Ding & Stuff

Well a lot got done this weekend.

On saturday morning, Ulu did a couple of circuits of Lake Wintergrasp, the world PVP zone. He wasn't hunting Hordes however, he was looking for the abundant Saronite and Titanium nodes the zone contained. After an hour's mining, he returned to Dalaran and started working his Engineering to 440 so he could make the Armored Titanium Goggles. I had more than enough Titanium and Ulu had been lucky enough to find two Sky Sapphires whilst mining. I had to get the Frozen Orb and Heavy Borean Leather from the Auction House, but it wasn't much of an expense (well ok, the Orb was 1.1K, but hell, it's only Gold, right?). Still, getting the Goggles at level 79 was fairly decent.

After that, it was back to the grind. Saturday's pretty much a blur for the most part. I did some quests in Icecrown I think and I can remember stepping into CoT: Stratholme for the first time with some guildies (fun instance, I really liked it!) and I also did an Utgarte Pinnacle run with a PuG (which actually wasn't horrid, despite a few wipes on the gauntlet.) What I do remember clearly was that Ulu hit 80 in Drak'tharon Keep whilst doing a run for some lower-level guildies.

After they went to Bed, Ulu returned to Icecrown and ended up doing a lot of quests for both The Argent Crusade and The Knights of the Ebon Blade. He ended up Honored with both, which earned him some nice Legplates and Boots.

Yesterday, A guildy managed to get his Blacksmithing up to 440, and was able to make me a Titansteel Shield Wall (this time the Frozen Orb was a more "reasonable" 740G). He even loaned me a Titansteel Bar while my own smelt was on cooldown. I'd been 80 for about 12 hours and I already had two epics!

After that I decided to put the Championing system to the test and work Ulu up to Revered with the Argent Crusade. Championing gives you Reputation with a faction if you wear their tabard in a level 80 Dungeon or Heroic. Ulu needed about 7k rep to get there, so it wasn't easy. He ended up running The Oculus (three times!), Utgarde Pinnacle (twice), CoT: Stratholme, and the Halls of Lightning. After running those seven instances, Ulu was still about 1k short of his rep goal, so I had to finish things off with a daily quest in Zul'Drak and a quick wowhead-assisted scour of Icecrown for any quests I'd missed. I managed it in the end and crowned Ulu's goggles with a shiney new head enchant.

The moral of the story is this: Short, trash-light Dungeons may make for fast clears, but they're murder to grind rep in.

As of last night, we have seven level 80s in the guild, with another few on their way. With a slightly larger population, it might be possible to start Heroics!