So it wasn't server first. It still was an achivement to us, it was still nervewrecking. It was the smoothest kill anyone could ever hope for. It was the goose bump moment of this expansion. Aproximently 5 months after we stopped raiding we finally did him with a 30% buff.

It really isn't guild news since it wasn't a guild group, but it was still a mostly guild effort. And it was so brilliant!

A special thanks to all who where there: Mjarn, Tusseladd, Naturligvis, Safyria, Betelgeuse and myself from Voltage - and a special thanks to the friends and friends of friends that were therer for the kill: Superchick, Whipme, Solrackhamul and Gfshammy.

All hail the glorious dead Lich King!

Phase 1:
Necrotic Plauge - run to the adds the offtank is tanking.
High dps - chain your cooldowns. Phase 1 is the easiest of the phases in this fight and there is no reason to get 3 shambling horrors with a 30% buff. Only singeltarget dps so the addtank have an easier time of picking up the adds. Death and decay, concecrate and whirvelwind can still be used but carefully.

Phase transition:
Position is very important. Addtank will be furthest on the left with the remaining adds from phase 1. Lich King tank will be between the addtank and the group waiting to pick up the Raging Spirits. The group will stand together and for the ease of picking up the Raging Spirits let your character face towards the tank or Lich King since the Raging Spirit will spawn in front of you.

Assigned people will kill the Ice Spheres, the rest needs to focus on killing the Raging Spirits. The less left on a Raging Spirit when we start phase 2 the quicker you can go back to dps-ing the Lich King.

Remember that when the phase transition ends your positions running in are still important. Do not run into the Ice Sphers (white balls), they will knock you to your death. Don't run in front of where the addtank are taking his Raging Spirits, they have a frontal cone attack that hurts.

Phase 2:
Lich King tank only: Soul Reaper - it hurts. Be wary of it and use a cooldown when you get this.

DPS positions - immidiantly after the phase transition ends ranged goes to the center where the Lich King tank is, kill Raging Spirit.. Melee will follow the Raging Spirit and killing it before meeting up in the middle.

Valkyr and Defile are the new abilities in phase 2. To defeat the Valkyr we have to group up - to defeat the Defile we have to spread out. Sounds easy? Yeah, I know... Keep an eye on the Deadly Boss Mods timer for when the ability are about to hit to prepare yourself.

Valkyr will pick up one target - all dps must immidiantly switch to the Valkyr when it comes and start to bring it down. Stuns and slow are the highest priority to put up but not all at the same time due to diminishing returns. Check out the addon I've mentioned at the bottom of this post. Depending on how successfull the dps are on the valkyrs Defile will hit at some point during or after the Valkyr is killed.

Defile - oh what a bucketfull of feces that is... Because of this ability I will urge the usefullness of runspeed enchant on boots for this fight. Enable chat bubbles for /say and /yell so it will be easier for you to spot who gets Defile close to you so you can run in a different direction than what the Defile vicitim is, the Defile victim should always run towards the throne. If you are the one getting Defile on you you should already be running due to checking the DBM timer and know it's about to hit - DO NOT STOP RUNNING. Maybe you buy yourself half a second on not stopping, that might be enough to safely get out of it.

Melee have to take extra considerations when valkyrs are up due to Defile spawning close after, look for the chat bubble and tell yourself the mantra better safe than sorry.

Defile works like this - if a person stands in it it will tick for dmg and make it grow. If it grows the possibility of it hitting more players making it grow even bigger and faster is increased. If it starts to tick on 3 people the platform will be one big defile in a matter of seconds.

Phase transition:
Same as first phase transition. When running in only melee kill Raging Spirits, ranged starts focusing on Vile Spirits. If a shaman is present this is where we use bloodlust so we have mostly killed the Raging Spirit by the end of this phase transition.

Phase 3:
No more Valkyrs - rejoice. Defile is still hitting - oh fuck. 2 new abilities in phase 3 - both is more managable than valkyrs.

Harvest soul: on one target. Takes a shitload of dmg so needs to be healed. If the player survives you'll be sent to the thorne room. In the throne room you must assist Terenas Menethil in killing a mob, burn it quickly and interrupt his cast (charge, counterspell and stuff like that). If it's a healer who gets sent into the throne room heal Terenas Menethil and dispel him.

Vile Spirits: these will spawn on left side, then right side, then left side, then right si... you get the point. The Lich King tank will move Lich King to the oposite side of where the Vile Spirits are spawning and melee has to follow, ranged can follow a bit slower so they buy time to dps the Vile Spirits since Vile Spirits can be targeted and killed by ranged. Mind Sear, Living Bomb, Seed of Corruption and Multishot can hit more of them at the same time.

Earthbind totem and hunter traps can slow them - use these abilities if they are available.

The addfree tank will meet the Vile Spirits and taunt/aoe taunt and pop a cooldown if needed to make them blow up on him. The more Vile Spirit the ranged kill first the less dmg the offtank will take.

Phase 4: Lich King is at 10%. We made it.

Get Plaugechill's Val'kyr monitor http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info17693-1.10.html so you can see what has been applied on the valkyr and know when to put up your slow/stun.

I found it to be quite a nice read.

http://pwnwear.com/2010/04/25/interview-with-world-1-strict-10-guild-vox-immortalis/

It cost blod, sweat and tears. It so happend that I needed a new headset. I swear I cursed out anyone, everyone, their dog, grandmother and David Bowie (just because he looks like a guy it would be nice to yell at that little emo biatch). Heck, I even noobed beoynd every sense of what would be imaginable myself.

This was a Vaelestraz encounter for us, we stood there and took a hell of a beating. Real hell of a beating. But in the end we were victorious. In the end our stubbordness and the willingness to go that extra mile payed off. In the end... the dragon fell! On our third try of the night - first try a certain huntard got a red weapon so we 9 manned it down to 11% - second try our offtank took tombs in a row at a very bad time.

Onwards now, onwards for the Lich King. Onward for glory. Onward because even more of the thrill is waiting for us just behind that next corner.

By the way - server first 10 man only raiding guild on Dragonblight to do this. Only 10 guilds on the server have so far done the same and they are all 25 man raiding guilds.

We're getting there on Sindragosa. I swear we are. As a reminder, according to guildox, there's only 55 guilds among the 10 man strict guilds that downed Sindragosa as of today.

Tonight we ended the raid night with an incredible wipe. Cleaved & Tailswiped in a bit over a second. An epic feat, worthy of notice