The Death of an Old God

Last night, my 10-man “achievement team” cleared Ulduar for the first time.

We knew from the moment we zoned in — okay, we knew after a quick pre-Flame Leviathan conference in /officer chat (in which Keaton made the executive decision, because I was channeling my inner Libra) — that we wanted to eschew the early achievements and hard modes and spend as much time as possible on Yogg-Saron.  Our 25-man raid had come within a few harrowing percent of defeating the Old God on Saturday night, so the 10 of us who regrouped on Sunday were very eager to see him die.

Spurned onward by the increasingly desperate wails of the duplicitous “Sara,” we sped through the outer ring of the Titan citadel — evading the Flame Leviathan’s orbital defense system, deconstructing faster, bypassing Ignis and Razorscale and even skirting around the Assembly of Iron. 

(“Shall we slay the Council tonight?” Ouchilicious asked, peering around the corner with her frosty eyes. “They’ll keep,” our leader replied with a shake of his massive, ursine head. Even in bear form, with his mouth perpetually agape, Keaton was a portrait of Tauren stoicism.)

Kologarn was easily disarmed.  We wiped once on Auriaya, when pushback from the guardian swarm caused me to miss a heal (sorry, bear!), but each of the Keepers was a clean one-shot.  Even Vezax fell with little difficulty, as our protection paladin switched over to his holy offspec to assist with healing while our feral druid main tanked the General.  (None of this fancified DK-cooldown tanking for us!  And, yes, a holy priest and I two-healed the entire rest of the instance.  /flex)

It took us a few tries to master Yogg-Saron: Phase 1.  We accidentally killed a Guardian on top of the raid (on the very first cloud-spawn, no less!), but after that embarassing mistake — and subsequent wipe — we serious'd up and pushed into Phase 2.

It wasn't elegant, not by any stretch of the imagination.  Ranged DPS — delivered by a mage, elemental shaman and shadow priest — was excellent; our casters controlled the tentacles beautifully and maintained their sanity throughout the fight.  Melee DPS was a slightly less coordinated.  Out of habit, all four of our melee took portals into Yogg-Saron's brain, which left me stranded outside.  The feral druid and two Death Knights managed well enough on their own, but — lacking the hybrids' survivability — the leather-clad rogue fell and spent the rest of the battle facedown at the floor.  That freed a spot for me on subsequent brain phases, but I was accosted by a tentacle and missed my next portal anyway.

Fortunately, Keaton and the surviving Death Knight (we lost the other one at some point, but I'm not sure how) handled the brain just fine without a healer (or my bloodlust) — and before we knew it, we were in Phase 3 for the very first time! 

Then there were way too many adds and an insane mind-controlled kitty clawing his way through the raid (bad druid! no cookie!) ... and suddenly, amidst all the chaos and uncertainty, Yogg Saron was dead.

... and then there was drama, rendering our victory bittersweet.  >.<  But I'll chronicle that another time.  Between job interviews, my newest obsession (saaaaaaronite!), and frantic cleaning in advance of my best friend's visit next month — and my boyfriend's two weeks later — I haven't had much time to blog.  I may be a bit down, but I promise: I'm not out!