Critical Mass

I guess you could say… for Halion…

(puts on sunglasses)

… shit just got corporeal.

Wait, am I mixing my memes?  Oh well, who cares.  US #39, but does it really matter when it’s pre-Cataclysm filler content?

Heroic Lich King dead at long last.  Months behind, etc etc.

400-plus attempts and a +25% buff … ugh.

.

The kill is actually #51 US (just outside our usual top 50) making us 45th US guild overall.  It comes four months after our last notable kills in ICC, Sindragosa/Putricide at 5%, which is a testament to what a massive jump in difficulty this fight is.  It would have been nicer had ICC been a little more linear in difficulty instead of a gentle slope with a cliff at the end.  I suppose it also would have been nicer for us not to lose 4-5 of an absolutely essential class (Paladins) all at once early in ICC progression, leaving us struggling for much needed replacements.  We only started to look like we were capable of a kill during the 20% buff phase.  I wish it had been sooner.

My extreme gratitude to all who stuck it out to see it done, particularly to those who joined us late in progression, volunteered your retired characters and/or your time to help us over the finish line.

Folks were also nice enough to let me steal Invincible’s Reins.  Thank you all.

Started late on this; glad he’s down at last.  We were interrupted by bad attendance, holidays, power outages, disconnects, hotel internet, fail, and just about anything else you could think of.

But he’s dead!   Now we can go back to wiping to Sindragosa for All You Can Eat.

We’ve had a rough time lately, with a number of Paladins coming down with Pre-Cataclysm apathy.  We’ve been recruiting for a while, bringing new talent on board, and last night new talent and old combined with a lucky number to produce some fantastic results.

First, Heroic Putricide.  We began the evening with 7 attempts remaining, hence the title, because we spent 28 earlier in the week.  I honestly didn’t expect us to do any better last night, having reached phase 3 infrequently and gotten to sub-10% less than a handful of times.  Yet.. we somehow pulled out a kill on the first attempt of the night.  There was only five people left standing at the end – all of them melee – being healed by hots, procs and a Spirit of Redemption.

And then we went to try Heroic Sindragosa.  After checking our block placement on normal, we pulled her on Heroic and the contrast couldn’t be more clear.  Putricide is execution.  Sindragosa is a compositional check.  Bring lots of healers or wipe.  Fortunately, the berserk isn’t too bad, and to my fevered expletives astonishment and delight, we pulled off a kill on Sindragosa after just 5 attempts, killing her on what was certainly the last Heroic mode pull of the night.

Then we went to Lich King, laughed at his 100m hitpoints on Heroic, and called it after some normal wipes because it was getting late.  ~28 attempts for Putricide, ~5 attempts for Sindragosa, what?  And after all that, we finish up the night and the raid week in a really good place, having locked ourselves into WowProgress at #32 US, #101 World, and there we will stay until people start killing LK and/or the deliberately overtuned boss gets trivialized by a zonewide aura.

Really, I could just post pics of the normal mode kills and it would look the same other than some new faces – who I think have proven themselves worthy of being in the pic.  Great job, all, particularly to those of you who got thrown into Heroic ICC and really went above and beyond to get it done.

Edit: As you can see I finally managed to upload images.  Thank god for Google Chrome.