Just refreshed our old realm forum recruitment thread, nothing moar!

Well, the picture explains itself - that's what WotLK has been in a nutshell.

Plainly said, not enough content.

 

For a couple of resets we've actually gone for some retarded achievements - as it seems to be what the guilds in the world concentrate and compete on, and what the whole of PVE currently and even in the future is. According to the blue posts and so forth.

Why did it have to change from killing bosses - to do some weirdass shit what doesn't actually matter at all? Blizzard will probably implement usb-compatible dildos, and achievements for doing all the instances and the bosses with the dildos shoved up your asses. Have fun then.

 

 

But just as always, what Blizzard wants - we shall follow.

I knew the day would come. A realm first, world #4, Europe #3 on Heroic: Spore Loser!

http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/eu/neptulon/Aphase

That seems to be the new place to actually observe our "progress", as realmhistory.net - and the old boss kills don't mean zilch.

 

 

And on another note, we are going for other realm firsts when Ulduar comes. Hence why the recruiting page has been updated:

• Mage
• Paladin(retri)
• Shaman(ele)

 

That's what we need. Apply via the recruiting page if you've got the minerals for it.

 

Currently were merely raiding 1-2 days a week, depending if were trying an achievement or not, but the normal Sunday-Thursday 1900-0000 Server Time schedule will pop back into the place, when the next content patch is here. Who knows, this time it might actually take a reset to clear the place?

Ater a lot of this..

..some of this..

..too fucking much of this..

..never enough of this..

..some practice in here, as he's the leader of the black dragonflight..

..too unbelievably much of this crap - even with the practice..

 

 

...but in the end lies the reward...

..for whom?

Yes, 'tis Christmas.

Another fun fucking spend-all-your-money and waste em for stupid gifts for the relatives, so-called friends and/or coworkers, get yourself stuffed via 15 courses of "good" food and get yourself drunk in the meantime as well-fest!

So, have fun with that and it and so forth, and heres the new Christmas poll - go and vote!

hahahahhhhhahahhahhahahhahhahhahahhhahhahha

 

And yeah, we actually killed Sarthie with a couple of drakes up yesterday, but due to all of the good dps being on holidays, and having problems with healers a week or two back - no 3 drake kill yet.

Oh lookie lookie.
Somebody managed to actually change the default character from his old main
to his new female gnome mt!

..and oh lookie lookie #2 - it seems we can create polls for retarded questions
and votes nowadays as well, here's your first one!

Oh yeah, we downed Malygos 25 on Sunday a week back,
on the 7th of December. We checked out the latency on Lagtulon at around
1900 - noticed it was unplayable, and postponed up until 2200.
One or two-shotted the boss, cannot remember anymore.

After that there was nothing left for us to clear, so Pelk and myself decided to hop
on a casual drinking cruise to Stockholm on Tuesday, missing Wednesdays raid as well.
And on Thursday, 'twas merely Sartharion+3 drakes up for us to kill this reset.

Sundays raid didn't quite materialize as our new guys were saved to their old instances,
Monday was cancelled beforehand due to an Opeth gig which didn't materialize,
and our focus didn't quite materialize on Tuesday, when we actually attempted Sartharion,
and his lovely drakes.

Shit DPS, shit tanking, shit focus.
Well, they're all dead the next time were there.

What a nice start for the fourth reset of WotLK.
Server problems continued on Wednesday, and even with
22 guys left on Thaddius, we did a couple of wings in Naxxramas,
only leaving Thaddius, Plaguewing and Sapphiron/Kel'thuzad for
Thursday.
Moar recruiting was merely on our minds after the raid.

But on Thursday, Blizzard struck with a heavy hammer of good old latency
and/or extreme troubles with the load on the instance servers CPU's.
Basically, no lag or latency prior to bossfights, but the second you
engaged something more stressful for the server - it felt like playing
in porridge, glue and oysters at the same time.
Yummy.

Not like Malygos - bugs were already haunting in the back of the brain.

And anyways - we engaged on one of the most memorable raids ever,
due to the chitter, yelling and chatter on Vent, due to undoable bosses,
weird trash respawns at Four Horsemen - the Eye towards Sapphiron
wasn't glowing - Ibuycandy stealthed through the trash and noticed that
Four Horsemen weren't standing up - nor was the portal back there usable,
due to Yours Truly buying accidentally a wrong enchant from a reputation vendor -
not once but twice, and then the third time from the right vendor - a spelldamage
enchant for shoulders instead of the tanking one, due to Natrii keeping us company
on vent, and due to the general mayhem of the randomness on what the hell we could
actually do there and due to other unimaginative events taking place.

Nonetheless, we we're stubborn as fuck, waited for all the other guilds to actually get
fed up of the instance servers, and actually managed to clear the remaining bosses -
in a truly memorable raid.

Only promises good for Malygos on Sunday - if it's playable that is.



And on other news, Menoann, the lol-specced warlock actually had
the most threat for a while on Grobbulus on Wednesday.
And heres a screenie to prove it!


Which is actually quite shameful for every single other dps in the guild.

Once again I've been busy ingame or irl to actually write some progress
news (my ass), and the best way to actually catch up on our progress is
at realmhistory.net

And talking about ass, I heard that Drooly enjoys shoving some stuff in there,
especially calculations.



But on the other news - we actually cleared Naxxramas 25 on the third
reset of WotLK!
Two nights it took - to actually get more people than 21-23 online, and
that just tells you how easy it is actually to clear the instance.

