Rage Winterchill

Last night we decided to make a quick foray into Hyjal for a change of pace. The fact that we had two pally tanks certainly helped the decision along. Most of us had read up on the fight a bit.

The interesting thing about this fight is that rather than fighting your way through trash to the boss, it comes to you in waves. Think Black Morass - except all in one spot. If you kill a wave fast enough, you have time to take a drink before the next wave comes along. If you don't, then you'll be overwhelmed by adds (nasty ones at that). Another interesting thing is that it's a very good fight to have your PVP trinket equipped. Rage has a number of abilities that you'll want to trinket (or shapeshift, when possible) out of. One of those abilities is his ice bolt - it does 4250-5750 frost damage AND encases the target in something much like an ice trap - except that it does an additional 2500 damage every second. While I was able to shapeshift out of the frost nova he often did, I couldn't shift out of the frozen tomb...hence the trinket.

So our first attempt(s) went like this:

Wipe on trash wave 6.
Kill all waves of trash and wipe on Rage at around 34%.
Boss kill!

Woot! He's dead!

We'll be heading back to Tempest Keep and SSC the rest of this week. The plan is to return to the fights we haven't seen in a while (in particular, Al'ar, who we haven't attempted since our first kill of him) and get these bosses to the point of truly being on farm. Then we'll start focusing on Vashj and Kael.

On a totally separate note, at the end of the raid, I found myself pulled suddenly (and without notice) into the officer channel. I was stunned...WHAT DID I DO?!? I even blurted that out, I think. And suddenly, I had 3 or 4 officers saying "You're in TROUBLE, Essy!" Argh. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what it might have been... Well, I found myself drafted. No longer can I listen to someone and then say "well, have you talked to an officer about it?" C'est la vie.

Leo Down!

Well, Leo is officially dead! It was a rough night, but after wiping at 3% on our first attempt when Leo enraged, 2 stupid wipes, and then wiping twice in a row at 1%, we finally got him down! Hooray!

Today, after the reset, we went back in and killed Hydross, Lurker and Tidewalker in quick succession. (YAY!). Then we got our first look at Fathom-Lord Karathress. There was a bit of confusion at the beginning of the fight and some of the misdirects didn't go off. We tried two or three more times, but it was near the end of raid time, so we decided to knock off for the night and come back tomorrow, rarin' to go.

On a side note, if you remember my post The Guild from a while back, the guild that was formed when some folks split off was also heading into SSC tonight as we were going in. The second we were inside, suddenly /1 (the local channel) was flooded with spam and unnecessary comments, clearly trying to distract us and/or get a reaction. My reaction was to move that channel to a separate tab in Prat (I love Prat!) that I easily was able to ignore. It's sad that people can't just walk away and focus on building a guild instead of tearing down another.

Tidewalker Washed Away!

Serpentshrine Cavern, Zangarmarsh
April 30, 2008

This just in! Distant Beliefs has downed its third boss in SSC. On its first night ever facing the incredibly ugly Morogrim Tidewalker, Distant Beliefs has sent him to his watery grave. The members of the execution team were seen laughing over his dead body before heading off to make Leotheras the Blind its next target.

ZA Progression

Well, last night, we downed the first four bosses in ZA, anticipating returning tonight to work on the Hex Lord Malacrass. And work on him, we did. I lost track of our attempts, we had two druid healers and a holy pally. Two rogues, a dps warrior, a mage, a warlock, a shadow priest and a pally tank.


Finally, after several tries getting him down to anywhere from 12 to 30 percent, we killed him! He dropped Dagger of Bad Mojo and the Staff of Primal Fury. Deressy ended up with the staff, as the other druid had the (better) badge staff, and seven more badges (2 for the kill and 5 for the quest).

We took a couple of runs at Zul'Jin afterwards, with our best attempt of the 3 getting him down to 43%. Not bad for a first run at him, having done no real research.

Earlier in the evening, though, we decided to take a look at the Sunwell trash - just for fun. What disaster! Well, not completely...we cleared out 3 pulls worth and picked up 3 epic gems and got a nice bit of humble pie! It was fun though!

