As befits the final heroic boss of an expansion, our first kill of the Heroic Madness of Deathwing happened in a frenzied blur of massive damage, both incoming and outgoing. At the end of it though, the cheers on Mumble were evidence that Vortex had, yet again, completed the heroic mode of an expansion-ending boss.


In terms of the fight, our strategy wasn't far different than most, although we eschewed soaking the second impales on each platform and instead relied on a combination of Hunter and Rogue mechanics to avoid taking unnecessary damage. We also opted for a highly controlled strategy to handle the elements of Phase 2 and relied on clean execution instead of brute force to handle the 15% and 10% Congealing Blood spawns. Once we handled the 10% Blood Spawn though, we hit Bloodlust and burned him down with only a brief moment taken to destroy the 5% Congealing Blood spawn.  At 5% health though, the raid damage taken spikes dramatically and we started to see people get whittled down and killed despite the best efforts of our healers. It was a mad dash from 5% to the kill, but we made it and here's our proof!

We're proud to have made it through successfully to the end of Cataclysm. We've always said that expansions are marathons, not sprints and this expansion was no different. As with Wrath, we watched numerous other guilds implode and dissolve over the course of the expansion. While we did said goodbye to some of our former WotLK raiders (thankfully most of them still pop in occasionally to keep us in line), we also found several great new additions who fit in seamlessly and helped keep Vortex chugging along. We, as usual, move at our own pace and for this expansion (depending on which numbers you're looking at), that allowed us to finish in the top 1-2% of raiding guilds world-wide. We're proud of that.

When putting together this post, I looked at many of our older posts from WotLK and I was struck by how little had changed in our fundementals. Years have passed since those posts were written and we've said goodbye to some of our older members who have moved on from WoW and welcomed new members to the team, but the foundation of Vortex has always been the people and their willingness to do what is necessary for the success of the team. So, instead of trying to re-explain how I feel about those traits, I'm going to quote an earlier post of mine:

Vortex is comprised of some very good players, but I wouldn't say that we're the best. As with most things in life, there's always someone better around. But where we're nearly unbeatable is our mental toughness and our ability to play like a team - to put the team's success ahead of that of the individual. It's pretty easy to judge when someone has the skill necessary to compete on the highest level, but it's far harder to figure out when they've got the mental resilence to hang on through the tough times and keep going. I'm grateful that we've been fortunate enough to find a bunch of folks who have both traits in abundance. Speaking for myself, it's been an honor to be a part of that team.

But in the end, there's a lot more behind our success than the 10 people present for the kill: the raiders who put in the same time, but had to sit out during the kill; casual members who contributed materials and stepped in to keep our raids going when we ran short; friends and fans of the guild who kept us motivated with their cheers and well-wishes. We wouldn't have been able to accomplish this without all of you.

I'm extremely proud to say that statement is as true today as it was then.

This marks the end of Cataclysm for Vortex. We have some small goals to complete before we start considering the changes we'll make in preparation for the Mists of Pandaria expansion, but this will likely be our last update prior to the release of MoP. If you've been watching Vortex since it was "born" at the beginning of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, you know we've come a long way since then and we hope that you'll continue to check in on us. Until then though, take care and thanks for all your good wishes.

Scythe Died. That makes this the perfect kill.

ty ty

So:


In actuality, it looked like this after our first kill, but we'll talk more about that later.


The Heroic Spine of Deathwing encounter is an complex and exciting fight that also had the potential to be the fight that could have provided the epic (near) ending to the Cataclysm expansion. The concept of parachuting off of a gunship to fight on the back of a flying dragon is an amazing idea, but sadly the fight ended up being a highly tuned encounter in a rectangular room that slowly expanded as the fight went on.

Still, Blizzard's concept to execution issues aside though, it's a lot of fun - ramping up in difficulty quite quickly as you move through it and placing extreme demands on tanks, healers and DPS. The fight lasts roughly 11:30 and by the end you'll wonder where the time went as you try to calm your breathing and heart rate. That's the sign of a well-designed encounter and Blizzard deserves credit for pulling it off.

We spent roughly 4 full raid nights working on this fight before we downed it and given the absolute focus required to complete the encounter, you might forgive us a slight lapse in concentration right after our first kill. While celebrating on Mumble during the parachute ride down from Deathwing's back, we missed the fact that an undispelled Blood Corruption: Death was still active and quietly ticking away until it exploded, wiping nearly all of us. In a delicious bit of irony, only our dispelling shaman (who was apparently awestruck by the cinematic that we've all seen countless times) was spared as he didn't spawn until after the Blood Corruption had exploded. Either that or he's far smarter than all the rest of us and decided to make us pay for putting him on dispel duty for this encounter.

Sadly, though, that means that we only have a single encounter left to complete in Dragon Soul: the Heroic Madness of Deathwing. Hopefully we'll be able to give you an update on our progress there soon!

Following our defeat of Heroic Hagara, we set out for the next target in heroic progression: Ultraxion.

We had heard that it was a massive DPS check, but in our experience, it was more of an execution fight. It was fun to see a fight where you effectively had to "look into the future" in the case of intersecting Fading Light and Hour of Twilight timers. We were well on our way to killing it before the introduction of the slowly increasing Dragon Soul nerf, but with that nerf affecting both boss health and damage, this fight really wasn't much of a challenge. Without further ado, here's our screenshot!