We began this week by going immediately to the Trial of the Grand Crusader (that's Hardmode 25 to those who, like me, are completely confused by the naming system). We had been messing about and wiping in Phase two of Beasts for a lot of the previous week and we really wanted to sort it out. Our tactics didn't change between raids but we made sure to reinforce the movement with 'Poisons' and 'Fires' and made sure we didn't hug up. After Phase two attempts became more stable our confidence grew and positioning improved and this took us into Phase 3 with everyone alive. Thankfully my worst nightmares did not come true, spending several attempts dieing to the charge in P3 and wiping so close to our first kill, instead we completed Phase 3 on the first go! We went slightly over the enrage timer, and had fun calling 'DOTS!' on TS and demanding Healers show us some damage output, but we made it there and it all counts.
After the Beasts HM kill we took a look at Lord Jaraxxus and found it within our reach if we got things right. We played about with using either 5 or 6 healers and tried to make sure DPS focused on the portals (particularly the Mistress ones) and tried to have only one Mistress spawn. Unfortunately we didn't quite catch on concerning movement enough to survive through a whole attempt and we ended to raid feeling happy to get a Server 4th, Horde 2nd Beasts HM kill, but disappointing we could not kill Jax.
Today, Thursday, we re-entered ToGC expecting to kill Jax. We tried some initial attempts with 5 healers, but saw some raid deaths, then we tried 7 healers but found our DPS was lacking, so we dropped back to 6 healers and made sure DPS cooldowns were used well so we could achieve only one Mistress per portal. I can't really remember much of the kill attempt, I think we needed to use a couple of Battle Resses, but it went pretty smoothly overall and we got a server 3rd, horde 2nd kill of Lord Jaraxxus HM!
So now we are very happy!
'Excuses don't kill bosses. And neither does standing in the fire, coming unprepared, forgetting last weeks tactics or watching TV.'