On Monday we ventured on our first evening of Malygos 25 - and after a big
revamp with the tactics, on Tuesday, we finally cracked P1/P2 DPS-problems,
if the instance servers would've not been buggin, a kill should've emerged.
Not to mention the three instance server crashes we encounted over the evening.

And what kind of bugs did we encounter then? Well, for one hour, Malygos
timers we fubared, so he decided to do the Arcane Breath towards the raid
instead of the main aggro target, and on top of all, Malygos decided to
attack us in Phase 2 - but still remain untargettable.
Lovely 13k hits, somebody BoP'd me, and the wanker of a dragon started
oneshotting the remaining dps in the ground.
Here's a nice screenie of him in Phase 2 attacking us!


But anyways, we decided to call the raid early, even though we had less than 20% attempts.
Just better to leave the kill for an evening when the server actually works? (Not happening on Neptulon?)
Though, the evening wasn't completely wasted, as a 10-man group of ours emerged,
and oneshotted Malygos.

Oh so slow with the updating of the news again.

Mere a day after forming the second Naxxramas(10) group,
and on the last day of the SECOND reset of WotLK,
we actually ventured on our first 25-manner - consisting of 21 players.

Sartharion was no match without any adds, and we even did full
spiderwing in Naxxramas with a lolraid.

More people needed for the serious progress, so apply please,
if you think you have the guts for it.

You know where to apply.

So much crap to be posted, and yes, I know, I've been lazy with the news.
I'd rather spend the extra 30 to 60 minutes of my news-writing time doing
heroics or such in-game, just like everybody should =)
But as now there's no upgrades from heroics any longer, there's actually
 time to write some news.

Yeah, one group cleared Naxxramas on the second reset of WotLK -
and we had an amazing luck with the tanking loot!
Almost two epics, from 15 bosses!
Great, isn't it.
Congratulations for Aluin, Elan, Canismajoris, Drooly, Hacker , Ibuycandy,
Lavish, Oval, Purpleranger, Regeneration and Valadra for being the first
lucky 80s in the guild to do it!



And now, the recruiting for the 25-manners has started as well.
The recruiting was on hold during the leveling up process, and the old
applications have been answered and let's say - taken care of.

And check for the top of the page for our current needs for 25-manners.



And yeah, here's Purpleranger and Canismajoris reigning from the throne of Kel'thuzad.
Any bets on when we can see a 25-man version of this?

..and yur making out wen the phone rigns.
U anser it n the vioce is "wut r u doing wit my daughter?"
U tell ur girl n she say "my dad is ded".


THEN WHO WAS PHONE? 

Oh yeah wut? Some time no update-y.
This might not come as news for you: Wrath of the Lich King
was released on November 13th, unless you have been living
in the real world for a couple of months instead of the
lush meadows of the lolworld we live in.

That's now a week ago, and not much has happened.
First reset in the expansion, and leveling up has been on everybodys mind.

And speaking of that - congratulations for Lavish for reaching
level 80 the first in the guild, and for Purpleranger
for the achievement for the first Dwarf at level 80 on the realm!
I remember Pelk querying me, "who are these chinese Drooly invited?".
The swedish (chinese-related?) mob has certainly took us by a storm =)

And on a personal note, just managed to grab myself the last level today as well,
with a handful of other players in the guild, which takes us to 10 guys in total
as level 80 in the guild.

Naxxramas is in my and everybody elses sights, but I guess little Canismajoris
isn't tanking any bossas she's still crittable =)

Merely one ultima thule has been reached, and there's still a lot of work to be done.
Keep leveling as the 10-manners are obviously starting this reset.
It's up to you when were starting the 25-manners!
Keep up the good wor... HAHA, DISREGARD THAT - KEEP LEVELING FAGGOTS.

While we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond:

Yes we can.




We can only hope that the world is a better place.

I know, I've been slacking with the news for a while, especially when there has
actually been news to be posted.

It sort of reminds me of pre-patch. Just a lil' bit. Just like the good old days.
3 progressbosses down in a single reset, (remember, we managed to pull off 6
Tier 6-quality bosses in a single reset?), but yeah, well. You know how it is.
Patch 3.0, so we're not really patting ourselves in the back, like some other guilds.
*cough*cough*TDT*cough*
Now where the hell did I catch this cough? I hope I'm not getting sick.

So yeah, we went and got the ring for some people from Kael'thas Sunstrider,
and after that, twas time for the freelootlike Kalecgos and Brutallus.
Not that ultimately shabby for a reset - like months before - plagued by
attendance problems. Let's see how peoples interest to raid continues,
we've got only two resets to go until WotLK. That means 14 days and counting.
Do go check out the kill-screenshots from the gallery.




And in other news, the recruiting situation.
Currently we're recruiting people for the expansion, which makes the gear obsolete.
If you think you've got the nuts, activity, maturity and a sense of humor -
why not level with us and help us progress in WotLK!
Apply at the recruiting page, and do spend some time in your application.

Lots of crap has happened during the past couple of months. The lack of attendance has pushed
the energy of the players, and the attendance to an all time low.

All time low you say? The patch, and the expansion are the reasons? Who knows.
The realization of the upcoming changes, in talents, itemization and so forth? 

Meh, perhaps it was merely the hardships and the incredible luck we have encountered.
Raidingwise, inter- and extraguildwise, and never forgetting the mighty IRL.

Easily infamous Mother-Heart-deal, MT disappearing (among other trusted guildies),
accounts getting banned, computers and minds getting shattered.

K. Such is life, and like all life struggles to go on, so did we.
Some had the energy to push forward, some didn't.

In the beginning of the guild, early June, our (unrealistic) hopes and goals were to see
Illidan Stormrage dead. Who would've believed us.

