In a post last week, I mentioned how we were 11/12 in current tier raid bosses, and how I felt like we hadn’t accomplished our goals.
Now there is a huge weight off my shoulders. In preparation for tonight, we cleared the first five BWD bosses on Thursday, setting us up for a big finale to the current tier of raiding.
Our goal: in a single night before patch 4.2 lands, learn the Nefarian fight, practice it, and defeat him.
Our result: success!
It was a really tricky night. We ended up with a very melee heavy raid with only a hunter and a mage for ranged dps. That meant that pushing two crackles in Phase 2 was out of the question. Instead, we decided to go with no crackles in Phase 2 and pushed quickly to Phase 3, starting Phase 3 with Nef at about 75%.
At our normal raid quitting time we had gotten Nef under 10% and we could taste victory. Typically we are strict about ending raids on time. However, that quitting time is largely because of me, being the old man of the group and also being on the east coast of the US, and usually having to wake up at 5:30 AM. Today, though, I am on vacation, and so I gave my ok to push on and the rest of the raid enthusiastically agreed.
A couple of attempts later, we managed to burn him to the ground.
As old as my guild is, this is the first time that we have cleared all raid content before it was nerfed or we outgeared it. Its a huge moment of success in the history of the guild. Normally I don’t brag on the guild in the blog, but I’m exploding with pride and I just have to let it out.
Most of us got our fancy new titles, and we were also able to purchase our Dark Phoenix Mounts.
Now we can happily move on to Firelands raids, satisfied with our current progress.
I also feel like this is a success for casual guilds. The current raid tier has been widely discussed as being too hard for casuals. My guild does have a core of pretty intense players, and that core is the engine that drives our raid team. But overall we are a very casual bunch. Our raid composition changes from week to week. We have no attendance requirements. We /roll for loot. We have a mostly open admission policy with no applications. We have people from age 12 to 60+, and maintain a family-friendly atmosphere.
Because of this, I take pride in our success. We’re certainly not the only casual guild to succeed. Seeing as this is the only guild I have ever been in, its the only one that matters to me.
Happy patch day, everyone!