In True Tempest Fashion

Tempest, like many guilds, has its traditions and quirks.  One quirk which has happened so often by now it seems to be a tradition is downing a boss on what has to be the absolutely last pull of the raiding period.  So it would make sense that something would happen in the absolutely last pull of the last hour of the last official raiding night of the expansion.

We had been working on some other achievements earlier in the raid period, but due in large part to the D/C boss rearing his ugly head, they had been unsuccessful. As Algalon 25 was something we really wanted to try before Cataclysm (and knowing we'd only have an hour to work on him, anyway), we decided to head to the Observatory for the last hour of our scheduled raid.  So for the first time, the Tempest 25-man raid faced Algalon.

Algalon 25 is still a boss which can wipe a raid, despite good ICC25 Heroic gear.  The fight requires an understanding of the basic mechanics, and it still requires good tank healing and dps.  Several of us had done it in 10-man, so we had a grasp of what would happen, but there were also several raid members, including the raid leader, who had never set foot in the Observatory.  (There was a lot of "oooh"ing and "aaah"ing, which is understandable, as the room really is quite magnificent.  I still feel the same way when I enter.)

And, yes, we wiped.  There is, after all, a learning curve involved.  Sometimes the wipes were due to silly errors.  Sometimes the wipes were due to raiders not knowing a detail or a trick or a recommended position.  But progress was definitely being made.  The Black Holes stopped being dropped in the middle of the room.  Raiders started keeping a better eye on the Cosmic Smash locations and trying to time the demise of the Collapsing Stars to not coincide with Cosmic Smash.  Tanks reworked their assignments to better handle the challenges of the encounter.

And finally, when our raid time had depleted and we were down to the last pull of the night, we won.

Congrats to all the raiders who proved that even after a frustrating night, Tempest can still pull it all together at the end.

We lit up the sky above Dalaran.