Dire Aquatic Form

OTed Kara last night for the first time, and it was a blast. We cleared through Opera(Wizard of Oz, skipped Maiden) with only one wipe on Moroes due to some bad luck with garrotes. I picked up the gloves off of Attumen, which was a pretty nice upgrade(I had been using green gloves of the bandit).

I held Attumen while the group burned down Midnight, tanked Moroes with the pally tank, and burned down Dorothea while holding Tito, then wound up tanking the Crone when the pally lost his hold on her.

Moroes was probably the most fun of all of it. We held Moroes, and burned down Crispin while he was vanished. The pally tank wound up going down partway through our second attempt, and was battle rezzed, so I wound up main tanking him, and had a blast. Picking up the Crone was fun, too. Running her around to avoid the tornado made it a bit more interesting than your standard tank'n'spank.

We also had some awesome luck on trash. Out of four trash pulls before the performers, we picked up the fire mage/destro lock belt, rogue gloves, and a soulcloth tailoring pattern. Three epics on four pulls was pretty damned cool.

All in all, it was a fun night for me. Unfortunately, due to bedtime scheduling conflicts, Sharon wasn't able to attend(Kara starts right at the kid's bedtime). I'm hoping to find a way to be able to work around this and get her in on the runs. We didn't actually start until around 9:15 or 9:20, and if this is the norm, I'm hoping we can get her in on a regular basis.

Sorry I've been so reticent in updating, lately, but I've been extremely busy as of late within the game. Seems I really meant my resolution to run more instances. Sunday afternoon/evening saw us running 5 instances. Arc keyfrag, SV keyfrag, BM, SV full, and Shattered Halls(god bless pally tanks). The last three of those, I healed, and actually did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. BM was death-free, and my first instance healed as resto. The full SV was pretty smooth, as was Shattered Halls, with only 1 wipe due to some overaggro, and the tank turning around to pick it up with 5 mobs behind him. Never seen a tank go from 80% to 20% that fast.

What I want to tell you all about, however, was the Shadow Lab run from the day before. Specifically, the fight against Blackheart the Inciter. We did SL with the same tank from SH, a paladin. We discovered something, in that instance. Blackheart the Inciter sucks for tanks that rely on mana. After about three wipes where our tank just could not hold the aggro after Time For Fun, we decided to try it with him throwing dps and offheals, and me strapping on my tanking gear. And it was the single most epic 5 man boss fight I have ever participated in.

Our group was me, the prot pally, a holy pally, Sharon, and an enhancement shaman. Within the first two minutes of the fight, the shaman and Sharon had died, I had thrown my innervate on the holy pally and combat rezzed Sharon. Two more minutes, Sharon is eating floor again, and it's just me, the hoyl pally, and the prot pally. They're both keeping me healed, and we're all beating on each other during time for fun. About six minutes into the fight, the holy pally dies, and now I'm really sweating. It's me and the prot pally healing me. Eight minutes in, I throw my innervate on him, the dps is trying to run back in but get MCed near pulls we didn't clear and die. Eight minutes in, my 2nd innervate of the fight goes to the prot pally, and I'm burning cooldowns and trinkets. Nine minutes in, the holy pally makes it back in, just in time to throw two or three heals and watch Blackheart the Inciter die of exhaustion after a brutal, epic, ten minute long fight. As rough as it was, it left me with a really good feeling. We got it done, we got some loot, and we eventually(after much issue with Vorpil, requiring the prot pally to bring his lock for extra dps) got our keyfrag.

The lesson learned? Don't ever assume it's a wipe, like we did about three minutes into that fight.

...this is your wake-up call.

So, the other night, I mentioned we ran Auchenai Crypts, our little levelling/instance group. Everything went pretty smooth, until we hit the first boss. Then it was reality check time. See, most of the stuff we've done instance-wise, we've been over-level, sometimes severely so. Going along, I had an idea that at some point, we would hit a wall, and get a nasty surprise regarding our sometimes non-existent tactics. Ramparts wasn't it, Blood Furnace wasn't it, Old Hillsbrad wasn't it. Shirrak the Dead Watcher was.

We wiped on him, no joke, a minimum of five times. We couldn't dps him down fast enough, and we couldn't avoid the bombs well enough. I would call out on IGC who the bomb was on, and a few seconds later, I'd see their, and sometimes several other people's health drop like a rock. Some of us think it was gear, and for one of us, it was(and we're working on fixing a stamina defecit). However, overall, I think our problem was cruise control.

Up until that point, we were playing the game on cruise control, overpulling, screwing around, not worrying about body pulls, and we did it fairly successfully. Then, we hit that boss, and we just didn't have our heads in the game, and we finally got to a point where it was not acceptable. And it's a damned good thing.

