Why I raid

Morogrim down and the start of learning Solarian, and I rediscover the two reasons why I raid.

The first is the first kill - seeing all the learning we'd been doing pull together and almost flawlessly executing a boss fight that neither the guild, or me personally, had ever seen downed.

The second is new content. Not necessarily a new zone, just a new room, new trash, new boss. Not wiping to the trash in Solarian's bit of TK while learning it was a great feeling - we were winging it, and we were winning. And we got two vortices and an epic from it, which was nice, but that's beside the point. Also, pulling Solarian for the first time, seeing my first new 25-man boss since my old Horde guild started working on Morogrim, which was... four? months ago, was awesome.

And the fact that we seem to be getting at least one progression kill per week makes me think we'll be in tier 6 content before too long. That's what I want from this game. I want to be a top raider, whatever my role or class, and I want to contribute to first kills of bosses that are considered to be the hardest in the game, and for once, that feels as if it's in reach for me. Perhaps Kael'thas will stop us like he apparently does to so many guilds, but I don't know. I have a good feeling.

On another note, we cleared Hex Lord and Zul'jin in the same night recently - while that was good, 10-man kills can't compare to 25-man kills in the feeling of victory they bring - and I scored [Staff of Primal Fury] from Malacrass. However, my cat gear (and maybe my bear gear) is now better than my healing gear, if not as well socketed/enchanted. Irritation abounds.

On Zul'jin: Most FUN encounter I have done in a while. Especially phases 3 and 4. First and second phases were very easy (PerfectRaid's buff display system makes healing the Grievous Throw very very easy, and we had two cleanses and a dispel for the paralysis). Phase 3 was the toughie for us.

Phase 3 Zul'jin somehow manages to simultaneously makes me want to beat my head against a wall and to be the best new concept for a boss fight ever. For the unfamiliar, in phase 3 Zul'jin transforms into an eagle and flies to the center of the platform, where he starts making some kind of energy storm. This is channeled or something, so he doesn't actually attack for this phase. Four whirlwinds fly around the platform, randomly targeting people - they deal about 900 - 1100 damage and knock you back if they touch you - and (here's the thing) whenever anyone casts a spell, they receive 1250 nature damage. A spell is anything you can't cast while silenced, so most Hunter abilities don't count.

When I first read up on this phase, I was like 'how the hell do I heal through this?' Once I got used to the way damage is dealt in this phase, I started using only Rejuvenation to keep people alive, which seemed to work. I would pretty much keep Rejuvenation constantly on myself, Swiftmend if I dropped below ~4k, and cast Rejuv on anyone with a relatively high health defecit. However, I had to stop myself reflexively HoTing myself when I was very low - that would of course get me killed by the energy storm - and had to think to use a healthstone, a potion, or wait for one of the other healers to get around to me.

Annoying, however, was being ganged up on by three tornadoes one of our attempts - they all hit me for ~1k, I get knocked back into the fence, fall into them again, get hit again for ~1k, etc. Luckily a healthstone, some fleeing, and the other healers got me out of that alive. Still, even though we had the phase down pat, it kept me completely switched on - watching my health, the raid's health, my mana, my cooldowns, looking out for tornadoes, and doing mental math in my head between GCDs (can I afford to heal that guy? should I heal myself next?) made it an intense fight for me.

Phase 4 requires intense healing as well, but in a different way. While phase 3 could be called a test of how much you can not heal, phase 4 is definitely a test of how much you can heal. Lynx form Zul'jin has two main abilities - Claw Rage and Lynx Rush.

When he uses Claw Rage, he dashes to a random person in the raid (RSTS I think) and starts meleeing them. The first hit does roughly 500 damage, the next 650, the next 800, and so on - this adds up to about 16k damage in about six seconds. Which means that the healers have to be on their toes to react to this abilities, and be able to spam heals on the target.

The second ability is Lynx Rush, which he uses a little less than Claw Rage. When he uses Lynx Rush, he dashes to nine random members of the raid in quick succession, dealing ~2.2k (mitigated by armour) instant damage and another 7500 over 10 seconds, which means the healers need to be able to top everyone off before the next Claw Rage or Lynx Rush to ensure everyone stays alive. So phase 4 is both a raid healing check and a focused healing check. Fun stuff.

Phase 5 Zul'jin is somewhat of a disappointment, but I suppose if they made it too hard then people would get tired of clearing through the first four phases to wipe on the last over and over. He sorta breathes fire on everyone, and makes pillars of fire you have to move out of or you'll die. Not difficult really.

Huh. I wrote a lot more than I intended to. Oh well.