The Third Attempt

It was clear that our main problem was the transition from Phase II into Phase III, so several people made macros to use for when Onyxia was got close to 40% health that would remind people to move away from the southern part of the chamber.

Phase I went smoothly, as usual.

Phase II started. Looking good.

Whelps? Handled.

Dps on Onyxia? Check.

Everyone spread out? Check.

Phase II was starting to feel easy now. The Blizzard developers should make Onyxia do at least one Deep Breath on each run just to shake things up.

At 40%, Vince sent out the call, "She's landing soon. Follow your side leaders... COME TO US OR DIE." We cleared away from the southern part of the room to get away from where Onyxia would land and where the egg pits were. Not a single person had died in all of Phases I or II.

In their haste to move north, it looks like the anti-whelp groups left a couple whelps unkilled. Oh, well, I dispatched this whelp myself.

And still Onyxia didn't land. When Onyxia hadn't landed at 35% health, we started wondering if we were in a bugged instance. We had had to kill seven warders on the way in, remember, so it wouldn't have surprised us to see Onyxia bug up. Several people wondered nervously if Onyxia would Deep Breath us.

But she finally did land and this time the raid was ready for her. Venom got aggro and pulled her to the north wall, and the raid party was split up on the northwest and northeast sides of the chamber, waiting for her.

Venom lost control of Onyxia at one point (he probably got feared to the side), and Onyxia Flame Breathed most of the northwest side of the room.

A big chunk of the raid fell due to this. Plus, people were dying from lava spurts. I'm a little confused by the above screenshot, honestly. The 40% health screenshot from six minutes earlier clearly showed me soulstoned, and I had been soulstoned by one of the warlocks who was participating in the raid. And yet, this screenshot definitely shows me without the option to self-rez. I don't remember dying before this point, but it's possible that I had died due to lava or an Onyxia hit or something and had self-rezed myself so fast that I didn't bother getting a screenshot.

Venom regained control of Onyxia, and druids came over from the other side of the room to combat rez the priests and druids who had fallen. I rezed, forted and healed myself (I had to -- otherwise, I would've died the first time I got feared into a lava spurt), and set about drinking as quickly as I could. (Go go level 60 water!). I wanted to get some mana together and try to resurrect as many other people as possible. While drinking, I got feared into a lava spurt and placed in combat. Luckily, however, unless you get hit by Onyxia herself, attack her, or heal someone who is on her aggro list, the in-combat status fades after a few seconds. I healed myself and sat down to drink again.

When I reached full mana and stood up to start resurrecting people, the call went out.

8%

"What...? You're kidding me," I thought.

7%

(Raid leader on Teamspeak) "Guys, at 5%, Onyxia will start going nuts on Venom. Healers, whatever you do, keep Venom alive!"

Keep Venom alive... keep Venom alive... keep Venom alive... The words echoed in my mind. Like a zombie, I hit my Target Venom macro key and hit "6", my Flash Heal key, repeatedly. Forget those dead guys. Keep Venom alive.

5%

At 5%, Onyxia started going berserk on Venom. 66666666666666666666666666... One of the nice features of CT_raidassist is that is has an adjustable healer mana conservation option. In my case, I have it set to 85% so that if the target of my heals has over 85% health left, CT_raidassist will interrupt my Flash Heals just before they go off. With a whole raid equipped this way, it allows multiple healers to spam heals on one person without wasting any mana with overheals. It's very nice.

4%

(Raid leader on Teamspeak) "Calm down, guys. Keep healing Venom."

3%

At 3%, I took a risk and grabbed this screenshot. As you can see, a third of the raid was dead by this point. But our main tank was up and we had six priests and four druids healing him. No way were we going down.

2%

(Someone on Teamspeak) "Nuke this f***ing b**** down to the ground!"

(Raid leader on Teamspeak) "Full dps, guys, full dps!"

1%

(Someone on Teamspeak) "One! One!!! ONE!!!!"

I couldn't believe it was happening. I was going numb. Come on, come on!

After 20 minutes and 10 seconds of battle, the great dragon fell!

Cheers erupted on Teamspeak, and I turned on my mike to give out a huge high pitched "WAAAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!" You can hear it loud and clear on Rubix's video if you know what voice to listen for. Tears of joy were streaming down my face. It's five days later, and I'm tearing up over just the memory of it.