So last week was a bit rocky, with someone leaving the guild and with us having trouble with Nefarian. It was the first reset we actually left Nefarian up since downing him and it felt pretty terrible.
We decided that we’d extend BWD into this week so that we can spend some time actually progressing, because, frankly, it’s been a while.
This is what I’d planned out.
Tuesday – Heroic Halfus all night.
Thursday – Finish up Nef from last week, get Conclave and work on Al’Akir.
Sunday – Blast through Bastion on normal, work on Al’Akir.
Once again, my guild never stops astounding me and almost always seems to prove to me that I shouldn’t underestimate them.
What happened on Tuesday?
Heroic Halfus down in 6 pulls, Bastion of Twilight cleared.
And here’s our kill video, too!
So, the new players we’ve pulled in (two healing priests, an elemental shaman, a fire mage and a prot warrior) seem to be acclimating well and we got Heroic Halfus after 10 rather educational pulls back on March 8th. We decided to use our feral druid who’s usually a kitty and made him be a bear for us for most of that fight, so we could better handle the Malevolent Strikes debuff, plus we blew heroism at the start when all the drakes were pulled together. As a healer, this was a godsend. Well, it was once I realized how quickly I’d go OOM after casting so quickly. ;)
So, with Heroic Halfus down and with Bastion cleared (Cho’gall, once again, mocks me and Walks in his death — does ANYONE have those damn Shackles of the End of Days??), we’re left re-thinking what to do.
I think we’ll probably go do Conclave and Al’Akir on Thursday. While a lot of people don’t like the fight and a lot of people feel it’s worthless in general, it’s a new boss and would bring us to 12/12 on the regular modes. It’s worth it for that, if nothing else.
Depending on how Thursday goes, Sunday could be Nefarian OR, if we get Al’Akir down… we could play with a heroic BWD boss. Typically, I know Chimaeron, Maloriak and Atramedes are the “easy” ones. Chim… I’m gonna need to think about that one for a bit. Atramedes on NORMAL isn’t “easy” for our guild. But Maloriak? Hmmm. Maloriak… That’s an idea. :) So we’ll see how Thursday and Al’Akir go and let that determine our Sunday for us, basically.
It’s entirely possible that in one reset, we’ll go from 11/12 to 12/12 and 1/13. Definitely an exciting time.
(And we’re recruiting, so go check us out!)
!!!!!!!!!!!! GRATS! Man, Dar wasn’t kidding when she said the initial pull is pure chaos, but you guys did GREAT! I have to admit to watching the health bars half the time, and man, you guys did good.
*so proud*
Once again our guilds mirror eachother!
On tuesday we downed heroic hlafus and finished BoT, when the whole goal was to work on halfus. Yesterday we did BWD up to Chimaeron (saving him to work on Heroic on Sunday) then cleared Throne of the Four Winds, getting me my first Al’Akir kill.
I hope we both continue to have success. Good luck on Nef this week! And good idea previously on pointing out the successes even on wipes (avoiding this, not letting a single acst go off,etc). While my guild may have called me a Pollyanna, it helped keep people focused and confident i like to think.
Congrats on heroic Halfus! We nailed him too. Lots of fun. Heading to Maloriak next is our plan… only because he drops a tier token! Yes, please. :D
Glad we got H Halfus down as well – didn’t seem like we had to really work that hard to get him, but maybe that’s just my dps point of view – I didn’t do anything differently than I do on normal. :-)
You said:
I think we’ll probably go do Conclave and Al’Akir on Thursday. While a lot of people don’t like the fight and a lot of people feel it’s worthless in general, it’s a new boss and would bring us to 12/12 on the regular modes. It’s worth it for that, if nothing else.
I did know that a lot of people don’t like the fight and don’t want to spend time on him, but worthless? Why would it be worthless? It’s a raid boss in this tier content that we haven’t downed yet – why leave it open? That’d be like leaving Ignis or Razorscale up in Ulduar – not necessary to kill them, but in order to claim that you’ve beaten the tier, you do need the kills. I wonder why people would think killing Al’Akir is worthless ..
GRATS! on your kills!
