March 24, 2008

Steel Legion versus Fathom Lord — Starkers!

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We took Fathom Lord to 87%. Naked.

We thought it appropriate to start off the learning curve with a laugh. We did not have the tanks on this evening for a proper set of attempts, but we estimated that we could take him to 98 or 97 percent. No sense in incurring a repair bill on good epics though, hence the lack of gear in the picture above. 87 percent was a big surprise. Of course, we know the fight gets tougher, but no matter. We’ll get tougher too. And next time, we’ll be wearing our hard earned gear.

Four Flames in Zul’Aman

Just News,Zul'Aman — Kawaihae

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Given that our raid fell on Easter Sunday we were a bit off on attendance. Real life eggs, chocalate, and family trump wow. But a few did show up and we cleared the first four bosses in ZA for the first time and engaged the Hex Lord. Perhaps there will be more to report in the next few days.

March 21, 2008

Leotheras Dies in Epic Clincher!

Leotheras the Blind Dead

After our 2% night with Leo on Monday we knew we were in the zone for a takedown. We went in with high hopes of starting where we left off. But we had two completely new people to the fight. So we went through a couple of attempts with learning. And our Legionnaires learned fast. The next two attempts brought us to the split phase, but with some bad timing. We were fighting inner demons both times, and had difficulty establishing control, and we took a bit of damage from whirlwinds. We wiped.

And then we wiped some more. And then there were respawns.

Typically at this point, on a weekday, we would call it a night, and try again later.

But not this time. We jumped right back at it. On the way we had a few people swap out, but basically had the same crew. While our stubbornness remained we had a new factor, we were getting tired. We started making mistakes. We were wiping, again.

A break was called. It helped.

The next few attempts were so so. We knew the respawns were creeping in on us. So we hurried up with the buffing. Apparently we did not hurry up fast enough. Just before we were going to pull, we aggro’d the first three casters into Leo’s antechamber. We lost a tank and a healer. The trash and the respawn wave was crashing down on us. It looked pretty bad.

Maybe it was the tiredness, maybe it was the 8 weeks of losing to the boss. Maybe its just the way we do things. Instead of folding, we turned chaos into order. Three trash, not a big deal. We cc’d them, ressed our buddies, and initiated the Leo fight within 20 seconds before the next trash could spawn in.

The fight was text book perfect. At one point with 4:30 to go on the enrage timer, we had him to 29%. Our DPS was controlled and horrific. It made up for the fact that we had only 6 healers.

It’s been eight weeks since we engaged Leo. We already know that this is one for the Steel Legion scrapbook. Today our forums are abuzz with grats and a renewed sense of pride. Don’t worry, we’ll be humble again in a few weeks. But we’ll still be stubborn.

March 17, 2008

Leo, Your Life Force is Running Out!

After some rather awesome learning and “eventful” pulls we had Leotheras to 2%. I was extremely impressed with our first time raiders. Some were in there for the first time. You couldn’t tell though.

When asked for a prediction about Lurker being down in the next week, magic eight ball said, “Signs point to yes.”

We’ve also shifted our Saturday Night raids over to Sunday afternoons. Attendance was up and we had fun downing Void Reaver and throwing ourselves at Al’ar. All in all we’ve had a great time and things are looking good.

March 4, 2008

Still no Leo, but Dragonhawk boss in ZA down.

We continue to refine our Leotheras fight. Our weekly agenda includes Mag and Gruul clears for the odd pieces of wanted purples. We even went back in for a Void Reaver trip. We’ll get Leo. We’ve gotten every other punk ass boss up to this point, and he is no different.

But, after our East coast buddies log off for the night, a smaller night crew takes over. Last night we cleared our 4th boss in ZA. Basically we don’t take ZA seriously. Given that we strive for 25 man content, its really a side show. But with even scrap-run Kara raids full cleared, what else is there to do?

So we finally worked over Jan’Alai. It did take us several attempts. And I think by the 5th to last try we started calling it our “last” attempt. But each time it kept improving. Even though we all have “extremely positive” (ie. we hate the place), views of ZA, as long as the hope of incremental progress is dangled before our eyes, we will keep slugging away. When finesse and experience are lacking we use ferocious tenacity to bludgeon our way through an encounter.

At some point, we’ll get to open the gates to the Hex Lord once we get all 4 troll spirit bosses down at the same time.

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