Wednesday: Heroic Lower

We decided to kill more Heroic Lower bosses to start the week, in another attempt to get set pieces for Raiders before a hopeful Aggramar clear. We had the typical 3 wipes on Kin’Garoth and a few wipes on dogs…but, this was also the first time that Qwaylas was able to down Dogs with the guild on Heroic, and we’re all proud to have him in our ranks.

Wednesday Logs

Saturday: Annihilating Aggramar, Aggravating Argus

We worked harder and figured out some more tweaks necessary on Aggramar. It may be beneficial for tanks to move Aggramar a bit away from certain little adds. Likewise, we may want to let the add in the back “drop” sooner, so that it doesn’t get as close to larger adds or to Aggramar and risk having a double explosion.

And we downed him! In only 4 pulls that night, too. Overall, it took us 14 pulls and under 2 hours to take him down. Not too shabby!

We forgot to take a kill pic, so please enjoy this recreation with Uro:

After that, we pounded on Argus for a while. Our first pull was pretty good on Phase 1. After that, subsequent Phase 1 pulls have been rough. Raid Leader Thoughts: People need to keep aware of the effects of Blight and Cone at the same time. Similarly, people with Blight need to stay spread out and not be adjacent to one-another.

Monday: Heroic Argus Only

On account of the upcoming holiday and excitement over a potential kill, we moved Alt Night to July 4, and Heroic to July 2nd.

More messy Phase 1 Blights were the problem for us, but we did manage to get in to Phase 3 on our own. We also pulled in a variety of returning Raid Team members in an attempt to get a kill, welcoming back both Khaanatra and Orektarg for the guild DPS. Eventually, our luck came through, and a pair of 970 tanks queued up. We quickly scrambled to move our tanks into DPS roles, and the tanks added an additional DPS and Healer. We got another pull and then a bad bomb explosion wiped us at 93%. To no-ones surprise, we then downed him for a kill!

Overall, it took us 9 pulls in 1 and a half hours to down Argus.

We have a new banner on the Raiding Team page to commemorate our Heroic Argus Guild Kill.

Congratulations to everybody who helped us achieve this goal. We’ll take a commemorative picture at some point for those who have AOTC with their Violet Spellwing mount at the Aerie Peak eagle statue. Stay tuned in Discord for more information on when that will be happening.

Monday Argus Logs

The guild’s raid team had a successful kill on heroic Argus this evening (we’re looking at you Coven).

Several raiders were able to get their ‘Argus: Ahead of the Curve’ achievement this evening. 🙂

Thank you to Orektarg for reminding us that the Argus kill is dedicated to one of our guild tanks, Ashkicker, who died this past May from the complications of cancer.

Wednesday: Single-Target Boss Runs

Whether by plan or by accident, Wednesday was spent working on single-target bosses we haven’t gotten many kills on.

Imonar the Soulhunter had a late wipe on account of too many dying during the bridge crossings; 3 died before the first one was complete, and too many died on the second crossing. Some people also criss-crossed lasers. By contrast, the second run (and subsequent kill!) had nobody die from either bridge crossing or lasers, so there was much improvement.

Kin’Garoth was more of a struggle. Too many people are not moving fast enough – maybe to Ruiner, maybe away from purple balls, maybe moving their mechanics to the outside edge. Eventually, we had to cull a few people just to get a kill on the boss. Raid Leader Tips: Look around! Be alert! You need to be incredibly cognizant of the location of other raid/party members. Much like Coven, running into one of your allies can lead to both of your deaths from botched mechanics.

Remember, there’s a set timer for when he can and cannot take damage:

This means you should use 30 second cooldowns at the start of the boss fight; 1 minute CDs when he opens up to damage after the first adds; 2 minute cooldowns on the first add phase; and 3 minute cooldowns at the second add phase. Alternatively, you could use your 3 minute cooldowns on the first add phase, to have it up for the 3rd add phase. RLs may be revisiting strategies on this boss.

Wednesday’s Warcraft Logs

Saturday: More Coven Practice and Easy Kills

Unfortunately, our planned “hand picked” group had too many absent members, so we ran with a group that included several people we did not anticipate running with and who were not as well prepared for the boss fight (I was also on an unfamiliar computer. RIP my timers and addons). We never progressed past 50% health on the boss. We still have a lot of people dying to avoidable damage. But, there was much better organization on add kills (assuming the RNG wasn’t poor in combination with Storm). We also had 2 people go from being the most killed last week to being some of the least killed, so it shows great improvement and that practice does work. With luck this week we will down the boss.

