(Note: This news-post was written on 27th April 2009)

Another night in Ulduar, and another boss crossed off the list. It took about two hours and many attempts, but Ignis has now fallen which brings the guild the Heroic: The Siege Of Ulduar achievement for fully clearing all four bosses in the first area.

We started out inching forward with attempts that wiped at ~90%, ~75%, ~58%, and then started to get a hang of things, going on to get some low-percentage wipes (6%, 12%) that were frustrating but nevertheless proved that we were very capable of killing him; we stuck with it and managed to down him on what may very well have been the last attempt of the night, since trash-respawns were very imminent.

Over both 10-man and 25-man modes, Ignis is definitely the boss that has taken the most effort to down so far in Ulduar (and generated the most repair-costs in the process), and it was pretty satisfying to see him die.

Commiserations have to go to Davegotsu, who persisted through all the wipes and then had his computer reboot on him towards the end of the night. By the time he got back online, we'd been forced to pull without him (due to impending trash respawns), and he almost immediately got instagibbed by Flame Jets since he was out of healing range... and we then went on to kill Ignis while Dave watched over his brother's shoulder. As much as he's glad that Ignis was downed, I'm sure he's looking forward to actually getting to take part in a kill at some point!

Loot was:
Flamewrought Cinch - Dakk
Pyrelight Circle - Neara
Girdle of Embers - Doometh

(Note: This news-post was written on 23rd April 2009)

Another night in Ulduar, and two more guild-first kills.

First we repeated our Flame Leviathan kill, this time electing to do it on easy-mode (no towers up) but deliberately not causing any System Shutdowns in order to get the Heroic: Shutout achievement out of the way. This kill was also noteworthy for seeing our first drop of Fragment of Val'anyr.

Loot for The Flame Leviathan:
Freya's Choker of Warding - Fûry
Mechanist's Bindings - Skystalker
Mimiron's Inferno Couplings - Carvilla
Fragment of Val'anyr - Wetpatch

Now on to the real news, with a guild-first kill of Razorscale. No achievements this time, although we came very close - Razorscale took off for the second time at about 51%, leaving us just seconds shy of the 'A Quick Shave' achievement.

Loot for Razorscale:
Drape of the Drakerider - Imaknight
Shackles of the Odalisque - Azimuth
Bracers of the Broodmother - Wetpatch

We then moved on to XT-002 Deconstructor, for another guild-first-kill and also another achievement in the form of Heroic: Nerf Gravity Bombs.

Loot for XT-002 Deconstructor:
Golem-Shard Sticker - Xime
Mantle of Wavering Calm - Davegotsu
Sandals of Rash Temperament - Azimuth

(Note: This news post was written on 17th Apr 2009)

Last night saw the guild's first trip into Ulduar, and first attempts on Flame Leviathan.

As had been previously planned, we elected to start with the first step of Flame Leviathan's hard-mode by leaving one defense-tower standing - we chose to leave the Tower Of Frost standing, thus activating the 'Hodir's Fury' beam during the Leviathan encounter. We could have gained an earlier, easier and cleaner kill by doing the fight without any towers up, but we chose the 'start as you mean to go on' route.

Flame Leviathan was duly dispatched, gaining the guild the Heroic: Orbital Bombardment achievement for defeating the boss with one tower up - it's unconfirmed as yet, but this is possibly a server-first since all other guilds seem to have done the fight without any towers. Additionally, the Heroic: Take Out Those Turrets achievement was obtained by Davegotsu, Huagh, Mulk and Xime.

Loot was:
Emblem of Conquestx2 for everyone.
Embrace of the Leviathan for Canthus.
Gloves of the Fiery Behemoth for Samtheslayer.
The Leviathan's Coil for Carvilla.

Congratulations to Aestus, Avb, Canthus, Carvilla, Dakk, Davegotsu, Deveaux, Doometh, Eloradanan, Fury, Huagh, Icyzaecy, Imaknight, Jintsu, Jiraja, Mulk, Neara, Opaq, Qizen, Ramzey, Samtheslayer, Shamole, Tollos, Wetpatch and Xime for their part in the kill.

After that, the raid moved on to Razorscale and got in three attempts - no kill yet, but some lessons were learned and we'll be back soon enough!

On the evening of the 15th of February, we walked into 25-man Eye Of Eternity for our first attempts on the one boss we'd yet to face; Malygos.

Probably somewhere in the region of half to two-thirds of our raid had already seen the fight on 10-man, experience which obviously helped. Nevertheless with the number of people yet to see the fight, and a general feeling that overall we'd probably be slightly low on DPS, led us to think that tonight would probably be made of learning attempts. How wrong we were. Pretty early on we got to the point of being able to reliably reach phase 3, but we were hitting the enrage timer. After enrages at 9% and 11% we realised that we could definitely do this, it just required us to get into phase 3 that little bit sooner and tidy up some of the phase 3 deaths and we'd be there.

And so it was that on something like the 6th attempt, Malygos-25 fell, leaving us with the following shinies:

Loot from guild-first Malygos-25 kill:
Leggings of the Wanton Spellcaster - Corpsefire
Hood of Rationality - Opaq
Frosted Adroit Handguards - Avb
Boots of Healing Energies - Eridani

With Malygos down reasonably early in the evening, we had time to go and knock Sartharion over (with no drakes); and then on the third raidnight of the week, we headed back to Naxxramas and finished off the remaining two quarters before one-shotting both Sapphiron (guild third kill) and Kel'Thuzad (guild second kill). With that done, we'd killed all of Wrath's 25-man bosses in a single week!

With all bosses downed, our focuses now are taking our first attempts at Sartharion-plus-drakes, and gearing up ready to face whatever Ulduar will throw at us.

With the quick success of our Sartharion kill, our January 6th raidnight quickly moved on to Naxxramas to see what we could achieve there. After a short discussion we opted to start with the Arachnid Quarter, with the hope being that we could clear it.

Anub'rekan died nice and easily at the first attempt, this being a boss that the majority of the raidgroup had already seen on 10-man mode by now.

Grand Widow Faerlina did her best to cause a speedbump, with a lot less of the group having seen this boss (including one of our two mind-controllers) the first attempt went awry, but with that experience under our belts we'd learnt enough to take her out at the second attempt.

Maexxna was next, and we were hoping for a quick kill so that we could end the night with our first quarter cleared. Again, less people had seen this boss on 10-man than was the case with Anub'rekan, but Maexxna's not the most difficult of fights and we succeeded on the first attempt.

Loot from the guild-first Anub'rekan kill was:
Arachnoid Gold Band - Grarl
Inexorable Sabatons - Adrieth
Swarm Bindings - Wetpatch
Lost Jewel - Dakk

Loot from the guild-first Grand Widow Faerlina kill was:
Belt of False Dignity - Canthus
Dislocating Handguards - Mayy
Chains of Adoration - Raverbaby
Bracers of the Tyrant - Deathfoundu

Loot from the guild-first Maexxna kill was:
Grim Toll - Skystalker
Distorted Limbs - Savvy
Undiminished Battleplate - Tollos
The Jawbone - Earthbrother