It may seem a funny thing to say, but in a very major way, it was. You see, there were/are some issues within the group that needed to be addressed. Personally, I left them unaddressed because I was worried about offending people, and it hadn't become an issue yet. Now? It's starting to become an issue, one that's causing wipes, and undue stress. So I'm starting to address it.

For example, last night me and Sharon hit Shattered Halls(hate!) with the Shammy(enhancement), a resto druid from the guild, and a pugged mage(pugs don't have specs). I was watching Omen the first couple pulls, as well as target of target, and noticed that the Shammy was consistently out-aggroing me with his crazy crits and balls to the wall dps. This was nothing new, he was a solid 30-50% of my taunts. And that's when it occurred to me. How could he possibly know he was doing something wrong if I never said anything?

So, I mentioned it. "Hey, do me a favor? Watch Omen, and when you're creeping up on me on threat, I need you to dial it back a notch." Turns out, he had his threat warnings disabled. He turned them back on, and other than some pulls that went completely tits up, things were much smoother, me-holding-aggro-over-the-enhancement-shammy-wise.

And I'm sure I have things that I'm doing wrong that I need to be corrected on. Hopefully, we can get this stuff out, all learn what it is we're doing that we shouldn't, and collectively get better at working together.

...it pours loot.

After that Old Hillsbrad run I posted about, we did Old Hillsbrad again the next night, and then Sethekk Halls the night after, and then Auchenai Crypts the night after that, and Underbog last night. Mixed in with that, got some help from the guild and we were able to open up the Ogri'la dailies for about 7-8 people(hooray for dropping raid to loot), and last night before Underbog myself, Sharon, and the lock got some help downing Zuluhed the Whacked and getting Netherwing opened up.

So, now we have ample opportunity to run our dailies and earn back the cash we borrowed(10k between the two of us). We're also fairly close to getting Ally the Shadowprowler's Chestguard(guild mate can craft it and is donating the nethers, Ally has the earths, is farming the shadows, and we're working on the Soul Essence from guild mates in kara runs). We also got her the gloves and boots from the Fel Leather set to hold her over until we can find some upgrades for her out of instances, such as the assassination or wastewalker set.

As for me, my gear is coming along quite nicely. I got my purple pimp hat crafted, got my manimal's cinch(does that make me a manimal?), my ring out of Old Hillsbrad the second time around(and found myself, for the second time, going 'ringringringringringringring' before looting), and I'm close on the Umberhowl's Collar. Next up is 35 agi for my Braxxis', 12 agi for my boots, the Verdant Gloves, and some Mechanar runs for my cloak. Oh, and some Thrallmar rep grinding for my crab design.

So, yeah. Things are looking good. I'm thinking within two weeks, I'll be Kara ready, and so will Sharon. It's just a matter of making her believe she's Kara-ready, which will hopefully come from running more instances. She actually commented on how comfortable she felt with Underbog last night, which hadn't been the case in any of our previous instance runs. Part of it was probably how overlevel we were, one 67 and four 70's running regular Underbog, but I hope part of it has also come from running more instances, and getting comfortable with the pacing I use, how I pull, what's expected from her on saps and whatnot, and just a general acclimation to being behind the swirly portal.

Oh, and a bonehead story from last night. We get past Ghaz'an, and are working on the nether ray/moth pulls, when I see the grace of air totem go down. I'm curious what this is pushing my dodge to with my new tanking gear, so I throw open the character window, looks at my defenses pulldown, and my eyes bug out and I can't stop laughing. "Hey, ?" "Yeah?" "Have you noticed me taking more damage than usual." "Nah, not really. Why?" "Because I've been wearing my dps gear this entire time."

Got our pally, our shaman, and a hunter from the guild, and ransacked Old Hillsbrad. There was just a touch of drama as we had to reset the instance after the first boss(the shammy, for some buggy reason, didn't get credit for torching the barracks), but all in all it went pretty good. We had precisely one death in 1.3(with a bar over it) runs of the instance, and that was on the waves of dragonkin before Epoch Hunter(that'll teach him to hit something I'm not! Muah!). It was a good time, and didn't take too horrendously long, seeing as most of us were new to the instance or hadn't run it in forever and a day and a half.

Boots for the pally, shards for the hunter and Sharon, friendly for most of us(almost honored), revered for the hunter. Not a bad run, all in all. Would have liked to have seen my ring, but que sera sera.

In other news, I think Ive found a way to get me and Sharon both our epic flying mounts in around twenty days, with an investment of a couple hours a day. More on this later.

...game, that is. Me and Sharon dinged 70 last night, doing the Manaforge Ara stuff. She's got her flier, and I picked up a flier of my own for stuff like the Skettis bombing daily quest.

