I had run a 10 man Malygos raid on my Shaman and the group asked if we could do VoA as well. We only had one tank for Maly and the Paladin who could offpsec tank was saved to VoA. So I did what anyone with a geared out tank and a mildly geared healer on separate accounts would do.

I tanked and healed it.

I set up several macros on the Shaman to target and heal Megalis the Druid and drop totems. Set the Shaman on follow and tanked the adds while the other tank held on to Emalon with a Paladin healer on him. Chain heals from the Shaman jumped to the melee when they came to kill the overcharged add.

It was quite epic.

And for my trouble? My Shaman picked up deadly gloves. And when we killed Archavon right afterwards, the mount dropped. I didn’t win the roll but I finally got to see it drop. I of course suggested jokingly that I should be given the mount simply for doing all of the work but they weren’t having it :)

Topped off the Warlock at 445 Engineering so he can supply arrows and bullets. I may even be able to make a little gold from these on the auction house. Dropped his mining skill. Thinking about going Blacksmith.

I played with the Warlock a bit on the training dummies. Specced him Affliction. Man, Mik’s just fills up the right side of my screen with gobs of scrolling numbers from all those dots. It’s crazy.

The real reason I leveled this team though, as I’ve mentioned before, is that I wanted a healer. And I didn’t want it to be my Priest or Druid. I didn’t really want a Paladin either. Add to that the fact that I already had a level 60 Shaman and the choice was easy.

With the past week being really bad for our normal raid schedule (holidays and people on vacation), I had plenty of time to work on my Shaman. He got dragged through two heroic Naxx runs. Got 2 piece T7.5 (shoulders/helm) and several other items. Then I started the heroics. Two full days of nonstop healing heroics. Friday I ran a couple, but Saturday and Sunday we really pounded them out. In fact, on Sunday we actually ran every single heroic except Old Kingdom (finished up at Azjol-Nerub and just didn’t have time to go next door to OK).

I think I now have any item that could possibly drop from a heroic that I would want. Now I have to weasel my way into 10 man Ulduar runs.

This was all my first true experience with healing and I really enjoy it. Besides, it’s really nice to take a break from tanking everything all the time.

Oh, and I dropped skinning from the Shaman and leveled Alchemy to 450 + Elixir Master in one day. That is maybe the easiest profession ever.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Shandris&cn=Strange

This was something I had been putting off for too long. A group of us had done the XT and Hodir hard modes (and Flame Leviathan with a tower up/not repairing) simply because they take little extra effort over their normal encounters.

Last week however, I put up a post on our guild forums with a list of players that I wanted to go with and do some more.

We ended up raiding for 7 hours (World of Logs report).

But it was a 7 hours well spent. As for hard modes we did XT, Council, Hodir, Thorim, Freya and Vezax as well as Flame Leviathan with two towers up.

We tried FL with four towers a couple of time, then bumped it down to three for one attempt before finally settling on just two so we could get it done, move on and do some others. We can definitely do four towers but we’ll need to specify beforehand that we’ll be working on that one.

We had tried Council hard mode in the past but little did we know we were doing it wrong and didn’t get it. This week we had fresh knowledge going in and 2-shot it. The first attempt wiped due to a missed Fusion Punch dispel. Second attempt went beautifully. Hard mode loot was Loop of the Agile and of course the Archivum Data Disc which I looted. I started the quest chain and we all watched the event and listened to Brann.

Hodir hard mode we had to wipe twice as we were short of the 3 minute timer due to poor buff stacking or people dying. Third attempt we finished with 30 seconds to spare. Man those buffs from the NPCs absolutely make or break this hard mode. Not to mention no one dying to stupid shit. Loot was The Boreal Guard and my Hodir’s Sigil.

Thorim was another one we had attempted a few times before and ended up skipping the hard mode and just killing him. This time we were not having that. He was going down the hard way. It only took two attempts for everyone to get the hang of rotating around and out of the charges. Don’t Stand in the Lightning + hard mode done. Sif’s Rememberance and Thorim’s Sigil.

Now Freya is one of those that we were worried sick about. We made sure everyone was well aware of the full set of abilities and we also designated places for healers/ranged to stand to reduce the amount of time healers had to move around to avoid having other people hit them with Nature’s Fury. Once we were confident that everyone understood the difference between no elders and all three elders, we dove in. And we 1-shot her. Having never even attempted it with any of the elders up let alone all of them. Fire Orchid Signet and Freya’s Sigil.

Ok. Through all the times that I’ve been to Mimiron, I’ve always wanted to press that big red button behind him. Now was our chance. We figured we’d press it once just so we could see the fire. And, well. There is plenty of fire to see. If you’re not careful it will be everywhere. We made it into phase 2 with only one dead I think and he was killed by the normal Napalm stuff. It went downhill quickly though.  We wiped it and just killed him normally. And boy has that one been nerfed. We laughed our way through it, it was so easy. Of course one of the melee wasn’t watching his step and stood under Mimiron during Laser Barrage. Splat. Whatever. It was super easy and we lol’d to victory. On to Vezax without Mimiron’s Sigil. Maybe in a week or two we’ll get it and have our first look at Algalon.

