So that was a little unexpected. Having killed Tichondrius earlier this week we decided to skip some of the bosses we have killed before and carry on with progressing on new ones. This time around it was Spellblade Aluriel, so a boss whose named almost exactly as one of our valued members, Auriel. Suffice to say it turns out we not only enjoy, but also excel at killing our own, Auriel-Aluriel died sooner than anyone has expected.

Having done that we are now at seven out of ten bosses killed and not entirely sure what we want to do next. It is between next Nighthold’s boss or a detour back to Throne of Valor to pay lady Helya a visit.

One way of the other, hard stuff ahead.

Tichondrius is, if smart people are to be trusted, a pretty big persona in the Warcraft universe. Well now he needs an honorary burial, because we got him dead.

A breathe of fresh air after brain-dead process of Krosus and mind-numbing High Botanist Tel’arn. Entertaining enough and for once we had a very good setup for it.

Good stuff.

After a great many attempts we have finally gotten rid of High Botanist Tel’arn. A questionable – and that is a very polite way of putting it – choice for the first “real” boss for us to take. So much so that we did something we have not done in a long, long time – in order to have a break from learning this fight we visited Krosus two resets ago. See previous post for results of that visit.

Major relief to be quite honest. Next on the to-do list: mr. Tichondrius. We had the time to try this and that against him and things did not look terrible.

Back on topic on Botanist though, a taxing boss for the entire roster. A lot of unhappiness and irritation – all the more satisfying to have it done finally. Solid job by the entire gang, at least the encounter allowed us for weeding out those who were not really up for it.

Another instance, another bridge boss. The boss killed the bridge, we killed the boss. Everything is dead. It was an absolutely terrible fight, much like Ursoc.

Nighthold is not being nice for us at all, but that’s a whole different story. Now that we have met the dps check gear can no longer be blamed. So let us see what happens next.

A few of us were a little disappointed with that encounter after heroic mode, but then some others were really psyched about the whole “cake boss” concept. Mythic mode proved the fight was in fact quite ok – once you needed to execute the mechanics properly it made a whole lot more sense. And even required some coordination. Still on the easy side of things, but that’s fine, after all it was only the third boss.

First mythic tier items for us too, not complaining. Our next decisions is which boss we want to focus on now. There are a few choice each seems to have pros and cons.

We are having fun in Nighthold so far.

Two down, many to go. We already had some time on Chromatic Anomaly the previous reset, but our main conclusion there was that the tactic we had in mind was not a good one and we needed go back to the drawboard and figure a new plan out. And so we have done and we have figured.

The difficulty level of the encounter felt like fine – not as simple as first boss, but also nothing really demanding. It was mostly about finding out a strategy that worked for our particular raid and setup.

Rumor has it we have one more somewhat simple fight ahead, then things rapidly become a whole lot more complicated.

While Botanist Tel’arn is seventh boss in Nighthold, we have already received a precious biology lesson at the very start. It would appear that scorpions poop armor shells. Behind. And that is just about the most exciting fact we have on the first boss.

I  will admit I cannot remember when was the last time we needed that few attempts to win a mythic raid encounter, even if it was only the first one. Every journey starts with a single step though, second boss already showed us they don’t all intend to just fall over and die. Oh, fairly decent loot as well, that was a nice change.

Something’s not quite right!

Well no, not really, everything is in fact fine. Those two quotes are a good hint as to what we have been up to lately – the main citadel of Suramar, Nighthold, is the name of the game! It is inhabited by the Nightborne and killing tall people is every bit as satisfying as expected. The gnome approves!

On a marginally more serious note – “third half” of Legion’s first tier is now opened and we are having a blast. We ended week one on the final boss, mr. Gul’dan heroic himself. We did not have the time to finish him off, but this time around we can say without a doubt that it is just because we ran out of time. Probably should have skipped normal mode clear, but we thought – better safe than sorry, besides – tier items.

Having returned to Nighthold in week two we got to Gul’dan, this time in a timely manner. After some small adjustments and fine tuning of the tactics for the early phases we needed but five pulls to get the job done. It felt about as satisfying as it should – nothing fancy, encounter felt balanced properly, but hey – at least a cool little video followed.

With Gul’dan out of the picture we did what any sane person would do – we magically made the bosses respawn, this time in full awe, adult mode and we stepped in to mythic.

Here is hoping next update follows sooner than later!

Having killed Odyn we swiftly moved to Guarm. We worked out a tactic we liked, we fixed dispells and we killed him. It was not exciting.

Second (third?) half of this tier, Nighthold, is out soon, so we decided we will not attempt Helya for now. We also have some turbulence in the roster, so we shall use the time left to fix that.

We will be back once we get involved in the Highborne killing business. Gnomes rejoice!

After what seemed like an eternity consisting of small eternities we have defeated Odyn. Last raid of 2016 as well. It felt like we were trying this boss forever, however a quick fact check proves we did not in fact wipe all that much on it. Just a feeling you get when most pulls last about 10 minutes. That’s what happens when a guild with a masculine majority gets to learn a fight that has to do with colors.

Absolutely terrible loot as well, so a cherry on top. With Nighthold coming sooner than later, our plan is now to get Guarm dead and pause progression until the new instance is out. Helya will have to wait for another day to die.

And hey, Guarm kill ought to be shorter than Odyn’s phase two, that alone is enough to make us excited about it!