After yesterday having a crack at part four flex: Downfall, and not managing to get past the goblin in the golem, a calendar invite was put up for it to try and be completed tonight.

We had previously been running RBG’S, which drained me of half my brain power. Not the best start in the world. To add in that I had also been spending most of my afternoon rep-grinding with the very capable DK Farouche, I was at a wow saturation point.

We stepped into Seigcrafters lair and had a run through of tactics. It was a lot to take in as there is lots going on in the fight. I havent completed part three or four in LFR so yesterday was ‘first contact’ with Siegcrafter Blackfuse and his whirring Assembly Line. This time thankfully I didn’t fall off the platform where the trash is, trying to get down the tube. Most embarrassing to utter ‘Oh bugger’ on TS as my corpse is dumped in the middle of the boss area for everyone to gawp at…

We had our markers up and took position. We had Verdie tanking for us, which made it a whole lot easier. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing and could give out instructions. It was one of those encounters that I got better at the more times I died. I worked out my ideal positioning for the drills, swapped a talent to take care of the mines and made sure I was on max range for the blades. I did die a lot and I wasn’t worth combat ressing which was both a relief and an embarrassment. It gave me the chance to see what was going on and see where those in RT1 positioned themselves etc but it also highlighted how far I had slipped down the gear scales. (Which is why I really need to be able to get a team sorted out for RT3 so we can get more people ready for when the expansion hits, myself included)

Back to the story, I wasn’t the only one to die. We had many wipes on it. Some were for silly mistakes like not killing the mines but the majority were we just were a fraction or with positioning or a bit slow of the mark for moving an add etc. The more we wiped the closer we got though.
I decided that my nemesis was the laser. Every time I was kiting it away from the group I ended up dying and in more than one occasion I got trapped but the flaming shit that was everywhere (after a melee had it focusing on them) and the blades right when the drills popped up. My most spectacular death was when a saw blade focused on me and I strafed a bit to the right, which would have been out of harms way and then panicked. I then strafed left, into the blade and then got pinballed into two others. I stayed silent on ts but was laughing my ass off at my own stupidity privately. Eventually we had him down. And we all had a little nerd scream after. After that we ended up seeing the great orc himself, Garrosh Hellscream.

He was smaller than I expected and the beating heart thing above us was seriously creepy. We went through and gave it a shot with us stacking at one side and then moving. Unfortunately, due to us being tired/boss-boozled/idiotic we didn’t make it.

We then organised another one for a weeks time. When it came round it was after reset so we went through them all again.

We ended up with a beautiful line of pale green across the middle of the raid bar. ‘4 hunters?’ Rich and I commented in raid chat. This then increased to 5. ‘5 hunters?’ ‘This is going to be fun’. When we were ready Rich made us all aware that we were going with ‘Transformers! Roll out!’ Which then got reworked to the very apt ‘Hunters! Roll out!’

Malkorok was dispatched in one. A vast improvement on when I was in LFR and everyone was running away from the puddles.

Spoils of Pandaria was also interesting, I’d done this once before, in LFR. It was interesting listening to the two group leaders talking to their teams and having to filter out what information was for your team. It was probably the most painless one of the lot and over in a flash.

There was also my second ever taste of Thok. I got dropped by the lizard-birds. Death number one.
I also had the unfortunate episode of talking to someone so my DBM was sending them updates. I had another two deaths in our first attempt. I got eaten when the boss turned around when I was trying to locate the second marker and I got eaten by it when it was chasing someone down the corridor. I quickly learned that if in doubt run away was a good ethos to have. Until we started to lose healers and then after I died the second time Roly declared over TS ‘If your not near me you will die’ Pink power!

We wiped on that attempt. Rich being the only one left alive and unfortunately couldn’t bring the stupid dino down. I got a message from Farouche ‘Aww you wiped on 1%’ it was that tragic…

We gave the Dino what for on the next attempt, I died, again… but got ressed *hurrah* and actually made it to the end! OMFG! I didnt end the encounter staring at my ass on the floor. I had no end of re-rolls available to me so I had a quick check of what there was that I could possibly use. Not a lot so I settled with the gold.

Eventually we made it to Garrosh. This was the moment of truth.

I was tired, I had been working all day and been raiding all night. My brain was catching up with what I needed to do and my performance was at times sloppy. After dying AGAIN and AGAIN I was about to make it my last try and go and sort out my Bank Alt’s guild tabs so that Chizal could use one of them to stash stuff. However, I wanted this kill, so I deleted the message I was going to send him about leaving if we wiped and set to it.

‘Does anyone have a guild banner?’ Alryisa asked on TS. dutifully three banners were placed in the marker ‘Roly hates it when we do this’ You could sense the frown of disapproval, even though he said nothing, as each of the banners plopped down.

After getting through the first bit and avoiding being killed by the Iron Star, we went into the next dream-like phase. We asked who goes down what side. ‘Split evenly’ was the decission. when we did split, as I was the last to load I saw that everyone had dissapeared off to the left, so I went right just as Alryisa asked ‘Why is it just me and Roskva killing this add?’ I joined in the fight and we were soon a Hunter trio taking it down. I dont know if I was imagining it but it looked like we were in the Temple of the Red Crane with Garrosh in the middle making lots of purple shit on the floor. We were soon dropped back into the action and killing mobs and weapons. Im pretty sure I died at this point and then got ressed (lolz). The interesting part was when lots of blobbs started coming out. They were everywhere… We were told to ignore them and not to kill them or they will empower, through the haze of purple swirling shit and the blobs the only think I could really focus on was Garrosh. We wiped. Oh my days, we were so close yet just didnt manage to get over the last hurdle. I could smell the achievment and wanted it so bad there was no way I was giving up, no matter how shabby my dps was (I feel at this part I was being boosted through, I was the worst geared player there by a long shot but it was great experience, even if I was completely shit). Alryisa was picking up on the hunters not missdirecting enough (there were five of us after all) and we dusted ourselves off and started again. We got through, all the way to the blobs and even with some of them becoming empowered, towering beasts we gave it everything. Zillions of hunter pets stormed into the fray. Crows were everywhere, Garrosh was still hammering Alryisa and then suddenly… Cust scene…

We had done it! Garrosh was down! I had earned my achievement and got past the big boy. Not on LFR but on Flex (obviously due to half of RT1 being there!)

I earnt two other achievments during this, the first was Unlimited Potential and then Strike!