I also discovered, through some of the rewards from Netherstorm, and the resilience I overlooked on the Mok'Nathal Clan Ring, that once I get my base defense skill trained up to 350, I'll be uncrittable. I still have quite a lot of items to get to be Kara ready(12k hp 17k armor 16.5% dodge right now), but I'm definitely on my way. Farming primal shadows for my hat(and for Sharon's fel leather set) is going to suck, though. We need 32 between the two of us. I'm thinking maybe I'll farm Oshu'gun while she farms Void Ridge(since I need the crystal powders, and any greens I pick up will be thrown into the shredder that is her enchanting skill) and see how many primals we can bang out in a couple hours tonight.

I've also hit this kind of wall, and I'm not sure where it came from. The "Now What?" wall. We dinged 70 last night, and I figured we should head off on the Ogri'la chain, and discovered you need to do some five mans to open the dailies up. I'm not sure why, but it kinda floored me. Not in a surprised way, but in a...now what? sort of way. Okay, we're 70...now what?

It seems silly to me, because I've been 70 before. But I've run almost no instances in Outland as of yet, and I just kind of sat there, turning in place, wondering what the hell I should do. No more xp grinding. I could have asked the guild to see if anyone wanted to lend us a hand with the Ogri'la stuff(they're usually pretty awesome with that), but to be honest it didn't even really occur to me. To be honest, I'm still a little shaky on what to do now.

I think part of the problem is one of the major reasons I haven't done most of the instances in Outland yet. I was waiting for the people I was levelling with. Problem there is, we have somewhat divergent schedules. Now, I don't mean this to sound like they're holding me back and I blame them. To be honest, the main reason I held off on trying to do instances wasn't pressure from them to do so(there was none), but...more or less feeling like I should. I don't know, it's difficult to explain.

Now, I'm at a point where running 5 mans is going to get me stuff I need to be ready to step up into the guild's Karazhan runs. Plus, I really enjoy running 5 man content, especially as a tank. I know I need to get into guild runs, maybe even start some...but even thinking about it leaves me with this vague, nagging feeling that I'm leaving my friends behind, and I'm really not sure what to do about it.

On a more positive note, I believe at some point in the next couple days we'll be getting our Ogri'la stuff taken care of. Someone in the guild brought it up, and offered to help, so that should be taken care of.

And, in writing this, I've come to a decision. Tonight, I'm tanking an Outlands instance, come hell or highwater, friends, guild run, or pug. Update tomorrow with how it went.

So, I figured I'd throw out a quick update while I wait on a couple calls at work. As far as the goals I'd set for myself two posts ago, I've fulfilled two and a half. My cooking skill is currently at 340(woot), I'm rocking over 100g once again, and I hit up Ramparts with a guild group(got my tanking ring, and Sharon got a couple upgrade items I passed on so she could have). Now I need to hit up BF for the quest, and Ramparts until I get my staff. Although, at level 62 now, I'm considering just passing on Ramparts(other than the one more run needed for the folks in my levelling group) and just waiting for my Braxxis' Staff of Slumber. They're going pretty cheap on my server, around 30g, and that would be a nice addition to both my tanking set with 550 armor and a boatload of stamina, and my cat set with all that feral AP. I plan on getting one regardless, so maybe I'll save myself some headaches, and put that energy into running Underbog and Slave Pens for CE rep for my Earthwarden.

I know, I know. Paragraphs, dude!

Me and Sharon rolled alts. Horde side, this time. She wanted to play around with a pally, and I've always wanted to get a mage above 20, especially with their 2.3.2 love. We've gotten them up to level 12, now, and I'm kinda digging it. Being all nukey is fun, especially with a meatshield there to take the hits for me. I keep calling Sharon my pet pally. She gets irked. I get amused.

Unfortunately, the pally in our levelling group was deployed a couple weeks ago, and after this weekend he will no longer be in a place where he can access WoW, so the goal is to get him up to 58 and Outland ready before that happens(he was 54 when last I logged, with about 7 or 8 Sunken Temple quests to turn in - 1.5 hour ST clear with no 70's makes me happy).

Blackmood, the group's new shammy, has hit 58, and is still going strong(that dude levels fast, maybe even faster than we did)(and we need to get him into DN)(no more notes to self in parenthesis). Solid chance he hit 59 off the Sunken Temple turn ins. I'm thinking with myself(feral tank), Sharon(swords rogue), the demo lock, a holy pally(he's going to respec at some point in the near future), and an enhancement shammy we should have a pretty solid group. Me and Sharon will be damn near the only ones competing for gear, and seeing as we sleep in the same bed, I'm sure we can come to an equitable agreement on that kind of stuff. Things are definitely looking good.

So, yeah, it's been a while since I updated. Certain circumstances have conspired to create this unfortunate situation(mainly being in class for work all week, and not being able to post from work). So, there's been a lot of stuff that's happened lately.

