Fresh from our Kael’thas downing we climbed the slopes of Mt. Hyjal and got to Azgalor. We had attempted this boss before but got hung up a bit on the trash waves. Last Monday, however, we whittled Azgalor down to about 25%. We’re thinking that isn’t so bad for the first time we actually saw him.
This week we are a bit torn. Do we reengage the demons and undead of Hyjal? Revisit Kael? Or plunder Black Temple?
Magic Eight Ball says, “Signs Point to Yes”.
Posts here came to a bit of a standstill lately. You see, we were quite busy. We’ve been really concentrating on downing Kael’thas and moving ahead, somewhat legitimately by old standards anyway, into Hyjal and Black Temple content.
Raiders know the rush of a first boss take down. One as Epic as the Kael’thas leads to a longer and more heroic struggle, but ultimately to a more epic victory. We Legionnaires live for moments such as this.
During the several attempts on the Lord of the Blood Elves, we faced problem and trial, triumphing over them, only to face a more complicated and trying task. But we kept at it, like some relentless machine, slowly making progress. For those that have ever read about the fight, watched a video of it, and certainly those who have already pioneered the way months ago, you will know that there are so many things that can go wrong with this encounter. But there is only one way to get passed it, and that is maintaining total concentration, trusting in your guild mates, and in turn never letting them down.
We’ve also been working on our organization in the background too. It’s not just being there, but being there in a ready state that counts. It’s not just the 25 raiders who were there on this particular evening, but the ones who were on standby and those who pitched in over the past few weeks.
This all resulted in the frenzied cries of victory in vent as Kael slipped past 5%. Even though we had started losing people we kept our discipline up. At 1% we lost our back up tank, and only had a handful of healers and a few dps’rs standing. When he finally crumpled to the floor it was unbelievable. I now have a glimpse of what the players on the ’80 U.S. Olympic hockey team must have felt like. You raiding nerds know exactly what I am talking about.
This is a milestone for us. We have now cleared all of the content up through tier 5. We will linger on these grounds where we have claimed victory for a few weeks longer, giving our entire roster a chance at some loot and a time to finish quests. But we have already started focusing back on Hyjal and inside Black Temple. Our goal is getting Illidan before the WotLK expansion hits the servers.
That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.
First advisor phase, weapons phase, second advisor phase. We’ve worked on Kael slightly in his awakening phase but getting the second advisor phase down is really what we’re working on right now.
This is familiar territory: Learning the fight, incrementally, and seeing visible progress. We’ll see where we are by the end of the week.