After farming the gear and perfecting our strategy we thought it would all be for naught as the fates seemed to have it in for us. First we had massive disconnects on the earlier attempts. Then the disconnects were compounded by the dreaded WAITING TO AUTHENTICATE from blizzard. So a 20 minutes later we finally got people online. Great, lets pull! But no, the wow gods stepped in and our vent server crashed.  So for the next 30 minutes we were doing attempts without voice communication. Finally with about 45 minutes left in raid vent came back up and we were able to put everything back together. On our third attempts after all the obstacles were removed, we stood over a dead demon.

Yup thats right. After weeks of attempts, more attempts at attempts than actual attempts, the first boss in Sunwell Plateau has been defeated. Once we had the right raid composition and a bit of practice it all just clicked. It was almost a flawless kill. Almost until we had one of our 3 tanks die just as the enrage hit which caused human form Kalecgos to almost die. But Kalecgos lived and we prevailed.

For the next few hours at least we can say we have beaten the game. More to follow.

Well, it took a few nights but the group known as The Illidari Council finally fell. It came down to a nailbiting finish as well. We had 3 deaths fairly early on to random stuff. But the attempt was going strong. That was until we got to 5% and our tank on Gathios the Shatterer died. Then it became a frantic race to finish them off before they finished us off. It was the longest 1% i think we have ever seen with so many of our dps dead. In the end one resto shaman was left alive. Or was he? The boss died and in his excitement he ran into the one remaining blizzard and quickly died. A double KO. But the loot was ours and the door to Illidan was unlocked by Akama.

Three attempts. Thats all it took to down the next boss on our way to Illidan. Mother Shahraz proved to be nothing more than a minor speed bump in our progression. With our shadow resist gear crafted on thursday night after defeating RoS, we took a trip back to Black Temple on Sunday. Our first attempt went fairly well and we all got a good feeling for the fight. On our second attempt things were going well until we had a really bad teleport right on top of the tanks and melee. Then we decided to kick her ass. We spent the rest of the night working on the Illidari Council. They are all that stand between us and Illidan.

After a few days of very, very close attempts Reliquary of Souls finally dies.  After perfecting phase 1 and 2 flawlessly, it was only a matter of time until phase 3 went the same.  It definitely turned out to be one of the more unique fights in the game, and personally I think there should be more bosses with almost zero armor.  With only two more small speed bumps before Illidan, the excitement is at an all time high and we look forward to beating the game, at least until the next patch.

The lesson for the night was stay alive. Easy in theory, but somehow it seemed so hard. The night started off barely survivng 2 minutes. Things slowly improved but never got close to killing him. Then on our last pull of the night, 10 minutes before the end of raid, it all just clicked. Our previous best attempt was 60%. And suddenly he was dead. Some of us learned something else as well, air burst is fun.

We havent tried to progress in Hyjal for a few weeks since we were working in Black Temple. But after we cleared our first 3 farm bosses in the zone and realized we had almost 2 hours left in the raid we decided tonight was the night for another boss kill. Had a certain rogue not gone afk just before the last wave of trash, and stayed away the entire boss fight, we wouldnt have wiped at 1% and would have 1 shot the boss. But we did and had to reclear the trash and try again. This time he was no match for us and we easily killed him.

After some time off for the Holidays and New Years we are once again progressing through Black Temple. After a few nights of people learning to kill their constructs we finally had an easy time of it. Overall a fun fight that should be easily repeatable.