Elementium - US Barthilas

Friends,

Change, always a part of life.  As Elementium changed and evolved from our humble beginnings on Blackrock to the guild it is today, we are proof of change in action.  We have continuously raided from Blackrock Lair, and have seen all instances from Blackwing Lair to both Naxxaramuses, to Tempest Keep, to Black Temple, to Icecrown Citadel, to our current exploits in Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent.  However, as a guild changes, the members do as well.  We are not the same guild as we were 5 and a half years ago -- when we started in November 2005.

We're sometimes wiser, sometimes smarter, and definitely older.  We've seen the ups and downs of any progression guild, from the elation of our server first kills, the crazy skill I've personally seen that's killed bosses, and then to the long grind of Muru, and battling the constant thorn in our side of disconnects and latency issues.  Thoughout, we've seen Blizzard's content become more polished, sometimes more fun, sometimes more frustrating, but always challenging us to excel.  However, all good things must come to an end, and therefore I must sadly announce that Elementium has ceased progression raiding.

I would like to thank all of you who have stuck loyally with us so far, to those that left for real life issues, and those that newly transferred to see what Elementium is about.  It has been fun to raid with you all, and I do not regret the time and effort spent or the sleep cut short as we worked on bosses.  Thanks for the fond memories, good luck to you all in the future!

Two more dragons died tonight in the hands of Elementium. It took us almost the whole raiding week to kill these crazy creatures. In that one week we've devised at least one strategy each night on how to handle the Twilight Sentries, from sending in a few DPS classes composed of rogues and mages, to assigning each group for each Dazzling Destruction and Twilight Shift, and then finally evolving to every able DPS classes zoning in on the first wave of Dazzling Destruction and then letting a few select players handle the Twilight Sentries afterwards. After nights of frustrating attempts with one night cut short by the Internet Boss, we're finally 8/13 on the first tier of Cataclysm heroic raids.

Up next: More dragons. Nefarian, we're looking at you!

Once again, Elementium is opening its doors for prospective players to join us in our bid for Oceanic firsts in Cataclysm. We're particularly in need of holy/discipline priests, holy paladins, feral/balance druids, and shamans of all specs, sizes, and shapes. But even if you're not any of these classes/specs, don't hesitate to impress us with a good, well-written application and we'll still consider you for a spot in our ever-fun, and ever-rewarding guild.

Read here to get a good idea of what Elementium is all about and what we're looking for from applicants, or post an app right away!

A couple more of Nefarian's minions went down in the past few weeks in the hands of Elementium!

We'll post a nice pic of Atramedes' cold corpse lying behind our glorious raiders once I grab the sole copy of the screenshot from our sorely missed main tank.

For now, feast on Magmaw's rotten carcass:

So it has been some time since the last instance I've made a contemplative front page post (not out of necessity eg. transfer announcement) - probably haven't done so since Serious Players days, somehow reflecting on that made me realise how small the Singaporean top-end raiding WoW community is. You old players can probably join me in reminiscing those days when at the top end of Singaporean raiding were Knights of the Vanguard, Untamed Trinity, Elementium, Colony Raiders, Eternity and finally coming together in the guild we know today as Elementium, at the top of the GMT+8 raiding scene and second overall in all Oceanic realms.

Comprising some of the best players in the country, we have shown that materialistic Singapore still has what it takes to be competitive even on a (nonexistential wage) game at the regional level. At the risk of sounding overly patriotic and sex-starved here, we encourage all you silent Singaporean and gmt+8 aussie readers out there to join us in our community, partake in some friendly forums bantering, hook up with your favorite Elementium player ( most of us are pretty hot guys, single ladies are always welcome ;) ) and be a part of our journey throughout Cataclysm, culminating in a showdown with Azeroth's greatest villian, Deathwing, on a Heroic 25 man level. If, at any point of time, you feel you have nerves of steel, know that you will not break from having someone scream at you to give your very best in every minute you spend in a raid instance, drop us an application in the forums. We are still recruiting all exceptional players.

