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After starting progression Iron Qon heroic a number of times, and then changing our minds and going for another heroic mode, it seemed it was time to finish what we had started. We had significant progress last reset where we got to the last phase, and we would have gotten him down if we had had about 30 minutes more to spend. This reset we were back and determined to get a kill. It seemed as long as we made it through the Wind Storm we would get him down. After a few mess ups in the last phase in regards to Scorch, and a few messups on the storm, we did better. We made it through the storm and the scorches. Iron Qon and all his mounts are dead!

The art department lost the screenshot of this particular kill, and have instead looked through the archives. While flipping through old photos they came across this David Hasselhoff inspired shot, from a few years back when his quilens were still pups. Very tasteful!

During the Thursday raid Horridon finally went down, and as we had some raidtime left we decided to check out Tortos heroic mode. To begin with it seemed almost easier than the normal mode since we had shields up all the time. However the more time we spent it became clear that small mistakes was all we needed to have a wipe. Especially since Alieana was solotanking. Now during the Sunday raid we had more time to spend and at first we mainly failed on turtle kicking or on misdirecting the bats. Everything else seemed somewhat under control. A few tries later and we finally sorted ourselves out. Tortos dead, after some quite chaotic last 10%. Yay us! Four heroic modes down and eight to go!

The rumour said that Horridon was a boss we should be looking at next, instead of Iron Qon. Thus we spent some time looking at his heroic mode last reset. It didn’t seem easy. Especially not with Luria tanking! This week we were back for more, and yet again with the shoddy bear tank. After some initial facepalm moments of Luria having threat on hardly any adds, things started going a little better. We had some wipes in the last phase, and got better at calling out Dire Call for the healer. And then suddenly we had some luck, or rather we did it right, and the horrible dino was finally dead. Yay for a happy ending!

For those that have not been targeted by Direhorn Spirits the art department screenshotted one.

After killing our first heroic mode we spent some time trying Iron Qon heroic, with no real progress. At this time summer was approaching and with that we lost two dps to a summer break, and three healers permanently. This left us in a bit of a bad spot, and we spent the beginning of the summer recruiting both healers, dps, and a another tank. We managed to keep raiding every reset, and mostly did full full clears, but heroic progression was on the backburner. After having a short raiding break in the beginning of July, we had some new recruits and we decided to try Ji’Kun. We had a few tries during the Thursday raid, and we were a bit messy with the tactics. On the Sunday we returned with a job description for everyone, and after a few tries it worked! Ji’Kun is dead, the progression drought is over, and hopefully there will be more heroic modes to come!

A few resets after our first Lei Shen kill, and we decided we could spare some time working on our first heroic mode, Jin’Rokh the Breaker. Looking at the heroic changes it sounded like it would be really hard on the healers to heal through the Lightning Storm. As we started progressing on the encounter it turned out this indeed was the hard part of the fight. After a while it became clear that all we would really need was to have everyone alive through two storms. If we then even got a 3rd storm he would be so low that he’d die no matter if more than half the raid was dead by the end of it. It didn’t end up taking us too many tries to live through the storms and see Jin’Rokh bite the dust. First heroic mode is down, 12 to go!

The art department would like to point out that the screenshot above is not from a snowball fight, but is actually of Dailyleaf trying Donald’s tactic during a Lightning Storm. Due to various technical reasons, all too complex to mention in this post, the lightning bolts appear like snowballs.

A few cancelled Monday raids meant we had little opportunity to progress on the final boss in Throne of Thunder, Lei Shen – The Thunder King. Today we were back with a lot of time on our hands. After wiping considerably in the transition phases, primarily from Static Shock damage, we started doing better. As we got to the 3rd phase for the second time ever, but this time with everyone alive, it turned into a kill! The king is dead, long live the king! All normal modes down and we can start on the heroic modes!

A few resets of not killing Iron Qon, largly due to too few signups and having to cancel raids; but tonight we finally had another Monday raid to progress on. And what a progress! First Qon bit the dust, and then we had time to look at the Twin Consorts, who appear to be the free kill of this tier. Eleven bosses down and only Lei Shen left of the normal modes!

After wiping a significant amount of times on the trash before Dark Animus, we had time for a few tries in the raid last night. Today we were back for more wipes on the trash, and more tries on the boss. As it seemed important to get the beginning of the fight right we spent a lot of time assigning people, and then reassigning them, and thinking of which small add should die where. As it turned out we either planned everything really well, or the boss wasn’t as hard as we thought; because things went really smooth. We had a few wipes at low percentages, when he starts doing jolts and things are generally hurty. However with cooldowns at the right time we managed to survive, and Dark Animus was dead! Three new killed bosses this reset, great job everyone!

The art department managed to screenshot the exact moment Dark Animus died!

After having a wipenight on Durumu the previous reset we were back for more. Mainly we had had problems moving during his beam-phase, but today we were doing better with that as well as with the Life Drain. We got really close to killing him several times, with wipes just on the last percentages. Finally it just worked, Durumu was dead, and we went on to try to see what the Primordius encounter was like before the end of the raid. Turns out Primordius wasn’t very tricky at all, we pretty much winged the encounter and ended up killing him on the 4th pull. Two bosses dead, and one raidday left this reset for Dark Animus! Good job all!

For Ji-Kun the main learning issue seemed to be for the flying groups to get used to what they were doing and when. After we had spent quite a lot of time figuring out who went where, we at first seemed insanely behind on dps on the boss. But within just a few tries we did the execution better and ended up zerging the boss with heroism after the 13th platform. Ji-Kun and friends are dead, and we have time left this reset for further progress. Yay!

After killing Tortos we had some time to go look at Megaera, and our impression of the fight was that it wouldn’t be very hard. However coming back the following reset, we noticed that it was actually harder than expected towards the end of the encounter. There’s definitely some massive healing needed when you’re on the last few heads. After some tries dieing on the fifth head we started getting further, and then toward the end of the night we sorted it out and got all seven heads dead. Atemm’s favourite boss down, and seven bosses to go!

It’s safe to say football is not our strong point. At least not considering all the shoddy kicking we’ve done these past two raidnights. Or maybe the we is really just Luria?! In any case it felt like we had done the fight a hundred times, and aimed the turtles poorly about as many, when we took our mid-raid break tonight. It was basically not going very well. The first two tries after the break was no different, but then suddenly things fell into place and the big bad turtle was dead after some chaotic last percent! Definitely the hardest encounter in Throne of Thunder so far, and far from as fun as it sounded by description. Tortos down, Megaera next!