Tank like a girl

It’s been ages since I last posted about what I am actually up to in game. Time to remedy that, before ARA starts hunting me down for more story-time posts!

Raiding: After our full Naxx-clear in our third raid ID, things unfortunately didn’t continue in that vein. The following Naxxramas weekend I briefly mentioned in one of my last posts, as being full of frustrations. We basically spent over an hour just hanging around while people had connection issues. Had to swap out the second tank because of net issues. Had to swap in another healer because the other healer just never made it back online. Eventually 9-manned Gluth because one of our mages disconnected as well. It was frustrating as hell. On top of that, we were just not on top of our game in parts, and so we left Naxx with three bosses up.

Because of Easter there was no raid the following weekend. Then this last weekend, our current raiding officer scheduled Sartharion + 1 drake. Despite some pep talk from Veneretio, it just didn’t happen. I was tanking Tenebron, our feral druid tanked Sartharion, and we had an out of guild DK tanking adds. All in all, we just didn’t have the DPS to pull off killing Tenebron quickly enough before the adds became an issue. Our best attempt had her at 40%. It’s a DPS race, and we didn’t deliver. A strange graphics bug that all of us had did not help with our tries. What the hell is going on there? The flame wall will start rolling, then disappear, then show up again, disappear, etc. This made positioning extremely difficult as it was next to impossible to know if you were safe or not, in an already chaotic fight. Tensions were running a bit high. After 8 tries we killed Tenebron, killed Sarth, rolled over to Naxx and tore through the spider wing, to at least get more gear and badges for people. Maexxna kindly dropped Cloak of Armed Strife for me, which I then had enchanted with +22 agility. I am now in the market for a Durable Nerubhide Cape for my avoidance set.

The following day we did the other 3 wings, but unfortunately we did not manage to clear all of Naxx within our 3 hours of allotted raid time. On Four Horsemen one of our healers had net issues again, so I swapped in my shaman and my partner brought her druid. I had already gotten both Amulet of Autopsy and Medallion of the Disgraced, and am now so set for necklaces. There are very few pieces of Naxxramas gear left for me to upgrade to. Boots, headpiece, Slayer of the Lifeless. Maybe not even the latter, as I am eyeing that new axe that you get at the Argent Tournament: Axe of the Sen’jin Protector. It’s not Ulduar level, but it might well take this orc to Ulduar.

My shaman has only Gothik unkilled in Naxxramas now, and Kadomi still needs Kel’thuzad. It’s time we get another clear. Next weekend, I will be unable to raid, as we’re heading to Berlin for a short vacation. Vacation times > boss kills. I am still trying to figure out what would be good minimum requirements for Ulduar 10, considering a raid fully geared in nothing but 10-man gear. Would appreciate feedback.

Non-raiding: I have been busily achievement hunting. I will likely set up a Glory of the Hero group with friends soon, and am really excited about this. Dual-specs offer amazing utility for some of the achievements. My partner is now both tank and boomkin, so in encounters where a second tank will make a difference, we’ll have that capability. It’s pretty awesome. Same with healing. My paladin friend is now retribution and holy. It’s going to kick ass.

In pre-3.1 boredom I went a bit grind-crazy. One of my long-term dreams was to have a kodo for Kadomi. They’re just so cute in the mini-versions in orc-size. I started the Thunder Bluff grind maybe two weeks before we got WotLK, when I was at Friendly with Thunder Bluff. Eventually I hit a roadblock, couldn’t find any more quests and was just into Revered, which is when I gave up. Characters who originally leveled in vanilla WoW have such a huge disadvantage when it comes to old faction reputation, it’s ridiculous. Then came the Lunar Festival and it’s abundance of Elders. I got all 75 of them, and magically was halfway through Revered with Thunder Bluff. That’s when I started Stratholme runs which also scored me the Baron mount.

To cut a long story short, one Saturday morning I did five consecutive deadside Stratholme runs, got me a Piccolo of the Flaming Fire and managed to finish every Stratholme quest I skipped back then.

 
This in turn provided me with enough runecloth for my mini-kodo. I then eyed my reputation list and noticed that I was short about 18k rep for Undercity. I decided to go completionist and on Sunday morning did all quests in Tirisfal Glades, Silverpine Forest, the few I hadn’t done in Hillsbrad Foothills, and one final quest for Nathanos Blightcaller in EPL. While I was enroute to the pestlands, I also finally remembered to kill Araj the Summoner, for yet another achievement.

I half-heartedly started working on Cenarion Circle reputation to complete that title, hit Honored and got tired of killing cultists. Off I went to fish for coins in Dalaran. Funny how coins are considered fish. I am about 6 coins short of the complete achievement, so that will likely take forever. It made me hit fishing 450 however. I make such a fetching fisher girl.

 
I have started playing the shaman a bit more, because she can still use emblems to gear up. Not sure if I like the changes in the restoration tree, I feel weaker as 5-man healer now. I will have to start using Healing Wave, meh. Not quite sure what to think of Overhealing Stream Totem. 343 per tick isn’t half-bad. Strangely enough putting down that totem actually procs the Egg of Mortal Essence.

My secret project that fills me with quiet glee yet makes me feel dirty at the same time is leveling my DK. So much fun. Someone help me. >.>