Sang Grail

Real Men of Genius

Thanks to Shinrobi, we had an opportunity this weekend to join an ICC 25 run with the Real Men of Genius guild. Five of us went on the run. We had a lot of fun and we got to see some 25 man content that we hadn’t seen before (at least I hadn’t seen it before).

We cleared the first wing and the Plague wing (Putricide). Our first wipe was on Dreamwalker at the end of the evening when people were getting a little tired. We called it a night, but all agreed it was a good night of raiding.

The hope was to fill out 25 with the two guilds, but we were about 5 people short. The rest were filled by PUGs.

The raid leader, Yogiboo, and other members of Real Men of Genius all seem really nice. Duck and I stayed up and chatted with Yogiboo for awhile after the raid. I think it will be fun to run with this guild and get to know them better.

Raid Requirements

A new aspect of this run was the raid requirements. We have previously laid out some raid requirements for our guild runs, but we tend to be a little more relaxed when we have to make choices between getting 10 people or not running at all. Real Men of Genius laid out some pretty simple rules, but those rules help aid in the success of the run.

1. There is an expectation of 7K dps.
2. Gear was checked prior to the run, especially for PUG members.
3. All gear is expected to be gemmed and enchanted.

What’s Next?

The run was considered successful, and another run has been posted for next Saturday. If you haven’t received an invite and you are interested, please talk with Shinrobi.

The plan is to start at the beginning again, but this time go through a different wing on the Upper Spire.

Loot Rules

I’m still trying to fully understand the loot rules that were used, so I might have this a little wrong. We can clarify it at the next run.

NOTE: This has been edited after some clarification.

1. Need Roll - One need roll win per night. Roll need if you really want something. NOTE: if you wait to roll greed instead, you will be rolling against offspec rollers too.

2. Greed Roll - This can be a main spec (if not wanting to roll Need) or offspec roll. You can win these rolls multiple times, but precedence goes to someone who hasn’t won a greed roll yet.

3. Marks (Trophies) - These are open rolls for anyone (by class)

4. BOEs and Primoridial Saronite - These are rolled for at the end by people who didn’t win anything. NOTE: BOEs will go through a Need Roll first, but no Greed Roll.

Thanks Shin!

A special thanks to Shin for working with his friends to set this up. Even though our Saturday night raid attendance has been low, I know some people were disappointed to miss out on 25 man runs after our runs with GOTL stopped. This is a great option for guild members to be able to 25 man raids without having to join a full PUG.

Happy Raiding!
~Daff

Tuesday
No raids

Wednesday
ICC 10 Progression Run

Thursday
ICC Alt / New Raiders / Friends Run

Friday and Saturday
TBD - possible followups

Sunday
No raids

Monday
No raids

If anyone wants to set up runs for the weekly or VOA, please do!

With several new alts, there has also been a lot of battleground and random heroic activity every night and weekend. Please ask for others who might be interested in these activities if you want to participate.

We are discontinuing our 25 man Saturday night runs with Guardians of the Legacy (GOTL) and Order of the Lion (OOTL). The main reasons for this are: 1) the time of year; 2) the expansion is close and some players are finding themselves in a lull; 3) there is a focus on 10 man runs and trying to reach the Lich King, so it’s impossible to add more time and energy to keep the 25 man exciting and progressing.

A Big Thanks

I’d like to thank those of you who have been participating in the raids, and also throw out a big Thanks to Karahnae (Greg) from GOTL who has acted as our fearless leader since we started the run many months ago.

Even though the 25 man raids were never our guild focus, we’ve been able to get some great 25 man gear for many of our raiders.

What’s Next?

At this point we don’t have any specific plans for a guild-sponsored 25 man run, but that doesn’t mean something won’t come up if enough people are interested.

We will be discussing how we can possibly use Saturday night for other raiding opportunities.

Please feel free to ask questions and pass along ideas on this topic to Shinrobi, Mufoxaa and myself.

Happy Raiding!
~Daff

Yeah Duck! I’m talking to you. That’s a mighty fine axe.

