It’s official.  We’re heroic raiders.  The sheer speed at which we’re able to down normal bosses means we need to start working on heroics or we simply won’t have anything to do on our second raid night each week.

So, Thursday is now:

THE HEROIC DRAGON SOUL RAID NIGHT EXTRAVAGANZAPALOOZA!

So, instead of the old method of tearing through early bosses the first night and wiping on a later boss the second, we’ll basically flip it.  This Thursday, we’ll work on H-Morchok, and then on Sunday — whether we successfully downed him or not — we’ll move on and clear the rest of the raid.

As far as being prepared for the heroic fights, it’s certainly good if folks can watch a video or two in preparation.  Also, a good gear level to strive for in order to join the heroic fights is around 391.  Most of our regular raiders have surpassed that already, so we’re definitely good to go.

Also, I recently sold off all the crafting mats we had saved up in the guild bank.  The total take was 76,000 gold, so I sent a tenth of that to each of the folks who have been regularly raiding in this tier.  It made me realize that we can probably handle crafting mats better in the future, so here’s what we’re going to do with them come Tier 15 (presumably Tier 14 will use mats from MoP’s heroic dungeons, à la Frozen/Chaos Orbs):

• At the beginning of the tier, our raiders will do a /roll to determine crafting mat priority, much like we did to determine a raiding order.  As an example, imagine the following scenario, where Darth would have first priority on crafting mats:  1)  Darthworgen rolled a 99  2)  Bamshackles rolled an 87  3)  Malkoran rolled an 85, etc.
• We will also take into account the patterns which have dropped for our raid.  So, back to the example above, assume we’ve collected enough mats for a piece, but we haven’t seen any plate patterns yet.  If we have received a Cloth DPS pattern, Bam would get the first set of crafting mats, even though he was second on the list.
• Duplicate patterns will be sold, as long as a reliable guild crafter has already learned it.  Also, any time we have nobody interested in making any crafted pieces, crafting materials will simply be sold.

The idea here is that we can better keep track of who even wants to make crafted items in the first place…that way, excess materials can be sold earlier — instead of sitting around waiting for us to make a decision — which will make us more money in the long run.  That way, the next time I send out random gold, it can hopefully be for even larger amounts.

Look at that goddamned alliteration!  Nothing gets me more excited about the letter M than downing the last boss of a tier.

Ahem…

• We can be sincerely proud of our efforts this tier.  We cleared the whole raid in a mere 10 weeks.  I won’t bother you with a new chart so soon after the last one, but if you really need one, just scroll down, grab a purple sharpie, and draw a horizontal line from our Spine kill over to the end of the X-axis.
• I’ve started looking for some strategies on Heroic Morchok.  The more I look into it, the less I think he’ll pose much of a problem to us.  Don’t tell anyone because this is a secret, but…if we have the right kind of group on Thursday, I just may try to sucker everyone into working on him instead of waiting a week.  As always, Icy Veins has a wonderful guide you can check out.
• Random factoid:  In the fight’s first incarnations on the PTR, Heroic Morchok’s twin was not called Kohcrom.  He was called “Even Morchok.”  I’m still upset they changed that.
• I’d like to give a quick shoutout and special thanks to Locoman, who was technically supposed to raid last night.  He sat out so we could have the dreaded “normal raid configuration” for our first Madness attempts, and so everyone who had worked so hard to get us there could partake.  Hopefully we’ll be able to get him in to kill some giant dragon heads to make it up to him.

Holy shit, guys…Autty and I did way, way, way too much partying this last week.  I miss you all, though, so I’m looking forward to actually logging on to see you all tonight.  I expect welcoming gifts, obviously.  Straight up gold is always nice, although I wouldn’t turn down a gift card to Swords and Things, either.  Hell, I’ll tell you what…help me kill this dragon’s back this week and we’ll call it even?

