Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum

I haven't written a report in a while. Before you start complaining, I will point out that you haven't either. My excuse is that I've been raiding so much I haven't had time to write. As the amount of unreported raiding rises, the backlog of stuff to report becomes daunting. If procrastinating were an Olympic sport, I'd put off playing for my country.

A couple of weeks ago, the Ruby Sanctum dropped. We changed our Wednesday plan and went to have a look. This is new progression content, and we didn't expect a roflstomp. Just as well. We had our posteriors handed to us by the trash. Repeatedly. Saviana Ragefire went down on the second pull, which was gratifying. More trash wipes, and Baltharus schooled us in the art of tank positioning. On one pull I was knocked across the fight area, down the cliff, over the central circle and into next Thursday. Interesting ride, but a long walk back. After a few pulls, we nailed the 50% split and ground him down. Battlerez is awesome. The next trash pack - five of them - took us longer than the previous two bosses. You can't do the usual pull/stomp/ AoE/repeat stuf here. Marking is needed. Crowd control. Skills long-forgotten in Outland. On to the last mini-boss. This one requires a certain amount of choreography from the tanks. Taunt, hold, wait for other tank to come back, release, grab two adds, control, taunt boss, repeat. This is serious high-tech, fly-by-wire postgraduate tanking. We dropped him first pull. Awesome. Or luck. One of those things.

I'm not going to talk about Halion. We've gone to phase two every pull, and never to phase three. Every single person has had a turn at wiping us, some of us more than once. Next week for sure.

With rising membership and more and more turning up for raids, some of us (me, actually), decided to try for a 25-player run. After much publicity during the week, I logged on half an hour before the raid start, and started pulling things together. By 8.30, we had three guild tanks, three guild healers and a good bunch of DPS in the group. With a surprisingly small amount of lies and bribery, we had a 25. Marvellous. Into ICC and pull trash. By the time we get to Marrowgar, we're short two players, and a rogue is AFK. *Boot*, re-pug and we're ready for the pull. Now, Marrowgar is not a hard fight. Tanks stack, everybody else avoid the stacked tanks. How hard can it be? Four sodding wipes and three more deserters is how hard. 25-mans are not like 10-mans. They attract a completely different grade of idiot. It is hard to describe, harder to comprehend just how epically inept some people are. 6kGS DPS never hitting bone spikes? You bet! Healers letting tanks die because "I'm assigned to raid"? Oh yes. Ranged DPS unable to follow simple, repeated requests to stack under the boss? Several.

On the fifth? seventh? pull, the boss goes down, along with my blood pressure (it was that or an aneurysm). The tanking pants drop, and I /pass, because I have just spent 220 emblems on the crafted ones. Happiness. At least they go to a guildie who deserves them (I can't remember if it was Titantank or Asisia, but the point stands). Also, Yay! Primordial Saronite!

The raid membership has undergone a fairly brutal darwinian culling process by this point. ("Why did you kick me? My GS is 5800!" "Because you're a selfish, whining moron. Now go away."). Evolution, however, is never done. On 25-man, Lady Deathwhisper mind-controls random raid members. They need to be sheeped, hexed, shackled, whatever. They do not need killing. No matter how funny it is. Seriously. Ok, funny the first time. Second time? No. Third time? Hope you packed a spare druid! The tanks did a bang-up job on the adds, the heals were bloody amazing and even the remaining morons couldn't quite wipe us. More loot! And on upstairs...

It's the Rotting Ice Giant again. Oh happiness. Or, put another way, screw that. On to the Gunship, a very brief briefing, and we pull. It's almost identical to the 10-man version. I tanked Saurfang. When the Battle Mage is down, I normally wait two seconds for the DPS to hop back before firing up the jet-pack. On 25, I'm more careful. "Jump back now". Pause. Perplexed. "Jump now, or you'll die horribly." Sod it. Zoom, I go. "What was the middle option again?" says the recently-expired clothie. I weep. The raid idiocy level proves insufficient to overcome the 25% raidwide buff, and down go the gunships. More loot!

By this point, I had consumed a certain quantity of beer, largely to bring my intellect into alignment with the raid average. Insufficient. We decide to have a go at Saurfang junior. It takes a couple of wipes before we persuade people that Consecration and Fan of Knives may not be the best approach to the Blood Beasts, but it's also clear that we have the DPS and the heals for the job. Tanks are awesome as usual, and we even have a spare. Four wipes Five. Closer each time. On the traditional, absolute final damn pull of the night this time for real we're not joking now pay attention pull, we start screwing up. Mis-taunts. People are tired. Blood power rises. Marks fall. We get down to 28%. People die. Back to 35%. Grind, grind, timer ticking. Heroism, awesomeness, and a few lucky crits. Down goes the Deathbringer, about half the raid get the achievement and more loot, including another Primordial Saronite. Asisia gets the token, and we all go home happy.