Adventures of a Dwarf Priest

Well tomorrow brings the Shattering upon us!  I totally thought they would do it on the anniversary but I guess they went with the normal patch day   This is such a huge change that will change the game forever.  We are not strangers to change of course with the 4.x updates dramatically changing our classes, items and game play aspects of the game.  Now come the major physical changes to the world as Deathwing reeks his havoc upon the world.

I think about the only thing I’m really going to miss and maybe a bit peeved about is the portals are going away   It is a small thing but I’ve got used to a world in which I was bound by no mage to have  speedy travel.  As a man with limited play time these days I am totally going to miss these portals.  They have served me well for sure.  I removed my bind from Shattrath before logging and stuck myself in IF for now.  I still have my ring that will return me to Dalaran, not that it will be terribly useful now

I took a visit to Loch Modan for some reflection on my life in WoW.  I’ve been playing this game for 6 years now, the longest I’ve played anything now surpassing EQ.  Especially since I never really stopped playing WoW like I would do with EQ.   Some of my earliest memories of WoW center around Loch Modan.  I remember the first time I walked through the mountains as I transitioned from Dun Morogh’s snowy mountains to the lush green areas in Loch Modan.  I remember the first time I walked into Thelsamar.  I love the Dwarves, and I love this zone.  I would have to say it is my favorite zone in all of WoW.

I went over the Grim Batol in the wetlands to grab a shot before the changes.  I know this becomes one of the first raid areas so I just figured I’d take one last peep.  I remember Inien and I fought our way over here just to see it one time knowing that there was nothing actually here

Inien popped on and we ended up taking one last visit to ZG to see if we couldn’t snag the Tiger/Raptor mounts.  We were not successful as always of course but we gave it a shot   We also ran Sethekk Halls for the birdie mount for me, and ran over to MGT to see if we couldn’t get the chicken mount

Inien and I decided to drop by Auberdine to say good bye as this zone gets totally trashed I know.  I’ve done all the quests here a few times, I found it a very painful area and it probably needed to be smashed   We’ll see how it turns out now after things tomorrow

I settled in over at the inn in IF with Inien for our last supper   I log now and await for what tomorrow will bring.  WoW will be for ever changed, which means a lot to someone who has played WoW as long as I have.  I will miss my game but look forward to a bright future. While the Shattering, and Cataclysm in general will be quite the negative impact on the world perhaps it is just the shake up we all need?  I hope you all survive the coming of Deathwing, may we all survive the shattering and come out stronger in the end!

Let me close out with a few more photos I took of Loch Modan after dark

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

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

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

Inien and I ended up spending the evening slaying trolls in ZG for rep.  I figured I had only one more  run in me to exalted and I was right!  Here you can see us messing around with being really tiny after slaying the spider boss

We did the entire instance, killed everything but Hakkar pretty quickly.  We only had trouble with the stupid tiger guy again.  It is killing those three at the same time was such an issue.  We skipped them but then came back to him because Inien had a quest for his head.  Half way through our attempt, I realized wait a minute, they are using mana, and I can remove mana, why didn’t I think of this before.  So I mana burned the two casters mana completely then Inien had no issues bring them down close to death, then finishing them.  After he becomes the tiger it is easy   I will remember that for next time

After that we went over to MC.  I hadn’t gone back to see if I got rep from the mobs now that they fixed the rep stuff.  I was shocked to find out that still only the bosses give rep!  That would make getting my Hydraxian waterlords rep up very very painful   Why does Blizzard hate me personally.

We ended up finishing the night farming for the mojo pet in ZA.  Inien hadn’t done much in there either so he got to see more of it.  This was a hard level 70 dungeon, and they definitely beat up on us.  We were still able to get in three mojo attempts each before we called it a night.

I got on this evening with no particular plans.  I had a bad headache but had recovered enough to play as long as I didn’t jump around   When I got on Inien just joined a Ony 25 run.  He invited me to go with him and I joined.  Well it took FOREVER to get started.  The first start was a wipe instantly and we lost a bunch of people.  Then we had to refill the raid, this happened twice and then finally we after got everyone together we tried again and they wiped terribly again and we broke up.  After that Inien and I decided to do something different, and went to go do a rep run on ZG.

This turned out to be a lot easier than last time we did it.  We are so much more geared now it made things go way faster.  We did all the bosses but Hakaar, and the only one that gave us trouble was the tiger boss.  He was hard because we had to kill the 3 guys at once and with the one that kept healing that was sorta hard.  I just helped DPS and keep us alive eventually we got it after a few miss kills.

After we finished I turned in one of the pieces for rep, and broke some coins.  I ended up only need 5600 rep to get exalted.  Another full run with Inien should get me exalted.  It will take a few more for Inien though because he never did ZG originally   Of course once I get exalted it will go faster for him then we aren’t sharing the coins.

It was a fun night though, I wish we would have done this instead of that terrible Onyxia originally

Just when I got on this evening I see Tue was recruiting to do a mount run on ZG.  They were also going to make a pit stop on the fish boss for Turtle Books.  I decided to join and wanted to attempt Hakkar my only classic Raid achievement I didn’t have.

We ended up going with 2 other guild Priests besides me, Inien and Tue.  It looks really funny when all 3 of us popped our Mind Sear   I kept thinking of Ghost Busters, don’t cross the beams!

Our Hakkar attempts didn’t go to well without a second tank.  The silly guy kept mind controlling me and I’d end up killing everyone.  We made a few tries at it then decided we’d come back with another tank next time.

In one of the attempts I drank a bunch of Pygmy Oil and turned into a Pygmy Gnome, and then Inien threw baby spice on me so I was about as big as a critter!

After the Hakkar attempt everyone left but Inien and I.  We stayed for some rep farming fun.  Now that they changed it so you get full rep even when you out level an area you could effectively farm rep here.

I was sitting at just about Revered when we started and got a little over 12% rep while we were in there.

We did two bosses after everyone left as well.  We might be able to do others but we only tried two.  The Snake boss was super easy I figured he would be.  Then we went to bat lady.  I assumed she would be super easy too, but I forgot about her healing…  Inien and I fought with her for 14 minutes till we FINALLY got her down.  I didn’t think it was ever going to happen.  Basically Inien could only counter spell every other heal.  I didn’t have enough mana to go on for long, in fact if this was 3.1 we wouldn’t have been successful.  At the very end she was low, I got spooky out for the 2nd time and made a final DPS push, between Inien and Puddles and Spooky and I we finally killed her.  It was such a relief, and satisfying kill.

It is sad to think I wouldn’t be able to do this in 3.1 though   Or maybe it would have been easier if I had a shadow build  I could have switched to I could have done a ton more damage   Was a fun way to end the night anyways.