Recap

After last Wednesday's..."issues"...with ICC, we walked in on Saturday and one-shot all the content we had previously cleared. We then two-shot Saurfang.

The Turned Champion isn't really that bad of a fight when you get down to it. It just requires communication, especially when things don't go according to plan. If, for example, a Blood Beast starts gnawing on melee for some reason, don't panic...just say something to the ranged responsible for picking them up. There's not a ton of room for error, but you can get yourself out of a fix if you stay calm and just talk to each other.

We took a look at Festergut and are going to give him an honest effort tonight if we can manage the personnel. There was a lot of "do we have the dps for this?" talk, but I think we can do it. The mechanics on that fight aren't as complicated as some of the other ICC fights, so our dps crew should have enough room to work without that much distraction.

I also learned that I can't tank Heroic Halls of Reflection, specifically, the waves at the beginning. I gave it my best effort, but simply cannot pull it off. If the mobs all came from the same place, I could manage, but because they're coming in from all over the room it's a little too much for this poor, old, beat-up Warrior to handle. I also get a bit of lag sometimes when dealing with AoE, so when a rifleman drops a frost trap on top of whatever AoE the group is doing I end up with a couple seconds of a frozen screen only to return to find a dead healer.

I'm sure I could do it, but it would take some practice. The problem with practicing a unique set of pulls from a specific instance, though, is that four other people are paying for it, too...both with time and repair bills.

All in all, it was a good weekend in Azeroth. Got my Ashen Verdict ring and even managed to putz around with the holidays. I don't think I'm gonna get titles out of both of them, but I'll settle for some achievement points and vanity items. My banker is very happy with her new Lovely Red Dress, but keeps bugging me about the black one.

Hopefully we can take out Festergut tonight and cross another boss off of our progression list.

Believe It Or Not

...people are still showing up here on a daily basis.

Might as well give them something to read.

After my last post, I logged in and made several overdue and well-deserved officer promotions (Millea/Tatia being one). They offered to hold down the fort while I did what I needed to. I love my guild.

I've been online more in the past couple weeks. Messed around this past Saturday with holiday achievements, got in a raid that didn't get far, and got to see the new 5s for the first time.

The new dungeons are simply beautiful. Kudos, Blizz.

I also dabbled in the new random dungeon system. Pet or not, I hate PuGs and will probably not be volunteering myself for it on too regular a basis. I have to say, though, that I got very lucky with PuG members the first time I tried it. The dungeons were easy and the folks we picked up were solid players. Quite painless, overall.

I suppose it helps to be the tank, but that doesn't stop people from pulling for you as I've learned in the past. I like to set a brisk pace (assuming the healer is keeping up), but I will slow down if necessary to maintain control over the pulls. Must not have been too bad for our cross-server groupmates, as nobody complained about it.

I picked up the T9 shoulders with Triumph emblems. I could have waited a bit and picked up the higher ilvl non-tier shoulders, but I was in need of an upgrade and the shoulders provided much-needed expertise. I'm hoping I can get some runs in this week to pick up another emblem upgrade and, possibly, grab some items from the new dungeons.

It's good to be back.

Hallowed Be My Name

That post title felt a little blasphemous.

I don't usually do holiday stuff, but Cheesi and I spent a lot of time last year racking up Hallow's End achievements. When this year rolled around, I was only about 5 away from the title.

By the way, Blizz, thanks for getting rid of that "get 428 masks by trick-or-treating" achievement.

Anyway, my wonderful guildies put up with me last night long enough to help me get the "Hallowed" title. We killed the Horseman over and over and over and I managed to pick up the Squashling and the Hallowed Helm thanks to a couple of lucky rolls.

Eckhart/Sunfury is desperately seeking the Horseman's mount. I don't particularly care if I get it or not, so if I have the chance I'll try and help him get it. He'll have one less roll to contend with that way.

I'm really just happy with the title. Of all the holiday events, Hallow's End is my favorite. Who knows? Maybe actually accomplishing this one will convince me to be a little more active with the holidays on a go-forward basis.

We'll see.

Crap I Did Last Night

Now that title represents blogging at its finest.

Actually, last night was quite a busy one. I logged in later than I usually do after working late and then walking our new American Bulldog puppy, Delilah. We've had her for several weeks, and she's almost 4 months old. 30-something pounds of determination and she's going to get up to about 100-120 lbs. Gonna be a whole lot of dog.

