It's been a busy few weeks. We'll get the biggest news out of the way first. On the 7th we got together our first 25 man raid and took out Maulgar, the first boss in Gruul's Lair. Hopefully this is a good indication of what's to come in raiding. The fight is pretty creative and keeps a good number of people actively involved in interesting roles beyond just DPS this, heal that. Ultimately the fight was pretty easy once we got the nuances worked out, but it's not a joke either. Someone who had only done MC or BWL would be in for a rude awakening here, but guilds with a fair bit of AQ40 or Naxx experience shouldn't be too shocked by the difficulty level, provided they've at least reached acceptable gear levels from the 5-mans, and Karazhan.
Speaking of Karazhan we have plenty of news from there too. By now reason groups have taken out all but the last boss, Nightbane. Attumen and Maiden of Virtue are so trivial they aren't worth talking about, beyond just saying they're trivial. Moroes, while not especially difficult, will be a nice test of your raid coordination, and it's also a kind of interesting fight because there are a handful of different ways to do it depending on your raid composition.
The Opera House "event" is an interesting addition as well. You get one of three fights each week, each based off some fictional work of the past. So far Reason groups have gotten Romulo and Juletta (Romeo and Juliet) 3 times and the Dorothee/Crone fight (Wizard of Oz) twice, no Big Bad Wolf (Red Riding Hood) yet, supposedly the easiest of the three. These fights can actually be pretty tough if you don't have the right raid and decent people for them.
On to the Curator. This is the first boss that drops tier 4 pieces, and while not particularly difficult it poses a moderately challenging DPS test for the first time in the instance. The boss after the Curator, Illhoof, is a complete joke and we even forgot to get a screenshot of the fight because we were too busy trying to figure out if he was actually just a trash mob.
The next handful of bosses are all fairly challenging and indeed screenshot worthy. See the thumbnails for pretty pictures of the Shade of Aran, Prince Malchezaar (tier 4 helms), and Netherspite. Prince Malchezaar wasn't all that hard, but progress was slowed by him frequently bugging out until we just went in and one-shot him after a reset.
From here it's a matter of farming gear to be able to manage Gruul, running some heroic instances to get the Nightbane summon ready in Karazhan, and getting some world boss kills.
