The end of CoS as we know it

It is with a mixture of sadness and excitement that I announce to you the disbanding of the Children of Stormwind. With the guild master due to become a father and the guild growing beyond control into something far less organized and close knit than we had planned the leadership group unanimously voted to disband COS and form a new smaller guild, Focus. Saturday night was the curtain call with many members new and old gathering in Stormwind for the final group photo. Some celebrated with Champaign, others spammed trade with “OMG my guild disbanded LF Guild!” But I believe our new guild ‘Focus’ will be a fantastic step forward, the intention is to keep the numbers down and work towards making some progression through raids. We are off to a great start with three Ulduar bosses falling on the Sunday evening! Beyond that I see at least two more as achievable so we should start to see some solid movement.

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Naxxramas Cleared!

After only four weeks to Wrath entering Naxxramas, Children of Stormwind raiders have completed the instance with the death of Kel’Thuzad last Sunday. With the Vault of Archavon and Obsidian Sanctum already under our belts that leaves Malygos as our only undefeated raid boss. Should we be able to consistently recreate this effort with the addition of downing Malagyos regularly we should be in a strong position to begin the next tier of raiding as soon as the patch is released.


On a related note The Children of Stormwind stand at 66th in the WowJutsu rankings. I strongly believe we can improve on this, perhaps making it into the top 50 soon!

Additionally Ironarm now has four pieces of the tier seven “Dreadnaught Plate”. Considering that even after a year of Burning Crusades Ironarm only ever managed to get two pieces of tier four this expansion is going considerably better.

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Continued Raiding Success

Thanks to some on the spot raiding The Children of Stormwind now have another two raid instances under their belt. Last night a brave band of ten took on the Obsidian Sanctum and The Vault of Archavon. Both bosses fell with only one wipe each and Archavon was only really due to an evade bug and some messy taunting from myself.



The ease with which we completed both of these encounters leads me to one of two conclusions. Either raids are easier or the guild has gotten a fair bit better. I am inclined to think that perhaps it’s more of the former than the latter as there were plenty of silly mistakes made throughout the raid. Additionally although people are working to improve their play I think we still have a way to go maximising our characters performance. However that said we have improved, the guild as a whole have already attempted and begun to succeed at raid content which is a big step. We are also helping each other with crafted items and instances runs more than I saw in the Burning Crusade. Most importantly I am seeing enthusiasm again, gone are the days of running Karazhan for the hundredth time for now everything is new and exciting.

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Naxxramas - The Arachnid Quarter

On the 15th of December the Children of Stormwind made their first foray into Naxxramas. The evening began with some minor trouble with the other tank and top healer being at a Christmas party but after some stumbling around we found a PUG healer and got started. The raid is made up of four parts which must be completed to unlock the final bosses. In the two hours we were there we downed the three bosses in the Arachnid Quarter, Anub'Rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina and Maexxna. We had a few wipes on Anub’Rekkan and Maexxna as we sorted out exactly what we needed to do but the Grand Widow Faerlina when down first shot.


The six epic items dropped were all made excellent use of with Lil getting the best deal and winning two items. For a “stuck our head in and see how we do” attempt we did very successfully. We plan to try again next weekend, this time with more serious game faces and hopefully clear another wing in addition to the Arachnid.

PS Elfarol your going to hate the Arachnid wing, true to it’s name there are a lot of spiders and with you now insisting on this retribution business your going to be getting pretty close to them.

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New Children of Stormwind Site

We have updated the Children of Stormwind website. The new site, based on my design, looks much better and has a great new application form.

A lot of people spent time making this happen and you should all be really proud of your efforts!

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Gruul's Lair - The Dragon Killer is Dead

Despite the new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, being less than two months away The Children of Stormwind are still making some progress through content. Over the weekend we achieved another guild first by Downing Gruul the Dragonkiller. Despite lacking our raid leader Skyer, the run went off very well. Our only major hold up was replacing a couple of players who DCed just before Gruul and didn’t re-appear. The group wasn’t entirely from our guild, we did have a few ring in whom we are very grateful to for their assistance. The full list of participants is included below.


