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..We were determined to push her down quickly the following week. Unfortunately, Blizzard decided to kick us in the nuts by implementing Hellscream's Warcry far too early. With an extra 5% in every category at our disposal, we had no excuse not to get a quick kill..

And we did. After some practice runs but an early end to Tuesday's night due to server lag, we walked in last night and dispatched her in two tries. It would have been great to get the kill last week in order to not have the lifeline of the zone buff, but in the end we're proud of the progress we made on her. Nice job everyone pulling this out and performing well on her from the start.



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We finished the night with some strong progression on Putricide HM, and expect to have him soon. Stay tuned!

Great job overall guys. We were slow out the gate and have had some stupid moments, but overall we've been performing pretty well in ICC Heroic. Let's finish the progression with a Putricide kill this week. Bring your A games and let's get 11/12!

Some of this is kinda late. Oh well.

A bit dejected that we wasted a week by not getting LK down the first week he was out, and subsequently one shotting him the next night, we enterted into Heroic Icecrown two weeks ago looking to make a splash. We found ourselves challenged by Lady Deathwhisper and put two solid nights of learning on her before unfortunately deciding to move on in the sake of focusing on larger targets, Deathbringer Saurfang.

After getting a feel for our positioning Wednesday night with a few attempts, we went back in on Sunday and ironed out the kinks, but kept falling at the last few % to the unforgivable nature of Mark of the Fallen Champion (and only having two Holy Paladins). The end of the night was drawing near, and it was looking like we'd need to give up and move on to clear the other bosses in the instance. The realization that it would have been a massive failure to have to skip the hardest bosses in Heroic on the first week set in, and in classic SF fashion, we pulled it out on our last attempt of the night:



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The funny thing is, that kill had very bad Runic Power luck and he put out 6 marks total, while on other attempts we had failed with only 4-5 out in P3. And we had subpar DPS with a disconnect. Go figure.

That kill seemed to be a turning point in our minds, as we sort of woke up and realized that we couldn't half-ass our way through some of these Hard Modes. Our morale restored, we followed up our Deathbringer kill with a quick Rotface kill before going in on Monday and downing Blood Prince Council, BQL, and Dreamwalker on HM. We finished our first week 7/12 Heroic ICC, but we accomplished what we wanted in downing one of the hardest bosses in the instance that week.

The day after we went back in determined to get a Deathwhisper kill this week, or bust. Expecting another full night of learning, we somehow managed to be able to see ghosts and move from them, and quickly downed her in 5 pulls.



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Worried a bit that we'd need a good few hours to repeat our Saurfang kill, we were happily surprised to down him in two goes. It seemed that the Deathbringer kill the week before truly had been a turning point for us. We moved on for a quick Festergut kill, and spent the rest of the week practicing for Sindragosa HM. Unfortunately we deviated a bit and blew some attempts testing ourselves on Putricide HM, so when we got back to Sindy, we only had a few attempts to work on her. The first pull we got her to 8%. Unfortunately we ran out of attempts for the week, but stay tuned, because..

Should have had him last week, we one shotted him on our first pull after the reset. Balls.





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Also, this describes the state of Ner'zhul on Tuesday and Wednesdays lately. Fun stuff:

It's hard to believe that just over a year ago, we were contently farming Naxx and just had gotten our first kill on Sarth +3, enjoying the new WoLK content. It seems so long ago, as we're now 3 Tiers deeper and a good 60 ilvel above Naxx gear. Goes to show how fast WoLK has moved compared to TBC.

2009 was a big year for Spike Flail. Initially unsure if we'd even be a 25man raiding guild come WoLK, the more casual raiding schedule, coupled with solid performances giving us time off, allowed us great success while not burning ourselves out on hardcore progression. While other guilds complained, whined, and became jaded with WoLK's Hard Mode system, we took advantage and jumped out the gate in Ulduar, securing a server first and top 50 US position that we've been fortunate enough to maintain over the following 6 months. We look forward to 2010 and the progression races it brings, as after three years of raiding, we'll finally begin a year near the top of the pack, competing at the level we've been striving for since Karazhan.