Let's be honest, our 8 percent try months back, even plagued with the aforementioned
problems, is our greatest achievement in TBC. Not this nerfed kill.

Lest not rejoice too much, and focus on the expansion ahead.
I'd shurely take a close look on the kill screenshot.

The clock is ticking, and the time is flying.
Blizzard is already manufacturing discs and putting the final touches to WotLK.
And like every single guild besides TDE/BBM here on Neptulon, Aphase is struggling
with raiding attendance just a few days away from the upcoming patch, 
and mere weeks away from the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

Shure, the massrecruiting has started once again, to counter the lack of attendance
for 25-man raids, whilst bearing in mind that we're actually trying to find ourselves a
good core for the new expansion.
We do need to keep some sort of raiding schedule before the expansion hits,
it's no longer about any items as all of our gear will be replaced with level 75 blues,
but it's about keeping the guild intact, active and running.
Perhaps we need to lower our raiding schedule, so that the people would actually want
to come online on those few days we raid?


Anyways, the attention, comments and discussion from your part is required now.
The expansion is soon upon us, would you prefer to to play another class and/or a spec there?
Are you actually starting to raid in the expansion, have you lost your love for the progress and the
game? Are you annoyed by the fact that we haven't managed to throw up raids just recently, and
you're worried about the future?
What are your thoughts?

This plea goes especially for the old core members - read raiders.
We want to see you in the WotLK!

Please, engage in the discussion in the member forums.

So people, it's time to fix your Care-o-meter, and start raiding once again.


Too bad we had some unexpected lack of attendance for the past two weeks,
and we were forced to a weird hiatus, accompanied by the raidleaders and various
officers real life "hurries".
Time to forget real life once again that is. No excuses for "the WotLK is closing in on
us soon", or other crap like that. If you can remember - we still have a job to finish.


Anyways, mass recruiting started once again to fill out for the missing wankers, and
I seriously hope we get an intact raiding reset starting from tomorrow.


In other news, plans for a new website/host is being planned, so let's see what the
upcoming weeks bring to us.
And yeah, I just had to delete Shygaps ass-news-post from here. Twas just so horrible.

Some say we are cursed.

No wonder we have had some trouble with Black Temple recently...



No, but for real, as you might have read from our previous news, its not about the difficulty of
Illidan Stormrage nor the gear or quality of our players.
We have just had tremendously crap luck on getting the correct setup - read THE TANKS
online.


The tanking tonks:

Michaela, our MT had to take a personal leave for two weeks, but it wasn't that bad, since our holypala,
Shygap played with his character, and the account, for a day or two. The game time for Michaela's
account also ended abruptly, and Shygap decided to pay for his account, so we could actually
practice Illidan Stormrage. Not a good idea.
Michaela's account got frozen, since they were alarmed by a Danish credit card paying for an account,
which was previously paid by a Bulgarian credit card.
So, Michaela's account was, and still is - frozen, even after 500 e-mails sent to Blizzard.

Tesa, our current substitute until Michaela is back, has the gear for both tanking Illidan Stormrage, and
phase 2 elementals.
But the problem is, who would be the two other elemental tanks, if Tesa would be tanking Illidan Stormrage?

Masturboi, our 99,99999%-attendance feral druid, a solid choice for tanking the elementals. 
Only one raid missed due to a drinking spree over a weekend-gone-too-long.

Adamadin, nowhere to be found, even after having the gear for elementals,
and making a pledge to commit to this task.

Anelfavitos, has the gear for elementals, and the activity, but a three-week long holiday is holding him back.

There's our tanks there then. But it hasn't stopped us for getting that last guy to either tank
Illidan Stormrage or the elementals!

Substitute tonks:

Mesedup "the ebayer", a random Bulgarian dude we invited over as DPS for a day.
Why a day you ask?
The guy had 5/8 Tier 6 tanking gear, and we found out from a Bulgarian World of Warcraft-forum
that he had actually bought his character and the account. So long Mesedup.

Krugore, a dps warrior of ours, tried to tank Illidan Stormrage, but the gear wasn't sufficient enough.

Darkabysz, like Krugore, a dps warrior of ours with not the most up-to-date tanking gear. He tried to tank Illidan Stormrage as well!

And at last, but not the least, The Great Masked Ratlov, who has the gear for both Illidan Stormrage and the elementals.
But who is he? Nobody knows.
Or well, we know, he's Lienne, our CoH-priests old main/alt.


The Conclusion:
So, we've had 6 different people tanking Illidan Stormrage on 5 different characters,
and even more elemental tanks.
Just to get the practice in.
Desperate times require desperate measures.
Just to get the practice in, whatever it takes.
Respecs, people playing on different characters.
Whatever it takes.

How did we do then, on our third more or less proper evening there?
More or less meaning:

• Shygap, our holypala on Beata's account, playing a CoH-priest
  
• Michaela, the MT, playing Shygap.
• Yenne, a mage on his alt shaman to help healing.
• Sli, the enh shammy on his mage
• Cruela, a rogue, on a friends account playing a restodruid.

• 
  

Not too shabby, but not a kill either.


I won't even go to how many disconnects, raid setup changes, respecs,
calling IRL friends and such we have gone
through our couple of evenings on Illidan Stormrage.
It's beyong RIDICILOUS.
Spending 3 hours out of 5 to actually set up the raid, and not do attempts,
per evening on Illidan Stormrage.
No comment.
And Phoebele wasn't even obliged to sing the Norwegian national anthem,
since we couldn't get the fucker down.




