Adventures of a Dwarf Priest

I got on this evening and eventually ended up in a ICC group.  It was a PUG and turned out to be great.  It was my first run with the 30% buff.  The weekly was Lord Marrowgar so that was  a bonus.  Even got an achievement off Marrowgar   Everyone was well geared and the things went very well right up to Professor Putricide where we lost a tank.  We almost split right there but someone found a tank eventually.  We almost got him first try, but the second try we completely owned him.  I was so excited to finally get him down and complete that wing.

From that point on it was all new territory to me.  I hadn’t seen anything beyond him and was looking forward to it!  The next fight we did was Valithria Dreamwalker.  This was a really neat fight where I had to heal the dragon.  Since we only needed one tank one of the paladins joined me in healing while the rest dealt with all these adds.  when we got the dragon to full we won.  It was a really neat fight and I had no idea something like that existed in ICC.

We did good up to the blood queen where we had some issues with all the coordination but eventually got it down and defeated her!  That is an interesting fight too, not terribly difficult once you get down all the things you have to do.

We lost one of the tanks and everyone was ready to call it but some of us, me included wanted to just see Sindragosa.  So we went ahead and got her and gave her one shot.  Someone got their wife to get on who was a tank to help just once.  We did one run on it and got the gist of it.  I look forward to finishing that one some day I hope!  It was exciting I got frozen first off

Gear wise it wasn’t too exciting.  I was glad to get the badges though.  Only DPS cloth dropped and a lot of plate and a bit of mail.  In the end I did roll on a wand that did have hit on it but was still good.  Also one of the guys gave me some dps pants I might use in my healing set too till I can complete my 4 piece.  Getting new things was fun too, though now I have to gem and enchant some pants   Really enjoyed the group though and got a good run on rep!

Maybe it is because I haven’t done one in a while or because I have so little time anymore but my goblin rep grind seems slower than normal.  Even though I know it couldn’t possibly be as bad as when I did the Timbermaw 1 rep at a time before they changed the system all the way to exalted.  That rep had the occasional turn in item do as do the water waste guys I’m doing now.

I got DK as my heroic daily today which I hadn’t done in a while.  The group had lost their healer but I joined them still at the first boss.  The tank was well geared but all the DPS were recent 80s I can tell.  I never mind not overgearing and instance, in fact they are way more fun that way

I finished up the DK run which didn’t take much longer than usual and then started my quests in icecrown for the argent tournament.  I put myself in the looking for raid system for a 25 mana voa, Inien was finishing something else and mentioned he did the same.  I continued my quests in icecrown and then got a VOA25 invite, they were full though, and had apparently been wiping

I thought oh boy but stayed with them, a bunch of people left and I got them to invite Inien.  I told Inien what he was in for and finally after a long wait we went again.  I could tell the issue was their healers were severely under geared, but they had insane dps but then they wouldn’t switch to the frost thingys when they went up.  Anyways we didn’t wipe but a considerable number of people died and in the end the of this story Inien got the mage pants that dropped from this boss with a roll of 25 against 2 other mages, and it completed his 4 piece set!  Grats to him   One guy even offered him 6k gold for them hehe

After all that Inien and I finished up some tournament quests and I think we might have done a ToC in there some where too.  We went over and hit up ZG to try again for my silly baby raptor pet and for some more mounts for him.  Of course none of it ended up dropping.  We did about 3 tries for the pet.  It is a good distraction anyways

So I started off this day but helping some guildies get tickets to Blizzcon!  My family and I were about to head out to the park and noticed it was about 20 till 10.  I got on and asked if he wanted help getting tickets.  So my wife, my friend who was over and myself tried to get tickets too.  I ended up with a 1063 queue position, a guaranteed ticket buyer!  So when I got through the queue, I logged in with their account and switched it to the 4 they wanted and bingo!  They eventually go through on one of their attempts and got some other guildies tickets so it will be a major reunion of Shadows at Blizzcon this year!

I got on later in the evening to maybe run something with Inien.  He got a tell for Sykotic, the leader of Wrath of Vengeance that we will some times raid with asking if we wanted to do 25 man ICC.  So we joined up with them, I still never get a chance to do it, and needed the rep, and badges

We did all the way up to the two ugly guys, Rotface and Festergut.  This was their first Rotface kill on 25 man, so that was neat to be a part of that   Not much caster get dropped at all, just two DPS pieces I believe.  I was just happy to come a long and get rep and badges.   25 mans though are not my favorite as I’ve said before.  I really feel like I’m playing whack a mole, like the old 40 man days but not as bad   I also never feel like I’m making a very big impact on what is happening like I do in 10 mans.  Fezzik and I talked about that a bit, he is one of wrath’s healers and he feels the same way.

Still by the time we finished for the evening I came away with a good chunk of badges, and now well on my way through honored.  I got my honored ring now, yay!  Helped some guildies get tickets, that was exciting too.  Will be fun at Blizzcon with 8 of us!

