HELLO KITTY CLUB
World of Warcraft
Sargeras US
Alliance Mythic Raiding Guild
Guild History
Hello Kitty Club was formed December 14th, 2006 from an idea that Melona had to create an Alt & PvP guild for their raiding guild Unleashed. During the summer of 2007, HKC was converted into one of the most dominant raiding guilds on Akama consisting of some of its best PvP players on the realm and transfers from Azshara.
Select an Era
The Burning Crusade
The Melona/Aurongodx Years
During the summer of 2007, a guild named “Shattered” from the realm Azshara was struggling to make progress through tier 5 content. The guild led by Deltwarrior, Daelin, Kanlar, Aurongodx, and others decided to transfer off Azshara with the hopes of better raid progression on a higher population realm. After a thorough search, Daelin found what seemed to be the perfect destination. Akama was a medium population server with a central time zone data center and an even Alliance to Horde player ratio. After communicating with another group of players on Akama, a merger of guilds was in order. The guild that was formed was called “Recently Bandaged”, it had little success.
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There were just too many cooks in the kitchen. Instead of consolidating leadership, both guilds decided to keep all of their officers in positions of power. This made things difficult when it came to an officer loot system where each side would just vote for their own members. To make matters worse, the folks from Azshara came in with a big head so to speak, announcing their future raid dominance aspirations on the Akama forums, and getting flamed in the process. Recently Bandaged never stood a chance raiding tier 5 content and fell apart shortly after creation.
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With Recently Bandaged now disbanded, the Azshara transplants now had no place to call home. Meanwhile, Melona and Soulsphere saw this as an opportunity. Melona had a guild called “Hello Kitty Club" that she created during the days of Vanilla World of Warcraft. This guild was primarily used to house alts and players that wanted to PVP. After Melona and Soulsphere held a meeting with Aurongodx, they decided it was time turn her guild into something more. She recruited the Azshara members of the failed Recently Bandaged and made Aurongodx, Soulsphere, and Meowmimi officers. Hello Kitty Club as a raiding guild was born.
Hello Kitty Club had immediate success clearing the farm content at that time in order to get posted on progression charts. The raid roster consisted of many top PVP players on the server along with the Azshara transfers. Much of the guild’s success was due to its raid leader, Khimaru having had experience in guiding raid groups through the boss encounters. However due to out of game circumstances, Khimaru departed shortly after HKC downed Morogrim Tidewalker in Serpent Shrine Cavern.
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Aurongodx had experience leading raids in the past and was shadowing others on how they led. This made him the best choice to continue where Khimaru left off at raid lead. While having obscure boss strategies (spamming the S key on Leotheras the Blind) and with his laughable rants that would go on in Ventrilo over wipes, these qualities made him quite a force to be reckoned with. Hello Kitty Club continued to progress through content catching up to other top guilds on the server, becoming one of the few guilds on Akama to down Lady Vashj and Kael'thas Sunstrider.
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In preparation for Tier 6 content, Hello Kitty Club began attuning members of the guild to Hyjal and Black Temple. This meant that HKC purchased raid lockouts from lesser progressed guilds in order to get Vashj and Kael kills without having to clear the rest of the instance. There was never a dull moment during these raids and sadly this resulted in guild drama ultimately breaking lesser guilds apart. On one such occasion, a member of Ashes of Alar was so distraught over losing his spot after providing HKC with a Lady Vashj lockout, he refused to leave the raid instance after being removed from the group. This led to HKC having to kill Vashj with 24 players, which it did with ease.
Hello Kitty Club started off Hyjal progression the night Kael’thas was defeated. With it being the end of a raid week and not wanting to waste a lockout, those that were willing to stay overtime managed to kill Rage Winterchill and finish their Black Temple attunement. The following weeks of progression through Hyjal content proved trivial. The raid was very forgiving with mechanics and this was made all the easier with a protection paladin to tank the trash waves. HKC recruited Rickrolling for this sole purpose as the guilds first Protection Paladin on roster. This coupled with the ability to use the boss area friendly NPCs to help you during boss encounters, Hello Kitty Club cleared the first 4 bosses in Mount Hyjal with relative ease.
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Archimonde would prove to be one of the guilds hardest foes in its early history, taking over a month of progression before finally defeating him. Every viable strategy was in play for this boss and Hello Kitty Club attempted all of them. Some strategies proved to be questionable, from tanking Archimonde under the World Tree to the whole raid spreading out on the side of the mountain to avoid the unpredictable fire spawns. One strategy was borderline bannable requiring the entire raid to stand on a wood log in the encounter room you fought Archimonde in which was dubbed the "Log Strat". Ultimately, the time it took to clear all of Black Temple including Illidan Stormrage took less time than it took to just defeat Archimonde.
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Alongside Hyjal progression, raid nights were split with Black Temple. Many of the early bosses in Black Temple were defeated with ease and during off nights, trash farm groups were set up due to the value of the drops from gear and gems. Hello Kitty Club became the second guild on Akama to defeat Archimonde and Illidan Stormrage. With its first Illidan kill, HKC was also the first Alliance guild on Akama to get a Warglaive, of which after a lengthy discussion and officer vote was awarded to the rogue Duckeh. Hello Kitty Club managed to acquire four Warglaives and two complete sets for rogues Duckeh and Cassindra during the following reclears. Shortly after defeating Illidan for the first time, Melona decided to step down as Guild Master and she pasted the power to Aurongodx.
With the release of the Sunwell on April 8th, 2008, many guilds on Akama did not even get a chance to attempt the raid due to its difficulty. Hello Kitty Club wanted to cement its place at the top of Akama raid progression charts. During the guilds first 2 nights of attempts against Kalecgos, HKC put forth an amazing effort and after 56 attempts achieved a server second kill. Brutallus proved to be a large step up in difficulty. A true Patchwerk type fight with insane amounts of damage to tanks and a high dps check, the few guilds that did manage to defeat Kalecgos on Akama would not progress past Brutallus. Hello Kitty Club had the advantage of having two Warglaive rogues and achieved server second kill. The following boss, Felmyst proved to be the boss that would stop guild progression. The fight required insane amounts of raid healing and coordination that overwhelmed the group. Multiple long raid nights were starting to take their toll on the team resulting in burnout. As a result, Hello Kitty Club had some of its best players leave guild and move on to further progressed guilds.
The guild was forced to rebuild its raid core during this time and due to these circumstances did not manage to progress any further in Sunwell. With the release of the pre patch for Wrath of the Lich King came a major content nerf to Sunwell and all other Burning Crusade raids. Most guilds had stopped raiding by this point but Hello Kitty Club was still clearing its farm content weekly.
After these content nerfs, Hello Kitty Club quickly cleared through Felmyst, the Eredar Twins, and Muru. HKC managed to defeat Kil’jaeden prior to the release of Wrath of the Lich King and were one of only two guilds on Akama to do so during the expansion.
Wrath of the Lich King
The Aurongodx/Warant Years
Wrath of the Lich King released on November 13th, 2008, players will finally face Arthas from Warcraft 3. With the launch of the expansion, the raiding landscape changed drastically. Instead of having separate 10man raids as they were in the Burning Crusade, now every raid release will launch with a 25man and 10man version with separate lockouts. Hello Kitty Club had a strong roster leading into Wrath of the Lich King, mostly due to the fact that the raid team never went on a hiatus. On the night of launch there were little issues. Many in guild took time off from school and used the holiday season to level their characters and professions in an attempt to get various server first achievements. Within the first week of launch, some of the top guilds in the world had already leveled their raid teams to level 80 and had cleared all the content. The raid for tier 7 content was a recycled one, Naxxramas. While some guilds had already cleared this raid during Vanilla, for the majority this would be new content.
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Hello Kitty Club managed to get enough members to hit level 80 within the first week of the expansion to attempt 10man content. Farming Sunwell in the weeks prior to the expansion launch proved beneficial with most of the raid team starting the new raid content in Sunwell gear. It was just that good. At the end of week one HKC had defeated Sartharion and many bosses in Naxx on 10man. By the second week, the guild had enough members to begin 25man raiding. Aurongodx would continue raid leading however with Cassindra having prior history raiding Naxxramas during Vanilla, he would assist greatly in strategy planning and calls during fights. Hello Kitty Club had a very successful tier, full clearing Naxxramas, Sartharion, and Malygos on both 10man and 25man versions.
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While these raids were trivial on base level, Blizzard added in special achievements if you completed the raids under certain circumstances. In Naxxramas, Hello Kitty Club managed to achieve the “Undying” title by completing the 10man version of the raid with no one dying. However, the 25man “Immortal” version of the raid proved to be a more difficult challenge and was never completed by the guild. HKC even failed this achievement FOUR separate times DURING the Kel'thuzad encounter. Aurongodx even managed to record one of the failed attempts which can be watched here. Malygos proved to be an easier challenge to overcome, requiring you to defeat him in under 6 minutes. HKC completed this task on both 10man and 25man versions. Lastly, engaging Sartharion with all 3 of his drakes alive triggered the hardest version of the encounter. This was the most difficult fight of the tier and HKC managed to defeat this on both 10man and 25man versions.