2009 was also a year of rebuilding for us. It seems no matter what level you play at in this game, you can't get away from the constant cycle of attrition and recruitment. We were hoping WoLK would keep us a more long-term stable roster, but the strains of raiding and real life took its toll on us as well. Just take a look at our raid setup during our first Sarth +3 kill a little over a year ago to see the difference in our roster then and now:



With fond hearts we say goodbye to our fallen friends. The likes of Payload, Swole, Mish, Facts, Actovision, Solkid, Ettoo, Nox, Denic, and Naosu were mainstays in our raids for a great period of our history, and we wouldn't have achieved the success we did without them. You guys are missed.

That being said, with every attrition cycle, we gain the opportunity to meet new friends and add them to our family. We've been blessed with great recruits who have made their home with us in 2009, and we're honored to have them with us: Ngata, Meaning, Apoc, Neonjoe, Cptn, Genuin, Cheroba, Nello, Martyr, Kaleena, Ippon, Methios, Rallik, Cptn, Eightseven, Nikolaii. You've all been wonderful and welcome additions to our guild, and we're glad to have you guys in our family as we start the new year.

Of course, we cannot forget our veterans either, who's stabilizing and long-term presence kept us going no matter what roster attrition was thrown at us over the year. Big thank you to our guys who've been here forever: Tier, Melbu, Zepp, Aelin, Nightfright, Qou, Rejekt, Patty, JC, Rill, Wolves, Varn, Book, Killa, Ello. It's been an amazing ride raiding with you guys over the years, and I sincerely hope that I'll be repeating all your names again in next year's post. Thank you for everything!

So I'll end this tribute to 2009 by again thanking every member of our guild, both past and present, who helped us have the wonderful 2009 that we did. No one expected what we achieved out of this year, or even how much fun it may be. Here's to an even better 2010. Happy New Year!



Edited for swole nig

We hate Immortal-style progression.

We should have had this 3 weeks ago unfortunately. Can blame it on a roster hiccup and logistical problems, can blame it on whatever. The truth is we just dropped the ball and had 3 weeks of 49-tribute clears, including two weeks in a row where we one-shotted Anub and lost our tribute on stupid Twins wipes. Knowing we had cost ourselves irreplaceable US ranking, we knew we had to get it this week; or risk losing our chances at the Realm First title to the other Ner'zhul guilds that had made great progression on the Tribute run. We knew we couldn't be complacent, lazy, and take things for granted any longer. Building off our mistakes from the past few weeks, and continuing our great performance one-shotting Anub from the past 3 weeks, we pushed and made it happen.





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There's not much to say about this, because we're all still a little disappointed in ourselves for not having this a few weeks ago and solidifying a top 20 US ranking. There's still much to praise in our solid performance over the past few weeks in the grand scheme of things, even though small silly mistakes held us back. However we learned a lot from what we did screw up on and took it with humility, and didn't give up. A lot of people would have grown frustrated with our mistakes and missed opportunities and given up in anger or disgust, but we kept our heads down and pushed on, looking to learn from our setbacks. And we finally were rewarded, even if a bit late. Thank you for not giving up out of frustration or anger, Spike Flail.

Now to farm and rest with a bit of a load off our chest until 3.3's release, where we're anticipating a strong start and another push for top 20 US. Just remember, don't get complacent with our shortended raid schedule and "easy" farming. We still have to repeat these 50-Tribue runs for our cloaks, and we still need to stay sharp for ICC's release, which will be quite a race in itself. Use this time to relax SF, but be ready for 4-night raid weeks and progression-mindsets very soon.

On a lighter note, new newspost feature! "On this day in Spike Flail."

On this day in Spike Flail:

Two years ago to this date, we were pumped and excited to be venturing into a new instance after an amazing performance in TK, we finally had keyed enough of our raiders to start our T6 push. Spirits where high as we entered Mount Hyjal, marveling at the amazing sites and actually enjoying the waves of trash (oh would we learn). Rage Winterchill fell without a sweat, and and a few hours later after some strategizing, Anetheron did as well!




Who can forget such lovable names as Formose, Roty, Balluh, Summonlight, Hotblooded, and Illist. Oh happy times! And of course, much love for our fallen friends, as we remember names such as Krispyable, Zxt, Payload, and Swole. And behold a myserious Vaprak sighting! Wait who? Also many laughs at homosexual Nattyice trying to be a real Shadow Priest.

On a sidenote, where the hell was Tier on this date? And Nightfright?!

Stay tuned for more "On this day in Spike Flail" in the future!