Recent Acquisitions

Deressy finally completed the final quests she needed to get the title, Champion of the Naaru! Woot!

In addition, last night, she picked up the one thing she *really* wanted out of ZA: Mojo.

SSC Progress

It's late and I'm tired, so I won't go into too much detail. However, after a couple of nights trying, we've now downed Hydross. We might have gotten him down a bit sooner, but our first try was with 4 resto druids, a priest and a pugged pally healer. The fight is quite nasty for resto druids. More on that later.

Most of the Hydross strategies recommend between 8 and 9 healers. We had 6...well, almost 6. Tonight we had 2 restos, a pally, and three priests - one of them seriously undergeared. It took a couple of attempts and getting the timing down, but Hydross is now on our official kill list. Woot!

We moved on to down Lurker and decided to call it quits for the night. Tomorrow we'll be back, jousting at Tidewalker.

We took a group to ZA once we finished up in SSC tonight. I'd run with various folks in the group before, but not run ZA with that exact group. It was good fun and we cleared the first four bosses. I know they want to get in there before it resets on Friday to make a run at Hex Lord. Not sure when that will happen though.

Positively Progressing!

As you may have read in my last post, lots of changes have happened recently in our guild. Hence, my long silence. Let me focus for now on our post-2.4 progress (it's easiest to remember).

*zul and I were mostly absent last week, though we did sub in on a couple of raids when we had freed up from our real life commitments and others needed to leave. Our guild has turned its focus to Al'ar, particularly since the changes to Void Reaver in 2.4. Besides, if we could down Al'ar, then we could stop having to reclear his trash every time we head into the instance. Last week, we made some solid progress...getting him to 9% (then he enraged and we all died), then 7%, then 6%, then 4.5%. This week, no questions asked, he was going to die!

However, Monday nights (the start of our official raid week), we cleared Gruul's then Mag and then some of us continued on for a full clear of Kara. This was actually my first time killing Mag (though my guild had done it before without me). Our Kara clear was the fastest ever (at least since we started timing it) - 2:27.

Last night, we headed into Al'ar with victory on our minds. We had gotten him lower than ever before and he simply wasn't going to live one more night. We also had fewer healers than ever before - down to 6 on this attempt (we have had as many as 8). We had a couple of botched attempts at first, but finally, with all but one of us standing at the end of the fight (although two battle rez's were used during the fight), Al'ar fell! Woot! We had FINALLY killed that annoying bird! And we still had lots of time left in the raid!

So what else but to head off to Solarian, who we had never killed before either! We had about two attempts, I think, while folks got used to what it looked like to "be the bomb". Incidentally, I was never the bomb - only the one who got blown up! On our third or fourth attempt (it's really a very easy fight), this happened:



Yay! That's two first kills in one night! And lots of DKP for Deressy! Nothing dropped that she wanted, but other folks got some nice loot!

And tonight you ask? What's on the agenda? Why...Kael, of course!

Badges Badges Badges...Loot!

So 2.4 arrived, but the badge vendor had not yet. We did our dailies - every day, and every one, on two toons, no less! And now, the BADGE vendor has arrived. Deressy has been hoarding her badges for weeks now, in anticipation of this moment. Still about 200 badges short, she did go and pick up a few items!

Of course, what every healer has been ogling since it was first announced, Deressy's first purchase was Gavel of Naaru Blessings. Now, she had to decide whether to wait and save 100 badges or pick up another slightly less expensive item. Deressy chose to spend spend spend and finally got rid of her T4 gloves, replacing them with Oakleaf-spun Handguards. It was an obvious choice due to the fact that she was using her T4 shoulders (even though she had better shoulders, Gnarled Ironwood Pauldrons) in order to take advantage of the set bonus with her T4 gloves/shoulders combo.

Deressy's +heal is now a whopping 1961! She can also regenerate 195 mp5 while casting.

Gruul's and Mag's

So, a lot has been happening lately. On Tuesday, Deressy went to Gruul's Lair for the first time with Distant Beliefs. Her only other attempt there had ended rather quickly so this was her first time to see anything beyond the High King. We had a couple of minor wipes, but downed both Gruul and High King! Woot! Since she wasn't part of the guild, she wasn't able to roll on the T4 gear that dropped (others were wanting it), but she did manage to pick up Cowl of Nature's Breath, which was a very nice upgrade for her.