Silliness aside, the second ICC run went really well this week. Duck’s axe drop was just an example fo great gear that raid members received. I think every item was used for a main or off-spec. We had 5 Sang Grail members and representatives from both Guardians of the Legacy and Order of the Lion. Matthouse (Shinrobi) and Strongwolf (Mufoxaa) ran the raid.

Raid Participants:

• Matthouse - Tank
• Maelwyn - Tank (OOTL)
• Strongwolf - Healer
• Maddhealnfor - Healer (GOTL)
• TheDuck - DPS
• Xandalis - DPS
• Drooed - DPS
• Linalli - DPS (OOTL)
• Ushadaran - DPS (OOTL)
• Sadneis - DPS (GOTL)

Thank you all for participating and being supportive of our raiding approach! The group downed the first wing of ICC with no deaths and also completed the weekly quest and the mini-boss. We will be sending out invites for next week as well.

Happy Raiding!
~Daff

As most of you know, we’ve been tossing around a lot of ideas on how to get more people involved in raiding. I apologize for switching up some of the raid invites, but we want to try to come up with the best options to keep people involved in raiding and to get more people involved in raiding.

The Current Plan

Based on feedback we’ve received, we have decided to try 2 separate ICC runs a week.

1. Progression run - The invites for this run will include the raiders that have been raiding with us pretty regularly and have been contributing to our past success. These runs will be on Wednesday and Friday.

2. Second Run for newer raiders and alts (also the people who haven’t been running much lately) - The invites for this run will include mains and alts not included in the progression run that meet the minimum gear requirements and have been working toward getting their character ready for raiding. These runs will be on Thursday.

If we find ourselves short on raiders, we may pull some from the second run. We have also been talking with Guardians of the Legacy and Order of the Lion to possibly include some of their members in the second run.

Minimum Requirements

(as posted in the forums earlier)
So far we’ve been pretty lenient with our gear requirements for involving new raiders and alts. This has been due to a couple of factors: 1) we were short 10 raiders or 2) the more geared players were able to still carry the fight.

We’ve gotten some feedback from our raiders that to be fair to the other people in the raids, we should start to firm this up. Most of us who are raiding right now (actually probably all of us) worked really hard to get geared enough to start ICC. I remember running 10+ randoms a day plus the Icecrown 5 mans once a day to fill out my gear with the best possible items before even stepping into ICC. It may take a couple weeks of hard work, but it is certainly doable.

We may still find ourselves in the spot where we are short 10 players and to keep the raid going, we may need to pull in lower geared players to fill it out. We will make those decisions if/when the time comes.

Guild members will not be sent an invite until we have a consensus with raid leaders that the gear minimum and other requirements have been met.

NOTE: This only addresses the gear requirement. It is also still a requirement to be familiar with your character and to illustrate basic raiding concepts by successfully running the Icecrown 5-man instances and “holding your own”. It is not sufficient to be carried through these instances. Other requirements also include having your gear enchanted and gemmed.

Current Raiders

Here are the raiders that have been running in our Regular Weekly Runs that will meet the minimum requirements. These members will be invited each week to the Progression Runs.

TheGander
Shinrobi
Daffnae
Jarlaxyle
Hexxis
Gezabelle
Wallenby
Faiythful
Dareths
Xectavas
Mufoxaa
Moncaros
Rorynis
Patollosr

Alts or Other Raiders that currently meet the minimum gear requirements. These members will be invited to the second run on Thursdays.
Bshea
AngryMonkey
BillyMadison / Manispir (hasn’t been on in a while, but used to run regularly with us)
Stronwolf / Foxer / Zyget / Katee (Mufoxaa)
Xandalis / Xandrianna
Agaras
Viccodin / Trashcanman
Honeybeez / Fallingstar (Gezabelle)
Shimmeree / Crull (Hexxis)
TheDuck (Gander)
Caedo (haven’t seen him on in a long time, though)
Catastrophe
Matthouse / Communion (Shinrobi)
Andra
Sandarra
Drooed (Rorynis)

Alts or Other Raiders that are close but don’t yet meet gear requirements.
Shampyro - GearScore = 2487
Dareth (Dareths) - 2442
Drucideus - 2413
RustiKnight - 2373
Darethw (Dareths) - 2337
Anneliesa - 2332
Nelbrin (Jarlaxyle) - 2301
Moji (Daffnae) - 1774

Duck has been kind enough to move his mage to my account (Moji) to allow me to have an alt. I am beginning the gearing up process for the mage so that I can start bringing it to the Alt run on Thursdays. I’ll be looking for a lot of randoms and Icecrown runs if anyone is interested in joining me. We can gear up together. I’m trying to work on a three week plan. It will be fun!

