Raiding Progression

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While not really members of the cult of first kill (we think that in many cases, the learning runs that go into a kill are just as important, if not more important than the kill itself, in terms of raid preparation and attitude), it is important to recognize the effort and dedication that made those first kills possible. After all, without progression, raiding is just wiping.

Contents

Raiding First Kills

Who, what, when, and how badly.

2007-09-21 Magtheridon's Lair: Magtheridon Down!

Magtheridon
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Magtheridon
Two days of solid work on Mags sees him eating floor (after we'd tried him a few times back in the Gruul days). Nice work. Our tank loadout was Lelenia, Foker, Loaffy (also on Mags himself), Dreamspirit, Mekkatorque; nice to see a little switchup of our normal roster. Everyone did really well - our starting DPS on the channelers was a bit low to start, but we tightened that up within a few attempts. We'd gotten him to 26% the evening before, and once we worked out the timing of the transition to phase 3, everything clicked into place.

2007-08-29 Serpentshrine Cavern: Lurker Down!

The Lurker Below
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The Lurker Below

After beating our heads on Hydross for far too long, we decided to detour to Lurker. We'd been squeezing in attemps post-gruul and such, and after playing around with our sheeping strategy (just kill the guardians; if one breaks and one-shots a mage or healer, things get ugly), we were able to find our rhythm and outlast the boss.

2007-07-17 Tempest Keep: Void Reaver Down!

Void Reaver
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Void Reaver

Our second night of attempts on Void Reaver saw him down. We had the melee equip a little bit of arcane resist gear, and had DPS run outward radially, instead of side-to-side. That seemed to do the trick, and he fell over.

2007-05-19 Gruul's Lair: Gruul Down!

Gruul the Dragonkiller
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Gruul the Dragonkiller
It was a long time coming, but it was inevitable. After an 11% attempt last week, GT and Has Aggro brought in Surfacing as well to round out the raid balance, and Gruul promptly went down on the third try. Special thanks to Aud for swapping out for Chachi, as she recognized that too many melee dps might be more of a liability.

2007-04-26 Karazhan: Nightbane Down, Karazhan Clear!

Nightbane
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Nightbane
...And thus the progression phase of Karazhan comes to a close. The fight was a little bit anti-climatic; once we were able to correctly handle the skeletons in phase two Nightbane quietly laid down and gave up his treasures (it was our third attempt). An excellent showing by all - guild turnout was great for the night, and even though Slumlord, Thejubi and Xandria weren't on the run, their support was greatly appriciated. Thanks!

I'm also impressed by the overall speed that we've rolled through the end bosses of Karazhan - four bosses in a week? Simply amazing.

<Game Theory> Anderek, Aud, Cion, Fatima, Foker, Lavalia, Lelenia, Neverwind, Pinski, Tantred

2007-04-23 Karazhan: Netherspite Down!

Netherspite
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Netherspite
What an odd fight. Blizzard did an excellent job of making an execution fight that pretty much requires the entire raid to be on the ball. Here's how we handled the beams:
  • Blue round 1: Tantred in for 45 stacks, Fatima (or Xandria, but she had to leave before the kill) takes the remainder.
  • Blue round 2: Slumlord in for 45 stacks, Aud takes the remainder.

In both cases, the warlock would dot+drain life constantly. Since only 45 stacks of the debuff are taken, the 'lock can drain life back to full through the damage produced by netherburn. The secondary tank has two purposes, 1) to make sure that the 'lock doesn't take so much AoE shadow damage from that he dies (almost 7k with 60 stacks), and 2) so that by the time we need to run out of the room, the 45-deep stack has fallen off, making the healing required while on the move much lower.

  • Green round 1: Aud. Since the green beam makes rogue abilities cheaper, this is an obvious choice.
  • Green round 2: Foker (or Xandria). Unsure if it makes warrior abilities cheaper; I think it did.

It's important that the green beam be tanked, no matter what. Netherspite healing himself sucks.

  • Red round 1: Lavalia.
  • Red round 2: Anderek.

Once both of your tanks know how to manipulate the red beam to regain health, they should be good to go. We had ours dodging in and out of it as needed.

<Game Theory> Anderek, Aud, Cion, Fatima, Foker, Lavalia, Lelenia, Neverwind, Slumlord, Tantred

2007-04-19 Karazhan: Prince Malchezaar Down!

Prince Malchezaar
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Prince Malchezaar
Aud needed to get to bed, so for the second attempt we swapped in Fatima. According to Lelenia, PW:F made the difference in this fight. Killing the prince was a great accomplishment; the fight isn't exactly geared towards Druid tanks, and we only had 3 healers. I still don't know how they managed to keep Lavalia up while he dragged the Prince through a poorly placed infernal. Good job, all!

Getting this fight to the point where we can consistently one-shot him is going to be interesting - the random factors can really stir things up.

<Game Theory> Anderek, Chachi, Cion, Fatima, Hassassin, Lavalia, Lelenia, Slumlord, Tantred, Thejubi

2007-04-19 Karazhan: Terestian Illhoof Down!