Sounds like things are running well for you!
I must moan about not getting loot, too! After 12 weeks of raiding I still don’t have the legs from Halfus, nor the cloak from Valiona, I don’t have the helm from Ascendant Council, nor the ring from Omnotron. I don’t have the shoulders from Chimaeron, nor the gloves from Maloriak, either. Finally no bracers from Cho’gall; we are yet to beat Nef. Much as I love 10 mans, the loot rng is something I really dislike.
H Halfus is a good solid two minutes of tanks and healers on the edge of their seats followed by 2 minutes of keeping the raid alive with no cooldowns followed by 2 minutes of Furious Roars. Fun stuff!
Cho’Gall’s Shackles? The are quite comfortable, thank you!
Apple – And I thought the initial pull on REGULAR Halfus was bad. HAH! I was popping Volcanic Potions before the pull (pre-potting!) to help with the inital damage. Eesh.
Thanks for the grats! :)
Rax – haha, that’s awesome! Grats to you and here’s hoping Apotheosis follows your lead with Al’Akir. :)
I’m a fan of pointing out the good things done and noticeable improvement done over previous attempts. If you keep harping on the negative, people are gonna be demoralized and pissy. I try to keep mostly positive in raid and on Mumble. It’s in the forums AFTERWARDS I get pissy. ;)
Dahrla – Looking at #1 25-man guild on our realm, they needed 19 attempts total (to our 16) and 4 tanks and 8 healers, versus our 4 tanks and 7 healers. ;) So yeah, that wasn’t too bad at all!
With regards to Al’Akir, the loot is even more random than the regular loot tables, so I can see why people would NOT select that loot as their “BiS” due to the fact that it’s practically unattainable. It’s not quite as bad as Argaloth, but I think every item that drops has four to six different permutations. That’s about 40-some items and we get 5. We could get 5 of the same thing (5x Tempest Keeper Leggings of the Wavecrest (+511 Stamina, +301 Intellect, +208 Mastery Rating, +208 Spirit) would result in 5x Maelstrom Crystals) or five very lucky people could beat the odds and get something halfway decent.
I don’t raid for loot. I never have. I do raid to see content and that’s why *I* think it’s worth clearing Al’Akir.
But I can see why people are hesitant to do so and why they don’t want to bother with a fight that is technically challenging if the rewards are so lacklustre.
Then again, I’m a title person. I WANT to be Defender of a Shattered World! And I know others are mount people and want the Dark Phoenix. So I know there are other people who want to do the content for their own reasons. Doesn’t mean that the fight itself isn’t frustrating and annoying and, at some point, people will question “why the fuck are we doing THIS?”. They will. Even I will. But I want the sucker dead, so he will, eventually (perhaps tonight!) die. :)
slice – Thanks, buddy! :) It’s pretty exciting to get H. Halfus down, for sure! :)
AliPally – About as well as can be at the moment. Watch me have jinxed us. >.>
That said, I should not complain about loot. I have Halfus legs, Council helm, Omnotron ring, Maloriak gloves, Chimaeron shoulders… Just the only thing I’m missing is my bracers. The bonus to 25-man is 5 pieces of loot. Hilarity is seeing 3 of the Omnotron rings drop at once! :D
Joe Ego – That is probably the best summary of Heroic Halfus I have ever heard. <3
DAMN you for having my bracers! :P :P :P ;)
Grats on Nef and Halfus! My guild’s at the same progression, albeit 10man (And how I wish I were in a 25man guild. Co-ordinating cooldowns and things for Chimmy heroic is painful as it gets).
You dealt with Halfus a lot faster than we did, as we switched between various tank/drake on pull counts, and eventually settled with 3/3. I love the frantic, front-loaded damage of that fight.
It’s also fun tormenting the guild to run Al’akir more for my “BiS sword”, not that I’ll ever see the Undertow. :<
As for Choggy bracers, I've seen both the Mace and Wrists once and once only, thankfully I'm the only one who needed them p/
Your bracers?
If I didn’t think it would endanger my raid spot I reforge them into some Mastery. Just for YOU!
Yes! I got them! :-)