Looking to capitalize on the success during the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, Hello Kitty Club was poised to push for top server kills in the next tier of content. Ulduar was released April 15th, 2009 and was a massive 14 boss raid. At the time there was PTR testing, however it had only been used in Sunwell prior to this tier of content and was only reserved to top players in the world. Most guilds entered Ulduar largely blind in terms of raid strategy, this was the first time HKC had to come up with strategies on the fly per boss because there just was no information available. The first night in Ulduar went well until the bugs started showing themselves, progression halted at the fourth boss XT-002 Deconstructor when trash would continue to spawn after the first wipe preventing further attempts.
The Ulduar raid team was led by Aurongodx with the help of Beastcloud, a returning founding member of Hello Kitty Club. Progression through Ulduar lasted many weeks, it was a difficult raid in its own right and many bosses had “hard mode” triggers that acted as an additional step-up difficulty that dropped better loot. Throughout the tier, the guild managed to full clear both the 10man and 25man version of Ulduar along with many of the hard mode achievements. Shebalo acquired the materials that dropped from Ulduar in order to craft the legendary mace “Val,anyr Hammer of the Ancient Kings”. Shebalo was also interviewed by the official World of Warcraft Magazine which ran an article about the guilds loot system. That article can be read here. While still a successful tier, many hard mode achievements were not completed until later in the expansion with high item level gear from the following raids.
While Ulduar did have its difficult bosses, the hard boss of the raid was time. Ulduar was only current content for just under 4 months, Tier 9 release August 5th, 2009 and with it came the next raid. A new zone in Icecrown was released called the Argent Tournament and was also the location of the raid the “Trial of the Crusader”. With this patch, Blizzard did away with hard mode triggers on a per boss basis and instead released a toggle deemed normal and heroic modes. This added even more lockouts to the weekly run given the fact none of the raid versions or sizes shared a lockout. Hello Kitty Club began raid all 4 versions, 10man 25man and their heroic counterparts.
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Trial of the Crusader as a raid felt more like filler content, much of the instance was in a single coliseum with no trash between each boss, ending with the return encounter of Anub’arak under the coliseum floor. Hello Kitty Club managed to fully clear normal 10man and 25man Trial of the Crusader with relative ease. Running the same raid 4 times a week started to take its toll on the roster however, causing many players in guild to call it quits and even Aurongodx was starting to lose interest. By the end of the tier, HKC had full cleared heroic Trial of the Grand Crusader on 10man but fell short in 25man finishing 4/5 leaving Anub’arak undefeated.
To the surprise of most, Blizzard seemed to be sticking to a 4-month patch cycle. Icecrown Citadel released December 9th, 2009 with a massive 12 boss raid where you face the Lich King himself. The best change by far from last tier is that normal and heroic shared a lockout so you would only have to raid 10man and 25man once each week. This raid was certainly a step up in difficulty however the raid itself was gated in 4 stages over the course of 2 months. While this did allow for guilds that were having trouble on certain bosses to not fall behind on progression, most believed that Blizzard implemented the gated content to prolong the expansion life.
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Hello Kitty Club was definitely feeling burnout during ICC progression. With the difficulty of each boss becoming more complex, more time and attempts were needed. While Aurongodx was still at the helm guildwise, he had relinquished raid leading duties to Warant. As each section of ICC became available, Aurongodx became more detached from the game due to various IRL commitments and college. By the time Hello Kitty Club defeated the Lich King on 10man normal difficulty, Aurongodx made the decision to step down from guild master and retire from World of Warcraft. Leadership was passed on to Warant and progression on 25man Lich King continued.
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With Warant in charge the guild had a newly revived urge to progress. Aurongodx and Warant have a friendship that dates back to the early days of The Burning Crusade and on top of that, both went to the same college together so they were good friends outside of the game. Warant had more of a blunt approach to raid leading and would never shy away from putting anyone on blast in Ventrilo if they messed up during a raid. All that being said, Hello Kitty Club continued raiding and progression in heroic became easier as the weeks went on thanks to the “Strength of Wrynn” buff that was added shortly after the Lich King became available to attempt. With each week the buff increased in percentage allowing more and more guilds an easier time to defeat the harder encounters.
Hello Kitty Club managed to full clear 10man & 25man normal, as well as 10man heroic Icecrown Citadel. Sadly, the guild fell just short of a full clear on heroic finishing 11/12 in 25man. Many of the achievements were also completed in the raid along with Warant, Menya, and Luceous acquiring the legendary weapon Shadowmourne during the current content. As the months went on, many players began wondering how long this patch would last.
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Blizzard was hard at work on the next expansion, the Cataclysm, however the game was not ready and on June 22nd, 2010 more filler content was released. A short one boss raid called “The Ruby Sanctum” was released and it contained the dragon “Halion”. Hello Kitty Club was the second guild on Akama do defeat Halion and even posted an early score on wowprogress. Granted most guilds at this point had stopped raiding due to the content drought between expansions. The guild would continue to raid and farm content up into the prepatch for Cataclysm.
Cataclysm
The Warant/Beastcloud Years
About a month prior to launch of the Cataclysm, the prepatch for the expansion went live. Azeroth had been brought into the high-definition age and when players logged in, they were greeted by Deathwing killing them instantly. After one of the longest content draughts in the game’s history, Cataclysm finally released December 9th, 2010. Over a year had passed since the launch of Icecrown Citadel, Hello Kitty Club was ready to try out some new content. Instead of there being the usual 10 level increase between expansions, players were capped at level 85 and much of the old world was revamped with new questing areas and flying enabled. Hello Kitty Club was dealt yet another mid Holiday season release so members took advantage of being off from school and taking time off work to level and run dungeons.
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Blizzard may have taken player advice a bit too literally when guilds complained about the difficulty levels at the start of Wrath of the Lich King. Everything in Cataclysm was hard. The 5man heroics, the raids, group content in the outside world, all proved to be a challenge. Blizzard also attempted to equalize difficulty levels of the raids by making 10man and 25man normal and heroic drop the same item level loot. "Bastion of Twilight", "Blackwing Descent", and "Throne of the Four Winds" raids were all available at the start of Cataclysm. Hello Kitty Club managed to progress well at the start of the tier, full clearing all 3 raids on normal difficulty in both 10man and 25man. However, the struggle would begin when the heroic switch was flipped on. The guild ended up having a poor performance, only managing to defeat one boss on heroic difficulty prior to the launch of the Firelands raid tier.
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As the next tier of content approached, the problems started to compile on themselves. While the population on Akama was still medium, it started to weigh heavily to the Horde, this caused recruitment issues for the guild. The top guild on Akama “Acquired Taste” also went Horde which made Alliance less attractive of a server option for Akama. These issues caused many members of Hello Kitty Club to quit the game, seek different guilds off server, or faction change to the Horde. Warant decided that it was a lost cause by this point and was ready to shut the guild down for good. However, there were those in guild that still wanted to play the game. Kanlar had reached out to Aurongodx about the situation and with some consulting, Warant had agreed to transfer leadership to Beastcloud.
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With new leadership and a new raid, Beastcloud looked to prepare the guild. The "Firelands" raid launched June 28th, 2011 and this raid was the steel pipe that broke the camel's' back. Ragnaros returned and he brought with him a large raid instance with even more trash that was in Molten Core. Hello Kitty Club had a very poor showing managing to only put together a couple raid nights and defeating one boss. With no more motivation left and a dwindling recruitment pool, Beastcloud decided to shut the guild down and go inactive.
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Throughout the remaining Firelands content and the next tier “The Dragonsoul” that launched November 29th, 2011 Hello Kitty Club did not raid. Beastcloud continued to remain guild master during this time until Blizzard added new guild control functionalities to game. One such function included the ability for a lower rank member of the guild to “dethrone” the current guild master if they remained offline for months at a time. This occurred at some point prior to the launch of the next expansion “Mists of Pandaria”. An unknown member gained control of the guild, removed everyone else and invited their friends presumably to use the guild as a bank alt.
Thus, Hello Kitty Club was lost to the void…or was it?
Mists of Pandaria
Aurongodx Returns
Mists of Pandaria launched September 25th, 2012 and looked to capture a new audience as subscription numbers began to decline. Aurongodx had returned to World of Warcraft at the end of the Cataclysm expansion after taking a hiatus from the game. He joined up with a few of the original core of Hello Kitty Club in a guild called "Learning Curve". This guild had a lot of success in 10man content throughout Cataclysm, largely in part from what they learned in HKC during Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.
