It’s almost 7am as I start to write this. Apotheosis killed Al’Akir almost 8 hours ago. I went to sleep and woke up at about 6:30 just because I couldn’t stop thinking “Holy crap, we killed Al’Akir!”. Most of my guildies in the raid, myself included, got the Defender of a Shattered World title. Apotheosis is now 12/12 on normal modes to go with our pretty, shiny, 1/13 heroic modes.
That is one hell of a fight. And I don’t mean it in a good way, either. Hands down, my least-favourite fight in Tier 11 content. That said, I do feel pretty smug after having beaten this guy. :)
It was on our 59th attempt that we killed him, although, to be fair, 16 of those attempts were in February. Our work on Al’Akir really feels like it started in the last couple of weeks.
This brings us to 12/12 normal modes, as I’ve mentioned. I know, it’s just like clearing T7 and getting Champion of the Frozen Wastes, right? But it’s doing it at the proper, that’s to say “intended”, gear level. We’ve done it in 346 and 359 gear, not in T12 or T13 or T14. We’ve cleared the normal modes of entry-level raiding in this expansion with a group of people who largely didn’t know one another six months ago.
And then, there’s me. I just posted a long-winded, sappy post on my guild forums about how I basically love everyone, but something I didn’t say there (but will obviously get back to the guildies — and that’s okay) is that I’m relieved. I am SO relieved. I almost can’t even put it into words.
So many people who joined the guild did so because of me. I’m the one who started asking around if people wanted to come back to Apotheosis for Cataclysm. I’m the one who was talking excitedly about her old guild on her blog and, for some unknown reason, got a lot of responses and applications because of it. Really, if Apotheosis didn’t make it out of T11, it was almost certainly going to be my fault. I would have let down my old crew, I would have let down the people I’d drawn in, I would have let down the people who had, collectively, paid hundreds of dollars to transfer. And, of course, its success has very little to do with me — it’s a lot more to do with everyone I’ve assembled here. I would take all the blame if things hadn’t worked out, but the credit for it working out goes to the ladies and gentlemen of Apotheosis.
I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that Apotheosis is through T11 normals. The pressure is off me. I’ve put together a team and the team is performing. The guild has a personality, it has a life of its own, now. If things go to hell now, chances are, it wasn’t my bad. ;)
It’s still intimidating, though. While I’m not terribly concerned about everything falling apart, this is the most progressed I’ve been in my own guild, ever.
In Burning Crusade, we cleared Black Temple, but only ever pulled Kalecgos in Sunwell Plateau three times before calling it an expansion. We also only formed on June 1st, 2008 and the expansion had come out back in January, so we were constantly working our way through content that had already been nerfed and used the 3.0 patch to steamroll our way past Reliquary of Souls, Mother Shahraz up to the Council and Illidan himself. (Much less steamrolling when we hit the Illidari Council.)
In Wrath, Apotheosis didn’t even kill Thaddius on 25-man. Attendance was awful, people were unhappy, progression was bad due to attendance and recruitment was bad due to progression. We had the potential to kick some ass, but it just didn’t pan out.
So now, my guild is the #2 25-man raiding guild on Eldre’Thalas. Overall, we’re still something like #11, if you take all the 10-man guilds into consideration, but… well, I don’t. It’s not that I don’t take 10s seriously (really!), but I really think 10 and 25-man raiding are very different beasts and so I don’t think of us as the #11 guild on ET. I see our 10-man guilds on the server as doing their thing and the 25s are doing our thing.
And, to my utter shock and delight, Apotheosis is doing WELL at “our thing”! We finished at #9 guild progressed guild in Burning Crusade, #6 Alliance guild, and that was with a 5 month delay on anything guild-related. We farmed Karazhan for three months before we got Maulgar and Gruul down. And even with that, we finished pretty well.
This time, we had our shit together. This time, we had a team ready to go. This time, we are SO much smarter than we were in Burning Crusade. (Seriously, who puts a moonkin in the tank group, back when the 5% crit buff they brought was party-wide only?) And this time, we don’t have the progression or attendance issues we had in Wrath.
Rank doesn’t mean a lot to me, truly, whether it’s server rank or US/world rank, but it’s always nice to see where you fit in. GuildOx says we’re the 706th ranked 25-man guild on US servers. So we’re not vodka or Premonition or Midwinter or Edge. We’re still here, we’re still kicking and we’ve cleared 12/12 normal modes, ready to add to our heroic Halfus kill with more heroic kills.
So freaking relieved. And so freaking proud of my peeps.
That’s really awesome, congrats Kurn! My guild is pretty close to that as well, we did Al’Akir first, so I’m expecting Nef will prove to be a little bit easier. Hopefully we’ll be sporting those titles in two weeks.
Good luck with hardmodes now!
Congrats! BTW have fun on heroic Chimaeron. As a healer the pressures on, trust me. But fow now just bask in the glow of victory.
