One of our big goals since the release of Ulduar has been to secure the Rusted Proto-drake that comes from completing the "Glory of the Ulduar Raider" achievement. For those who aren't familiar with that achievement, it's a meta-achievement comprised of nearly all the hard mode encounters in Ulduar (with the notable exceptions of "Observed" and "Alone in the Darkness"). The title "hard modes" do them justice - they're not easy. Certainly some are easier ("Disarmed") than others ("Firefighter"), but they're altogether pretty challenging.

Vortex had been stuck on the "One Light in the Darkness" achievement for roughly a month after completing "Firefighter" back in mid-August. We've given it a bunch of attempts, but could never bring it together for whatever reason. Still, we're stubborn and kept plugging away despite a great deal of frustration and ridiculous repair bills.

Earlier this week we had cleaned up a couple sections of the fight where we were sloppy and had pushed into the final phase of the fight a couple of times, so we knew we were close coming into the final day of this raid lockout. Sure enough, after one warmup pull, we slaughtered Yogg, losing only one person during the attempt and finishing well in front of the enrage timer (despite my forgetting to use our Bloodlust).

This kill (a server first among the ten-man guilds) and the associated "Glory of the Ulduar Raider" meta-achievement (also another 10-man guild first) leaves only two significant undefeated encounters in Ulduar: "Alone in the Darkness" (Yogg-Saron with no Keepers up) and "Observed" (Algalon). While we're not sure when we'll work on "Alone in the Darkness," Algalon is definitely on our hit-list and we hope to have some news on that front soon!