As the expansion approaches it seems that the Children of Stormwind is getting larger. It is a rocky time for many guilds, most are not making any progression and in many cases have completely given up on raiding. The focus for a lot of players is getting ready for the expansion. In line with this The Children of Stormwind are working on forming a progression raiding group. This team will be made up of players who consistently perform in raids. The idea is to form a core group who work well together to forge the way into Lich King ten man raids. It will also be something members can work towards if they are interested in raiding. Last week we had two great groups running side by side, this generated some amusing banter as comments were made back and forth in guild chat about their groups progress. This seemed to push people to work harder and subsequently my group got all the way to prince only skipping Nighbane, Illhoof and Netherspite.

I appologise for the quality of some of these screen shots, uploading them to Blogger seems to make them very dark and hard to see.

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Zul'Aman and Gruul's Lair

Another successful venture was made into Zul’Aman on Friday night, the first three bosses down again. It would have been more successful with perhaps at least the first of the timed chests however two of the group members (including one of the healers) were plagued with disconnects one of whom eventually had to be replaced. In fact the majority of our wipes were because of the panic that enviably occurs when the main tank healer disconnects.


We also revisited 25 player raids on Sunday night with our second attempt at Gruul’s Lair. It seemed that the latency gods were not favouring us this weekend. After clearing to the High King we all sat and stared at each other running on the spot for ten minutes before the whole server restarted. Once it had we needed to reform our group, survive the large number of horde killing people out the front and then reclear. A couple of attempts later the High King fell Protaa, Myscha and Mudoken were rewarded with tier four shoulder tokens and Lililthelle with a new helm.

Sadly Gruul himself was not so easy; our best attempt got him to 5%. Once again I couldn’t seem to stay alive where Skyer managed to with Gruul pushing over 200% damage increases. The decision was made to let Skyer main tank Gruul but we ended up calling it when a mob respawned right as the pull was started. I believe there is a very good chance we can down him next time though.

A group of us also created a guild premade Warsong Gulch which was quite lucrative. We flattened several teams three to nil but our best effort was in one game were we messed up the start and let the horde capture twice only to come back with three straight captures of our own. It seems that a 19k hit point druid tank makes an excellent flag carrier.

Officer’s meetings are now being held weekly on every Monday evening, this allows us to address new and ongoing issues and generally keep in touch.

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Smooth Sailing - Some General News

Another successful night in Karazhan, for the Children of Stormwind, taking down The Curator and everything before in a bit over two hours. Only one wipe on Nightbane and the death of only a few DPS just goes to show we basically have the place on farm especially when we only take one group. We even survived when at one stage a few (read 8) extra elites got pulled. I guess you were just testing if Sando and I were on our toes.

Lots of guild members were visiting the PvP vendors last night picking up some new gear with their saved honour and arena points now that season four has hit. It is prime time to be an enchanter this week with a lot of people wanting to enchant their latest acquisitions (can anyone do Soulfrost for Squiggle’s new mace?).

Although we are constantly getting new members we have said farewell a few people recently. With no new content on the cards until Litch King I believe we are hitting the slump period before the expansions release. Once the Fire Festival is over and arena season four settles in I expect quite a few people will stop playing or at least cut back their play time a fair bit. It doesn’t help that as a guild we are still stuck between Karazhan and twenty five man raids with too many for one and not quite enough for the other.

The next few months is a great time to get some new things happening in the guild. Perhaps we can set up some premade battle ground groups and attempting some old school raids such as Molten Core and Onyxia.

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UBRS - Another Old World Boss Down

Tonight we downed another old world boss, General Drakkisath. This was another run with Bohni and Jyade with both getting another level. However more importantly we are fleshing out Children of Stormwind's list of raid boss kills. Next stop Onyixia, Black Wing Lair and Molten Core.


On a side note, we got to see where the famous Leroy Jenkins video was filmed.

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When we were first starting Karazhan I remember Stragoth saying “One day I would like to see our guild clear this in one night”. At that stage we were struggling to get Attumen and Moroes down in one night, so clearing the whole place in just over four hours last night is another milestone for the Children of Stormwind. It wasn’t an overgeared group, in fact a couple of the players had never been to the second half of Karazhan. On top of that I don’t think we were going at full speed, we did stop several times to explain encounters and Skyer and I could still save time by improving our chain pulling.

It was also the last time Alassiel/Airora will get to come to Karazhan for a while. She is starting a new job so attending raids is going to be tricky. I hope you enjoyed your last one for a while and no sorry I am not multi boxing and playing your character through Karazhan as well.

There may have been a previous occasion when Karazhan was cleared in one night but I haven’t heard about it so sorry if that’s the case.

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Gnome Fight Night

The Children of Stormwind's birthday celebrations concluded on Monday night with Gnome Fight night. Around thirty members congregated on the bridge in Ironforge to begin this bizarre spectacle. Much dancing, chasing, following and foolishness ensued before the masses moved out the front to fight it out.


No scores were kept for the many battles but the gates of Ironforge were awash with running gnomes and dueling flags. Everyone looks the part in their Tuxedos thanks to some serious cloth farming and Squiggle's skill with tailoring.


Rules:
1. First rule of CoS Fight Club is "Dont talk about Fight Club!"
2. Second rule of Cos Fight Club is "Dont talk about Fight Club!"
3. If it is your first night of Fight Club you must fight
4. Fight Club participants must not be higher than level 1
5. Fight Club participants must all be wearing tuxedo clothing sets (purely for visual effect)
6. Fight Club participants should all be gnomes.
7. There are no weapons or buffs permitted in Fight Club it is fist fight duels only
8. Fight Club participants should all be gnomes
9. Fight Club will meet at IF bank on fight nights
10. Fight Club is for fun and designed to give members and specators a laugh as creepy little gnomes fight to the death.


Finally congratulations everyone for two years of the Children of Stormwind! Stragoth you have done an amazing job keeping this guild together through the highs and the lows. I look forward to planning celebrations next year in Northrend.

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Gruul's Lair - The Begining

As part of our continuing the Children of Stormwind birthday celebrations, we had our first guild 25 player raid on Sunday night, our target was Gruul's Lair. There has been much discussion about starting larger raids as we have enough players so it was excellent to see 25 people giving it a shot.


High King Maulgar went down on the second attempt once we had sorted out the pull. Gruul the Dragon Killer proved more of a challenge. After many attempts and a lot of deaths (especially for poor Ironarm) we gave up.

However two healers and a tank are now sporting tier four shoulders thanks to HKM and plenty of people got to experience some thing new that they probably thought they would never get to try.

Following is a list of everyone who attended:
Iwannakillu
Primevilfury
Skyer
Steroidboy
Sellia
Alassiel
Foruce
Lililithelle
Mariandrah
Polymorf
Raynor
Sandee
Swaggy
Caldin
Paf
Elfarol
Ironarm
Mudoken
Numinor
Sando
Stragoth
Dracca
Phro
Wiste
Westrage
Tarnwho
Latheta

Thankyou everyone and lets give it another go in a month or so.

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Taerar and Orgrimmar

As part of our two year birthday celebrations the Children of Stormwind took part in two more events. We took on the world dragon boss Taerar and raided various horde locations including Orgrimmar.


Taerar proved to be quite easy going down with very few deaths on the first attempt. Bohni made out quite well winning two very nice and very useful items as he is still in his 50s. In fact he got his first epic Acid Inscribed Greaves. Other items won went to level 70 characters who will hopefully not just sell them.


