After the guild's third Magtheridon kill last night, the wowjutsu progress-tracking website has awarded us the following insignia:

We started our raidnight with an almost-clockwork second kill of Magtheridon, on our first attempt of the night. As with our first kill, Samtheslayer managed to get the killing blow again and Sickofitall held his top-spot on the damage charts, however in the absence of Dakk another tree-druid, Liam, stepped in to take the top healing spot.

After having quickly and efficiently taken out Magtheridon, we turned our attention to Gruul's Lair for the first time, having gathered a large stockpile of Unstable Flasks earlier in the week to aid us.

The High King Maulgar fight is largely about getting the pull right. Our first couple of attempts were pretty horrific; on the third attempt we managed a decent pull but Sekrel, our mage-tank, suffered from a chain of spellresists halfway through the fight and promptly got murdered, which swiftly led to a wipe. On the fourth attempt though, it came together and we got our guild-first kill (although it was still far from tidy!).

After dealing out the loot and the "grats!" we pushed on to give Gruul the Dragonslayer a look. Although confident, I was pleasantly surprised to see us go on to take him down at the guild's very first pull.

Screenshots are available on the Guild-First Killshots page.

Loot for Maulgar and Gruul was as follows:

High King Maulgar:
Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi - Warxen
Pauldrons of the Fallen Hero - Grarl, exchanged for Demon Stalker Shoulderguards
Pauldrons of the Fallen Hero - Daspien, exchanged for Voidheart Mantle
Pauldrons of the Fallen Champion - Adrieth, exchanged for Justicar Shoulderguards

Gruul:
Gronn-Stitched Girdle - Nottme
Teeth of Gruul - Rizzen
Leggings of the Fallen Defender - Liam, exchanged for ???
Leggings of the Fallen Defender - Totalchaos, exchanged for Greaves of Malorne
Leggings of the Fallen Champion - Nottme, exchanged for Netherblade Breeches

On our third night of attempts, and following on from best-attempts of 23% and 22%, Magtheridon has been slain! This marks not only the guild's first kill of a 25-man raid boss, but also the first 25-man kill for many of our players (including all of the officers, none of whom had raided at all before forming <Cause And Effect>).

(click to enlarge)

Our first attempt tonight was a 25% wipe, which was a good start for us considering our previous-bests. Our second attempt was a quick wipe at the first Blast Wave since my UI decided to bug out and I couldn't click the cube, and a backup didn't make it to my cube in time. That was a bit demoralising for me personally (no-one likes being the cause of a wipe!) and I sincerely apologise for the repair costs! Fortunately that moment of shame was was soon made up for by our third attempt being a guild-first kill!

Magtheridon died in 9m3s, well within the frankly ridiculous 22m enrage timer - as has been stated before, this is not a DPS race, it's a pure survival fight.

Loot was as follows:
- Magtheridon's Head went to Rarkan via /roll 25, exchanged for Ring of the Recalcitrant
- Pit Lord's Satchel went to Antí via /roll 25
- Thundering Greathelm went to Linkus via DKP
- Soul-Eater's Handwraps went to Antí via DKP
- Chestguard of the Fallen Defender (1) went to Eloradanan via DKP, exchanged for Warbringer Chestguard
- Chestguard of the Fallen Defender (2) went to Difsil via DKP, exchanged for Warbringer Chestguard
- Chestguard of the Fallen Hero went to Grarl via DKP, exchanged for Demon Stalker Harness

- Killing Blow was from SamTheSlayer with a 635-damage Steady Shot.
- Top damage was Sickofitall with 489k (8% of the damage).
- Top DPS was SamTheSlayer with 1192 DPS.
- Raid-wide, we dealt 5,944,365 damage during the kill, at a rate of 10,947 DPS.
- Top healing was Dakk with 322k (25% of the healing).
- Most damage taken by a non-tank was Gjara with 42k (3% of total).

Been a while since a decent update, so here goes:

15th of June saw us stick your collective heads into Magtheridon's Liar. Although we only managed 2 attempts, the 2nd was an excellent attempt with 4 channelers down before Maggie came active. We are looking good to try again soon.

24th June saw 2 highlights. First was another clear of Kara. We've come close most weeks, but this time we cleared up with little fuss.
It also saw the first Guild kill of Akil'zon, the Hawk boss in ZA. After our previous, slightly frustrating attempts, it was nice to see him hit the floor. Next stop, the Dragonhawk boss!

Our progression is good, if a little leisurely. Further 25-man attempts have been hurt due to lack of attendance, but hopefully with everyone using GEM to organise raids this can be sorted.

On the 4th May we got our guild-first kill of Netherspite, completing our first full Karazhan clear. Tonight, on the 13th of May, we took him down again for our second full Karazhan clear, so it wasn't a one-off fluke!

After clearing Karazhan, we found time tonight to go give Zul'Aman a whirl. We headed for Nalorakk first, and had three attempts. The first attempt was a 50%ish wipe with two healers, after which Aestus very kindly stepped out in favour of bringing in a third healer. We then had the pain of losing a tank at 6%, wiping at 4% but at least knowing that we can do this. And indeed, on the third attempt Nalorakk fell, marking our first Zul'Aman boss kill. We didn't kill him within the timer, so only one item of loot - which predictably enough turned out to be healing plate, with Mask of Introspection going to Rizzen.

After that we headed to Akil'zon. We had one wipe on the gauntlet trash, but after that we knew what to expect and got through it the second time. On Akil'zon himself, we had a 56% wipe on the first attempt, and then an early wipe on the second attempt when we didn't collapse quickly enough before the storm and lost a lot of people. We then had to call it a night, but the general feeling was that Akil'zon won't be too tough and should hopefully fall quite quickly once we're able to spend some time on him.

A quick summary of where we stand then:

- Prince Malchezzar killed 7 times.
- Nightbane killed 4 times.
- Netherspite, the last Karazhan hold-out boss, now killed 2 times.
- Nalorakk killed, the guild's first Zul'Aman kill.