Let me know if you have any questions. Raiding takes time and effort, so hopefully the people wanting to get into raiding won’t have a problem finding the time to finish the gearing process. There are lots of people happy to run a few randoms with you, and luckily it’s still pretty easy to get into the random queue even if you don’t have a group.

As an example of how you can improve your gear in a short amount of time, Drooed (Rory’s alt) went from a gear score of 2262 to 2575 in about a day.

Happy Raiding!
~Daff

Oh Yeah! That’s Right! We went from 8 out of 12 to 10 out of 12 in one productive Friday night. That doesn’t make us King slayers yet, but we are starting to sense the Kingslayer title is close.

Raiders

The following raiders joined in the fun:

• Mufoxaa - Tank
• Xectavas - Tank
• Daffnae - Healer
• Dareths - Healer
• Rorynis - Healer (had to leave after about 6 tries on the princes)
• Moncaros - DPS / Healer
• Bshe - DPS (filled in when Rory had to leave
• Jarlaxyle - DPS
• Shinrobie
• TheGander
• Wallenby

A HUGE thanks to everyone for reading up on the fight and showing up prepared to take on the challenge!

Blood Prince Council

It took us 8 tries, and we did it.

Blood Princes - Dead!

Blood Queen

She seemed quite simple compared to the princes. This fight only took us a couple of tries.

Blood Queen - Dead!

Sindragosa

We move on to Sindragosa now. We gave her a couple of attempts last night, but we were getting a little tired. A follow up is scheduled for Monday.

Fast Tube by Casper
BossKillers.com Strategy

A couple of key strategy points we were working on:

• Frost Tomb - When 2 players are marked to be entombed (is that a word), we were trying to send them away from the raid to prevent others from being entombed. We will need to firm up our approach for this, as it was causing some confusion.
• Frost Bomb - Once 2 players are entombed, players will need to use them to protect themselves using “line of sight” from the Frost Bombs. Sindy will drop 4 bombs per tomb. Each time it will be dropped in a random location. We have about 2 seconds to reposition behind the tomb before the bomb goes off. I personally didn’t realize this would happen exactly 4 times. We often killed the tombs too early and raid members would get hit by the bomb.
• Icy Grip / Blistering Cold - Icy Grip is what she uses to pull us all toward her. At this point, it’s simple. We just need to run at least 25 yards away from her before she follows it up with Blistering Cold. I knew I needed to run out, but I didn’t realize how far we needed to go. I think I usually got lucky on this one.
• Unchained Magic - This is a debuff that is randomly cast on a player. It will stack and needs to be allowed to drop off before it gets too high. As a player gets to about 5 stacks, he/she should stop healing / dps’ing for a few seconds while it wears off. It’s a pretty simple mechanic, so a player just needs to keep an eye on the debuff. We will try to call it out as well.

That doesn’t cover all of the fight, but some of the mechanics we were working on.

Beyond

The Lich King is our final destination in ICC. We are hoping we can get past Sindragosa and give that fight a try. We are considering an extension of the instance this week to see the fight.

Fast Tube by Casper

BossKillers.com Strategy

Grats all!

Happy Raiding!
~Daff

My Learning Process

I thought I’d write up the process I’m going through to learn the Blood Princes fight…just in case it helps anyone else with the process.

Step 1: Watch the video - Check! Reaction: Watching the video the first time was really kind of like the first two times we attempted the Blood Princes. There was a lot of things floating around and a lot of running around but I couldn’t figure out what any of it meant.

