Resistance fights. Ugh. As tempted as we were to skip Hydross and head straight for the much easier Morogrim, we are an old-fashioned guild. Killing Void Reaver and Lurker before Al'ar and Hydross felt strange enough as it was - going even further and completely bypassing the intended first encounter of an instance just feels wrong somehow. So off we went, grinding primals and crafting res gear - everyone's favorite thing in the world. Of course Blizzard didn't *just* create a resistance encounter, they also added an enrage timer - another irritating feature they're throwing around now. High dps required again - at this rate we won't be able to take Trickz anywhere.

My favorite fights are those that require people to be awake and once all the abilities and phases are mastered are like clockwork - a Twin Emps fight in full swing (even though they had an enrage timer too) was a beautiful thing to see. Hydross has some elements of that - there is a lot of repetition in the phases and once you get it under control it's really not that complicated - but that pesky enrage timer means you can never quite get comfy or zone into the encounter. It took some 'omg nuke him down shieldwall aaaargh' at the end but a first kill is just disappointing without hearing 'OH COME ON' on TS - though Lvaz was far too busy tanking to call anyone a ret... never mind.

Subsequent stabs at Morogrim were so successful I can safely say the next update is going to be next week - expect a long poetic ode to the glory that is AE.

With the recent removal of attunements for the Eye and SSC, we were suddenly presented with the (tempting) option to venture into Tempest Keep and take a shot at the boss that is commonly called 'Loot Reaver'. Unlike half of the raiding population of WoW I don't think attunement removal is a bad idea. Anyone that had to get an entire guild ready for Onyxia still cries a little before going to sleep and the word 'attunement' alone often leads to small involuntary convulsions and temporary blindness. The only real advantage to attunement is ensuring Trickz never sets foot in TK to ninja loot that is rightfully mine.

So, shamelessly profiting from this attunement removal we planned a date with the lovely Void Reaver and lo and behold, he really was as easy as everyone said. The trash in his room is harder than the boss itself, which would normally mean the trash is overpowered - but in this case it simply means Void Reaver isn't. The fight brought together old concepts like 'tank rotation', 'moving' and 'healing' - quite challenging for any guild starting BWL. Oh wait.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I really like the direction Blizzard has taken regarding raiding. Sure, we're clearing this stuff right after the nerf wave, riding comfortably along while the 'top guilds' do everything in hard mode - but in general I get the feeling encounters are much more scripted - meaning everyone has to know their job, and do their job, without that flask or purple making a lot of difference.

Our adventures in SSC started with The Lurker Below, mainly due to a lack of res gear for Hydross (resistance fights? come on, Blizz, you are on the right path with most of these bosses, stop putting in resistance gear check encounters - no one likes ' em!). The fact that you have to lure this boss by fishing is great - though I've heard horror stories of people fishing for 17 minutes without getting the boss to spawn, but what pleased me the most personally was the concept of a Kraken boss. Hiding in the water, or running around in front of his spout, trying to nuke him while cramped together on a platform - it's a classic RPG encounter. I felt like I was playing Shining Force 2 again. I have to give props to Blizz for yet another fun, well-designed encounter - long as it might be.

The trash leading up to the Lurker was enjoyable - easy enough to do without deaths, hard enough to wipe on when everyone plays like they just leveled to 70. And lots of random epic drops to make you feel like you're not totally wasting your time. Can I just say that being able to use polymorph in raiding makes the Quartz mage population extremely happy. Now we're not only the undefeated kings of dps (yes we are! shut it!) but we also get to use more than just our main nuke button. Like I said before, Blizzard seems to be going more the way of everyone having a specific job, interrupting spells, being on the ball, crowd controlling, rather than just 'mob crits you for 20k, you die' type encounters, and that goes for trash as well. The Lurker fight itself is not a dps fight, nor is it (really) a heavy tank-healing fight - I'd say it's 100% about people being awake, paying attention, and healers guzzling down mana pots and spamming short heals like there's no tomorrow. Oh, and sheeping. Next up, anything that involves AE. Innervate meh!

Once again Blizzard delighted and amazed the WoW population with a string of nerfs to existing content. Having spent only a little time on Magtheridon before the nerf, we were pleasantly surprised at the ease with which the trash now went down - with increased respawn time as well. Thank you, Blizzard - nothing's more irritating than getting into the swing of a fight and then having to reclear trash. Even if it only takes a short time, it's hard to refocus and pick up where you left off.

Now that the encounter is much less class dependent (no more need to stack warlocks, flask your dps or bring a lot of rogues for interrupts) I feel it's much more on the level it should be - about the same difficulty as Gruul and a nice snack for a raiding guild on their way to SSC. It was also the first fight that felt large - we've had some fun encounters in kara and Gruul is big, but just doesn't have that raid boss feel to him. Magtheridon brings back the old raiding fire - here's to many nights of 'wtf we don't have any tanks' and 'why are there 7 socials in greens in the raid?' . Oh no wait, 40 man raid days are gone.

The fight itself is extremely fun - nothing like yelling on TS because some rogues (yes you Chupa) keep getting cleaved and people clicked their cube too early. No massive amount of coordination is needed with only 10 people in cube rotation and I can fully recommend Mag to those guilds that have some gear issues with Gruul - after the adds are down Mag is really quite a pansy. Like Furby, but with more dps.

Special mention goes to my water elemental, who decided to win its own miniboss award by ninja pulling

We hadn't really taken any serious swings at Gruul - knowing it was the type of encounter that required not just complete focus but also an insane amount of dps (ie flasks, pots, oils and food) for the first few kills was kind of a turn off. I'm not against buffing but so far I've kind of enjoyed the laid back feel of TBC. So, slackers that we are, we patiently waited for Blizzard's nerf bat to break Gruul's back so we could pick his pockets while he was down.

And so we did - the fight has been nerfed to the point where your only real issue can be the main tank dying. Gruul does some irregular damage which can result in sudden deaths, but apart from that it's, I think, on the same difficulty level as Maulgar. A decently geared group with a fully buffed tank doesn't have to spend more than a few hours tops on him before they see results. And we found a fresh batch of void crystals! Special mention for *insert name of shaman here* for managing to pull adds on Gruul at 15%. I haven't seen a wipe like that since the days of 'omg who pulled that warder' Onyxia!

Serpentshrine is rapidly approaching. Something tells me that's where the real bloodshed starts. Let's hope there's no adds to pull there!