Naxxramas Raiding Begins

On Wednesday, we killed Archavon the Stone Watcher and then went to the Obsidian Sanctum and killed Sartharion. Both were 10-man raids. We will be doing 10-man raiding until we have the guild numbers to hit up 25-man content.

We paid Instructor Razuvious a quick visit in Naxxramas, having time to spare. It didn't go so well, but it was good to go back to the instance in its non-40-man form.

Last night, we had our official Naxxramas raid. This was our first guild raid in new content. My gear is currently very, very poor, as I have been unable to do any heroics and it has been a mission to get gear through crafting or reputation. I hope that over the next few weeks I will build my gear to an appropriate raiding level -- and will replace at least a few pieces with Naxxramas drops.

We cleared the Arachnid Quarter: Anub'Rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina and Maexxna. We then went and killed Patchwerk. I respecced to a more raiding friendly Frost build than I was, in order to punch out more necessary DPS.

We had one try at Grobbulus, but it was getting late and I think that only one of us had done the fight before; that being in the 40-man oldschool version, two years ago. We will get him down pretty easily, though, whenever we have our next Naxxramas raid.

The Archavon and Sartharion thing will hopefully be weekly. The big dragon is necessary in getting our T7 shoulders, anyway, and Archavon drops some nice gear -- both PvE and PvP.

After our Naxxramas raid, some of us did a heroic Utgarde Keep. It was my first heroic since hitting level 80. I hope to do many more in order to build up a better pre-raiding gear set.

I really struggled with effectively DPSing last night and felt incredibly underpowered. I also like Frost too much to veer away from that for now, and plan to continue raiding as Frost. Although, when I have all the Frostweave Cloth necessary to get my Tailoring to 440, I will go full raid spec.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Utgarde Keep

I quested a little bit on Gaiwyn.

Dinged 73.

Did Utgarde Keep with a couple of guildies and two pugs.

Tomorrow: more questing!

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Raid Stacking

If you haven't heard about it already, here is the blue post that explains the intended changes to raid buffing. Basically, they will allow buffs to extend to the entire raid, whether it be 25- or 10-man. This gives more flexibility and allows you to choose from any and every class-type for raid make-up. It also means that you don't have to juggle groups around depending on the fight, but can leave them intact throughout the instance.

There have been a lot of gear updates over the weekend for WotLK instances. As more people hit level 80, more loot in the end-game instances will be uncovered.

Wowhead hasn't been updated with a lot of these items, but check back over the course of this week to see what has been added:

The Nexus
The Nexus
The Oculus
The Eye of Eternity

Ulduar
Halls of Lightning

Utgarde Keep
Utgarde Pinnacle

Caverns of Time
Stratholme Past

Unfortunately, Naxxramas has yet to be updated. However, check out this placeholder weapon. :o

I get ever closer to getting back into the game.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore