Resto Nation

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Tuesday for Covenant is 10-man day. For my group this means ToC and ToGC back to back. Yesterday we started off as we usually do, except we were one man light. Our resident feral druid had some RL issues to take care of so we decided to 9-man ToC (10) on normal mode to farm badges while we waited.

We one-shot everything straight through with only a few deaths in 33 minutes. It was beyond trivial. The was no challenge at all. When we were done we still had no 10th for our Tribute run. We waited a while, and then we waited some more.

People were getting antsy and annoyed, and some, more inebriated by the minute. We ended up shuffling people around and taking the Raid Leader of the guild’s Bravo Group, a DPS Blood DK. Healing was also switched around and instead of our usual Tree Druid our Enhancement Shaman went Resto.

Things went bad right away with 2 stupid wipes to Beasts. People were pissed and dropping vent so it looked like we were going to have to call it for the night. We took a quick break and regrouped.

Some how in the meantime we managed to pull our shit together. We got Beasts down on the next pull. Then Jarraxis, Faction Champs, and Twins were all one-shot. This put us back on Anub. After all the fail of the last two weeks we were eager to get the kill behind us. We had 47 chance left to do it.

When he died we had 39 left and it was 2AM. We did it. Not only had we cleared ToGC (10), we also claimed the second ever Undermine-US Horde A Tribute to Skill. I was elated. The giant monkey was finally off our back and we could rightfully claim our place as a top raiding guild on the server.

Here’s a breakdown of the final attempt. We ran with 2 tanks, a DK on Anub, a Paladin on adds, 6 DPS, a Holy Priest, and me on Koramoor, my Holy Paladin. The tanks and healers were using Flasks of Lesser Resistance.

The goal was a a hard DPS burn to 55% before the first burrow phase and then another burn to 30% before the second burrow phase. During the burrow phase we had 4 ice patches down in the corners of the room and kited in a modified X pattern (facing the back of the room, bottom left, top right, bottom right, emerge in route to top left). Scarabs were target priority over the Burrowers.

We got through the first two phases perfectly and were burning down to 30%. We hit our mark before the second burrow and Anub kicked off Leeching Swarm. I popped Divine Shield and Divine Sacrifice right away. The Enhancement Shaman popped Bloodlust. At 28% the Holy Priest died.

This left me to solo heal possibly the hardest part of the hardest 10-man encounter of the game. For the record I had 4500 HPS. I was also using Egg of Mortal Essence to haste my Holy Lights. I had a full mana bar at 32K. I only lost one other toon.

Aside from Anub’arak’s hard enrage timer he also has a soft enrage in Phase Three. Through all of Phase Three the OT is off-tanking 2 adds. 2 new adds spawn every 45 seconds. Because of the stacking damage buff the adds get it is impossible for the OT to tank more than 2, So basically when the last 2 adds spawn they will one-shot the OT and wipe the raid. You can see this at the very end of the TankSpot.com video guide for this encounter.

When Anub was at 1% the last two adds spawned. It looked like a wipe. Then Anub died, achievements popped on the screen and vent exploded into violent screaming cheers. As I took my shaking hands off of the keyboard I looked up and saw we had one toon alive, the Paladin OT surrounded by a Divine Shield bubble. He almost single handedly saved us from, and almost caused, the wipe. Here’s how:

At one percent he knew two things, the last two adds had spawned and were coming for him, and once they hit him he would die and we would wipe. So he bubbled. This let the 4 adds loose on the raid killing everyone instantly. It also gave 10 seconds for DoTs to tick and Anub was not getting healed. He landed the killing blow with a Hammer of Wrath. All I can say is pure fucking genius.

I would like to congratulate the entire team on this kill. It truly is a tribute to your skill as players and team members. We have achieved an elite level of play that the vast majority never will. You should all be very proud.

Now we have time to focus on the other monkey still hanging around, Algalon. In the meantime we’ll tighten up ToGC and aim for Tributes to Mad Skill and Insanity. I know we can do it and I can’t wait. I am one very happy Belf.