Icecrown Citadel, 10-player, 14 June 2010 @ 8:30pm

It was all a bit of a muddle this week -- due to Blizzard's enormous 24-hour server shutdown last Tuesday, which turned out to be more like 29 hours, the usual Wednesday ICC run did not take place. So, the idea was to start a fresh run on Monday, blast through the Lower Spire, and maybe do Fester as well, all in a single run. As we log on, Morticus whispers about going to join his brother's guild, but he likes us a lot, would we like his mage etc. Regrets all round (we missed Morticus when he had his enforced break!) but family ties and all that, and at least it wasn't anything we said.

So, need to pug two healers. Kilarah is on, awesome! We persuade him to join us again, as his heals are fantastic. Looking for another healer.... hang on, says somebody sitting not too far away from me, an idea forming in his head, we can two-heal this, can't we? It's only the Lower Spire? I wish to draw attention to the use of the word "we" in this context. The only people who ever use it are those to whom it does not apply, in this case, the speaker is one of those absorbing heals (generally the vast majority of heals), not dishing them out. Considering the excellent dps we have available this is the plan adopted.

We jump into the trash with enthusiasm and alacrity, and since we used to two-heal the trash all the time months ago (since the trash is so boring having more dps saves time) I hadn't expected any trouble. How wrong could one be. We charge down the left side of the room, carefully avoiding pulling the trash on the right -- not clearing that trash is another first. Legga mumbles something about whether looking for traps mightn't be a good idea; an excellent suggestion that is lost in the general over-excitement. The tanks pull the lot in the next room. A trap activates. Another trap activates. And another. "Run out!", says Vehement. Fat chance, considering the hindrance level of Disrupting Shout when you're a healer whose heals have cast times. A trash wipe, how embarrassing is that?

After reassembling sheepishly, rebuffing etc we advance a little more cautiously. Skulls and Crosses are carefully assigned. But, we still end up with all three skellies, and though at least one goes down it's still a wipe. V decides that clearly he has been celebrating the Queen's Birthday a bit too much to lead a raid, and promotes Asisia to Main Tank and Sapphrina to Raid Leader. Order ensues almost immediately and the trash goes down, as it should. Marrowgar looms large. I think Kilarah sticks with us largely for the entertainment value. I mean, multiple trash wipes before the first boss...?

Against all expectations, Marrowgar goes down without any trouble at all. The extra dps is very handy, fewer people than normal stood in the fire, and we got lucky (or the dps were attentive) on neither healer getting bone spiked. Loot, joy and onwards!

The Lady soon follows Marrowgar, everybody avoids the green Circles of Doom, curses get decursed, adds get tanked and taken down, (some of) the frost bolts of Certain Death get interrupted... it's a pleasure to behold.

Up the elevator, and there's the Weekly Raid Quest! The Frost Giant! Awesome, five free emblems. Everybody remember how to do this...? A quick recap later and the Frost Giant is engaged. He is such a pain. The tanks wedge themselves into a tight corner so that they don't get thrown into the air. Corollary: The healers can't wedge themselves into a tight corner to avoid the same fate, due to the absence of any such corners within healing range of both the tanks and the raid. So about every second of my casts gets interrupted due to "movement". Kilarah happily keeps casting. I wish I'd brought my druid. Still, we give The Plague to each other as required, some dps die, eventually, the Frost Giant goes down. Confidence restored.

On to the Gunship, which this week presented no particular problems, everybody jumped back and forth when they were meant to, the Battle Mage got tanked, and despite a couple of dead dps we manage the fight with a minimum of fuss. Public Service announcement: People in the cannons should note that if they are at low health in the cannons they cannot be healed until after they come out. Thank you for your attention.

I no longer even expect that Shammy Hat to drop, and predictably it doesn't. On to Saurfang, who we always two-heal so no difference, right? Wrong -- without Morticus (pally heals) there is no-one to play taunt tennis with Vehement on the Blood Beasts. The two mages decide to make the beasts run between them, which, from where I was standing, worked pretty well. The first Mark falls on Nitevayne, we keep him up for most of the fight, and when he finally dies he has the good sense not to ankh, thus denying the boss his double-healing buff. Eventually I even remember to replace Nitevayne's Earthbind Totem - should have thought of that sooner. Down goes the boss, with his still-existing Blood Beasts despawning. Happiness!

Having a successful raid we decide to do the mini-boss. The trash to it is worse than the boss. But, running solely on euphoria by now, down goes the trash, and the mini-boss. One free emblem!

Hey, this is going well, let's give Fester a go, too. (We must be insane.) This is a fight we have never two-healed before, and generally it's a stretch even with three heals. We fight our way through the monster trash (another wipe but hey), and Stinky breathes his last poison breath shortly thereafter. Festy looks at us from his mismatched eyes. New toys... oh no, that was XT. This time we have three casters to soak up the Vile Vomit (erm, I mean, do huge dps), so both healers can be in the melee group. As the fight goes on it becomes clear that we are incredibly lucky. Every spore pair hits one melee and one dps, only once do we get a double-melee hit (with predictable confusion as to who should run). With no ranged having to run in, no danger of Vile Vomit on a tank or healer, and with no healer having to run out, no heals were missed. Festy goes down in a cloud of gas. Yay!

We call it at that point, having had a very successful raid, despite having only two healers for the whole run. The healing output was insane throughout, and we had quite a bit of luck as well. Despite multiple trash wipes, the bosses all got one-shotted. It can be done with two well-overgeared healers, but certainly not easily.