Icecrown Citadel, 10-player, 10th May 2010

As my regular reader will recall, we left Icecrown last Wednesday with a good haul of loot, but Saurfang remained upright. Clearly, this was not an ideal state of affairs. I logged on 20 minutes before raid time to see what the guild had in mind. Since it was a Monday, it was never going to be easy to persuade enough geared pugs to come with us, and I was muttering about VoA10, or maybe something silly. As people logged on, it became clear that I was in a minority of one. Raiders were going to ICC, dragging my defeatist posterior with them. I love this guild.

With two tanks, two heals and two DPS from guild (Krisha was available, but magnanimously stepped aside for the good of the team - this will not be forgotten), we only needed a few from LFG. One /Trade spam later, and all we're looking for is heals. Sapph works her usual magic, and plucks a poor, unsuspecting Disc Priest up by the scruff of the neck. A rather stunned healer, probably planning a quiet night's herbing, finds himself landed in the middle of a gang of ravening raiders and one rather surprised Main Tank. Ten minutes from logging in, and we're off. Pugs are a priest, a hunter, a warrior and a rogue.

At this point, I am busy with complex tanking matters, such as which side of the keyboard is "Taunt" and which side is "Smash", so Sapph describes the fight and we pull. "Smash", I go. "Smash" again. "Taunt". Oh whoops. Blood Beasts. Smash/Taunt dichotomy. Did I put Vigilance on Asisia? No. Double whoops. Oh well, I'm a tank. "SMASH." We grind and grind, and gradually find a steady rhythm. Smash, smash taunt, smash, smash....This is complex tanking stuff. Most DPS couldn't do it. Mark falls. BB hits DPS. Another mark falls. Oh dear. Boss at 1.1 Million, starts healing oh dear oh dear ENRAGE. I like fights with a fast enrage timer. a) You don't invest 20 minutes in a wipe, and b) I can blame the DPS. We've got a good rhythm established now, so, back in buff up and *absolutely no moaning*. This is, shall we say, unusual. I like this group.

Pull again, off we go. This time, I have the two halves of my keyboard mapped correctly. Blood beasts get smeared all over the floor. Taunting is perfect, and the tanks don't move. Saurfang hits the floor faster than heirloom china. Three people get the Lower Spire achievement. Delighted. Goodies are handed out, and miracle of miracles, the Sacred Tanking Pants drop. Lucky Paladin.

We shall glide past the whole issue of Ice Frogger. A simple exercise in Not Running into the Enormous Predictable Ice Clouds. No experienced raider will be troubled by such a simple manoeuvre. I mean? Four of you? Not that I'd mention it, of course.

On to trash. The Valkyr with the annoying cloning ability go down as you'd expect. Which is, slowly. I mean, if they were cloning us randomly, would we really see forty-seven healer-adds and not one tank? Then, on to the Trivial Miniboss with the Confusing Adds. A lesser person than your Rugged and Inspiring Raid Leader would admit that the abilities and strategies for these adds are a complete mystery. Such a person would confess that they rely entirely on the awesome healers and inspirational DPS to boost him through this lot. Fortunately, your Awesome Main Tank is not such a person, and it is solely by his almost-mythical status that we triumph over these fiendish enemies. Or something. Anyway, dead miniboss, split-second rezzes save the day and one badge all round. Onwards!

Now, the Abominations. I decide to try something new. Let's pull them up towards the center. I'll pull, Asisia will peel. Easy. CHARGE!!!!! Pull. Scourge hook. Rest of trash engages. Oops. RUN AWAYYYY! Wipe. Poot.

OK, Let's try the old way. Pull. Peel. Scourge hook. More adds. Try to grab them all. Fail miserably. Wipe. OK, getting bored, this time with feeling. Pull, peel, hook, adds, chaos, die, wipe. Getting tedious. OK - something really new. Morticus and I go to the center. Asisia pulls round the side. "Whatever you do," I say, "Do not run in front of the door". Clean pull, I taunt the second one. It looks at me, looks at Asisia, and decides which one it thinks is prettier. Oops. I run past the door. Morticus, in an outburst of optimism, follows. We get away with it. Biff smash dead trash.

On to the nasty plaguey trash, and all goes well. I trot in, with the whole raid behind me, planning to tickle Stinky under the chin a bit. With a very sharp stick. All looking good until a trap pops. Ooops. Sloooowwwweeeed... we all do the "Run away" thing, and someone gets slowed again. Me. Whoops. Trod on the second trap. It is hard to describe what it feels like to run, slowed, down a corridor with Stinky slobbering down your neck. Somehow, we pull the situation back together, and go and clobber Stinky. This is probably the hardest thing in the game that doesn't give you loot.

This brings us to Festergut. I shan't elaborate too much on the mechanics of the fight, since they are largely a prolonged and elaborate lavatory joke. On our first pull, I learnt a valuable thing. If you're watching for spores, counting stacks and calling for Heroism, then, if you're a tank, your brain is probably too full to do any actual, you know, tanky stuff. Smash/Taunt is harder than it looks. Honestly. Sometimes you have to go Taunt/Smash instead. Very tricky. So, I lost aggro a little bit. And pulled it back at the wrong time. Which can't have been my fault. Anyway, someone died, I got Vile Gas which must have been Somebody Elses fault, and we wiped.

On the next pull, we have some astonishing luck: every spore spawn is split between melee and range. It was an absolutely perfect fight. We had a minute left on the timer when he went down. Grats and loot all round, and we called it on a high note. I'm certain we could drop Rotface with this team, and next time, maybe we will.

Key Facts

• Guild First Boss Kills: 1 (2 if you count the miniboss)
• Number of complaints and whinges: 0
• Number of wipes: 5
• Number of wipes that were unequivocally my fault: 5
• Total level of team awesomeness: Over 9,000

Awesome run! See you all on Wednesday for more Violence and Death!