Quantum Butterflies downs Malygos

Quantum Butterflies on Aman'Thul have now cleared all normal 10-man content pre-Ulduar.
/cheer.
After an exhilarating 2 1/2 hours of serious encounter progression, in what was for most people their first trip into the Eye of Eternity, we finally downed the Aspect of the Blue Dragonflight.
Each attempt saw us get progressively closer to the kill, as we worked out healing rotations, dps placements and co-ordination and making it to the drake phase alive. We hit his enrage timer multiple times during the third phase, and on the final attempt were left with only two of us alive (myself as a healer and the main tank ^_^). For our troubles I picked up some snazzy Focusing Energy Epaulets which may or may not replace my T7 (breaking my set bonus until I can get the helm, but then I don't really use Holy Light that much), and a mage got Greatstaff of the Nexus.

Being part of a team tackling such a difficult encounter, and seeing our rapid progression was a really cool experience, and I dare say quite a few of us were surprised when we did get him down on the first night.

Great job guys, time to head to bed (have to get up for work in 4.5 hours, ugh).


PS: Damn, forgot to take kill screenshots. But then giant hearts floating in the middle of empty space aren't nearly as impressive as a bunch of naked hordies desecrating a corpse ;).

[Druid] Beathooven in Kara

So, I was mucking around in the BGs last night when I got asked to join my guild in Kara. Normally we (they) run Kara Fridays and Sundays, and I can't make it, but tonight, being a Thursday I tagged along. Well first I ate, then I joined in time for Moroes.
Now I'd respec'd resto for some Arena on monday, and then decided to try Boomkin, just because (resto is a bit icky for doing SSO dailies). Now I'd tried a Balance spec before, while levelling, but found its dps, efficiency and survivability to be inferior to Feral. But now, wearing about half healing gear, Moonkin was fun! I could crit things for over 3k with Starfire, pull a dps of 500 without critting and heal well without changing gear. Feral, in comparison, would do an average of 400 dps, crit-spiking to 6-700. And my Feral gear is better (and more spec appropriate) than my Balance gear.
Anyway, the end result was that when the muster call came, I was Balance. And the raid needed DPS. After first asking me to bring the Hunter, they agreed to letting me try to BOOM, although if things went wrong I was ready to grab me some Troll to make it all better.
So there I was, Moonkin in the Karazhan Ballroom. With the following ubuffed stats: 642 Spell Damage, 1054 Healing, 17.22% Moonkin-enhanced Spell Crit, 340 Int, 202 Spirit and my godly 12 Hit Rating (yes, 12). And I had no concrete knowledge of rotations or anything (went with Insect Swarm DoT and Starfire for Boss fights, and Wrath/Hurricane for trash).
And it worked fine. In terms of raid buffs I had Gift of the Wild, Arcane Brilliance and Power Word: Fortitude, plus the occasional Ferocious Inspiration and melee Enhancement Shaman buff. We downed Moroes on first attempt (yes, we have occasionally wiped on him), with undergeared Moonkin-boy pulling a respectable (imo) 600 dps. Seriously, Moonkin are awesome.
Wiped once on Maiden, I think because the Mage pulled aggro, the second time she dropped some healing cloth bracers for me.
Opera proved a bit stubborn, yielding Romulo and Julianne - the encounter we've had the least experience with as a guild. The first time we wiped because the Enhancement shaman, who DC'd just outside the door, logged back in and pulled adds onto us (I think). We wiped again because the bear tank on Romulo took slightly too much damage, and before I'd made up my mind to heal him he had died (edit: turns out that one of the healers was trying to top Healing Done by telling the others not to heal the OT, or so I heard...). Incidentally. the mage died quite early the fight, and released before I could combat res him (silly blighter), so I ended up using the battle res on our BM Hunter's pet (not a bad call, since said hunter was the highest DPS in the run, and BMs do like their pets).
So that was Kara, and my new love for the Balance spec. =D. If you haven't done so yet, find some mage cloth, and try it.

PS: anyone got any idea how well Moonkin scale with +crit vs. +spell damage?
PPS: may put Wowhead links in later. Can't be arsed at the moment.