Okay, so maybe that is a little dramatic.

But after a long drought, we took a step forward again. Granted the period of stagnation was more due to the fact that we really don't raid all THAT heavily. And in the last several weeks we have lost a day to raiding here, another there... But we finally offed a new boss. And hopefully we will pick up some momentum again.

Yes, Onyxia has been felled. The fabled dragon of old that has once again reared her head has now been handily downed by Sinful Spirits She will be added to our weekly list of targets as she simply is too good to pass up. While it may have taken us some time on and off to do it, good job Sinful Spirits.

So with a fresh Ulduar lying before us, we decided to attack the raid instance aggressively. It was time to start tackling hard modes and getting achievements.

First up was Flame Leviathan. Considering how handily we are taking him down now, including the achievement of killing him without once repairing just last week, it was time to leave a tower up. Once again, we obliterated the big tank while taking virtually no damage. Orbital bombardment achieved. Next time we leave two up. FL+1 done, FL+2 next.

On to Razorscale. The big dragon has already been a cakewalk for us. So it was time to push the envelope and get her Quick Shave achievement. Cranking out the damage we were able to handily keep her from raising into the air a second time. Razorscale dropped easily once again. A Quick Shave indeed.

Ah, XT-002, how we hate thee. Time for another hard mode kill. Heartbreaker here we come. Cranking out the DPS on the heart was easy. We got the heart down to 8%, however, JUST missing the Heartbreaker achievement and just missing hard mode. We already have our adjustments for next time out determined. So next time XT-002 goes down in hard mode.

Kologarn. Silly bridge. The With Open Arms achievement wasn't as easy as we thought it would be. Wiped once. Tried it again, and when it looked like the same issue would arise, we changed our strategy and just downed him. easy as pie. Just no achievement. We will have to see what we can do next time.

Auriaya. The crazy cat lady. We decided to go after the Nine Lives achievement. And we had it too.....until we got a little close to some trash that we had left up. Ooops. Wipe. Not wanting to waste time, we came back and killed her. Dead. Either Nine Lives or Crazy Cat Lady next time. No hard mode for her.

Iron Council was next. Easiest one shot of them we have had yet. We have had their number for ages, now it is time to mix it up. We will be looking at leaving a different boss for last. The fun begins soon.

And finishing up on a quick two shot of Ignis wrapped up a very smoothly run 2 hour night in Ulduar. Really I just wanted to thank all of those involved in the evening's fun. Thanks, and let's move forward now.

- Bjorn

Once again, the gimp Bjornstern has reared his ugly head. After myriad attempts at healing the pit for the Thorim encounter, a change was tried. Swap out the priest for a druid healer. Change nothing else. Just that.

Two tries later and Thorim was down. Huge props to Rott for bringing Corasha in and saving the day.

Once we managed the gauntlet, the remainder of this encounter was easy. No wonder Thorim hides behind his friends - he was a pushover himself. :) We have our gauntlet team....now we just need to get a fixed pit team who can stay alive. Bjorn is henceforth banned from the encounter....

So after ignoring this big lug for a couple of months with nothing more than a casual "Oh, let's go play with Ignis!" thought, we finally took him down.

Some work on the 24th with a lesser geared group gave us the groundwork that we needed in order to finalize the strategy that works for us. That came to a culmination last night where Ignis was simply obliterated in two shots. And the first shot was some quick finalization of what we were doing.

Another boss that should be added to our easy kill list.

So we downed Hodir. Alas, it was the last time we had our full complement together as we tightened the raiding team yet a bit further.

We know the strategy, we just need to refine and implement. And Pixie needs to practice her healing. Shortly enough, Hodir will be on the regular kill list. I would say Thorim next, but it is time to tackle a certain slag pot wielding giant first...