Arctica

Story so far

by Pirunnyrkki.

World of Warcraft Classic – Starting out

After founding there was a slow but steady buildup period. As the server was new there was quite a lot of people in the guild during this period of time. Eventually in February 2006 there were enough level 60 players in the guild to start doing the first few bosses in Zul’Gurub. As more people hit the level cap in March we could finally field a full raid with proper balance and cleared Zul’Gurub.

With ZG cleared we started thinking about moving on to 40-man content. Our guild was still quite small, but after we pretty much recruited all of our countrymen from a more established guild Fate we had the numbers to start Molten Core. Our first MC raid was quite a success as we got up to Garr with about 30 people in the raid. Lacking warlocks and tanks we couldn’t take Garr at that time. On successive resets we cleared up to Ragnaros. Everyone was SCARED of the mighty Rag but we sure as hell went in prepared. We knew the strategy as some of our members had raided MC in their old realm before rerolling so that part was covered. Just to be sure we got the Onyxia buff and UBRS fire resistance buff for the whole raid. We went in and Ragnaros fell on the first try ever.

Blackwing Lair

After a successful start in raiding we had reached somewhat critical mass so we didn’t have to actively hunt for players anymore, as they rather came to us. Moving into BWL turned out be somewhat problematic as somehow people didn’t seem to show up after MC had been cleared. The active core however decided that we’ll go in and start learning Razorgore despite missing a lot of players. Most of our current veterans still remember fondly our first BWL raid with 25 people where we practiced controlling and kiting. We even had to use paladins for kiting dragonkin. Obviously we were severely outmanned but we didn’t give up and the next day we came back with 32 players and killed Razorgore. I would still consider this one of our biggest feats in raiding.

Vael however was too much without a full raid but we went in and learned the basics anyway. After our success with Razorgore people somehow started showing up again and Vael fell the first try we had 40 people in raid. Rest of BWL up to Nefarian was then cleared fast as the bosses turned out to be quite easy. Nefarian’s phase one took some time to learn properly but we got to phase two on our second pull, it was quite ugly though. After our first night we were quite confident so purchased Onyxia scales from the former, at that time disbanded, top guild Evernight, made more cloaks and scheduled an additional raid just to kill Nef. Our gamble paid off and Nefarian fell.

The Temple of Ahn’Qiraj

As we started AQ40 a lot of old raiding guilds faded away so suddenly we were the second best guild on the server. AQ40 wasn’t much of a challenge up to Huhuran. As crafted NR wasn’t in the game at that point we had to farm Maraudon. Hopefully we got a lot of Emerald dragon kills too so we got some helpful NR pieces from there. Once we had the meatwall ready she went down relatively quickly. Her 30% mode was quite an adrenaline rush for the first few times. Summer 2006 hit and suddenly we had attendance issues again. For a couple of weeks we couldn’t kill Huhuran because we didn’t have a proper raid.

Help came in the way of players from Sisu of Vek’nilash fame. They had been leveling alts on our server and as they had a summer break they decided to raid with us. In July we got up to speed again and proceeded to kill Twin Emperors and C’Thun soon after. Naxx had been out for a while but we had decided to kill C’Thun out of the way first. We didn’t bother with Ouro at that point.

Naxxramas and the battle against time

August came and we had a good start in Naxx with the first few bosses going down quite easily. Spider wing was cleared in a couple of weeks and we had Noth and Razuvious on farm too. We had to gear up our tanks to move on to Patchwerk. Once Patchwerk fell rest of the abomination wing was cleared quite fast. Thaddius took about three weeks to kill from our first sight of him though. In other wings Heigan was as fun as ever and once we got to Loatheb we got people to farm their shadow protection potions. Once we had learned all the spore and healing rotations we gave him a few shots with pots. Our DPS just wasn’t enough however, so we went and got Onyxia and EPL health buffs. With these Loatheb fell easily.

After Loatheb we got a couple of nights of training on Gothik before the impending release of The Burning Crusade combined with stressful raiding in Naxx killed peoples’ interest in raiding. Patch 2.0 was released in December and what followed was an insane period of PvP and relaxation while waiting for BC, where our story continues…

The Burning Crusade

As we had become one of the leading raid guilds on the realm, notable achievements being server first kill on Ossirian the Unscarred and Loatheb in Naxxramas without any world buffs (this was our second and last kill), once BC launched we wanted to pick up the pace again and really become the best guild on the server. With some people leveling quite fast we ventured into Karazhan in the end of January. Soon after we decided to pay High King Maulgar a visit and he fell quite fast in the beginning of February. Pre-nerf Gruul seemed to become a cockblock for us but eventually we got people to get a full load of consumables and down he went in March. After Gruul we set our sights on somewhat nerfed Magtheridon and we killed him in a reasonable amount of time.

T5 hardship and the comeback

After sorting out SSC attunements for most of the guild we started working on Hydross the Unstable. Attendance issues combined with the consumable hell of pre-2.1 eventually forced us to stop progressing. Second half of April and May we farmed what we could and tried to keep the guild together. With the release of 2.1 patch we picked up the pace again and cleared SSC and TK with the exception of Kael’thas Sunstrider during June and July. Kael took quite some time overcome but people were motivated to see Hyjal and Black Temple so we didn’t have any attendance problems this time around.