From there most of the raid turned south to Grom'gol Base Camp in Stranglethorn Vale. The horde camp was quickly cleared and we boarded the zeppelin. After a short detour we arrived in Durotar and headed to Orgrimmar. From here it got messy, the gates of Orgrimmar were awash with level 70 horde dueling and standing around. They quickly turned to killing us. We did take a few out but were outnumbered and our walk from the grave yard was a lot longer than there's. That pretty much spelled the end of the raid with a couple heading onto Cross Roads and Thousand Needles but most logging off or starting other things.

I did manage to do some sneaking and get inside Orgrimmar; did you know that when you are in horde cities you can see and use the trade chat channel?

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New Tabard

As part of our two year birthday celebrations we have a new tabard. Personally i am very happy with the change, blue will go with a lot more peoples outfits and the simple design is easy to see and recognise.

More events are planned for the rest of the long weekend.

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Happy Birthday CoS

On the forth of June two years ago Children of Stormwind was born. Congratulations on making it this far!

Celebrations will be undertaken over the weekend and include Fight Night, PvP raiding and an attempt at Gruul's Lair.

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Movment of the raiding front

On Sunday Children of Stormwind had two raid groups running simultaneously, one in Zul’Aman and one in Karazhan. This means we had a total of 20 level 70 players raiding at once. In addition to this a couple of people couldn’t attend Karazhan because they were already saved to a different raid ID. This raises the possibility of trying out Gruul’s Lair. We aren’t really in a position to run it regularly but we could give it a go. It will just be a matter of getting all of those people to again log in at one pre specified time.

Downing a 25 player raid boss is really the next step for Children of Stormwind, so it would be good to see us at least attempt it. Just having a go is how we managed to finally make some progress in Zul’Aman, perhaps bitting the bullet, setting a time and trying the best we can may be all we need.

However there was one difficulty, Team Speak. On Sunday night when most of raid groups were logged into Team Speak and the guild member who hosts it was attempting to play Team Speak collapsed. The Zul’Aman group reverted to using Skype but this indicates we may not be able to have a full 25 player raid using Team Speak at once.

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Zul'Aman 3/6

The Children of Stormwind pulled it together and downed three of the Zul'Aman bosses last night. Nalorakk the bear avatar went down on the third attempt, Akil'zon the eagle avatar on the forth attempt and Halazzi the lynx on the second. None of the encounters seemed particularly hard and wipes were mostly as a result of learning the encounters.



Participants were Ironarm and Skyer Tanking, Kaith, Brotherrog and Phro healing and Alassiel, Stragoth, Paf, Sellia and Swaggy as the damage dealers. The three items to drop were Pauldrons of Primal Fury from Nalorakk, Amani Punisher from Akil'zon and The Savage's Choker from Halazzi.


Personally I was very impressed, last time we tried Zul'Aman we couldn't even clear to the first boss. I had expected we would get to him this time but not three of them.

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Entry Level Tanking Gear

I have chatted to a few people in Children of Stormwind about getting starter tanking gear. Most people know they need to get 490 defense etc but are not sure where to go for good gear upgrades. Therefore I have created a post which gives you some examples of easily obtainable tanking gear. You will need to mix and match carefully to ensure you are uncritable and uncrushable while trying to maintain a high level of armor. As this blog is powered by wowhead you should be able to mouse over linked items to get details, if you want more information click the item and you will be taken to the wowhead site which gives excellent detail about where and how to get the item.