After the first time my guild killed Vezax I thought to myself “how in the hell will we ever do that on hard mode?”. But we did. And it turns out, it’s pretty easy. If you can make it to and successfully kill the Saronite Animus, you’ve already won the fight. One wipe while the healers figured out how low they can let me (the tank) get to avoid overheal. Another wipe the first time we saw the Animus spawn and figured out how to get him onto the tank (he aggroed a healer instantly). Third attempt was the kill shot. Tortured Earth for me!!

What a night.

At this point it was pretty late so we decided to call it and come back for Yogg later. But not before our tree druid pulled a leroy and started the encounter.  Eight of us made it in the room and we zerged into phase two down a healer and a DPS and totally unprepared. That was a blast. The removal of the mind controls from the Yogg encounter makes it almost simple now. It was the one thing giving us trouble before. We ended up going back the next day and three shotting him for our guild first Yogg kill. All loot disenchanted except the Royal Seal to our Pally.

I will be shipping out October 21st to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. After that, I move to Fort Sam Houston, Texas for approximately 6 months of AIT as a 68W - Healthcare Specialist.

In the mean time I’ll still be leading raids for my guild as usual. Leveling my alts on off nights. Farming for mounts. All the stuff my guild has come to know me for. The only difference being, I have a hard deadline to finish things that I want to finish.

Although I’d like to say “Sure I’ll be back after basic training”, I just can’t promise that. As I understand it, I won’t have much time for anything other than training for a good while. At this moment however, I do plan to keep my accounts paid and active.

Anyhow, I lucked out with the loot from Vezax and pocketed possibly the most important Feral Druid upgrade since Burning Crusade. That’s right, the Idol of the Corruptor dropped and it is all mine!

About a dozen or so in the raid that night had already seen and developed a grudge against Yogg-Saron. For many it was their first time stepping into that room behind Vezax and standing before Sara and her clouds, ignorant of the horrors that await them only a few steps away.

We had an hour and a half left on our raid and we put in some solid practice on phase 1. Myself and a DK handled the guardians, ferrying them back and forth, picking up the extras along the way. I know that two tanks isn’t typical for this fight but I was less worried about it being tanked properly and more worried about people being able to avoid clouds.

So people got to see how the clouds move and how unforgiving they are as far as their actual radius versus the visual radius. They got to see how easily the guardians will die to dots and pets while not in range of Sara, effectively wasting them and forcing a wipe. They got to see how easily they can kill someone who is mind controlled. Over all I feel that the raid learned from the attempts we put in on it and I’m confident that we’ll push through phase 1 and start learning the other two phases next week.

Also. We finally decided to slap together a geared 10 man group for some hard modes on Friday and got two of them. We one-shotted Heartbreaker and three-shotted I Could Say That This Cache Was Rare. We also bagged Unbroken + Orbital Bombardment (with 1 tower) on our first try, Stokin’ the Furnace, Siffed (failed Lose Your Illusion several times before moving on. Chain lightning + melee heave group = ouch).

Hard mode XT dropped my BiS bracers (Fluxing Energy Coils) and both of the rogues in the raid graciously passed on them for me.

We did give I Choose You, Steelbreaker a valiant effort but I think we were missing something somewhere. Five attemps before we just decided to kill them off for the week in the typical Brundir last fashion.

They were two of my Recruit-a-Friend characters so they were both hanging out in the toon stable at level 60.

The XP changes to Outland are quite obvious. Both characters have completed To Hellfire and Back and Mysteries of the Marsh and the first few quests at Cenarion Thicket in Terokkar Forest. They were also run through Hellfire Ramparts one time for the quest there. The Warlock just made 66 and the Shaman is about 20% away from 66. The XP gap is due to them not being leveled together originally. In fact I only ever leveled the Warlock to 30 at which point he was granted 30 levels to 60.

Many of the quests I’m picking up in Terokkar as I follow my favorite leveling guide are now green. However I happen to like Terokkar Forest so I’ll probably quest there until they start going grey at which point I’ll move on to Nagrand (the best zone in Outland, imo).

When I leveled the last team (Priest/Hunter) I whisked them away to Northrend immediately at 68. This time I intend to keep grinding in Outland until 72 or maybe 73.

I’ve not done any research on Warlocks or Shamans. I’m just sifting through the talent trees and picking what I feel to be the most useful talents for leveling, with my permanently grouped, dual-boxing team in mind.

I rarely bother summoning a Warlock pet. I rarely drop any totems. I just go about my business Lightning Bolting, Earth Shocking, Shadow Bolting, Corruptioning and Curse of Agonying everything in site. Most things are dead before they get to hit me.

Sometimes I’ll toss out a Totem of Wrath or bust out the Voidwalker or Felhunter if I have a good reason. Usually they’re just a waste or a hassle though.

One really cool thing: This particular team is quite well suited to doing difficult group quests. Stoneclaw Totem, Frost Shock, Thunderstorm, Fear, Voidwalker, DOTs, etc. all combine to make an elite kiting force to be reckoned with when used properly.

