Raid Leading and Ulduar 10

Yup. I have stepped up to raid leading. I am keeping it as simple as I can and taking along most anyone who signs up and wants to come so we can see some new content. Of course today is patch day 3.2 and even more new content is coming out.

We have now run 2 full weeks of my Ulduar 10 runs and although I am still without loot we have put a good 10 items into the guild in those two week. We have downed Flame Leviathan and XT-002 Deconstructor twice each and Razorscale and Kologarn once each in the first week.

Leading has been quite a challenge for me. I am one who naturally stays behind the scenes and helps in other ways than being the voice up front. The first week we had some great friends of the guild help out and get us off and running. This also made it seem a lot easier. But week 2 had me doing more of the actual leading and getting more comfortable. This next week we are only raiding one night instead of two due to a guild function. This will again leave us most likely only beating down Flame Leviathan and Deconstructor but each win puts 2 more loots in the guild.

Speaking of helping the guild, I am excited by the ease at which T9.0 can be had.

Seems that Blizzard has decided to make the Heroic Daily reward you with 2 Emblems of Triumph. Excellent. And thank you. After only 15 dailies I will have my T9.0 shoulders. Sure there are other ways to get them and better gear with the emblems once we start raiding the Coliseum, but as I stated above we're having our issues with Ulduar still. So each piece really helps a ton. Add in that T8.25 head and chest are available to Emblems of Conquest and in the next month the average gearing of our guild and probably the entire server will really increase.

Been a While, Yet Again...

So today is June 1st. I am just now getting around to making another post. Life has been very busy lately. Roofing on the weekends for my grandmother, reading about C VanDerBilt, and playing what WoW I can in between RL commitments.

Caldmint is continuing to grow up. My tanking suit and better yet tanking abilities are growing. The PVP set is growing although slowly. Am still 2 WG marks short of my next trinket. I am 2 Emblems of Valor away from a major upgrade at ring. And I am debating between the T7 chest dps or the plate tanking belt for emblems of heroism.

The Rep Grind is going fairly well. I am 1 instance away from getting revered with the Kirin Tor. I am putting on hold the Argent Crusade run to get this as it will effect my repair bills in a good way. They will be the last of the main six from WotLK to get to Revered.

Since my last update I did exalt both EB and SoH. It has made me quite happy to get up to 15 overall Exalted factions. I know I am quite behind the normal player in this still but I'm working more and more each week hoping to make the growing list.

The recent week has also seem my involvement in both my first exploration of Ulduar and also some more activity in 25 man runs in both VoA and OS. Sadly I was unable to make the guild run in Naxx 25, but am feeling fairly assured that I will be able to go this week.

Tonight will see me cleaning up odds and ends. I have to do the cooking daily as I want to amass northern spices as well as a few others to pile on gold from the weekend's spending spree.

New This May

So I am finally getting around to posting in May. Its only been two weeks.

Caldmint exalted the Ebon Blade finally although I've forgone the upgraded boots. Seems more of a side grade to me now anyway.

Bernie finally hit 30 and now has to start the push to 40. Still planning on getting him to 80 by about November.

Lately I've been rounding out Caldmint's gear. Seems I have FAR too much gear as I need a PVP set, a tanking set, a PVE set. Etc. But I was able to get in on a bunch of raiding last weekend and scored rather well in the gear department. Even won another roll that the raid leader rightly decided to go to a new 80 who hadn't gotten anything yet.

I finally got to take down VoA 10 complete. And wouldn't you know last Friday I got the Hateful chest, Tuesday brought both bosses again giving warrior loot and I was the only one in the group.

Last night I went a bit crazy though. I wanted to go run HoL Heroic for the daily. It was late at night already and probably about 10pm. They said they needed a tank and I wasn't def capped. Heck, I'm still not as I write this but I will be tonight as soon as I log on. 1000g in AH enchants, gems, gear, etc to try and go. The good thing is I also got the mats for my Armor Plated Combat Shotgun in that 1000g. And this morning another guildie put it together for me.

So I probably have another 500 in gems and such to get fully ready to be a tank. I really wish the armory would show both sets of gear when you have dual spec. Would make planning easier since I forgot to switch back to Prot before logging out this morning from my dailies.

This weekend will bring a lot less WoW than last weekend. But hopefully a daily dungeon or two will get me some rep I badly need. Goal One is to get Argent Crusade finally up to Honored. This will get me my DPS cape. Currently in Arms I'm using my tanking cape. Oh well... Goal Two will be as many dailies as possible to make up the money i spent. Goal Three with a very outside chance is to get Exalted with Honor Hold.

