Another One Bites the Dust!

The Oroborus continues to solidify its raiding prowess, with a first-night kill of Fathom-Lord Karathress. We probably should have one-shot him, but as we moved to engage Caribdis (after dispatching Sharkiss and Tidalvess), someone inadvertently pulled Leo’s outermost patrol of three Tidecallers. Ouch.

On the next attempt, we got him down to 2 percent. I’m certain that if I hadn’t died within two seconds of a battle rez, we’d have nailed him: Three additional heals probably would have made the difference.

On attempt number three, we turned that fish-faced snake into so much sushi, with zero deaths! It had been a while since we nailed a boss on our first night, and that brought our record for the week to four bosses downed in SSC, including guild-firsts on Lurker and Karathress. Needless to say, we were pumped!

So we moved on to Leotheras the Blind. The last time we faced him, we simply weren’t ready. We hadn’t really started to gel as a group (although we never have the same 25 from night to night). We hadn’t built a lot of confidence as a group, and the group synergy was lacking: We were more like 25 individuals, or three mini-groups—tanks, healers, DPS. I’m not sure we got Leo down past 80 percent.

But last night, we were full of confidence, although I don’t believe we were overconfident. Many of us remembered our epic wipes from the last time, but we also had quite a few people who hadn’t seen Leo before. For myself, the fight seemed MUCH more manageable. (Well, except for me thinking [spell]Smite[/spell] was a Shadow spell, not Holy. So I tried to fight my Inner Demon with [spell]Holy Fire[/spell] exclusively. Too long a cast time, and too little damage. Sigh.)

On the first attempt, we got him to about 28 percent before he Enraged, and he was at 25 percent when we wiped. The Whirlwind wasn’t as much trouble as the Inner Demons: We had to kill too many party members (including tanks and healers) and then use battle rezzes to get them back—rezzes we could have used to better purpose later in the fight.

On the second attempt, we had him at 25 or 26 percent when the Enrage timer hit zero. Our fire-resist lock died at least three times; again, we blew rezzes (we had 5 druids) too often, too early. On the other hand, the raid was built for Karathress: Lots of healers and casters, so some easy kills for Leo and the Inner Demons. Tonight, I expect our build will be more specifically geared to defeating Leo (probably only five or six healers, for example, instead of eight), and we’ll beat him.

However, I don’t think anyone was dismayed by not downing Leo. We all were ecstatic over our first T-5 kill, and I think we all recognized we weren’t optimized to knock off Leo. Can’t wait for invites tonight!