Raiding Roundup - 10 Man - Ulduar Hard Modes

Our first night of Ulduar hard modes and achievements was a lot of fun, and went really well.

Nuked from Orbit (Flame Leviathan - 3 towers)

We added Freya's tower to the mix, and our gunners expertly dispatched the flowers as they appeared. It required a couple of attempts, and a lot more pyrite... but we defeated FL with 3 towers up. I think adding in Mimiron's tower will take a lot more in the way of execution than our 3 towers effort but I think we're up for the challenge.

Stokin' the Furnace (Ignis - sub 4 minutes)


We went 2 tanks, 2 heals for this encounter, with Jondy swapping into kitty spec. Given our usual strategy is a zerg, I think we'll be doing it this way from now on. The two healers handled it very comfortably, and he was down before any real spike damage could hit the tanks.

Heartbreaker (XT Hard Mode)


Heartbreaker was a lot of fun, and our first true hard mode kill. I got to go Arms for this fight, and give the heart a good pounding which was great fun. Just to ensure that the heart went down, Jondy switched to kitty in healing gear and gave it a bit of a swipe too. Our kill was a fairly long one I think, with me back into defensive stance to taunt / tank the sparks while ranged brought them down. Next time I think we could be a little slicker in dealing with the sparks for a quicker kill. Zeltan got [Aesir's Edge], which is a fitting reward for the the hard mode.

We had a couple of runs at Iron Council hard mode, but ran out of time. The most exciting part was watching Adirix (holy pally) get Fusion Punch himself and hit the ground. Still not sure why it happened... but it was well worth it. ;)

I found tackling the hard modes quite rewarding, and I think everyone on the night had a great time. However, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to fill a group to go into Ulduar 10. My highest priority for 10 man is to down Yogg-Saron, and recently trying to get the right brain room team has been looking a little bleak. Add to that, people's enthusiasm for TotC10 (both gear and EoTs) and you get ... stuck. The last couple of weeks have seen me alternatively running a second TotC10 group with additional guests, or running guild groups on consecutive nights on different toons. While getting 17-20 guildies through TotC10 is great for the experience and gear, it's just not what I look forward to my 10 man nights for.

To quote myself from a recent conversation with one of my favourite hunters:

I don't raid for loot. Loot comes as a side effect of raiding with great group with decent loot rules. I raid for the challenge of difficult encounters.

When it comes to 25 mans, it is all about the guild. I want to expose a greater selection of guildies to raiding, and help them progress. We even had guildies that picked up the Tier 8.5 chest from Hodir, even though it's available from farming heroics. We often take undergeared, and more casual guildies over PuGing, but perform very well for our two nights per week raiding.

10 man on the other hand, I really want to pwn! It's a chance to form a tight knit group of skilled and dedicated raiders and work on some tougher content. Hopefully we'll be back to that for my next 10 man roundup.