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Fear not loyal adventurers, Hanbanana has again returned to the blogsphere to tell the tale of our adventures! What have we been up to you ask? Well Icecrown Citadel of course!! We have done well thus far, clearing the Lower Citadel, The Plagueworks, The Crimson Hall and The Frostwing Lair. All that stands before us is the mighty Lich King himself. We are eager to end his reign, and alas get a taste of Heroic Difficulty. Much change is afoot among the team, which I suppose is usually the case when one puts 4 months between blog updates... but I digress. The freshness of new content has us rejuvenated from the brutality that is Heroic Anub'arak and we are hungry for moar win! When it comes to progression raiding, the great thing about new content is the opportunity to start fresh on an even keel with the servers finest. We have our work cut out for us with such a talented group of guilds in the running on Runetotem, but our hunger for the ever elusive server first progression kill has our eyes focused on the prize. As far as current progression goes our most recent Sindragosa kill puts us at #2 on Runetotem, just behind Exiled from Hell.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

We have certainly come a long way since the early days of Wrath of the Lich King. January 6th marked our official anniversary for the J!NX Guild, with a full year of 25man raiding under our belt. I remember the journey vividly...

...Starting out in Naxxramas with Asshats galore and gut-wrenching Immortal attempts. In the Obsidian Sanctum we finally met our first real challenge by Sarth 3D, where we uncovered the secret to void zone awareness and DPS checks. We learned the joys of high turnover through Ulduar, where we fought through weeks and weeks of Yogg-Saron cloud fail as we tried to teach the revolving door of new recruits. It was in the Crusaders Coliseum that we finally dropped the training wheels and began to mature as a team. With our Heroic Twin Valkyrs kill we forged our niche as a Runetotem Top 5, and despite our shortcomings on Anub we prepared ourselves for what was next.

We stand strong now in Icecrown Citadel, and we are carving a name for ourselves out of metal and brawn. We have seen a number of talented players move through our roster, and likewise a handful of less-than talented. Leaders have emerged, asshats took to the hills and all-stars found their stride. We have had a few swarly dogs like Swampy,Córóna, Markov and old man Gorlath stick with us from day one -- and a handful more who were around for the days of yore in Naxx. I have never felt as good about our team as I do now, and the quality just continues to improve week in and week out. We are a well oiled machine at this point, and our dominion is only beginning. We have forged alliances on Runetotem, and our reputation is starting to precede us. Now if we can only get Brolo to stop building Gundams during the Gunship Battle, we will be on our way to the top.

The Road to Arthas

Icecrown is quite the interesting zone. It combines the epic size scale found in Ulduar with the same chilling visuals of Naxxramas. The encounters aren't exactly re-inventing the wheel to any long-term progression player... but assuredly offers enough newness here and there to make the encounters feel fun. If you are one that enjoys WoW raiding, you will have a blast in Icecrown. The gated boss system did feel a bit like a desperation effort to retain subscription fees, however thanks to Paragon and vodka's quick work of Arthas the attempts have been re-tooled to affect only Heroic Modes.

We saw great success through The Frostwing Lair, scoring a server first Valithria Dreamwalker kill, and our impressive server second Sindragosa kill after a grand total of only 8 pulls. We are excited with the momentum we have built up, and getting some face time with the Lich King was too much fun.

We have faced struggles through our Icecrown Progression, most notably with Professor Putricide of the Plagueworks and Blood Queen Lana'thel of the Crimson Hall. I think Plagueworks is proabably my favorite of the wings, with memorable trash and three fairly unique bosses. Festergut brings back the Patchwerk-esque DPS race, while Rotface feels like a nice coordination fight with a good step up in difficulty from the Lower Citadel. Putricide is still my favorite encounter so far, a fight that does a great job testing the breadth of your teamwork capabilities.

Professor Putricide

Blood Queen Lana'thel

Sindragosa

The Lich King in Action!

Wish us luck in the coming weeks as we battle The Lich King, and once again begin our jaunt through the heroic progression race. Until then, keep up the pew pew my good friends.

::Han