05-01-2006, 09:24 PM
Well, the title says it all.
This weekend, my guild, "Teh Slax" on Ursin, downed Nefarian.
Sure, you might be saying, this is no rare feat these days. There are lots of guilds out there that can clear Blackwing Lair in 1 day, under 5 hours even. Sure, but that's not us, not yet anyway. We had blue and green drakes, and employed a new strategy for us of grouping all of them together before wiping the floor with them (as opposed to tackling them as they spawn at their gates).
There is one notable thing about us that I thought interesting enough to share with you; we use no form of voice communication what so ever. That means, no ventrillo, no team speak, no nuttin'. We do it old skool!
We're the fourth guild to down Nef on the Horde side on our server, Ursin. The first guild had downed him about two months ago (they're pretty insane, those guys), the second about a month after them. Then, last night, our guild, and another named Insomnia, downed him, within a couple of hours of each other. We're not competing with other guilds, though, it's us vs. Nef, after all.
In true "Slax" fashion, we had been Slaxin' (Slacking off) for a good three weeks on Nef. Some people were scared, some people were slacking, and raid attendence was a bit poor. Last week, we had red and blue drakes, and considering that we weren't ready, we just wrote that week off. It all came down to this week, where we got a good combination of drakes, and a new strategy. Our first attempt with the new strategy, we got Nefarian to 10%. Second attempt was only 18%, because the mages were all dead when the respawns came. The following day, we got him to 20% (again, mages were rocked), and then 0%. There were a smattering of false-starts, and tank-MCs (wherein the tank is MCd and the attempt is wiped), and one wipe in particular that I enjoyed, where one of our mages was MC'd and crit-flamestriked the entire raid, wiping most of us in 1 shot.
I wonder, though, if maybe we could have downed him sooner if we had this new strategy earlier. Splitting the raid in 2 and tackling the drakanoids as they spawn was not working for us. Our first real attempts never got past phase 1 with this strategy. When we changed to the new one, Nefarian landed, and subsequently raped the raid because no one knew what to do after that point! I felt quite satisfied just getting to phase 2, though.
Our raid was lacking in shamans (only 4 of us), but we all did our part. Three of us were in group 1 with the MT and a Warlock. We gave the MT triple tremor totems, grace of air, Windfury, and the three of us alternated Mana tides and Enamored Water Spring Trinkets (also known as Ghetto Tide). The only time our mana went low was during the shaman class call -- as a shaman, that burns all your mana, and time, as you have to kill all the damn totems that spawn.
Now, I can finally say, I have beaten BWL, and it sure feels good!
This weekend, my guild, "Teh Slax" on Ursin, downed Nefarian.
Sure, you might be saying, this is no rare feat these days. There are lots of guilds out there that can clear Blackwing Lair in 1 day, under 5 hours even. Sure, but that's not us, not yet anyway. We had blue and green drakes, and employed a new strategy for us of grouping all of them together before wiping the floor with them (as opposed to tackling them as they spawn at their gates).
There is one notable thing about us that I thought interesting enough to share with you; we use no form of voice communication what so ever. That means, no ventrillo, no team speak, no nuttin'. We do it old skool!
We're the fourth guild to down Nef on the Horde side on our server, Ursin. The first guild had downed him about two months ago (they're pretty insane, those guys), the second about a month after them. Then, last night, our guild, and another named Insomnia, downed him, within a couple of hours of each other. We're not competing with other guilds, though, it's us vs. Nef, after all.
In true "Slax" fashion, we had been Slaxin' (Slacking off) for a good three weeks on Nef. Some people were scared, some people were slacking, and raid attendence was a bit poor. Last week, we had red and blue drakes, and considering that we weren't ready, we just wrote that week off. It all came down to this week, where we got a good combination of drakes, and a new strategy. Our first attempt with the new strategy, we got Nefarian to 10%. Second attempt was only 18%, because the mages were all dead when the respawns came. The following day, we got him to 20% (again, mages were rocked), and then 0%. There were a smattering of false-starts, and tank-MCs (wherein the tank is MCd and the attempt is wiped), and one wipe in particular that I enjoyed, where one of our mages was MC'd and crit-flamestriked the entire raid, wiping most of us in 1 shot.
I wonder, though, if maybe we could have downed him sooner if we had this new strategy earlier. Splitting the raid in 2 and tackling the drakanoids as they spawn was not working for us. Our first real attempts never got past phase 1 with this strategy. When we changed to the new one, Nefarian landed, and subsequently raped the raid because no one knew what to do after that point! I felt quite satisfied just getting to phase 2, though.
Our raid was lacking in shamans (only 4 of us), but we all did our part. Three of us were in group 1 with the MT and a Warlock. We gave the MT triple tremor totems, grace of air, Windfury, and the three of us alternated Mana tides and Enamored Water Spring Trinkets (also known as Ghetto Tide). The only time our mana went low was during the shaman class call -- as a shaman, that burns all your mana, and time, as you have to kill all the damn totems that spawn.
Now, I can finally say, I have beaten BWL, and it sure feels good!
"Yay! We did it!"
"Who are you?"
"Um, uh... just ... a guy." *flee*
"Who are you?"
"Um, uh... just ... a guy." *flee*