Step 2: Read the Abilities and Strategy. I read Shin’s forum post and also checked out BossKillers.com. “oh crap!” the web site changed. I don’t want to register and all that jazz. So I found the link to the old version of the site and read through the info there. It was pretty much exactly what Shin wrote up for us. NOTE: I copied Shin’s forum information to a post right before (below) this one.

Step 3: Watch the video again, this time hitting pause to try to look for certain abilities:

a. Kinetic Bomb - I was trying to figure out if this was the purple orbs, the red orbs or a white orb that didn’t show up in the video much. I’m thinking this is the white orb, since I saw it slowly decend at one point and then go back up.

b. Dark Nucleus - I quickly figured out these are the purple orbs. You can see them come up and then they start looking like they are being channeled to one player, or maybe that’s the boss. In any case, they are pretty easy to see.

c. Flame and Empowered Flame - These must be the red balls that you see traveling toward a player. I’m not sure if you can tell the regular from the empowered, other than that you will see the casting of Emplowered Flame, and this only happens when Taldaram is the boss we are damaging (has the Invocation of Blood).

d. Shock Vortex - I saw a note that the regular version of this can be avoided. In the video, I can clearly see the swirling white area on the floor.

e. Empowered Shock Vortex - I couldn’t see anything on the ground for this, but I think you can see the boss cast it (when Valanar has Invocation of Blood). You can see the melee scatter from time to time, and this should be when they see Empowered Shock Vortex being cast.

Step 4: Pick out key areas I’d like to focus so that I’m not overwhelmed by all of the information.

Abilities to focus on by Prince

Focus first on the abilities when Valanar has Invocation of Blood. This is how the fight will start. Once we get past the first prince, then we can focus on the next.

Prince Valanar:

a. The caster that will tank Keleseth has one initial job: Learn to recognize the Dark Nuclei and keep the attention of about 3 at a time. This might require some running around. All others should ignore the Nuclei.

b. Ranged raiders should spead out, keeping an eye out for the swirling white on the ground (shock vortex). Simply move out of it when it appears.

c. Melee should watch for Empowered Shock Vortex to be cast (someone should call this out) and scatter. It’s important to be about 13 yards away from each other. I am thining we might want to designate spots to run to so people can keep their bearings on where to go and how to get back to the boss. This will also prevent melee from running to the same spot.

d. Healers should watch for the fire balls heading to someone. A shield might help.

e. At least one range DPS need to be in charge of the kinetic bomb and never let it het the ground. Until we get a feel for how much damange is needed, this player may not be doing much damage to the bosses. Once we get a feel for it, then hopefully they can do both.

That seems like the basics. If we can get those mechanics down pretty well, then we can focus on what happens when the next Prince has Invocation of Blood. It will be random which prince is next.

Prince Keleseth:

a. Nothing special happens here, except the Keleseth tank will take lots of Shadow Damage that is hopefullyl mitigated by the Dark Nuclei.

b. I saw one suggestion of blowing melee cooldowns on this prince.

Prince Taldaran:

a. The fire balls can become Empowered when Taldaran has the Invocation of Blood. When these are cast, it is important for the range DPS to run to the path of the ball to reduce the damage. If this is not done, the ball will kill it’s target.

b. We need to dispel Glittering Sparks. This may not be limited to just this portion of the fight.

In General, summarized slightly differently:

Range:

1. Stay spread out
2. Move to the path of the empowered flame balls, also do this where easy for the non-empowered balls.
3. Stay out of the white shock vortex
4. Kinetic Bomb Range (Mage) - Job number one is to keep this in the air while trying to move as appropriate as described above.
5. Keleseth Tank gets the attention of the Dark Nuclei and attention of Keleseth. This is job number one. Move as appropriate as described above.
6. All other range do NOT hit the Dark Nuclei
7. As able, focus damage on the prince with the Invocation of Blood.

