Adventures of a Dwarf Priest

I spent much of my day today pursuing various achievements.  Mainly the critter loving ones This took me to some pretty parts of the world I hadn’t been in a while which is nice considering what is about to happen!

It is also easy to forget how big WoW really is when you stay stuck in the end game content because you just simply don’t go that many places.

I also managed to catch a raid group for the weekly to kill Ignis.  That was fun though we had a hard time holding onto members.  Also it appears ever since 4.01 went live no one wants to tank.  I wonder if it is really THAT bad? We did eventually get this done even though we had some fairly under geared people.

I finished out the day decided to work on some pets I don’t have.  So I figured out the whole book thing for the arcane elemental guy.  Got that down so I at least know where they should be.  I’ll try to make some after server restart arrivals.  I didn’t actually see any books though.  After that I decided to spend some time farming for the oozling pet.  I was doing it in WPL and had a pretty good time even doing it.  The spawn rate was decent and Holy Nova makes it easy enough.  I had about 10 or 12 bags drop but nothing yet.  Heck I managed to get the parrot so sure enough I should be able to get this guy

Relaxing day over all I think

Got on a little early today and managed to get the weekly done.  It was razorscale this week so it was back to Ulduar.  When I walked it I was a little shocked, I don’t know if it is because of the higher quality or the PC just renders different but Ulduar is very pretty   Something seemed more pretty to me anyways hehe

Of course I had to highlight this little shot as well.  After all I don’t think I’ve ever had a computer that could actually render shadows of any kind without dying   So it was kind of neat to see Razorscale’s shadow  over us as we battled.

Ok here is where my “Why Me” comes into play.  I got back on after I got my son to bed, which took too long of course.  I wanted to do my random and what do I get?  HoL… I get this damn instance way too much.  Of course I come into it just as they are about to do the 2nd boss.  Of course after a few minutes I realized the previous healer must have killed himself or went for a walk or had “connection problems” because well the tank had no idea what he was doing.  He was barley geared in blues which I don’t mind but he was terrible to boot!  Then we had a ret pally in greens that some how managed to always get agro from the terrible tank.  We had a hunter which was the only one who knew what he was doing and a terrible cat druid.

So I spent the whole instance frantically trying to keep them all alive.  Failing once loosing the druid and ret pally.  I’ve never used pain suppression so much in my life hehe  So not only did I get silly HoL yet again but I got the group from hell yay.  The terrible tank was a DK which seems to be pretty easy to be terrible at.  I did end up making it through the instance though

After that finished I was just about to log but before I did I saw a tell for VoA10.  Since I’m trying to get as many badges this week as I can I stopped to get that done and out of the way.  Now I just need to get VOA25 and try to squeeze a few ICC runs in and I should get my pants The VoA run was almost fail too but thankfully we had a few really awesome people to make up for the lack luster ones

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

I got back to working on my loremaster goal today when my son went down for his nap.  I went back to STV, my least favorite questing spot in all of WoW. I had nearly every quest available here until recently.  I have so many quests in my log now that are sending me off to places around the world.  I can see why they thought they should rebuild the old world even more now

Ever since I started using shadow again I have found it is a little more fun to play around doing these quests.  I have finally finished all the bootybay quests that actually take in place in STV and I need to run around the world now.

I had missed an earlier IM from Inien letting me know he was in a raid that could use me.  When I got on after I got my son to bed they had started but only barely.  I continued to questing and eventually they needed a DPS.  I volunteered to come for some practice.  It was a Uluar 25 and there was the usual standing around associated with them   It is why I hate 25 mans so much.  We have a hard enough time keeping 10 people paying attention some time, but 25 is really hard.

We did two bosses the XT-002 and Kologarn before we called it a night. I got to DPS up to Kologarn but then a healer left and they asked me to heal for that fight.  I didn’t do to bad, obviously the other people were better geared than me, I in the top 10 then.  Usually around 7th or 8th in DPS and Damage, pulling around 3200.

I think I learned a few things from that run.  I know I need more actual DPS gear, and I’m not hitcapped yet which hurts me a lot too I think.  I should be able to aquire some Decent DPS gear in 3.3 that will help.  Before I logged out for the night I was trying to make some new Satrinabuff frames to help me.  I’ve been trying various addons to try to keep track of what I have on the target which is really all I need.  I think if I can get something that lets me more easily see and react I can improve my dps.

Came home relatively on time today and spent an hour or so doing all my usual dailies while my son was taking a nap.  I did this in hopes that in the evening I might be able to do some raiding.  I’m not far from my squire goal now, just another day or two and I’ll start working on pets!