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With the end of Cataclysm expansion, the core of Learning Curve decided to quit the game and left Aurongodx at the Guild Leader position once more. Aurongodx reached out to some old friends in the game and attempted to bring some old Hello Kitty Club members back into the guild for Mists of Pandaria. With limited success, those that did return decided to join a guild called "Out of Pride" with the hopes of raiding the introductory tier of content.
During the weeks following the expansion launch, the remaining top Alliance guilds on Akama had a meeting in voice chat to discuss the issues with recruiting on the server. While many guild masters suggested a large merger into one super guild, none of the GMs wanted to give up power. Aurongodx attended this meeting and reminded them of his failures and successes with guild mergers. As a result, each guild decided they would attempt to forge their own path and no merger took place.
While some progress was made in "Mogu’shan Vaults", "Heart of Fear", and "Terrace of the Endless Spring", ultimately Out of Pride did not work out and its leader "Icesurfer" transferred off server with most of its raid team. Old Hello Kitty Club members were left at a crossroads on whether or not to transfer off Akama or stay and attempt to make something work.
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During these transitions, Hello Kitty Club laid dormant. Its current guild master, when active, refused to give ownership back to Aurongodx or Beastcloud. Once that owner went inactive during The "Throne of Thunder" raid content that launched on March 5th 2013, a random player in the guild named Eggers managed to dethrone the guild master and gain control. Eggers had been in the guild for years inactive and once in control he was trying to sell the guild for upwards of 150k gold on the Akama forums. Aurongodx seized this moment to regain control of the guild he had helped build over the years and along with Thanos, Hello Kitty Club was purchased for a total of 20k gold.
Aurongodx was the Guild Master of Hello Kitty Club once again.
Mists of Pandaria
The HKC Revival
In the weeks prior to the new patch, Aurongodx and officers had been busy mass recruiting and getting in touch with old contacts in order to try and throw something together for a raid group to tackle the new raid tier. Hello Kitty Club did manage to clear all of the 5.0 Tier 14 raid content (Mogu'Shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, and Terrace of the Endless Spring) as well as the 5.2 Tier 15 raid content (Throne of Thunder) on normal mode difficulty.
During this time, Hello Kitty Club looked to make a dent in the Challenge Mode area of progression. With the difficulty of Burning Crusade heroics coupled with a very tight timer, the original 5 man dungeons released with Mists provided to be a great place to fine tune ones skills when changed to this difficulty. Also with the in-game ability to keep track of the realm best times for completing the dungeons, this gave HKC a way to put itself back on the progression map. Hello Kitty Club completed all 9 challenge modes with gold metals and managed a total of 5 realm best times. Thanks can be given to Devotional for assisting members in the guild during runs and he completed hundreds of realm best times as ours have since been beaten. HKC was also only the second alliance guild to complete this feat with the first being Out Of Pride which was also completed with the same members in HKC.
Patch 5.4 really brought out the best Hello Kitty Club could offer given its current raiding roster and ability. This patch added a new raid difficulty called "Flex Mode" that HKC pursued as its main raiding progression for the first few weeks. Raiding Flex Mode allowed for current and new members of the guild to gear quickly while still progressing and learning fights on an easier scale of difficulty. Along with the ability to raid with any number of players at once between 10 and up to 25 people, the encounters adjusted in difficulty to the amount you brought to the instance. This allowed for quick gearing and exposure to encounters. The final benefit that HKC used to its advantage was the fact that you could invite members from across different realms to raid with you. This allowed for many interesting raid nights with random pugs to players that have come and gone over the guilds 6 year span of existence.
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The raid that was added for tier 16 was Siege of Orgrimmar. This raid tier consisted of 14 bosses combining many different challenges that favored different raid compositions. Progressing through flex mode began smooth and had high turnout with the first boss kills consisting of 20+ HKC members in raid. Toward the end raid bosses the raid became smaller and we started forming a decent group that would then take into 10man normal. Hello Kitty Club achieved a few server first boss kills on flex throughout progression and ended in 5th place server wide after downing Garrosh Hellscream.
Progressing through the 10man normal difficulty of Siege of Orgrimmar started off slow and recruitment fell off as players began to go afk due to real life issues or otherwise. However, the ever so resourceful Aurongodx managed to start hunting for some old school raid talent. He stumbled across Rouk and he was looking to get back into raiding again. He and many of his friends transferred back to Akama to raid with HKC and thus the steam rolling of Siege of Orgrimmar began. Whereas before they had arrived, HKC had only managed to down 2 of the 14 bosses in the raid instance, afterward HKC downed 9 bosses in 9 days and soon after was second on the alliance side with only Garrosh Hellscream still standing.
HKC decided to halt raiding through the holiday season of 2013 in order to spend time with family and friends. Even still, some players decided to get groups together during the time off and clear Mogu'Shan Vaults on Heroic difficulty. During this time the Akama server was merged with the horde dominated realm Dragonmaw in order to up total population. This did not bode well considering Alliance population was already in trouble on Akama.
After taking just over one month off from raiding, Hello Kitty Club wasted no time getting back into the swing of progression. With the raid starting to mesh well together as a team, in only two nights of attempts, HKC downed Garrosh Hellscream. HKC also began recording boss kills again and decided it was in the guilds best interest to start a guild forum for the place of discussing future guild recruits. Hello Kitty Club is currently progressing through Heroic Mode content in Siege of Orgrimmar and has also benefited from the realm merger of Dragonmaw, picking up a few new recruits. With the edition of an additional server merger, Mug'thol joined with Akama and Dragonmaw. This server had little to no benefit for alliance players; Mug'thol had an Alliance to Horde ratio of .02 to 1. Server imbalance was at its peak during this transition ruining the Alliance guild balance on Akama and Dragonmaw going forward.
Mists of Pandaria
The HKC 25m Raid Resurgence
Shortly after the Mug'thol merger, the alliance as a whole on Akama and Dragonmaw were feeling the negative effects of being on the short end of a horde dominated stick. HKC had a successful 10man raid progressing through Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar with the first 3 bosses down as well as placing third overall after completing all Heroic 5.0 content by going back and finishing Heroic Heart of Fear and Heroic Terrace of the Endless Spring. Due to faction imbalance, HKC decided it was in its best interest to return to a 25man raid structure in order to keep alliance numbers static and help with recruitment. With blizzard releasing many catch up tools such as the purchase a level 90 and the free level 90 with a pre-order of the next expansion, many old school Hello Kitty raiders were returning to the game and our bench had just grown too large for 10m raiding.
After several weeks of scanning the available options on Akama and Dragonmaw for players willing to join with us to raid 25man, HKC absorbed a guild called Sorrow. Along with other recruits, HKC managed to full clear 25man Siege of Orgrimmar and become the first alliance guild on Akama/Dragonmaw/Mug'thol to record a 25man kill of Garrosh Hellscream! At the present time Hello Kitty Club has put 10m progression on hold and is striving to gear out returning players and work on 25man heroics.
Over the next 8 weeks following the first 25man Garrosh kill, HKC managed to not only gear new players but progress at a steady rate downing at least one new heroic boss a week if not multiple heroic bosses. During April and May HKC managed server first alliance side heroic kills of Fallen Protectors, Norushen, Sha of Pride, Galakras, Iron Juggernaut, Kor'Kron Dark Shaman, General Nazgrimm, Malkorok, and Thok the Bloodthirsty. Let it be noted that clever use of game mechanics were involved in the first Nazgrimm and Thok kills (GG). Let it also be noted that during this time, Hello Kitty Club also obtained server second kills Lei Shen and Ra-den in 10man Heroic Throne of Thunder!
With the arrival of summer, a few members took vacations and/or went casual in preparation for Warlords of Draenor. Wildstar Online also released during this time and HKC lost a few members to that MMO. Nevertheless, Hello Kitty Club is currently still working on progressing through 25man Heroic SoO along with the sales of 25man Garrosh Normal kills to players that are less fortunate.
Mists of Pandaria
The Content Lull
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During the latter summer months, Hello Kitty Club experienced its first true "Burnout" since reforming. With patch 5.4 being the last content patch for the Mists of Pandaria expansion, many core raiders just got tired of raiding Siege of Orgrimmar for over a year. Even though HKC was steadily progressing, many players decided to take a much needed break from the game and go do other things. With many raiders still wanting to progress, Rouk formed a casual 10man Heroic SoO group that managed to clear up to the original 25man Heroic stopping point of Thok the Bloodthirsty. This however was short lived due to more core raiders needing to take leave from the game to handle real life events.
One of the more interesting aspects of this content lull is that most of the core raid team decided to stick it out with HKC instead of move on to another guild or server. Given the fact that this content patch is the longest drought World of Warcraft has ever witnessed, this is a success in itself.
