Icecrown Citadel, 10-player, 11 and 16 August 2010

No Warranty are trying something new: A series of progression raids through ICC10, extending the raid ID until the Lich King is dead. The above group of raiders have all agreed to this, so today is the day: One last time through the Lower Spire before concentrating on progression. Everyone is enthusiastic and we blitz through the by now over-familiar content: A few deaths but no wipes, and the Lower Spire falls with little ceremony.

With plenty of raiding time left we go to tackle Fester and Rot. Rotface in particular has been causing some problems lately but this time there is no stopping us -- we laugh at mutated infections, exploding oozes, missed inoculations and pungent blight. Down go Fester and Rot.

We have somehow still not exhausted the available raid time, so, on to Valithria. Valithria counts as almost still progression content -- we got her down (I mean, up) only once before. Luck, skill and enthusiasm are still with us, portal healers pick up ridiculous numbers of stacks of Emerald Vigour, resulting in an all-time high of 21k hps. Each. Outside the portals the fight is going awesomely too; I can tell this because I don't notice any of it. (When it isn't going well I notice because my heals get interrupted by various mobs who give me their undivided attention.) We blow hero, Vehement calls out to "ignore the portals and just heal up the last bit", and I get treated to seeing Valithria launch herself into the air, breathe a swathe of fire through the remaining adds, then fade out. Last time I missed this event due to being inside a portal; it's much better to actually witness the end of this fight. I still think Blizzard could have made the end a bit more memorable; normally there is a boss corpse to admire afterwards but in this case nothing.

Lootz and stuff and we call it on a high note.

For the Monday continuation, the same team shows up, on time, and we make our way to the Blood Princes. This is definitely progression content for the guild; some of the team have not done them before. Russty is the designated Keleseth tank, and gets a healer all to himself, plus Earth Shield, plus all the shadow protection we can manage. One of the features of this fight is that a wipe usually happens in the blink of an eye. When you find yourself starting to ask "Wh..?" and being dead by the time you get around to the "..at the hell?", chances are you ate an Empowered Shadow Bolt. This invariably indicates that the Keleseth tank is dead. So it was this time; there was no perceptible lag between Russty dying and the entire raid wiping. Hey-ho. This is why it's called "progression" content.

We try the same strategy a couple more times, with the same result, then switch strategies: Asisia will tank Keleseth, and Vehement will tank both of the other two bosses. This is much more successful and we all get into the rhythm of the fight, everyone concentrates, kinetic bombs get kicked, nobody stands in empowered shock vortices, dps is awesome -- and down go the Blood Princes. Guild first!

On to Blood Queen Lanathel. This is new territory for most of us. How exactly is the biting going to work? The theory is explained. We give it a go. Well, many, many goes in fact; they all blur into one another in my mind. Pact of the Darkfallen. This is easy enough, just follow the red line to meet the other person. It wasn't quite executed like that in practice but overall this was the least of our worries. The purple shadow thingy was much worse. "Run to the edges" is the accepted strategy. After several goes I felt like clarifying this to "Run to the edges but not directly through a healer". The raid damage is enormous. Chain Heal is my friend. Mana potions depleted to nil in no time.

At one point I notice Drambui standing still in the middle of purple shadows. I am impressed. Healing through purple shadows is a valid strategy if "you're very confident of your heals", to quote Aliena from TankSpot. I watch with interest. Drambui dies. Worth a try? No, it turns out that Drambui's computer crashed at a critical moment. Oh well; it's a wipe anyway.

Gradually, we manage to survive one or two air phases (Tremor Totem for the win) and it all feels a little better. We learn that "biting" someone is not a ranged spell. We learn that if the bite fails, the mind-controlled person will wipe the raid in an eyeblink. And we learn that Blood Bolts are lethal if you're not at least 8 yards apart.

There was definitely improvement, so we set up a carefully-thought-out biting order, based on BQL biting either Sapphrina or Vanilla first. This is what she had done every single time so far. One last pull. Then our entire plan was scuppered when she decides to surprise us all by biting one of the warriors. Enough confusion ensues for another wipe and it's getting late so we decide to call it. With the raid ID extended we'll be back here on Wednesday at 8:30pm.