Death by stampede?

Finally we faced Magtheridon. A creature so powerful that 5 channelers were required in order to banish it. While we were busy discussing about what to do when engaging Magtheridon, someone from the raid accidentally disturbed one of the channelers holding him. As a result, all 5 channelers started attacking us and the gates suddenly closed. All hell broke loose as everyone started dashing towards the closed gates... One by one the raid members fell, bodies piling up by the gate. After the dust had settled, what remained were corpses lined up, an eerily familiar scene resulted from the image that I saw that night...

How to leave a raid (with style)

We were raiding Karazhan when we encountered a lot of anomalies, i.e. enemies suddenly respawning, not getting damaged and having a very large aggro range. After millions of wipeouts, we decided to regroup. Everyone started leaving the raid group when a certain hunter told us that "this" is the best way to do it. See picture below :P

All-around fighter part 2 (Prince)

We were raiding Karazhan and were now attempting to bring down the Master of Karazhan, Prince Malchezaar (widely known as the Prince). At first, the fight went on flawlessly, Infernal drops were far away and I was generating a decent amount of threat to hold the Prince as the other raid members tried to burn down him down. But as luck would have it (thanks to murphy's law <_<), Infernals rained down on the other raid members and near the place where I was holding off the Prince. The group scattered about trying to stay alive as the Infernal were slowly eating away their health. As I was trying to maneuver away from the Infernals, I lost the Prince's threat and he then made his way to our poor healers and ranged dps. He killed most of the raid members before I got his attention back. I was taking a lot of hits from him since I wasn't able to raise my shield most of the time while trying to stay away from the Infernals. My health waned as Prince continued to bash me with his fists and since the healers were busy trying to stay alive. Only two of us remained then, the other was a healer, a fellow paladin.

When the Prince's life was around 1%, I had to use my Divine Shield to avoid death (healer was still dodging Infernals). Upon seeing that I was immune to most of his attacks, the Prince turned around and his attention now focused on the healer. I quickly healed myself back to good health before canceling my Divine Shield. Unfortunately, I was too late, my fellow paladin didn't make it...

So there we were, standing on the rooftops of Karazhan, the Prince (around 1% health) and the great paladin (yours truly), the two of us alone, trying to duel it out. It was a sudden-death match, winner takes all. I made the first move, grabbed my shield and threw it as hard as I can to the diabolic Prince. I tried to pop my wings but could not do it, forbearance holding it back. I then opened my libram and searched for the page containing the Exorcism spell. I chanted the words and boom the Prince screamed, life draining away. However, this didn't stop him from charging towards me. Without wasting any second, I did another chant, calling upon the powerful holy magic, I then threw my charged weapon at the Prince, further cutting down his life.

With the Prince now on melee range, we engaged in "hand-to-hand" combat (me using sword and shield). I raised my shield everytime I had the chance, blocking his attacks and him receiving reflected damage. The fight dragged for about 30 seconds, both of us nearing death, my life held by the holy power of ardent defender. Swing, hit, block, cast a seal, release a seal, the fight went on until the last of the Prince's life was taken away by an exorcism spell. The Prince then crumpled down to the floor as I stood there gazing triumphantly at his lifeless body.

I survived an encounter

Helm, check. Armor, check. Gloves, check. Boots, check. Weapon, check.

All dressed up and good to go. Checking myself from head to toe. All buffed up and natural. I'm feeling beautiful.

There we were again, standing inside Gruul's lair for another attempt to bring down the highly feared gronn overlord. Twenty (20) eager guild members were present in the raid. Armed with knowledge and experience from the past encounters, we marched forward.

Today, I am a damage dealer. With my great two-handed mace, I engaged Gruul, hammering his two large feet. I have successfully maneuvered myself away from other players in each ground slam that Gruul did. I smiled with satisfaction, I have avoided death in the first few minutes of the fight.

As the fight dragged on, Gruul grew to a total of 13 and with one powerful swing, he totally obliterated the powerful warrior who was occupying his attention. Luckily there were 2 backup warriors ready to take over for this kind of situation. However, with about 1% health remaining, Gruul easily disposed off the two backup warriors. With death in mind, I continued to swing my mace, throwing a few hammer of wraths everytime I got the chance. Gruul didn't make it that long, with spells and bullets hitting him from every direction, he fell to the ground headfirst, screaming in pain.