With the 6.0.2 Patch slated for an October 14th, 2014 release. Many players started to come back to the game and get back into the swing of things. With the implementation of the "Mythic Mode" difficulty in Siege of Orgrimmar, HKC went back in with 20 of its best to get the hard mode Garrosh kill. Officers of the guild then began liquidating most MoP items from the guild bank in order to stockpile gold for Warlords of Draenor. With raiding content not being available until 2 weeks after the expansion drops, it will be interesting to see what Hello Kitty Club is made of when up against some of the top Horde guilds not just on the server...but in all of World of Warcraft.
Warlords of Draenor
All Hype No Content
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Warlords of Draenor launched November 13th, 2014 and came with a ton of hype. Blizzard really focused on marketing this expansion to the mainstream media. One promotion even had a giant Gorehowl sliced through a taxi in the middle of Times Square in Manhattan! As for the expansion itself, Blizzard had high aspirations. Apparently Garrosh breaking out of jail and time traveling back to Draenor to save his father is a rather daring storyline.
Storyline aside, there were major graphical updates added which brought all races up to the Pandarian pixel count. All character models had major graphical upgrades. While there were some folks that missed the old models, over time they were embraced. Blizzard also finally added their version of player housing to the game in the form of Garrisons. While the Garrisons went through many iterations during alpha and beta prior to release, players were still looking forward to building their own homes in game.
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Launch night was a mess. Hello Kitty Club had a large number of returning players and was by far the healthiest Alliance guild roster on Akama. Blizzard opted to continue with a more linear questing experience which hit a snag when 100s of players were trying to chop down the same trees in one area in order to build their Garrison. While others wasted their time with this, many in guild decided to jump into higher level zones and farm rare spawns for mounts.
While the questing in Warlords of Draenor was regarded as one of the best experiences to date, as members of the guild began reaching max level everyone started to realize how little content there was outside of daily Garrison chores. The game felt unfinished and assets that were in game felt gutted. One prime example is Karabor, outside of the main storyline quest chain this entire zone remained unused. Outside of raid content, many players that came back to HKC for a more casual experience ended up quitting early on due to the lack of content.
Aurongodx continued to main tank during the opening months of the expansion but as time went on, he started taking more of a step back from the game. Kynar stepped up by taking over raid leading and main tank duties moving into the co-gm role while Aurongodx remained on as Guild Master.
Warlords of Draenor
Raiding the Warlords
Alliance progression on the connected Akama realms was nonexistent. While there were other Alliance guilds on Akama such has “Midnight Illusion” and “Weekend Warrior”, they did not raid any progression content. Hello Kitty Club still managed to keep pace with other top guilds on a Horde dominated server cluster.
Highmaul released two weeks after the launch of Warlords on December 2nd 2014. The first full time initial release with the new raid structure and Mythic difficulty. While not a difficult raid, Hello Kitty Club managed to achieve AOTC defeating Imperator Mar’gok on Heroic difficulty and had started progress in Mythic defeating the first 2 bosses when the next raid unlocked.
Blackrock Foundry had a delayed release, becoming available 2 months after Highmaul on February 3rd, 2015. This was a 10-boss raid featuring Blackhand as the final boss and served as the main source of acquiring the tier set armor. Presumably, this was done to avoid what occurred in Mists of Pandaria at launch trying to juggle your raid team’s progression in multiple instances at once. Hello Kitty Club basically focused its raid nights into Blackrock Foundry progression, achieving AOTC a month after release. Mythic progression remained split between the two raids prior to Hellfire Citadel releasing. Initially, raid content released at a rapid pace with Hellfire Citadel already on PTR by April. Hello Kitty Club wrapped up current content progression at 2/7 Mythic in Highmaul and 2/10 Mythic in Blackrock foundry.
Hellfire Citadel was released on June 23rd, 2015. Little did anyone know that this would be the only major content patch of the expansion. Technically this raid released with patch 6.2. The 6.1 patch released a few months prior but did not bring any raid content, only a selfie camera and Twitter integration in game. Hellfire Citadel was a massive 13 boss raid and had many memorable encounters. Hello Kitty Club achieved AOTC defeating Archimonde just under 2 months after its release. The next 5 months were spent focused on progressing in Mythic difficulty. Prior to the holiday break, Hello Kitty Club managed to clear through Socrethar ending at 8/13 Mythic.
During and after the holiday season, players in guild were just burnt out. The next expansion called “Legion”, had already been announced the August prior. It just seemed like Blizzard had given up on the current expansion and so did the player base. The decision was made to cut back to a casual heroic farm raid team after the holidays. Hello Kitty Club would have raiders that would take months long breaks then come back to the game just to see us still farming Heroic Archimonde kills. During the content draught HKC managed to go back and full clear Mythic Highmaul and Mythic Blackrock Foundry, being the only Alliance guild to do so during the expansion.
Prior to the release of Legion, talks of a guild transfer off server were making the rounds. While there were hundreds of good reasons to transfer to a higher population Alliance realm, Aurongodx held out hope that Blizzard would do something to help with population issues. Hello Kitty Club still felt like Akama was its home and kept a certain server pride of the old days. After all, everyone knew that there would be another influx of returning players for Legion.
Legion
Back to the Basics​
Who doesn’t love some Illidan amirite?!
Legion, which launched August 30th, 2016, was chaos because Hello Kitty Club was the only Alliance guild left on the connected realms worth a damn. Everyone left and right was jumping at the chance to get a spot. HKC had a surge of players come back to the game on top of that. Rouk and all his amazing bros came back to the guild as well. HKC had more players than we knew what to do with. Kynar Aurongodx and Veres talked about things we could do in order to keep this surge of player interest from getting bored and quitting again like what had happened last expansion.
Enter A Team and B Team
This was a solution that starting building momentum as the raid weeks went on. Basically at the start of Warlords we had a huge surge of players come back to the game. They would play through the quest line, do a couple of dungeons and then since we only had enough room for 30 raiders they would quit the game. This time around we made sure that was not going to happen. We easily managed to sustain 60+ raiders by having Kynar lead the “A Team” and Veres lead the “B Team”.
At the time we felt that this was a defining moment for HKC. Somehow against all the odds that Blizzard stacked against us by making it impossible to recruit and forcing this whole notion down our throats that this was a “Horde Only” area…we still managed to build a thriving community.
During Emerald Nightmare and Trial of Valor the main raid managed to stay at the top of server progression while our “B Team” raid kept players interested doing content and staying current on artifact weapons and gear level so they could be available to be called up if needed.
Alas all good things must come to an end.
HKC grew to a point where we were basically two guilds raiding under the same roof. We had plenty of active players but were lacking the correct caliber of player needed to progress further and the main raid wanted to do just that. Auron did not blame them for faction changing and creating “For Boys”. The guild wished them luck and told them that we would always be available if they needed. There will always be those that hold grudges or have bad blood toward those that leave.
No matter what the reasoning, Blizzard will always be the one that benefits. It costs 25 dollars to perform a server transfer, 30 dollars to perform a faction change, and 35 dollar to perform a guild transfer. Blizzard has more to gain in driving server balance further apart than it does bringing them closer together.
The secondary raid became the main raid and as the expansion has gone on the numbers have dwindled further and further. The game requires you to play in the open world. It is designed in a way promotes player interaction. I think this is a great idea but it also promotes server imbalance. No one is going to want to play on a server where they have to contend a quest area with 100s of the opposite faction. This leads to the player either re-rolling a character on a different server or throwing more money at Blizzard in order to play the game the way it is designed.
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Working as intended in Blizzards eyes.
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The year is 2017
Hello Kitty Club is transferring to Sargeras
Akama has been home to HKC for over 10 years. We have seen people that we have met in game grow up, graduate high school, college, get married, have kids…have their kids join the guild and play with us. We have all talked this over and if there is one thing I regret it is erasing the line I drew in the sand just a hair earlier so that the “For Boys” crew could have come along with us.
We have been on this server through thick and thin…riding the waves on the Akama ship. However the Alliance ship has sunk, it is at the bottom of the ocean and there is no dragging the lifeless vessel back up to the surface. I had hoped to hold this off until after Blizzcon in hopes that maybe they would address some sort of balance to this terrible situation but with a new content patch coming out we have made the decision to leave in order to provide an inviting atmosphere for players to thrive in.
Hell who knows maybe we will inch out a piece of that progression pie and give Midwinter a run for their money.
Legion
Raiding on Sargeras
The Legion expansion was jam packed with raid content and after our server transfer from a low population realm cluster we were thrust into the middle of the progression pack on Sargeras. There are hundreds of active raiding guilds that were full of healthy raiders all looking to progress through content. Recruitment started slowly given the high population, Sargeras is so saturated with guilds it is hard to stand out in the middle of the pack. The main draws that HKC had going for the guild was their friendly, active community and rich history. Players that had moved on from the guild many years ago that ended up on Sargeras saw the recruitment post spam began applying along with new players.