Coming to the contemplative point of this post, I (might not reflect the thoughts of others in the guild) feel that we are all victims of the most precious commodity, time. Most of us started WoW at a point of time where life was most carefree, some of us started at a crossroads in our life, others started to break a routine. Whatever the case might be, everyone of us has grown up a little more now, have had our thoughts mature a bit more now, have had some priorities set a tad straighter. Our officers are all moving on into the working class, one among us is getting married (congratulations!) and hey, its time to breathe in and say wow, its been a hell of a journey. If anything, playing with these guys has led me to realise that bonds forged are the most precious thing that one can take out of spending copious amounts of time in a virtual universe. So here's to taking a step back (yeah from clicking that Join as Party button to queue for that next random heroic) turning to your friend that you have taken for granted as the best tank/most outstanding dps/ever reliable healer, and saying thank you for being there for me when I needed some company. The most precious commodity might not be there the next time you remember to give that person a pat and words of gratitude.

Changing tones, we have made the most of our time, with all the usual DCs (SHOCKWAVE NOW ... 'eh dc' / %@# my corruption is at 75%, oh wait dc), bad play (b-rez him ... 'can't i flew off') and are now 4/12 Heroic 25s, with Halfus, Conclave of Wind, Maloriak, Chimaeron down. Thanks to Xfrost, our alt progression is also publicised, and yes we are 12/12 on 10man. I'll end off my TL:DR post with screenies of our Heroic kills. Enjoy, and see you on the Elementium forums!!

Heroic: Maloriak

(2nd kill vid:)

 Heroic: Conclave of Wind

Heroic: Chimaeron

And last but not least the most egoistic and obnoxious group of:

When moving an entire guild to a new home server, it is not uncommon to take awhile to settle down, get your affairs sorted, before being stable again to continue progression. I am very glad to say that it almost feels like we have managed to skip this entire process, as our progression into Cataclysm has shown so far. With our kills, I can now truly say we are at a place that we want to be - at the edge of progression where information is scarce and strats are few, at the top end of the server, even as well as at the top end of the Oceanic realms. Much to my dismay, it is apparently impossible to discern between a 25m and a 10m kill, and therefore although I would like to claim Oceanic firsts/seconds on some of these kills, it would be impossible since we are unsure how the other guilds have downed the bosses. I am proud that we have stuck to our plan, and have so far managed to down everything in 25m-mode. I will upload more screenshots as we achieve them.

To all the raiders who have put in great effort to level quickly and push into dungeons, I sincerely thank you for all your efforts in making this guild where it is. I also want to take this chance to remind all of you that while hard work should be rewarded and appreciated, we should not rest on our laurels and continue striving towards our common goals.

I present to you, our kills:

Heroic: Halfus Wyrmbreaker - 30/12/2010

Nefarian - 29/12/2010

Cho'gall - 20/12/2010

Al'akir - 19/12/2010

Chimaeron - 16/12/2010

Atramedes - 12/12/2010

Maloriak - 11/12/2010

Valiona and Theralion - 11/12/2010

Magmaw - 11/12/2010

Conclave of the Winds - 11/12/2010

Forgot to take screenshot -.-

Halfus Wyrmbreaker - 10/12/2010

Omnotron Defense System - 9/11/2010

Recently, Elementium attended the Singapore Gaming Festival at that new place near Cine, *SCAPE or something like that. The organizers wanted to have a 10m Heroic ICC timed run, and so we decided to attend, even though ICC 10m is about 1 year old and extremely boring. The run was supposed to take place at 10pm, but due to various problems with the computers, not knowing where we were supposed to set up and stuff, the run only actually commenced at around 11pm. For all of us, this was probably the first time we were being asked to play WoW out of our homes, so we were all a little excited, brought all our UIs and stuff, and generally were pretty serious about the whole thing. Even though the event turned out to be kind of a wash, with only one other team turning up and the organizers not being very organized about the run, it probably still gave us a chance to experience something that people in the Singaporean WoW gaming scene have probably never experienced before. To my knowledge, this was the first attempt to run any sort of a Singapore WoW PvE competition, and so some organizational slips were understandable. Hopefully, this sort of event will continue to take place in Singapore, there is a pretty large WoW playerbase and it would be good for the Singapore gaming community if more events like these were held.

