Ragmuffins vs H ToC

Spark post off of one over at Kestrel's Aerie.

Let me just start out by saying that Bloodriver is made up of crazy people. We will dang well try anything at least once or twice. A few days ago the crazy bug bit when a group of us were solidly running regular Trial of the Champion. I was tanking on Casavel, and our new level 80 druid duo was Dps and Heals for this, along with my husband on his shaman also recently 80, and our lovely other hunter, Niqora was running along for potential upgrades.

We ran ToC for much of the day, then our guild leader's wife, on her Dps rawr kitty said, "Hey, why don't we try Heroic of this?" Her husband flat out said "I don't think I can heal that, babe." Yet the tree / bear druid had been rocking along in regular, and they had both gotten various upgrades from running or had crafted upgrades when I threw leather at them from Tzia. We decided to run a Heroic Halls of Stone first. We figured, if we can handle that, and Towa (aka Mysthowl) can handle that? We can handle H ToC, or at least go down trying.

We breeze through Halls of Stone - even with the shaman in a mix of greens/blues/ and the Naxx 10 shoulder token piece. Then we fly back to ToC, make certain we are repaired and walk in.

The gods loathed us. We got the shaman, hunter, rogue to start off, we all cringed but stepped forward to potentially take a beating. We dropped all three, then ran the hell out of the instance. Came back with them on the far side of the room, buffed up, swapped out weapons (because unlike earlier we were pretty darn sure Towa couldn't heal through the Black Knight using his lance), and then destroyed healer, hunter, rogue.

And then for the first time of the day and the only time I encountered her - I kid you not - we get Pale Girl. I just stand there for a second, and over vent go "Okay, explain her really quickly, cause I've not seen her before - ever guys." Fight is explained, along with her quirks, and the Dps Kitty goes "Dang it, I think she only drops what I want on Regular." We also found out that the set of nine adds are much harder than on Regular (no duh hun?). Didn't realize that the priestess' mind controled, almost wiped my group as the tank when I got MC'd. We figure out what's happening and burn the heck out of the priestess', then the lightwarders, then the monks. Rinse repeat x2.

Pale drove us batty. She wiped us once because we couldn't burn down the Shade she summoned quickly enough the first go round. We rez, run out, repair, and come back in. We then proceed to go after her under the paladin Shadow Aura - 130 shadow resist ftw! She drops and gives Cas a new helm that I need to get socketed still. Then its time for the Black Knight.

He proved to be a cake walk after Pale. We knew that his third phase was always the hardest for us, just because we ALL take damage, and Towa the Tree always ends up as firewood right before the Knight dies. ALWAYS. So, we worked through phases 1 and 2, then he popped up for phase 3. We went to town, blowing everything we had. And I do mean everything - I chucked out any nasty to Undead ability I had (except turn undead - that might have killed us)and he dropped like a stone. I don't remember what he dropped, but we giggled for a bit, shakey from the adrenaline rush.

If a group of ragmuffins from Bloodriver with a part time tank tanking, and a part time off spec is Heals Tree can pull it off? I think the people saying OS 25 gear is a must are completely blipping batty and need to realize skill can overcome some gear barriers, or they are sure as **** making things harder than they actually are.

Basically? As long as one of the DPS is full epics from VoA/Naxx 10 and has the DPS numbers + a Def capped tank with 24k+ starting health minimum ... and a healer in crafted blues / epics + Normal ToC drops? Its been done. We did it, and the most the guild is doing at the moment is Naxx 10.

Now if you'll excuse me, the MC variety of the Crazy Bug has bitten... I'm off to see how many people I'm going to need in MC to actually GET to my leaf so I can go do that cool hunter level 60 EPIC to Hades and back quest.