Those of you who read this blog via LJ or some form of RSS reader may get spammed a bit over the next few days. Apologies in advance, but I'm going back through the blog and applying tags to my entires. All 128 of them.
Why didn't I do this sooner?
My apologies to Milton for paraphrasing and to Chaotic Divinity for referring to them as Hell. I just liked the phrase and CD're definately more like Purgatory in any case. ;)
A week ago, I was tempted to leave Chaotic Divinity. CD have been a constant in my playing now for about 21 months give or take. I've seen them through highs and lows, and we've stuck together as a loose confederacy of friends who wanted to try and see the end game content together. As a single guy with no dependants, and an undemanding job, I can arguably afford to be more "hardcore" in my playing style than those with spouses, partners or kids. As a result, I do spend a lot of my time backtracking through content I was finished with weeks ago to help folks catch up with me. Most of the time, it can be fun, but occasionally, it gets wearying.
Anyway, a week or so ago, I noted an old friend of mine was recruiting Hunters for their raid group, one of the older and more established groups on my server. Given the rarity of Hunter slots in the endgame guilds, and the fact that the aforementioned friend was the reason I started playing the game, I thought about offerring them Wulf's services. I can't deny it was a tempting chance to see some of the later stuff.
I started playing Wulf again to get a feel for him. It was bizarre to play a ranged class again. I felt removed from the action, and after months of AoE grinding with my Paladin, it was frustrating to only be able to fight one or two mobs at a time.
On Friday, I even went as far as to announce my intention to leave CD and posted an application to the other group. It seemed only fair to let them know the situation before I went on any more raids with them. They were upset, but supportive in general.
Then an applicant who was shaping up to be a good Main Tank for us basically announced that he didn't think CD was good enough for him and quit. I can't adequately describe the thought process at that point, but it made me realise where I belonged. CD needed a tank, and I realised I didn't really, truly have my heart in playing a Hunter anymore.
I asked to reverse my resignation and retracted Wulf's application to the other group simultaneously. I might spend the next few months on Karazhan and Heroics with these guys, but I'm honeslty not bothered. When I go to the big instances, I want to do it with sword and shield equipped, standing in the shadow of some hulking monstrosity between it and my friends.
So as soon as I logged on with Ulushnar last night, a friend asks me to come to Steamvaults as their tank had just left. It turns out that they'd just cleared past the first boss, so I honestly couldn't refuse. Group turned out to be a Shaman and Warlock from Suprised Survivors and a Druid and Hunter from another guild. We just zerged the place easily and dropped the last two bosses. Ulu even scored the chestpiece of the Righteous Armor set.
After that, a quick call out on the Cd chat channel and I got a group going to Heroic Mechanar. It was Ulu, a Priest, a Warlock, a Mage and a DPS-specced Paladin. It mostly went relatively smoothly, except for the waves of mobs that spawn before the last boss. They always come in three waves: four humanoids, one superhard robot and three humaniods, and there's two of these waves, with a brief break before the boss. The problem is that the robot hits like a freaking truck! I've fought bosses on Heroic mode that were easier than this guy! Ultimately the DPs paladin relented, strapped on his healing gear and things went smoother. After about half-a-dozen wipes, we managed to get past the waves and kill him. Ulu was rewarded with the helm of the Righteous set, an amazing tanking sword and the last badge he needed to get the Libram of Repentance.
After that, with no time to rest, I went straight into a Heroic Slave Pens run. Group this time was a little eclectic: Healer Paladin, DPS Paladin, Ulu, a Rogue and a Mage. Still, we got through it suprisingly well. Mage was fire-specced and kept on dying to his own aggro, and out pulls were a little sloppy, but the instance wasn't significantly harder than a normal level 70 instance. I guess the main difference between heroics and normals is that a newly-geared level 70 couldn't do much good in a Heroic, but could hold his own in a regular instance. After you've run the regular instances enough to get geared, then Heroics offer the next challenge. there was no loot for ulu this time, but three badges got added to the fund for his next item.
And after last night, ulu completed the Righteous set, which looks pretty pimp:
Sadly the stats make it near-useless for raiding. Still, I fully intend to use it for soloing and for tanking regular instances, where's it's actually preferably to not outgear the instance too much.