Got on a little earlier today and ran my daily random and managed to stomp out the weekly raid.  I even managed to get an achievement in my random I didn’t have.

I got back on later that night and Inien helped me visit Zul’Gurub to do some farming for the baby raptor I don’t have.  We reset a few times but it was kind of late when we started so we gave up for the night and killed the raptor boss just to try for his mount.

A nice end to a good Birthday

Got on earlier this morning to do a little farming but ended up doing a guild run of the weekly.  We ran it with just the 7 of us, it was of course no problemo   I got to let my baby XT run around during the big XT fight hehe

Got back on later for a bit of goblin farming.  I’m back onto another one of my pointless goals now, 40 exalted reps   I’m working on the goblin ones because you can work on so many at one.  Plus there is an added bonus I’m also farming for the Hyacinth Macaw which I do not own yet.  The drop rate is stupidly low so having to kill a billion of them for faction also helps make it worth it

I hope I get one by the time I’ve got everything to exalted.  Wish me luck!

BTW Happy Mother’s Day to all those WoW loving moms out there

So I was doing some questing (almost done with LoreMaster) when I heard some guildies talking about EoE which is the weekly raid.  I have only tried this fight once with the Texas Mercenaries.  I’ve never go the achievement which I wanted.  Plus I wanted more frost badges   So I joined in the conversation about starting up the raid and off we went.

It is a bit frustrating because of  the drakes you have to use in phase 3.  In fact he would go down like nothing if it wasn’t for that lol.  Thankfully I think the vehicle scaling is working in them now too.  I remember at least if he targeted you before and you didn’t put up the shield you died, but now it really didn’t matter.  It was mainly the way you had to move around in a circle I found confusing and avoiding the lightning which was the really damaging part.

In the end on the 3rd and final try 4 of us managed to survive the 3rd cycle and take him down.  I  mostly concentrated on healing and the other 3 dps’d.  In the end when we got close I DPSd a little too, and we won by a hair with the last person up when it ticked over and killed him.  I’m glad I can cross him off my list and I’m not sure I want to do him again though LOL

I got on today and ran my usual daily random for frost badges then jump on my Mage Laneir.  We were about half done with the Nexus when they were saying in guild chat they were short 1 DPS for ICC and did anyone want to come.  I didn’t notice it at first but spoke up a few minutes later and they still needed someone so I dropped out of my random and got on Laneer.

I haven’t raided as DPS much, and I was a little worried about embarrassing myself, but it was with the guild so hopefully no one minded   I don’t consider myself an expert Shadow Priest by any means yet, but when I took it up again seriously 6 or 7 months ago I think I finally got it.  Pretty much everyone in the raid totally out geared me, they run raids far more than I get time to do, and was grateful they brought me   I had not seen past the first boss besides what videos I’ve watched when it was on the PTR.  I wasn’t even friendly yet with the faction, I took my break at the time people did rep runs and such so I’m behind there too.  We did the first boss super easy and then moved onto the second one.  They explained the fights well and I wasn’t doing too bad, no one even died and there were no wipes till we got much further in

I picked up a few items a long the way.  I got a new DPS offhand which finally got me to the hit cap I needed for raiding.  In fact now I’m a little over it and could afford to loose some if an option came up   We did really well on Saurfang, I tried to pay attention to the healing parts of the fight too so I knew what to expect if that was every my job   In this fight I did some person best on DPS, doing 5400, scoring 3rd or 4th in the raid I can’t remember.

We had two tremendous boomkins, that totally destroyed the trash with their AOE’s.  I felt very inadequate when we did trash, first because stuff died so fast that right now I don’t have the tools to deal with that because of the way SP have to ramp up. Second because my AOE wasn’t even close to matching anyone elses LOL.  I think maybe if I was better geared, I always heard positive things about Mind Sear.

The guild made everything look so easy though, we had no deaths or wipes really up till we go to the plague area.  Man the stuff in this area is super UGLY!  We did both these ugly guys successfully.  We wiped twice on Festergut, but got him down.  We one shot Rotface, but lost I think 2 people in the fight.  I can’t believe how complicated these fights get.  You have to keep track of a lot of stuff during the fights.  Being a dot class came in handy on Rotface because of all the moving that goes on in the fight.

Everyone was ready to call it a night at that point but we decided to go see the Professor before we did.  They haven’t downed him yet but they explained the fight well and we gave it a shot.  There is a lot going on in this fight too.  I was extremely thankful for getting the invite and being able to see this much of the dungeon.  I had a really great time DPSing too which I don’t at this level that often.  I found it  relaxing not having to worry about everyone else and just play   I ended up with a few items too, including getting over half way through friendly and picking up my faction ring.  Getting stuff was neat because it is hard for me to find upgrades for Laneer anymore anyplace else, but just the opportunity to finally go and see that much of the dungeon was the real treat for me!