• It sounds like things went well while I was gone.  Just want to let you all know I’m proud of how much we’ve come together as a team to overcome problems that might have led to a zero-raid-night in previous months.
• I don’t have much else to say since I was gone.  So, uh…how about them Golden Globe awards?  That Ricky Gervais is really something, right?  No?  Oh.  Ok.
• I promise I’ll tell you all about our weekend.  Photos might take a while to surface because they’re not all…appropriate…

As many of you know, I will be missing from the 18th through the 22nd, as Autty and I head out to Vegas to hit up the AVN parties with the lovely Sasha Sweet. Because of this, I will not be around for this week’s raids. I know, I know, but life’s a tradeoff, so try not to feel too bad for me.

In any case, Blackhorn is down! I wish we had a video of that sloppy and hilarious kill but I assume — without having watched it, since YouTube is blocked at work — that it was something like this, except with a few more dead bodies strewn around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8IVASo0umU

In case you’re curious, I’ve updated the guild’s progression chart to include our Blackhorn kill, and also made it more accurate overall and added Tier 10 (click to view full-size):

Look how much better we keep getting!  I’m proud of you all, so keep it up.

This is the first time I’ve gone to work on a Monday since November, guys.  This, by the way, is exactly why there haven’t been any MMMs in a while.  What, you expect me to sit around blogging for you people on my day off?  Psh.

Anyway, not a whole lot to report today anyway, so let’s get this over so I can get back to hating Monday once again.

• Still no “screenshot” for Ultraxion.  One day, folks…one day.
• We’re making good progress on Warmaster Blackhorn.  It appears our new strategy of stacking together was working rather well — of course, since it no longer appears that doing this stops the adds from charging, we may want to adjust it just a bit.
• [Some insult towards Galnadir]
• Uh, I dunno…gooch phase.

There.  Cut, print.

Ready for raiding:

• We finally killed the last of Deathwing’s big lieutenants last night.  Ragnaros went down rather handily once we figured out a good strategy for the second transition phase.  Overall, we did a great job, killing him in only three nights of attempts.  That’s a far cry from the amount of time we spent wiping on The Lich King or Cho’Gall.
• The patch seems to be dropping tomorrow with 99% certainty.  Who called it?  That’s right, I did.  I know what you’re thinking…I’m a really great guesser.  Oh, that wasn’t what you were thinking?  How ironic.   : (
• Don’t forget the Linguist’s Guide to Gearing in 4.3.  If you have any questions about how to prepare for Dragon Soul, it can probably help you out a bit.
• Also, you can start studying our strategies for the new bosses here.

There were a couple changes/clarifications to the official loot procedure in the R&P.

• The big one, as outlined in this morning’s State of the Guild post, is that Second Chance Main rolls are now prioritized over all Off-Spec rolls.  This will help the raid group as a whole in gearing faster for the challenges that lie ahead.
• Additionally, I finally added an official priority for BoEs, something I had neglected to address previously.  BoEs will always first be considered for main/off-spec rolls, and will be counted as such if won.  However, if nobody has a main/off-spec need for these items, they will go up for free roll.
• Finally, I clarified that tallies of won items are not held over from night to night.  This has always been the way we’ve done it, but I finally made it “official.”

Ragnaros:

• Progress on Raggy Von Raggerson is going quite well.  It wouldn’t be the last boss of a tier if it didn’t take your average guild a few nights of solid attempts to get him down, so we certainly have nothing to be ashamed of.  Quite the opposite, our best attempt this week was a 38% wipe, so we’re doing better and better each time we face him.
• Our current stumbling block is the second transition.  If anyone finds any good ideas for how to handle it, we’re all ears.  Everything up until that point, though, is going absolutely wonderfully.

Dragon Soul:

• The Dragon Soul raid will either open up on either November 29th — my bet — or December 6th, so it’s time to start thinking about it just a little.
• 374 seems like a decent equipped iLevel to shoot for in order to step into the raid and start downing bosses.  This will, thankfully, be rather easy to achieve once the patch drops, so it’s a great time for fresh level 85s to start raiding.  See our Linguist’s Guide to Gearing in 4.3 for more details.
• I’ve started to work on a Linguist’s Guide to Dragon Soul, as well, written in our standard per-role style.  So far, I’ve got Morchok’s strategy prepared for you here.  (Edit:  I’ve now also added Yor’sahj the Unsleeping.)
• If we have defeated Ragnaros before the patch drops, we will turn our attention to Tier 13 for both of our raid nights, however, if he still lives, we will likely do Dragon Soul progression on Thursdays and Ragnaros attempts on Sundays until he dies.