After it became apparent that there wasn’t going to be any real progress on Coven beyond 50%, we brought our spirits up a bit by doing some quick kills on Eonar and High Command. Eonar was about the cleanest and fastest we’ve ever done it – most mobs didn’t even make it to the tree. High Command was likewise very clean – only one (late) death throughout the whole fight from too much bomb damage.

Raid Lead Comments: if you intend to ever do Heroic Coven with us, you should be practicing Heroic Coven in other groups during the week. Also, we will start running Normal Coven on Mondays so people practice the Normal mechanics.

Saturday’s Warcraft Logs

Monday: Alt Night and Cheevo-Chasing

Monday was a good night all around. There was one wipe the whole night, on Aggramar, from a “whoopsie” tank moment where adds did not get repositioned. Otherwise, clean throughout. This says good things about some of the up-and-comers, as well about the patience and skill from our seasoned raiders. On a side note, alt-night Argus often takes us over 10 minutes. For  a fast kill, we should consider lusting at the beginning of the fight, just to get his HP pool down.

Most interesting, we got the present members a few achievements towards Glory of the Argus Raider. Specifically, we did Worm-Monger, Hounds Good to Me, and Spheres of Influence.

Monday Warcraft Logs (not useful on Garothi or Felhounds)

Wow Audit Spreadsheet

Do you feel like you can’t keep track of your gear, or what your next goal should be? Maybe the Wow Audit Spreadsheet can help. Take a look at this post on another useful tool for Raiders.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been itching to get achievements and transmogs from Legion raids before the content gets old – especially The Chosen, which will vanish when BFA launches!

For those who don’t know me, I was the primary (only) Raid Lead for Ministry of Defense in the first half of Legion, back before I took a year off to regain my sanity from yelling at fuckers not to stand in fire concentrate on finishing other games. You might hear people call me “Raid Mom”. I’m familiar with all the fights up through Nighthold, which netted me an Ahead of the Curve: Xavius and Ahead of the Curve: Helya (I quit before we finished Nighthold Heroic. RIP my cheevos.).

I’m itching to Raid Lead again, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to scratch that itch AND benefit all the guild members who lack Mythic kills, transmogs, and experience in general with Legion’s earliest raids.

My goal is to get all of our normal raiders The Chosen, so we’ll likely spend every Thursday starting on mythic ToV before moving on to one of the other three early legion raids.

If the idea of a Throwback Thursday Legion Raid strikes your fancy, react to this post in the MoD Website Feed Discord Channel with the MoD banner! If I net enough interest, I’ll start organizing a time and start date!

Yesterday the guild had its’ inaugural Sunday Fun Night, where we’ll go for achievements and transmogs as a Guild group!

The night took us on a whirlwind tour of the Classic Raids: Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Ruins Ahn’Qiraj, and  Temple of Ahn’Qiraj. While some of the most desired pieces of transmog gear unfortunately didn’t drop, we found ourselves with a plethora of Red Battle Tanks – more than enough for everyone who still needed one! In addition, several people were able to check a few rare Battle Pets off their bucket list.

As a result of the runs, though, we successfully completed the Classic Raid achievement!

Following the four Classic raids, we moved on to helping one of our newer Guild Members, Zuldat, experience some of the Cataclysm content he missed while taking a break from the game. Having not played since WotLK, he was taken aback to see the damage that had been done to Mount Hyjal in his absence. Prompted by our tales of Ragnaros’ sins, he vowed to bring down the rogue Elemental Lord, plunging into the Firelands with his guild behind him.

When we had some issues with Only The Penitent during our striving for the achievements, we took a quick break and redirected our focus onto Al’Akir in the Throne of the Four Winds, bringing him down before he could even respond to us.

Returning to the Firelands after that, we resolved ourselves to push on, and successfully brought down Ragnaros for the second time that evening. All in all, it was a great experience for everyone involved, and if it is any indication of what Sunday nights will be for the Guild, you should do your best to come experience it with us!

– Orektarg

Here’s a complete list of achievements that were completed last night, between members and the guild:

Continue reading →

Tonight, March 19, 2018, The Ministry of Defense slapped Kil’Jaden in the face with a Tomb of Sargeras Guild Run. There were some moments where things looked grim, but through our perseverance and hard work we downed him. Good work to everyone and congrats on your new Legendaries to Lunzzul (http://www.wowhead.com/item=137040/chatoyant-signet) and Brassica (http://www.wowhead.com/item=137054/the-walls-fell). Keep up the good work and I look forward to our next raid clear.