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Hello Kitty Club's core raid roster all made the move to Sargeras and progression through the raiding tiers of content went as expected. HKC managed to clear both Nighthold and Tomb of Sargeras on Heroic Difficulty completing the Ahead of the Curve achievements while playing catch up in the Mythic category but still managed a solid performance finishing 4/10 in The Nighthold and 4/9 in the Tomb of Sargeras. Sadly HKC would not repeat its early Mythic Emerald Nightmare magic and not manage to complete another Cutting Edge guild raid achievement in Legion.
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The first real test of the guild on a high population realm would come with the final tier of content in Legion. Antorus, The Burning Throne and its content patch was the driving force that led HKC to transfer to Sargeras mainly due to traveling to the planet Argus and the entire zone being contested territory. Hello Kitty Club was the only alliance guild left on the Akama server cluster which was completed horde dominated, transferring to Sargeras meant we would join the PVP server that had the highest Alliance population in the NA region. This was a much needed change for the guild after many years of having to put up with being camped by horde in any contested area and led to an enjoyable questing experience for the remainder of the Legion.
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Progression in Antorus went well with the combination of Teed and Laetus leading the raids along with Moghedain and Mapta tanking and Aurongodx filling in to tank occasionally. Hello Kitty Club managed to clear Heroic Antorus, The Burning Throne and achieve the Ahead of the Curve for the content patch while finishing 5 out of 11 in the Mythic category. HKC managed to solidify its roster during this content patch after leading a successful recruitment campaign along with many old faces returning after the Battle for Azeroth announcement.
Battle for Azeroth
The Reset
Hello Kitty Club prepared well for this expansion. Laetus and Teed grew into their leadership roles with preparing the roster for the expansion. The guild sold many Ahead of the Curve Antorus runs managing to make a very large sum of gold. The expansion had been teased for almost a year and the hype really felt real this time. Orcs vs Humans, Horde vs Alliance, a calling back to the days of vanilla PVP, high bars were set by Blizzard to deliver in Battle for Azeroth.
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Before the expansion set dropped there was another great reset. The 8.0 patch and the stat squish. Gone were our powerful artifact weapon abilities and millions of damage and hit points. We basically were reset back to our Cataclysm stat levels and it felt worse given the class changes and most abilities getting put on the GCD coupled that with a lackluster pre expansion event and the disgruntled player base was already sharpening the pitchforks. HKC took this time to recruit and call back to longtime players looking to get back into the game. Many main raiders that had been keeping up with class changes decided it would be best to swap characters due to nerfs to their current class.
This was the first launch night of a new expansion for HKC on a full population server and it was a disaster. Sargeras was down for many hours along with other full pop servers and for the first weeks following launch there were still many bugs that hindered game play. Many members in the guild were able to level to 120 within the first couple days. With Blizzard adapting the gated content formula from past expansion launches, HKC had a couple weeks to gear and farm for the first raid of BFA being Uldir.
This expansion launched with many different systems for gathering gear and materials. Along with the standard Heroic and Mythic dungeons, we were also able to get gear from Island Expeditions and Warfronts. Our artifact weapons were replaced with The Heart of Azeroth necklace that will increase in power throughout this expansion. During this time Laetus was promoted to the status of Co-GM along with Teed resuming raid leader duties.
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Hello Kitty Club on Sargeras is in a very healthy state going into Battle for Azeroth. We have a very active community and many popular twitch streamers in guild to help keep track of our heroic/mythic raiding and mythic + progress. HKC will be back for Blizzcon 2018 and the group will be larger than ever! Many surprises lay just around the corner for HKC...
Battle for Azeroth
The Phantom G’huunies
Well before Blizzcon came and went, HKC was hard at work on the entry tier content patch for BFA, the titan research and quarantine facility Uldir. Progression at the start of expansions is always an interesting time. Back in the day Blizzard had multiple tiers of content available at an expansion launch but they were gated via various attunements and gear checks. Blizzard has since streamlined its process in which content is introduced and simply time gate the content until the majority of players can reach max level and progress enough to have a decent set of gear. Even with this time gate there are still instances where multiple guilds start at varying playing fields and HKC had quite a starting roster of old and new players to work through in order to build our main mythic team for Uldir.
Uldir progression began September 4th, 2018 and was steady to start. We tried our hand at Heroic first managing to clear the first two bosses before eventually dropping back down to normal for the first week normal mode clear that we have grown accustomed to with past tiers. Within the first month of released we had full cleared Heroic and managed to farm a Mythic Taloc kill prior to finally defeating G’huun and receiving the “Ahead of the Curve” feat of strength for this content patch. Teed continued his raid leading duties and guided the guild through many difficult boss encounters and HKC managed to down MOTHER prior to most of our officer core and other raiders traveling to Blizzcon. Hello Kitty Club finished Uldir at 5/8 Mythic after getting stuck at the Fetid Devourer wall until one week prior to the next content release.
Along with Uldir, G’huun’s presence was felt and featured in smaller content throughout the beginning of the expansion with the “Infested” mechanic. This was an added affix to Mythic + once you passed level 10 on your key for the week. This mechanic proved to be quite annoying due to randomly infesting different mobs throughout the dungeons and basically force you to focus target that due to the healing mechanic of all other mobs nearby. Once defeated you would then have to deal with Spawns of G’huun that could infest other mobs nearby if not dealt with quickly. Hello Kitty Club had many groups able to complete 10 keys for the week in order to acquire the best gear possible from the weekly chest available but a token few lead by Teed managed to compete at the top of their class. Many HKC members ended the first season of Mythic + at the top of their brackets!
Battle for Azeroth
Attack of the Bob Salami
After Blizzcon, HKC was at a crossroads with a new tier quickly approaching and a guild leader that had an intention of stepping down being told to continue to lead. Battle of Dazar’alor was released January 22nd, 2019 and by this time the raid roster was pretty fleshed out. Our recruitment officer at the time, Laetus, had departed for Final Fantasy XIV and greener pastures. After much thought and consultation it was only fitting that one of his recruits, Emo, would take his place in that role. Her reach as a twitch streamer and her ability to interact with a large group of people on multiple platforms made it a no brainer.
Battle of Dazar’alor was Blizzards first attempt at giving the Alliance and Horde a different raid experience in the same raid tier. The first boss in the raid was a different NPC for each faction in the “Champion of the Light” encounter…however they had the same abilities. The next boss for alliance was the Jadefire Masters and then an undead version of Grong the Jungle Lord while horde fought the living version of Grong and then Jadefire Masters. The last 6 bosses were split between an Alliance and Horde eyewitness count of how the raid unfolded with the final boss being the one and only “Lady Jaina Proudmoore” and depending on which boss you were on you were faction changed racial abilities and all! It was an interesting concept that Blizzard managed to pull off in the end.
Hello Kitty Club took a different approach this tier and Teed decided on pushing for the normal clear prior to attempting heroic. HKC full cleared and defeated Jaina within the first two nights of the content being released and managed to full clear heroic within the first 4 raid weeks. Prior to clearing heroic and with what has become an accustomed tradition with Mythic raiding, the first boss proved to be laughable and was cleared for gear purposes prior to Jaina being defeated. Mythic Dazar’alor got off to a fast start with both the second and third encounters falling in the same night…this was short lived however due to Opulence and its wall of mechanics that proved quite difficult to overcome taking over a month to conquer. Opulence took a lot out of the guild and it hindered progress due to losing highly skilled players along the way. In turn that led to taking another month to defeat the Conclave of the Chosen.
Backed by many months of half mythic clears, King Rastakhan fell within a week of Conclave but by this point the guild was drained mentally and after many weeks of High Tinker Mekkatorque miscues not even raid nerfs were enough to overcome him and HKC ended progression this tier at 6/9 Mythic.
During raid progression this tier, the mythic + affix was changed up and along with Battle of Dazar’alor came the “Reaping” affix. Powered by Bwonsamdi, this affix basically resurrected all the mobs you had killed in the dungeon and they came hurling at you at a high rate of speed. This occurred every 20 % of your trash completion and really added a fun element to mythic + with high DPS and healing numbers. Warriors shined during this mythic + season and even Teed enjoyed running high keys with Aurongodx! Many members of HKC managed to once again top the charts in many class categories and along with our Australian buddies from the Dragonmaw server, HKC had one of the top Mythic + teams on Sargeras.
This tier was jam packed with content and in the middle of it all Blizzard decided to release another raid encounter comprised of two bosses, something they have not done in a very long time. The Crucible of Storms was a stop gap that had interesting mechanics and abilities attaches to gear rewards as well as strong trinkets. HKC managed to clear both normal and heroic on the first night of the raids release but with Dazar’alor progression in full force, we never attempted to progress through mythic in this two boss raid. Many other guilds followed suit with the difficulty curve being quite high for minimal reward considering this did not really feel like a “World First Race” raid instance.