Back in the Outlands

Last night we ran Shattered Halls on Normal. We had planned to run heroics, but were able to bring along a guildie who was level 70 still and needed about 1000 rep to get to honored for the heroic key.

The run was good. We did let the 70 die once, but that happens. Only 4 of us were on the run.

This morning I was able to raise up my tailoring a bit on one of my alts. Am up to 190 but coming up against level issues.

Bernie was able to do some grinding last night. He made the trek below 120% rest so if I dont get on him for a couple days it won't be a bad thing.

Not a lot going on as I am still trying to get Caldmint's reps in order. Will probably do the full daily for KoEB this week and also a couple instances. Only 7000 points to go, but it does seem to drag. Need to get back on the SoH dailies as well. As you can see, it seems to really build in the amount of time needed for playing.

PVP Mondays and More

In our guild we run PVP on Monday evenings. Luckily for me they start fairly early at 5pm server. This helps me get in a little more than normal with those late starting everything else.

We only got three BGs in and then a quick loss in WG on defense. Out of it I managed with no quests, 4500 honor. It will help in the coming grind for better gear. I really feel like I've missed out by not playing for a couple months, but it was so worth it.

Tonight I am hoping to get some Bernie time in because he is back at 150% rest. Which really just wastes rest from that point. Luckily for me with the shoulders that 150% can go to zero very quickly.

That and I've got rep on my mind. I really want to spend about 10 hours one night grinding reps in Outlands instead of sleeping. Too bad this doesn't work out for me. I am into revered right now with both Honor Hold and Cenarian Expedition and would like to finish them up running heroics. With a group of 5 people you can run all 3 of each faction in an hour a piece. Two hours, about 8000 rep for each per day. Assuming the heroics in outlands still have a timer.

Having only 13 Exalted right now without another one very near (ie, tonight) is hard. I get more feeling of achievement from Exalted reps than I do from the achievements they give in the game. Many of which are a complete waste of time in my mind.

We'll see how tonight goes. But Bernie is my priority today.

Leveling Multiple Toons

So I am leveling 3 toons right now. Mostly with power leveling methods as I really am not feeling the same quests over and over. Of course I've made a major mistake.

I have a set of BOA shoulders. But I keep forgetting to mail them around my toons as I level. So only 1 is really getting the benefit. Luckily he is also the one with the most rest for this weekend as I blanked out the rest on the other two last night. But its frustrating to realize I've made it harder than it had to be.

So yes. All three leveled yesterday. Bernie got his out in the mountains of Redridge while the other two had guildie help in the Stocks.

I'm trying to make tracks to get Bernie to 80 before I get married later this year. We'll see if I can do it but it basically means doing a level every 3 days. And of course rest will only cover 45% of a level in that time period. So quests will come into account more and more.

On a side note, I highly recommend checking out the YouTube, "Who's the Tank"

Enjoy.

Back on the Rep Grind and a Revive

So yesterday had me doing very little in WoW. I basically ran Caldmint through half of the Ebon Blade dailies. I am about half way through revered right now so am slowly approaching the end of the grind with them. Yes I am still champing them even though I am so close so it'll end sooner than later.

After that and some bank/mail cleaning I was off to a little questing with BernieVonFoz. Bernie has been a whole new game for me. I still have to do the same old same old quests, but playing as a feral druid mostly in cat form has been wonderful. Adding fun to a game that was losing it for me.

I also did my first ever revive of another toon. Another druid many levels lower pulled too many mobs and went down before I could heal. So after I cleared out the area I ran over and did a revive and HoT.

Today may not be a big WoW day for me. Big things happening at home. But if I can get on, I plan on running others through some power leveling. The same old same old quests do get old.

Heroic Tanking

That's right all. I tanked a heroic last night. Ok Ok. It was only VH. But I had never tanked in prot spec before and it was quite the learning experience even in that short time.

We had a server reset coming in the middle. So when we wiped on the first boss, we all decided to hold off until the server came back up. That luckily was the only wipe we'd suffer.

After the restart we were ready to go. I had some help with what I was missing the first time and actually did a lot better. I know I had an all-star healer with us and kicking DPS. Basically the best of the guild old and new, and me.

But I did actually learn a lot and look forward to doing it again today.

After the Break

So I took a 6-8 week break from WoW. Real life was a lot of fun actually.

Now that I'm back I am still not running off to raid. I was taking the game too seriously and am happy to be having some fun with alts and rounding out toons.

I havent run a heroic in 2 months. I have only done daily quests once in that time. So yeah, I'm behind. But its not a big deal.