But, anyway, here's the WoW stuff:

• Did three Heroics: CoS (reg daily), VH, and Oculus (heroic daily).
• CoS: Grabbed some nukers and made it a drake run. Cleared it with about 3 or 4 minutes to spare and, since everybody else had one, I got the drake. That made me happy.
• VH: Ran this one because it was...well...right there after we turned in the regular daily. Nothing terribly notable, except Vel, one of our 1337 Shammies, got enough emblems for the upgrade he was after, so he grabbed it before we hit Oculus.
• Oculus: A couple of pulls in, I hit exalted with the Knights of the Ebon Blade and got the achievement for that as well as the Northrend Vanguard achievement. I also learned why everybody hates Oculus. Wiped a couple of times on the last boss, but finally managed to make it happen. It'll be smoother next time.
• The emblems I managed to pick up allowed me to get my glove upgrade. Now I've gotta figure out what to aim for next as far as Conquest, Valor, and/or Triumph emblem purchases go.
• And finally, I did my fishing daily before I logged off, turned it in, and got the Battered Jungle Hat. After running around a bit in it, I had an idea. With the hat on, I equipped my defense trinket and took a look at my stats. Aside from the huge armor ding I take without my headpiece, my stats aren't that bad. I opened Outfitter and saved the outfit under the name "Pimp."

Sometime in the near future, I'm going to grab some guildies who are as crazy as me, flip over to the Pimp outfit, and do a Pimp Run in one of the easier heroics.

If it happens, you'll read about it here. I'll take screenshots.

And Bronze Drakes For All

Counting the run last night, I've done Heroic Culling exactly three times. Wasn't a fan of Escape from Durnholde, not a fan of CoS.

Why am I not a fan of these glorified escort quests?

Because I'm the tank. Hear that, Thrall and Arthas? Quit facepulling everything, you n00bs. I'll lead, you try to keep up.

And Arthas, you self-righteous douche, quit saying "make haste" and then walking like we've got all freakin' day. We want a shot at a Drake and don't have time for your endless, nauseating pontification every time we step on a plagued roach.

There. I feel better.

Last night was my first time actively going for the Drake from the get-go. We succeeded in beating the timer, and Tatia (or Millea, or Koalabear) won the Bronze Drake, so big gratz to her.

I decided after the run that Echo of Fate would actively pursue getting everybody in the guild a Bronze Drake. As much as I hate that instance, I'd love to see everybody get the achievement and the mount. I'll tank it every night I'm online if I have to until everybody's got it.

Nothing wrong with hunting down a vanity item or two, right? They're a great group of people and they deserve it.

I Am Not Needy

A little clingy at times, maybe, but not necessarily Needy.

We didn't have enough people to raid last night, so we settled on some easy heroics for Emblems. First we hit Violet Hold, where I finally got to fight Moragg. So, after running VH 137,256 times, I got the achievement.

25 minutes or so. 3 easy Emblems. What's next?

Well, Briele and I both needed to log at about 11:30 server, and since we didn't start Violet Hold until a little later than we had hoped we decided to run a quick Nexus. That's become my favorite Emblem farming instance.

Fairly standard run. More easy emblems.

We did have an amusing moment during the Telestra fight due to unfortunate sheeping. Her favorite targets last night were Bri and me...which is a tad bit frustrating. During her first split phase, we lost a DPS. During the last one, we lost the other two DPS.

Still, with no one left but a Prot Warrior and a Holy Priestess, she died. Took a while, but she died.

I've fought Keri a bunch of times, and each time the Flame-Bathed Steel Girdle dropped there was a DPS plate-wearer in the group who needed it. Finally, since Eck's Pally already had it, I was able to Need on it and add it to my off-set.

And that's when I blew my load. Rolled a 100, got the Needy achievement, and ensured that all of my rolls in the near future will be single-digit.

Still, it was a very fun, productive evening.

This weekend I'm hoping to do some ToC farming for The Black Heart and any other tank stuff I can get my grubby hands on. I also want to grab as many Emblems as possible to make up for the time I lost this week.

Into Battle

I've been acquiring mounts for my Albino Drake. I realized that, at 43 mounts, I would only need 2 more in addition to the 5 extra mounts the Argent Tournament provides (400g + 5 Champions Seal's each). It occurred to me that I was very close to being able to afford a war mount from the honor system, and I already had enough marks to pick up the Stormpike Battle Charger.

So, off to the BGs I went. I spent most of the weekend in my Prot build...not doing a ton of damage but enjoying silencing, stunning, interrupting every caster I could get my hands on, and running flags. I had fun and picked up the marks to get the Black War Steed.

Yesterday, I decided that maybe my secondary skills would be better served if I took an Arms PvP build instead of the PvE Fury build I never seemed to use...ever.

I levelled Arms but haven't gone that route since my early 60s and, while there were some things I recalled, I still had to get back in the groove of using Hamstring combos and some of the other tricks PvP Arms Warriors use. I did have some serious fun with Bladestorm, though.