Terestian Illhoof
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Terestian Illhoof
Two warlocks make this fight quite a bit easier. Neither had Nether Protection, but both had Dampen Magic (since the reduction is applied per-fireball, and you get hit with more fireballs than heals, the reduction is very worth it). The key to the fight is to kill Kil'Rek at just the right moment - this is harder than it sounds, because the AoE on the imps means that he can die fairly quickly. What we did was to switch one Seed of Corruption target to him when he got low; this cut the amount of AoE damage he was taking in half (don't switch both, because then the AoE stops going off).

All in all, a very well executed fight (it was a one-shot this week).

<Game Theory> Anderek, Aud, Chachi, Cion, Hassassin, Lavalia, Lelenia, Slumlord, Tantred, Thejubi

2007-04-07 Gruul's Lair: the High King Maulgar Down!

High King Maulgar
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High King Maulgar
This was our first joint raid with Has Aggro. They had been practicing the pull the week before with another group, but this week we were able to take the boss all the way down. Taken as a whole, it's an intensely chaotic fight, but the larger raid size means that everyone has a more specialized job, unlike, say, elemental control for Aran.

I think that works well as the first post-Karazhan boss encounter.

2007-04-05 Karazhan: the Shade of Aran Down!

Shade of Aran
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Shade of Aran
This was a great kill. He went down before the elementals went away, much less poly/drank! Very well done! Also, a huge thanks to all the guildies who came out for the run, even though there wasn't room: Foker, Neverwind, Pinski and Saberoy.

<Game Theory> Anderek, Aud, Baloril, Chachi, Lavalia, Lelenia, Marvin, Tantred, Thejubi, Xandria

2007-04-04 Karazhan: the Romulo and Julliane Opera Down!

R&J Opera
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R&J Opera
This was only the second time that we had seen R&J (the first was our first week in Karazhan); the nerf was pretty significant - we were able to do this with heavy melee stacking.

<Game Theory> Anderek, Baloril, Cion, Foker, Lavalia, Lelenia, Marvin, Pinski, Tantred, Xandria

2007-03-23 Karazhan: the Oz Opera Down!

Oz Opera
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Oz Opera
This was the first full week with the former Show me Potato Salad people in game theory.

<Game Theory> Anderek, Aud, Chachi, Cion, Fatima, Lavalia, Lelenia, Marvin, Saberoy, Tantred

2007-03-11 Karazhan: the Chess Event Down!

Chess Event
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Chess Event
The chess event was really easy, but that doesn't make it any less fun.

<Show me Potato Salad> Anderek, Chachi, Cion, Thejubi

<Game Theory> Aud, Baloril, Fatima, Lelenia, Neverwind, Tantred

2007-03-11 Karazhan: the Curator Down!

The Curator
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The Curator
The Curator was an interesting fight. Tantred rolled in with a heap of arcane resist (273), but wasn't wearing any of it on the attempt that lead to the kill. Next time we might try putting Fatima front and center in more resist gear, but maybe just brute force is the way to go.

<Show me Potato Salad> Anderek, Chachi, Cion, Thejubi

<Game Theory> Aud, Baloril, Fatima, Lelenia, Neverwind, Tantred

2007-03-10 Karazhan: the Big Bad Wolf Down!

Big Bad Wolf
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Big Bad Wolf
Everyone's first time facing the Wolf. It took a few tries to get the hang of not getting too far ahead of the wolf and not catching on walls and such, but you could really see the progress until everything finally clicked.

<Show me Potato Salad> Anderek, Chachi, Cion, Marvin, Nicomi, Thejubi

<Game Theory> Aud, Baloril, Lelenia, Tantred (honorable mention to Neverwind, who was there for many of the learning attempts but swapped out for Tantred)

2007-03-04 Karazhan: the Maiden of Virtue Down!

Maiden of Virtue
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Maiden of Virtue
Another boss that some had seen down before (Lelenia and at least some of SmPS), but it was the first time that GT was represented in force.

<Show me Potato Salad> Anderek, Chachi, Cion, Thejubi

<Game Theory> Aud, Baloril, Fatima, Lelenia, Neverwind, Tantred

2007-03-02 Karazhan: Moroes

Moroes
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Moroes
A few of our members had been invited along to a previous <Show me Potato Salad> run, but this one was an even split between the guilds, and a very smooth run given how many hadn't been to the instance before. We cleared two bosses, and later (with a slightly different roster) made it to the Maiden.

<Show me Potato Salad> Anderek, Cion, Marvin, Nicomi, Saberoy

<Game Theory> Aud, Baloril, Fatima, Lelenia, Tantred

2007-03-02 Karazhan: Attumen the Huntsman

Attumen
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Attumen
<Show me Potato Salad> Anderek, Cion, Marvin, Nicomi, Saberoy

<Game Theory> Aud, Baloril, Fatima, Lelenia, Tantred

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