Carnage

Carnage finally silenced the annoying screams of Sara . . . . Yes, we downed Yogg-Saron and completed Ulduar (heroic). It took a few weeks to figure out how the phases of the fight and to execute them cleanly, but we made steady progress and finally put everything together this past Sunday on our third attempt at phase three. The end of the battle was particularly exciting. We were so focused on killing the Immortal Guardians quickly that we got close to the enrage timer. In the last minute at five percent, we switched all dps to Yogg's brain and asked our tanks to pop their CDs and tank all the adds. They died along w/a few raid members at 1%, but we still got the kill as well as the achievement for not having anyone go insane. One of our trial members remarked: I guess that means we don't have any retards in our guild. We don't know about that . . .

Onward to the joys of hard modes!

More progress in Ulduar. After figuring out the right combination of tanks, dps, and healers for the hallway and the arena for the Thorim encounter on Thursday, a mid-term robbed us of our experienced hallway tank. We needed a few attempts to let another tank get experience with the hallway, then another few for folks to figure out how not to die in Phase 2. But in the end, we survived the waves of Thorim's minions and defeated the big fat Iron Dwarf and looted his cache.

We then moved on to Freya's Sanctuary of Life – aka big room full of annoying hostile plants – and after figuring out the differences between normal and heroic mode trash, cleared it all to face the giant stone guardian herself. We needed an attempt to figure out how to handle her elemental adds in heroic mode and another to learn to dodge her sprout spawns in phase two, then she also gave up her cache of loot. It was a banner night for Vanquisher tokens (double-double from both bosses after not having any drop in three weeks of Ulduar raiding).

Having a bit of time left, we cleared the trash to Mimiron – and after a brief interlude learning that the shuttle to his lair has gates on its landing that can send you to your death . . . – got our first look at the evil Mechagnome.