One left to be 12 of 12 Pre 4.2 and that will come this week.

Great job everyone getting there and pushing through these fights.

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Lrah

                The new zones have their ups and downs but one thing that the majority seem to agree on is that the ride to 85 is actually fun, not tedious; not frustrating. As you replace purples with greens you start to get an appreciation for the color blue again. Blue becomes the new purple. Then when you get your first epic you get that tiny little twinge of what it was like back in the ol’ MC days (for you old timers out there!).  But before you run off to that 10 man raid dungeon, you might want to rethink your idea of Heroics. The heroics in this expansion are not ‘Hard’ but they are long, raid long some times. And if you?re not in a guild group, expect a much longer run with a hefty bill. Thankfully we have a lot of great players so finding a guild group (yes even for us dps recount mongrels) isn’t hard.

                I’d like to do a special shout out to our healers, both those who stuck with it from wrath and those of you who have stepped in to take the reins full time. I know, I know….I have a soft spot in my stonecold heart for healers because I feel they have the worst job of anyone, but its true this time. Healer is the new all-star of WoW. Sure, tanks are needed still but raids and 5mans now revolve around the Healers. They have become the cornerstone of groups for this expansion so far and without a good one you’re going to fail. So keep chugging and I’ll keep stabbing this guy in the back with my little daggers.

Oh, and err, excuse me Blood Elfs, Ima let you finish your hair and makeup….but…..Goblins are the greatest race of all time….OF ALL TIME!

Welcome to 4.0.1.

New talent builds, mastery, new rotations, new statistical relationships, re-forging gear, new dungeon lock outs, new currency systems. OMG, where do I start and where does it end? Change is good, but when I have to listen to 2 hours of Lrah crying about his add-ons and Big Rex panicking about Warrior tanking threat (which he has since figured out the secret to), it makes me want to revisit the ice luge. At least that ice cold terror made me happy before bringing the pain.

So, though the game isn’t really new, things sure feel different. I know a lot of our members are going to be spending the next few weeks theory-crafting, spending gold on respecs and reforges, and we’ll keep our runs going in ICC to test all the new toys we get to play with. I’m sure we’ll have our minds in the right gutter for the release of cataclysm.

But it’s going to take a lot of beer to get there!

Lrah

            When I coached youth football, every year we allowed the team to make up one play and name it whatever they chose. It was a big deal for them and we made sure they got to run their play once every game. We kept the plays from earlier years as well so by my fifth year we had Redneck super bomb, Wolverine slash left, and  my favorite defensive blitz: The Terminator. I have no idea why I’m putting this on the front page…oh wait, I remember why. I was thinking up a title for last nights great raid, the one that appears at the top of this post, and it reminded me of making up those names.

            So enough about my aimless ramblings. We had a great night last night in ICC 25. 9 bosses down in 3 hours. We pushed through the first 4, then downed Fester, Rotface, and Putricide, then finished with Princes and Blood Queen (which we had the quest for and got to her in time). We tried a few new things and they worked pretty well with saving time. We are also getting a lot more marks every week now so that’s an added bonus. A fine job from everyone last night!

            One thing you learn through years of raiding is that some nights are going to be bad, some nights are going to be really bad, and some nights are going to be awesome. Last night was an awesome night. We went into ICC25 without many of our regular dps, without our regular raid leaders, and with the intention of getting down what bosses we could. We drove a stake into Bloodqueen, we dropped the plague boys (gratz Hordeyez on your shadows edge) and after that we decided lets get a few attempts on Putricide. Most of us didn’t expect a downing, we just hoped we could get some new people accustomed to the 25 man fight.

            We one shot him.

            And it wasn’t a long drawn out, nail biting fight either. It was a pretty easy one-sided confrontation. Many of our crew had only seen him in the 10 man fight. Its a testament that you should never predetermine how your raid is going to go without getting in there and giving it some attempts. A great job by our entire crew, especially those who don’t normally get to see 25 man content. A great job by Lrah and Barny keeping us focused and calm and Bloodi who ran around as the Abomination and kept the floor clean. We had stellar healing as always and our dps was focused and fast.

            But most of all a great job by all of last nights raiders for not deciding it was an off night and for giving an unforgettable performance and having fun as a team doing it. And whats your reward for doing all this? Now we get to start working on Sindi. Hurrah, woot, super…I think I’m going to take a vacation.