We did the Chess Event Friday, leaving Shade of Aran for Monday.  I didn’t get a good start by dying on all of the first four pulls, but we pulled it together and whipped a lot of mobs in a hurry, getting the quest line done for most everyone in the raid.

Shade of Aran went down in four tries on Monday.  We have some good people and we never died to Flame Wreath.  The key for us was to watch our DPS at 42%, avoiding elementals while we were in Flame Wreath.  Trangoul gets the “Cajones” award for finishing off Aran while he started his Arcane Explosion.  After seeing Spinebreaker charge early, I was NOT going to stay in there.

We attempted Illhoof after a bit of PvP outside Kara (finishing part of the quest line).  Let’s just say there is most definitely one pull before you engage Illhoof, like Trangoul originally thought.  Attempting Illhoof with that pull is not advisable. Despite our interesting start, we tried twice more, once with an inadvertent pull of the imps in front of Illhoof before we finished buffing.  I don’t remember the percentage we managed, but it wasn’t the good note to finish off the week.

I’m sure Faileas can fill this in with the drops at a later date if she feels so inclined.  Otherwise, it’s probably in the forums.

Tonight we got our first kills on the Beast Boss in the Servants Quarters (Rokad the Ravager), the Maiden of Virtue, the Opera Event with Wizard of Oz, and the The Curator.  We did have to shard one item, but it was a GREAT night for Kara.  Thanks go to Aggromagnet, Bubbaray, Faileas, Goodycomp, Heartgiles, Sophira, Tankin, Thiel, Trangoul, and Troq who all made it to the raid tonight.  We killed the Maiden on our first try tonight, finished Wizard of Oz on our second, and the Curator on the second try (even though we hadn’t studied the strategy ahead of time).  It seems like we are on a ROLL.

Grats to everyone who got loot!

Just dropping a little note and hint that you can sign up to receive information about the news posts if you register on the news page AND if you want to be part of the forums, you need to register in the forum.  They are not the same registration.  I was very confused when someone said they signed up and didn’t see an account for them in the forum.  Now I know why and so do you.

We had a hard group of adds to deal with, but after several attempts, we finally got him down! Hopefully we can continue to work on our strategies and coordination to take him down more regularly.

Thanks to Aggromagnet, Bubbaray, Cravien, Faileas, Goodycomp, Shadowgrazer, Spinebreaker, Tankin, Thiel, Trangoul, and Troq who all helped attempt him this evening.

• Emerald Ripper went to Trangoul.
• Nethershard Girdle went to Bubbaray.
• The trash mobs also dropped Pattern: Soulcloth Vest which went to Goodycomp.

Grats to everyone!