Friday night was Karazhan. We ended up clearing Attumen, Moroes, the Big Bad Wolf (again!) and up to the Curator. Sadly the Curator didn't wanna drop to our group, (which lacked some burst damage) and after three attempts, we called it a night. Ulu got some healing gloves, but no phat tanking lewt.
Saturday was spent helping folks in a lot of different instances. Helped with runs to Arcatraz, Shadow Labyrinth and Mechanar in the afternoon, and in the evening did a Heroic Mechanar run and finished up with a quick zerg of Sethekk Halls normal for a mate's lvl 67 alt.
On Sunday, I pretty much focussed on getting the last 4.5k rep I needed for Exalted with the Sha'tar. After one-and-a-half Mechanar runs and a Botanica run (which amounted to something like four hours altogether), Ulu ended up at Exalted, and got a rather pimp new shield!
After that, it was on to Karazhan, with 70% of the same group from Friday. We cleared to and killed the Maiden of Virtue in about 20 minutes. Loot was a tanking necklace (which our Druid tank got) and tanking gloves, which Ulu got.
After that, we moved on to the Curator, who fell first time this time, and from there, we moved on to clear the trash to the Shade of Aran. Aran's a chaotic fight, basically untankable. We made four attempts on him, but our best saw him at about 19% health. That's a kill for another day. Between attempts three and four, we cleared our way to the Chess event for some easy lewt. It's a fight which is hard to lose and impossible to wipe on (your remotely controlled chess pieces die, not you).
Another weekend, another massive set of upgrades to Ulu's gear. It's ridiculous how well-geared he's becoming so quickly. I really need to get him to do some heroics quickly, as none of the five-mans offer a challenge anymore.
Did a Kara run on Friday, one of our best yet in that we killed Attumen, Moroes, The Big Bad Wolf, The Curator and completed the Chess event in one night. This basically let the next lot have a clear run at the Shade of Aran and then onto the Prince. Got some nice drops though, a nice tanking helm, a tanking sword and the token for Ulu's Tier 4 gloves.
I feel kinda guilty about taking the last two, since neither is incredibly useful for me atm. Even with a spelldamage enchant, the sword probably won't be used that much. Whilst it has good stats for a warrior tank, the lack of a decent level of spelldamage limits Ulu's ability to generate sufficent threat. As for the gloves, they're not that useful to Ulushnar yet for raid tanking due to a serious lack of block, parry or dodge rating.
And whilst we're on the subject, why has Blizzard loaded up the raid-level Paladin tanking gear with so much Block Value? Whilst it's nice, even agreeable to be able to block 3-400 damage out of a hit anywhere in the 700-1500 damage range, it becomes much less relevant when you're tanking a mob that hits for upwards of 4000. In that situation, Parry and Dodge are your friend, with the occasional block to maintain threat.
*Ahem*, rant over. Saturday and Sunday I was away visiting friends. When I got back on Sunday, nothing was happening that required me, so I took a night off to go see the new Pirates movie (not bad, not brilliant either, although the "Telescope Envy" gags raised a chuckle).
Was off work on Monday, so spent the day questing, and fitted in one quick Shattered Halls run (for my final Heroic key) before we made an attempt at Gruul's Lair. The paucity of CD sign-ups meant we had to draft in some help from another friendly group, Adventure Lovers.
All in all, it would be a lie to call the night a success. CD and AL proved to be something akin to oil and water, and the two sides never really gelled into a whole. Coordination was a problem for us, as was the length of time we took to get going. I think it would be better for us to leave off on Gruul until we can get a full CD group.
Yesterday, I was off again and I spent most of the morning doing quests solo with Ulu. In the afternoon, I got a group together to try out an applicant Priest on runs to the Black Morass and the Arcatraz. The Priest performed admirably and both runs were completed with no wipes or deaths despite our occasionally reckless pulls.
After that, I tried Heroic Underbog with another group, but we ended up disbanding after the first boss due to time constraints. Heroics are fun, but it seems getting a good group for them is hard.
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