The last few weeks have been filled with Ulduar raids, testing and killing the remainder of the Ulduar bosses and starting to work on the Hard modes. We have been thrilled with some of the encounters so far and some, while easy on pussy mode, promise to be exceptionally challenging on hard mode. The guild has responded well to the increased competition of wotlk and has surged forward in terms of ‘worthwhile’ achievements.

The four keepers guard the final two bosses and we progressed through them at a rapid speed, before returning in the last week to play with some of them on hard mode. Blizzard have made a commendable effort to keep these encounters different and they have a healthy mix of adds, single target, single tank and multi-tank fights. The first keeper (by virtue of the fact that if you go down the stairs from the Shattered Walkway and turn right you get to him first) is Hodir. Hodir is the closest Ulduar has to a resistance fight, and by this i mean your tank has to wear some - the amount being dictated by how slack your healers are. Continuing the tradition of NPCs with the intelligence of gnats the encounter allows you to free a number of ice-tombed idiots to aid you in your cause and they show their appreciation by making nice little cooking fires and the like - before promptly getting themselves ice-tombed again. The normal mode is the easiest of the Keeper fights while the hard mode (assuming you didn’t exploit to get it) represents a massive test of dps and healing. From looking at the loot table I am sure that people can squeeze out some more damage….

After Hodir comes Thorim whose room brings back memories of the arena in BRD and you’ll find the spectators about as friendly. While one group forges through the tunnel in order to goad the fat giant into getting into the thick of it, the rest brutally squish the dorfs (and others) who try to gatecrash. The hard mode sees a nice increase in his damage and the intervention of his ‘wife’ who runs around generally being annoying and casting frost nova on people. On normal mode this a is relatively entertaining, although not overly difficult, encounter which should present little challenge to those able to reach it. On hard mode we look forwards to a nice repair bill while we learn it.

Freya the Fluffy likes flowers and trees (and probably new age music and baking flapjacks). Thankfully the trash in the room has been reduced making it slightly less of a chore to clear through to her. This encounter is the Sartharion of Ulduar with 3 tree-friends you can either chop down on the way or allow to buff her. The main fights consist of handling several add phases, each of which requires a slightly different approach and then a second boring phase which consists of button mashing and avoiding exploding acorns. With 0 tree-friends up the fight is just a question of handling the add phases, which is to say ensuring your raid can a) engage their brains and avoid standing in the middle of the raid and flaying everyone with a lightning storm, b) Manage to kill 3 mobs within a short space of time and c) Avoid killing 10 exploding mobs at the same time and thus taking 1,000,000,000 damage each. Once she gets her guardians it becomes a LOT more fun. Each guardian adds a different buff and increases the difficulty of the fight considerably. This week our focus has been on dispatching her with one of her guardians up - a feat we achieved after some practice, making us the second guild (and first Horde) to reach this milestone. The next few weeks promise to add to the difficulty as we explore the other guardians.

Last, but by no means least in terms of difficulty and enjoyment, is Mimi the cute gnome. Well annoying really but he has been blessed with some excellent scripted lines - sadly mostly when he kills people so in order to maintain morale we sacrifice a few people each week so we can hear them. A dynamic encounter with lots of different phases this is an excellent boss which, judging by the number of kills worldwide, represents the greatest challenge on hard mode. A slight tendency to lag has crept into Ulduar these last few weeks and this is one of the fights where you do not need that to happen. We strongly object to the nerfing of his trash however which provided endless amusement as those incapable of moving died repeatedly.

General Tentacle (as well as being popular with one of the girls in guild) was a breath of fresh air, certainly as far as healers are concerned. Mana conservation is the priority and a combination of interrupting and movement keeps the other classes from being bored. Initially perplexing and annoying to be unable to get mana back in the normal manner this is nicely tuned little fight which we had great fun with.

And finally Yogg Saron, This is another fight which on normal (4 Keepers helping) is fairly straightforward and is more about eliminating stupid mistakes than actually doing anything clever. As the keepers diminish however it becomes massively more difficult. On 10 man we have happily poked him to death with 3 Keepers and are looking forward to being able to do this on 25 man also. Ulduar has given a huge amount of choice as the hard modes mean that you can focus on any one of half a dozen bosses as your progress raid and mop up the others as and when. Not only does this provide variety it also provides a large amount of content for raiders and is to be encouraged. With flashbacks of C’thun, still in our opinion the best encounter the game has produced, Pine Cone Mk 2 is most enjoyable and having tentacle toys is the pinnacle of any raider’s gear collection.

Alongside our progress on the Keepers and their hard modes the guild has had great fun with Flame Leviathan - a superb encounter which just gets better and better the more turrets your leave up. From the very first week the guild has tested itself against this encounter, choosing to kill it with one turret up from week one. Last week we took some time out to play with three turrets up, which turns the encounter from a zergable one into a fantastic control fight, with every player needing to perform their task and show awareness of their surroundings. ‘Nuked From Orbit’ gave us a great sense of achievement and continued our streak of server firsts on it and we look forward to trying 4 turrets at some point over the coming weeks.

Elsewhere we picked up some other entertaining achievements as well, ‘Nine Lives’ and ‘With Open Arms’ providing a twist on otherwise vanilla fights. With the guild up to its full raid quota once again recruitment is open in a few classes, notably a mage, a resto druid and a tanking deathknight. As ever we will accept exceptional candidates in other classes and look forward to offering them the chance to join the team and play at our high level.

Bunny madness overtook us, along with a distinct high from eating too much chocolate. Some people had some harmless fun making a potential dream of Dr Evil’s come true! Bunnies with frikking laser beams.

Others saw different opportunities…..

And while we look for dedication from our raiders, people show it in varying amounts!