It seems these feelings have gone fairly deep within our guild. Many breaks, quits, etc. So there is a small growing group of us that are working on power leveling alts, doing rep grinds, etc.

I do eventually want to see the newest content and I will be doing all the old rep grinds when I can. But for now, I'm just having fun helping others and playing Bernie.

My First Real Naxx

Last night found me into Naxx for my first real run. I had been a spare body on an attempted run one other time but we didnt get past even one boss then.

Last night we did the plague and arachnid quarters. I was the happy recipient of a couple of decent drops. I did lose the roll on a big one for a set of shoulders I would have liked but as it was a guild run, I'm happy we all got some things.

It was a wipe free night. Half the party did die on the dance floor including me but the group worked the run well.

I still have a lot to learn as I probably couldnt tell you which bosses did what right now without looking it up, but for my first run I very greatly enjoyed it.

BernieVonFoz(ziewig)

I've been spending some off time leveling a druid. So far just playing feral as it seems to most resemble the warrior skills I have. My true goal is to make him duel spec between Moonkin and Resto so I can learn the art of healing.

I must admit I do not like playing a night elf though. I don't enjoy their opening starting area and the whole nature aspect of it. But for leveling so far its been much nicer than the warrior where I often had to do quests at level or below (quest level less than toon level) I find I am doing almost all quests while red and orange with the druid. The healing is just super for uptime. That and I truly don't mind dieing here and there. It is just money in a game after all.

So I am hopefully going to be hitting level 80 with my druid by November of this year. He's 17 right now with 150% rest. This should be one of my last weekends spent fully on Caldmint and soon Bernie can grow into the bear he is. After all....

If you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly!

A Big Night Last Night

So last night I hit revered with both the Ebon Blade and Sons of Hodir.

I got the SoH first and still needed a heroic to get through the rest of the rep for EB. Wouldn't you know I was in H UK with a bunch of guys from an allied guild of ours and my leg plates finally dropped. I was so excited. Then I saw someone rolling against and thought it said they won the roll. So I said grats to them as I should and was happy someone else got the huge upgrade. Funny thing when they said, "but you won". I looked and realized my mistake and was over the moon.

So today when I get home and do the SoH dailies and search for a heroic I'll be that much better. New shoulders from SoH, New Sword in my offhand from the EB and new legs.

Am very curious what my DPS numbers should be like tonight. Hopefully I can run 8 heroics over the weekend and Monday so I can get new EB boots by the time I go raiding on Tuesday in Naxx. Also the 8 heroics should put me very close to my mirror trinket which would be super cool before the raid. So that's where you'll find me all weekend. Farming Heroics.

What I've Been Doing

So its been about two months since I posted. But that's ok, I don't have many or even any readers.

I am well into being level 80 now after dinging just before new years and am slowly finding it easier to find groups. Who knew abandoning my search within the guild was answer. That's right all. PUGs are the reason I've gotten this far. Sure they're not ideal. Sure you wipe for what sometimes feels the dumbest of all reasons. But here is something rarely mentioned for PUGs. They are there when your guildies aren't. So stop stressing the gold from repair bills. Its all fake gold in a fake game anyway. (Borrowed from a guildie) When the guild is busy, not interested, just doesn't want to, I say "PUGs to the rescue.

I love my guild. I really do. They will help when they can. I realize my frustration lies in two places. My odd hours of play and also my lack of play time so I am behind the curve on the seemingly end all be all DPS numbers from recount. But the people are still great and I do get groups from them. Just not always as many as I'd wish. I wouldnt be playing WoW at all if it werent for all of them.

So today is a semi big day for me. I am about to hit Revered in both Knights of the Ebon Blade and the Sons of Hodir tonight. New shoulders and a new off hand weapon. Oh yeah, I'm fury now in effort to up the DPS to the new standards. Still don't love it but its not as bad as when I first switched. I'd like Blizzard to just level out Arms with Fury again so I can go back to being Arms.

Next Tuesday I will enter Naxx for the second time. I was in it to help the guild a few weeks ago but it was a full on disaster. We kept wiping on the first boss I came to. But its ok. I know how that fight is supposed to go now that I'm better geared. So I take it as a learning experience. Am really looking forward to my first runs though. The idea to maybe get some gear is nice but I've had SUCH bad luck with the drops on my heroic runs, guild or pug, that I am just going to take what I can get and be happy for the emblems that fall.

Everything you do in the game has achieved something. Even if its an evening spent running low level content to help leveling guildies. So don't forget to enjoy.