Raiding - Ahead of the Curve: Imperator's Fall

It was Australia day and a lot of people were out partying and socialising and we were down a few people, but we did have 4 healers and 2 tanks turn up!  The final raid numbers were 19 and maybe there was a chance we could get it with less people around.

Alca asked if he could call out the healer cooldowns and I was happy with that - I could concentrate more on healing then rather than yelling things out.  And he did a fantastic job - so he should, he was a guild leader and raid leader.

Healing was heavy, and at first, we were doing with 4 healers and there were 17 in raid, but 2 stragglers turned up (Duck and Sev).  I asked Nok to heal then and he did for a bit but we were behind on damage so he switched back to DPS.  Poor Nok! I told him to use the guild bank donations since that's what they're there for, but he insists on buying his flasks.

Sure enough no hunters in raid.  What were we going to do now for the Arcane Wrath debuff?  I asked Crooked and Luxy to do it, as they are quite good friends and would work well together. Luxy hadn't done it before, but it turned out well because the two of them could heal themselves as well (though their damage was lowered because of the running around they had to do)

We kept getting to the fourth phase and dying. People were still too close for replicated Force Nova. Adds were still up and dying caused raid wide damage. I despaired of ever having the heals to be able to do it as I was OOM by that stage.

However, as we did more attempts, I was doing better with mana.  I had already switched to Dream of Cenarius to try to conserve mana yet still put out some heals and help with a tiny bit of damage, and Koda was having more mana issues than me, so I got her to drink in the first transition and I drank in the second transition.  I'm not sure when Bish and Alca did their regen but Bish was happy he was getting back to full mana.

Mines were done really well.  I only remember a couple of mine pops - poor Una popped one as she tried to run out with the Arcane Wrath (and died) and Bish popped one and lived (and I have no idea how he didn't get stunned in more mines), and maybe the tank ran over one... but that was over the whole night. I was very happy with that.

I had one giggle bit when I told Koda to drink, and Hwired heard me say "tranq'.  "Why the hell do you need to tranq, everyone's full health!" he said, loudly.  "I SAID DRINK!" I yelled back. "Stop interfering with the healing stuff and concentrate on your stuff!" LOL, I hope nobody got freaked out about us yelling at each other but it's only officer yelling and Hwired is hilarious that he stickybeaks into all aspects of stuff, so I wasn't upset but it was funny, to me.

On our kill attempt things people were doing much better in terms of reducing the damage they were taking, and so healer stress was not as bad.  When we hit phase 4 and everything was replicating, most people were alive and we had cooldowns.  Both the tanks died, one got rezzed and the health was ticking down and down... OMG we can do this, we ARE doing this!!

There was much excitement and much relief!  Luxy and I both rolled Staff of the Grand Imperator, and Aza took the one that dropped off the boss.  Cptsars got Reaver's Nose Ring, and Exray got Gor'gah, High Blade of the Gorians (with socket).  Nobody wanted the tanking ring Shockwave Signet, so Falln rolled it and got it offspec.

Tanks: Aimei, Snowcaller
Healers: Navimie, Koda, Alcatots, Biship
DPS: Sevrus, Madcow, Kyjenn, Hwired, Azadelta, Luxygaga, Crooked, Duckalot, Fallnapart, Una, Punchynok, Cptsars, Lushen

Grats Frostwolves! Wewt, 7/7H!