And one more makes 12

Some of my more astute (or sober) readers may have noticed that the achievement I posted about  yesterday on the 20th was actually earned on the 15th.

I wrote the post in the middle of the day on the 19th, set it up for release the next day and didn’t think anything of it.

Funny how later that very night, we got this one:

Since we are on Central time server and we had actually gone past raid time Tuesday night, it counted it for the 20th.

Which is actually the day that I’m writing this post.

Aren’t time zones fun?

And if it weren’t for the fact that apparently that bastard drops a mount, I would vote to never step foot on Al’Akir’s platform ever again.

There is a HUGE difference between what we are able to do now and what our attempts were like the first couple nights we poked at him back at the beginning of the expansion.

Throne of Four Winds only has the two boss encounters and no trash.

The Conclave fight isn’t too terribly bad and we used it pretty much to farm for crystals and points.

(And the guild has the Bountiful Bags perk, nothing like a 2 for 1 on a Maelstrom Crystal disenchant.)

Al’Akir is technically the first “end wing” boss we attempted in this expansion.

And he was the last we defeated.

While still in our heroic blues and crafted epics, we generally couldn’t make it past P1.

(Note the Crucible of Carnage mace. Oh, and the HUGE FREAKING BOSS.)

Tornadoes were everywhere, ice patches in the way, wind blasts sending people off the edge, chain lightning covering the entire platform and his health stubbornly wouldn’t budge to 80% so we could move to the next phase.

But with a little gear, a little focus, and a dash of determination, his health melted in short order and we only had to dance to wind blasts once or twice each attempt.

The most frustrating attempts was a wipe at 13k.

Not 130k.

Just 13,000.

If I could have just squeezed a couple more Smites in…

(FYI – Atonement healing is completely useless in this fight unless you’re killing adds in P2. Otherwise, his hitbox is so freaking huge that no one benefits. However, I continue to Smite because the faster we phase, the easier my life is.)

The kill was sloppy as hell.

In P3, if you’re the lightning rod, you can pretty much just kiss your ass goodbye.

One by one, we were being whittled down.

A bad positioning on a lightning rod took out a couple at once.

All the healers are dead.

(This fight is SUPER annoying to watch when dead in P3, you just sort of float around and can’t see shit.)

Down to Tir on his DK tank and a ret pally.

Tir dies.

Ret pally saves the day with a Lay on Hands and solos the boss from 0.3%.

Much rejoicing was had as we all flew back in to reclaim our bodies and don our spiffy new titles.

(Except the one guy that wasn’t with us on the Nefarion kill.)

Probably the best part is that after the kill, you get to fly around like you’re swimming in the air, but super fast.

This was probably the most important kill for the guild this expansion.

It got us to 12/12 normal, our Defender of the Shattered World title, and a new mount.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to get Ashes of A’lar, but this one is pretty spiffy.

(Arioch needs to get exalted with the guild before he can purchase this baby.)

But as important as the kill was, it didn’t feel anywhere as good as downing Nefarion.

After downing Nefarion, I was jittery and stayed up later than normal to bask in the kill high.

Al’Akir dies… we took pictures, got our mounts, giggled a bit, and then I went to bed.

I’m not sure if it’s because we spent more total time on Nef. Or if it’s because the Nefarion fight includes Onyxia and there’s just so much more story there than slaughtering some random elemental guy with a big-ass sword. Or maybe it’s that the Nef fight, as obnoxious as it is, is a far more enjoyable fight with mechanics that don’t seem quite so fickle and RNG-dependent. Or maybe it was just two big kills too close together.

Whatever it was, I’m glad that we’ve gotten all the normal content down and can focus on some heroic modes.