Melee:

1. Focus on the prince with the Invocation of Blood
2. When attacking Valanar, watch for Empowered Shock Vortex…when being cast, scatter and avoid others.
3. Watch for white shock vortex under your feet. Tank will hopefully move boss.
4. When attacking Taldaran, get in path of the Empowered Flame balls.
5. When attacking Kelesth, use your cooldowns for max damage

Healers:

1. Watch Keleseth Tank if not enough stacks to mitigate damage. Also watch DOT.
2. Notice who the flames are going toward and anticipate damage. Shield before hit and POM.
3. Spread out and move similar to Range players.

Tanks:

1. Keep your target occupied.
2. Move out of white shock vortex.
3. Anything else?

Time to try the fight

All of the information above is from reading and watching. I might not understand it completely, or have some of the information wrong. The next step is to actually try the fight. I’ll add another post to see how all of this pans out in the fight. It’s easy to say what to do, but doing it in the heat of the battle is completely different.

Additional Research

I’ll probably also check out Elitist Jerks priest forums to see if I can find some healing pointers on the fight. I also like to google the fight and also look on some of my favorite blogs for information. Let me know if you find any other good sources of info.

Happy Raiding
~Daff

Special thanks to Shinrobi for looking up this info and posting it on the forums.

Video

Blood Princes-http://www.tankspot.com/article.php?id=360042&title=Icecrown_Blood_Princes

Fast Tube by Casper

The first thing to do is watch the video and listen to the commentary. It’s kind of hard to see everything that is involved in the fight, but it will help a little. Next, read the description of the abilities and the strategy, an then re-watch the video trying to take notice of the specific abilities.

Abiilties

Prince Valanar

Shock Vortex- 50,000 yd range — Creates a vortex of swirling force near an enemy target that inflicts damage and knocks back enemies near it. 1.5 second cast.
after the cast- Deals 8000 damage to all enemies within 12 yards and knocks them back.

Kinetic Bomb- 50 yd range — Summons a Kinetic Bomb. The bomb drifts toward the ground and explodes on contact. Direct damage is absorbed by the bomb and converted into energy, propelling the bomb higher in the air with each hit. 3 second cast.
after the cast- Explodes on impact with the ground, inflicting 10800 to 13200 Physical damage and knocking enemies back in a wide area.

Empowered Shock Vortex- 50,000 yd range — Creates force vortices on all nearby enemies, inflicting 5000 Physical damage and knocking enemies with ~12 yds of the the target away. 4.5 second cast.

Prince Taldaram

Conjure Flame- 50 yd range — Conjures a ball of flames that flies through the air toward the target and explodes on impact.
after cast- Explode violently, inflicting a minimum of 7500 Fire damage to nearby enemies. Larger balls of flame deal additional damage based on size.

Conjure Empowered Flame- 50 yd range — Conjures an empowered ball of flames that flies through the air toward the target and explodes on impact. 3 second cast.
after the cast- Explode violently, inflicting a minimum of 7500 Fire damage to nearby enemies. Larger balls of flame deal additional damage based on size.

Empowered Flare — Empowered Flames discharge some of their stored energy, inflicting 1000 Fire damage to a random nearby target.

Glittering Sparks - 90 yd range — Glittering sparks shoot from the caster’s hands in a cone, burning enemies for 12920 Fire damage over 8 sec and reducing their movement speed by 20%. Instant

Prince Keleseth

Shadow Lance- 40 yd range — Hurls a bolt of dark magic at an enemy, inflicting 15600 to 16400 Shadow damage. 1.5 second cast.

Shadow Resonance — Summons a Dark Nucleus. Dark Nuclei feed on their own energy, causing them to destroy themselves over time. Instant
after the cast- The nearest target resonates with shadow, suffering 1000 damage and reducing Shadow damage taken from all sources by 35% for until cancelled.

Empowered Shadow Lance- 40 yd range — Hurls a bolt of dark magic at an enemy, inflicting 78000 to 82000 Shadow damage. 1.5 second cast.

Strategy

The encounter consists of one phase. The 10 minute enrage timer is generous and should not be of any consequence. Three tanks are required, one of them can be a ranged tank (e.g. Warlock).

At all times, one of the three princes has Invocation of Blood. The two without the buff have 1 HP and cannot be damaged, only the buffed prince has a proper health score and can take damage.

