Nothing Revives the Fun Like a Retro Raid

shadow priest in Al'ar's rom in Tempest Keep

If you had asked me a year ago if I’d like to go spend a few hours knocking back Lady Vashj and Kael, I would have told you to go die in a fire. Benn there. Done that. Never wanted to see it again on my druid.

But a year’s absence makes the heart grow fonder for the BC instances. Somehow spurred on by our weekly For the Horde! runs momentum, we found ourselves itching for some retro raid action on a night when our 25-man composition wasn’t right for working on the keepers in Ulduar. So, instead, we decided SSC and TK were due a visit.

It was fun to get to see these instances and soak up the ambiance. During all my at level forays to these raids, I healed on my druid, so my view of them was only the bits that peaked out from behind the 25 little health bars I fixated on. Who knew that TK actually had some nice music before those 4 packs of doom?

Now,  at 80, those trash packs that used to cause wipes were easily mind seared down as our paladin tanked them all. Lady Vashj was an easy one shot, while Lurker killed a good chunk of the raid since we didn’t bother to clear all the trash and fought him with the nasty fish still in the water.

Kael, on the other hand, was a piece of funny business. You see, he’s a loquacious fellow, and we tried to rush him along. And he didn’t like it. He turned into a big ghosty stalker and followed raid members around in his room, taunting us with out inability to get past his bugged state. So, we had some folks kill themselves and summon us all outside so we could reset him and start over.

Our second time through, we took it easy on him, doing about half as much damage. We picked up those legendary weapons and marveled at how the stats for the ones we carry around now dwarf them. We killed him nice and slow, letting him give us his monologues. Big dress-up dork that I am, I was excited to get the tier chest token, which I turned in for the pretty Shroud of the Avatar robe. Now *that’s* a pretty dress up outfit.

There’s been talk of doing some more (guildies have recently done the AQs, Black Temple, and Mount Hyjal recently) and I’m in. It’s nice to get to revisit some of this formerly challenging content in a fun and relaxed raid with many folks who’ve never gotten to see it before. A great way to spend a weekend day.

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