Ah, Naxxramas. Here we have a blow-by-blow of things as they happened, followed by a summary and some thoughts. Raid leaders may find this interesting. People who like raid horror stories (Hi, Queklain!) may also find it interesting. Everyone else will probably fall asleep.

Tonight’s team:
Tanks: Prot warrior, unholy DK.
Heals: Holy priest, holy pally.
DPS: Boomkin, Mage, Death Knight, Hunter, Rogue, Fury Warrior.

Anub’rekhan was a kill-wipe, one-shot. Not impressed that we died, but impressed that we killed him? Yes.

Faerlina was a not-very-clean one-shot (we lost the tank going out of one enrage, offtank picked her up and we cleaned her clock before the next enrage).

Maexxna… I don’t want to talk about. We died because two of the DPS were locked out and she was out of position and healers were getting hit with the spray and aiiee.

Second time up, and we just rocked it. She’s annoying, but not overly difficult once you know the fight. This was our cleanest kill tonight, no deaths.

Swapping out the Fury warrior for a DK. Headed into Military Quarter.

Razuvious got us all killed; there was confusion over use of crystals. We lost an understudy, then the other. I’m not too surprised, some of our folks are still new to Naxx.

Hoping it doesn’t happen again. Repair and run back, let’s see what we can do.

I’m not sure if the heals aren’t happening or the shields aren’t or what’s going on. I don’t have to like it, do I? I don’t think I do.

Attempt #3:

I’m wearing all my power/regen gear and healing understudies. I’ve found time to blow my trees (once) and my Insect Swarm has made its way up a couple times, nothing better than that.

Got him. This is Sloppy Night, we lost a student, focus-healed the other one, lost that student, burned him down with both tanks, the hunter pet and the hunter himself all burning cooldowns to keep him off the healers/other DPS.

Gothik #1: Live side needs to learn “slow down” does not mean “zerg rush”. Ow.

Gothik #2: Dead side had six people on it. Oops. We were actually doing better than attempt number one until roughly wave 18, when Live side folded like a card table. It is now 11 minutes to midnight, local time, and I think I’m done for the evening.

So What Have We Learned?

All in all, while it lacks the kidney-stomping awesome slash-and-burn that our progression group is known for, I feel good about tonight, and for several reasons.

1: Experience with the fight was propagated through the guild. Granted we propagated it through one puggie, too, but the main point is that guildies learned more about the fights. Or in some cases, saw them for the first time… or tried them from a new role.

2: The one pugged player we ran with A) has run with us before and B) may run with us again. It doesn’t hurt that this was Pally Loot Night, apparently, so he made out like an absolute bandit. Something like four pieces including one of the epic BoEs that drop.

3:Tanks got upgrades.

4: Healers got upgrades.

5: Less-geared DPS got upgrades.

So We’re Doing This Because?

Two-team Naxx may be harder than picking the cream of the crop and having them storm the place and call it names, but it’s vital. Absolutely vital. First, it is better loot distribution through the guild (more drops compared to the number of players competing for them) and second it keeps us in tight groups. I was in Alpha team tonight, and we had the one pugged player and perhaps four guildies who I don’t run with a lot. That’s important. It shows the guild that not only do the officers care (Alpha team was 40% officers by volume), but that the guild does stick to its guns about gearing- and getting playtime to- the group, not the individual player (I.E. we intentionally mixed the strengths and classes of the groups to give both of them a relatively even footing instead of power-loading the officer raid and letting the other raid fend for itself). It’s also important because I came out of this with a higher appreciation of the abilities of some guildies. I should stop under-estimating the people I don’t run with often.

I also need to keep in perspective that though this feels rougher than the raids have been recently, it’s because we have new guildies, recently hit 80 guildies, or less-geared-than-myself guildies who we’re bringing up to speed.

Also, the twin runs thing fosters some friendly competition. Alpha team had a late start- we were well behind coming up to Faerlina- but we caught up and blew past Omega team; we dropped Razuvious the same time they murdered Maexxna (Class balance- Omega team had a paladin and a druid as well, but where Alpha team had a boomkin (self) and holydin, Omega team had a tankadin and feral. Not precisely good for cleansing).

I think (and I suspect my fellow officers will agree) that we need to take care not to let the teams become static, either in their pool (I.E. everyone gets a turn) or in their composition (Great, you were on Alpha last week? You’re on Omega this week, with new faces).

Ideally, we want the guildies to trust each other’s capabilities enough that they can just be dropped into a fight and know that someone who has our tag can do a competent and trustworthy job.

And now I’m rambling about guild philosophy, which I should save for another time because it’s technically Friday already. Expect a Foods post later today, I’m going to finish rambling and sleep.

I do think we built some trust today, though. That’s pretty cool- I don’t mind a few repair bills for that.