Into Heroics...

I've been meaning to post screenshots of Ulu's bad-ass new gear. The problem is as soon as I take one, he gets something new.

Case in point, I took this yesterday morning:



And I've already replaced my trusty lvl 74 quest reward axe with a Heroic Utgarde Keep drop!

Yes that's right, last night Ulu assembled a few level 80 guildies and went to test the heroic waters. And we found them both hot and full of sharks. Well metaphorical sharks at least. And metaphorical heat as well I guess.

The party was Ulu, Buachampoo (Holy Paladin), Frozt (Elemental Shaman), Eleinya (Demonology Warlock) and Vordar (Resto Shaman). That's right folks, two healers. Possibly not the best optimized group but since they were:

a) The only available level 80s in my guild and
b) Two couples who were unwilling to play separately, I took what I could get.

We tried Azjol'Nerub first, since that was the daily. We got owned hard and often on the mini-boss waves before the first boss. We just weren't able to clear one group before the second spawned. With more DPS it might have been more managable.

After a few wipes, we gave up and tried Heroic Utgarde Keep. It was more of a leisurely stroll than the zerg we normally do, but it was manageable. Didn't feel significantly harder than a normal lvl 80 instance, although saying that, I was restrained and only pulled one group at a time rather than my normal 2-3. Also as I mentioned, the first boss gave Ulu a shiney new sword, and I spent the night levelling ulu's sword skill from 373 to 400.

Our spirits bouyed by this success, we pressed on to try Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle. And for a while it seemed fine. The first two bosses and the trash surrounding them wasn't difficult. However, when we hit the gauntlet around Skadi the Ruthless and wiped. And wiped. And wiped some more. I think it took us an hour to finally bury that bastard, first it was surviving the Gauntlet long enough to get the 5-6 harpoons needed to dismount him, secondly it was getting him under control fast enough so he doesn't kill half the group when he lands.

In the end I used the following macro to get him under control:

/target Skadi
/cast Exorcism

And we killed him without any deaths. He even apologised for his rough treatment by giving Ulu a new belt. After that we cleared to King Ymiron, and after wiping a few times to his glowy ball o' death he too kissed floor in our honor. Sadly he didn't drop his sword, but I guess two weapon upgrades in one evening would have been silly.

So there y'go, some highs, some lows. The group wasn't perfectly optimised, but we had fun, and I ended up with seven badges towards Ulu's Libram. Only eight more to go! Heroic's seem to be the way forward for a group of 80s with decent gear and their heads screwed on. Also the rep gains are tremendous. Mobs give 2-3 times the rep they do in normal, and bosses give 5 times the amount.

Violet Hold's the daily Heroic today. I wonder what it's like...