Naxx 10 SUCCESS!

Last night, Steve and I participated in a 10 man raid of Naxxramas with our guildmates in World of Warcraft. I was the main tank ("Nice landing strip." "We like to think of it as a throw rug.") and Steve was on his holy pally healing. Since I was main tank and because we were starting an hour late, I decided that I would take us through this dungeon at a clip.

An hour and 15 minutes later, we had blown through both the Aracnid and Plague Quarers of Naxx. I had successfully lived through tanking the Safety Dance (the two tanks and Steve were the only 3 left alive at the end of that! LOL) which was a first for me (the tanking part), and we were on our way to downing Patchwerk in the Construct Quarter.

At the 2 hour mark, we'd successfully completed the Construct Quarter, too. And we had one shot every boss up to that point, too. One person had to log, so we filled the spot and continued going.

The Military Quarter was a cinch until The Four Horsemen, and even that only really required creativity, flexibility, and awareness (i.e. battle rez the warlock!). In fact, that flexibility and awareness saved us when we were surprised that a Shade decided to crash our party while fighting Gothik the Harvester (wow that instance is BU-UGGED since the content patch!).

The bell tolled midnight, and the 4 Quarters of Naxxramas were dead... quiet. We had effectively blown through Naxx in 3 hours, one shotting all bosses. We zoned out of the Military Quarter and found ourselves in the Frostwyrm lair, the home of Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. Sapph is the KT's gigantic frost wyrm guardian and KT is, well, the guardian of Naxx. As a guild, we'd only been here once. The excited yet nervous energy was evident among the party.

"On your pull, Soph." With that cue, I growled the fiercest bear-growl I have, and charged at this skeletal dragon 400 times my size. And the bigger they are, the harder they fall because down he went after a 5 minute fight.

There was no way we weren't going to try our hand at KT, no matter how late it was, having gotten this far with no wipes. We were going to Press Our Luck.

After a quick explanation of the fight, I led the charge into KT's throne room. Phase 1 was wasn't too complicated. Phase 2 has its challenges, though, one of which being that you must be at least 10 yards away from every one of party members. This is hardest on melee types, especially if you have a lot of them because KT's hit box just isn't that big.

We got KT down to just over 50% when Steve's character - my dedicated healer as the main tank - died. This was ok as there were two other healers who could keep me and raid full of health. However, when KT's health fell to 50%, adds came out to wreak havoc on the party. At that point, a healer has to dedicate themselves to the offtank while the offtank keeps the adds busy and away from the party while the rest of party finished off KT. Now Steve's character's death could become a problem because now the one healer had to keep 7 people alive, including me, and I would be taking the bulk of the damage.

Decision time. Time to battle resurrect Steve's character. Prep first: apply my Valor Medal of the FIrst War (dodge) trinket + Barkskin + select Steve's character. Take a deep breath and.... cast Rebirth. This pulls me out of bear form into my very vulnerable and squishy caster form. Luckily, the Rebirth is a VERY fast cast, and I could quickly switch back into bear form without taking much damage. AWESOME!! I got my dedicated healer back, healed myself with my herbalism synergy skill, and we were back in business....

The achievement for killing KT popped up on the screen and the group was ELATED! We took a picture of all of us sitting on KT's throne as proof of his demise, and gleefully commented that our guild/raid leader was going to be irritated that we killed Sapph and KT without him.

We finished Naxx 10 in 3 hours and 15 minutes, one shotting all bosses (i.e. no wipes). Typically, it takes an hour per Quarter + half an hour to an hour for Sapph and KT. We crushed that typical timeline! We showed KT, and all of his minions, who's boss!

Finally, a night NOT full of fail. Grats to the Sek Sea Pirates!