In a new, hopefully weekly content update, I’ll go over some of the successes, failures, and exciting moments from the previous week’s raids. It also includes some thoughts from the Raid Leads, so be sure to look for strategy comments!

Wednesday: Heroic Farming

New to this week, we’ve started running Heroic progression on Wednesdays. We also recently extended raid times by an hour (3 hour raids rather than 2). While my computer crashed for the first hour, I was present for the last two kills. Raid Lead consensus: is important on Eonar to focus down the Fel Lords and Obfuscator’s ASAP – we had a wipe as a result of an ignored mob! Portal Keeper went well also. Great job on the interrupt rotation and placement of fire! As a result of teamwork and dedication, we downed 4 bosses in Antorus. This was awesome news – it meant that we’d be facing all-new content for the Guild come Saturday, our traditional progression time.

Saturday: Heroic Progression

Antoran High Command

Antoran High Command went down in two pulls (with some outsider help, admittedly. We’ll have a better gauge of our DPS success this week). We still need to be cognizant of the mines, but rotations between bosses and our Pod People all did a great job. Raid Leads agree that we need to focus adds much faster and remain vigilant of where we put out feet. Much like facing the Coven, being careful is more important than DPSing – rotate your camera, stare at your feet, and make sure to dodge what’s on the ground! Also, don’t be afraid to snuggle up to the other DPS and heals. We need to be stacked tight.

Imonar

Imonar was almost a relaxing break after the hectic fight of High Command. DPS did a bunch better job spreading out to avoid sleep-canistering the raid, and our bridge transitions were about as smooth as they can be. Continue to spread in phase 1 as much as possible, and we’ll have smoother transitions into phase 2!

Kin’garoth

Kin’garoth, as expected, gave us a lot of trouble. In the end, we elected a new strategy, keeping the DPS more split between teams than we had previously. This meant DPS reached adds faster, which meant downing them faster. We need to focus adds harder, and may end up being more picky about DPS minimums for this fight in the future. Otherwise, everyone did a good job dodging Ruiner, and tanks were excellent at clearing the purple boulders.

Varimathras

We ended Saturday on Varimathras, and we never got him lower than 50% (4 pulls we didn’t get him under 75%). Mostly, this is a boss positioning issue. Tanks homework this week is to watch tank PoV videos to make sure he’s being placed properly. DPS did a good job at their mechanics – no complaints this week!

Monday: Alt Night

On a lighter note, we had our Alt Night on Monday. We welcomed 3 new characters into the ranks – Thelovefool, Razarnlok (Furrybuddy’s alt), and Dotsmoredots. We give credit to the true newbies for having a minimal difficulty adjusting to Normal mode mechanics and not making the same mistakes twice. Each walked away with several new pieces of gear, including a legendary drop for Lovefool. With any luck they’ll continue to be assets to our Normal runs until they can join us for Heroic. We downed 5 bosses, including Argus (though he gave us a few problems as a result of so many being on alts!). In fact, we downed Argus with only 1 or 2 people left standing. Now that’s cutting it close! Raid Lead reminders: stack right on the boss’s butt. Cuddle up to your raid buddies, and make sure to pop defensives when you have bursts.

Congrats to everyone for another successful raid week!

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!

Just a reminder, we are progressing in heroic Antorus this Saturday. If you want to raid with us, you need an ilvl of 940 and make sure you have read the rules and requirements to raid (located here: https://www.ministryofdefense.net/raiding/raiding-rules-and-regulations/) AND have either messaged Zextol, Ganelon, Telanlan, or Quetzie that you agree to the rules by Saturday AM. There are no exceptions to this rule. It is to ensure the success of the guild as we progress through harder material.

Congratulations to the following raffle winners for the past week:

Auksana for winning a Empyrial Titan Crown of the Peerless (Mastery/Crit) courtesy of Ganelon!

Starblade for winning the Vigilance Perch Mail Legendary courtesy of Quetzie!!

Ripitnsipit for winning Four 30 slot Hexweave Bags courtesy of Wolframheart!

Raldrice for winning a Void Shrouded Satchel/Touch of the Void trinket!

and last but not least…

Ganelon – You won the Weekly 10,000G Giveaway!