Tonight she headed into Magtheridon's Lair. This was a progression run - her second time into Mag's (both times with Distant Beliefs). The first time was really not very successful - we had a hard time with the clicking, the staying alive etc. Tonight, the Raid Leader was trying a new strategy - 8 healers. I lost count of the number of attempts we made, and don't really want to count 2 of them at all; not once, but twice, someone right clicked a warlock to start the event - when not everyone was ready or even in the room. If you total up my durability loss for the night, I'd be somewhere around -80%.

We did, however, get better and better with each run. Our best attempt had him down to 10% - unfortunately, we lost a bunch of people to cave-ins and then some folks missed clicking their cube (likely because they were dead), and it ended up our tank and offtank (both pallys) trying to kill him and stay alive. We'll be trying it again on Tuesday, so I'm quite looking forward to that.

Now, I don't use damage or healing meters at all - have always been a bit concerned about people focusing more on the meter rather than on what's best for the raid. But twice last night, I had one of the other healers whisper me to let me know I was 'catching' him on the meter - later I found out I ran second in every fight. Not sure if that's good or bad - I was on raid healing though, so it's no surprise I'd have high heal numbers. What I don't know, and would have like to have seen, is how much of that was overheal. Oh well...maybe if I can find a semi-reliable and very non-intrusive meter, I'll install it.

On a separate note, after a very long and difficult process, *zul and I decided to leave our guild and join Distant Beliefs. We really loved Asgard and the people in the guild, which made this decision even more difficult. However, given some real life issues which may limit our time playing this game, we felt as if we would progress more and see more end game content by making a move. Everyone at Asgard has been incredibly encouraging - I can't recommend that guild enough if you are on Runetotem looking for a guild. They've also picked up one of my favorite resto druids - and one who I learned a lot from (grats, Asgard and Mondas).

Zul'Aman

Well, I had my first peek at Zul'Aman last Sunday when a friend's guild was short a healer. They are in progression mode and didn't expect to get past the second boss, but I figured why not?

We had three healers with us and it was a good thing! Those guys hit hard! It was an expensive, learning experience and I had a great time! On one of our tries on the second boss, we had him down to 6% but then on one of the storms someone didn't come in and the whole group got hit with too much damage.

They asked me if I'd come back later tonight, and I said I would. Yesterday, however, I got a whisper asking if I could go in then too. A few negotiations (*zul is heading out of town on Monday and I was looking forward to spending time with him) and both Hunzul and Deressy got invites. It was a very different group of people that had been in with us before (although I heard they went back in on Monday or Tuesday and downed the second and third bosses).

Shortly before heading in, another friend of mine told me to "kiss his frog". Now, I thought that was a bit weird, but I tried it - giving Mojo a kiss...it was *hilarious*! I was polymorphed into a frog, he ran around following me, asking me "Your lilypad or mine" and throwing hearts my way. Apparently Mojo is a drop you can get using an Amani Hex Stick in Zul'Aman. Yay! Something *fun* to try for. Sadly, I didn't get a single hex stick.

We downed the first boss rather easily but missed the timer. We made a few attempts at the second boss, but for some reason, people just weren't moving quick enough and we couldn't get him down. We decided to try to move on to the Lynx boss. I managed to do a quest turn-in along the way, but before we got to him, folks were tired and decided to call it a night. Bummer.

Oh well...there's always tonight!

A Race in Kara

So last night, Deressy and Hunzul went back to Kara. There was a bit of confusion as our raid leader had posted two groups, starting about an hour from one another. When he went to delete one, people had signed up for the later group - and so there was a LOT of confusion on the start time. Apoc (the raid leader) actually ended up stepping out of the group to allow one of our newer members, a shaman, to join when he arrived after being one of many confused by the time.

Then Apoc declared a race to Prince - he was going with his old guild (a guild currently raiding in Black Temple). Ha, yeah right. We *did* have about a 10 minute head start, but still. There was also a question of whether we'd be able to down Moroes without Apoc. Not *my* question, mind you, but the tanks weren't sure if they could do it. Also, we had a borrowed healer (one of our guild members had a toon in the guild Apoc was going with) who had never healed with our group before (more on last week's pally in another post).