Ran Scholo with the lock, Sharon, a 70 hunter from my guild and the GM's pally alt. It was kind of a clusterfuck the first few rooms. We overaggroed, we got three to four pulls at a time, and we generally noobed it up all over the place. Then we got our shit together, and punched Scholomance in the face. Wiped on Kirtonos(did him towards the end because we were running out to do the spectral essence chain) but that was mainly due to miscommunication of AFKness. Went from just barely 57 to, like, 5 bars off.

Next night, me and Sharon hit 58, and stepped through the Dark Portal(dun dun dun). Had some fun running around Hellfire, but apparently I, in my glee, kind of overwhelmed Sharon with it all. I really need to remember to take the stuff slow with her, and introduce her to Outlands gently, instead of pushing her all over the place and overloading her with new info and whatnot.

Rolled Yesterday is Sharon's new WoW blog. Apparently, she saw all the fun I was having not updating my blog often enough and had to get in on the action. I secretly think she just wanted a place to post all her screenshots. But don't tell her I said that.

And then, last night, after scrimping and saving and selling leather left and right and maybe a little of my soul but who needs that I got my epic mount! Screenshot coming tonight, maybe, if I remember. I went with the Great White Kodo. I'm now rocking the Outlands at a 40% rate of speed increase. And Sharon got hers this morning, so we can zoom all over Outland together. Now we need to get the lock through his epic mount quest, and we'll be set.

What I'm really jazzed about, right now, is getting the chance to tank Outlands instances once more. I've gotten some pretty sweet upgrades from the quests in HFP, and half of my tanking set at this point is merged with my dps set, because the stuff was so awesome it upgraded items in both sets. Hoping we can run Ramparts at some point tonight, or maybe tomorrow, and then Blood Furnace shortly thereafter.

And, I've gotta say, this is my first time doing Outland horde-side, and I'm really digging it. It's like a totally new perspective on stuff I've already done. It's mostly the same rewards, and similar, but with different spins. And not in the way that WPL was different, but totally sucked Horde side. Can't wait to see how Zangarmarsh and Terrokar differ.

My major goals for the next week or so is to try and get my cooking up to 300(currently at 283, and oh my god I hate fishing), hit up Ramparts and Blood Furnace, and start recovering from the hemmorhage that was my epic mount purchase. At once point, after realizing I needed repairs, I couldn't afford to fly to Thrallmar from Shattrath, and had to fly to Falcon Watch instead, leaving me with a grand total of 50 copper. Man, that sucked out loud. Getting Sharon her flying mount is going to hurt(Druids FTW!).

Anyhow, that's about it for the recent past. Back to the work grind, I guess.

Sorry for the delay in the update here, but been playing some catchup, and helping one of the people I grind levels with catch up to the rest of us. We've all got our mounts now(screenshot of me, Sharon, and the pally we roll with when I get home from work). We did a Scarlet Monastery run(the run that dinged our first person to 40), with a 39 lock, 36 pally, 38 rogue, 37 druid tanking(that's me!) and a 31 priest main healing. Yeah, 31. And we cleared all four instances with one wipe on a courtyard respawn after downing Doan, and one death for me after a bad cathedral pull. It looked like things were going to go south on Mograine before Whitemane came out, but we held it together(and Sharon learned why you don't open up on the boss when he's at 99%).

I've got my kodo, Sharon has her chicken, the lock has his felsteed, and the pally has his best damned mount in the game. I lust for blood elf pally mounts. Another spot of good news in all this is said level 31 priest. He's looking like an awesome addition to our little leveling team, and we're going to spend a bit of time playing catchup for him so we'll have a full instancing team good to go. I'm hoping, in the end, to have myself feral tanking, the pally holy main healing, Sharon dpsing(dur), the lock dpsing(dur), and the priest Shadow dpsing and offhealing. I figure that'd be an awesome group with crazy CC(seduce, banish, sap, shackle, hibernate) with the only thing missing being sheep. I can very easily live with that.

I meant to do this last night, but between work, the grinding to 40 for my mount, and trying to spend some quality time with Sharon, it slipped my mind. The druid is level 34 now, and fairly close to 35. Me, Sharon, and two awesome members of my guild that we've been running around questing and grinding with did a 4 man run on RFK, and it went pretty smoothly. We had missed Roogug, so we all went back with a menagerie of five blueleaf tuber gophers each and murderified him. Sadly, the gophers didn't make it. They met their swift and untimely demise at the cruel hands of some thunderclaps. Except for two of them. And they are now kings among gophers.

Other than that, not really a whole lot to talk about. Greatly looking forward to my mount, which I should have at some point in the next couple days. Running is the devil. The slow, annoying devil.