Today is Wednesday, so it must be a guild run! I logged on ten minutes before raid time, because I'm keen like that. I'm greeted by a wall of green text. Everybody is on. Awesome. More coming on all the time. Looks like we won't have to pug much. Asisia can't play, so we need a volunteer tank. Legga is on, and has his gear back a week after being hacked. Time to shuffle things around. If Acuity brings her DK, then we need to get two geared heals and we only have one, does this warrior have a tank set, and can we swap a healer over to ranged for that fight and if it's a nine in that box it must be a five over there....Pretty soon it becomes clear that we can't get everybody in. Even with two frequent raiders missing, two people who are on will have to sit on the bench. Time for hard decisions.

Acuity and I bludgeon Titantank with alternate threats and promises until he agrees to tank. I'm not saying what the promises were, but he seemed more worried about those than the threats. A few gems and shards later, and he had a very plausible tank set. Nitevayne gained my eternal gratitude, and serious priority for the next run by offering to sit out. Shamaee was one DPS more than we could fit. Thanks and apologies to you both.

A mere 20 minutes after the start time a happy band, led by a very guilty feeling warrior, trotted up the steps to the first skeletrash. Titan hadn't tanked for a while, so I was having no trouble managing threat, incoming damage, positioning and all the rest of the extremely tricky stuff we tanks have to manage. (SMASH! TAUNT!). The trash dropped at a happy pace. For us, anyway. I imagine the trash had other views. As Titan settled in and remembered what keys to press, I found myself focusing more on keeping aggro, especially on the big pulls. What are they feeding pallies these days? Legga found the traps - we love rogues, even if they have no clothes - and we're up to Marrowgar. Simple instructions are given: "Titan stack on me. Everyone else - don't." and we pull. Four bonestorms and absolutely no deaths whatsoever later and the reluctant off-tank is the proud owner of a shiny new tanking mace. Yay. Which he doesn't have the skill to use. Not-so-yay. Never mind. Up to Lady Deathwhisper, more trash, the big ones decide that I should be the recipient of a chain of Horrible Curses of Certain Wiping, leaving Titan to go toe-to-toe with them. More explanations and we pull. Because we haven't run together as a group together before, and we're not all ridiculously geared, we get an empowered or deformed one every single time. With a Death'n'Decay on top, at no extra charge. On the plus side, Darnavan is absent. We grind trash, smash the shield, grind trash, and Sapph calls for us to stop damage on the shield. Amazingly, in a guild first, everyone stops damage. I am almost too stunned to remember to tank the final wave. we call for Hero, down goes the shield and I pull the boss. Taunts go in, ghosts appear and are ignored. Frostbolts get interrupted. D&D drops on the tanks. Panic levels are managed, and down she goes. Spiffing. More lootz, and we haven't had a single death, let alone a wipe. It all feels rather unfamiliar.

Gunships starts happily. I stand on the gunwale ready to jump, Titan stands under the portal. Pew, pew, boing, boing. Nobody distracts me enough to make me wipe us this time. Some people seem to be a little slow jumping back. Never mind. More of the same, across again. Once more, a bit of a delay for some on the return. This time, Saurfang has more stacks on me. I'm getting eaten, so I jump. A bit early. Oops. Saurfang turns his attention to one of the DPS, who drops like a rock. Oh well. A few more iterations, and we win. With the exception of the brezzed DPS and the halfwit tank on the Horde ship, a perfect job. More loot. No hat for the Shaman, of course. One can only assume it's been removed from the game, purely to annoy Acuity.

Saurfang next. Several people haven't done this before, so I spend a few minutes planning and explaining. We only have two ranged DPS, so they get a Blood Beast each. Lucky them. Sorted for melee, so we're expecting a lot of marks. We start it up with Titan tanking first, and off we go. The two fury warriors seem to have a mutual suicide thing going, as they each do their very best to grab aggro from Titan and each other. Beasts spawn, I screw a taunt up, the DPS burn the beasts like it's a barbeque, and Blood Power racks up. We hold aggro, taunts happen at decreasingly random intervals and we all get into the rhythm of it. We get him to the frenzy before it all falls apart horribly. Three marks up, one healer down, I suggest a tactical advance in the general direction of the ship. Enough make it that we can rez and rebuff.

Next pull, and I maintain my perfect record. Forgetting to put vigilance on anybody, mistiming a taunt on a beast and wasting a cooldown I manage to contribute about 25 Blood Power at the same time as I kill Sapph. Since she's our only means of moving one of the beasts, we're screwed. The team has the idea now, and we keep it going until he's at 18%. Awesome. Without Sapph, we didn't have the DPS, and we run into the enrage timer. Again, we get enough onto the boat to prevent an actual wipe, and off we go again. Third time's the charm - tanking's perfect, DPS is insane, the rangers pull the beasts clear every time, we manage to stop clothies getting eaten, the healing is magnificent and we get him down. More loot, including the elusive tanking pants, and I call the run amidst scenes of wild jubilation. Or something.

On Monday, we'll shuffle the team around a bit, 'cos Upper Spire is srs bsns.