A few updates.

Okay, so what's new?

First, we also have killed Festergut and Rotface in our first week (but with a few raid members who are not in the guild, so no credit on guildox).
In our second hardmode week we had some tries on Saurfang again and on Blood Council.
Did not go that well, had to defeat Deathbringer on normal and Blood Council still stands.
I don't think the "one try and give up" attitude of some people helped.

However, yesterday I had another group with my paladin. Currently I am searching for a new group as a tank.
Well, yesterday's group actually wasn't bad. Okay, I suppose the fact that we had a few members from the top guilds on our realm (Drachensilber and Halthor en Amarth) in the raid obviously helped a lot.
We downed a total of seven hardmodes (Lord Marrowgar, Deathwhisper, Gunship, Deathbringer, Festergut, Rotface, Bloodqueen Lana'thel) and in the end also managed to kill Arthas on our first try!

Funny thing was, we had a little wipefest on Deathbringer Saurfang. The hunter in the group said that we should kill the boss on normal or he'll leave.
Now, as DPS that is somehow... well, a bad idea to do. Especially if you have rather good gear and only manage to pull around 5k DPS, when the rest of the group sits around 8-9k.
So... he leaved. We got a replacement, another hunter. Almost the same gear.
New hunter DPS? 2x Old Hunter.
Saurfang? One try with the new hunter and the bugger fell.

Well, now I have Arthas on both my raid characters down, which means I can have some fun in the hardmodes, but am practically done till Cataclysm.

Writing Contest

So... Blizzard started another one.

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/contests/writing2010/

I am actually thinking of participating.

2,500 - 7500 Words until August 23rd is nothing for a hobby writer like me.

I just have to brainstorm a short plot and set it in stone before I can start to write.

My first idea would be something related to Whispering Gulch or Saronite Mine in Icecrown - you know, people in your team, friends of yours, slowly going insane due to whispers from voices only they can hear. Paranoia, everywhere.
Sounds like a good concept to me.

Another one would be about Vordrassil, the failed world tree. Sadly I don't have any information about the druids that planted him, what their intentions were, how they realized it was tainted and all that stuff.

Idea Number Three: Ulduar.
This raid instance is one of my absolute favorites. A gigantic prison of an old god, guarded by creations of the titans themselves, lost in legends.

I guess I'll first try to come up with something good about Saronite Mine / Whispering Gulch. The other ones are probably likelier to be also chosen by other contestants, although I guess some other people might be as fascinated by these two places as I am.

It's Achievement Day!

Well, at least it's for me :) Have some screenshots.

ICC Hardmodes

Was a rather successful first raid evening.

Marrowgar did take some tries, some unlucky Spike + Bone Storm targets. Deathwhisper was extremely easy, took us exactly one try. Well, we have fast learning people :)

Gunship is - of course - not worthy of further mentioning

Deathbringer...

Well, we got him down to around 18%.

Then the first people died to the mark. At least the blood beasts went extremely well, that is almost half the battle already won. In fact, I do absolutely believe that we will defeat him as soon as the healers (I switch to Shadow for that fight) figure out how to handle the marks in the Frenzy phase. Because that is when the marked people are really receiving troublesome damage.

3/12 Hardmodes in our first evening is completely satisfying for me.

That is how raiding should look like for me. I had great fun in the fights. Challenging, some close deaths prevented with my shields and some penance pew pew and when we wiped? Who cares, run in, buff up and try again :D!

With hardmodes my fun in raiding went a few levels back up.

What I wish my gear would look like....

So, I sat down and updated my gear-wishlist, now that we have access to ICC10 Hardmodes

Keep in mind, that I don't run 25 mans, so I disregarded any loot I could possibly gather there.

http://www.wowhead.com/profile=21473104

It will look like this...

So.

Unbuffed I am at 3381 Spellpower then.

Inner Fire is 174 extra Spellpower.

Flask of the Frost Wyrm and Bufffood give an extra 218 (125 + 47 mixology bonus + 46)

That would be 3773 Spellpower selfbuffed.

Sweet.

My shields would be absorbing

(base_absorb+(0.8068+0.08*BT)*sp)*(1+0.05*IMP)*(1+ 0.02*FP)*(1+0.01*TD)
base_absorb is the base absorb given the PW:S which is 2230 at the moment
BT is your Borrowed Time level
SP is your Spell Power
IMP is your Improved Power Word: Shield level
FP is your Focused Power level
TD is your Twin Disciplines level

(2230+(0.8068+0.08*5)*3773)*(1+0.05*3)*(1+ 0.02*2)*(1+0.01*5) = 8518 Absorb

Now, we can add another 5% because I have the t10 4pc set bonus.

Makes 8944 - in every place that is not Icecrown Citadel.

In Icecrown Citadel I have to include Strength of Wrynn. Currently standing at 20%, final would be 30%

20%: 10733

25%: 11180

30%: 11627

These numbers are ridiculous :D

But, because I don't really now the exact numbers of incoming damage, I guess I'll be glad about these huge shields - as will the other healers.

Killshot

Our killphoto after Caladon's first defeat of Arthas

In the picture are...

Demeon, Protection Paladin
Brinkman, Protection Paladin

Sucara, Holy Paladin
Feuerblatt, Restoration Druid
Xerian, Discipline Priest

Elementon, Enhancer Shaman
Panginator, Frost Death Knight
Albuin, Fury Warrior
Nadasky, Arcane Mage
Sormuras, Shadow Priest

I is happy priest nao.

He is DOWN.

We finally killed Arthas and so Thursday our attempts on Heroic Icecrown Citadel 10man will start.

It was about time and did take us a few attempts today, but hey - the bugger's down, and several hardmodes will surely fall.

I am really happy we killed him at last :)

I am actually impressed.

