Death's Demise!

<Prophecy> claims the realm first kill of Yogg-Saron "super-hard" mode!

Realm First! Death`s Demise

Tuesday the 1st of December, we defeated Yogg-Saron 25-man without any keepers helping, thus completing Alone in the Darkness; also, we were the first guild on the realm to complete this achievement, meaning we got the bonus feat of strength - Realm First! Death`s Demise (and a shiny title!).

This fight is very challenging, complex and fun. Very demanding on the DPS, very exact assignments with a close to zero margin of error. Very demanding of the healers since they need to nail it perfect being only 4. And it might very well be the trickiest encounter to tank period.

Another thing that makes this fight special is the fact that even with better gear, it`s still very technical and difficult to pull off. Gear isn`t going to make the fight, but good strategy and awesome play will. P3 can classify as one of the masterpieces of encounter design. Even though it appears simple at first glance, the strategy for this phase is deep and extremely hard to pull off, requiring near-perfect play from the people involved. For more info, check out our plan.

It was a great moment for us as we managed to complete a very hard fight, and get a realm first achievement. Here is our killshot: (Click here for full-size image)

Mimiron`s Head!

Killing this version of Yogg-Saron gives no gear bonus from 1-keeper mode (the hardmode required for the meta); instead, it gives a very awesome and unique mount - [Mimiron's Head]! It is often hard to hand out these trophy awards, but in this case it was easy. We tossed it on Maky without a moments hesitation for all the work he put in on the tactics for this fight.

Here`s a nice photo we did after the raid, with Maky in the center on his new Aerial Command Unit: (Click here for full-size image)

The Story

There is a lot to talk about this kill, how we prepared for it and how we ended up doing it. We started to discuss about this kill shortly after we killed Algalon, and slowly made our way to pull it properly. Contrary to what may be expected, we didn't`t spend very much time on the encounter. We got the kill on our 7th night, but basically it was more like 4-5 nights seeing as several nights consisted of very few attempts in only the last 1-2 hours of raid time.

The masterplan. Explained to us during a secret briefing at the Scryers Tier in Shattrath, a remote and desolate place where one can be sure no one is eavesdropping.*

Maky put a great deal of research into the initial plan, and with the help of a small army of enthusiastic members, adapted it to suit us perfectly in the end. But it wasn't as easy as to simply research, post a plan and then go for it. Rigorous training and testing was in order to make this plan come together. Every single raider had to nail their assignments close to perfect, and lots of practice was necessary for each and everyone.

Ark, Darthoridan, Kaasuid, Rigash and Tyrull. Practicing the phase3 tanking and taunting positions for countless of hours.**

In our third evening (Sunday 22 Nov), our plan reached it`s final state and we managed to pull off our first set of beacons without any heals going off (pretty much the main aspect of P3). We won`t forget that moment since we were wiping when the beacons were thrown. With people busy dying, our taunters pulled off the beacons and we heard "AWESOME WORK GUYS" being shouted on TS; at first it seemed ironic but we actually did it! We pulled beacons out, the plan worked!

Sadly our raid evening had to end, but we went there very optimistic in the next night (Tuesday 24 Nov). But luck wasn`t on our side, after losing about 2 hours of raid time due to disconnects (including some very precious attempts), we ended the evening with a very bitter 3% wipe (he dies at 1%). The next week wasn't`t looking that great, as we had some schedule problems, but after a huge effort from some of our members we managed to put in 1.5 more hours the next day (Wednesday 25 Nov), and finish the night with an even more bitter 2% wipe (which can count as a 1% due to that he dies at 1%). We were about 600k damage off from scoring a kill. We had to wait all the way until Sunday (29 Nov) to be able to go again, and we had again some bad luck with the connections, and sadly all we got was about 3-4 wipes under 5%.

We went there again on Tuesday (1 Dec) very determined to win! After a very good start with 8% and 13% wipes, we did the magic pull.

When Yogg was on 1,5M HP left and thrown the 4^th set of beacons out, hands were shaking for sure, but our taunters kept their cool and managed that awesome pull for the last time in that night, 0 heals went off and the screams on TS already started to grow louder - everyone burn boss!

10 seconds later he was dead and we got the achievement!

Thanks everyone who came and cheered for us and showed us support on the realms forum. And thanks all members for being totally awesome!

* This didn't actually happen......
** And neither did this, but almost!
Cheesy