Invocation of blood always starts on Prince Valanar (middle), and switches randomly every 30 seconds to another prince.

All three princes have rather low armor and thus take high melee damage. DPS cooldowns should be used on Keleseth, if the tank has sufficient threat, since he frequently casts Shadow Lance which makes it impossible for him to dodge.

Prince Keleseth

This prince can basically be tanked by any class with a ranged attack. He does not use any melee abilities, he instead spams Shadow Lance.

For this reason, the Keleseth tank must gain shadow mitigation from the Dark Nuclei. These spawn randomly around the room, and the Keleseth tank must grab them to gain the stacking Shadow Resonance buff. Dark Nuclei do not follow the normal aggro table, they instead attack the last player that hit them. Melee aoe abilities do not pull Dark Nuclei off the Keleseth tank (excepting Hammer of the Righteous and Heartstrike). The Dark Nuclei destroy themselves over time, necessitating finding more to keep the shadow resistance buff up. Note that the damage reduction from Dark Nuclei is multiplicative not additive, so even with 6 Nuclei the tank still takes some damage. More than 6 Nuclei is not advisable, since at that point the tank takes more damage from the Nuclei than from Shadow Lance.

Prince Valanar

Valanar summons Kinetic bombs so that 2/3 (10/25 player) are up at all times. These Bombs float in the air and slowly move to the floor, upon impact they explode for ~16k damage. Every time they take damage, they float a little upwards. After 1 minute, they despawn.

To prevent the bombs from exploding, they must be continually damaged. The easiest method to achieve this is to use a warlock or hunter melee pet. A melee pet set on a bomb just sits below the bomb until it floats low enough, then attacks it until it floats up out of range again. This may fail though when the pet is effectively kicking the bomb up the stairs. They best way to ensure that this does not happen is to position the pet so that the bomb is between the door from which the raid enters the room and the pet, not the pet between the door and the bomb. Using a warlock imp is not optimal either, as the imp may use all its mana and then be unable to keep the bomb up.

Ranged damage dealers can do this too, but this leads to loss of DPS on the bosses. Players thus want to switch from the Bomb to a boss and back, but this can lead to errors (like accidentally targeting Nuclei). Switching on nameplates or using a targeting macro will help avoid these errors.

Sometimes a kinetic bomb glitches and gets stuck in the floor and not go back up, no matter how hard it’s being hit. If this is the case, then someone needs to continually beat on the bomb until it dissipates, otherwise it explodes. This tends to happen on the raised stage in the back of the room.

Valanar puts shock vortexes on random raid members which knocks both them and any nearby (~12 yards) raid members back 50 yards. When he gains Invocation of Blood he casts Empowered Shock Vortex which creates a shock vortex on top of every player in the room; melee need to scatter and get away from each other, while the rest of the raid should already be spread out. Players must keep 12 yards away from everyone else.

Prince Taldaram

Prince Taldaram conjures balls of flame which follow a random raid member and explode when they reach their target. When they pass through other players, the damage they do is reduced, down to a minimum of 10k. When Taldaram has Invocation of Blood he launches Empowered Balls of Flame which follow the same mechanism, but deal higher damage, and also damage the players they pass on their way to their target.

Players who are NOT targeted by Empowered Balls of Flame should stick together and stay close to the route of the ball, especially ranged dps. In this way you drain the energy of the Empowered Balls of Flame and that makes it hurt less.

Taldaram also casts Glittering Sparks in a random player’s direction so spreading out mitigates that somewhat.

So, in a nutshell…

Keleseth “tank” needs to gain a debuff from dark nuclei that spawn around the room (attacking once will get aggro) but no more than 5/6 stacks

During Valanar we will need range dps to hit the orbs to keep them floating (fast cast attack like Searing Pain or Fire Blast/Scorch are advised). When valanar casts shock Vortex players affected should attempt to move away from it.

For Taldaram, we will need to group up on the member targeted by his fireball to mitigate damage

Huge raiding progress was made last night.