Battle for Azeroth
Revenge of the Beguiling
Battle of Dazar’alor left sour taste in mouth. It was time for a new raid tier and Hello Kitty Club was looking to go on a redemption tour, queue up The Eternal Palace! The patch brought about a large new zone to quest and explore along with a lot of content to absorb and new catch up mechanics for returning players. HKC started off on the right foot headed into normal mode and full clearing The Eternal Palace on release night July 9th, 2019! By weeks end HKC managed to clear 6 of the 8 bosses on heroic and was poised to make an impact on Mythic difficulty in the coming weeks. Within the first month of release, HKC managed to achieve the “Ahead of the Curve” along with defeating the first 3 bosses on Mythic difficulty! Unfortunately the difficulty curve increased sharply at the fourth encounter, Lady Ashvane. It took a substantial nerf to her health in order to defeat her and going almost 2 months without progression really took a hit on our morale. Things did not get any easier and it took almost 3 months after Lady Ashvane fell and another nerf to defeat the fifth encounter on Mythic, Orgozoa.
With the new raid tier came the new affix for Mythic + in “Beguiling”. This affix added various servants of Azshara throughout the dungeons that had different abilities that needed to be dealt with in varying ways. To date this affix has been shown to be least popular however and even in the MDI finals at Blizzcon they resorted to using the Reaping affix that was very popular last tier. As per prior Mythic + seasons, Teed and his crew proved to be very strong in high keys and still hold top server times and rankings. This tier brought about the introduction of a new rank in the guild called “Mythic + Kitty” due to popularity of members in the guild such as Zaaddy and Joeycokes twitch streams showcasing timed high level key runs. Broadcasting the guild name in a positive light is always promoted and encouraged!
I will say this regarding the perceived under-performance this tier. Most notably being that this raid has been one of the most difficult in terms of mechanics and DPS requirements to date. Blizzard really pushed the envelope to the maximum and many guilds ended up in the same situation we did. As of the beginning of 2020, technically there can still be progression made before the final tier of content is released for this expansion. A shake up once again in the leadership core also took place during this time with Laetus returning to the recruitment officer role with Emo taking an extended absence from officer leadership. HKC took their annual holiday break right after they defeated Orgozoa and HKC has maintained a top 1000 US guild standing the entire expansion. Another factor that played a part in progression this tier had to do with a competing MMO joining the space. This was unique in the fact that Blizzard themselves threw the wrench in with the release of World of Warcraft Classic at the end of August, right in the middle of Eternal Palace progression. Many retail guilds fell by the wayside due to all of these factors but HKC has very deep roots that are not so easily upended.
As Hello Kitty Club moves forward into 2020 with the final patch of Battle for Azeroth set to release, many guild fundamentals are being reevaluated and a new foundation is being crafted in order to avoid mistakes made in the past. Our goal has always been to provide a positive, friendly, encouraging atmosphere that promotes personal growth as well as character growth. With Shadowlands on the horizon, HKC will continue to improve on over 13 years of history going forward.
Battle for Azeroth
Awaken the Corruption
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At the turn of the new year, Hello Kitty Club was in full on extended break mode. With news of the next content patch drop weeks into January, it had been decided that the guild would continue their break past the normal holiday window and into the new year. During this time, the inevitable buildup of an eventful 2019 had reached its breaking point and once the initial dust had settled, a good portion of our core raid team had departed for new horizons.
With many gaping holes in the raid roster needing to be filled, the leadership team got to work. Auron still had the rolodex and between his trade chat spam skills and asking Laetus to come back to head up recruitment, things quickly started looking less grim on patch day. Over the course of January, HKC managed to rebuild its healing core, Auron asked Acid take a break from the International Space Station and dust off the staff to come back and heal on his priest and Telo enlisted the help of his daughter Honeylily to throw lots of chain heals. Their addition completed an already strong healing team. HKC also made solid improvements in the DPS core by adding Drattah, Cheech, Pokester, the UwU crew (Cho, Long, Emi) and others later on. Tanks however continued to be a revolving door around Zead and whoever else was up to the task and at the start of the tier it was Gren.
With this likely being the final content patch before Shadowlands, HKC had set a rather low expectation in terms of progression given our recent roster rebuild. There were many helpful new mechanics added with this patch that would be very beneficial later on. Wrathion had finally returned and he brought with him a very powerful new legendary cape that was used in line with the new corruption gear mechanic that allowed for amazing damage and abilities at the expense of harmful effects depending on your corruption resistance level. A new mythic+ mechanic called “Awakening” was added allowing you to traverse the void in dungeons after killing a powerful mob thus giving you the option of new routes and easier trash skips. Also added were weekly heroic visions of Stormwind and Orgrimmar that rotated between each week and allowed an additional way of upgrading your capes corruption resistance and an additional gearing source.
All of these new additions were added on top of our already existing systems which were everyone's favorite Heart of Azeroth and Azerite Armor. This was the accumulation of systems built to replace other failed systems and was the trend of Battle for Azeroth.
Battle for Azeroth
Raiding in Ny'alotha
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Patch 8.3’s main raiding content was the realm of the old gods, Ny’alotha the Waking City. This 12 boss raid launched on January 21st, 2020 with the main antagonist being the remaining old god N’zoth the Corruptor and Hello Kitty Club was as ready as ever to get back into the swing of things. Unlike with prior tiers throughout this expansion, HKC decided to start with normal progression and hold off for the first two nights before finally starting heroic. Over the opening weeks, strengths were built on and weaknesses were fixed with the roster and within the first month of progression HKC had achieved AOTC for Heroic Ny’alotha on February 20th, 2020!
During the spring months of March and April, HKC made steady progression through the first half of Ny’alotha and exceeded expectations. By the end of March HKC had been killing a new mythic boss each week and were up to 5 bosses down on Mythic difficulty! Dark Inquisitor Xanesh proved to be the first wall that was hit due to not being able to play soccer but even he fell by mid-April. Through the mid-tier struggles, Hello Kitty Club was still managing to maintain a solid roster and attendance by picking up Smash, Skorp, Lopez and Falir which helped put HKC over the edge in terms of dps. With the super final departure of Gren tanking after the first Vexiona kill, many tanks filled in while progression continued and the guild searched for someone to tank alongside Zead. Auron was able to assist with Ra-den progression and contributed to the first kill while on vacation. Drest’agath fell shortly after in the next lockout as summer began. Hello Kitty Club was looking at the final 3 bosses and a shot a cutting edge!
June was a long month of prog on one of the most difficult bosses in Ny'alotha, Il’gynoth. He managed to stay alive throughout June and not falling until July 1st. The raid roster was poised for a final push, Cho has gone Brewmaster in order to fill the much needed tank role and Acid was promoted to officer to take over recruitment and lead various out of raid activities. Hello Kitty Club also picked up solid DPS members Insulator, Dothoppy, and Cyclonezz. Acid led many Mythic Jaina run farms over the summer and in turn, most of the guild members acquired her mount. By this point Teed was extending raid lockouts just to work on new boss progression.
By mid-July the Carapace of N’Zoth had fallen and everyone asked themselves “can we really get cutting edge?”. There was one final test that remained, most guilds at this point had quit raiding and their members gone casual in preparation for Shadowlands. This made recruitment nonexistent...Hello Kitty Club would have to endure Mythic N'zoth attempts with what they had built and no recruitment parachute to pull.
Battle for Azeroth
A fitting end and Cutting Edge
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Hello Kitty Club had always wanted to be a guild that achieved cutting edge every tier, at one point in time during Legion a raid team was built that could and did accomplish that. Could it be done again? Many factors were at play for our 2020 push for Cutting Edge N’zoth the Corruptor and it ended gloriously.
N’zoth was an unforgiving fight even at the stage of the game that Hello Kitty Club were attempting him. It was a very long, very coordinated, very class immunity driven fight. One mistake was a wipe, an early death was a wipe, a missed movement was a wipe. The latter of July and August were painful. Hello Kitty Club put in over 300 attempts before September rolled around and with each week passing by, the Shadowlands pre-patch announcement was ever looming. These factored coupled with summer burnout of an extended end expansion patch left many wondering if HKC was going to get the job done and come home with Cutting Edge. The active raid roster had slowly been dwindling down due to burnout various other reasons but attempts continued into September.
With a pre-patch announcement that could come at any week, HKC picked up extra raid nights and even raided past scheduled times in order to continue progression on N’zoth. With practically no bench to pull from at this point there was a small window of time where all 20 on roster could continue to push.
Everything came to fruition on a cold Wednesday night September 16th when finally, an attempt was put together that squeezed every last ounce of precision out of the raid team. The kill video can be seen here and no words can do it justice on how Teed literally solo’ed N’zoth’s last ticks of damage before becoming mind controlled which resulted in Hello Kitty Club achieving Cutting Edge Mythic Ny’alotha! Acid and Cheech were the lucky precipitants of the Mythic N’zoth mount drop, well deserved!
