Brought to you by Magritta

So it’s May, Mists of Pandaria is somewhere off in the distant (but approaching) future, and we’re clearing Dragon Soul (10) in one night, and Firelands (10) in one-two nights depending upon how many heroic attempts we make.

Stop for a second and consider that with me.  We’re crushing the top-end content in one night, and going for a legendary and bragging rights on nights two and three of our raiding schedule.  Give yourselves a pat on the back, folks, because we kick some pretty serious ass.  So what can we do to raise the bar and keep it interesting while having fun?

Well, two things:  try Dragon Soul heroic modes, and try more Firelands heroic modes.  We’ll be starting by making another serious attempt at Heroic Morchok next Tuesday, followed by some Heroic Yorsahj.  We’re prepared, gear-wise, and I’m pretty sure we’re prepared mentally to start collecting heroic loot, and with a little prep and coordination we can totally make some of these work.

As for Heroic Firelands.  There’s three things here, really:  (1) collecting Essences faster to get finished with this raid quicker, (2) rounding out that achievement list, and (3) finding some useful and pretty powerful 391’s to fill in those last couple 384 gear slots where RNG’s just not been kind to you.  Start plugging in the “Tier 12 - Heroic” option in AskMrRobot’s settings and filters to see what’s out there and useful for you, and we’ll see about collecting it for you.  We’re one-shotting everything we do on normal mode.  We’ve downed Heroic Shannox, we’ve downed Heroic Staghelm, and there’s a few more in there we should be able to down if we put our minds to it, so let’s see about making this interesting and exciting instead of “yawn, Firelands again”!

So, Mists of Pandaria’s coming, but it’s not here yet.  Our goal, as officers, is to have at least one set of Fangs of the Father finished before MoP drops, as well as a Dragonwrath.  These aren’t just individual gear upgrades.  These are guild achievements, things that we are working toward as a team that we should all take pride in accomplishing once we’ve finished.  The roads are long, but by walking them to their end we affirm our place as a superior team of raiders. 

So yes, we’re not Blood Legion.  We’re not people whose lives revolve around this game.  We’ve got lives and families and jobs and at the end of the day, we all set aside some time three nights a week to get together and crush content, collect epic gear, and build bragging rights for being a 10-man raiding guild that does casually what other guilds on the server kick their asses to do hardcore.  Take pride in that.  Take pride in knowing that we’re kicking ass, taking names, and enjoying the journey as a group.  See you next week folks, I know I’m looking forward to it!

TASTE THE SWEET NECTAR OF VICTORY!

Tonight marks a great moment.  A rag tag, fugitive fleet on it's way to a shinning planet ... er, wait... that's not right.  Ah, yes, here we are... 

Tonight, a band of heroes took up up the call of the Aspects and marched to war against the most terrifying evil, Deathwing.  Long was their battle, and mighty were the blows struck, but in the end we were VICTORIOUS!

Oh yeah.  It's been a long time coming, but that over-grown campfire with delusions of granduer is finally owned. 

And on the Dragon Soul Front, Tuesday saw us march through Ultraxion in a single evening and then Wednesday's raid got us a new kill! 

Hello ladies.  Look at your guild leader. Now back to me.  Now back to your guild leader. Now back to me.  Sadly, he isn't me.  But if you join Grounding Totem, he could be me. 

Look down. Back up. Where are you?  You're in a raid with the guildleader your guild leader could be.  What's in your hand?  Back to me.  I have it.  It's loot from raid content.  Look again, the loot is now EPIC!  

Anything is possible when you join Grounding Totem. 

I'm on a chicken. 

Three new bosses owned in one night.  Alysrazor, Rhyolith, and Major Domo Staghelm - OWNED, baby!

Good job. 

Last night we managed two bosses in Firelands; Shannox and Beth'tilac.  Sadly, in all the excitment, we forgot to grab screenshots of the victories and FRAPS was turned off!  

Sweet loot was dropped, and we moved up to 35th place for realm progression.  

Not bad for one night's work.  See you tonight, totems! 

Edit:  Images courtest of Seasecon.

Totems;

We have finally completed the guild achievement [Glory of the Cataclysm Raider]!

The time has come for us to move to Tier 12 content.  This means that as of tonight Wednesday, September 14, 2011 will be our last official raid of T-11 raid zones.

Wait, what? 

This means it’s all Firelands and above for raid nights.  

But Unkle, didn’t they just announce Firelands getting nerfed?   Yes, but that’s not why it is time to make this shift. In the time we’ve been doing T-11 raids, more than one of us has leveled up and geared up 2 (or more!) fully raid-ready characters.  This means it’s well past time for new challenges for those folks. It is long past time we began hitting content that will challenge us, provide more upgrades, and be more interesting than repeats of content we’ve been doing for most of a year.

We spent a lot of our summer re-building a raid team.  We’re usually running about 8 people and 1-2 pick-up raid members per raid.  We’ve got a couple of regular people who like to fill those spots.  We’re recruiting to fill spots full time and to relieve folks who are always stuck in crucial roles (i.e., Tank or Healer). 

Oh, we’ll still occasionally revisit T11 content for off-nights, or to help someone find a piece of special gear.  But it’ll be off-night activity, or nights where we just don’t have the numbers for progression content.  Perhaps we’ll try some stuff on Heroic Mode.

But for now, count on seeing a lot of Firelands in the future. 

Unkle