Our team comprised the following:

Ambrosewk (Warrior tank, first on left)

Nice (Warrior tank, second on left)

Msmf (Holy Paladin, third on left)

Luminarc (Holy Priest, hidden by Msmf)

Riyomorii (Fire Mage, last on left, in the brown jacket)

Xinhuan (Arcane Mage, author of Omen, first on right)

Sozzage (Balance Druid, second on right)

Tm (Elemental Shaman, third on right)

Eggism (Demon Warlock, fourth on right)

Ramien (Assassination Rogue, representative gay, last on right)

Quite a few other people in Elementium wanted to attend, but because it was made a 10m run, we couldn't fit everyone in. In any case, since Heroic ICC is such a bore nowadays, I'll just run through the highlights of the run.

Highlight 1: Laughing at the fail diagonal grid of Sozzage

Highlight 2: Wiping at Marrowgar because the fail raid leader forgot to change the difficulty to heroic (SORRY GUYS)

Highlight 3: Wiping at Gunship because our tank disconnected. The lag all around was pretty bad though, we had lots of spikes and disconnects as we were trying to clear.

Highlight 4: Killing the two oozes on Heroic Putricide P3 transition so quickly that we had time to bring him down to 8% before he became active.

Highlight 5: Xinhuan, author of Omen, pulling aggro and dying at Blood Prince Council

Highlight 6: Getting slaughtered by Eggism's clone's Rain of Chaos

Highlight 7: Eggism getting picked up twice in H LK, allowing us to take him through with about 1 minute spent in P3, with only two valks coming down.

We finished the run in about an hour and a half, and we had a pretty fun time, props to everyone who raided and to everyone who came down to watch us and support us. I lost my voice yelling orders over the incredibly noisy environment though. We hope to see more Singaporean guilds come down for these events in the future, and hopefully World of Warcraft will continue to grow as a game in Singapore, with more events and competitions being held. A shoutout also to the other guild who came down, I Believe in Aliens from Thaurissan, it was fun meeting new people who play WoW in Singapore, and hope to see more people come down next time!

Us in phase 5 of H LK

Back Row: Silvia, Ambrosewk, Sharony, Leonardololz, Xfrost, Eggism, Tm

Middle Row: Knnb, Msmf, Nice, Luminarc

Front Row: Sozzage, Xinhuan, Riyomorii, Ramien

Valyrian and Lacaz left early.

When we moved from Blackrock to Barthilas, one of the primary agendas on my To-Do list was a new website. Actually, it was on my list long before the planned move - we just never had a more opportune time to ship out a transition into a new site than now. The future can be exciting for some, and what better way to welcome this excitement with a new site as well.

We have been previously using the old php-bb based website for a very long time now, and whilst it has served us well for the 2-3 years, like all good and healthy relationships, it's time to break up and move on to another sexier, younger, and more trendy friend. The reason for moving to wowstead is obviously more than just a superflous one though.

Just like looking for a suitable partner, these things take time. It takes time to first seek out potential "targets". Then it takes time to filter the right one out of the many. Then even when you think you have the right one, you still have to spend time "feeling your way around", to understand her/him/it better. You need to know the advantages she/he/it brings to your life - comparative to the old one obviously. More specifically, what extra functionalities does it bring? How user-friendly are these new tools? Are there any forseeable transition obstacles?

After using wowstead for awhile and getting used to its functions, features, etc., I dare say that across all fronts, it really is much better than the old. It automates some of the more hassling and time-wasting processes. It has a good application system. It is easier to maintain. The list goes on.

Anyway, for all the applicants that applied previously on the old php-bb site, I am afraid that you will have to re-post your application. That was part of the reason why there has been an application back-log - we were trialling this new application functionality and we like it a lot. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused, but we figured that it's a good way to weed out those who were not really interested :)

Thanks to all who made this new home possible, and good luck going forward into Cataclysm everyone!