Priorities

Only Leotharas the Blind and Lady Vashj remained alive as we prepared for our Raid into SSC last night.

I've been talking to the Officer's pretty much since our first SSC raid about how I should be the tank for Leo's Human phase. I had read every strat I could find, and watched every movie I could find on the Leo fight. I grabbed every consumable that I could think of for the fight.

Our Guild Leader was having some real life issues going on which was causing the raid to start a little late. That's when 5 of our Raiders decided to go Arena instead of Raiding. Most (maybe all of them) don't really NEED anything from Raiding as they have access to the Season 3 PVP gear which is superior to any drop from SSC. But this night was to be about more than gear, this was a Progression Night, a chance to kill a new boss and put another notch on Mal Katai's belt.

Our Guild Leader made it on and we started to fill the raid. We had over 40 Level 70 Characters online, yet people were not wanting to come to the Raid. There were people doing Kara on an Alt. There were people running Magister's Terrace (maybe Heroic).

So instead of our Core or Progression Group, we had to take any warm body that would come.

We were short on CC. I tried tanking two mobs but it took a pull or two to figure out how to pull them. Eventually our Warlock Tank had to log into his Mage.

We struggled through but got all the trash down. The only new trick we had to learn was the Elemental Shambler looking things could spawn these mushrooms that put a nasty nature DoT on you.

We finally got to Leo himself. He starts out banished, kind of like Magtheridon. The three channelers do a Mind Blast that hits for around 2k damage. I was on the first channeler, and once he dropped, I moved into position to pick up Leo.

I tanked Leo's human form until he started the Whirlwind. Then as Blackheart the Inciter would say, it was TIME FOR FUN!

I don't think all of the people in the raid were familiar with the dynamic of the aggro drop which made picking him up very difficult. I was also expecting to see a timer from DBM on the Whirlwind so I would know when to time up my Shield. Absent that I waited until the Whirlwind was over to toss my shield, which cost me a few seconds.

Our main problem on the early attempts seemed to be Inner Demons. We lost about 3 people per Inner Demon phase. The crazy thing to me was that we were not only losing Healers, but also DPS. I can understand a Healer failing to kill their Inner Demon. DPS is a very different mindset than healing. But the DPSers? Killing stuff fast is their thing, you would think they'd have the Demons down no problem. Both times I got chosen for Inner Demon I was able to kill him, but the first time, it was close, mainly because I wasn't sure if I was targeting the right thing.

We got better as the night wore on, but we still lost at least one person to their Inner Demon each time. Our best attempt of the night was our final one. We managed to get all the way to the Enrage Timer, but only had him at about 40%. We had lost too many DPS early on.

Picking Leo up after the Whirlwinds was no picnic. We did use Searing Totems which were remarkable effective. Leo really hates those things.

Now SSC has reset and our shot at Leo will have to wait until another week.

I keep hearing "we'd kill this boss or that boss with our progression group". I'd love to the last time we had the Progression Group actually online together. I guess I'm just discouraged after a long night of wipes, but what was even more discouraging to me, was the people who decided they rather do other things.

Now, I realize it's just a game, people can do whatever they want. But you've joined a Raiding Guild. We Raid, that's kind of our thing. If you want to PVP, there are FANTASTIC guilds out there that do that as seriously as any Raid Guild raids. You want to gear up an alt, we have nights set aside for that.

The thing is I know we are capable, but we need our people to actually be in the raid.