After about a few too many wipes and vaporizing rogues, Raid: Hamfist ONE SHOTTED Illidari Council tonight:

Council No More

Warion, who's been BT attuned for less than 24 hours, came in and did an incredible job.  Thank you!

Loot!
[item]Forest Prowler's Helm[/item] to Shihli
[item]Thunderheart Leggings[/item] to Mnorthreat
[item]Onslaught Legguards[/item] to Pkmaster.  GRATS ON 4/5 TIER 6!!

Parses!
http://wowwebstats.com/w2fctqmw2pf5u

Of course, Council is only just the beginning of a night like this. After loot, we engaged the Akama interlude and followed him upstairs:

Knock knock

He runs fast for a fat kid:

Keep up with fatty

Then we ran into this random guy... you know, the guy that always has his shirt off at social gatherings.  Douche.

OHAIILLIDAN!

So we made a few pulls.

It's on

We're deep into Phase 2 on our first night ever.  Read up on Illidan strats and prepare to come back for perfect execution this week.  Grats guys, we've almost beat The Burning Crusade. .. until 2.4 ;)

Raid: LF1M just knocked the hell out of Vashj!:

LF1M KILLS VASHJ!

Drops!

[item]Cowl of Tirisfal[/item] to Dufe
[item]Cowl of the Avatar[/item] to Captnopants
[item]Lightfathom Scepter[/item] to Warion

GRATS GUYS!!

Parses: http://wowwebstats.com/nowxtuosalpac

NEXT STEP: KAEL'THAS. Starting reading, and congrats! You all deserve it!

Looks like the massive gear push these last few weeks paid off: Mother Shahraz goes down on the third pull ever in Downfall history. We haven't killed bosses that quick since BWL! Great job guys, everyone was focused and prepared.

Shahraz Down!

First Tier 6 Shoulders in guild!

[item]Pauldrons of the Forgotten Vanquisher[/item] -> [item]Slayer's Shoulderpads[/item]: Shinzwei
[item]Pauldrons of the Forgotten Conqueror[/item] -> [item]Mantle of the Malefic[/item]: Tankard
[Leggings of Devastation]: Keisjaa

I don't think we were quite prepared enough for Illidari Council, so we have something to work on this week. Read up! WE'RE ONE BOSS AWAY FROM ILLIDAN!!

PARSES: http://wowwebstats.com/1b4qeu4oaoete

UPDATE 2/22: FIRST PULL SHAHRAZ CHECK LIST, SIGN UP NOW: http://downfallguild.org/node/795

Like Princess Huhuran, and Ragnaros before her, the Downfall raids have a big gear check ahead of them in Mother Shahraz. Currently, Raid: Hamfist is knocking on her doorstep, and all we need are raw materials to make this happen. Every single raider that faces Shahraz will need 295 Shadow resist unbuffed. That's a lot. But have no fear, our eggheads have been doing some math. (Click the title to read more!)

Saedo made some calculations and determined a quick and dirty way to hit our base shadow resist as efficiently as possible.

It looks something like this: