So. World-boss-raid last night.
My guild decided to down a world boss, and it was scheduled for last night. It lasted about two hours, but it was fun!

Nine o'clock. Everyone's being sorted out, getting invites to the raid group, et cetera. I hearth out of Feralas and head over to Darkshire, where we're meeting. I have no idea which boss we're going to down and am generally clueless. When I show up, about ten other guildies are standing in the middle of town on assorted cats, elephants, and bears. We pass the time by riding around the fountain and attempting to jump over each other.



After a while of this, we've picked up a few more people and start straggling out of town. I am slow on the uptake and catch them up on the path up to the Twilight Grove. (We're still missing half the raid and there's a friendly argument over tanks and healers going on.) During raid conversation it emerges that there may be a dragon in the grove.
(I have been up there three times and never seen a dragon. This is fortunate for me, as I later discover.)

Everyone rides into the grove to see if the dragon's there. It isn't. After some slight milling around, the raid leader tells us to head for Aerie Peak. We all gallop off for Darkshire and hop onto gryphons bound for Aerie Peak. I get to the gryphon master behind almost everyone else. There is some confusion in raid chat as everyone who isn't there wants to know where we're going.

The raid leader and someone else, due to getting to the gryphon master ahead of everyone else, say they'll go and scout the possible spawning area. This occurs while everyone else is mid-flight.

The dragon is apparently there. Unfortunately, another raid got there ahead of us, and the dragon is nearly dead. There's a brief discussion of spawning points, and the order is given to go to Feralas. (On the other continent.) We're still mid-air, and strung out, so as soon as we touch down at Aerie Peak, we turn around and head for Menethil.

Five people arrive at Menethil at around the same time, and we ride onto the boat in a mass. I head up the stairs and end up on the rigging, which means I'm standing over everyone's heads.

Boat crosses sea. Boat docks at Theramore. We all ride off the boat and head over to the gryphon master. Everyone who's been to Feathermoon Stronghold flies there directly. A few other people haven't, and have to go the long way. This involves going around a camp belonging to the opposite faction. Some people have accidentally gone to the wrong country.

I arrive at Feathermoon in time to see the boat between me and the mainland sail off. (Feathermoon's on a island.) A few other people touch down and we all hang around on the end of the jetty. Boat arrives, we pile on, we pile off at the other end, and we all ride up to the Dream Bough.

There is a very large, very tough dragon sitting at the top of a ramp.

After a few minutes, almost everyone's there. We decide to go for it.

First try. Tank runs up the ramp, second tank on his heels, Emeriss notices him, we all start attacking, and then a couple of other dragons that were wandering around safely away from us come over and trample everyone. We all die before you can say 'Where in Azeroth did they come from?'

Second try. Everone runs back to their corpses and tries to grab a snack. Raid leader decides that next time we have to turn the dragon around, and everyone's to avoid the tail. Melee attack the feet, ranged fighters to be as ranged as possible. Apparently this dragon breathes something nasty. About half the group form up and take out the dragons that trampled us last time.

Tanks run up ramp, dragon notices them, dragon turns around, and the rest of us run up the ramp to be in attack range. Dragon does some kind of backwards disease-attack, and we all die again after bringing it to half health.

Third try. Everyone rezzes (again). We eat and drink to get our health back, while waiting for this weird debuff to expire. While we eat, the raid leader lays out the full strategy: Tnks pull the dragon to the base of the ramp and turn him around. The rest of us stay spread out. Ranged fighters attack from as far away as possible. Melee fighters attack when the leader yells 'Phase one', and retreat when she calls 'phase two'. This hopefully lets everyone avoid the poison clouds, or at least minimise the effect.

Tanks run in, everything goes as planned. There's afew issues with pet management, but we bring down the dragon with most of the raid still standing. Me not among them.

And it was fun!