Saturday night, we were hoping to get enough people together to run Heroic Obsidian Sanctum and at least one wing of Heroic Naxxramas. At 7pm server time, we had 41 people on, and almost all were Level 80. W00t!
It had been a while since we did a 25-man, so putting the raid together went rather slowly, but our raid leader was (rightfully so, in my judgment) trying to get the highest DPS possible into the fight. We used three very solid tanks—warrior and two paladins—and four healers: Holy Priest (yours truly), Paladin, Druid, and Shaman. DPS included 2 Hunters, 3 Mages, 2 Boomkins and a Feral Druid, 2 Ret Paladins, 3 Shamans, 2 Rogues, Warlock, Death Knight and Shadow Priest. I’ve never seen so many totems!
Since it was the first time in OS for many of us, we took it slow (relatively speaking) and didn’t even consider leaving any of the drakes up. *yawn* I didn’t time anything, but even with the RL explaining each part of the fight, and some confusion on where to go for the third drake, and a LONG time distributing loot (we use a DKP system, and a lot of our newer folks simply aren’t familiar with it yet), I still had 30 minutes on Prayer of Fortitude when we headed out for Naxx.
Did I mention our DPS was fairly awesome? Sartharion1 took out a few people on the first lava wave; once we knew how to handle that, it was easy…until right at the end when he (she?) tricked us and sent the same wave (from the right) twice in a row. Tricksy dragon! I put in a token bid on the T7 gloves, but they really aren’t that big an upgrade for me.
Then it was on to Naxx. Have I mentioned our DPS? Not to mention tanks who never lose aggro! (Well, the RL did get of a huge crit on a judgment and had aggro for about one hit from a trash mob, but the tank got it back immediately, and it was dead about 0.2 sec later.)
Anub’rhekan was almost a joke. We lost a couple people but for the most part it was a walk in the park. (Yes, I was one of those lost people, but a battle rez took care of that, and I was around for the finish. Damn scarabs ran right through me on one round, and I was dead in half a heartbeat. Ah well…stuff happens. I was fortunate enough to win the Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians from him, to replace my not-so-very Ancient Measuring Rod, as well as Chains of Adoration, replacing the Dragon Prow Amulet. Already it’s been a great night: TWO upgrades! (It helped that I was number 6 on the DKP list at the time, so I did have the points to spend.)
On to Grand Widow Faerlina and her merry band of…whatever. It took us a couple ugly wipes to figure this one out: The timing on the Shadow Priest’s Mind Control was a challenge, and we weren’t getting enough focused heals on the main tank during Faerlina’s Frenzy. The third time was the charm, though, and she went down like an express elevator. The tank never dropped below 50 percent (if he got that low), even though the SPriest disconnected just as he was (timely) casting Mind Control! That is how totally dominating our DPS was (not to mention some pretty awesome healing from all four of us, even if I do say so myself—together with some timely chain heals from the other shammies).
And oh my! The shinies…out of four epics that dropped, I could have used two: Faerlina’s Madness and Lost Jewel. The head piece went first, to the shadow priest, and I bid a couple times, but I really wanted the ring: For me, it’s the second-best ring currently in the game, even with (and partly because of) that critical strike rating. I finally got it for 100 DKP…whew! And…ouch. But that’s alright: We added 112 DKP to everyone’s total tonight.
Finally, we headed on to Maexxna, and I must say, it was a bit of an anticlimax. Webs were hacked, Maexxna was slashed, and even though we lost the main tank with about 10-12 percent to go, no one panicked. An OT grabbed the spider, and we continued to burn her down. Nothing exciting (to me) dropped from her, but I had pretty much decided to pass on anything else, no matter what, to give someone else a shot.
Everyone was pretty excited about our success, and many voiced their happiness in finally returning to 25-man content. I can’t wait until Sunday night to see how quickly we can take down Patchwerk!