And on completely other news, our newly recruited shaman called Noapte has disappeared like a ghost.
After personally owing me 1000 gold, burning all of his DKP for upgrades in the last 1-2 raids before he
disappeared that is.
Read more about it, from here.

Well, time to post some good news for a change!
Mere a day from the whine of losing two days out of three of the Illidan Stormrage-practice,
we actually managed to crack Phase 2!

No other than our holy paladin - Shygap on our Main Tanks account, playing the Main tank,
a rogue, me that is - healing as Shygap, Yenne, a mage healing with his alt shaman, another
shammy helping with his alt shadowpriest, and eventually a prot paladin healing as well.
7-8 "healers" onboard, instead of my desired solid 9, but we actually did it.

Big thank-yous for Tesa and Masturboi for the awesome job they did, along with Sli on the
announcing task!

Interestingly enough - that was our second proper evening there, if you event want to call
that setup and choice of characters to play "proper". Looking good at least for the future.
Let's get the recruitments sorted, and get on with it, shall we?

Some miscellanous news up next.


"Best of all, everything is fast and free!"
The wowstead.com hosting of guild websites, and various other services, was on a beta-stage for
more over than a year, but the beta-phase - read: "free"-phase abruptedly ended now, and will cost 7.50$/month
after three weeks now, if we want it to remain ad-free.

Basically what a non-subscribed site will have:

• "all modules and functionality that exists on WowStead now, plus more which is going to be coming."
• supported by advertisements; however, all advertisements will be "tasteful".

And so forth, more information can be read here.

What personally annoys me, is the lack of information and communication to all adminstrators of websites,
here on WowStead. I didn't receive a single e-mail, nor was it on the main page news of wowstead.com, 
suddenly just the page for "Billing" popped out of nowhere. Currently the page for "WowStead Account" at
http://aphase.wowstead.com/billing should be unviewable by nonmembers and normal members,
and I currently DO NOT ENDORSE anybody donating any real money via there to the adminstrators of WowStead.

There is still two major security issues here in WowStead - and even though I informed about them to the
WowStead staff two months ago - they still remain unsolved.
And after all this, WowStead still advertises themselves as free. Usually the main page for a company like this
is revamped after these kind of huge changes, and not post it in corner of the crappiest support forums I've
ever met in my entire life.
Let's see what future brings, would it be the time to get out of those free-hosted sites and actually host our own website?




Main Tank problems - healer problems
Even though this reset saw the fastest clear of the farmbosses up to Illidan Stormrage -
due to indisclosed personal issues with our current Main Tank, our 2-3 day practice is in jeopardy, 
as it's currently the last day of the reset,  and we cannot be utterly sure that we have the tanks
for the most enjoyable encounter yet.
The Illidan phase 5-suitable tanks are quite hard to find, aren't they.

On another sidenote, we have had tremendous trouble recruiting healers as well,
just barely enough healers for all the encounters, and especially Illidan Stormrage now.
Let's keep in mind that we have kept the recruitment open for all the healing classes
for almost two months now already. Please apply now - if you have the balls for it.
As you can see from the DKP-site, we are still farming everything we can, six ouf ot seven evenings a week,
but now it just seems that were on the brink of gearing up a new Main Tank - just for Illidan Stormrage.




Ventrilo problems
And the problems didn't end there - last Sunday somebody forgot to renew our Ventrilo-server lease, 
and we had a fun evening with ingame Voice Chat!
But thank god Shygap renewed a new server - located in Dallas.
Yup, its probably the Ewing family hosting our new server.



That's about all the news in a nutshell - recruitment is still open, apply now.

And some quick news for all the members...

Read members section - Guild Information about the new DKP-system changes.

Also, the Member Class Discussion for all the classes have been launched in the forums as well.

If you cannot see the members section of the forums for some odd reason - contact Æthelwulf ingame.

If the council cannot reach consensus or a passing vote on a resolution, they may choose to
produce a non-binding presidential statement instead of a Resolution.
These are adopted by consensus. They are meant to apply political pressure -
a warning that the council is paying attention and further action may follow.



Monday went according to plan, rather fast Azgalor and Archimonde before some
Illidari Council practice.

The practice went generally rather good, even though there were some interesting
moments. All part of the normal learning curve. All got their precious practice before
a full evening on the new progress boss - Illidari Council.


Tuesday began with an optimistic and an expectant mood, as you might've guessed.
Optimistic and expectant doesn't translate as killing the boss(es) before Illidan Stormrage,
on the first full dedicated evening there.
But, I guess Aphase dictionary is rather poor, and needs to be updated.
An attempt after an attempt, a wipe after a wipe - we got better on everything.
Interrupting Divine Wrath and the Circle of Healing, the tanking the several bosses,
picking up Veras Darkshadow fast enough, the healing and everybody having their 
reactions to the extreme with moving away from the Flamestrike and Blizzard.
Generally just staying alive.
And hence, eight attempt there was the charm, just a couple of minutes prior to the
trash respawn - even though we had a good wipe recovery up all the time, and merely
had some unlucky downtime there in between.

The only guy who didn't actually learn anything at all during the past two evenings was Hoki,
as he died, as God is my witness, on every single attempt at 98-90% of the bosses life.
I would guess Hoki had the same mentality as this lolcat.

I thought we needed to have the teamplay, coordination and reflexes from the entire raid
to actually beat the final bosses on the Tier 6 content, but Hoki proved us wrong.
We decided to award Hoki for bringing this new matter to our attention with the first Tier 6-pants token,
among with two extremely potent healers - the true backbones of Aphase healing crew.
Congratulations Valadra and Denor - 2set-bonus as well!
I guess there's still some 2set-Tier 4 rogue who is jealous.