So right about the time I was going to start a less is more 25 man OS run I get a tell from Texas Mercenaries asking if I wanted to do Trial of the Crusader with them.  So of course I said yes and headed out.  The group leader of the OS really annoyed me anyways.  He kept insisting on having 5 healers, I hate it when you do it normally with 5 healers, when you have 5 less people you need more DPS and less healers…  Anyways the ToC was awesome!  We went in and spanked the first 3 bosses no problem.  One shot!  Remembering everything we learned last week.  Of course the 4th boss was quite complicated.  We didn’t do quite so well on this one.  We gave it 4 or 5 wipes then decided we’d do more research and do better next week.  Instead we went to Ulduar.

We even did Razorscale so fast that we got the achievement.  It was getting late so we skipped Ignis and went for Auriaya after Razorscale.

She went splat pretty easy, though we did loose the offtank to a pounce in the begining, but thanks to our 3 boomkin, one of whom was very fast on the draw with the battle rez we didn’t even miss a beat

We finished off with some attempts at Hodir.  They didn’t quite have him down yet and I had never even been in the fight but it was interesting.  Part of the problem was it was nearly midnight and I had been up since 4am so I wasn’t exactly at my best at this point.  I kept messing up, and practically nodding off LOL

We made a few more attempts at it but they actually kept getting worse so we called it and I left for the sweet embrace of the bed   It was a fun night, though not much good loot.  Only two people ended up with things for main spec, and we DE’d quite a bit of stuff.  The gear was for classes we didn’t have!  Oh and when we went to Ulduar they had to grab another healer, interestingly enough it was another Disc Priest.  That is something I don’t see every day   Thanks to ToC I’m only 10 Triumph badges away from new shoulders which is what I decided to go for first.  Then maybe a new ring after that.  I did buy earlier in the day the Touch of the Occult gloves with some conquest badges.  There isn’t much left I can do with the conquest badges.

I got on a bit late but as soon as I did I received a tell inviting me to Ulduar.  It happened to be the very guild I went the first time to Ulduar with.  We started off doing the first boss with 2 towers up.  It was about the same but with zappy lasers.  We wiped once but redeemed ourselves on the second try.  When you do this hardmode version you get some extra gear and conquest tokens.

We did all the bosses I have done before; Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, XT-002 Deconstructor, Kologarn and Auriaya.  They were still working on Ignis the Furnace Master but since I really wanted the achievement I was up for wiping.

I had actually never even got to try him before.  I enjoyed  the attempts, we got closer and closer.  Everyone was definitely at the top of their game even though it was getting pretty late.  We all knew we could do it though so we kept at it.

Being tossed in his pot was one of his “things”.  On our 4th or 5th attempt where we actually defeated him he threw me in the pot like 3 or 4 times in a row in the beginning of the fight.

We won in the end and wouldn’t have lost anyone had one of the healers computer not crashed.  Some plate gear dropped and a melee dps cloak.  I was just happy to get the achievement, and in fact got several others to go with it.  It turned out to be a very enjoyable evening!

I got on after not having been on all week expecting to just do a few quests, maybe an OS25 and ended up getting an invite from some of the same guys I did Ulduar with last time.

This time I got to see a few more bosses which was fun.  It was being healed by me, a Druid and a elemental shaman they made respec to restro who healed like 10%   Here you can see us in front of Kologarn which was a fairly neat fight.  He is awfully big

When he dies he ends up being the bridge across to the next boss area.  We wiped once to Auriaya and when I came back across the bridge(which I found out later I could have teleported) I fell down and there is no way to get up.  I was cursing Blizzard because they always put up invisible walls when I don’t want them, but this would have been a case where you did.  I had to port back to dalaran and fly back.

We did pretty good for a PUG I think.  We wiped 3 times total, the first was on the first even some people were having issues controlling their machines   The second time we wiped on the trash before Auriaya which is hard.  Then we wiped once on Auriaya.  Her even seems hard to start but once you get it going your ok.  Peoples biggest problem once we got it started was moving out of the void zone that was created when her panther died from too much splash damage.

All told I got to do 5 bosses this time Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, XT-002 Deconstructor, Kologarn, Auriaya.  We were about to do the iron council when the druid healer had to leave.  There was a huge shortage of healers for some reason.  That was all you heard people shouting for in LFG.  So eventually gave up after trying for a bit.  It was a fun run though.  I didn’t win anything, well nothing I wanted dropped either.  Maybe next time!

I got on this afternoon to find I had something in my mailbox, yes it was my Sen’jin Fetish!  Ever since I did the tiki quests in Zul’Drak I wanted this one first.  So I had the gold and bid on it.  All the other horde pets are cool too but this is definitely my favorite.  In case your wondering how crazy I was, I was 2100G crazy   It’s only money!