We had a couple of silly deaths on trash, but no wipe (nice change). Attumen went down without much trouble and dropped his obligatory badge for everyone and a couple of items no one really wanted - Vambraces of Courage, which one of our tanks begrudgingly took, and Gauntlets of Renewed Hope, which were D/E'd.

On to Moroes. We actually one-shotted him, and had no real problems whatsoever. It was a beautiful thing. And we were *still* ahead of Apoc and his group. Moroes dropped Royal Cloak of Arathi Kings, which our new DPS warrior snatched up, and Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable, which went to one of our tanks.

On to Maiden. Our pally tank decided to let the off-tank take care of Maiden and he stepped back and healed a bit, dispelling the Holy Fire she does. Just as we were waiting to start the maiden fight (Lup was putting on his healing gear), Apoc messages me that Moroes is down. Maiden dropped for us in one-shot, too (we're having a very good night so far) and gave us Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden, which our off-tank needed and took, and Bands of Nefarious Deeds, which our warlock picked up without having to spend a roll.

On to the opera event. Now, I've done this maybe six or eight times now, and have seen Oz a *load* of times, and the Big Bad Wolf three times. I have never seen Romulo and Julienne. Until last night! W00t! A couple of the guys that HAD seen it explained it ahead of time so we'd know what would happen. There was a bit of confusion on who spawns first, but since you are only fighting one at that time, it doesn't seem to matter much. For the record, first you kill Julienne. Then Romulo. Then they both pop up together and you have to kill them both within a few seconds of one another. We put all our dps on one, then had the tank hold aggro on that one while getting the other's health down too. One thing we'd do differently next time, is that we got Julienne's health down first. However, she has a nasty habit of trying to heal herself. Next time, we'll do Romulo first and then Julienne - it will probably go a bit smoother. At any rate, we one-shotted the event.

Curator was next. This is the fight I'm probably most familiar with, as it's quite straight forward. He went down rather quickly and dropped Gloves of the Fallen Hero, which our warlock snapped up uncontested, and Forest Wind Shoulderpads. I don't think I've *ever* seen those shoulderpads *not* drop.

We made a couple of attempts on Illhoof, even bringing in a good priest friend of mine when our other healer couldn't stay awake any longer. However, everyone was tired, so we decided to skip on to Aran. We one-shotted Aran, who dropped Pauldrons of the Justice Seeker (which got D/E'd) and Shermanar Great-Ring, which our pally tank picked up with a need roll.

We decided to move to Chess and then call it a night. I was really hoping my boots would drop! My boots serious need replacing - I am wearing blues. I have a couple of purple cloth boots, but they are more spec'd for boomkin than healing. I had no luck though. We D/E'd Legplates of the Innocent and our off-tank picked up Battlescar Boots on a free roll.

Needless to say, we didn't win the "race" but we had a good time along the way. We've got a good bit to cover on Monday night now - and... (YAY!) I can now summon Nightbane! W00t!

Monday Night Clean-up

We recently reorganized the nights and times we raid to better fit into people's schedules. And we just concluded our second week of the new schedule. Essentially, we raid Fridays and Mondays. Friday night, our goal is to clear as much as we possibly can. Monday is clean-up day. No, I don't mean we clean our houses, computers, stray WoW add-ons...we finish up anything we might have missed in Kara on Friday.

Last Monday, we had three bosses to finish - Illhoof, Nightbane and Netherspite. We started with Netherspite and never got him down. It was a bit demoralizing.

This week, we didn't even get to Prince on Friday. Folks were just a bit too tired, so after Chess, we stopped - which meant we had four bosses left for Monday. In addition, we had a brand new healer with us - one of our guild members that picked up some healing gear (that was off-spec for him) on Friday and decided to respec. To be honest, I was completely nervous about running Kara with two healers and one of them being completely new at healing.