That leaves us every single Tier 6 boss except Illidan Stormrage down in merely one or two nights of
practice. Not too shabby, I guess.
As I said it a couple of weeks ago in my Lady Vashj-news:
"We have no other option than to strive for greatness and keep up the good work.
Just keep on going."
We have never been this close to the unbelievable and at the same time unrealistic
dream and a goal we had on early June.
This screenshot was our goal - only one minor thing needs to be adjusted.

As you might see, his name is still on red indicating the he is still alive.

You can only guess what were concentrating on, in the upcoming resets.




Illidari Council 19/8/08
Statement by the new President of the Security Council
At the 8th meeting of the Security Council, held on 19 Aug 2008, in
connection with the Council’s consideration of the item entitled “The situation
in the Outlands and Black Temple”, the President of the Security Council made the following
statement on behalf of the Council towards the current ruler of the Outland and Black Temple,
Illidan Stormrage:
“The Security Council affirms its strong support for the territorial
integrity, sovereignty, unity, and political independence of the Outland within its
internationally recognized borders and under the sole and exclusive authority
of Aphase over all Black Temple territory.”

On last Tuesday began our frantic search for the Hearts.
On Thursday, in the middle of a raid, after harassing pretty much every single
officer or a higher up from the guilds who had even began raiding Black Temple
here on Neptulon - we managed to scrap up enough Hearts for the first tries on
Mother Shahraz.

We would like to thank no other than The Dark Embrace, Rise Against and
Uncensored for making it happen.

Too bad we had Gurtogg Bloodboil and Teron Gorefiend to kill that night, and
we still needed to get the Shadow Resistance gear crafted. My god did that
take some time.
When we actually reached Mother Shahraz - we had merely 40 minutes or so
left in our raid time. Third attempt was a whopping 28% try, but due to people
needing their precious beaty sleep before work - we had to call the raid off.
Too bad people couldn't bend their bedtime at all for the fine occasion.


Friday was a slacky-slack raid - as in no raid at all. Why would you try to convince
us rest of having a "life" by staying offline on a Friday evening,
we all know that you're just crying yourself to sleep in your bed, alone.
You play World of Warcraft, after all.


Sunday didn't look that great at all either - people were slacking again.
Not nearly enough people from Thursday were online. People showed their
gratitude towards the guild and to the other members by getting their
Shadow Resistance gear crafted - and staying offline.
Biggest "thanks" goes to the Natrii Bros.
And yes, these couple of resets are insanely critical towards the Hearts,
as were getting the gear crafted for the minimum amount of people.
We're that fucking low on the Hearts.

And again, raid was postponed a bit - and the new harassing cycle towards
other guilds began again by Shygap, so we could actually get some practice on Mother Shahraz.
Thousands of gold were spent again from the guild bank, even having to lend some money
out from my own pocket to be able to purchase emergency-Hearts.

But, a couple of hours later - after sorting the gear for  the new guys, spending a couple of hundred
gold to buy greens from the Auction House - "of Shadow Protection", we were more or less
good to go.
And yes, due to slacking Natrii Bros., we were unbelievably low on healers as well.
As low as having our prot paladin - Adamadin to heal in 8/8-part plate "of Shadow Protection"-greenies.


Clearing the trash was pretty hideous - Hoki aoeing himself to death around 10 times or so, people
were unfocused. It didn't look that great at all.

I don't know was it me raidleading in a 39,5 'C-fever, or was it the promise made by the members to
"show some good playing" towards Strutsi, who was spectacting our raid at my place - we actually
managed to oneshot Mother Shahraz.
Simple as that.

First Tier 6-shoulder tokens for Cruela, Dragonrider and that happy wannabe-healadin, Adamadin.
Congratulations.

Even though the hour was late, we finished off the evening by starting Mount Hyjal, and leaving
only Azgalor and Archimonde for later. Raid called at 0100 Server Time, and the mental
preparation for meeting a special council began.
You see, we need to pass a resolution about the situation in Georgia.. Or now, was it that council?




Mother Shahraz 17/8/08
Fear, fear, she's the Mother of Violence.
Don't make any sense to watch the way she breed.
Fear, she's the Mother of Violence,
Making me tense to watch the way she feed.
The only way you know she's there
Is the subtle flavor in the air.
Getting hard to breathe.
Getting hard to believe in anything at all
But Fear.

On Monday, after the Reliquary of Souls-kill, the Guild Message Of The Day changed from "1 week to go"
on the materials for Mother Shahraz to "GET MATS ASAP!" due to an early raid call, so people
could farm some materials before they would head off to sleep.

Amazingly enough - from fifteen to twenty people sorted out their materials in less than a day,
and the only thing what was remaining was to cash in that major deal for Hearts of Darknesses
with an undisclosed guild.

Well, basically, it fizzled - due to unknown reasons.
That contact from the guild did not respond to any PMs.
We can only suspect some malevolent reasons behind it.
Leaving us standing next to Mother Shahraz with our thumbs up our asses - without the required
Hearts of Darknesses. To delay progress.

Frantically the officers began searching for new deals for the Hearts, since it was Tuesday -
the last day of the reset, and basically nowhere to go.

Too bad we could not strike deals enough for all the Hearts, but I guess we're getting there...
You can even read about the realm post about the subject here.

And believe me, we're getting there.
And it's looking great, today was Wednesday - the reset, and we even managed to one-shot Reliquary of Souls!
A progress boss from last reset.


