It was a regular Friday night in my guild. About twenty people, tired out from a long workweek, had logged in to kill some stuff and found that we had nothing going on. There weren't enough dedicated tanks on for Kara, and we were saved to two different raid IDs anyway. No one had the initiative to run any five-mans. We were bored. After a half-hearted attempt at a guild AB, our guild's second-in-command had had enough. "You know, I've been raiding for years and I've never gotten an 18-slot bag," he said in Vent (this was after a couple drinks.) "I'm going to start a guild Ony raid. You don't have to come along, but I WILL be doing Kara invites next week ... if you want to keep that in mind."

So, with about ten 70s and three low-60s alts, we headed off to Onyxia's Lair, fully expecting a wipe-filled debacle.

But we were amazed at how easily it went. The first try was a wipe, due to alcohol, lack of ranged DPS, and the fact that having thirteen people all standing on one side of the room is a pretty good way to get wiped out by a deep breath. The surviving two shamans and druid tank took her from 40 percent to about 25, but finally ran out of steam. We pulled in a mage and shadow priest who had signed on during the fight ("Wait, how drunk are you guys?") and quickly took her down. The loot was ... two Bloodfang Helms (went to the second rogue in the group), a Vis'Kag (went to me) and an Eskandhar's Collar (went to someone's alt.) Every rogue in the guild swore under our breath -- we hadn't seen this much rogue loot all the other times we'd killed Ony combined. As promised, the second-in-command got the 18-slot bag, and a healer got Ony's head to hang up in Orgrimmar.

We were dividing up the loot and discussing where to go next when I saw an opportunity I'd always dreamed of. The guild leader and his wife were slowly popping eggs and killing whelps on the side of the room. I walked over and asked the guild leader "Would this be a good time to hit Sprint?" "YES," he replied. That was all the justification I needed. I hit Sprint, jumped in the whelp cave, ran under Ony's room to the other side of the whelp cave and vanished. The second-in-command suddenly saw about 50 angry dragon whelps coming at him. Everyone remaining in the cave died to the sudden whelp explosion as I hearthed out. Man, I wish I had done that back when we had an evil raid leader. It would have been worth the /gkick.

Next on our second-in-command's to-do list was killing Hakkar with all the other Zul'Gurub bosses up. He was informed that this was probably not possible. His response? "Well, let's just kill everything then." We filled the raid up to 20 people and stormed into ZG. We had no strategy, no coordination, and half the raid was lapsing into unconsciousness, but we managed to kill nearly every boss with a simple zerg rush. We left the panther boss up to see if we could kill Hakkar with at least one aspect. The big snake guy was easily downed with only one poison/drain. We all walked away with about 25g, a bunch of coins, a few epics, and a deep sense of revenge for all the hours we spent raiding. The second-in-command walked (crawled) away with his 18-slot bag and a hangover that lasted for two days.

Honestly, blasting through an old-school raid is the most fun I've had since I hit 70. It's a way of cleansing all the demons of painful wipes, farming pots, annoying raid leaders and unfortunate loot. When no one cares about strategy, loot, or anything else, raiding is a pretty hilarious experience. We're going back to ZG this Friday to make some more cash, and this time we're going to leave two aspects up.

Have you done any of the old raids now that you're 70? What do you think your guild could do now that you all massively outlevel the instance?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Raiding, Bosses, Making money