Immediately following the cries of joy, thanks, and farewells…it was obvious that everyone had worked so hard to accomplish this but for some it was a time to bid farewell before moving on to new journeys in the Shadowlands. Auron awarded Aleenka, Thanos, Cheech, Rionias, Honeylily, Telo, and Long with their choice of store mount for perfect attendance over the 8-month mythic progression. Hello Kitty Club had gone into a much needed break mode after a long 8 months of mythic progression. Shadowlands release date had been announced (for the first time) and post BFA planning had begun.
Shadowlands
Time to be Prideful
With Shadowlands on the horizon, HKC went into rebuild mode in order to stock the raid roster for the upcoming Castle Nathria entry raid. Spreadsheets were filled out and a preliminary roster was built that would be ready for the October 27th release date. Many familiar faces were returning for Shadowlands as well as a few old school members that wanted to get back into the swing of things. Sadly things would not go off without a hitch, the first being Blizzard announcing a delay to the launch. No longer would launch be the week before Halloween, now Shadowlands is launching the Monday before Thanksgiving in the US. This meant that week one raiding and the Race to World First event would be taking place in the middle of the holiday season.
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Regardless, HKC was prepared and on the eve of launch night there were over 60 players online ready to level! For many folks, the Thanksgiving holiday launch week played in their favor allowing them the week off to play to their heart's content. The Shadowlands launched on November 23rd, 2020 without too much trouble. There was a snag for some in the introductory questline for The Maw area, otherwise once you completed that instanced area you were met with a choice between four zones and their Main Story Quest chains. I am sure Blizzard borrowed this quest design choice from Final Fantasy XIV’s MSQ’s. Most notably one of the major feats of the night was Teed and Serg leveling to 60 and Teed achieving the server first level 60 on Sargeras!
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The weeks following launch were filled with farming heroic and mythic dungeons in preparation for Castle Nathria. The Mythic affix for this tier of content is called Prideful. This triggered every 20% of the completed trash count and spawned a mob that when killed gave the raid team a powerful damage buffs that could be used to burst down bosses. Hello Kitty Club exceled once again in the farming of gear and completion of hundreds of high level keys achieving many top IO scores on Sargeras and completing the +15 key mount achievements for many in guild.
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Poised to repeat their cutting edge performance last tier, HKC had many returning faces to the raid roster. Wanting to solidify their tank core, Acid and Laetus decided to reroll for Shadowlands and become the main tanks of the guild with Aurongodx playing a supporting role to fill in if needed. In an attempt to plan ahead for broken DPS classes, Laetus recruited many Hunters, Boomkins, and Warlocks. All things considered, HKC had a very healthy roster going into the New Year.
Shadowlands
Raiding Nathria
Due to expansion release delays, Castle Nathria ended up going live two weeks prior to Christmas on December 8, 2020. Not ideal but nonetheless HKC was poised for a strong showing on launch week…that is until that first Tuesday finally came. It wasn’t that the raid was difficult, it’s that it was just very fine tuned to gear progression and mythic 0 gear just didn’t cut it for us. After about an hour of wipes on Shriekwing, Teed made the call to switch to normal difficulty. With the raid roster stacked with 30 at all times being the start of a new expansion and many new and old faces, HKC managed a full clear of Castle Nathria week one on normal difficulty.
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As the raid roster fleshed itself out, legendaries were crafted and more gear was acquired, heroic Nathria bosses fell. With the delayed release, the call was made to not take as much time off as normal during the holidays in order to ride momentum of a fresh expansion launch. Doing this proved beneficial, allowing HKC to have the first 2 bosses down on Mythic difficulty and achieve AOTC defeating Sire Denathrius 6 weeks after launch!
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Mythic Nathria progression started off very well, HKC made it a point to try and start extending earlier in the tier in order to avoid crunch time for cutting edge. Progression was consistent on average clearing a new boss each lockout, that is until it came time for Council of Blood prog. A difficult boss coupled with roster issues that starting to show themselves a few months into the expansion, progression was slow. Luckily a few returning members from the BFA roster returned during this time helped us fill up weak spots that were starting to show themselves in the roster. With the edition of Bronze, Long, Faux, and Choweave, HKC managed to clear Council and Sludgefist over the next month.
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Stone Legion Generals proved to be the wall this tier. A difficult fight that took precise raid coordination, HKC spent over 8 weeks and 300 wipes on this boss before finally defeating them. Sadly, the following week the next raid tier was announced and given the amount of time left before the next patch, it was deemed there was not enough time to get cutting edge and Hello Kitty Club finished 9/10 Mythic for the Nathria raid tier.
Shadowlands
Tormenting the Soggodon
With the end of 9.0 came many changes and while the start of the expansion began with a lot of enthusiasm and a large returning pool of players, that had mostly died off by the start of summer. It’s nothing out of the norm for there to be some turnover between raid tiers, however HKC will largely start with a different roster than it had at the start of the expansion. With many reasons given from college to summer vacations and playing new MMOs coming out, players like Heslep, Pert, Sorki, and Kash called it quits. On top of it all was the fact that this was the first patch Blizzard completed remotely working from home due to the ongoing COVID pandemic.
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The new 9.1 patch "Chains of Domination" launched June 29th, 2021 and came jam packed with features that should have arrived at launch. The new raid is Sanctum of Domination, another 10 boss raid tier this time with the goal of defeating Sylvanas Windrunner. A new timeless isle type zone called Korthia was added along with many real time events to do with others. With the new tier comes a new Mythic + affix called “Tormenting”. This entails mini-bosses that you defeat during the dungeon clear that will give you powerful buffs to be used for the rest of the run. Hello Kitty Club continued mythic + dominance by achieving many high level key groups and having many guild members with top IO scores on Sargeras.
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With a new raid tier comes a new borrowed power system with “Domination Gear”, armor that has unique gem slots for “Domination Shards” that will increase in power as the tier went on. It’s not all bad news at least, instead of retiring legendary gear from last patch, they allowed the continuing upgrade of them to higher item level. When will Blizzard learn that borrowed power systems are not fun!?
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Given all the hard work that went into 9.1, it is a shame that it has all been overshadowed by the coming to light of the various sexual harassment lawsuits involving high level Blizzard employees. This story will take hold in more ways than one affecting players, guilds, Blizzcon, and hitting close to home with some long-standing guild members canceling their subscription in protest. With each damning testimony, many in the company quit and on multiple occasions even complete work stoppages. All of these things coupled with the prior delays due to COVID made this raid tier last much longer than originally intended. You can read the ever-unfolding long version of the story here.
Shadowlands
Raiding Sanctum
Sanctum of Domination launched July 6th, 2021 and with the start of this raid tier, all difficulties were viable. The domination gear power system this patch required you farm bosses for the domination gear, the shards to equip them with, and the currency to upgrade the shards in order to increase the power of the gear. None of these items were a 100% drop so it took a bit of luck as well, which made this power system very frustrating for some.
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Week one went as expected, HKC members enjoyed the race to world first streams and full cleared normal and the first 5 bosses on heroic. Tarragrue ended up being a loot piñata and was cleared on Mythic during the initial launch week and by the third week the guild was already at Sylvanas. Then the lawsuits and Blizzard drama hit the news waves and became public. In game and out of game protests were in the many, and a few raiders on the roster most notably Laetus announced that he would be taking a step away from the guild and the game retiring from the officer core. The guild scrambled to find another main tank and recruited Ami to play Guardian alongside Acid on his Vengeance Demon Hunter. It’s never easy to swap a main tank during progression but by week 6 Hello Kitty Club achieved AOTC defeating Sylvanas Windrunner and was steadily progressing in Mythic.
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As with last tier, HKC attempted to start extending lockouts even sooner in order to make sure there was enough time to progress on Sylvanas for cutting edge. The first wall of the raid was reached within two months of launch, Painsmith Raznal. Painsmith was a very difficult fight that required everyone in the raid to move precisely during intermission phases with any wrong move causing a raid wipe. This wall of a boss took almost 200 wipes and 5 weeks of prog before finally being defeated. To put Painsmith in perspective, the next boss Guardian of the First Ones, was defeated the same lockout in less than 40 pulls.
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As Summer turned to Fall, given the ongoing legal issues coupled with the pandemic delays everyone knew this would be a long raid tier. Kel’Thuzad was defeated before our Thanksgiving break on November 17th and HKC felt like it had a good shot at getting Cutting Edge this tier. The roster felt solid especially with many solid recruits that were picked up mid-tier. Folks like Raioc, Hitane, Fibblin, Blubbie, Stay and Frank really made the roster stronger. Between November 2021 and February 2022, Hello Kitty Club put in over 17 nights of attempts and almost over 280 pulls on Sylvanas but sadly came up short on a kill, calling it quits once the 9.2 patch date was announced finishing 9/10 Mythic for the Sanctum raid tier. Sylvanas was a very difficult boss and with her prog landing over the holiday season many raiders on the roster just got burnt out.
