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The tactics of the mythic Gruul encounter seemed easy enough. We immediately found good positions in the room to avoid fireballs, and decided on when to cleave what group with a two tank tactic. The theory was good, the only things letting us down was the execution; either that something happened with the tanks, or that we started dying, one by one. In general though the fight felt very doable from the start, and we came close a few times without complete success. And then finally we wrapped it up and killed him! Next reset we get a new patch, so next boss will be in Hellfire Citadel!

Observe: The art-department had an issue with the zoom, and what was supposed to be an “action screenshot” of Gruul smashing Thyrah into pulp, ended up a close-up.

Since the patch is soon over we decided to end tonight’s raid by taking one more trip back to Highmaul, and rekilling Kargath and the Twin Ogron, for the new raiders that weren’t there in the past. When we were done we had some time left for The Butcher. We had visited him before and realised the fight became really hard towards the end with all the adds. This time we were outgearing the fight a little so it wasn’t really any great feat, but indeed we killed him! Since Highmaul is still current content it still feels worth reporting!

After spending several resets on Hans’gar and Franzok mythic we had finally gotten to a point where we didn’t have to pug anyone. We had a lucky wave of recruits that ended up being mostly keepers, and the ones that we ended up saying no to still made good additions during our progress on Hans’gar and Franzok. What can be said of the progress is that we wiped on everything that can be wiped on, but mainly the stamping press phase. We put heroism in that phase as well to get it over with as fast as possible! In the end we had all had enough practise that things started to come together. Finally Hans and Franz bit the dust! Good job everyone, it was truly a group effort!

After killing them we went over to Flamebender to have a look and see if she was as easy as suggested. A few wipes later she was also dead! Two mythic kills in one night, yay us!

Observe: The screenshot above was taken before the fight, when Hans’gar and Franzok were still warming up.

Darmac down and next on the list is Oregorger. We had already decided to go with the tactic of 10 controlled rolls where everyone perform the same pattern in phase 2 every time. Early on it was evident that it was going to be a quite easy fight, as long as we got a big enough group together to actually go mythic. After some struggles with cancelled raids we finally had a night with some Oregorger time. We had already done phase one well, and phase two well; but on different tries. After a few tries it was looking pretty good, and then finally we killed him! Oregorger dead! Hans’gar and Franzok is next!

Observe: The art-department had a mishap when developing the bosskill picture of Oregorger. Instead they’ve opted to use an older picture taken a few years back, when Oregorger was heavily into gangsta rap and pimpin, yo.

After killing Blackhand there was nowhere to go but mythic. Unfortunately we had managed to lose a few raiders since January, mainly to breaks, and not managed to successfully recruit to replace them. Meaning we were in dire straights as far as numbers went! Luckily we managed to pug a few very nice people and have a go at Beastlord Darmac mythic anyway, getting him down to 7% on the first night. A bit wiser to the fight we came back the following resets. We realised that focusing down adds fast was very important in the end of the fight, and then in the final push, to just ignore them and kill the boss. The last percents were the hardest, as we knew they would be. But after a few very close tries, one at 0%, we finally we managed to get him down. Yay! One mythic down, more to go.

Luria and Keíko managed to squeeze their way into the picture as well!

One more boss left in heroic Blackrock Foundry and it’s Blackhand. Early on we noticed it would take quite a few wipes to get things right, as we kept struggling with phase two. One question was if we should kill the Siegemaker as the next one spawns, so there’s always some place to hide with marks. Or if we should kill it before it spawns fire on the floor. In the beginning we were trying the first version, but then we settled on the second. We also did changes in who should go up on the balcony, and who should kite the Siegemaker, and how many Siegemakers we should try to kill, and when to pop hero. Basically we adjusted everything that could be adjusted in phase two. Once we started getting to phase three it seemed we had passed the hard part. It seemed like it would just take a few more pulls to get him down, and then suddenly he died! Blackhand dead, heroic cleared!

The art department forgot to screenshot the boss, and took a post-kill picture of the raid instead!

We had heard rumours that Blast Furnace was pretty hard, and indeed we started off struggling. Our first issue was how to transition into phase two in a way that didn’t kill us; in other words without being overrun by adds. We tried several different versions of pretty much the same tactic. For a while we got stuck on the fact that we in theory could transition just before the third Bellows Operators joined the fight, and kept trying to execute that, with rarely a successful outcome. In the end we decided to split groups on either side, and just try to transition before the fourth Bellows Operator. At this point we got to the actual difficulty of the fight, to kill all four Primal Elementalists fast enough. But at this point we had momentum and it wasn’t that many pulls until we managed to get through phase two and start working on actually killing the boss. In the end we spent a good amount of wipes on this boss, mostly trying to sort out phase one, but finally the Heart of the Mountain was dead. Blast Furnace down! 9/10 hc finished, one more to go!

Before pulling the Iron Maidens we had an inkling that they would be harder than the previous bosses, and indeed they proved to be the hardest heroic encounter so far. The final 20% almost had us run to the hills, as it seemed we were playing with madness. Our mantra became “be quick or be dead” as we went on like troopers, and with two minutes to midnight we finally killed the women in uniform. Without any fear of the dark, we now move on to the last two (the number of the beast?) encounters in heroic BRF!

Observe: The art department would like to apologise for any cheesy and poor references to songs by the band Iron Maiden. A virus must have added those, or some weekend warrior hacker.

We did a few pulls on Kromog last reset. He didn’t seem that hard, but we still failed to get him down, partly because we were low on healers and partly because Thyrah kept rolling off the platform. Today we had more healing and the tank in question had removed his roll keybind. We still struggled a bit with Frenzy, but after a few tries we managed a kill! Kromog down! Iron Maidens will be next!

It’s the Monday raid of the second BRF reset and we’re back to Operator Thogar. We learned yesterday that trains hurt on heroic, and that everyone taking personal responsibility for keeping track of where they will appear will make someone fail eventually. So we’re back today with Luria calling where to go. At first we got to the berserk, but then we shaped up further and got the kill! With Operator Thogar dead we steered to Flamebender Ka’graz. After failing a few times on the cinder wolves, we sorted it out and got her down as well! Onwards to Kromog, where we didn’t get a kill. But two more bosses down tonight, and more to come next reset!

Back for the second reset of Blackrock Foundry. It’s already a problem to decide what we should use the raiddays for, both normal and heroic or just heroic. We’ve decided that for a while we will keep doing normal as well, to get the tier items. Thus we only have two days on heroic. Today we went to Oregorger! With the practise we got last week, we felt like we were already close to killing him. And indeed within a few tries Oregorger was dead! We had some time after to check out Operator Thogar as well, and hopefully we’ll get him down tomorrow!

Monday and we’re back for more heroic bosses in Blackrock Foundry. We started off with Beastlord Darmac, where the heroic mode was a lot more healing intensive than the normal mode. We had a few wipes in the last phases, before we sorted out better positioning, and got more used to the fight. After Darmac was dead, we went to Hans’gar and Franzok and oneshotted them, as the fight was a whole lot easier than expected. And then we went to Oregorger, and wiped a few times on low percentages. Lowest one was on 2%. Next reset he’ll certainly be dead as well!