The guild erupted to a series of cheers and shouts. Drinks were tossed around as the sexy fighters danced away the victory. We have defeated Gruul once again. And this time we did it with just 20 people and in only 1 try. The best part of it is that, I survived the encounter...

Next stop, Magtheridon.

High King's revenge... or not

High King Maulgar (HKM), the lord of the ogres in Blade's Edge Mountain, serve's as Gruul's right hand and is the guardian of his lair. Every week we (the guild) raid Gruul's lair and have to face this oversized ogre before we could reach Gruul himself. This week was not an exception. With an 18-strong raid, we seiged Gruul's lair.

I was assigned to hold off Blindeye the Seer, one of HKM's merry men (there were 4 of them). Blindeye hits slow so my threat generation was not so high which made the task of holding him quite challenging. I popped my wings from the start in order to deal more damage and thus more threat. I also had to use full level consecration to keep the threat coming. After minutes of pounding and slashing, Blindeye went down, dead, I heaved a sigh of relief. We then proceeded to the next target. While we were hammering the poor fellow, one of our great mages tanking the enemy mage Krosh (only a mage can hold him off), drained all his mana which cost him his life. The whole raid panicked since without someone occupying Krosh's attention, he could easily kill us off with his deadly fireballs and blast waves. Out of nowhere, a brave druid ran towards our mage's corpse and resurrected him. This desperate act caught Krosh's attention, filled with rage he burned down the hapless druid.

Healers went down one after another, upon seeing this, I ran towards the mage tank and the warrior tanking HKM. I reached for my libram and read the lines which activated my healing ability. I threw a couple of heals to our mage bringing his health back up to about 90%. Our hunters, shamans and druids (moonkin form) then threw everything they got on Krosh and he went down in just a second (or two).

Now there's only HKM left, every surviving raid member turned and charged at him. At 50% health he started his intimidating shouts which sent chills down my spines that in pure instinct, made me run away from him. He then suddenly charged towards the other raid members. Our main tank had a hard time catching up to him (I believe HKM stunned him for a few seconds), to prevent HKM from killing more of our raid members (especially the healers), I taunted him (I didn't exactly know how, shouted profanities perhaps? :P). He saw me standing right there in the middle of his lair then came charging right at me. I fired my holy shield then tried my best to hold him off until our main tank can recover. He was slowly whacking away my health until my armor and shield gave way. The next thing I know, I was lying face down eating dirt :P. "HKM finally got his revenge.", I thought to myself, thinking that HKM had also killed the rest of the raid. After about a minute I felt a familiar tug on my spirit, someone is trying to resurrect me. "Someone made it? Then this must mean... we won!". I then heard the cheers and laughter as my spirit slowly returned to my lifeless body.

Gruul... no more

I was in Ironforge bidding on auctions when I heard a summon from our guild. I then remebered that we were supposed to raid Gruul's Lair today. I headed to the bank to withdraw my equipment, potions, food and reagents then answered the summons. I felt the familiar tingling sensation as my body was transported from Ironforge to Blade's Edge Mountains where Gruul's Lair is found. Wow, a lot of people are already there. This is the first time that we totalled 25 in a single raid. I felt confident, tonight we'll dine in Gruul's blood.

We started the preparations, weapons were dipped in poison, sharpened and enchanted with magic. Magical buffs were casted, auras fired up, scrolls read. I adjusted my gear, today I deal damage and not take it.

Our main tank then charged towards Gruul. "Come... and die!", Gruul's voice echoed through his lair. We proceeded to our designated positions and then engaged the Gronn overlord (Gruul). Bam! Gruul hit the ground so hard that we were thrown all over the place. At this point, I remembered that we were supposed to stay away from each other since Gruul has a "shatter" ability where you will receive damage which is inversely proportional to the distance between you and your teammates. I ran towards the outer wall to avoid getting too close to the others. As luck would have it, one of my teammates landed right beside me. I fired up my Divine Shield in order to dispel the movement-reducing debuff. Alas, for some reason the spell failed (silence perhaps?). I saw a brief flash of light... then darkness... When I woke up (someone resurrected me), I saw Gruul lying on the floor, mouth open and saliva flowing out of his mouth. It was over, we have killed Gruul! Wooooooot!!!! (I was dead in most of the encounter though lol).