Friday, September 18, 2009

[Offtopic] What a night


The new guild seems to be working out pretty well, in case you were at all curious. On Tuesday we continued our attempts on 25-Firefighter and managed to get it down after only an hour, which left us time to start work on hardmode Yogg.

It also meant that Algalon-25 was unlocked.

Last night we intended to work on Algalon, then go to ToC and work on hard modes there. We specifically moved our Algalon-10 attempts up to give people some experience at the encounter beforehand who hadn't seen it.

And in our first hour of attempts, Algalon died! Last pull, with only two people alive at the end (gogo Ardent Defender and Guardian Spirit), DoTs finished him off through the last big bang; we weren't sure that we got him until he just kinda stood there and looked emo. I'm amazed at this; having one hour to work on him and getting him down in that time is really outstanding, even if having all that gear from ToC helped and it wasn't what you'd call the most impressive kill shot. That was realm first, so now Fellhoof is sporting the groovy title "Celestial Defender". That's probably my favorite one since Hand of A'dal.

ETA: Here's a great log of how much damage was done after basically everyone in the universe died a horrible death. All I can say is that rip is AWESOME. And I should've just refreshed rakes.

I was expecting people to not be on their game after that awesomeness, but we then proceeded to go to ToC and one-shot beasts, kill Jaraxxus after a few attempts and one-shot Faction Champs on heroic - the last two were also progression for us. We got a few attempts in at heroic Twins before we were overcome with pain and huge amounts of ball jokes.

Pretty incredible work for a guild that does 8 hours of raiding a week.

Finally, to end the night, I was promoted from a trial membership to full-time.

I've talked about it before, when people felt like things were on, everyone was in a good mood, etc - and this was one of those nights. I felt like this when Fire and Blood downed Kael'Thas for the first time, too. It's a rare joy, and it doesn't happen often, but when it does it makes you understand how great raiding can be.

Next week we're going back to Ulduar to finish off some of the hardmodes that people have missed and then work on Yogg+1, the last major hardmode that has yet to be completed there. If this week is any indicator, that means we'll have time to work on Twins again. Twins is a really interesting fight; much like vehicles a lot of your success has nothing to do with how you play your toon and everything to do with managing the balls. Unlike vehicles, this somehow is way less frustrating to deal with and is downright fun. I also like it because it's not the kind of fight you'll ever really be able to brute force; it will require strategy, and the strategy is definitely going to make a huge difference in quality. I'm anxiously awaiting Bellwether's report on how she dealt with the fight.

12 comments:

Don Roeber said...

Those nights where everyone is having a great time and everything is clicking are the best, and totally make up for all of the nights where someone is off their game and a small mistake wipes the raid for hours on end.

Glad you're enjoying the new guild!

Copey said...

Glad to hear it, and congrats, big time.

I’m so green with envy right now it’s sick. Eight hours a week and you guys are doing that? Wow. I wish my guild could do that.

Anonymous said...

A little tip on twin valkyrs heroic to make it pretty damn easy, get 2 soakers with shadow resistance gear (pref feral druids beacuse speed boost and 30% less aoe dmg) with full BT shadowres gear and shadow res head enchant from argent dawn and sr cloakc ench you should have 475SR with aura, if your soakers are LW even better. then take white buff and play catch em all

Kalon said...

Don - thanks ;)

Copey - thanks too! Like I said, I'm pretty amazed at what this guild can do. We spend a lot of time outside the game watching movies, theorycrafting and whatnot, but at the end of the day it's 8 hours a week raiding. People come ready and expect good things, and they get them.

Anon, I had heard that strategy before but I was somewhat skeptical that it would work. We do have two ferals that could do this and go with NI/Balance builds to be ballcatchers. Do you have an example of a guild that's pulled this off successfully?

Anonymous said...

Yes

http://www.lotto-guild.com/forums/thread/422

Anonymous said...

Grats with the achievement and title!

Shamad said...

Hey Kalon :)

I'm actually in Lotto(Chapter merged with them at around the end of Ulduar) and the tactic was developed by some guys from our old Chapter core. It might take a few attempts to get it working right, mainly you need to realize that the 2 feralkins can't soak everything and that the few additional soakers towards the entrance are very much needed. Other than that, a easy tactic to pick up and execute reliably.

GL with your new guild btw :)

slightlysatan said...

Congratulations :D

My guild has just reached that stage in 10-man (don't have the roster for 25s) and its exhilerating!

Unknown said...

Officially my new favorite fight. Only downed on 10... faction changes and server transfers have gutted the old guild. Looks like we'll find a home in Turalyon though.

Vallen said...

Grats Kalon!

I had a similar kind of night on Friday where we did Heroic TOC10 and finished it off with 43 attempts left (grr @ 45). Decided it was time to go back and work on Algalon 10 and we killed him too

I totally agree that doing it in 1 timer is fantastic. It took us 5 timers in the timespan of 3 months of available timers. Creating a group being the most challenging aspect of the fight.

Gl with Alg25! Hoping to joining you shortly as well.

Vallen said...

I'm a dork and didn't realize you were talking about 25 man. WOW @ that even more lol

Grats on the new Celestial Defender title!

Kalon said...

Shamad - thanks for the tips, and good luck in Lotto :) I don't know what strat we'll be using, but I think we're going for something similar to this. It seems to greatly simplify the situations that you'd normally run into, and make it a lot easier overall.

Slightlysatan - good luck with Algalon - it's definitely a trip and a half. :)

Michael - sorry to hear that. Hopefully you'll find some more stability on Turalyon.

Vallen - congrats on Starcaller. It's a really neat fight, even if it's probably not the hardest in there. At the very least the RP and setting of it make it really unique.