Our start was rocky. We wiped a couple of times on trash - stuff we clear every week and shouldn't have problems with. The healing was suddenly very hard for me - indicating we weren't working well together. I can't emphasize enough how important communication is. A quick chat with the other healer, a few directions and the healing was immensely smoother. We still had a couple of bad wipes when he was AFK or got disconnected, but on the whole, he did a good job.

To be totally honest, I wasn't sure we'd get anyone down but Prince (and possibly not even him, with the new healer)...and he sometimes depends on whether the infernals decide to drop on your head and cut you off.

As it turns out, the Prince fight went pretty well. We had some new folks with us, and it was the first time they'd seen the fight. Luprey tanked it this time - he'd never downed Prince before as the Main Tank (MT). On the first try, it was a definite wipe - the enfeeble got about 3 people on the very first one. Second try was also a wipe. The third try, we had it down pretty good. He was at 6% and I was pretty excited, we were all still alive. The roaming axes took out a couple of people and then an infernal dropped on our heads! We had nowhere to go but to Prince, so we moved up (I was the marker, with a big blue square over my head) and stood right on top of Prince and the MT. I couldn't stand the idea we'd have him down to 4% and not down him. 3% I mean. Well, 2% and a couple more people died. Those who were down were hollering over vent to "Do it! You can do it!" "Down the...(use your imagination, this is a family-friendly site)!" And Prince went down! I've got a nice long list of things I'd like to roll on from Prince, but the only thing I wanted he dropped was the T4 Helm. There was no doubt in my mind I'd use my need roll- and I did. One of our new tanks, Bromstein, won the roll. Grats, Brom!

Next, we decided to head down to Illhoof. We had attempted him once before - but at that time we had low dps and essentially no AoE other than our warlock. While we still didn't have a mage with us tonight, we figured we'd try it - we had a shammy, two hunters and the warlock. We wiped the first time - many folks had never seen the fight before at all. Wiped the second. I think the third too (I'm terrible at keeping count on how many attempts we've had - probably a bit of a defense too - it keeps me from getting discouraged). However, we *did* kill Illhoof - we "worked it out" as our raid leader would say. By the time he was down, so was the other healer and several others. A small crew was left to kill Kil'rek, but he went down too! Our first ever Illhoof kill! Yay! The one item I was hoping Illhoof would drop, the Cord of Nature's Sustenance didn't drop. Oh well.

On to Netherspite! Upon arriving in Netherspite's chambers, we explained the fight to all the new folks who had never seen it. This time, we decided to attempt the fight without any of the healers stepping into a beam. Non-mana users were going to be taking care of that beam for us. And you know what? We one-shotted him! Woot! Someone had suggested running through the green beam if you got low on mana, but that was never an issue for me - with the banish phases and everyone bandaging during that phase (although I did throw a few heals on the way to the windows), my mana never got that low. We lost Hunzul early in (he was out of range of both healers), but after another banish, I rez'd him - we were doing really well and wanted the DPS. No sense in saving the battle rez for another attempt. Again, he didn't drop anything on my wishlist but yay! (Hunzul did get a really nice drop though).

Now I was really hoping we'd head to Nightbane next - I was feeling lucky! Unfortunately, we had only one person who could summon Nightbane (and on an alt), so we called it a night.

A Bit of This and That and a One Night Clear (Mostly) of Kara

So it's been a while since I've posted - I've actually started several posts that I never finished. Why you may ask? Well, it started with a bit of a frustrating week in Kara. Despite getting some nice loot (Shard of the Virtuous", Ruby Slippers), we had some issues downing bosses we normally down with little or no problem. We got Oz at the Opera again (that wasn't really a problem, other than that it glitched on the start and we had to reset and start it over), but we just couldn't seem to down a couple of others.

Being a relative noob to our guild, I've been (thankfully) rather ignorant of the politics (read: drama) in our guild and prefer to remain so. On Friday night, there were a few things that happened and by the next morning, our main raid leader, shammy healer and mage had walked out. Because of their departure, we lost some others, including another mage/rogue and our main holy priest. Now, I think if they had just left we still would have lost a few, but there was also a big hubub when they left. And of course, that just made things worse.