Head
Felsteel Helm - Crafted by a blacksmith
Myrmidon's Headdress - reward from the quest The Warlord's Hideout

Neck
Mark of the Ravenguard - Reward from the quest Brother Against Brother

Shoulders
Shoulder Guards of the Bold - Drops in Shadow Labyrinth off Murmur
Warchief's Mantle - Reward from the quest Return to Andormu

Back
Cloak of Eternity - Crafter by a Tailor

Chest
Breastplate of the Warbringer - Reward from the quest Forge Camp: Annihilated
Jade-Skull Breastplate - Drops in The Mechanar from Nethermancer Sepethrea
Vindicator's Hauberk - Purchased from Quartermaster Endarin when revered with The Aldor

Wrist
Sha'tari Wrought Armguards - Reward from the quest The Soul Devices

Hands
Thatia's Self-Correcting Gauntlets - Drops in The Arcatraz from Dalliah the Doomsayer
Felsteel Gloves - Crafted by a blacksmith

Waist
Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard - Reward from the quest How to Break Into the Arcatraz

Legs
Timewarden's Leggings - Purchased from Alurmi when reverd with The Keepers of Time
Felsteel Leggings - Crafted by a balcksmith

Boots
Sha'tari Wrought Greaves - Reward from the quest Into the Heart of the Labyrinth

Rings
Andormu's Tear - Reward from the quest Hero of the Brood
Iron Band of the Unbreakable - Drops in Old Hillsbrad Foothills from Lieutenant Drake

Trinkets
Adamantine Figurine - Drops in Drops in Shadow Labyrinth off Blackheart the Inciter
Regal Protectorate - Reward from the quest Overlord
Darkmoon Card: Vengeance - Reward from the quest Darkmoon Furies Deck (Note this is an expensive quest to complete)

Weapons
Honor's Call - Purchase from Logistics Officer Ulrike when exalted with Honor Hold
Grom'tor's Charge - Quest reward from The Cipher of Damnation
Crystalline Kopesh - Quest reward from Wanted: Durn the Hungerer

Shields
Dawnforged Defender - Purchase from Eldara Dawnrunner when exalted with The Shattered Sun Offensive
Netherwing Protector's Shield - Reward from the quest Ally of the Netherwing
Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall - Purchasable for Arena points but in the future will be available for honor
Platinum Shield of the Valorous - Drops in Shadow Labyrinth off Ambassador Hellmaw

Ranged Weapons
Melmorta's Twilight Longbow - Drops in The Black Morass from Chrono Lord Deja
Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer - Crafted by an engineer

Some Less Known of Enchants
Nethercleft Leg Armor(crafted) - Legs
Greater Inscription of Warding(Aldor Reputation)/Greater Inscription of the Knight(Scryer Reputation) - Shoulder
Glyph of the Defender(Keepers of Time Reputation) - Head

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Karazhan Finally Clear

Finally we have cleared all of Karazhan. With Netherspite's timely demise the Children of Stormwind have now killed every boss. We cleared it all in one week to boot. My estimates put it at six months assuming we stared in mid November. Heres to hoping we can get through ZA a bit quicker, though I hear even those completing tier 5 content can struggle with it.

Not that I am going to stop, but I have throughly enjoyed raiding. This is only the start of the fabled "End Game" content but it has provided great challenges and wonderful rewards. Now I might go polish my epics and get some sleep.

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Karazhan and beyond

Children of Stormwind how now almost cleared all of Karazhan, with only Netherspite standing in our way (here is hoping for this week). It appears that once we have bested an encounter it comes under our belt pretty easily. This has happened for Moroes, Curator and now Aran who went down quiet easily last night with virtually no deaths. For reference purposes our strategy was to keep his health below his mana, CC/burn down the elementals and not have to be polymorphed. I think that using a Paladin or Druid as an off tank and then getting them to DPS/Heal on the one tank bosses is defiantly the way to go. Having Rogadodga along is pretty handy too as his healing set it quite epic.

This leaves the question “What next?” Well there is Zul’Aman which could be interesting but with 19+ 70s simultaneously online last night 25 man raids are within our grasp. I think we should lock in a time, call in a few favours and hit Gruul’s Lair or perhaps even Magtheridon's Lair. I can think of a few 70s I am friends with who might come and at least one smallish guild who might join us. In regards to loot, well I would consider winning anything a bonus so perhaps a master looter supervising a need before greed roll off.

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