1. We downed the first 8 bosses in about 2 1/2 hours. We have the full second night now to focus on new content.

• Marrowgar - Dead
• Deathwhisper - Dead
• Gunship - Destroyed
• Saurfang - Dead
• Festergut - Dead
• Rotface - Dead
• Putricide - Dead
• Dreamwalker - Alive

2. We have been able to integrate 2 newer raiders into the raid group and still down all of our normal bosses.

3. In addition to the 2 newer raiders were were able to bring in a lower geared alt for the first 3 fights and still down them easily.

This is all great news! Congratulations to everyone involved.

Getting New Raider and Alts Involved in Raiding

Before the raid, we discussed ideas on getting new raiders and alts involved in our raiding without disrupting our progression at the same time. This was the continuation of a topic started on the forums. The following outlines the guidelines we will follow. NOTE: We will adjust these as needed based on feedback from raiders.

Alt / New Raider Minimum Requirements:

SUMMARY: make an effort to get your character raid-ready. If your character is struggling in the Icecrown 5 mans, it won’t be ready for ICC. Exceptions can be made if we are trying to fill out a group and players are asked to join at the last minute.

1. Establish “minimum” gear levels for new raiders to come to ICC. The expectation would be that the player has all epics (except possibly for a level 200 blue trinket or special item that is still very good for the class). It would also be expected that the player has made efforts to gear up through the use of emblems and drops from the Icecrown heroics. As some players have proven, it is possible to gear up within a week or two to a pretty high level that will not have too much of an adverse effect on the raid. In terms of Wow-Heroes gear score, we should be looking at something around 2500 to start out.

2. The player must have all enchants and gems slots filled, epics. Epic gems and good enchants will make up for bad gear. This is exactly the time to spend money on enchants and gems.

3. The player must make an effort to run the Icecrown Heroics. In addition to the gear drops, the fights in these dungeons help demostrate certain fighting skills that are necessary to be able to survive in raids. Pit of Saron, in particular, is often a good judge of ability.

4. The minimums are guidelines. If the raid feels we can support lower gear / performance levels, then exceptions will be made. However, if others are wanting to participate, then those not meeting the requirements may be asked to sit out or switch to their main.

Getting Involved:

1. New Raider / Alt runs will be posted periodically to specifically provide an opportunity for people to freely play alts and for new raiders to not worry about slowing down the rest of the raid.

2. On regular raids, we can include new raiders on the first night (typically first 4 - 6 bosses); however, we may need to limit the number of new raiders to allow for success. Main raiders can also bring alts on the first night as desired, as long as we can still be successful in the run. More experienced raiders and mains will be given precedence for the follow-up nights. Being considered for follow-ups will be based on raid contribution. Therefore, once a new player or alt is playing at a level similar to the other raiders, they will be eligible to continue on the follow-up nights. Minimum requirements above still apply for alts.

3. Progression weeks. We want to also start to focus on progressing further into ICC. This will mean that some runs will not be open to newer raiders. Hopefully the other methods to get involved will be sufficient.

So, express interest in raiding, gear up and start to get involved. If you are having trouble getting geared up, talked to others that have recently gone through the process: Rory (new raider), Shinrobi (geared 2 alts to gear levels over 2500 in a couple of weeks), Mufoxaa (has several geared alts).

We’re Raiding Tonight!

I just thought I’d throw a note here to mention that I put up a raid for tonight. With getting back late from vacation and then the 24 hour down time yesterday, I hadn’t had a chance to put up the calendar invite until this morning.

You should find invites for Wednesday and Friday for our 10 man runs. For those who have been attending the 25 man runs regularly, you will also have an invite for the Saturday 25 man run as well. If you don’t see an invite for something you would like to attend, please let me (Daffnae) know and I’ll get you added.

Progression Runs

We have had a proposal from some raiders to use one week out of the month as a “Progression Run”. To be successful progressing through newer content we will need to control the invites for this run to get the best raid composition. Invites will be based on class / spec and also based on past participation and performance. It will also be very important that people who are signed up for these runs show up for the runs so we aren’t short on raiders for that night. We’ll be discussing the specifics of this type of run and firming up a schedule soon. Please contact Mufoxaa, Shinrobi or Daffnae if you have questions.