Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday, I have to say, was fucking amazing. And, skeptical though I was about that certain Paladin, he/she really came through for us. So I'm glad he/she is learning to play. I am probably a lot harder on him/her here than I should be, but I guess I just have high expectations about people who sign up to go with us in raids. Blarg.

Anyway, Saturday. We whipped through Maiden, the chess event, and Prince like it was nothing. Dusk finally got the Tier 4 helm from Prince (she looks very sexy in it XD). After realizing we had near an hour left of our set time, we decided to say fuck it and go wail on Nightbane.

And what do you know? We managed to take him out! On try number two; though, try number one really shouldn't count as Nightbane aggroed weirdly and we wiped in ten seconds. Our group has really made a lot of progress. I'm very proud of us.

Dusk managed to score some sweet loots other than the Tier 4 helm: Garona's Signet Ring and Chestguard of the Conniver. Her DPS gear is getting a lot better now, especially with the addition of the Midnight Legguards that dropped from Quagmirrian in Heroic Slave Pens.

Dusk also hit exalted with the Violet Eye and was finally able to switch over to the tanking ring, bumping her armor in Dire Bear form up to about 27k. Happyness abounds.

Sunday was pretty awesome as well. We somehow one-shotted High King Maulgar (my pauldrons did not drop, again), though it was a bit touch-and-go the last 50% of his life. Because we were able to get through it so quickly, we had about two hours to hammer away at Gruul, even dealing with the respawns again to give it a few more goes. And finally, we succeeded in taking him down! It was pretty amazing--I think the key was that Chutz (warrior, MT) and Sounder (druid [my personal idol, lol], OT/hurtful strike tank) were able to stay alive the entire time. Broog (warrior) and I were to be backup tanks in case one of them went down, but it never worked as good as it should have. Once, it worked out, but the problem is for this fight, Dusk have to do it in her DPS gear. Dusk cannot tank in DPS gear. She goes splat. Gruul's hurtful strikes did somewhere around 10k each time he hit, and she only had 14k health with the DPS gear in bear form. So she'd get knocked down to practically nothing and then get hit again too quickly to get healed up. I think the healers would have been able to heal through it fine if there was no one else but Dusk and the other tank, haha.

Anyway, it was an amazing fight. We had five hunters in the group, which was awesome. We also had five healers, which is super awesome. I think we also got really lucky on the shatters and very few people had died by the end of the fight.

So, good stuff this weekend! Can't wait to put some screenshots up.

In other news, I've taken to hitting Heroic Slave Pens with a few people from Syk. We blow through it pretty easily. It's really nice. And great for rep. Dusk is about 5,000 rep from exalted with Cenarion Expedition (need... Earthwarden...). And also, due to Nightbane and Gruul's deaths, she is now "attuned" for Serpentshrine Cavern. That is to say, of course, that it was unnecessary, but hey, I am amused by it.

Whoops.

I went on vacation, forgot to update this. Goooo meeee.

Since the 17th, our group managed to take out Aran (!) *and* Prince Malchezaar (!!!) on the 18th. It was, simply put, amazing. We had a really good party that day, I think. Prince dropped the Tier 4 head piece token, but our holy priest beat me on the roll (and I was glad for that--she's got to be my favorite healer of the group). We've downed Prince again since then, and he dropped a different head piece token. Here's hoping that he drops mine this week!

Starting last week, I've been raiding on all three nights (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) with our group. I'm really glad to not be missing anything anymore. I like the group of people I raid with (for the most part) as well. There is a paladin that has been trying to do Kara with us that really needs to learn what the hell he/she is doing, but other than that... yeah.

Due to the disaster that was our group this past Tuesday, we only downed Attumen and Moroes. So we still have to kill Maiden and then catch up on everything else. I would really like if Shard of the Virtuous drops from Maiden tonight. That'd be very cool. And would make up for the shit that happened Tuesday.

Updated List of Phat Lootz from Karazhan:
- Violet Badge (It's a quest reward, but I love it so very, very much)
- Bladed Shoulderpads of the Merciless
- Headdress of the High Potentate
- Handguards of Malorne (Restoration Tier 4 gloves XD)

I recently started raiding Gruul's Lair with everyone on Sunday evenings. It's been fun trying to learn the fights. XD Gruul's Lair works thusly: there are about three trash mobs, either brutes or priests. As soon as you kill the first mob, you start the one hour timer to kill High King Maulgar (once Maulgar is dead, the respawns won't happen, of course). So, you get through the mobs. High King Maulgar is flanked by four other ogres: Krosh Firehand, mage; Olm the Summoner, warlock; Kiggler the Crazed, shaman; and Blindeye the Seer, priest. The kill order, as it were, is the priest and the warlock first (in that order). From there, melee proceeds to attacking Gruul (and the shaman, too), while ranged DPS concentrates on downing the shaman and the mage. Once those four are down, everyone pretty much focuses on Maulgar.

When Maulgar's at half life, he starts doing this weird berserk whirlwind thing. We have everyone but the main tank group up near the entrance to the big cave Maulgar resides in, and then we have all the other tanks stand in front of the group. Maulgar, when doing said weird thing, starts spinning back and forth between the MT and the group, so it's the other tank's job to pull aggro (taunts work, yay) and bring Maulgar back to the MT. It's tricky, but it works.

Maulgar drops the Tier 4 shoulder token. Which is great, but we use Suicide Kings for that fight, so I have yet to get it. XD The next time we fight Maulgar, however, I will be pretty much at the top of the list for the token, and will totally suicide for that. XD

There are five or six mobs between us and Gruul by that point, and they also have the same one hour timer. We have yet to kill Gruul--I think the closest we've come is 21%. A lot of that fight is luck. Gruul does a kind of knockback which literally sends everyone flying through the air. When you land, you have about five to ten seconds to get away from as many people as possible. Gruul then "shatters" everyone, and the amount of damage is based on how many people you are near (if none, no damage, if three, maybe 9,000, etc.). There are also points in the battle where he causes a cave-in of the ceiling and you need to get all the melee out of there so they don't have a stupid death (I know from personal experience on that one, sadly).

It's tough, but we're getting really close, I feel. I bet we can do it soon!

Wishlist for Gruul's Lair:
Maulgar:
- Malefic Mask of Shadows
- Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi
- Pauldrons of the Fallen Defender (which yield: Mantle of Malorne)

Gruul:
- Cowl of Nature's Breath
- Teeth of Gruul
- Eye of Gruul
- Gronn-stitched Girdle
- Leggings of the Fallen Defender (which yield: Greeves of Malorne)

Gruul drops a lot of healing stuff, good grief. Also: Shuriken of Negation? Totally awesome.