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Heroic The Primal Council

Heroic The Primal Council Fidelity

We killed Heroic The Primal Council in 37 attempts with 12 raiders and an average iLvl of 391.6.

In between working through normal, we had a look at both Terros and Council. For our group the crux of the fight was clearing all the pillars, while finally shadow priest had it’s glorious moment in the sun! While sometimes frustrating to have missteps, the joy of the fight for me was the communication and teamwork on display to get the meteor axes in the right positions to clear pillars and balance the soaking between the axes. Jastina would often volunteer to become ‘melee for a day’, to try and balance the groups and provide a clear option to blink back for the ranged soak and pillars.

I believe Jondy’s record of clearing six pillars with a single soak remains unbeaten to this day.

Heroic Eranog

Heroic Eranog Fidelity

… and we’re back! I’m struggling to describe how it feels getting back to raiding as a guild in the new expansion. I’m just going to say, ‘amazing’ and call it a day. It’s collaborative, quiet and a whole lot of fun.

We killed Heroic Eranog in ? attempts with 13 raiders at an average iLvl of 385. I can’t find any wipes… so maybe one of my guildies can remember all the way back to the start of the year.

We had a relaxed start to the expansion, with only one raid as soon as the raid released with a break until the New Year. We have had guildies return. The man-mountain Hagrim took his rightful place leading the charge carrying his shield as fast as his little legs could charge into battle! (Don’t get too excited because work schedules make raiding difficult) Praka is back and wrestling with his dark side, as our teeny tiny group doesn’t require a whole lot of healers. We have had so many people switching characters you might not recognise the names. From Kal going evoker, Dazzler also going evoker, to rogue (Gabble) because teeny tiny group. Canaleth went evoker (Smaugette), and … spoiler alert … has reinforced our tanking on his Demon Hunter Yoruk! Bio went priest, and … teeny tiny group.. is back on his mage. So we have three mages. Three. Mages. What’s delightful is that we have all the types of mage. Bio as frost, Zelraun as arcane and Jastina as fire. Borg, Jondayla, Velletara and Kerithwen all remain faithful to their mains but Kerithwen gained a Death Knight buddy in Baelgunnas.

 

 

Heroic Vigilant Guardian

We killed Vigilant Guardian in seven attempts with 20 raiders and an average iLvl of 254.8. We killed the boss with our friends from Horizon, which I’ll mention literally every time, because it’s jolly to know who one is raiding with.

Looking at that average iLvl, it’s pretty nuts to think that we already out gear normal raiding, being only seven bosses through normal. However, in true Blizzard fashion, there’s plenty of borrowed power in addition to raw item level that is heavily gated. Don’t worry, this isn’t my rant about the way loot works, I’m saving that for a whole different post.

We had a quick look at the boss the week before, but our kill came on the Wednesday now known as double legendary Wednesday. We had 5 raiders that had two 291 legendaries, 11 that had two legendaries including the wee belt, and 4 that had only one legendary. That’s pretty good going for patch day in my opinion. The other major power boost is of course, the tier set bonuses, for which we only had one lucky camper with their 2 piece bonus.

As far as the boss went, it was roughly 3/4 killing adds and 1/4 killing the boss at the end. Oh, and you picked up the little balls and tossed them into the door. A nice warm up fight for the bosses to come.

Heroic Fatescribe Roh-Kalo

We killed Fatescribe with Horizon on the last raid of the year. I took this action shot while lying face down on the ground, for my best death of the night. My worst was committing the cardinal sin of getting a little over eager on the pull and Fatescribe bashed me senseless. The random Runic Affinity mechanic added some delightful spice to the encounter on Heroic. Despite the fact you can double up on a rune to make the ring spin in the opposite direction, I somehow got it on my head that every ring would spin, and spent quite some time inspecting every inch of the ring that corresponded with the mark above my head before realising I wasn’t required… all. Jondy was so delighted and surprised to discover that healers could get Runic Affinity, she promptly found a sparkly puff ball to die in to avoid it all together. Thanks to Canaleth for healing, and all the Fidelity and Horizon people for a lovely end to the raiding year!

Heroic Sylvanas Windrunner

One look at the raid team for the Heroic Sylvanas Windrunner kill and you might say, “Wow, that’s a lot of names, and I don’t recognise many of them!”. Fidelity worked on Sylvanas with Horizon and friends. A big thanks to Kerithwen for making the connection with Saxx that got this ball rolling. Our tales of woe before we get to the good stuff…

For Sanctum of Domination, we were down to a bare minimum roster. In hindsight I’m surprised initial progression was as smooth as it was. We managed to piece together a 10 man raid (on our best night 13) with guildies who had previously been AFK, or friends of friends. When our dwarf mountain, Hagrim busted his video card, we were granted a short reprieve with a graphics card on loan from a friend. A move interstate, with no internet and no graphics card saw everyone missing their favourite tank. I like to think his dwarf is meditating in a tavern somewhere, in stone form, waiting to be unleashed against the evils of Azeroth once more. But for now, with dwindling numbers, we opened Looking For Group, and found my guest screening capabilities severely lacking. It did not end well, and we took a wee break.

