The Fall of Naxxramus

This weekend was really good for Vae Victus and raiding, despite the consistant bad luck we’ve had with people on our server.

Right now our raid team consists of 3 healers: 2 Paladins and a Resto Druid. I know 2 Pallies is tricky, but the other paladin is probably one of the only people we have picked up on our server who has not flaked out on us. Every other weekend the other Pally works on Saturday (Naxx Day 1), this was one of our weekends without her. We had met another Resto Druid when we were first getting started, but his account had gotten hacked and when he got it back he was naked. He ended up giving his account away but now has it back. (Confusing yes?) At any rate, he was guildless and looking for a raid spot. Abi talked with him and let him know that we could use him this weekend and possibly every other weekend as well (When our other Pally is working). He said that worked and we were set for Day 1 in Naxx.

Saturday comes up. We had just devoured some Sushi and talked about how excited we were about the raid with fellow guildmate and OT Chad As I mentioned before my good holy pally friend Ayrel/Rudilyn had decided to raid with us. What I didnt say is that he brought his paladin back to Sisters of Elune and had gone Ret to fill our DPS spot instead of using his Shadow Priest. His damage was really good and we were sure everything would go well for us, finally.

When we get home Abi signs on to see the Resto Druid in Naxx. What? Yeah.. he had blown his save to go with another guild. I know which guild he went with and I have certain thoughts and ideas already about said guild from past experiences with them, but I’ll behave myself and just continue with the story. So now we’re back down to 9 people and without our 3rd healer no less. We talked it over and decided to say screw it, we can two person heal this for sure. We snagged a DK from LFG and gave it our best.

It went -very- well. We had no trouble with just the two healers and with the added DPS I’d say it even went better than normal. We cleared 10/15 of the bosses in there and everyone picked up some upgrades. Something must have been in the water (slime?) in Naxx that night because I walked away with FOUR upgrades of my own. It seemed like every boss has some spell power plate, and just for me as I was the only holy paladin.

I received:

• Aegis of Damnation – 25 Intellect

Ah my Naked Lady Shield! I love this thing. I was super excited when it dropped. I had an epic shield already but it was kinda meh. I had it a long time as well. The new one is better than the badge shield as well, saving me 35 badges, always a bonus. Cit, Haste, Spell Power – whats not to love?

• Frostblight Pauldrons – 61 Spell Power / 15 Crit Rating

The shoulders I really needed as my previous ones were probably my weakest piece of gear. Theyre really not incredible or anything (Where’s the crit?) and I’d much rather have the T7, but these will do for now.

• Web Cocoon Grips – 28 Spell Power

The gloves I was a bit torn on, I had enough badges to get my T7 gloves, but I really needed to get the badge trinket. They were going to get sharded unless I took them, so I figured they would last until I eventually get the T7 ones. They were an upgrade over my BoE Blue gloves, but again… Crit please?

• Tainted Girdle of Mending – Eternal Belt Buckle, Gemmed with 16 Intellect

Another so-so item. Badge belt is better I think, somewhat of a side-grade since it has more crit. Again I will eventually replace these with the badge belt, but for now it was better than what I was wearing.

Night 2 we had 4 Horsemen, Heigan, Loatheb, Saphiron and Kel’thuzad left. We had our 2nd paladin so everything went good. We one shot every boss but the last two. Horsemen was slightly confusing to me because my tank kept getting too many debuffs, but we downed him so thats all that matters. I died on Heigan -_- I was so overwhelmed with the concept that I was doing the steps, that I got ahead of myself lol. Oh well! Next week! Loatheb was relatively easy as well once I got the hang of watching the timer on my debuff. Its really just learning to delegate your heals, I liked it.

Saphiron… was not fun for me but I did well and that made me feel good not only as a raider but as a holy paladin in general. As I stated before we had 2 paladins and a resto druid healing. After some discussion on working out the healing assignements it was decided that I was to assist on raid healing since I gem for intellect and can use Holy Light more efficiently (I cant get our other Paladin on the bandwagon with me, she insists that FoL/Holy Shock is better). I have to say it was stressing me out haha. So much moving and SO MANY people taking all that damage. That on top with watching for Blizzard, watching my JotP timer, watching my Beacon timer, watching for Divine Plea to come off CD and also keeping my seal up. Ugh. Suffice it to say I don’t think I blinked that entire fight and its a long one. It took us a few attempts to get the hang of it, I want to say 4, but we downed him. It really tested me to heal outside of my single target box you could say and I think I did a good job so that was good.

Kel’thuzad wasn’t so bad. Phase One is a snooze. Again it took us maybe 3 or 4 attempts to get down our positioning. I was really wiped after Saph, so I don’t remember much of the attempts. All I know is that on the succesful attempt I yawned, only to look up and be in a void zone. When I tried to move my ass and quick, I hit R (respond to tell >.<) instead of W (move forward) and in my frantic escape key mashing I never quite made it lol.

I am really confident in our raid team right now. The other Paladin has been leveling a hunter and might possibly switch out for the bosses that don’t really require 3 healers. We’ll see how that works out when the time comes. Right now I just want to know that we will always have the people required to raid. I am happy and consumed with a sense of pride knowing that my guild, a guild that I help run and operate, was able to clear Naxx. I know though that we have just enough people and that if something happens to any one of them we will be stuck trying to recruit again.

I can only hope that we get a bit of luck and that those of us who are committed to the guild will stick it out.