Al'Akir defeated! 11/12!

Brutal fight. Every phase has things that can go horribly wrong. And, as the tank, it's exceedingly easy to wipe the raid at any point in the first two phases if you're not paying attention and performing with absolute precision. No easy task when you're trying to manage adds, lead the raid, watch the timers, and find the gaps in the squall lines. Plus, you know, still put up respectable tanking damage to help the raid get through those phases quicker.

The hardest part was the third phase just because--to even get to it--you had to get through the other two phases first, which we were only doing about 33% of the time. Made it really, really hard to learn how to execute the strategy properly. In those kinds of situations, it's up to the raid leader to step up and really guide everyone through the process. There's no room for ambiguity. Once I figured out how to lead that phase effectively, we got him. (Not to sound like it was all me or anything.)

I got my tier shoulders out of the fight, which means I was able to justify spending my VP on the robe. I now have the 4-set bonus and don't look half bad (except for the silly belt).

Only Nef is left. The first half of Thursday's raid will be spent just clearing to him. We have the first five bosses down to an art, with the possible exception of Chimaeron. We can usually down him, but it's still almost never pretty.

Providing the first 5 go that smoothly, we'll be left with 4.5 hours to down Nef before 4.2 drops. Going 12/12 before the nerf would be a huge accomplishment considering how late we got started raiding in this expansion and how long it took us to really hit our stride once we did.

Even if we don't quite pull it off, we're going to stay in Tier 11 until we get him, just to have it all wrapped up. Then it's off to the Firelands.