Enter Horizon! After Kerithwen and Saxx made the introductions, I was met by a welcoming committee. First Kitcatt, guild master, then Ash (Xaethe), raid leader and finally Michaela, the most positive guild advocate one could imagine. We discussed the group make up, roles and upcoming Sylvanas progression. The initial conversation was so encouraging, I was inspired to pug a normal Sylvanas kill to get some practise with DPS and pick up a much needed shoulder upgrade. Then it was on.

We jumped straight into Heroic Sylvanas progression with a whopping 27 raiders over the course of the evening. There were lots of new voices to learn on discord, and Sylvanas was doing her level best to murder us all. It was so much fun, and a great relief to be progression raiding again with no conceivable shortage of raiders. The following Wednesday, we had a farm for a delightful change of pace, clearing a whole bunch of bosses including a first Guardian of the First One kill for us. Having neglected my DPS set, it was fantastic to be picking up much needed Stygian Embers and a sweet, sweet trinket. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I was having a blast DPSing. :)

Then on Wednesday, the group got up to a beefy 22, and Ash dropped into healing while I strapped on a shield. After steady progression and tighter execution in phase one and two, we crashed into phase three looking good for a kill. Platform one and two looked great, platform three a little wobblier, and it looked promising on platform four. Sylvanas was killing people left and right and we were running out of space to stand, but her health dropped to 50% and then to 49% and then … wipe. What?!?!? People with nameplates that actually report on portions of a percent were “saying what they see”, often different from each other… but we had wiped. Everyone agreed. She was below 50%. We all logged off feeling confused.

Come Sunday, we were slimmed down to 19, with an average item level of 241.6 and we finished her with purpose.

A big thanks to the Horizon guild, not only for the raiding but the very warm welcome. The part of progression I felt silliest was when I heroic leapt onto a little island off one of Thrall’s stupid bridges, and Michaela came to my rescue with a life-grip. I usually put how many attempts it took to get a progression kill… I personally clocked up 64 – but feel free to leave your number in the comments.

Thanks to Fidelity’s eight core raiders who happily took their hands off the steering wheel for a few weeks and participated rather than strategise, milked every ounce of performance out of their gear and happily switched roles for the good of the raid. It sure feels good to have another AotC under our belts.

Heroic Guardian of the First Ones

We killed Heroic Guardian of the First Ones with Horizon on a farm night tucked in amongst Sylvanas progression. I present an action shot from the subsequent kill, should any eagle eyes spot the all the differences between names listed and the picture. Saxx was on his paladin for the kill, so there was no soaking. Just Paladin tanks doing Paladin tank things.

Heroic Painsmith Raznal

We killed heroic Painsmith Raznal in 22 attempts with 10 raiders at an average iLvl of 235.4.

I’m writing this in December after our AotC, and I wish I hadn’t looked at the log to remind myself of our kill. The first thing I have to admit, is that on our kill of Painsmith… I died… to a Spiked Ball.

Otherwise, the most notable thing for our strategy is our awesome diagonal positioning of the traps so that the waves of spikes would explode them one after another with delicious timing, without further intervention. In practise, we didn’t always get the perfect alignment or spacing, so Velletara usually did the heavy lifting of defusing the time bomb by exploding a bomb early. Not the easiest strategy, but definitely worth some style points!

Heroic Soulrender Dormazain

We killed Soulrender Dormazain in 24 attempts with 10 raiders at an average item level of 234.7. Having multiple teams to break chains was a nice twist from normal mode for Soulrender. Getting the first chain broken as fast as possible and then timing the remaining chains well was the major mechanic to master, aside from the dance with what I’d like to call rivers of blood, but probably has some lore related to anima I missed. Then the fight boiled down to efficiency of killing the adds (deathgrip certainly helps) and having enough DPS to power through the fight as mechanics get time crunched towards the end of the fight.

 

Heroic Remnant of Ner’zhul

We killed Heroic Remnant in 39 attempts with 10 raiders and an average iLvl of 229.6.

That’s a lot of attempts, but it’s a quick fight, so it seemed to go fast. Initially for the dispels that would knock everyone back we got the people with the debuff to stack up, and asked Canaleth to mass dispel. When it worked, it really, really worked, but when it didn’t it was horrid. Fun to try, but super finicky to replicate (if that’s even possible).

Having seen almost every other group put down flares to mark the drop location, we were super chill and just went with the ‘ol, “dispel yellow star first, orange circle second” strategy and let everyone be responsible for their own location.

Heroic The Nine

We killed The Nine in 19 attempts with 11 raiders and an average iLvl of 226. The Nine was a smooth fight to progress on. Once the dispels were sorted (Kal and Jondy working like clockwork), it was a matter of learning the progression of overlapping mechanics. I enjoyed moving a purple flare around the room for the dispel location, and when people reacted to their debuff, moved quickly to the flare, and reacted equally quickly to their debuff being removed, it was a sight to behold.

The most difficult mechanics sequence was when we needed to soak four purple patches at the same time as one big blue group soak. If we got through that in good shape, it was a pretty cruisy run to the bosses’ demise.