Shadowlands
Encrypting the Urh
Coming off one of the longest patch cycles in recent history, the 9.2 patch "Eternity's End" launched on February 22nd, 2022. The raid roster felt deflated but remained largely unchanged with the exception of yet another tank change with Someguy moving into the Prot Paladin role and Acid main swapping to Brewmaster Monk. There was disappointment from raiders that Sylvanas prog had come to an end but also a sigh of relief that the next tier of content will be designed for the players. With the recent backlash from the player base regarding Blizzards legal issues and game mechanics approach, the developers decided to actually listen to the fans. The cries for tier sets were finally answered, the grinds for borrowed power systems were nowhere to be found, the ability to freely swap between all 4 covenants, currencies were added with the purpose of transforming gear into tier or raid pieces if you were unable to raid the content and so much more. All things were lining up to be a “casual” player’s content patch.
Given all of these changes, things started to look like they had decided to push all remaining Shadowlands content into this 9.2 patch. With the announcement that there would not be another fresh raid tier, it was looking like Sepulcher of the First Ones and it’s 11 boss raid would be the last raid tier for Shadowlands. While no reason was ever given, it had been speculated that this raid was really the 9.2 raid and the important encounters from a canceled 9.3 raid smashed together. Going up against many big names such as Anduin, Mal’Ganis, and The Jailer himself, this raid was jammed packed with interested encounters. With the new tier came yet another new Mythic + affix called “Encrypted”, a powerful affix that depending on which mob you decided to defeat would provide the group with power buffs. Hello Kitty Club continued mythic + dominance by achieving many high level key groups and having many guild members with top IO scores on Sargeras.
With the return of tier sets and the many ways to acquire the pieces, player power greatly increased depending on how quickly you acquired your 2 and 4 set piece bonuses. This coupled with yet another item level upgrade on our legendary and the added bonus that of being able to equip 2 legendaries at the same time made for exciting gameplay. These items were easily farmed on the new content area added for patch 9.2 called Zereth Mortis which had a lot of added optional content which provided you with the cosmic flux needed to bis out your character. All things 9.2 were looking like a slam dunk for Blizzard, on paper at least.
Shadowlands
Raiding Sepulcher
The new raid "Sepulcher of the First Ones" launched on March 2nd, 2022. With 9.2 being a primary focus on freedom on your character, the only gated power your character had was behind your 2 and 4 set piece bonus on tier gear. This made all raid difficulties viable at the start of the patch. HKC decided to take a similar approach and on launch night went right into Heroic difficulty managing to get down the first 3 bosses. The following night was spent clearing as much of normal as possible in order to fill out potential tier changes on your weekly chest as well as tier drops from bosses. By the end of the first raid week, HKC had managed to clear through Anduin. Alongside our progression was the ever-exciting Race to world first event going on in the background which very quickly began showing the major flaw in the raid.
The raid was fucking difficult. Many of the top guilds in the world struggled with multiple mid raid bosses including Halondrus and Auduin. It quickly became a fact that this raid was tuned around the entire raid wearing 4-piece tier for the set bonus, which was locked behind major luck since the creation catalyst module used to craft your own tier gear was not releasing for 8 weeks. On top of it all, The Jailer did not drop a tier piece so many guilds including HKC, did not even bother defeating him. Hello Kitty Club one shot the Jailer on normal mode but did not even attempt him on heroic until the raid had been out for a month. Over the next month, HKC primarily focused on mythic prog and gearing the raid team out with tier gear. By the time the creation catalyst had become active in week 8, HKC had defeated the Jailer achieving AOTC in Sepulcher.
While the roster primarily stayed the same, HKC had some solid pickups throughout the tier such as Boomer and Minazukii. Sepulcher proved to be a very challenging raid for most guilds and excitement for the tier fell off quickly. Many guilds broke up under the pressure but HKC pressed on. With Sepulcher being an 11-boss raid, there were still many challenging fights and Artificer, Prototype Pantheon, and Lihuvim all fell after multiple weeks of prog. The first and only wall boss in Sepulcher that HKC managed to defeat was Halondrus at a lower-than-average pull count of 175.
Sadly, by the time work had begun on Anduin the damage to morale had been done. Even with the 9.2.5 patch releasing which brought about many quality-of-life changes and major nerfs to the raid content, most raiding guilds had already called it quits. Blizzard was even so desperate to allow cross faction play for the first time ever just to try and help out the imbalance of population between the Alliance and Horde. With Dragonflight announced and the announcement of a new season of raiding content that reuses the prior 3 raids with upscaled gear, Hello Kitty Club decided to stop progression at 7/11 Mythic for Sepulcher of the First Ones. The next "season" of content will be experimental for everyone and HKC is looking to take a more relaxed approach to avoid burnout before the Dragonflight launch.
Shadowlands
Fated Recycling
In the concluding phase of raid content, Blizzard unveiled the Fated tier that launched August 2nd, 2022, which represented the ultimate level of difficulty for the game's raiding challenges. Rather than introducing a fresh raid, Blizzard opted to cycle through the preceding three raid tiers on a weekly basis, elevating them to the current standards of difficulty and gear. This entailed incorporating distinctive mechanics that demanded specific strategies corresponding to the chosen level of difficulty.
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During the fated tier of content in World of Warcraft, Hello Kitty Club emerged as a distinctive guild known for its casual approach to raiding. Despite their laid-back style, they achieved remarkable success in tackling the challenges presented by the latest raiding content.
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In Castle Nathria, the first raid of the tier, Hello Kitty Club showcased their determination by defeating 9 out of the 10 bosses on Mythic difficulty. This accomplishment proved their capability to overcome intricate mechanics and coordinate effectively, despite not adhering to a rigid raiding schedule.
Moving on to the Sanctum of Domination, the guild's prowess continued to shine as they conquered 7 out of the 10 bosses on Mythic difficulty. This consistent performance across different raids highlighted their adaptability and willingness to engage with challenging encounters.
In the Sepulcher of the First Ones, the final raid of the tier, Hello Kitty Club managed to defeat 5 out of the 11 bosses, again on Mythic difficulty. Their progression showcased not only their skill but also their commitment to exploring all aspects of the game's content.
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What set Hello Kitty Club apart was their ability to balance a more relaxed approach with meaningful achievements. By fully clearing all three raids on Heroic difficulty, they proved that a guild's success could be measured by more than just the speed of progression. They demonstrated that friendship, community, and a positive attitude were integral to their accomplishments in the world of Azeroth setting them up for success in the next Warcraft expansion, Dragonflight.
Dragonflight
Thundering Dragons
During the launch of the Dragonflight expansion in World of Warcraft on November 28th, 2022, Hello Kitty Club emerged with renewed energy and determination. Focused on achieving the coveted Cutting Edge achievement, the guild meticulously rebuilt its raiding roster for the challenging journey ahead, setting its sights on conquering the inaugural raid, the Vault of the Incarnates.
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The expansion introduced a sprawling continent known as "The Dragon Isles," a vast landscape that necessitated new mounts equipped with the innovative "Dragon Riding" ability. This groundbreaking feature enabled astonishingly swift travel at speeds of up to 1000% the normal flight pace, undoubtedly one of the most exhilarating highlights of the expansion's launch. A fresh dimension to the game arose with the inclusion of the "Dracthyr" race, formidable beings capable of shifting between humanoid and dragon forms. These new additions contributed potent damage and healing specializations, adding depth to gameplay diversity. A notable evolution came with the complete revamp of professions, rendering them genuinely useful for the first time. Many Hello Kitty Club members took their commitment a step further by conducting thorough research, enabling them to craft some of the most potent weaponry and armor available, while some still found themselves catching up in this new landscape of craftsmanship.
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During the inaugural season of Mythic Plus content in World of Warcraft, Hello Kitty Club proved their mettle by effectively navigating the challenges posed by the "Thundering" affix. This distinctive mechanic required players to confront a debuff that demanded precise coordination: colliding with players of the opposite polarity to avoid debilitating stuns. Through their strategic prowess and collective effort, the guild emerged triumphant.
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Notably, Hello Kitty Club achieved remarkable success by securing top realm scores in Mythic Plus dungeons. This accomplishment underscored their dedication and skill in tackling the intricate mechanics and demanding encounters that the season presented. Furthermore, individual members of the guild displayed exceptional prowess, earning themselves prestigious season titles. These titles served as a testament to their exceptional performance and unwavering commitment to mastering the Mythic Plus challenges.
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Amidst the grandeur of Dragonflight's launch, Hello Kitty Club navigated the new expansion's complexities with a blend of ambition, camaraderie, and adaptability, showcasing their resilience and enthusiasm as they delved into the uncharted territories of The Dragon Isles.
