Adventures of a Dwarf Priest

I teamed up with the Texas Mercenaries again tonight for another round with the Lich King.  We were so close last week when they invited me I was excited when I was asked to come again.  As usual I love raiding with them and we managed to pull it off tonight.  Our defeat of the Lich King followed a FLAWLESS attempt.  No one died, everyone did exactly what they were suppose to and brought him some major pain. I was even the first person to be pulled into the sword, I wish I had a screenshot of that!  I was too busy trying to make sure I did everything right

I of course put aside my pride again for this run and spammed the HELL out of Power Word: Shield.  I had read that Disc Priests are very effective against the Lich King.  I typically won’t just spam one spell even if the masses tell me that is the most effective because it isn’t the most fun   But for the sake of getting the Lich King down I made an exception   I don’t think I would have been able to keep up with the shield spamming though after the 4.x changes without my Archangel.  I was able to use that to recover mana each time the Valkyrie would come I’d assist, then pop archangel, BAM I got 5K mana and 15% more healing.  Plus atonement is healing the whole time anyways.  Atonement was severing me well with the ICC buff smite hits pretty hard

I found the cut scene which I had watched before from the fountain, so much more satisfying coming after the fight.  I also found it very satisfying to kill the end boss of the expansion, DURING the expansion.  Though this of course is at the very end of things but still an accomplishment none the less.  I believe most people are trolling when they say he is easy.  It takes 10 people in perfect unison to get him down.  Perhaps in 25 man it is easier?  It has always seemed to me in 25 man you can stand to loose a few people but in 10 man unless you outclass the content you need all 10 people.

Other than that most exciting moment, today I spent most of the time playing my Mage Seun.  The one that was named Laneir I renamed recently.  I plan to race change him to a Dwarf when the expansion hits   I was just running around doing the cataclysm quests for gold and fun plus queuing for dungeon runs.  I also managed to do all the event bosses but I haven’t got any gear from it yet.  Maybe tomorrow?

I also hope to make some attempts at some Ulduar or BT this weekend, Still have achievements to get there!  This was a completely awesome ending to the day though.  I thank the Texas Mercenaries for inviting me.  I really enjoy raiding with them!

Didn’t play as much today as I did on Saturday but I did manage to get on and make a run through my Argent dailies.  I really slept in today and everyone was coming back some time was limited   I came out 4 short of buy the other Argent Hippogryph.  I logged and went to eat some lunch after that.

When I got back on I saw someone shouting for 25man ICC and it was far enough a long that I could join it.  So I got in the group and then went to WPL to farm my Ooze pet some more   They eventually got together and we started. So I FINALLY got exalted with the Ashen Verdict.  As a bonus I picked up a few more achievements while I was there with them.  I finally got to seed Professor Putricide go down which was nice.  As a bonus he dropped a Priest token that I rolled on and won!

My wife and son got home though so I had to cut the raid short.  We were doing ok still but eventually ran into some trouble with the Bloodqueen.  My son wanted to play anyways so I bowed out at that point.  I used my token to buy my Robe upgrade as I left.  I figured it was as good as anything.  Now I need to gem my Robe and my upgraded Ring now too.  Oh well at least I have something to spend the JP on again because I maxed them out again already.

All in all a good evening.

The wife and kid went out of town for the weekend so I got to play as much WoW as I liked.  That I did!    I continued some of the Phase 3 quests I hadn’t finished yet.

All the people standing in front of Stormwind was kind of funny.  I only searched the ladies! >:)

I then joined up with a group doing PvP kill the faction leaders quest.  You don’t seem to be able to do it for the Aliance though because Thrall is gone right now.  When we got to thunderbluff the guy was already dead too   I got two of them out of the way though and it was pretty fun.

I ended up doing some PvP after that in random battle grounds.  I actually had a good time most of the time.  Without PvP gear all it took was a stun and I was dead pretty damn fast but hey I’m wearing a bath robe   I played enough till I had enough honor to pickup another one of the faction mounts.  I didn’t remember about this and Inien reminded me.  I had enough to buy two almost 3.

