I didn't think I'd be here making another post here so soon, but here I am.

Last night started off like what seemed like any normal raid night: pondering amongst ourselves how long until Baidis's dad requires ... servicing; when the new mars brover was going to land; how many times Stink might die; whether or not Niz is really gay; and spending the last 10% of the boss bitching the general crap loot we're about to get. It didn't end quite normally though...

Towards the end of our Illidan kill (at about 10%), we ran into a bit of confusion about what Illidan was doing exactly. Was he enraging? Was he transforming into Demon phase? Who knew! I mean, let's be honest here, it wasn't such a brilliant design decision to have the following set of animations for transitions:

Illidan going into Human phase: kneel down and scream
Illidan going into Demon phase: kneel down and scream
Illidan trapped during enrage: kneel down and scream
Illidan dying: kneel down and scream

Needless to say, we pushed DPS during what we thought was an enrage, but was really a Demon phase transition and caused half the raid to die. We manage to somewhat recover and reach the next Human phase at around 5%. However, with zero mages alive, parasites made quick work of us. We somehow got him to 1% while all the DPS died, and Maeiv finished him off with a swift throw of his dagger:

Maiev Shadowsong's Throw Dagger hits Illidan Stormrage for 4168.
Illidan Stormrage dies.

We were all pretty happy, as no one wanted to do that 20-minute fight yet another time, but our happiness quickly turned into confusion (and cursing...) when Illidan's body quickly disappeared before anyone even had a chance to be resed. Some of us had heard of this happening before if Maeiv got the killing shot and everyone died during the kill animation, so we quickly sent in a couple of GM petitions to get this handled.

We waited... and waited... then we played hide & seek. We promptly learned that Ashj sucked at the whole "seeking" thing as he walked right past some of us without a clue in the world about what was going on.



Eventually, after some more hide & seek and some follow-trains through BT, we were greeted with a couple GMs.



Nice got in contact with one first, and he was very eager to help us out. But first, there were more important issues at hand: turning Nice into a leper gnome and shooting him hundreds of yards into the air, of course!



Eventually, with the gnome-launching out of the way, our ticket was sent to a "specialist" game master that could figure out exactly what happened and help us receive our appropriate rewards. This meant... yet another wait. We sat there bored, but assured that our specialist would be with us soon. More hide & seek was out of the question (the instance is way too big) and we had too few people left for more follow-trains, but we decided to test our artistic abilities and make some designs on the ground. As we were amidst our art, Specialist Zomago came to our rescue. He let us know that it would take him a few moments to confirm the kill and loot that dropped before we could continue. That meant... more waiting.

We decided to that perhaps we could send some small subtle hints to our GM...



Unfortunately he assured us that he had no control over what loot we would receive and that it was already pre-determined.

Finally, he figured out what happened and was ready to award us our loot. Much to our surprise, the wait ended up being well worth it:


For some reason I don't think Passenger quite believed me... until he received the Warglaive.

Turns out, our odd night ended quite nicely. Sitting in an empty Black Temple instance for 3 hours with my 24 buds was just as fun as killing the stuff that got us here. Thanks for the fun, brahs.

27 comments

It happened much quicker than I expected. It was much quicker than we all expected, but after that first night of success on Illidan, we knew it was coming.

For the past two weeks I have been wondering and thinking about what I would be saying in this post. There is a lot to be said. Well over a year ago, our guild entered the gates of Zul'Gurub and began our amazing journey. We came into the game late and no matter how quickly we defeated boss after boss, dungeon after dungeon, we just had no hopes of catching up.

Today, for the first time in our guild's history, we have conquered every challenge that is open to us. The past couple of months have been quite a ride. As I was scrambling to finish writing an "Illidan strategy" post before our raid, I could not help but think of the accomplishments that have led us here. I am not merely talking about the boss kills, but rather the way our guild has been successful in every way imaginable. Never before would I have anticipated the type of dedication, comradeship, and good, fun and friendly adventuring that I have experienced with these people that I am proud to call guildmates. It took a lot of effort, but that's what made it all worth it.

To quote a friend, "as always, this is not the end". Our raids are neither for the bosses we kill nor the loot we receive, those are just the perks. It is the people we raid with and the time we spend together that makes it what it is. There is much more to come and I can not wait to share the experience with you all.

Until Sunwell, I leave you with this.

After spending what seemed an eternity waiting for Novinha's power to come back (though in reality was only 45 minutes of well-spent time running around Council's room with a raid of naked gnomes and night elves) we finally had our tank and took down the Council shortly after. The fight was involved, but mind-bogglingly repetitive after a while, the Council members could certainly stand to lose a third of their hit points.



Not very exciting, but what comes next is all the excitement we need: