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Hellfire Council was the next fight on the agenda, and we realised early on it would take us some time to get used to the changes of the fight and to do it right. We made a lot of small changes along the way, in regards to positioning and how to deal with Bloodboils. After several wipenights we had gotten the hang of the fight and were coming up towards the finishing line, without getting all the way. Then came the ilvl upgrade-patch this Wednesday. And today we oneshotted them! Then we went onwards to Kilrogg Deadeye, and killed him too in five tries. Item level upgrades clearly made the difference! Gorefiend next!

We had some time last reset to look at Kormrok, and noticed that he didn’t seem as difficult as Iron Reaver. Today we were back for more, finally with a full guildgroup. At first it had seemed like the final part, when he reaches the purple pool was teh tricky part. Then we changed where to put Heroism, to have it almost at raidstart, but after the first leap; when everyone has trinkets and cooldowns. Turned out the difference was big and we didn’t really reach the tricky part at the purple pool anymore. Kormrok dead! Council next!

Next on the list was Iron Reaver. This would turn out to be a boss we would have problems with, mostly because we had a hard time finding pugs, but also because some of us took a long time to learn to watch out for the barrages, blitzes and artilleries. Since we had to pug to make up the numbers there was always a maximum amount of tries we had before someone had to leave, and that made us for example have the boss on 0% and then have to end the raid and wait another reset to try again. Then finally we had her! Iron Reaver dead! Kromrok next!

Heroic HFC is cleared and off to mythic modes we go. We did a quick peek at Hellfire Assault mythic a few weeks ago, before we really had started working on Archimonde. Now we’re back again, with the help of pugs to make up the numbers. Generally having the 20 people was the hardest part of this encounter, the rest was a lot easier than we remembered. One group left, one group right, meet in middle, pew pew, win! Hellfire Assault down, 12 more mythic bosses to go!

Only one heroic boss left in Hellfire Citadel, and it was Archimonde. Considering how long the fight was, and considering that we hadn’t found it easy to figure out on normal mode either, we thought this would probably take a while to get down. And that was true. For a short while we wiped in phase one or two, and then for a long while we wiped in phase three. As soon as we hit 25 % we started to die one by one. We tried to have a third tank, or a hunter to taunt the infernals. We tried hero in different places. We planned for the suicide squad to be the third group or the fourth. But the big tactical change we did that actually worked was when we decided to not send any healer into the nether, and instead keep them all outside. After that decision the tries got better, and several times we would have killed him with some luck. Then Blizzard made a nerf of Archimonde for smaller size groups, and the next time we saw him we oneshotted him! Oh well! Archimonde down, mythic next!

Observe: The art-department took this screenshot prepull of the actual kill. With so much practise on this fight you can also see that Rvp is already where he shouldn’t be.

Xhul’horac dead yesterday and next on the agenda was Tyrant Velhari. We had changed our plan in phase two from being loosely spread to stacking by the boss, but otherwise we were just treating her like on normal. Well, it turned out that there was not a lot else to this fight. We only did a few pulls and she was dead! Onwards to Mannoroth. We quickly noticed that the damage was a lot higher than on normal and that the tanks had to do their part perfectly. However it didn’t take us many pulls to feel like we were almost there. And then towards the end of the raidtime, there Mannoroth was, dead on the ground! Two bosses down on the same night! Archimonde next!

With Luria still on vacation the team went onwards to Xhul’horac. The tactics weren’t much different from normal, only that unlike normal we had to actually perform them. Green pools left and purple pools right, with Teldryn as the cleaner for when things started looking too messy. At first it took a little getting used to the fight, but soon it was clear it wasn’t that hard. On the second raid things looked really good, and it wasn’t long until we killed him! Xhul’horac dead, Tyrant Velhari next!

Observe: The art department would like to clarify that even if the screenshot appears to be showing Teldryn playing Twister while wielding red plastic swords, it’s in fact a screenshot of Teldryn clearing zones while wielding red very cool swords.

Next on the agenda was Socrethar the Eternal. We had been here before and gotten slightly overwhelmed by the second phase, and then decided to go try for Zakuun instead. But now we were done with him and were coming back for more. With Luria away on holiday and Dailyleaf and Thyrah raidleading, we started getting better tries; mainly because Thyrah was getting better at driving the robot. And then finally we had him down! Good job everyone!

After Shadowlord Iskar or aim was Socrethar the Eternal. As we started working on that fight we felt it was a big step up in difficulty, as compared to the previous bosses, and it didn’t really feel like we were particularly close to a kill. The following reset we decided to go look at Fel Lord Zakuun instead, to get an idea if that encounter was easier. And it certainly felt like it was! Even if we were initially messing up in both phases we got our tactics together pretty quickly and then it was just a matter or trying until we got it right. Towards the end the enrage was giving us some problems but once we figured that out as well it wasn’t very hard! Fel Lord Zakuun is dead, Socrethar is next!

Shadowlord Iskar was next on the agenda! To begin with we had troubles with who should hold the orb when. Then it was the case of killing the phase two adds in good time before winds started blowing again. However along with progressing on the fight we also had the issue of where to spend our raidtime, in normal mode to get down the last bosses and get tier items, or in heroic? We decided in favour of the normal bosses, and so our heroic progress the second reset of HFC was completely stationary. This week we were back with determination to at least get down Iskar. With some modifications to our tactics, soon we were improving (even though we kept sacrificing Soulone to winds). As soon as we made it through the last second phase we ha the kill! Good job, now onwards to Socrethar!

It’s Sunday and we’re back for more heroic bosses! On the Wednesday normal run we had killed two more bosses; Kilrogg Deadeye and Gorefiend. Tonight we were hoping to get a closer look at them on heroic mode. And so we did! We had quite a few wipes on Kilrogg Deadeye for all sorts of reasons, but then we killed him and we moved on to Gorefiend. Since we had had quite a few wipes on him on the normal raid, we were dreading him a little. However it turned out we had gotten all the practise we needed! A few wipes was all it took and then he was dead! Two bosses down today, and tomorrow we might do normal modes instead of heroic; so more to come next week.

Hellfire Citadel is out and immediately we’re dealing with the issue of where to spend our time first. Should we go through normal mode first or should we start heroic? And if we start both, how much time do we give each? We decided to start with normal mode on an extra raid on the Wednesday and then swap to heroic today on the Thursday. Yesterday we killed the first six bosses on normal. Today we expected things to be a little harder; but it was only slightly so. We had some wipes before we got things right, especially on the Iron Reaver, but in the end we killed four bosses! Hellfire Assault, Iron Reaver, Kormrok and Hellfire High Council are all dead! On Sunday we go back for more!