I did receive a lovely whisper that said "You're the worst Warrior I've ever seen. Stay out of the BGs until you learn how to play" (which I addressed with a pleasant "I just respecced Arms after playing Prot for a long time. Thank you for your constructive criticism." This led to a "I was just talking about your Hamstrings and stuff." End of conversation, I returned our flag to the base, we won), but I did much better on the damage meters and landed more killing blows than I ever have. I didn't make as good of a good flag runner, but I was much more effective in one-on-one combat.

I picked up some meh PvP gear to load some Resilience, but I'm planning on upgrading that as I get more honor. I'm also thinking that, when I get some better gear, I may want to give Arenas another go.

It's certainly nice to have something to do when not instancing that doesn't involve doing dailies over and over. PvP can be infuriating, frustrating, and a lot of fun.

Oh, and I did finally pick up the Drake.

Vanity Items

Little slow on posting this week. Lot going on at the Mis/Cheesi/Baby Tank household and I've been a little under the weather.

I have, however, been playing quite a bit. Nothing terribly exciting, just cranking out dailies and working the AH a bit.

One thing I've recently noticed, however, is a change in my opinion of vanity items.

My wife is a pet collector and my good buddy Eckhart the Hunter (who now has a shiny new 80 Pally as well) is a pet/mount collector. I have never been a collector of either...until I got my epic flyer, that is.

So what changed? Essentially, my opinion of how my money should be spent shifted. The epic flight skill was the last purchase that really affected the efficiency of my character. I bought gear to get me going on heroics, I bought my dual-spec, I spent money on or farmed mats for heroic and raid consumables, I enchanted all of my items, and now I have an epic flyer to do dailies, farm, etc.

If I log on and someone wants to do a heroic or raid, I have everything I need in my bags to go: food, flasks, pots, offspec gear, tabards, repair bots, etc. I wouldn't have to hit the bank or the AH. I'm a Minuteman.

So, as long as I keep enough money on me to handle a night's worth of repairs, I feel like it's time to get some of the things that make the game fun. I hit the auction house the other night and bought a ton of pets that were listed for low prices. Last night, I bought an Armored Brown Bear and am 9 mounts away from getting the Albino Drake. I've also starting to work on the mats for the Chopper.

It's the first time that I've felt I didn't have something hanging over my head, prodding me every time I made a purchase that pushed my goal back another day or two.

This game is supposed to be fun, and, as silly as it sounds, when I mounted up on my Bear last night and rode around Dalaran I was actually having fun.

'Bout time.

Stratholme - Present Day

Since I've acquired my epic flight skill I've decided to start collecting mounts. I started with all of the Alliance ground mounts, slow and fast, and I'm going to try and get all of the available gryphons. Eventually, I'd like to get the Albino Drake.

To reach 50 mounts, though, I'm going to have to get lucky and/or creative. So last night I ran into old school Stratholme...well, I guess old school Stratholme would technically be the Culling...but I....ah, screw it, you get the point.

Anyway, my target was Baron Rivendare. I was going to ask him (with my axe) if I could have his horse. Well, I asked, and he refused, so I asked repeatedly until he collapsed into a bloody pile on the floor.

But all of that isn't the point of this post. The point is, Stratholme is huge. WotLK dungeons are small and linear, and were designed to be so. Vanilla WoW dungeons, on the other hand, were sprawling, non-linear, and would take a whole afternoon if you ran it at an appropriate level. I knew this was the case, don't get me wrong, but it's still kind of shocking when you zone in and get reminded of it.

During the week, I have limited play time. I have a couple of hours between work and sleep to do what I need to do. The smaller dungeons, therefore, appeal to me. It's nice to be able to get in, get out, and get to bed at a reasonable time. I'm getting older, after all.

Still, I admire the effort they put into those old dungeons. They really were pretty epic and well-designed.

The other, less important point to this post is...how is that city still burning? Seriously. It's been years since Arthas ran rampant through the place, yet the buildings are still standing and they're still on fire.

Sometimes it's best not to think too hard about stuff like that.

Overachieving

Knocked out some viral video-related achievements this afternoon with Willy, Eckhart, Velessi the Boomkin, and Cheesi.

First (sans Cheesi), we hit the Spire to get the Jenkins title.

Then, with Cheesi, we spanked little miss Onyxia like the bad girl she is.

At the end of our little escapade the guild bank received some nice level 60-ish blues and greens.

A good time was had by all...except the hundred or so whelps that felt our wrath.

Burn the Land and Boil the Sea

You can't take the sky from me.

Number 1: Accomplished

I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.