I ran over to help a guildie after I finished my cooking/fishing dailies in Icecrown.  While I was there I finished off my Dagger skillups but just poking mobs to death for about 20 minutes.  I figure since I’m using a staff now I’ll probably not remember to finish daggers.  I got the achievement but I still want to max out staffs just for the hell of it

I managed to get in an Ulduar 10 group shortly after I got on as well.  This is the second time I have been the first time being the first week it came out.  It is ALOT easier than it once was that is for sure.  Yes I think the guys I was with were better geared than the first ones, but everything seemed tons easier.  We even got the achievement for killing the first guy without doing system shutdown.

In fact we didn’t even wipe once, or loose anyone until we got to this area where we didn’t pull some guys back far enough and just ended up with too many adds doing AOE damage walking in on us.  We had 3 healers, a some what undergeared pally, a well geared shaman and me.

We managed to do Razorscale and XT-002 so smoothly it was silly.  Convienently I was the only cloth wearing person in the raid and as luck would have it a very nice belt dropped of Razorscale.  I am now the proud owner of the Binding of the Dragon Matriarch.  This was actually a huge upgrade better than my current belt in all stats, and had a bunch of crit rating

We went onto Iron Council which we wiped a few times on thanks to me not dispelling this debuff the big guy puts on the tank fast enough.  I was dispelling it as fast as I would see it but I must have been having some sort of lag.  Even if it manages to tick once it is devastating.  I was going to watch the boss cast it and just spam dispel as he was casting but we ended up not trying again.  We had 2 people leave, then more and the group fell apart.  I was sad too because that was an awesome group makeup, practically defaulting all cloth to me

I enjoyed the run though, and just did some questing through out the rest of the evening.  I’m 1 token away from both being in with the humans at the tournament, and being able to buy my Ironforge pet

I got on and was attempting to get in some sort of Naxx or OS group, I joined a 25 Naxx group that the leader didn’t even know how to form a raid   I got poor Inien into the group too but it was before we knew that.  I got a tell while they were trying to get more from Redfive of Texas Mercenaries.  I had raided with them before and they were good guys.  Not very hard core, I think they enjoy the game on par with me.  They don’t even insist on using Vent to raid   They wanted me to do Ulduar with them, they had not done it yet so I joined up knowing that Naxx would never work out any ways.

Someone looked up the fist fight and explained it, mostly it was explaining what all the vehicles do, and there are 5 of them and several take two people who each have different roles.  We got familiar with the vehicles first running around in the starting area.  Here I am in a siege tank as the gunner, I have the Shield activated which is pretty awesome looking   I enjoyed this role and stuck to it in the run.

The first part of the fight you basically destroy all the defences which means you destroy a lot of towers, and kill a lot of big mean machines.  We wiped quite a few times figuring this part out but you don’t have to start over at least.

The flying guys were by far the meanest thing, if you let them get close enough to shoot you then you were toast.  The cannon I operated was the anti-air.

Eventually you get to fight the big bad boss and he is quite mean.  It involves throwing people on him to kill his turrets, and disabling him some times.  Plus just a whole lot of old fashion running and shooting.  He randomly goes after a particular vehicle and you have to run like hell.

What we ended up realizing is since the machines power is based on your gear we had to shuffle what people were driving because a poorly geared person driving the siege tank made it have too few HP.  We wiped quite a bit to him figuring it out, but several people had connections issues that got worked out eventually.

We did eventually down him though it was quite awesome.  The people in my seige tank ended up winning the gear.  The tank won a nice plate wrist, and I won a new hat the Lifespark Visage. It has a meta gem which I’ve never had on Laneer before, and a little bit different distribution of stats.  Mainly instead of the mp5 it has haste.  Of course what I really want is more crit, but I figure this hat will work better for both dps/healing and it has so much haste on it I can loose it elsewhere if I find something new with crit and be good still.

One other thing to note about this victory, I kid you not I did 91% of the damage.  That is not a typo, the seige tank does so much damage IF you are geared well.  Where I hit for an average of 70k per cannon the other operator hit for 11k.  When he was shutdown I was hitting for 100k, or  critting for 200k.  So ya it was awesome

It was getting late but we tried a couple more bosses.  We were barely able to scratch the proto drake boss.  VERY hard, so much aoe damage and such it would have helped to have a holy priest or a restro druid/shaman, we only had paladins and me   After deciding that wasn’t going to happen we decided to try one more before bed.

Yay more robot bosses.  This one was hilarious, it sounded like a kid, and he kept calling us toys and hoped he didn’t break us.  He also threw temper tantrums   We ALMOST killed him our first try, downed him to like 5% then he enraged, didn’t kill him fast enough.  We tried one more time did worse though, I had a headache at this point not at the top of my game and it was late.  We ended up calling it a night

I really enjoyed everything though.  Aside from a few of us we were not optimally geared for this.  I’m sure it would be easier if they were a bit better geared. I did notice I have mana bar like Blizzard wanted but it was managable, I didn’t find myself hurt by the nerf too badly.  I did use DH quite a few times, and it is totally awesome

All in all it was a very good night!