The continuing adventures of Ragnaros and our band of merry adventurers:

• Our first real attempts on Rag last night went pretty well.  Our final and best attempt ended with him at 60% health (which for all intents and purposes, is 54%).  We can be proud of our progression on him, because we were consistently getting better by small degrees, which is exactly the right place to be.
• There’s some really good discussion going on in the forum about our strategy.  We’ll probably be making some adjustments to our phase 2 positioning, which might work better.  Check it out here.
• On the gear side of things, we’ll be running 6/7 again on Thursday to hopefully grab some more gear to smack Rag around with.  Meanwhile, if people notice that they’re close to picking up another Valor piece, they should definitely see if they can.  Also, perhaps folks with Living Embers can pool together to grab a nice pair of boots for someone who needs them.  I’ve got one I could contribute…anyone else?  Every little bit is going to help.

C’Thun!  QueenOld God of the Desert.

• Rychni wanted to put together a fun run of AQ40 sometime, so we went ahead and set something up on the calendar.  Look for it Saturday, 6PM server.
• In related news, Book Club member Sabriele, plans to do something at some point in time.  An exciting announcement from the Book Club, to be sure!  We’ll keep you updated.

The “On Notice” board generator is currently down.  So, instead of this text, imagine a hilarious image of Stephen Colbert holding the On Notice board, except Ragnaros is at the top.  Under that, uh…I dunno.  Galnadir and Dog Dicks or something.  Wouldn’t that have been funny?

Bosses!

• According to GuildOx standards, the guild has killed 6/7 bosses.  A few of us even spent a bit of time wiping on Ragnaros last night.  It’s starting to look like our summer slump may be at an end.
• By my, slightly stricter, standards, we’ve officially had guild kills of 4 bosses:  Shannox, Beth’tilac, Baleroc and Alysrazor.  I’ve got “screenshots” of the most recent ones in the works.
• I would very much like to start doing some runs of Tier 11 achievements/heroic modes — and according to our informal poll, at least some of you feel the same.  I will start setting up some additional raid times to that end.  These runs will get started if we have at least 5 guildies show up for them.  Does anyone who’s particularly interested in this have any suggested days/times?

Blizzcon!

• It occurs to me that Blizzcon has come and gone, but we never got to talk about the experience.  I’ll get something up tonight about it.

Blurbs!

• Back when Cataclysm was announced, I launched a column on this site to discuss the expansion and all its fun goodies — and called it (wait for it):  CHATACLYSM!  Sadly, with the new expansion announced and coming soon, we’re going to need a new name.  So, without further ado — or perhaps with just a tiny bit of ado *unzips a backpack, turns it over and shakes it while piles of ado tumble out onto the floor* — I announce the newest addition to the blog:  Amidst Pandaria!  It’s your new source for MoP information and speculation.  Damn you, Blizzard, for making it harder to get a pun this time around…

Brewmasters!

• Speaking of Mists of Pandaria…it also occurs to me that I should make a statement or two about that whole, uh, Brewmaster thing.  This will come soon.

Bangarang!

That’s right.  It’s 8:50 PM in the morning.  Shut up, Galnadir.

• We finished our fishing challenge and unlocked the Seafood Magnifique Feast.  I’ll announce the winners tomorrow along with a new Weekly Quest.
• Since we’ve been having issues with the Tuesday raid — with hardly anybody ever showing up — and have been noticing a lot of people logging on Thursday nights, we’re gonna give that a shot as our raid night instead.  We’ll see how it goes and adjust accordingly.
• As you may have noticed, I’m out of town this week, in Kansas until Thursday night.  In the meantime…don’t break the guild, damnit.
• That’s it.  Goodnight.
• I mean, morning.