Unity Path Defeat Warmaster Blackhorn Heroic! (Realm First)

Posted on | January 19, 2012 | No Comments

After Ultraxion, this fight is definitely more like it.

Phase 1 and the opening two minutes of Phase 2 are genuinely tricky at the gear level we reached the fight at – the last bit of Phase 2 isn’t in the same league although it’s still a challenge towards the end for the healers. Our tactics didn’t really change over the learning period, you just had to get better at the execution – even so the RNG nature of some of the aspects of the fight, coupled with the fight being generally buggy as hell lead to a lot of expletives.

From lurking around World 1100 for the opening fights, we came in at around 775 for this one – so a better fight and a better performance from us. And with it, we’re onto Spine of Deathwing and the final stages of Dragon Soul.

Unity Path Defeat Ultraxion Heroic! (Realm First)

Posted on | January 5, 2012 | No Comments

For all the talk of this fight being a nasty gear check – well, it wasn’t.

Definitely the easiest fight other than Morchok, we rolled up to this thinking we’d have a bit of a nibble on the last day of the raiding week following the Hagara kill and got to within 1% of a kill within around 15 pulls. It didn’t take long to polish it off the following reset. A little disappointing for a mid-Tier boss.

Unity Path Defeat Hagara The Stormbringer Heroic! (Faction First)

Posted on | January 1, 2012 | No Comments

Happy New Year! And we kicked off with putting Hagara down.

This is definitely a healer centric fight due to the big scary damage numbers, whilst DPS requirements are only significant in the ice phase as you want it over with as soon as possible. However, on balance, it’s certainly a touch easier than than Warlord Zon’ozz and we had a good 15 seconds left on the clock at the end.

Unity Path Defeat Warlord Zon’ozz! (Faction First)

Posted on | December 22, 2011 | No Comments

In something of what’s becoming standard practice in the opening bosses, we tried a tactic which looked good on paper – but just didn’t work well enough. The efficiency just wasn’t there to make the numbers square. A good re-think and a complete change about saw the boss go over on the following night.

However, this is definitely a cut above the opening two fights in the instance and certainly a gear check.

Unity Path Defeat Yor’sahj Heroic (Faction First)

Posted on | December 15, 2011 | No Comments

It’s a quite pleasing fight, with all three arms of the raid tested, although we made a bit of a meal of it in hindsight as we got one part of the mechanics of this fight wrong, and wiped quite a lot for 2 days unnecessarily – and then it twigged and the boss went over quickly the next day.

Unity Path Defeat Morchok Heroic (Faction First)

Posted on | December 7, 2011 | No Comments

Like we always seem to do, our Heroic campaign in a new patch got off to a slow start – mainly because we used a strategy which worked perfectly well on the PTR, but didn’t work at all on live. By the time we wrote it off and used something slightly more sensible the damage was done and we were well off the first kill pace.

However, it’s likely to be a long campaign – albeit with Xmas and it’s variable attendance slap bang in the way.

Unity Path Defeat Dragon Soul Normal (Realm First)

Posted on | December 1, 2011 | No Comments

Unusually for us, we completed the previous Tier with time to spare – so we had a fairly relaxing time until Patch 4.3, and promptly had it all cleared in around 5 hours. You can’t say much about Dragon Soul, other than it’s certainly got potential and the scenery is (to my mind) better than Firelands.

Unity Path Defeat Ragnaros Heroic! (Realm First)

Posted on | November 7, 2011 | No Comments

If there’s one truth in raiding, it’s that on a really challenging end boss, you burn time very quickly whilst progressing very slowly. Ragnaros was an excellent example. Not quite in the class of M’uru or maybe Lich King Heroic, but it was certainly a cut above everything else there’s been in the game. Well, maybe not Yogg Saron+0 or C’Thun.

493 pulls saw the boss finally hit the deck, after some close shaves in the week prior. In the end, the first-kill was solid  – everyone could feel it coming on the night, it was just a matter of time after a bruising two months. Phase 4 is the tricky part of the fight, and we got there repeatedly somewhere in late-September. That wasn’t the problem. Unfortunately, the fight then begins again and the sins of the previous phases then find you out. Multiple meteors and multiple traps simply see you wipe multiple times. Rather too quickly. And so began five weeks of nine minute pulls to Phase 4, and then running back from the graveyard all but a minute later. Not always in good humour either.

But we got there and finished the Firelands – again as first on the Realm, with a WoWProgress score of 17666.67 and a world ranking of 778 in the 10-man format.

Whilst Ragnaros Heroic was an epic encounter, Firelands itself wasn’t of the same quality as some of the other instances. Ignoring the pure challenge of the final fight, our views were coloured by the quite ludicrous nerfs to the pre-Ragnaros instance in early-September which insulted all the effort spent getting the earlier bosses down. With one instance left in this expansion, it would be nice to think that this will not be repeated.

Unity Path Defeat Beth’tilac Heroic (Faction First)

Posted on | September 7, 2011 | No Comments

Many moons ago, we nibbled at this boss for 5 days – and didn’t get very far. With some more gear, the same techniques we used back then worked this time so at least we were on the right track, even if we were a bit premature in attempting the boss.

The only downside was that the add health got slightly nerfed on the reset when we killed it – this was unfortunate as we wern’t very far off from taking it down properly the previous reset. However, other than the slight bruise to the ego this was a very enjoyable fight.

Unity Path Defeat Majordomo Heroic! (Realm First)

Posted on | August 28, 2011 | No Comments

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we left this one too long – as it was rather easy.

However, it was the last boss of the raiding week – ignoring the Ragnaros cleanup – so the incentive was always to push on the other bosses first. However, a night or two after Baleroc saw this one put away without too much fuss at all.

keep looking »