Monday (26 Jul) - Icecrown Citadel 25

Monday (26 Jul) - Icecrown Citadel 25

I guess I've been retired long enough for the days to start running together. I think both the Mrs and I sort of lost track of the days when the big RV trip we'd been planning suddenly got placed on hold. What week is this? Mery failed to show up for her Monday night pvp, standing up Lao and Sis, when my days got mixed up. Mery will have to make it up to them.

I'd also promised a recounting of the ICC25 guild run on Saturday (and I can just say "guild" now instead of having to state which guild). The run was scheduled for 3pm, but when Wild logged on at about a quarter till a good chunk of the guild was in Blackwing Lair helping some guildies get the achievement for completing it. It was almost 4pm before the BWL run was completed. Wild's past ICC25 runs with MM have always been fun, but in general have not been that productive. I looked through the achievements of several guildies but could find no one who had defeated a boss in ICC25 beyond the first wing. Should be interesting.

With that in mind, Wild was pretty happy at how quickly we were able to pull together a full 25 man raid. We had 21 guildies plus four non-guildies, all of whom were friends of the guild. Wild also made a decision before the run to spend 30 frost badges to get his i264 idol. Wild has been wearing his i245 idol for a long time because the newer one was only a modest upgrade and there was always something else better to spend those badges on. Well, from a healing spec perspective, there just isn't anything left that Wild needed that required frost badges. Wild has been wanting to put some more effort into his moonkin gear, so buying that last upgrade to his healing gear will allow Wild to spend his future badges on his DPS spec. Wild still needs an upgrade to his i245 healing bracers, and would like to upgrade his necklace and one trinket which are both i251 items. Adding the i264 idol to Wild's gear increased his gear score to 5999.

For the ICC25 run we had three tanks and five healers. Our raid leader, Bd, was not tanking for this run. He was on his druid and was one of the healers. In addition to the two druids, we had two of our best priests as well as our #1 shaman healer.

We cleared through the initial trash mobs without any problems. I couldn't say that for the last couple of ICC25 runs Wild was on, so this was a very good start.

Lord Marrowgar loomed, and we attacked him with gusto. I think we surprised ourselves when Marrowgar went down on our first attempt. I have to admit that the buff to ICC had increased last week to 30%, up from the 25% prior to that. The buff does help in beating the ICC bosses, but everyone still has to be on the ball, know the fight, and not make mistakes to succeed.

Marrowgar dropped the Frigid Eye ring, the one Wild had lusted after on the AH at 12k gold. Wild wanted it, but he didn't absolutely need it. Wild had comparable rings (both his rings were i264), but the Eye had more +haste on it, and Wild was trying to max out his haste stat. But Bd's druid was wearing an i232 ring, and frankly passing on that ring so that Bd or another needy raider could get it helped Wild more than if Wild got it. Wild passed, and Bd ended up winning it. It was a huge upgrade for him.

Lady Deathwhisper came next, and she also fell on our first try. The Gunship came next, and because it was ICC25, and there would be many more raiders jumping to the enemy ship than we have in ICC10, Wild would not be able to heal from the rail of his own ship this time. Wild would be healing the jumpers (along with two other healers) and would have to jump to the enemy ship along with them. Wild has done the jump before, though, so I wasn't that worried about it. There were two tanks jumping as well, and one of them had not done it before. We had some rough spots during the battle, and one of the jumping tanks died on the rail of the enemy ship. Wild got a battle rez on him, but he had to wait until the jump phase to accept it so that he could have some protection. Wild jumped right to him on the next jump and kept him healed long enough to escape back to our ship. We beat the Gunship on our first try.

That brought us to Deathbringer Saurfang. For most of the raid, it was their first look at him in ICC25. While we set up for the fight someone talked to the npc that starts the event. There is almost two minutes of talking between npcs before the fight would start. The first time you listen to it, it's really interesting, with a lot of lore. Now, those of us who have heard it over and over just wanted it done with. While we were waiting, Bd whispered Wild. "So, you join the guild and suddenly we are burning through ICC25!" Wild sent back an "Aw shucks, thanks! but I think our success has a lot more to do with the great group of raiders the raid leader put together - ie, you!"

Deathbringer Saurfang went down on our first attempt. The first wing was toast, and we we still moving forward. The second wing trash fell, including mini-bosses Stinky and Precious. Festergut waited for us, and for many in the raid it was their first look at the filthy, odorous monstrosity in either ICC25 or ICC10.

Bd spent a good bit of time going over the fight, and then turned us loose to give it a try. For a first attempt it went exceedingly well. We had two raiders die, but Wild and Bd got them both battle rezzed, and we battled Festergut for a very long time. Too long, in fact, and we reached the end of the enrage timer and Festergut then wiped us.

We set up for the next attempt, with our only worry being whether we had enough DPS to bring him down before the enrage timer hit. Figuring that now everyone had seen the fight at least once, our DPS should rise on our second attempt. It did, and Festergut fell.

Five bosses down in ICC25 was an outstanding accomplishment for the guild. It was 6:30pm, and I was already in trouble with the Mrs for being late to dinner and wondering if Wild would have to bow out of the raid before it was over. Other folks were checking the time as well, however, and we eventually decided to call it for the night.

In other news Lost's Tuesday morning sales were 16g. Prices at both the Horde and Alliance auction houses were very high after a big weekend. Lost's sales may go down this week since there were very few bargains and Lost has not yet been able to build up any stock to take advantage of those prices. Even Happy was being cautious, though, because those prices will definitely fall by large margins once more stock starts filling up the AH.