Icecrown Citadel, 10-player, 12th May 2010

This is Wednesday, so it must be ICC again. Happy joy! A couple of guildies were either Tentative or Declined, so I reckoned on a pug-heavy run. I reckoned without Sapphrina and her incredible recruiting skills. I start by inviting five guildies in. Sapphrina recruits Shamaee to the guild. It must be something of a shock to join a guild and be in the main run ten minutes later. Brad joins and we are six. I ask the pugs from Monday, and two join the run. Five minutes later, and Legga has joined the guild, too. With five people like Sapph, I could take over the world. So, from pug-heavy aspirations to seven of us (if you count Brad), three pugs and we're ready for trash.

We have the initial trash down to a fine art. Each tank knows what to pull, where to stand, and the DPS know what to hit. It is a work of smooth brutality as we sweep through the first room. Except for one mage (who shall remain nameless Brad) who pulled a skeleton from Tirion Fordring before we were even buffed. We awarded marks for style, artistry and execution. To the skeleton.

Legga found the traps for us, and we only triggered one of the huge skellies. Awesome. On to Marrowgar. A brief description for the less experienced, and off we go. My last instruction is "Don't stand in front of the boss or you will die instantly". A smooth pull, one dead priest in front of the boss, and we get the rhythm going. Asisia and I have this nailed now. Smash, smash, smash. Tanking heaven. No taunts required. One-shot, loot, happiness. A lesser person than I may have been tempted to point out to dead priests that I had, in fact, told them so. Fortunately, I am not like that.

We arrive chez Madame Deathwhisper to discover, joy of joys, that it's not Darnavan this week. Happiness erupts in the tanking cadre, and we clear trash. The boss pull is clean, adds are smashed, and for the first time in three weeks I get the shield timing right. Thanks Sapph! Adding a few taunts into the rotation, and down she goes like a thing that goes down very easily.

Up to the next level, more trash, and a quest appears. It's the Rotting Ice Giant for bonus badges! Slight problem - only two of us have done it before. I was drunk at the time, and Brad can't remember. Hasty review of the wiki, and we pull. It's a long, slow grind, with the usual learning curve. People get it right, people get it wrong, deaths, despair, running back from the graveyard, frankly awesome tanking, and down goes the miniboss. Yay! 30 gold, five badges and cheers all round. On to the Gunships! More free loot! Unless a complete muppet screws up!

With roles assigned, we start the Skybreaker up, and prepare to repel the dastardly horde. My role in this is simple: jump across first, grab Saurfang, keep him off the DPS, jump back last, don't die, repeat. Simple, you'd think, for a tank. The instructions are really "See that mob? Tank it." First jump: perfection. I try some fancy DPS on an axe-thrower, because, you know, awesome and so on. Jump back, amid squeals of joy from my fans in the healing cadre. Well, high-pitched noises, anyway. Someone asks a question about the fight mechanics. On a roll, I start a simple, clear, yet detailed explanation of the finer points of the encounter. Happy to share my knowledge in a public forum, I am just regaling the team with the more aggressive strategies when I hear more noises from the healers. Oops. Might have missed a jump there. The Horde Battle Mage is knee-deep in horizontal DPS. Yes, readers, I have wiped the raid. On Gunships.

I think I spent longer apologising than it took us to get back in and buffed. Second run is perfect. I shut the hell up, and focus on my target. Everyone else does their job perfectly. Acuity's hat fails to drop for the 20th straight week. I feel, overall, my credibility has not been enhanced.

Saurfang, then. Once again, we have a couple of first-timers. I explain the fight, invite comments, double-check I've covered everything, and we pull. Off goes Saurfang, straight towards Brad. The first tank (who shall remain nameless) has had a miss. The mage has unleashed a nuke of astonishing proportions. Ice Block earns its keep, and we get the boss almost repositioned. The pug boomie and I start to establish a good taunt tennis thing, and it's going well. First mark drops on Sapph at about 65%. We're two-healing, and the load is high. We hit Frenzy, something has to give, and down goes poor Sapph, giving the boss another half-million. Oh well, going to be close on enrage now, when someone resurrects Sapphrina. Oh dear. I'd forgotten to mention that. Down she goes again, another half-million on the boss, more people die and we decide to run away. Entirely my fault - I hadn't mentioned that you must not rez a person who had a mark. Never mind. At least it got Sapph to the top of the healing meters. Pity it was the boss who benefitted.

We pull again, and it goes very smoothly. We get him down to 8% before the healers run out of mana and it all goes horribly wrong. Another pull, Heroism at the pull, and we get him to 25%. It's clear that we can't get him down with this raid configuration, and it's late, so we call it. Eleven badges, three bosses and lots of loot. Plenty more to kill on Monday!

Key Facts

  • Difficulty of Gunships encounter: Low
  • Difficulty of wiping the raid on Gunships: High
  • Embarrassment factor of wiping raid on Gunships: Indescribable

Ulduar tomorrow, then back to ICC on Monday! We're very close to an all-guild run!

Guild Logo