Darkest Hour

After our Majordomo Staghelm kill, we decided to go look at Rag.  Here are some screenshots of the events leading up to his room.

What an epic feeling walking up to this sight again.  The artwork of this area is just awesome and everyone in the guild thought Blizzard did a great job with Rag 4.2.  Here's hoping we get a Rag kill next week.  *crosses fingers

...go together like flamethrowers and psychopaths.   So we got Majordomo down...and we were not impressed.  For the next to last boss for this tier, he was not very challenging.  We used 1 tank, 3 melee dps, 3 ranged dps and 3 healers for this fight.  I think the most difficult part is when Burning Orbs/Searing Seeds come out, but that just requires raid coordination to handle.  It took us a grand total of 5 attempts after killing Alysrazor (CAN I HAZ TWO KILLS IN ONE NIGHT!!!1!)  There is a certain aspect of the fight that is not very clear, which we have tried to explain here.

Our resident Chef's Hat wearing hunter, Wherewilligo, decided to put his Chef's Hat on (after combat this time, instead of wearing it through Alysrazor....) and cook us all up some of his brand name Ravioli using Staghelm's flaming shoulders instead of a stove.  MMhmmmMMM..delicious.  Loot drops for the night were Grips of Unerring Precision, Jaws of Defeat, and Mantle of the Fiery Conqueror.

So, after everyone figured out how to dodge tornadoes without catching their ass on fire and dying...several times, we downed Alysrazor in fine style.  This fight was fun and challenging from all aspects of the fight.  We use 2 tanks (Dk in full dps gear and a paladin tank with reforged tank gear), 3 healers, 4 ground dps and a fire mage for flying around.  Of course, it took our fire mage a few attempts to remember his Starfox (TM) skills to catch the rings, but once he did, this bitch died in fine style.

At times, the fight felt like the raid was in a clown car that was on fire and the healers where busting out Rescue Hero (TM) skills in order to keep us all alive.  From a tanking standpoint, the hardest part was dodging Brush Fires, while dpsing a baby bird (that was on fire), while dodging Grubs (that spit fire), and while dodging Alysrazor (who shoots fire and cleaves fire...she probably has sex with Rag for all we know.)  Without further adieu, here is a screenshot of the bitch dead with a cartoon of what the fight felt like.

Loot drops for the night were Greathelm of the Voracious Maw and Clutch of the Firemother.

You put your Seph in....You put your Seph out...You put your Seph in...and you melee all about...You do the Hokey Pokey and you Judgment all around...yeah.  So I said I would do this whole post in musical rhyme, but I just...yeah.  For one, I am not that creative.  Two, I made you a fucking video that is WAAAAAY funnier than any lyrics I could come up with.  Three, the video actually shows the order we used for the crystal rotation.  So, fuck you if you don't like it . 

We actually didn't have too much trouble with this boss.  I think we maybe spent a total of 2 actual attempts on him, with the second one being the kill.  We utilized a 1 tank strat, with 6 dps and three healers (disc priest/resto druid/holy paladin.)  Resto druids seem to be really gimped this fight, due to lower single target burst healing like the other classes have, but ours, Nibbit (you can't have my fucking resto druid so back off) pulled miracles out of her ass (along with help from our awesome holy paladin, Dethwing, and healing officer disc priest, Selwyn.)  The fight was relatively simple once you get a good rotation down.  We actually went against other strats and used 5 people in the rotation to ensure that the crystals wouldn't aoe the raid while we were waiting on someone's Tormented debuff to drop.  Once you figure out a good rotation, there is nothing difficult about this fight and it just becomes a "Can you dps the boss down before the tank damage becomes too high for healer to handle" fight.  Turns out Blizzard loves Patchwerk fights, I guess.  Loot drops for the night were Flickering Handguards of the Bouldercrag (+453 Stamina, +281 Strength, +192 Dodge Rating, +192 Parry Rating) and Glowing Wing Bracers.

Without further adieu, here is the video I made for everyone.  I personally think it is funny, even if the music is annoying.  This also happens to show the rotation we used on the Shards of Torment, so it should be somewhat helpful.

After many...many...many attempts on Rhyolith, we finally downed this stupid bastard.  We were so excited, that Wherewilligo broke out his ukulele, Tir and Seph found their grass skirts from last Hallow's Eve and we had a fireside luau.  I am not quite sure how we found a pig on a spit, but we decided to roast him in the lava (sometimes I just don't ask questions, I just do as I am told.) 

On a serious note, once we got the turning down and were able to kill all volcanoes so that Rhyolith would only activate the ones left in front of him, we got this down using 1 tank, 3 dps on adds and 3 dps on the boss, and 3 healers (disc priest/resto druid/holy paladin.)  With dots rolling and dps pushing, we got him down after 4 of us died in the last 5% of his health.  Good job to all those involved, especially Mech who just happened to log on after a 2 week hiatus because of a new job.  Loot drops were Flickering Cowl of the Wavecrest (+611 Stamina, +347 Intellect, +242 Mastery Rating, +242 Spirit) and Dreadfire Drape.

No, this is just a tribute.........to Orcdawg.  So, last night we killed Shannox, after killing Orcdawg.  Orcdawg also died several times on trash and going across the bridge to Rhyolith.  It would seem as though Shannox is about as good with his pets as our own hunter.  So, we would like to take this time to bow our heads in silence for Orcdawg, the Darkest Hour mascot.

After figuring out what we were doing wrong, we figured out how to get stacks to reset on both our tanks.  We used the traps to do this, which from what I understand is the "noncheese" way of doing it.  Shannox went down (along with both of his pets) in pretty good time. Tonight, we will be going on to Lord Rhyolith and kicking his ambi-turning ass around his platform.  Loot drops from Shannox were Legplates of Frenzied Devotion and Crystal Prison Band.

After 7 attempts, Beth'Tilac went down...stupid spider likes to aoe nuke the raid.  Once we got our timing down for getting up top together with Tir having a healer and spiderlings dieing like they should before P2 (thanks Blizz) this stupid spider went down smoothly.  We squashed one of the biggest spiders I have seen in a long time.  Funeral Pyre and Spidersilk Spindle dropped.