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Second reset of Throne of Thunder and we went back to try to kill Council of Elders. We had already had a few tries after killing Horridon the previous reset, and seen progress even though the fight in general seemed quite chaotic. Tonight we were back to try again. After doing a good second try we had a few early wipes where random people died and we had to call for wipe, or we didn’t manage to do enough damage to Kazra’jin and he killed us with his AoE. Then we suddenly shaped up and managed to get all the way through Sul’s empower, and after that it was apparently not as tricky and they just died one by one. Council of Elders dead, and with two more raids this reset we are hoping for some more progress! Go peons!

Second raid to Throne of Thunder and we’re back again to the second boss. We figured out in the Thursday raid that the trash on the way to Horridon was quite horrible, but we made it this time with only minor casualties. The bossfight itself seemed chaotic, and we initially had troubles making it past the second door. Then all of a sudden we had a try where it went better, until the 4th door was opening and we seemed to be behind. However Ingeksan thought we should pop heroism and try to get through it, and lo and behold the end of the fight was a breeze. Horridon and all his trolls are dead! Two boss encounters down and the Council of Elders are next! Go go go!

New tier, new raid, new bosses! Throne of Thunder is the new place to be, and from our first impressions it’s dark, thundery, and packed with trash mobs. Jin’rokh the Breaker is the first boss encounter and at first glance it seemed like a straight forward fight. Our main reason for wiping a few times seemed to be the fact that not everyone had updated their bossmods, and got caught off guard by the Focused Lightnings; and the fact that Luria was bad at active mitigation and made the raid take too much damage. However it didn’t seem like a hard fight, and it wasn’t. Jin’rokh the Breaker dead on the first raidnight! Next up, Horridon!

After killing Gara’jal we had some time in the next raid to spend on the Spirit Kings. We however didn’t manage to kill them, not even close. Instead we were messing about with when to pop heroism, and when to push Qiang the Merciless to 30%. Practically all the wipes that day happened at the first boss switch. The next reset we had time to try again. This time we started out better, and within a few tries The Spirit Kings were dead! Yay us! This means we will end this tier with five heroic modes down, after the most struggles with signups and setups we’ve had since Trial of the Grand Crusader. Under the circumstances, a very good job everyone!

Observe: The screenshot above is not from the actual fight, but an image of Alieana just before the pull, thinking about all the things he had to look out for while tanking.

We had pulled Gara’jal the Spiritbinder on heroic a few times in a previous raid, and at that time it seemed it would be a tricky encounter. Now we finally had raidtime to try again and we soon realised the main issue was that with only 2 healers it wasn’t long until none of them could cross over to the spirit world. We then solved the problem by sending three dps once in a while with Luria as the designated healer. After a few tries of being very very close to a kill, we finally got him down right before the end of raidtime. Good job everyone, we deserved this one!

After having yet another period of less good raids, we found some time to try Elegon heroic. The first few pulls we kept changing our minds on who should stay out for annihilation and in what order. After we resolved that it seemed like business as usual, and after an almost kill on the fourth pull we killed him on the fifth! Elegon heroic dead, and we hope to get this one done every week. Good job everyone!

After last resets success in clearing Heart of Fear and the first three bosses in Terrace of Endless Spring, we were back again to work on the Sha of Fear encounter. At first we seemed to struggle on the platforms, not killing the terrace guardians in time to get back before the other group had cackled off. It was improving a little throughout the raid, but it seemed we were yet far off a kill. Then suddenly, in what was to be the last try of the evening, everything went right. And lo and behold, instead of being dead a few minutes into the fight we all survived until the end.

Sha of Fear is dead! Terrace of Endless Spring is cleared, and so are all the normal modes of tier 14. It certainly took us long enough, but considering that we’ve had to recruit tanks, dps, healers and hybrids during this tier we’ve done a good job. Go go heroic modes!

Finally able to enter Terrace of Endless Spring, and we started strong with tries on the elite mode of Protectors of the Endless! As it turned out it wasn’t very tricky at all, and we burned them down on the second try. So much for elite mode. Tsulong proved a bit harder, and we had several wipes before we finally managed to sort out the daytime adds properly. Lei Shi was next, and at first we got overwhelmed by the damage to tanks during the protect phase and towards the end of the fight. Once we made some adds banished and otherwise crowd-controlled it went better and Lei Shi was down.

We didn’t manage to kill off Sha of Fear this reset, but we’ll be back next week for more. All in all a successful raid with three out of four bosses down in Terrace!

After having killed the Amber-Shaper last reset we didn’t have much time left to try Grand Empress Shek’zeer. The knowledge we went away with was that phase one was alright and phase two would be very hurty. Tonight we were back for more practise, and as we were getting to the end of raidtime we started getting everything right. On the very last try of the evening we got it so right we ended up in phase three, and just like on Amber-Shaper, phase three wasn’t the hardest part of the fight. Grand Empress Shek’zeer is dead! Heart of Fear is finally cleared and tomorrow’s raid will be for Terrace of Endless Spring!

After having heard Ingek moan about doing heroic modes since before the holidays, we decided to possibly add the Stone Guardians into our repertoire. After looking at complicated explanations of who should light up the floor and when, we decided to just briefly mention the tactics and then try and see for ourselves what it all looked like. Imagine our surprise when the testpull turned out to be the kill. Guardians oneshotted, and two heroic modes are down. Next heroic mode we will attempt will likely be the difficult task of surviving the “I told you so!”-phase of Ingeksan of Gnomeregan.

After a few holiday resets of less raiding and lesser progress we were back to Heart of Fear to work on Amber-Shaper Un-sok. We had done a few pulls here and there previously and it was clear that the thing we needed to sort out was the mutated construct handling in phase two. Some had never mutated before, and others had but weren’t entirely doing it right. We all knew in theory, but in practise we seemed to fail. Tonight we were back with determination to do it right, and with a bit of luck of who ended up as constructs, we suddenly killed the Amber Monstrosity on the fifth try. As it seemed the last phase was a breeze and in a double knockout Amber-Shaper Un’sok and the raid (with the exception of Alieana) died at pretty much the same moment. Five bosses down in Heart of Fear and finally time for the end boss, and possibly the key to Terrace of Endless Spring!

This year we decided to try to keep raiding through the holidays instead of taking a mini-break. While we didn’t have regular raiddays, we did manage to get some time to try a heroic mode in Mogu’shan Vaults: Feng the Accursed. We had looked into it and it seemed all we needed to do was learn one additional phase and kill off some adds when he threw away his shield. While it initially seemed easier said than done to kill off every add in time, it wasn’t hard to survive and we went all the way to the berserk timer a few times, getting better each time. On the 4th pull it came together and without hassle on the other phases Feng was defeated. First heroic boss is dead, and hopefully more to come!