Well, the last few weeks have been more challenging than most for raiding.  Our sympathies to those raiders who have had tragedies in their immediate past, and we all hope that we will be able to carry forward.  Nonetheless, because of these challenges, we had some catching up to do, and it all surrounded getting Heroic Baleroc.  We consistently tried to keep everyone in good spirits, even when Rhydran would talk about "fluxing cables all day." I had to put a stop to it:



Any time I'd suggest spending more than one night to clear what we could on heroic, I would be reminded that people have priorities:



We'd burn loads of time on Lord Rhyolith every week, inexplicably going from a high DPS raid to one searching their souls for a hint of throughput.  It became spiritual, as we coalesced around our foot DPS caller:



Even so, after many weeks of clearing the other bosses on heroics, it would seem one thing or another would keep us from getting Baleroc on heroic, be it limited time, sporadic connections, or the wrong confluence of the astral.  To boot, people quitting suddenly left us having to get very creative on compositions.  (Pro tip: if you go one week from 100% to the next week at 0%, no one remembers you fondly.)  And I'm sure my .... less than inspirational words recently after having 4 chain deaths on Heroic Alysrazor post-P4 and sub-10% left more people on edge than was intended, but it seemed to bring back memories of prior years.  Even our initial pulls of Heroic Baleroc resulted in cringes from Dyson, otherwise known as Breoth:



I'm all for people having plenty of gear, but really, 4 sets of T12, and RDPS is the downer?  Some of us work all day just to scrape by on the off-chance we'll actually see a second Capacitor from Ragnaros!  I think it's taking its toll:



That's all to say that, assuming you're not Zephuros, our loot drops on heroic have been less than stellar, giving much of it away to off-specs.  There were a few exceptions, particularly when DK items dropped:



But alas, despite sub-10% pulls more than a month ago, we finally have it down, and after rising reasonably high on the server in progress, we're back with most of the rest at 6/7 Heroic.  A huge thanks to Distomos for filling in at the last minute when an unnamed guild mate (whose name rhymes with Bamswisher) didn't come for happy fun times.  No doubt hundreds of pulls await us on Heroic Ragnaros, and I am in spitting distance of Dragonwrath, not knowing when 4.3 will reach us.


And, despite the tanks' belief that no good fortune awaited them from Baleroc during this content cycle, our first loot hinted at being useful:




Thanks to everyone for sticking with it.  For investing such little time, we still manage to get through things when they're current, thereby keeping it fun.  That said, we're still looking for a full-time healer and a full-time swing DPS/healer.  Please, if you're going to submit an application in-game, at least have a plausible gear set to do Firelands; there's no reason my alts should out-gear you.  Even so, I hope we can keep this going, as nearly all of us have been playing together now for years.

Until the next update, dear reader!

My body does not lend itself to an extensive update, but something seemed required.

So the Firelands nerfs are comical.  Fortunately, we got at least one heroic mode (Shannox) kill in beforehand, and followed up with a Lord Rhyolith kill this past week.  Rather than spam a senseless achievement or an identical pose, though, I choose to usurp reports on our 2/7 (H) status and simply post the usual fare:

First, for some reason, people think the joke hasn't gotten old:



Next, Krash finally admits what I've known for more than a decade when it comes to MMORPG loot:



And finally, Don thinks he can slip one past me before the raid starts:



With a 15% nerf already present, hopefully the next 4 will come fairly quickly; we'll see.  If these nerfs are progressive, Dragonwrath updates will be more engaging.

Toodles!