T6 content and the long wait

Kael fell in the end of August and was followed by first few bosses in Hyjal and BT going down quite easily. By the second reset in Hyjal and the first with a full raid in BT we had killed Anetheron in Hyjal and Teron in BT. While we attuned the most of our raiders to Hyjal we also focused on getting some progress in there before starting to work on the harder BT bosses. Each week a new boss fell and so Archimonde met his demise on 25th of September. Reliquary of Souls turned about to be a bit easier than everyone expected so we killed it on our second night there. We had tried Gurtogg Bloodboil a couple of times earlier so we could pretty much focus on execution so he died the first time a couple of hours after RoS.

We had one day left in the reset and Mother Shahraz had just been nerfed so we decided to craft a couple of pieces of shadow resistance gear for one raid and give it a shot. With most people sporting about 300 SR we went in and after three hours she fell on the first night. It was late but we cleared up to the council just see the encounter. The next reset we were at council with plenty of time to spare. The encounter turned out to be a bit harder than expected but once we got most of the random deaths weeded out the blood elves had to submit. Only boss left in the game now was Illidan and server first was still up for grabs although Cult had killed the council a week before us. We didn’t have much time left before the instance reset and we didn’t have a second FR tank at that point but that didn’t stop us from learning phase one.

We sorted out the FR for our tanks and came back the next week. Now that we had the tanks required we could move on to phase two. Surprisingly we learned it quite fast so we got to phase three quickly. We got him to about 44% before calling it a night. Coming back on Tuesday server first was still possible and we knew Cult was really close to a kill so everyone was quite excited. Eventually we wiped at 6% while Cult’s best attempt so far had been 13%. Unfortunately Cult managed to improve their game and got the kill soon after while we had some worse attempts. After raiding about two hours more than usual and the server first gone we called it a night and went to sleep knowing that he’d go down next reset. And down he went on 14th of October.

Having cleared Tier 6 content we started farming and attuned some newer recruits and less active members. While this period of lower activity took its took on our playerbase we were still going strong while for Sunwell Plateau.

Sunwell Plateau

Sunwell Plateau was released in the end of March 2008. Having farmed T6-content for about six months we were ready to storm the place. During the first three resets the zone had been out we killed a new boss without facing major difficulties. However, the fourth encounter, Eredar Twins was quite healing intensive so after a few raids we started suffering from attendance issues for various reasons and eventually had to start cancelling SWP raids. Age of Conan caused a temporary attendance issue but the major cause was of course the summer, which is always something special here in the cold north! Although it would prove to be one of the rainiest summers in recent memory, we couldn’t raid any progress and just farmed what we could.

August came and people started playing more again. Eredar Twins fell quite quickly once we got to it. Next up was the dreaded M’uru encounter. Hopefully we had a good attendance which made it possible to do the encounter with its quite strict raid composition requirements. After five weeks of intense training everything finally clicked together and we got the kill. We knew we only had a few weeks left before the 3.0 patch would come and nerf everything into the ground so killing Kil’jaeden before that would be quite a task. After a few nights of intense wiping people started to get demoralised about the prospect of wiping night after night just after we had done the same with M’uru.  53% would become our best attempt prior to the 3.0.2 patch. After the patch came the whole zone was quite trivial and so we just zerged KJ down on the 16th of October 2008.

Having completed the Burning Crusade it was time to gear for up for the Wrath of the Lich King and see what it has in store for us in the future.

Wrath of the Lich King

WotLK came out in November and quite a few people really decided to level with insane speed to get quickly started with raiding. After a few server first 80s and then some, first 10 man Naxx was completed in less than a week since the launch of the expansion. Meanwhile more people had dinged 80 so we were ready to start 25-man raids the next reset. As expected, Naxxramas turned out to be quite a joke and was quickly cleared. Malygos took a few hours to nail but wasn’t that much of a challenge in the end. Sartharion turned out to be a decent encounter with two or three drakes up. At first we didn’t put too much effort into that though and so we got the first kill with three drakes up just before Christmas.

What then followed was just pretty mind-numbing period of farming. Some people turned to hoarding achievement points, others leveled alts, which got geared by running 25-man Naxx with alts and some just stopped playing altogether. With mains we eventually started working towards raiding meta-achievements and the first group of players to finish them got them in the beginning of March. Getting another raid to complete The Immortal wasn’t that easy however and it almost seemed hopeless at some point. Miraculously we managed to scramble it together in the last raid before Ulduar came out and so another batch of players got their drakes.

Ulduar – Easy Mode

Long-awaited patch 3.1 eventually hit the live servers and people were of course anxious to see new content after almost five months of farming T7 content. People didn’t seem to have problems with raiding a bit longer than usual so we clocked about 25 hours of raiding during the first reset. During the first couple of days we cleared all the bosses except bugged Ignis up to Freya. Freya fell quite fast but Mimiron took a few hours to learn so after defeating him and General Vezax we had only one day left on Yogg-Saron. Unfortunately we didn’t get him down during the first reset but got enough routine to defeat him quickly a few days later. With the instance cleared a couple of times on easy mode we turned our looks towards hard modes and Algalon.