I hate drama! Have I said that already? But really I do! Part of me wonders if our guild will survive. Part of me feels obligated to stick it out to the bitter end to try and MAKE it work - particularly since a few of my friends have joined there now too. Am I keeping my eyes open? Yes. Am I leaving now? No. Am I stupid enough to think this will be an easy road? No. But I'm not a quitter - once I join something, it is VERY hard for me to walk away. Too bad, really - the easy way out would be to quit.

On a positive note, we did a fairly complete clear of Kara last night - we missed a couple of bosses, but we cleared Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera (Little Red Riding Hood - YAY, it wasn't Oz again!), Curator, Aran, Chess and Prince. We also did a couple of attempts on Nightbane and one on Illhoof, neither fight I'd seen before. I think we could take one or both on another night - we had virtually no AoE - and only one warlock. Our group makeup for the night was two warriors (the offtank was brand-newish in Kara), two shadow priests, two resto druids, two hunters, one warlock and one rogue. The great news is both Hunzul and Deressy (Gloves of the Fallen Defender which I used to get Handguards of Malorne, Aran's Soothing Sapphire and Girdle of Treachery, got some new gear! AND Cianna, one of our friends, got the Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix to drop off Prince that she's been trying for since July!

So Deressy went instead. It was, however, a rather frustrating week there. We downed Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, got Oz at the Opera (again!) and chess. Deressy walked out with some nice new gear - . Not bad, eh?

It wasn't terribly late but a few of our folks had to leave due to early work the next day, so we put the rest off until Friday.

Essy Goes to Kara

Did I say Essy?! Why yes, I did! Despite all doubts to the contrary, Essy finally stepped foot into Kara. Was she planning to do so last night? Heck no! Her bags were full, her poisons weren't stocked up, she had a few healing pots but no other potions... Deressy, on the other hand, was completely prepared. Why the sudden change? Well, again, we had to PUG a couple of people and one of the ones that came happened to be a resto druid. A fully-geared, heal-til-you-are-exploding-with-health resto druid (yes, I was, in fact, drooling over his gear the entire run).

We picked up where we left off on Friday night - with Shade of Aran. We had to clear a bit of trash on the way. Now, I think I really like trash - not only do you get rep from killing trash but you occasionally get purple trash. Deressy has purple trash. Now Essy does too! She grabbed the Grips of Deftness to replace her green Caustic Feelers.

Now, I'd heard before that the Shade of Aran fight is rather awful and that folks hate it. I had no such view of the fight, as my one time running it (with Deressy), we one-shotted it. However, this time, well...

Let's just share a quote with you from my friend Gadoraa (who went with us again)..."I'm beginning to not like this room." My response was "Beginning?!" I actually lost count of the number of attempts on this guy. I was lagging a bit and kept missing the kick on his firebolt. Then we he did the flame wreath, someone would inevitably move and we'd all be toast. A few folks died on the arcane blast. Over and Over. Rinse and Repeat. And yet, all it did was serve to make us annoyed enough to try again. Again. Again.

And finally, on the attempt when he shackled me right as he started his arcane blast (duh, cloak of shadows would have probably gotten me out and I forgot), I died. And we killed him! Yay! But ugh, a 7g repair bill on almost all blues. However, I did get a shiny new purple to make up for it! He dropped Rapscallion Boots just for me!

On to Prince. Prince did you say? Argh! Last time we attempted him (I was Deressy) we had the most infernally worst luck (pun intended) and after several attempts, never did get him down. Tonight however, we were golden. Well, almost. On the first attempt, an infernal dropped right on Prince and the group meleeing him. Wipe. On the second attempt he went DOWN! And I was soo.....ARGH! NOT HAPPY! Every single drop, I kid you not - every one - was a healing item. And both our healers were already geared! So here is a list of gear that Deressy DIDN'T get: Lights Justice, Helm of the Fallen Defender, and Jade Ring of the Everliving.

At that point, there was a little discussion about where to go next. Our mage got confused, ported to Shatt and logged off. We were off to attempt Nethersprite and realized he was gone. Oh well, we'll 9-man it. Many of us had never been there before at all, and so the blue/red/green beam thing was a bit confusing. Plus at least one player wasn't on vent. After our first wipe, Gad had to go - he was falling asleep on his keyboard. One more 8-man attempt and we called it a night.

