So, what have we been up to since last I updated?

Well, we got up to Mimiron in Ulduar-25 when we lost a pile of raiders to various RL issues all in one fell swoop, and we took a hiatus from Ulduar and went off to clear ToC-10 instead. We farmed ToC-10 and Ony-10 and -25 until 3.3 brought us Icecrown Citadel. Once we had the numbers, we cleared Marrowgar, Deathwhisper, the Gunship, and Saurfang in quick succession in 25-man Icecrown, but we haven’t had the numbers to make consistent progress beyond the Lower Spire.

So instead, we’ve brutalized the place in 10-mans; Sindragosa and Putricide fell to us a couple of weeks ago, and we’re working on the Lich King fight now. It’s very exciting! ;-)

So that’s what we’ve been up to. I’ll post some backdated updates with kill shots as soon as I get the chance.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in joining us, check out our recruitment page for more info – we’re very keen for a few more DPS and healers!

So, what have we been up to for the last few months? Well, after downing Malygos, we finished off Sartharion +2D, and farmed Naxx until Ulduar’s release. Unfortunately, attrition thinned out our ranks just as Ulduar was released, and apart from killing Flame Leviathan we struggled for enough numbers to put a raid together – although on April 22nd we did get the server first Orbital Bombardment (Flame Leviathan +1 tower hardmode).

In mid-May, however, our numbers recovered and we swung back into action – seven bosses down in eight weeks.

Now we’re currently at 8/14 Ulduar, with Freya on notice. The next few weeks should be fun and loot-filled!

Recruitment reminder!
We’re still open for recruitment – we’re currently looking for 2-3 extra DPSers to round out the raiding team.

 

After half-a-dozen hours of practice and wipes, the Big Blue Dragon went down for the count, giving us Big Purple Shinies.

So, all bosses are dead! Now we’re just working on the remaining achievements, and we’ll be all done for Ulduar! Congrats to the raid team – great work, everyone!

 

Last night was a fantastic raid; everything went right, and at the end of it Kel’Thuzad was lying dead at our feet for the first time – unimpressive black ball that he is.

Sixteen WotLK bosses dead – one to go!

* 2x Ranged DPS – boomkin, elemental shaman, mage or shadow priest.
* 1x Melee DPS – enhancement shaman, rogue or DPS warrior.

Classes/specs not listed are not being sought; however, we will consider all applications except for tanking specs.

About Us
Southern Wardens is an Australian Alliance PvE guild on US-Proudmoore founded when WoW was launched. Our raiding team is progression-focused; although we’re not hardcore, we do take raiding seriously.

We started our WotLK raiding in mid-January; we’ve cleared everything except Kel’thuzad and Malygos. We’re currently building our raiding force to finish off T7 content, work on Achievement progression, and prepare for the launch of Ulduar.

Who We’re Looking For
Our ideal raiders:
- are serious about raiding, and willing to put in the time and effort required to succeed
- are flexible and willing to accept feedback
- are motivated to perform well, improve wherever possible, and stay informed about their class, spec, and the raiding game in general
- are willing to debate cake vs pie, discuss the personal hygiene of gnomes, and blame the mage for every accidental pull

Please note that we need at least 75% attendance at official raid nights – Sunday, Monday and Wednesday nights, from ~7pm AEST to ~11pm AEST, plus or minus for daylight savings.

We’re looking, specifically, for people who are potentially interested in staying with us for the long haul. We don’t have much in the way of turnover, and many of our guildmembers have been with us for years. (We’re like the Hotel California, really.)

What We Offer
We’re not hardcore, but we are progression oriented, and we have traditionally been placed in the top 15-25% of raiding guilds on Proudmoore. We make an effort to be as flexible as possible for individual players, and we ask players to be flexible for us in return.

We don’t require specific talent specs, or force people to play in a role they hate. We don’t swap people out boss-by-boss, and we’re not recruiting for bench spots; we make every effort to give all our raiders a fair share of raiding time. We try and make allowances for people with difficult schedules and RL commitments, without hurting our ability to raid effectively.

Interested?
Great! Please post an application in our recruitment forum – you’ll need to register a forum account and PM Siha for posting access, as an anti-spam measure.

If you want to find out more before posting an application, please talk to one of our officers.

Last Wednesday, we headed back to the Military Quarter and faced down the Four Horsemen. After a bit of tinkering most of our raid solved their constant disconnection problems (although our DK tank did wind up tanking Rivendare while mostly offline, which takes a special kind of gift) and it didn’t take long at all before the Four Horsemen gave way in front of our might.

(Of course, then we had to beat the Chest Boss. What were Blizzard thinking?!)

And this weekend we went back to Sartharion, intent on doing things the hard way.

Coming shortly, recruitment news. Watch this space!

Then we turned around and headed back to Naxxramas, to finish off Thaddius:

and take a look at the Plague Quarter:

Last night, we went back in to take a look at the Military Quarter.

The pictures speak for themselves, really.

We’d hoped to get the Four Horsemen down as well, and we’ve got the strat straight; once we can get a good attempt at them without a third of the raid DCing repeatedly, we’ll do just fine.

First up was Patchwork; we’d had a couple of shots at him last night, but didn’t have time to see him off properly. We rectified that tonight, one-shotting him as the first boss of the night.

From there it was onto the Frogger Boss, where the unwary perish and we Australians are heard to curse our 300+ ms latency. Thankfully, the raid (mostly) survived our encounter with this brutal and unforgiving boss, and – suitably buoyed by our success – proceeded to one-shot Grobbulus as well.

After Grobbulus lie the fearsome Ledge Boss and Pipe Boss, and we can proudly say we lost no-one to their lurking dangers. Well… almost no-one. After these hazards we made short work of Gluth, the Ugliest Puppy In The World. (The kill shot is framed against his side, because people felt both ends of him were too ugly to stand in front of.)

Unfortunately we lacked the time to put Thaddius to rest as well, but I have no doubt we’ll finish him off just as soon as the raid masters the delicate art of running in circles around him.

Watch this space for more corpses! (Theirs, not ours, we hope.)

That all changed with the release of Wrath of the Lich King. Everyone threw themselves into levelling with a vengeance, and our first group of level 80s have been laying waste to 10-man raid content for just over a month now.

As planned, we fielded our first 25-man raid last night. Despite the new faces (and the fact that many of our group had never seen Naxxramas in any incarnation), the team did very well, clearing the Spider Wing with only a few wipes along the way.

So, that’s the Spider Wing cleared – great work from all our team, and stay posted for more first kills coming soon to a Southern Wardens blog near you!

A week and a half ago, Southern Wardens ventured back into Black Temple with a raid full of gentle, learned heroes bringing peace and happiness to the world — or, depending on who you ask, a crowd of yahoos with big sticks and an urge to beat up hapless naga. Dear old Naj’entus, he of the Impaling Spines and the Giant Water Bubble Of Doom, would probably call us the latter… if he weren’t too busy saying “ow, ow, it hurts, make it stop”.

Our first kill was absolutely textbook — no deaths, and a clear minute ahead of the enrage timer. Excellent work by all concerned, and we’re looking forward to brutalizing — er, meeting — more of the inhabitants of Black Temple just as soon as our server can stop falling over in the middle of prime Aussie raiding time!