Milo and Zekk "Defeat" Archimonde
After months of working on the dreaded final boss of Mt. Hyjal, The Valiant's officers became rather desperate for new strategies. Since the common tactic of "stay out of the fire" wasn't widely accepted in our guild for moral reasons, we had to bring members that were simply hotter than any doomfire Archimonde could hope to possess. Archimonde's downfall was finally achieved thanks to two men found in the deepest recesses of Goldshire, a man named after his dog and his "pet" Draenei, Milo and Zekk. Archimonde's fallen corpse was thoroughly defiled by Milo in his tier 69 armor "banana suit" after the 16th attempt to rape him that evening. Zekk then began to perform the ancient Arabic dance of fertility nearby to hopefully creep out the spirit of the fallen demon and banish him for all time. No amount of exploding dead night elves can compare to the repelling power of firmly lodged pineapple staff in that son of a bitch's rear end. Congratulations!
~Purrah
Cleaning up!
The Valiant has been making great strides through End-Game TBC content. We have beaten Rage Winterchill, Anetheron, Kaz'rogal, and Azgalor in Mount Hyjal. All of which only took us two or three serious attempts to initially defeat and master. From Black Temple, we have killed High Warlord Naj'entus, Supremus, Shade of Akama, and Teron Gorefiend in the Black Temple. Gurtogg Bloodboil's consistent damage and irksome Fel Rage ability were almost overcome on our last run, and we anticipate he will be dead soon as well. Compared to Kael'Thas, they just don't make bosses like they used to. But the difficulty will return as we face Archimonde, The Reliquary of Souls, and the dreaded Illidari Council in the near future.
~Purrah
Kael'Thas Sunstrider is Dead! Kinda...
Well, you guys know the lore. Anyway, what is important is that we now have 24 folks attuned to Hyjal and BT will very shortly follow. Even though we have taken down other bosses before, even though we have worked very hard, I want people to know that killing Kael'Thas is a very significant milestone for our guild. Let no one diminish the victory of taking down that boss, as he is often considered to be the hardest boss in all of Burning Crusade and a "guild breaking" encounter. Not just in numbers or gear, no. It takes coordination, practice, and downright commitment to bring him down. Let no one say we are anything less than awesome for what we have done, as now we are in the upper 5% of guilds that even have the opportunity to raid BT/Hyjal end-game content. There is no way to just get lucky on the fight, and a hundred pitfalls that can wipe the raid for the smallest insignificant reason. But as we practiced, we were able to see identifiable progression, getting over each new phase with certainty until we were tearing at his robes, and he finally died on our second time seeing phase 5 for that day. He is dead because we are damn good at what we do. Kill photo.
New DKP will be made for the instance, and is separate from TK/SSC. Merry Christmas. Happy new year. See you in Black Temple.
~Purrah
No More Class Leads
The class lead rank is gone. We no longer require them to perform our job and they have become a redundant title to the officers. The officers should be the ones who deal with your class and guild related problems and questions. The officers are Austin (Talsor), Deloessian, Hafast (Foambeard), Kasimir (Ravage), Purrah (Namirah), Lluna, Luralei, Modsognir, Mythos, Sintaro, Teso, and Yanos.
~Purrah
Lady Vashj is Dead
Serpentshrine has now been fully cleared and 25 members of our guild now have a part of the key for Hyjal and beyond. Congratulations to Balmong and Meiyuu for the first T5 helms we have given out, but alas that is the only loot we obtained worth talking about. We dedicated 10 tries to Vashj on Friday the 12th, and as the hours dragged on we felt that we might as well try one more time for learning purposes. In this try, we made it to her third phase with everyone still alive and very angry with her. She hit her enrage timer at 15%... The carnage was amazing. I have never seen so many consumables, cooldowns, and downright desperation as we fought for every percent while running around the whole field to avoid volleys of green ooze. In the end, she killed the tank, the DPS, the casters, everyone... everyone but Balmong. His last hit was so decisively close to ending her that it is debatable whether or not she would have died had he crit or not. Scary. Al'ar is next. Get the quests to be ready for him.
~Purrah
The Way to T5
The two guardians of the next major instances have fallen to The Valiant. Void Reaver fell first, giving us our first taste of the shoulders we'll need for the Black Temple. The fight was challenging, and still causes our hearts to race as we run from near random projectiles and endure harsh pummelings, but he fell with very few attempts to learn him and is now trivial. The next notch on our belt was Hydross the Unstable who proved to be much more difficult to learn and prepare for. The pull alone is still causing undue deaths, but we will learn him. We know we will win. It is only mastering the dance now. The Lurker is next. Nothing is more gratifying than fishing up a raid boss.
~Purrah
Magtheridon Killed
The Valiant has beaten Magtheridon! This is a server-third kill, following the server-second (Not Quite Immortal) by only a couple of hours. While it was expected that we would beat him in time, it was very surprising to see how short that amount of time was, as this was only our third time actually attempting him with the ambition to win rather than learn. Congratulations, Valiants. We'll have pictures up in the forums soon. And a bigger congratulations to Darmuth the Tree Druid and Balmong the Loot Sponge for their T4 chestpieces.
~Purrah
Gruul's Lair Cleared
Ever have one of those nights? One where everything is going wrong, you are just miserable, and there is no end in sight? Well The Valiant had one of those nights on an especially cold and rainy evening in April. With a strangely "unique" raid composition, we faced against the High King of the ogres several times. At least five or maybe even eight times, he drove us back. His guards returned and we made trips to repair in the nearby druid city without a single epic obtained. All looked bleak, team speak was silent, only the sounds of corks popping from mercy vodka could be heard echoing in the distance. Eyes rolling, and with weapons held low, the eventual kill was unsatisfying and bleak. But we marched on to Gruul. We had until 11:00PM to endure the pain. There he was, the obstacle we could never overturn, a mountain of a giant bigger and stronger than even the gods and dragons we had slain before, another step on a never-ending stairway that was beyond our reach... AND WE TWO SHOTTED THAT MOFO! HAHAHA! Gratz Valiant! Woot!
~Purrah
High King Maulgar Dethroned
High King Maulgar has been taken down not once, but twice. The Valiant was able to dispatch the king and his cronies on their very first learning run and then again with little difficulty the following week. And while the attempts at Gruul himself have been a little less than perfect, we are confident that he will be yet another trophy on the wall in due time. Congratulations to Meiyuu and Hafast for the first T4 shoulders handed out from this ex-ogre. A new DKP system has been set up for Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon's Lair. You can find it at www.the-valiant.com/dkpking/
~Purrah
Burning Crusade
I certainly hope everyone is having fun leveling their characters to 70 over the last few weeks. Please take your time and make sure you enjoy the content at your own pace. There is no rush. But something you should consider when leveling near 68 is the Karazhan attunement, as that will be out next big raiding instance. Make sure to stock up on consumables and prepare for the encounters if you intend to raid there as competition for the 10-man raid slots will be tough. We are trying to build many balanced groups to run the instance. And please have patience while we set up a new system to get as many people their loot as we can.
~Purrah