Oh, and we even launched a new DKP-site here -> http://www.gsdkp.com/EU/neptulon/aphase

Although the Autumn is slowly but steadily creeping up on us in the real life,
(yes Greeks, we've actually had a couple of cold days and shitty weather here
in the upper part of The Northern Hemisphere),
and the nature is starting to prepare for a long sleep over the Winter,
our progress shure as hell doesn't show any signs of slowing down.
The race against WotLK is on.


First day of practice on Reliquary of Souls was plagued by downtime,
for example - I counted ELEVEN disconnects during three-four hours from
random people, some resulting in a setup-change and some not.
First phase was mastered rather quickly - second one was a mess.

For the second day of practice, somebody had obviously read the
39-page long thread in elitistjerks.com, since Reliquary of Souls
only took us three attempts before the kill!
Only two rogues to interrupt, mages faster with Spellstealing -
we knew the DPS was rather "fine" if we got phase 1 down just seconds
after the first enrage.
Generally, an awesome and awesomely quick raid - no comments on
the alchemists in the guild though, it's shurely "fun" bringing 200 Major Nature
Resistance Potions with me to the raid. Read - no cauldrons.

After the kill it was time to call the raid early - time for some slowpokes to gather
materials for... now now, who was it for?




Reliquary of Souls 11/8/08
If pain is only the beginning, the only way out is through the window of dreams.

My god what a reset again!
Three new progress-bosses down in merely just one week -
Gurtogg Bloodboil, Archimonde and a big surprise - Lady Vashj!


Our Tuesday-raid could have not ended more tighter though - last attempt started 17 minutes
before the upcoming server maintenance. We were already coarsing at the Russians, and their
new realms, because that was the reason the maintenance was about to start at 0100 instead of
the normal 04-06ish Server Time.

Our previous attempt before the last try managed to peel of 83% out of her life, so we were quite
confident in killing her. We just weren't shure when it was going to happen. 
A miracle just minutes away from the reset, or boringly enough - the next reset...

The attempt didnt start that great, Drakegr overaggroed and died in the first 5 percent, but we just kept on going.
No combatresses up, all soulstones used, a couple of people died during executing Phase 2.
But we just kept on going.

Phase 3 started with around 4-5 people dead, Strider kiter dead - Strider up, and an Coilfang Elite up.
Everybody kept their heads cool, somehow somebody managed to kite the Strider well enough -
melees concentrated on the Coilfang Elite like nothing had happened.
Quick finish on the last remaining adds, and only the Bitch was remaining.
Shygap merely told the raid to "nuke her balls, I mean tits off!".
Everybody tried their best to keep themselves alive, whilst doing their own job, and that was it.
Thank you for an unforgettable raid and truly an another epic reset.

Two evenings on Archimonde - one evening on Lady Vashj before the first kill.
Even though Archimonde took 19 tries, Lady Vashj was down after 7 tries -
on our second visit into Phase 3.
We have no other option than to strive for greatness and keep up the good work.
Just keep on going.


Here's a nice piece of a screenshot, about how fast we needed to distribute the loot
after the kill.



Lovely, isnt it?




Lady Vashj 5/8/08
“You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing. I made every mistake that could be made. But I just kept pushing.” Descartes

The battles of the past.
Those legendary battlefields, the events in history.
When you visit them in the present time, you can only imagine the blood spilled,
the acts of vile brutality committed, the absurdity of war itself.

With those thoughts in our hearts, whole of Aphase had merely fantasized
about meeting the Burning Legion and Archimonde in the past in Battle for Mount Hyjal.
When the opportunity presented itself to actually save our beloved realm,
help saving the World Tree, of course we jumped on it eagerly!
If somebody actually gives a shit about the lore, saving a virtual world in the past,
or saving a virtual tree in a computer game, so be it. Now I'm wondering, why I wrote that.
Nevermind, what I mean is, we were like so scared and up for an epic battle.
And we do like trees, right?


Our second day, practicing Archimonde. Our biggest retard-check, yet.
Even though some might say that PVE is all about avoiding the fire, it is not.
It's all about avoiding the fire, whilst knowing how to play your class,
and using your brains on how to counter new unexpected situations -
where you mostly know what might be happening next.
Adaptability and flexibility.

Took 19 tries, we could have done it without banging our heads against the wall,
since our second ever attempt on Sunday was to 60ish percent.
I guess something in the back of everybodys heads said "no".

All I can say that Archimonde is unforgiving to say the least.
19 tries had nothing to do with the normal learning curve, just those 19 tries for
getting one attempt in without anybody making a smallest mistake.
That's what it took.

Well worth it nonetheless - first Tier 6 headpieces for Michaela, Lav and Elementbane.
Congratulations once again.
And yet again, some Tier 4-geared rogue is turning even more green from jealousy.




Archimonde 4/8/08
Burning Legion at the height of its power - no match. A bitch of a naga or a lord of gays next?

Main Entry: de·ter·mi·na·tion
Function: noun
a: the act of deciding definitely and firmly; also : the result of such an act of decision b: firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end.


We got Gurtogg Bloodboil to 1% in the end of a reset, a week ago.
We were determined to kill him, just as long the day dawned on the next reset.
You can only imagine the frustration when we were plagued by summer holidays
and lack of attendance on the next reset.
We got our new recruits in, we got the farmbosses down in two days.
There was only Gurtogg Bloodboil left standing there, again.
Probably laughing at us. Not like we hadn't wiped on him enough already.
Perhaps it was the tenth healer, breath of fresh air after three-four people logging off to sleep
and bringing in a couple of new guys after three hours, and having wipe recovery up all the time,
just to avoid clearing that trash again.
But I think I'll just let the image to speak for itself this time.