Oh, and AFTER we killed Prince, Essy went and turned in some quests and picked up the quest to...

Kill Prince.

Bah!

Couples Night in Kara

Well, two couples anyway!

Tonight was our first time that *zul and I got to run Kara together. There was another couple running it with us - the other healer (a priest) and his wife, a boomkin. It was a fun run, although we had to PUG a couple of people. Actually, though, we grabbed a buddy of mine that hangs out on the essy channel (long story, and we'll have to leave that to another post), Gadoraa - a feral druid. He'd never been to Kara before, but was keyed.

So we headed in - our goal was to clear as much as we could in 4 hours. One had never been in before, and two had never been past opera. We had a really odd make-up: one resto druid, one feral druid, one boomkin druid, one marksman hunter, two beastmaster hunters (one was Hunzul), one warrior tank, one pally tank and one mage. Yes, I know that's only 9 people. We were waiting and hoping a 10th would show up. By the time we got to Moroes, we had another mage to fill the roster.

Attumen - one shotted
Moroes - two-shotted (not sure what happened, but oh well)
Maiden - one-shotted
Opera - ewwww, we got Oz, but we two-shotted it
Curator - two-shotted (the first time, the healers weren't well-positioned - it worked much better the second time around)

Then one of our hunters' internet dropped out, it was late and so we decided to skip the Shade of Aran for now, and go to Chess and call it a night.

I got some new shiny bracers, to replace my old-still-rather-shiny ones.

Spec-tacular!

So, I want to thank everyone who provided advice and input on my re-spec decision. It was a tough decision for me - especially after Phaelia from Resto4Life made such a good case for a hybrid spec. I have never been a fan of change (yes, I know....EVERYTHING changes)...but to make such massive changes while I am just getting used to raiding - I thought that might be a bit much for me.

So, I did a bit of a hybrid based on Phaelia’s advice. I added points to improve healing touch and reduce its mana cost. I added some points in balance and went deep enough to pick up insect swarm. I put my single extra point in Natural Perfection (which seems to trigger a *lot* - I’ve been farming primals a bit lately).

And so, while I’m not saying my *spec* is spectacular - it sure has made *me* feel pretty darned good. I can’t remember a time when I was so confident (and daring) in my ability to solo and do regular questing. I’ve yet to attempt a heroic, but am cautiously optimistic.

Thanks for all the comments and emails!

Ninja Moments?

Having never really been victim of a ninja (yes, I guess I've gotten really good PUGs), I was asked by a guildy (when I was still part of KotB) to come heal the final boss of Scholo. They'd lost their healer and were so close to being finished.

So off to Scholo I went. I was too high level for summon, so I made my way there the old-fashioned way. When I arrived, it turned out they were one short even after I filled in.

No worries though...one of them was a level 70 Peacekeeper - should be cake. And it was. The boss died and three purples and a blue dropped! One of the drops was one of the portals cards...I was nearing the completion of the deck and the card that dropped was one of two I didn't have.

I asked if I could need it and got a "go ahead" from my guildy, but big arguments from the other two. So rather than create trouble, I greeded it (note also, there were no enchanters in the group).

After I had greeded the various items, Alandrius of Runetotem-US needed (and hence ninja'ed) the entire take. The peacekeeper (Drukonus) laughed, told us Alandruis was his father, and proceeded to kick me and my guildy from the group. He was ported back to Shatt before he was able to complete his quest, looting the quest item from one of the kills.

I was, needless to say, furious. We announced in our guild channel to avoid these two guys, and at least two others said they had had similar experience with them in the past.

I added them both to my ignore list and decided to contact their guilds. Essy's guild had discussed previously a merger, or at least raiding agreement, with Peacekeepers. Though I don't know many of them, I figured they probably wouldn't want their names associated with such behavior. They listened, and although nothing happened immediately, I did notice he was no longer part of their guild when I saw him a few weeks later.

Alandruis was in a smaller guild. The GL told me he had gkicked him. He must have gotten back in, though, as I saw him a few weeks later and he had rejoined.

