Icecrown Citadel, 10-player, 7th June 2010

This is Monday, so it must be the ICC 10 Continuation! The usual dribs and drabs logged on around or after Raid Time. Mostly after. I'm thinking of renaming it to "Just one more beer before I log in" time. Never mind. Calmness is a virtue. So is punctuality, I would point out, if I were being small-minded and petty, which is Just Not My Style. So. Where were we? Oh yes - about five from the last run, and the two Outsiders we took last time nowhere to be seen. Then, wahooo! Asisia logs on! His story for his recent absence is much less incriminating than Mort's incident with the fire extinguisher - he's recently moved house and has had no internet access. The hardship is now passed, and he's up for a run. A bit of juggling, some arm-twisting of alts and we have a full raid. I'm back tanking, and we have a 6k gearscore druid in the group. This is promising.

We cleared Saurfang last time, as my regular reader will remember. Quite a few have blown a raid ID for this, so we decide to grab a couple of badges from Professer P's Special Offspring. Asisia and I are straight back into the tank thing, and with the awesome healing team, Stinky drops before any of us do. No traps on the way to Fester, split the team up and we pull. Both the first spores are in the melee group, and don't get moved out to the rangers fast enough. Next pair are on the tanks. I make a judgement call, shout to Asisia to taunt and run out with seven stacks and a spore. Too slow. Thinking is hard. Oh well. We wait for Pungent Blight to wipe us in a spirit of sheer bloody-mindedness.

Next pull, and the spores are evenly distributed, the DPS is awesome and the healing is incredible. He goes down before the second blight. Loot is dished out, mostly to off-specs and on we go! There is a Plague Scientist at the far end. I announce my plan, and hare down to the end to pull it. On the way back I trigger a trap. Haha - planning and foresight. Asisia is in place to grab the geists. He get them all, and muggins here steps on the next trap. Just to keep you all alert. Wouldn't want you getting bored on the trash. We pull the rubbish out of the way before Precious engages, and all is well. Again, with fantastic heals, Precious dies without too much harm to the raid, and we're at Rotface.

This is only our third guild shot at Rot, but we have a good knowledge of the mechanics, and Asisia does a bang-up job on the slimes. We avoid the expolsions and the boss dies on the first pull. Delighted, more loot dished out, not all of it in strict accordance with the rules, but hey, I never said I was consistent.

The healing output is frankly ridiculous, and we're all up for another go at the Snoozing Dragon. I assign roles and describe the plan. Kilarah has done the fight many times before, and largely concurs with the plan, which is very gratifying, particularly as I read it straight from WowWiki. We charge in, nobody stays outside and the fight begins. The Dragon Healers start spamming hard, and the tanks start add-gathering. There are two spawn points and four different add types. This is Seriously Challenging Stuff for a tank. The usual rotation (Smash! Taunt!) doesn't work. One has to do tricky things like moving and selecting targets. Very demanding. We keep things going for a while, but the adds eventually eat the raid healer, then me, then the raid. Nil desperandum - we had her up to well over eight million. Back in and try again.

After a couple of pulls, Kilarah points out that we're tanking the wrong adds. Kiting the wrong ones, too. Oh whoops. My strategy was straight from the wiki, and I never listed reading as a core skill. We shuffle the heals around a bit, and try again. Similar results. We're gaining knowledge, but not getting much further. There is a slight delay when someone suggests that Legga stealth behind the trash and start slapping bandages on the dragon. We resume when people have cleaned the drinks from their keyboards. Just before 11:00pm, we have one absoulutely final pull, throw everything we have at the boss, blow hero and get her just over 9 million before I get eaten again. We're all a lot wiser, but before we get too much older, I call the raid. Some people suggest a quick go at the Blood Council. After a few moments' reflection, I persuade the raid that it's not a good idea for three reasons: we have no pet classes for orbs, we have no plausible ranged tank, and I hate the trash with a burning passion.

We round the evening off with some farcical fun and games as the Guild Management interface humiliates me in front of the full raiding line-up. Grats to Legga on your well-deserved promotion.