Gruul the Dragonkiller Down
Illustra poses in front of the lifeless body of Gruul the Dragonkiller. A raid put together by Eternal Force claims victory over Gruul on a fourth attempt.
Illustra Invited To Slay Dragonkiller
I had myself set up in Netherstorm, grinding for motes of mana, and got a whisper from Phella tonight. Eternal Force was looking for another DPS to jump in at Gruul’s Lair. I had no sense of how serious the attempt was, so I asked a few more questions. It sounded legitimate. So I grabbed some gear from the bank in Area 52, and flew over.
The 25-main raid was almost fully assembled. The group was very heavy on melee DPS, which isn’t a great thing for attempting Gruul. Eternal Force has never beaten Gruul, and the instance had been cleared (on a previous night I believe) up to the final boss. It took about an hour to fill out the last few healer and DPS roles, get everyone zoned in, and buffed up. Organization is essential to a raid’s performance.
We cleared the trash mobs leading up to Gruul’s chamber with relative ease. It’s fun being in the 25-man raids, it almost felt like the old days again, when a ridiculous number of magical streams and channeled spells and ranged ammunition are flying around the screen.
Amaraa of Eternal Force was directing the raid, as she is a protection Paladin who either tanks or heals depending on the situation at hand. Quite useful. Celticjess of Eternal Force would be the main tank for the evening. We got an overview of the fight (this was the furthest I’ve been into Gruul’s Lair), and it sounded pretty daunting. Gruul has about three and a half million health.
Attempt one on Gruul let the inexperienced among us see how the fight works. As a Warlock, it’s nice being ranged…it’s vital for everyone to spread out as much as possible. Gruul’s Shatter ability is what can really destroy people…the effects of it are proportional to the number of people in your vicinity. Avoiding the Cave In effect is annoying, but must be performed immediately. The Cave In doesn’t tick for 3 seconds, so it can be avoided if you move immediately. As this was my first time doing this fight, I wasn’t sure what the sequence of events is. During this first attempt, the tank went down and things deteriorated quickly. I got rocked for 16012 damage and was one-shotted…the raid fell apart, the attempt lasting 5 minutes, 29 seconds.
The second attempt was a lot better…we got Gruul down to 3%, which meant he still had 102k health remaining. I was one of the last people to go down, I got soundly one-shotted for 25619 damage at 8 minutes, 6 seconds into the fight. Everyone was really feeling on this attempt…we knew we could do it. I was a Shadowbolting fool, and my Curse of Doom had hit for over 10k.
There were 3 Warlocks in the group…my Soulstone assignment was Ferndale, a restoration Druid from the guild Midwinter. Midwinter, as in one of the top Black Temple-clearing guilds of Ysera. Nice. I doubt I’ll get many chances to have some of the Midwinter folks in my raid.
On the third attempt, we survived through 16 grows by Gruul. I again was soundly thumped for 23734 health 7 minutes, 29 seconds into the fight. This attempt wasn’t as close as the second attempt, but it’s not like we were being blown out of the place. We figured we could get it on another try. About this time, we had a couple of healers drop out…we got a new restoration Druid and a restoration Shaman in place after quite a delay.
We ended up having to re-clear the trash, as two hours had already elapsed since we first began. The fourth attempt proved victorious. I survived for almost the entire duration of the fight, but was hit for 32539 health at 7 minutes, 19 seconds into the fight. I remembered getting 2 DoTs up on him before being dropped. Gruul was at about 1%, meaning somewhere in the 30k health range. My DoTs weren’t going to do it, but we still had 11 people alive (out of 25!), although most were healers.
What a great fight that was.
Gruul the Dragonkiller dropped the Windshear Boots (won by Nazca), the Gauntlets of Martial Perfection (won by Armandeluz), the Leggings of the Fallen Defender (won by Seraphyne), and the Leggings of the Fallen Hero (won by Cucuy). I rolled a 2 on those Legs against six other people…a TWO! Oh well, maybe next time.
Eternal Force is looking to go against Gruul again in the near future. Apparently, they’re having problems fitting everyone into their 2 Karazhan teams, but unable to marshal a 25-man raid against Gruul. This makes no sense to me. On a related note…Rockstar has enlisted with Eternal Force. Maybe he can get in on a slice of the action.