CC? We Don't Need No Stinkin' CC!

As *zul and I were driving to the airport today, we were trying to keep each other awake and discussing a recent post we saw about whether the class make up of group or the personalities was more important. I remembered a Shadow Labs run we did recently with not one, not two, but *three* warriors.

At least two (Mozul and Motoronin) of the three were prot spec (as I recall, Fishbane was sporting his favorite spec, dps). At any rate, most everything got tanked (but nothing died particularly fast).

*zul was suggesting we try Kara with all prot specs and a couple of healers...but I don't think I'd want to be in there all night for one boss fight. :p

By the way, we decided that in *most* cases, we'd take personality over specific classes (at least for 5-man instances).

Late Night WoW

After reading both a WoW Insider article and Amanna's article on Adventures in Azeroth, I was reminded of a recent bit of late-night playing I did.

It was late Monday night/Tuesday morning and I was wasting time before having to run to the airport and catch my plane. I could have gone to sleep, I suppose, but I was afraid I'd oversleep, so I was puttering around on WoW instead. Essy had run Mech, Arc and a short piece of Bot. As she was stumbling out of Bot and thinking of a bit of grinding, a friend, Darcey, asked for a healer to fill in at Black Morass - apparently, their second healer was an abyssmal failure (not sure how their first had been).

So off went Essy; Deressy logged in and got an immediate invite and summon. A quick look at the clock and we realized we were going to be racing to finish before the server shutdown.

The tank was a druid I'd never met, Deidlet. I'd played with a couple of the others before (we had some epic HH runs together). And so, the race began. It's amazing how much easier BM is now that I've gotten my +healing up from +730 to around +1350 or so.

Sadly, although we did fairly well, we did *not* manage to beat the clock...the server shut down shortly after we finished wave 12 (2nd boss) of BM. Luckily, the goal was rep and drops rather than someone trying to get attuned.

On a side note, I was thrilled to see Deidlet had joined my guild a few days later.

More Spec Debate

I recently posted asking for some advice on my spec and referencing a post I'd read on Resto4Life's blog about specing into brambles and insect swarm. I recently read a couple of posts on Gray Matter's blog about how useless brambles and insect swarm are in a raid setting. I tend to lean more towards Resto4Life's opinion - particularly as she's given the math to back up her position. What do y'all think?

Primal Grinding Can Be Fun!

No, really! It can!

Last week, before I headed off on a WoW-free vacation, I headed up to the Elemental Plateau to help my friends, boss and kitty, do some primal grinding. She needed 37 primal airs for some new gear. That's a *lot* of primals.

The three of us sort of took over the entire zone...for about 5 to 6 hours! I think that in that entire time, there were maybe 10-12 wind thingies that we missed...and then generally only when one of us was AFK.

A couple of friends stopped by at different times to lend a hand - Dana, Kay and Ima. At one point, Dana managed to grab the attention of a flagged hordie, who waited until Dana's health was low while killing a fire elemental and then killed Dana. The horde didn't know what hit him after that. He got killed once or twice and then flew up on a hill overlooking us all. Kitty and I jumped into flight form and flew right up next to him...we scared him 1/2 to death, I think. We didn't see much of him after that.

So, you see? Primal grinding *can* be fun...just bring 2-3 of your friends and claim the territory as your own!

Karazhan

On Friday, November 30, Deressy headed into Kara for the first time....in a raid for the first time, completely clueless as to what to expect.

Fishbane, the guy who took her to Black Morass to finish her attunement, was the raid leader and main tank. The first few pulls were a bit shocking, as we worked our way in to Attumen. Despite all the scary stories I had heard about Kara, I was clearly in a group that knew what it was doing...Attumen down, Moroes down, Curator down.

Despite that I was brand new, and not even a member of the guild (yet), I got some nice loot to take home: Forest Wind Shoulderpads, Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation (for my dps set), Harbinger Bands, Ribbon of Sacrifice and the Signet of Unshakable Faith.

Saturday, we went back. Maiden down. We went to the opera and quickly finished off the Big Bad Wolf. Finished chess. We started on Nightbane but one of our healers had to go a bit early and another player kept getting disconnected.