Thursday and Friday are the BoT raid nights. The raid group is well established with nearly all the same folks each week. For the past two weeks, though, we've had healer absences for real life reasons. Our pally healer, Gn, missed last Friday and was unable to make it for either night this week. We were also missing our priest healer, Pl, this week was well. The fill ins have been Fl, a really superb pally healer, and Sd, a holy priest alt of one of our regulars.
On Thursday night we took down Halfus and the Twins, single shotting both of them. We had gotten a very late start (at least two raiders had work related delays), so we were making up some lost time. Wild has been totally shut out of gear drops in BoT, not seeing a single thing - ever - that he could use. But on Thursday was one item that the Twins dropped that Wild would love to have, and that was [Therelion's Mirror], an i359 +int trinket. Wild uses the +spi i359 trinket, but would really like to swap that out with the +int one. Wild and a DPS rolled on it. Wild lost. Not even close. Sigh.
We banged on the Ascendant Council for awhile, but when we struggled early I think it took some wind out of our sails. We had come to within 2% of beating these guys three times last week, so we had high hopes for a quick kill that were just as quickly dashed. We never got close this time around.
We still had Friday, though. We again got off to a late start, late enough that Wild had gone to Hyjal to do his dailies while he waited. Wild was able to complete the Hyjal dailies and the Molten Front dailies before getting the call that the raid was about to start - with just nine raiders.
We nine manned the trash mobs and quickly set up for the Ascendant Council. We had a dearth of regulars on Friday - the two absent healers, of course, but also two DPSers who were new to BoT, but at least we got to ten raiders.
The Council, just as a reminder, is a three phase fight that engages five total Bosses. Wild, who the raid leader seems to have decided is always going to be doing dispel duties, was one of the two dispellers assigned in addition to tank healing and raid backup. We weren't happy with our performance Thursday night, and we had some new raiders as well. Maybe we could blame those things when, on our first attempt, we wiped before we even got out of the first phase. We could be in for a long night.
The raid leader, Bd, was undaunted. He went over some issues with the raid, and I'm sure he was whispering some raiders as well. Wild has been on the receiving end of Bd's whispers in the past. Getting that whisper means he saw something that he wanted clarification about or, more often, felt needed correcting, which he always does privately. Wild always came out of those discussions better informed and prepared, and it's always a positive experience. That said, Wild always feels a bit relieved when he's NOT one of those given special attention. Wild did not get a whisper.
We started our second attempt. Wild was getting Waterlogged way more than usual, and it was pure irritation having to run through the fire every time. Wild, who was dispelling Heart of Ice, actually got it himself, so Wild had to run into the melee to give them the buff before clearing it. Wild usually doesn't have to run around that much in the first phase, but he was plenty busy this time around.
We slipped into phase two, the tanks picking up the two new Bosses smoothly. We knew we would have some trouble with the new raiders in phase 2. Raiders are constantly on the move in this phase, trying to get to a tornado or a gravity well before the BIG AoE hits while hoping they don't get a Lightning Rod, which forces them to run away from the raid, hopefully not without the buff they need.
A raider did go down, and Wild battle rezzed him, not really even noticing who it was. The two raiders monitoring the health of the two Bosses were calling out DPS switches so that the damage to both would be even, a critical issue leading into phase 3. The bosses reached 25% at the same time, and phase 3 began with the Monstrosity opening up on the raid. At this point it's a DPS race and much of the damage this boss does can't be avoided and only gets worse as the fight goes on. Kill it or die, and do it fast.
On every fight where we've reached this point, we battled gamely and ferociously, but the longer it went the more Wild could see we were losing the race. Eventually healers would run dry, unable to heal past the rising damage, and DPSers just not able to push enough damage on the boss.
On this fight Wild did not get that feeling. The first two phases had gone well enough that Wild had an innervate available for phase 3, which helped his own mana situation as the fight went on. We also had, for the first time against this encounter, a Bloodlust to use at the start of the phase. It made a significant difference in the damage being done. The lightning bolts that could jump between raiders was an issue, but we were able to keep raider health steady as we were spread out much better than we've been in the past. We were only just beginning to feel some pressure when Wild checked the Boss's health and saw it was already at 5%. Wild still had half his mana and the raid was not yet in extremis. We just needed to finish this up without any last minute mistakes.
We did, and we had our first kill of the Ascendant Council.
There was some new trash to learn leading up to the final boss, Cho'gal. Most of those mobs were in the same room as Cho'gal, who sits on a raised throne and glowered at us as we killed off his minions. The mobs were easier than the ones we faced leading to the Council. We were ready for the big guy. Coming up in Part 2.
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