Inien got on and then we ended up doing ZG for mounts.  Then his buddy from work got on and we just did all of ZG for his benefit

It isn’t too hard and didn’t take that long.  We broke for lunch and when we came back we got in an ICC run.  It took a while to get started because it was suppose to be fresh but some how they got it stuck with 7 bosses down.  After finally reforming we were good to go.  The leader knew absolutely nothing, so another guy took over.  Of course everyone left after doing the first 4 easy bosses and I was left 168 freaking rep from exalted.  Sigh….  After the ICC we took care of all our Argent dailies and doing a ToC run real fast for seals.  Still mounts to get after all   We broke for dinner after that.

After coming back we decided to do ZA again, Inien still had the quest he wanted to finish.  On our way over we did a quick UGP for the mount Inien never gets, then off to ZA. We had a lot harder time completing it this time.  I think by this time we were completely worn out.  WoW is like anything else, you are nearly as good when you are rested   After struggling with the Lynx boss we decided to head to bed.  Always another day after all!

Was a very enjoyable day in WoW though I must say   That is why I’m posing this at noon the next day lol

I got on tonight to see what was up with Phase 3.  I heard it went live on twitter and wanted to catch some things.  Inien invited me to do the weekly and I thought sure why not.  Not more than a few minutes later I got a tell from the Texas Mercenaries saying they were on the LK and did I want to join.  I debated for a minute and told them I hadn’t done him yet but they didn’t care so off I went to ICC.  I’ve always wanted to see this fight.

They explained things and I picked it up pretty easy after seeing it once.  We did pretty good getting closer and closer.  We would be so close when something silly would ruin it!  I wiped a lot with them, it was just like old times   I felt pretty good though no one died from lack of being healed, they pretty much died at the very end to spirits, silly deaths or falling/thrown off     My shields were coming very much in handy, and I was able to use Archangel to keep my mana up.  I think I actually helped pretty good on the Valkyries too with my smite power!

In the end we started to wear down and they called it.  Too bad too because they’ll probably down him next time without me, and I likely won’t get another chance at him before cataclysm comes out.  I still have a pesky 2k rep I need from ICC too

Few people were heading out to do the weekly so I joined them for that.  It had been a while since I stuck it to old sarthy.  It was so easy I largely healed the hole time with atonement hehe  I realized half way in that I maxed my JP again at some point.  I’ll have to buy a few gems before I turn in the quest.

I had a fantastic evening even though we didn’t get the LK down it was really fun.  I also really enjoyed raiding with my old Text Mercenary buddies again.  I hope they have me back again in the future!

I’m not sure what the odds of this happening are but I was doing my random for the day and got VH.  The first portal opened at the spot on the left side looking out from the entrance then proceeded to do each portal moving left to right.  I wish I would have taken a video because you probably wouldn’t believe it hehe

Later that evening I got in a PUG 25 man ICC.  They asked for healer with a DPS off spec but I mostly ended up being DPS the whole time.  We did the usual easy bosses, and tried the Dreamwalker but were never successful.  The people were well geared in the group but didn’t listen very well.  There were also a few people who were not very well geared and were even lamer at listening.

It was nice though because we got the quest again which meant another batch of frost badges for me.  By the time we were done I had more than enough to get my hat.  Now I only need one more piece of my 4 piece, yay!  First time completing a set bonus for me since vanilla.  I usually don’t try, but thought I’d try it out this time

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!

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!

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!

Finally got to a make another attempt at ICC but not how I wanted.  I ended up joining some guys 25 man PUG.  I really despise 25 man raids because I just don’t feel like I contribute enough.  Plus getting 25 people to do the right thing is a lot harder than getting 10 people to do so

We did fine on the trash leading up to the boss.  The traps were well dealt with and we didn’t have any deaths.  The DPS was good overall but we had a few people that were pretty under geared.  Like the Hunter wearing greens and a few blues and then the tier 9 pieces

Eventually we started on the boss.  Lost a few times then people start leaving, we wait around and replace them.  Loose a few more times, then more people leave and we replace them.  I think we did 3 or 4 rounds on this.  They kept blaming the healers in the end.  We had 3 tanks, but only two tank healers, a Pally and Me.  Then we had 3 druids and a Shaman.  People kept throwing up healing meters, I was like 4th of course, but I’m a Disc priest   Only the raid leader seemed to understand that everyone kept talking crap about me too.  I never bothered to point out that the tank I was assigned to heal was the last one alive EVERY time.  Actually the tank I was assigned too stuck up for me as well as he kept saying he was fine.  It was a DK I was healing too.

Eventually we gave up and split up the group.  After that I went and did my random for the day and went to bed.