Gurtogg Bloodboil 31/7/08
Horde didn't quite crush us yet, let's see what Burning Legion can do in the past.

Summertime.
Sun is shining, weather's great, the girl's are wearing next to nothing, and ofcourse, people aren't raiding.
The first time the good weather hit us, it seems that the attendance dropped.

But since we are a PVE raiding guild - we need to get those raids going.

Feel free to make an application on the forums, check above for the classes we're in dire need of.
Otherwise, drop an application if you can succumb to 6/7-raiding schedule.
We do need those extremely active players.

I guess our late-night Gurtogg Bloodboil practice in the very last moments before the reset was quite OK.

One percent to go, let's see what happens next reset.

We truly learned a lesson on Thursday, being well prepared helps.
Even though it was the Official Drunken Raid, we remembered to bring the earplugs
along with beer on Friday against the Master of Doom, Azgalor.

None of his depressive lyrics nor gloomy tunes affected us whatsoever, since like Kaz'rogal,
Azgalor was one-shotted. Very nice job even on countering the Dooms on the Doomguard-tanks,
nicely done!

That kill effectively made us reach the Tier 6-loot content. Congratulations lucky ones,
Michaela, Panayiotis and Theultimage for the brand new gloves.
Some Tier 4-gloved rogue is jealous.


After Azgalor, it was time to practice cliff jumping, and boy, did it show the true skill of those
Tier 6-geared mages!
Even with Blink, Slow Fall, Ice Block and ofcourse Tears of the Goddess, the mages were dropping like,
well, not flies since flies can uhm, FLY, but I guess, bricks.
Was it a situation where they had too many options or what? Don't they say, "Jack of all trades, master of none."
After two hours of jumping, (and dying), and minus DKP, we actually tried Archimonde for a couple of tries.
Shure wasn't pretty, but practice makes perfect, eh.

That leaves us three raid instances with merely end bosses left.
Lots of banging your head against the wall incoming.
Let's see how this guild will react to the actual learning curve and wiping,
since we haven't really had those ones yet.
Some rogue also happened to notice that it was his birthday, when the clock turned 00:00 in the last very
few minutes in the raid. I guess grats to him as well.




Azgalor 18/7/08
Silence, we killed you.

I'm sitting here alone in darkness
waiting to be free.
Lonely and forlorn I'm crying
I long for my time to come
death means just life.
Please let me die in solitude.


14 days to grind materials for Night's End, and the materials for the Greater Shadow Resistance-enchant on
cloak. Could you pull off that amazing stunt and the strain of your World of Warcraft-playing time?
Thank heavens most of the mana-users in the raid managed to complete that epic grinding process,
and we had the proper gear for trying to not get blown up like little fire crackers at Kaz'rogal's will. Well,
I guess we were too prepared, since Kaz'rogal wanted to lay down and die without no effort at all from his part.
I bet he was just too depressed or something by serving alongside with Azgalor, since Kaz'rogal was one-shotted.


Having that kind of a first kill makes you feel secure and eager for tickling the next boss, eh?
We hadn't actually met the Master of Doom, Azgalor yet.
I could swear he's British, isn't that where Doom originated from?
Nuff' said, attempts to 10% and under, but stupid mistakes like "What Doomguard tanking spot?",
kept us from getting rid of the British doom metal vocalist Azgalor. He just psyched us to wipe with his voice.
Maybe tomorrow then, wearing some earplugs then.

The stoner award of the raid goes to Aberg, 24 people witnessed the fastest summons, ever.




Kaz'rogal 17/7/08
Earth to earth - ashes to ashes - dust to dust.

One security hole in the forums has been fixed by the wowstead.com staff, but one still remains.
Doesn't matter, it's time to open the Barrens Chat again! Do speak freely there,
greet us or congratulate us on the progress, if you so wish.
And ofcourse, the Applications-section is open to public too, and I even added some general
information about the guild as well - do check it out before you apply!

We had a funny evening on Monday. Funny as in, first off-day in the raiding schedule since early June,
(read, the start of the guild), due to slacking warlocks! I guess they were too busy with their real life Succubuses.
Less S&M during raid times, give more active warlocks, apply at http://aphase.wowstead.com/recruit!



We started our Tuesday raid with quite a bit of fear in our hearts.
Warlocks were slacking, again.
Merely one warlock was online, and not even on his main, but on his alt,
on the raid invite time with the excuse of having some problems with his connection :P
After managing to gather up some sort of a raid-setup for the farmbosses we had left for the last evening,
and eventually killing them, we headed off for more practice on beheading Teron Gorefiend.

Trash clearing was the normal idle chit-chat, with some Hearts of Darknesses dropping,
with Reffany trying to enter the instance, because it was telling him all the time that it was full after a
critical error and crashing of the World of Warcraft-client.

When we actually got to Teron Gorefiend's chambers, the guy was still trying to enter the instance, after reboots,
relogs and suchs, but nothing was helping. Reffany just couldn't enter the instance.
Then Denor mentioned that he *might've* seen a guildless night elf rogue, inside in the start of our instance.
Morphin asked something in the general chat, and guess what we found out.

A truly amazing show of some ninja skills.
Thank you Keigo.


Nonetheless, after insane downtime, first attempt on letting a new guy spawn Shadowy Constructs in the raid,
second try having our MT twoshotted at 99%, third time was the charm.
(Almost) perfect ghosts, some help from soulstones and ankhs, and Teron Gorefiend was finally beheaded!