Rhidach – Thank you! I think Nef is an easier fight to get a handle on, but perhaps a little harder to execute? GL to you guys in the coming days! :)
Rax – haha, yeah, we’re gonna go look at Maloriak first, then Chimaeron. Thanks — the glow of victory is certainly nice and cozy. :D
Grats on the kill! Is everyone flying around on their new purple bird?!
Also – I’d like to offer you the recommendation that you start with Heroic Chim before Maloriak. It’s a much easier encounter, as most of the mechanics are exactly the same! The only changes are that Chim continutes to beat up the tanks during fueds (easily dealt with via Tank cooldowns and strong tank healers), and that you get a DoT on you once the raid become unhealable (not quite as easily dealt with, as when to transition is one of the “hard” parts of the fight, but it’s not bad!).
In all honesty though, it’s so much easier than Maloriak. Maloriak has it’s own set of challenges, in addition to new mechanics. I think you will likely find the time spent with Chim smoother, and more easily progressed. And hey! More 372 loot will help on the harder encounters!
(As a side note, since the nerf, I think Magmaw may be “easier” than Maloriak as well!).
Regardless, good luck wherever you venture off to next, and feel free to nudge if you are looking for suggestions or tips!
(As another side note, it’s on my agenda to put together a narrated Heroic Chim video this weekend, assuming I can figure Audacity out! I’ve got footage for both Maloriak and Magmaw as well, but I’m not sure when I’ll have time for them).
Beru – thanks for the grats! I actually went and did my cooking, fishing and JC dailies on my pally and then did 2 TB dailies just to get to exalted, just to get the darn mount. (All as holy. Ugh!) And I don’t even LIKE the mount, but… but…! :)
I’ve heard that Chimaeron is easier than Maloriak and we might do a few pulls of Maloriak and change our minds if we’ve bitten off more than we can chew. That said, I think our raid has a better handle on Maloriak’s abilities than Chimaeron’s. Our Maloriak kills are usually quite clean and involve us holding off on DPS so we can get the aberrations down before pushing him over to P2, whereas Chimaeron is occasionally nightmarish and we have had one “sort of clean” transition to P2.
Also, I’ve had some healer turnover, so I need to make sure the new ones know how we do regular Chimaeron before I get all wrapped up in the heroic mode. :) I think, anyways! I will definitely prod you on Twitter if I have any questions, though — your feedback on regular Chimaeron was pretty much what got us the kill. <3 :)
Congrats on getting him (?) down! I completely agree with Beru – Chim is definately easier than Maloriak. We spent over double the amount of pulls on Maloriak. The mechanics are just slightly tougher in my opinion. Whichever way you go good luck!
GRATS! on your kills! keep on trucking!
Congratulations! I agree with you – I was not a fan of Al’Akir. We did it to say we did it and I don’t plan to go back. It’s neat following you – our raid teams have progressed almost simultaneously since the launch and it’s kind of fun to share the excitement and joy.
Let’s do some Most and Leasts!
Most favorite fight: Nefarian – took us just over 50 tries to get him and I loved every single attempt and look forward to doing it again
Most favorite healing: Chimaeron – hahaha! I’m on the edge the whole fight and get multiple phases where I spam the bajesus out of your health bars! Yay sparkles and lots of green numbers.
Most favorite completely random: Halfus – After two minutes I get to spend the fight lolsmiting. What’s not to love about that?
Least favorite fight: Al’Akir – Is it just me or is phase 3 an, “OMG HIT HIM WITH EVERYTHING AND PRAY”? I don’t think we’ve had an “organized” phase 3 kill.
Least favorite healing: Conclave of Winds – I always get put on Rohash’s platform. Most. Boring. Thing. Ever.
Top Rosters – Thanks! Yeah, I think Al’Akir is a “he”, although it’s not always so clear, is it? :) Thanks for the well-wishes, and we’re definitely going to keep H Chim in mind as well. :)
slice – Thanks, buddy! :) Hope things are going well for you, too?
Serrath – I love that you’re able to relate to the highs and lows of Apotheosis raiding from afar due to your own progression! That’s awesome! :) We’ll be going back to Al’Akir for a bunch of people who weren’t able to make it/weren’t swapped in for the fight on Thursday, so we have at LEAST one more kill of him before a heroic kill. (Oh good God, shoot me now.)
My favourite fight — probably Nefarian as well! But it’s one of the most frustrating since so much of it has nothing to do with ME.
Favourite healing fight — probably Chimaeron, too! I put myself on a group and sort of dread it and then feel awesome afterwards. Like, TAKE THAT, a holy paladin can TOO group heal!!
Favourite completely random — I dunno, I kind of adore V&T. I sort of kick ass at it even with Engulfing Magic, Twilight Meteorite and the like. :)
Least favourite fight — Al’Akir, of course. That jackass.
Least favourite healing — Council. I hate, hate, hate when I get Lightning Rod and my tank and I are on other sides of the room. “HEALS TO (my tank)!” is somewhat embarassing to have to call out…