Ah, it's been quite the month. Azgalor died, the Shade of Akama bit the dust, Archimonde wipeage has started in full force and the collective gathered in what can only be described as a real life version of Orgrimmar, complete with campfires (or should I say Azfires) and a drunk Morbo mispronouncing every word.

Many thanks to all who came for trashing my place, and here's to the next meeting at Sairud's or Mini's place - dibs on a bed far away from where Dari sleeps!

In the absence of our glorious leader we were lead by two mutes and an enhancement shaman, the ever victorious army once again set out to conquer the loots and new encounters.
After the initial "uhm, anyone know where the boss is?" we got started and promptly turned around and walked the other way.
Trash didn't give us any problems and we soon set our eyes upon the Warlord Naj'entus a surprisingly good first attempt at 47% really lifted our spirits. Not even respawning trashmobs killing dorks like me running back put much of a dent into that. A couple of attempts later the Warlord lay at our feet after an attempt that could best be described as clockwork. I have a feeling this encounter will much like Hydross cause us to wipe once or twice for quite some time as people remember what they were supposed to do.

The collective celebrated their success by wiping on the next pack. After getting our feet put pack on the ground we performed like a well oiled machine until we encountered Supremus the giant burning baby. This is where the machine broke down and half of it decided that flames don't really hurt that much, they were wrong! A couple more attempts working out kite paths, making sure everyone spread out and move in phase 2 and soulstoning the person with the most hp. Supremus was dead and the raid ended. A good night in the new instance, I look forward to seeing the rest of it.

(Since yours truly was absent, Miniboss did a ninja guild move, stole my password and posted the story himself)

Mount Hyjal is a nice change of pace. Tanks like the fact that aoers in cloth have higher repair costs than they do. Aoers enjoy being able to pump out 5k dps on a core part of the instance trash. Healers, well healer, enjoy yelling the names of people who die on TS. The raid as a whole enjoyed killing 2 bosses the first night on them. After 8 waves of aoe death we meet the lich, who promptly decides on Death and Decaying melee to death. Even with that the first attempt ended at 7%. Rather anti-climactic, considering butting heads with Kael has been our main occupation for a while. Next up was Anatheron, who probably would have been killed on the second, rather then 3rd (or was it fourth?) attempt had people not been so fond of fondling Jaina, making half the people in the raid miss the tactics in raid chat. Seeing all mages die at the same time was a beauty though. The raid would probably have ended sooner had someone learned the lesson from earlier in the evening and not fondled Jaina before who got what loot was decided. Such is life in Quartz. All in all it's nice to see this instance opening up, with encounters much like the ones in Zul Aman, which are quite interactive and rely on execution rather than being mad dps races.

(seeing as yours truly was absent, story by Miniboss this time)

What can I say about Kael'Thalas that hasn't been said in the many WOOHOOOs that graced our raid chat last week? It truly is an epic encounter - and after getting every guild member their Vashj vial and ditching SSC, we had plenty of time to experience the fight in all its glory. The fight has basic retard check phases - arguably the hardest for a guild like Quartz, and an insane AE spam phase - arguably the easiest for a guild like Quartz. We've always been blessed with an uncanny ability to find the best ways to AE pretty much any raid content, and Blizzard actually rewarded us for our AEing with legendary weapons this time. I think that's proof enough that AE is ALWAYS the right answer.

Kael is an encounter that you learn step by step, and once completed it almost felt easy - and everything fell into place. This after wiping in phase 5 far too many times the week before patch, of course - but I blame Gashrak for being squishy.

The hardest part for any guild is probably keeping up morale while you go through your wipe weeks to learn this highly scripted encounter. I can only express my deepest thanks to all the guild members for ensuring every raid was filled to the max - I think it says a lot about where we are as a group that wipe nights are more popular than epic runs on farm content. More than Vashj, this felt like a true benchmark, and I can honestly say we deserved that kill completely.

I'd like to give special mention to Miniboss for leeching more healer mana than the MT, and to myself for once more proving that frost mages CAN do competitive dps and have the same crappy survival rate as fire mages. But hey, what are you bringing druids for if not for combat ressing trolls?

After another Kael trashing we will be taking our first steps into Hyjal and Black Temple so expect updates on the loot piñatas soon

The reason this Solarian kill story has been so long in waiting (we killed it weeks ago) has everything to do with the somewhat anticlimactic battle that Solarian turned out to be. We collectively decided resistance fights suck, so we never did Solarian before the patch - but what they have turned him into can only be seen as free loot on the way to Kael. It's quite possible that Blizz felt bad about the return of the geddon bomb - that wiper of so many raids in the old days - that they decided the rest of the fight should be really really easy. But these days, with your entire raid on TS or vent and having done so many retard checks in SSC and TK already, a silly bomb ability won't wipe your raid anymore.. right? Right?

Ah well, down is down - here's to many nights of Kael tries in the future