(I know, I know. I missed a few weeks – I’ve been absent a few Saturdays due to IRL business. I don’t remember a lot from previous weeks, but I’ll try to fill in important notes where I can)

Time for our second Raid Roundup!

April 24-30

I don’t remember much, except for Portal Keeper being a struggle. Positioning was a big issue for everybody that stayed with the boss. Lots of people being hit by lasers.

Logs: April 25, April 28, April 30.

May 1 – 7

Portal Keeper continued to be a struggle / DPS check. Eonar and Felhounds are on farm. I was absent for Saturday’s raid, so no commentary from me.

Logs: May 2, May 7 (alt night)

May 8-14

Raid Lead Comments: We still need to really nail down the mines on High Command. Lots of people are not watching their feet. We also seriously lack the DPS to take this down efficiently – partially because people are dying so early. This is also the first week where we proceeded to wipe a dozen times against Varimathras. Tanks – PLEASE be aware of your positioning. This fight is 95% you. We also had a few wipes due to DPS not understanding the rot-spread mechanic.

(On a side note, May 9th we had a bomb-ass demon hunter for a while named Kath. Tank DHs, check out the logs if you’re curious to improve!)

This is the first week where I started to analyze Potion of Prolonged Power usage. You can see usage for all fights on May 12th here.

That being said, we got our first Varimathras kill this week on May 12! Congrats everyone!

Logs: May 9, May 12,

May 15 – 21:

High Command was a struggle again. Too many dying too early, too many people stepping in bombs. Imonar was an issue as well…DPS are not running their Sleep Canisters away from others fast enough.

Logs: May 16, May 21 (alt night)

Are you a tank or a healer looking to get better gear and join us for raids? Good news! We’re in desperate need of regular guild healers and tanks for heroic progression, and we’re looking to fast-track the gear levels of those who are interested in filling those spots. So if you’re already leveling a non-DPS, or are thinking of starting one, now is the best time to do it! Let one of the Guild Leaders know that that’s your intent, and we’ll do our best to blast you through mythics, LFRs, and more.

In a new, hopefully weekly content update, I’ll go over some of the successes, failures, and exciting moments from the previous week’s raids. It also includes some thoughts from the Raid Leads, so be sure to look for strategy comments!

Wednesday: Heroic Farming

New to this week, we’ve started running Heroic progression on Wednesdays. We also recently extended raid times by an hour (3 hour raids rather than 2). While my computer crashed for the first hour, I was present for the last two kills. Raid Lead consensus: is important on Eonar to focus down the Fel Lords and Obfuscator’s ASAP – we had a wipe as a result of an ignored mob! Portal Keeper went well also. Great job on the interrupt rotation and placement of fire! As a result of teamwork and dedication, we downed 4 bosses in Antorus. This was awesome news – it meant that we’d be facing all-new content for the Guild come Saturday, our traditional progression time.

Saturday: Heroic Progression

Antoran High Command

Antoran High Command went down in two pulls (with some outsider help, admittedly. We’ll have a better gauge of our DPS success this week). We still need to be cognizant of the mines, but rotations between bosses and our Pod People all did a great job. Raid Leads agree that we need to focus adds much faster and remain vigilant of where we put out feet. Much like facing the Coven, being careful is more important than DPSing – rotate your camera, stare at your feet, and make sure to dodge what’s on the ground! Also, don’t be afraid to snuggle up to the other DPS and heals. We need to be stacked tight.

Imonar

Imonar was almost a relaxing break after the hectic fight of High Command. DPS did a bunch better job spreading out to avoid sleep-canistering the raid, and our bridge transitions were about as smooth as they can be. Continue to spread in phase 1 as much as possible, and we’ll have smoother transitions into phase 2!

Kin’garoth

Kin’garoth, as expected, gave us a lot of trouble. In the end, we elected a new strategy, keeping the DPS more split between teams than we had previously. This meant DPS reached adds faster, which meant downing them faster. We need to focus adds harder, and may end up being more picky about DPS minimums for this fight in the future. Otherwise, everyone did a good job dodging Ruiner, and tanks were excellent at clearing the purple boulders.

Varimathras

We ended Saturday on Varimathras, and we never got him lower than 50% (4 pulls we didn’t get him under 75%). Mostly, this is a boss positioning issue. Tanks homework this week is to watch tank PoV videos to make sure he’s being placed properly. DPS did a good job at their mechanics – no complaints this week!

Monday: Alt Night

On a lighter note, we had our Alt Night on Monday. We welcomed 3 new characters into the ranks – Thelovefool, Razarnlok (Furrybuddy’s alt), and Dotsmoredots. We give credit to the true newbies for having a minimal difficulty adjusting to Normal mode mechanics and not making the same mistakes twice. Each walked away with several new pieces of gear, including a legendary drop for Lovefool. With any luck they’ll continue to be assets to our Normal runs until they can join us for Heroic. We downed 5 bosses, including Argus (though he gave us a few problems as a result of so many being on alts!). In fact, we downed Argus with only 1 or 2 people left standing. Now that’s cutting it close! Raid Lead reminders: stack right on the boss’s butt. Cuddle up to your raid buddies, and make sure to pop defensives when you have bursts.

Congrats to everyone for another successful raid week!

Thanks to everyone who showed up and kicked butt tonight! We got 3 more guild credit boss kills on Eonar, Felhounds, and Portal Keeper.

Remember, if you want to come with us next week, read over the rules & requirements in Discord and follow the instructions in the Announcements channel!

Just a reminder to all our raiders: We have a few new Rules & Regulations you need to check out before tomorrow. After you’ve read them, go to the Raid Announcements Discord channel for further instructions. Finally, make sure you’ve watch all the assigned Raider Homework videos before Saturday.

On account of the holiday weekend, we might not have a full raid for either Saturday (progression) or Sunday (old raids), but we will have alternate activities planned if that’s the case.