So my wife got back and I finally got a chance to relax for a few and do a little WoW’ing.  I did my daily random and was about to go log onto Laneir when I see someone asking for healers for ToC10 for the Weekly Raid.  I figured I’d give it a shot though this is not something I was imagining to be much fun in a PUG   I have run this with Texas Mercenaries quite a bit so I knew the fights well.  Man I miss raiding with those guys.

Anyways the guy asks me if I think we can two heal it, and I mention we did that all the time before so as long as he gets another equivalent healer we are good. So we finally get the second tank and we are ready to go.  The second healer he got was a paladin who had a higher GS than me by quite a bit.  I think oh good, it will be just like when Redfive and I used to do this.  I go and make an assumption that the stupid high GS number means he knows what he is doing…WRONG! We start off and the guy dies in the first 45 seconds of the fight, he stood in the fire … So I solo heal it till I start loosing people once we get to the worms and we wipe it.  I don’t think anyone realizes he died first, I didn’t say anything.

We try again, he dies AGAIN early on, I solo heal the thing to the worms again, and tried to keep as many people alive as I could but eventually it is just me and the tank left and by this time we have lost everyone but the one tank, and the Rogue RL who started the whole thing.  They both told me nice heals and the rogue went back to grab another group    This time we got a Holy Priest, higher GS than me, and another DK tank.  We lost some people in the worms, the other healer wasn’t helping enough, but got to the last guy with 5 people and we defeated him.  I looked at the healing out of curiosity, not only did I out heal a Holy Priest who was better geared than me, I did so not even including my absorbs

We defeated Lord Jaraxxus just fine, and I even picked up the Felspark Bindings off him for my DPS set   I have terrible wrists actualy tempted to wear them for my healing set if it wasn’t for the loss of regen   I will say one thing, every time I PUG there is outstanding evidence that having a high GS doesn’t mean you know what your doing, doesn’t mean you will do lots of damage/heal/tank well.  I can’t be the only one to notice this so I wonder why so many people put so much stock in that stupid number?  My little Mage I’m still gearing up will often out damage people with a higher GS then him because they are lazy I can only assume.

Speaking of Laneir I did do a few heroic runs on him today.  We got stuck in Oculus which I admit is not my favorite.  No one ran away this time, and I did get the extra 2 badges for doing it they added recently   Best of all I got the epic staff that drops off Eregos, the Staff of Draconic Combat which was a nice upgrade for Laneir   Sorry I don’t have any pictures from his adventures, I forgot to take some!  I’m almost ready to get my 3rd piece of T9 on him though, yay!  After I get all 4 pieces, I’ll start grabbing some of the other triumph gear.  It is kind of fun gearing up an alt, I’ve never done it before and well now it is more fun and easier than ever!

I didn’t get a chance to post much but I got back late late on Thursday, very worn out   Intending to veg for the weekend I successfully managed to squeeze in some WoW here and there which was great.  Did some dailies for the first time in a loooong time, random dungeons, raided VOA, got plenty of achievements from that   Managed the weekly raid again as well.

Tried to do some HoR and PoS for some slight upgrades I was missing from there.  Of course the adventures I had in PUG HoR was never very good as illustrated here   I stuck with this one PUG which illustrates why gearscores don’t mean crap if the people suck

Speaking of GearScores, I was a bit shocked as to how widespread that is now.  I think when I started my break that mod just came out, people had been sort of doing that from websites/armory checking up to that point.  Now you see people demanding achievements, and GS of 5342 or something like that.  I find it funny because it is an odd number, it must mean something specific though   I installed the stupid addon just so I could know what mine was, it is something between 5000 and 5100 I can’t remember it at the moment.

Yesterday I took a break from Laneer (except for doing my random dungeon daily) and played Laneir my Arcane Mage   I forgot how much fun he can be to play.  Decided I’d try to gear him up a bit and and a bunch of random dailies.  Managed to pick up a few epic drops, and some high blue items which certainly helped out.  I also took the badges I already had plus a bunch more I made and got two pieces of my set, shoulders and hands. I think this is the first time in WoW history I actually got a second character to max level at the same time as Laneer and actually geared him up a bit to boot   Of course it is WAY easier now than it once was

Did a bit of questing with Laneir as well in between dungeons.  I did one in IC that has a lot more meaning to me after hearing the stories about why it was created and such from the Blizzard guys.   It is sad but such a great way to honor a person.

I had a good time on Laneir, I can’t wait to make him a Dwarf though once they allow race changes for that   I’ve also built up quite a bit of badges to go on another shopping spree for Furryous my future Worgen Warrior.

I think anyways.  I have been getting the “urge” back and was reading MMO-Champion today and thought man I want to play.  I came home from the mall, my son was asleep so I got on Laneer.  I wanted to heal so I jumped in a random daily and got smelly DK.  We blew through it really quick!  After finishing I got hooked up with the weekly raid which was razorscale.  So I got a lot done on my first real day back.  I was feeling very good with all the warm greetings from the guildies too

Man and right before I go on vacation for 3 days   Ahh well it is to Disneyland, yay