On our last tries on Monday we got Arthas down to 29 percent.

That's actually quite a progression for us, and I was very surprised how well people were handling Defile and Val'kyrs from the first try of the evening and on.

After horribly failing the raid day before, we got him to the second transition phase on the first try of the evening - but died soon after because we were kinda surprised and died to Remorseless Winter.

After that we had some bad and some good tries, one of them leading to 29%.

That's only 19% left, or around 3.306.000 Life Points!

Okay, we had only a minute and a half left until his Enrage, but...

Right now, we're still a little discussing how we'll handle the Vile Spirits. We do not have enough suitable AoE effects like Mind Sear, Seed of Corruption, Living Bomb to blow them up before they become active, so we are thinking about just spreading out and outhealing their explosion damage.

Spreading out in a circle would also make the handling of Defile pretty easy in that phase and because there is no Infest anymore, two healers should be able to heal the group through the Vile Spirit damage, while keeping the Harvest Soul victim alive.

At least that's what I suggested. We only had a chance to see this once and our healers (the last time I was shadow priest for replenishment) said that it might be possible. Well, we'll see. Maybe we have our hands on Kingslayer - and thus, hardmodes - soon. It's about damn time as the 20% buff is already implemented, and 25% is probably lurking on the horizon.

Defile on me!

... or wait, no, Infest!

Val'kyr soon! Hug the middle! 

Defile soon, spread!

I hate you so much, Arthas.

So yeah, again some tries on this bugger with my priest and the people from Caladon.

Phase 1 - works. I shield, Infest is kinda nonexisting this way (oh look, Infest. oh look, it's gone.)

Transition - works. One Raging Spirit left to drag in Phase 2, splendid.

Phase 2.

FAIL.

Okay, I suppose most of us got it with Defile now. 

Besides the fact it just like 99% of the time somehow drops in the middle and fucks us up.

Val'kyr keep happily snatching and dragging and dropping people, are stunned, slowed and... live. Hate this. The first two val'kyrs are slain, but then we slowly lose some DPS and Val'kyr become a problem.

The cause of death in most cases is.... Infest.

Either I am horribly doing something WRONG or this phase just sucks. As a mainly 10 man only Guild (read: some people choose to not go 25man - like me. Other people do them in good/average groups. And some work daytimes, log in the evening, do a heroic and are gone. This also causes us to do the weekly quest in our regular schedule, which pisses me off to no end. Another half an hour wasted for... a boss which can be 5-manned (looking at you Patchwerk), 2-manned (flame loliathan.) or done with any PUG in like 20 minutes (yes, even you Malygos.))

.... where was I?

Oh yeah. As a mainly 10 man guild we 3-heal this encounter and NEED it. And the 20% buff, seemingly. Well, my shields do NOT, I'm already down to rank 11 so that I get mana back through rupture because sometimes we don't even have replenishment -_-

We have like one person in the raid who gives us replenishment and this one person is currently absent for reasons completely unknown. 

However in phase 2 I have to actually heal so much stuff I just can't shield everyone in time for infest. And keep them topped off. Oh and I am the only one of the healers that actually SEES if someone is still affected by Infest.

I can't call it out on teamspeak either, because if I do, I lose time I could be spending HEALING and trying to SAVE these people, so they'd just... die faster?

I need to get our druid healer to configure whatever she uses (it's not grid.) so that she can see Infest - we're not getting anywhere if Infest happily kills our DPS.

Besides from getting frustrated with my disc on Arthas, I am happily slaughtering stuff in ICC on my tank. Up to 5/12 heroic now, got to kill the Bloodqueen as well. On our second try. Well it was close to a wipe and the kinda screwed up Lay on Hands (Forbearance... really Blizz?) actually saved my pretty paladin ass. Rest of those creeps in there were taken out in normal mode and there's just Arthas standing. I'll watch if I get another invite if they decide to try him in the rest of this week's lookout and maybe one of my raiding characters will finally snatch himself a not-so-fancy Kingslayer title.

For the H- eeeh Alliance.

The first real post is already about my Paladin.

So, yeah, he was a Belf then. I did a faction change just yesterday and the guild - well, actually my guild - took it rather good. They were kinda expecting it already, anyway.

So I gave a good friend there guildlead from my warlock-exmainnowtwinkIevendon'treallyknow and wished them the best. 'course I'll keep in contact, I like them and well... my warlock is still there :)

After the faction change was complete and my now human pally awaited me in Stormwind, I just went straight for Dalaran. Need. Hearth. In. Convenient. Place.

Right after that I joined the local /lfg and well... looked for some people needing a tank für ICC 10 Man.

Didn't have to wait for long. 

Had a great night there, my first hardmodes in ICC - we were stuck on Arthas, the douchebag - Deathwhisper, lolship (and I snatched me the nice shield, om nom. me likes.), Festergut and Rotface. No trinket from Putri.

Sadly raid time was over after that. Well, we searched some time for a few new people, because a few hours later it had been ID reset anyway, but... no success.

So we just roflstomped through Naxxramas. 8 Man Achievement. Undying was almost immediately ruined when 3 people died to Heigan. Dance of Doom!

We snatched the achievement for Kel'thuzad as well, after we wiped first - the other tank and myself overestimated our group :D

That were a few too much abominations for us to handle.

I'll see how that will continue with my paladin. I really had fun tanking again, was awesome. Did lose that a bit in the last weeks on Horde-side.

Oh and my priest... well, we're on Arthas, I'm bubbling to my heart's content and well... for the third time the group is there the first phase and transition are going well, Defile and Val'kyr is still total fail, but... moar practice.

I thought I'll just add these little signatures as well. They will update themselves as my gear improves :) 

And as my achievement e-peen grows, as well.