Written by Synister
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08 July 2010
Lich King Heroic 25 down
The process of achieving this kill was a product of a lot of hard work within our guild. From top to bottom we tried and tried again to perfect this fight and it was a great feeling when if finally came together. Like I said in our front page post this is the most satisfying progression kill for our guild. There were times when I was doubtful that we would pull out a kill in the top 100 U.S. for awhile. It took us 3 months and 3 days from our first Putricide kill to this. In that time we did not get to attempt the boss nearly as much as we wish we could. This was very frustrating for many of our members that were really wanting to progress on it. But between the newer raiders that always seem to have something "come up" after Tuesdays and losing some long time great raiders, getting full nights of attempts was rough.
Up until 4 weeks ago we were only getting 10-20 attempts in each week on the 25 man version of the fight. There were many nights where we had to run a single 10 man because of raid comp issues. But we managed to find some amazing new recruits to add to our already amazing core of raiders. This was the turning point in our progression on Lich King. We got in 30 attempts a week for a few weeks because of losing multiple raid days due to Blizzard patch day, Fourth of July, and getting the 24 hour realm maintenance day. This was a big problem because we were getting much further in the fight.
Finally this week we got to use our full attempts for 2 nights in a row. Prior to Wednesday night we had only seen phase 3 twice and it showed when we got there consistently that night. Things were very sloppy. People were dying right and left to Raging Spirits, Remorseless Winter, and Vile Spirits. But we knew that if we just had one breakthrough it would be all downhill from there. Looking back on Wednesday night we were very happy with our performance. Consistently getting into phase 3, making a little progress, and FINALLY getting past the phase 2 shit trap of doom. So going into Thursday night we all started to believe that a kill was possible that night. This sense of confidence was apparent immediately as our first 3 attempts we got into phase 3. On the 3rd attempt we had the breakthrough we were looking for, but it almost destroyed our chances of a kill this week as well. For the first time we were deep into the last phase of the fight. Pushing hard with one member dead since the middle of the Valkyr phase (dropped off the edge). We were quickly approaching the enrage timer at 15% left on Lich Kings health with everyone, besides the phase 2 valkyr death, still alive. At this point I was positive we were about to kill the boss. In the majority of the movies I had watched of this fight the guilds hit the enrage timer. Lich King would usually enrage either while they were in the Frostmourne room or immediately after they exited leading to them kiting him around while they finished off the last few percentage points. So I told everyone to keep calm and dps hard while getting ready for one last frostmourne room. But things didn't work out like that for us. He enraged right before casting Harvest Soul leading to 32k ticks of damage and an immediate raid wipe. Since I was not expecting this I had thought that in the frenzy of getting a first kill that he had actually casted Fury of the Frostmourne and that we had won. But I looked down at his health....12%. We were 1.5% away from what I thought was a guaranteed kill.
This was extremely heartbreaking to say the least. Everyones nerves were shot. We had already started to breathe our sigh of relief for finally getting a kill of the hardest boss to be released in all of WoW's history in my (and many others) opinion. We struggled to recover after this following up with 4 or 5 wipes in phase 1. Then 2 or 3 wipes in phase 2. Then a wipe in phase 3. And then our kill finally came. We went into phase 3 with everyone alive and plenty of time left on the enrage. With a few deaths from random things during the phase we were pumped going down to the last few percent of the bosses health. In the end we beat his enrage by 10+ seconds in an extremely exciting kill. As I've already said a few times on our website this is bar none the most fulfilling kill I've had the honor to be a part of. We may be months behind the top guilds in the world, but that doesn't change the fact that it took a ton of hard work and patience on our guild members parts to achieve this. We are extremely proud of this kill and our new U.S. ranking.
I'm proud to call Hallowed my home for raiding and am incredibly pumped up to continue our success into Cataclysm. We've come a long way guys. From being on our death bed just over a year ago. Having to use a mage that pulled 3.5k dps on Hodir hardmode, a warrior that couldn't survive a single cosmic smash on Algalon, a priest who didn't make it into a single Black Hole for Algalons Big Bang in a whole hour of attempts, a priest that stood in 8 consecutive Light Beam ticks on Freya +3, a feral druid that couldn't understand the concept of mines on Firefighter, the death knights/rogues/ret pallys/fury warriors that could never seem to take the right portal on Yogg 0, and all the rest of the baddies we've had to endure. To a U.S. 64th Lich King Heroic kill and an overall U.S. 62nd Icecrown Citadel ranking. You should all be proud of your performances. This is by far the strongest raiding lineup we've ever had and we will continue to surround our selves with better and better players. I couldn't think of a more fun raiding environment than we have. I honestly enjoy every night of raids, even when things are going poorly. We rag on each other and make fun when we fuck up. But the mood is kept light and there is never any drama or yelling. We hold each other to the highest standards and it's been a pleasure raiding with all of you for this expansion. We've pulled through at the end of this expansion where many guilds have fallen. Now we get to look forward to 2 night raid weeks (after Halion is dead =P) and chilling out till Cataclysm.
