Too Soon, Majordomo?

Just an update on where I am raid wise. I keep trying to make time to write up some productive things but this last month has been crazy with Earthquakes and Hurricanes hitting New York City. What is going on? Anyway. I hope the coming months are more quiet.

We've had some really awesome raids over the last three weeks - consistent people, who're actually getting geared and learning fights - it's kind of crazy. And full guild groups too. Of course, it wasn't meant to last, and this is the last week for one of our three core healers for a little while as he goes off to college to settle in, and we'll miss him, but it's an awesome time in his life and I hope he makes the best of it.

That does leave me a bit in the hole, and I'm hoping to find someone within the guild to swap characters or step in to heal for a little while until our AFK Healer makes it back. That's an odd recruitment call to make, isn't it?

LF 1 Healer (preferable Paladin) in T11+ gear for progression raiding, 2 weeks only. PST.

Er. Not so much.

This week was our most solid performance yet, clearing all farm content and Baradin Hold in a little over two hours on Tuesday. Shannox is almost on auto-pilot at this point, and Beth'tilac is getting easier and easier - this time she accidentally snagged a few spiderlings and healed up but we were still able to get her down with only a bit of a hiccup. After that we went on to solo-tank Baleroc successfully for the second week in a row, and then cleared up Rhyolith to leave Alysrazor and Majordomo for Wednesday.

The loot tables were stacked in my favor and I was able to snag both Beth'tilac's Mandible and the Shard of Torment (tanking with a DK has its perks!) That leaves me with only the head and shoulders to upgrade. Last night, after Alysrazor went down after a few very good pulls, I hit Revered with the Avengers and snagged both the Mastery/Strength and Dodge trinkets for some awesome CTC action.

I've been at 102.4% for some time now, so now it's just a matter of balancing mitigation for total avoidance rather than blocking. CTC is awesome on Rhyolith where I single-tank the adds and barely take any damage (though my shield tends to break or turn red each time even if I repair right before the pull.)

In addition to Alysrazor, we also pounded Majordomo into the ground after just four pulls, after cleaning up orb tanking (wipe 1), healer placement (wipe 2) and seed management (wipe 3.) I love when we can be super coordinated like this and just knock stuff out of the park - this is what I mean by having a good group that shows up for a few weeks in a row. We could've been here a month ago if we'd had this team then. But I don't mind - we're here now. Tonight, we'll face up to Ragnaros and say hello. I imagine it might take a couple of nights for him to plunge back into his lava pool but we'll get there just as we got here.

And afterward? I'm not sure I really want to push us into hard-modes too much after we clear up Mr. Ragnaros. I think a good project to do next might be Heroic Shannox since he seems like a roll-over, more or less, and then farming out the mats for our Legendary. Maybe going back to Heroic:T11 for titles - maybe Sindragosa or Nefarian though Al'akir seems like he is the easiest of the three.

With the end of normal-mode Firelands starting to take shape, I want another project to keep us focused and working towards and Heroic Tier 11 and the Legendary seem like they will be less stressful than diving right back into Firelands Heroics.

Speaking of the Legendary I think we're at 12 fragments right now, which means another three weeks where we kill at least 6 bosses before the law of averages grants us the rest of the fragments and then our Shadow Priest can at least get the 378 staff. Then starts the long hawl towards the next part. Augh. I really hope we can complete the Legendary and get started on a second before 4.3 comes out.

As for Firelands - I'm quite enjoying these fights. They're challenging, but not back-breakers like a few fights were in 4.0. Majordomo is the only fight that seems ridiculously under-tuned. But hey, I don't mind, makes it easy to farm up some Tier. If we can manage this performance again next week, we'll be in solid shape to clearing farm content in a single night and leave the second night for Ragnaros.

The only fight I'm worried might give us trouble is Alysrazor but the more we kill her the easier it becomes. But at ~12 minutes, it's a long, long fight and requires solid attention the whole time.

Good times. I'm excited for tomorrow.