Start of classes and raiding blues

Back at school and the first week of classes has begun. It's going to be an exciting semester for me. I'm taking Lit, more Lit, and just a little more lit. I'm also taking Spanish, of which I no absolutely nothing.

Anyway, while I don't mind the late nights too much because I don't have early classes, one of the healers from my raiding group has quit raiding with us because he didn't think he could balance the late nights with his early morning classes. While I can't really begrudge him that, it does leave the raid group scrambling to find a replacement for him. It sometimes seems that every time we get a dependable replacement, someone else leaves and the group is left to struggle until another replacement can be found.

We've also had some dissatisfaction with how slow our progress has been. There had been a plan to raid 3 nights but our tank could never make the last night which left us pretty much with just 2 nights of raiding. Considering that the earlier fights take a giant chunk of time to clear, we've had been trying every other week extending the lock out but that hasn't worked to well either. So, last week our raid leader had everyone tell her what bosses we needed and she concluded that for the most part we didn't need anything before Jug. But there were a few who did want some pieces off the earlier bosses and was asking how we felt about just clearing everything on normal up to Jugg and I suggested maybe having a roll before the raid and the winner could pick which extra boss they wanted to attempt. We thought it sounded fair enough and we're going to be giving it a few tries.

Although we're still left trying to find another healer to run with us. And a tank because our tank has recently decided that we should replace him.

Fun times indeed.

Two Heroics in the First Week!

Having killed Garrosh we've now started working on heroics. It's a bit of a double-edged sword because we've only got two days for progress instead of three. That means we either have to kill everything and Garrosh or spend all our time working on heroics. This week we spent working on heroics.

The first one we attempted was Immereus.

It was a very close kill. It took us a couple of attempts to even get past the first phase. But we kept working. Made some adjustments. And managed to get a kill. But it was due to the one warlock left standing.

We put a few attempts on the Protectors but decided to kill them on normal and then attempt to kill Norushen on heroic.

I was surprised by how little the fight changed. Or I might feel that it wasn't much of a change since I got to take one of the first orbs and then just kill stuff. We had to keep really pushing the dps. The enrage timer was really close and it got us quite a few times before we finally managed to squeeze enough dps out to kill Norushen. I was really excited because I got a piece of heroic gear! New pants! They were a perfect upgrade for me since they don't break my 4-piece! 

We tried Galakras a few times but the night was getting late so we've decided to try again next week.

But it's still pretty awesome to have managed to get two heroics in one week. :)

One Garrosh Attempt

I've been a bit busy and distracted with the start of a new semester of classes and I'm really glad with how well the raid's times fit into a school schedule. Thursday we killed the first six bosses and attempted to get some gear for some new people and a few alts. Friday was a night for more serious raiding. We actually extended a lock-out this week and started the night on Thok. It was a very close attempt with everyone but the tanks dead at the end. We moved to Paragons who went down well and I rolled the bow which has better stats then my current one. Next we had to tackle Garrosh. We took a quick five minute break and then began our first attempt of the night. And it was going well. Really well. No one was dying. Mind-controls were being interrupted. We were moving together. Adds were being handled. And Garrosh's health was whittling down. I told myself to just focus and keep doing my job and before I knew it.

Bam! Achievement spam! And I got an heirloom!

And a mount! And a title! I was really excited! I even got most of the raid to stand in a group for a screenshot. Not bad for a first pull. Although I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow since we won't be trying for Garrosh. :)

The Mighty Thok Slain

Spoiled Milk gave Thok a try last week and we were hoping to get the kill this week on Saturday. We had cleared up to Thok on Thursday and Friday and started Saturday at Thok.

It took a lot of work. We switched up having three versus two healers. But finally went with two healers since the only dps that could switch to heals was also our best dps. Without our shaman's dps we just weren't getting enough damage done on Thok. We also switched up the order we opened the doors. We finally decided that the poison door was just overwhelming our healers so we left it for last and hoped we could do enough damage on Thok during the fire and frost doors to be able to finish him before he went on a rampage after the poison door. Our final door order was fire, frost, then poison. It was a pretty close kill but we got him in the end.

Last week our guild had considered mergering with another. After some debate it was finally decided that we would stay in our own guild. I'll admit that I'm relieved. I was nervous about how this merger would take place and how it would affect our raid group. I know we aren't pushing heroics right now and I'm not certain that it's something we will be doing in the next expansion. But that's still some time away and we've got to finish getting though SoO. We're getting closer.