seconds prior), which will then land and spread fire from it. In 10m normal mode, this fire does almost no damage, so just make sure to move out of it quickly and not get hit by the meteor itself.

P2: twilight realm
This is the same as P1 as far as the dragon is concerned, but the mechanics of the area change. The main 2 differences are as follows. Instead of doing a knockback when dispelled, it is now a pull of those surrounding to the person dispelled. Instead of a meteor dropping, there are orbs that circle around the room (2 in 10 man, 4 in 25), and will charge up periodically. When they charge up, they form a beam between them that cuts the room in half. Simply don't get hit by the beam (it will 1 shot and then teleport you into the physical realm in the process).

P3: both realms
There is nothing special or different in p3, except that now you split up your group and the 2nd tank stops being bored. One tank, and half the dps (generally melee due to the constant movement required) will stay in the twilight realm while the other tank will go back to the physical realm with the other half of the dps. Generally the physical realm takes no damage except for the tank, but the twilight realm does, so if you're using 3 heals in a 10 man, you should leave the 3rd healer in the twilight realm. DPS should be fairly evenly split up here, but if it is not, you can adjust on the fly by sending somebody from one to the other (the portals stay up). This is so that the boss will continue to stay in both realms. Note: if one of the realms wipes, it doesn't wipe the other realm, but halion will start healing in about 10 seconds after nobody is attacking her in a realm much faster than you'll be able to damage her. If you're at 1% or 2%, send a sacrificial dps down to go hit halion a few times to prevent the heal from happening and still burn her down.

Collect loot.

This will take a few wipes for most pugs to understand each phase, but after that should quickly become a joke as all mechanics are simple, straight forward, and with the exception of standing in a meteor landing or the orb link, nothing is all that lethal. The 2 things that will often cause you to wipe are if the tank, or the tank healer, get killed by a beam in the twilight realm.

I found it to be a fun raid encounter, but at least in normal mode it isn't very challenging. This should let a lot of people gear up fairly easily. I'll be doing 25m (hopefully with some heroic attempts) tonight with my guild, so expect some more info then.

And the beat goes on...

...to the tune of 4 HM's down in ICC 25. We also managed to do this without taking longer than we did for normal modes the week before. Progression is going well, we now have Heroic down for Marrowgar, Lootship, Dreamwalker, and Rotface. We expect to add at least 2 more to that list next week from the ranks of: Saurfang, Festergut, Princes, Bloodqueen.

Thanks to the 25 man going so smoothly and quickly, we also ran 10 man tonight, took about 3.5 hours to do every boss HM except for LK, and to go for the LK achievement for the meta. Unfortunately, while the stacks hit 32, and 30 stacks are required, the achievement didn't trigger for those of us that didn't have it already. We've put in GM tickets for it, but we doubt we'll get them. But, now just achievements for the meta drakes...the hard stuff is out of the way. :)

Needless to say, I'm excited to be making progress, and making it quickly.

...and another one bites the dust

The king is dead, long live the king!

The guild killed LK in 25 man this week. I'm very happy to get the achievement, and head into hard modes, but we went in with the expectation that we could, and would, get the LK kill...and we did it after only 6 pulls in total..with some people never having had seen it.

So, what does it take to kill LK in 25 man? Well, it's pretty simple actually. stack up, stack up, stack up, run for defile, switch targets quick...rinse and repeat, don't run into orbs. As long as people are raid aware, it becomes a fairly easy fight with this sort of mechanic. I love the rng of the valks picking up random people...despite that we would've killed him on our 3rd attempt if it wasn't a pal healer while the other pal heal dc'd. It keeps the fight from being 100% the same every time.

The thing I really like about the LK fight is that it is NOT a "gear it and win it" fight. Yes, you will need a minimum level of output or survivability, but anybody with some 10 man gear, a piece or 2 of 25 gear, and even some 25 toc gear should have plenty of that at this point, thanks to the 15% buff. What is nice is that this is a fight about awareness and skill of execution. There aren't too many of those left in the game these days.

Here's looking forward to HMs with the guild...some of which are jokes (gunship), and some of which have a gear and skill attribute to them. I have some experience in them from before I joined, but this should be a great time now for us to shine and push our way up the guild ladder quickly. :)

Not bad, considering it became a full 25 man guild just last week, so 1 week of progression is a full clear of available content to us.