After a nice and even unexpected progress kill, the raidleaders rewarded the raid with finishing the evening with
Gruul's Lair! Gruul rewarded the Teron Gorefiend-killing raid with a crushing bitchslap, thank you for the focus.
Even though we wiped once, at least some greedy rogue got his Dragonspine Trophy at last *cough*




Teron Gorefiend 15/7/08
He wasn't the first, you know, and he shurely won't be the last.

Due to an undisclosed security issue in the forums, the application forums are closed to the public,
including the public chat.
If you've made an application, don't worry though, they're still viewable by members and officers,
in the members section of the forums.
Let's just hope wowstead.com staff manages to patch up the bug as soon as possible, for Barrens Chat and more.



On another news, Tausai's pet serpent named, uhm, Serpent just dinged 69 on a run till heroic Botanica!
Give your rounds of applause and congratulate Serpent!

I woke up and I had a big idea
To buy a new soul at the start of every year
I paid up and it cost me pretty dear
Here's a hymn to those that disappear.


Akama, what a poor little creature, eh. Banished from his home, having helped and sworn loyalty
towards Illidan Stormrage, the poor guy needed our help to get some problems sorted with his soul.

After clearing the trash, some unexpected downtime occurred with a Call of Nature on some anonymous
high ranking officer. Let's just say that it didn't exactly take as much as time as Nature's Swiftness.
I hope you washed your hands when you got back.

Just as promised, we helped Akama. 6 progress bosses down in just one reset.  
Wordless.



Shade of Akama 8/7/08
You should have sold out when the devil came for you, Akama.

Having downed already Hydross the Unstable and Leotheras the Blind
this reset as new progress bosses, Anetheron was our primary target for the week.
Now, which guild in the world could not down Rage Winterchill, eh?

We ventured towards Anetheron, remembering that we had a 1%
wipe on on him yesterday, and as no surprise, Anetheron proved no match for Aphase.
(No comment on how annoying the boss can be on
enough sleeps on the MT healers/Carrion Swarms on the raid.)
Good job on the trash, nonetheless.

As we had over 10.5k raidbuffed HP for High Warlord Naj'entus
and over three hours left until the raid was about to end,
I could have not been more happier to announce the phrase,
"Move to Black Temple" after the Anetheron downing.
The exact phrase I was waiting from the day I rerolled here on Neptulon.

High Warlord Naj'entus tried to tickle us with his spines, he tried to make us sad
by killing the lil' turtles before on him on the trash, but everything was alright in the end,
the healing, the dps and the clicking and the throwing.
Thank you guys for starting the Black Temple so triumphantly!

Ofcourse, we decided to extend our raiding time towards free-loot Supremus.
The fat fucker did try to fart out some volcanoes and Gaze at us malevolently,
mostly just Beata and Emilion being the ones dying from those abilities,
so we actually managed to kill Supremus as well.

On a sidenote, it was actually confirmed that Beata actually has no ears,
because he's suffering from some sort of a birth defect.
Isn't it annoying when people are not listening to the Ventrilo, at all. At least
now Beata has a sufficient reason to have some troubles with listening to Ventrilo!


But nonetheless, its 5 progress bosses down in just one reset with all the farm bosses cleared,
and there's still one day to go. Unbelievable.
Truly a Week to remember.

Keep up the good work.




Anetheron 7/7/08
High Warlod Naj'entus 7/7/08
Supremus 7/7/08
Akama, just you wait. We're going to rescue your soul as soon as possible.
Shade of Akama incoming.

As Aphase has now reached 3/4 TK and 5/6 SSC as according to plan, 
and even with rather sloppy raiding times and actually slacking a bit there in between,
we've decided to extend our current raiding time with one more hour. 

As we haven't managed to cut the downtime on several issues and stuff, and that we're actually starting the real raiding content with the Battle for Mount Hyjal and Black Temple, I hope that people are embracing this opportunity for more progress with a warm, 
fuzzy feeling inside their hearts. If you don't embrace it with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside of you,
and your stomach is twisting by the possibility that your girlfriend or even your mother might have to yell more at you, or have a problem with work or something else,
please engage the discussion on the forums, on the members section!



The new raiding schedule is from Sunday to Friday, from 19.00 to 00.00 Server Time!
Saturdays are offdays, and Fridays official Drunken Raids!

Two days after the reset, clearing the farm content and adding Hydross the Unstable to our loot table, our more or less drunken friday raid had a mission. And not just a normal mission, we were on our way to beat the living crap out of some poor blind guy. Doesn't that sound like an ideal way to spend a friday evening?

After struggling with people actually logging on ventrilo, (it's pretty damn hard, I know), and some of the healers literally falling asleep on trash, (24 people give thanks for the 30 minute-wait for you to disconnect Morphin!), we actually managed to stumble into the living quarters of Leotheras The Blind.

With little preparation, somebody being disconnected and somebody missing a buff or two, first attempt to 13%. Everybody was just thinking, how the hell could we get raped by a blind guy? 
Well, at least everybody seemed to have their medication working correctly, 
since the Diazepam was enough to keep the Inner Demons under control. 
Thanks guys for remembering to being drugged up on the raids!

Nonetheless, on the second try we were prepared, still calm from the tranquillizers, and battered Leotheras the Blind to the hospital. Tough luck, better luck next reset.

If I recall correctly, there's still one blind guy to beat up. Perhaps next friday? =)




Hydross the Unstable 3/7/08
Leotheras the Blind 4/7/08
...and now the raiding begins.

And added to the loot table. Good job guys - 3 shots.