I’m really looking forward to getting to 80 and healing my first 5-man as a Resto Shaman. I really want to be able to contribute to the guild as a healer, I just don’t want to do it with my Druid or Priest. The Warlock was chosen as the partner simply out of curiosity of that class. That and the only other option on that account was the Rogue. And Rogues just seem kinda boring to me.

Oh speaking of healing though. I’m working on wrapping up Glory of the Hero on my Priest. One of the few remaining achievements I had was Zombiefest. I was able to put a group of people together that didn’t mind wasting their shot at a Bronze Drake to get the achievement. Minus a healer. So I healed it. But I didn’t feel like respeccing. So I healed it in Shadow spec. Oddly enough we were able to finish the instance after getting the achievement and had no deaths. AND we were still only about 1, maybe 2 minutes off of still being able to get a Bronze Drake.

We were joined by a group of people who left their previous guild for much the same reason as those of us who founded Coup. There was a solid group of 8 or 9 to start, but several more have trickled over from the same guild over the past week.

The influx of people began last weekend and we wasted no time starting 25 mans. We put 25 Ulduar on our official raid calendar, but went ahead and gave it a shot on Monday even though it’s not a raid night for us. I mean it was going to reset the next day anyway so why not right?

That Monday night we cleared the siege wing without much of an issue. Considering our raid was comprised of two halves who had never raided with each other I think that it went pretty well.

After the reset we repeated our clear of siege wing with Kologarn to top it off. The day after that we added Auriaya and Assembly of Iron to the kill list. Then Hodir finally fell before us after figuring out some issues with some people not being able to avoid taking damage and our DPS not breaking out the helpers and getting those buffs quickly and consistently.

Last night we killed Freya after five attempts or so, but then two of our raiders had to leave. So we went and killed Emalon and Malygos to top off the raid week. Neither Thorim or Mimiron are forgiving enough for us to attempt with 23. Not that we couldn’t have brought in some of our non-raiding members to fill the raid, but that wouldn’t have made much difference. It just made more sense for us to go do something simple and get some new loot for a few folks.

So far it’s been a great success for us, picking up the new people. Luckily, we ended up with a really well balanced raid by simply merging their group with ours. I honestly wasn’t expecting to do as well as we did in our first week so I’m really happy about that.

Though after doing as well as we did this week, and it being our first week raiding together, I fully expect us to outdo ourselves and get all of the keepers down during the next raid week. If we don’t I will be dissappointed. That being said, I don’t want to imagine how much time I may end up spending in Mimiron’s room next week.

All told, it was about 40 wipes and 6 hours of work to figure out all of the nuances and how to not die near the end of phase 4 when everything comes together at once. The timers on Laser Barrage, Shock Blast and Rocket Strike all converge and it’s a rough 8 seconds or so at that point.

So yeah, we all celebrated for a good while before taking the badass train back to the main section of Ulduar and making our way to General Vezax. We put in 11 attempts on General, making adjustments to raid positioning and strategy along the way. On our last attempt we had him down to 25%. At that point two of our  three healers were OOM - due to bad vapor placement and eating a few Shadow Crashes -  and I (who was tanking) went down with everyone else still alive. Sad times. We were all pretty stoked to get back and try that particular strategy again as it had worked really well, but the trash had respawned. As it wasn’t even an official raid night and it was already 11:45pm, we had a few people that weren’t interested in sticking around to spend 30 minutes on trash just for a few more attempts.

I’m really glad we got Mimiron down though. It should provide a good confidence boost for those who were underperforming or making consistent mistakes. And it should also be a relief for the more skilled players who were getting really frustrated with the not-quite-so-spectacular ones. It was by no means a “lucky” kill. We simply got to a point where all of the little hiccups in our strategy were ironed out and no one died to anything stupid (well one person did but it was right before the end of phase two so there was plenty of time for a battle rez and rebuffs on him). In fact, EVERYONE was still alive at the end. It should be a repeatable kill without much of a headache from now on.

Being an achievement whore, I stayed up until midnight so I could get a good grasp on the event and complete it as quickly as possible in order to expedite my return to my regularly scheduled dailies, Hunter alt heroics and Ulduar raiding. It soon became apparent that the event is actually really simple, and five hours later I had completed Noble Gardener, and logged off to get some sleep.

Though I still need to go back and farm more eggs for a shot at the Black Tuxedo Pants to complete the last of the available achievements, Sunday’s Finest. After 350 eggs I still had not recieved that one item.

No I’m not posting this to explain the event or my tactics or where I found that damned pesky female Dwarf. I’m posting today just to say how absolutely hilarious it is to watch players from the top ranked raiding guild on my server, running around amongst the best PvPers on my server and other players from every category of play style from “casual raider” to “doesn’t even have a level 80″, all polymorphed into rabbits, with Elegant Dresses and Egg Baskets equipped, spamming Egg Rush, and competing to be the first to find and click on Brightly Colored Eggs.

Players who are already decked out in Ulduar gear, swirling around the buildings in Brill with players who don’t even know where Ulduar is.

Players who only log in for an hour here and there after their kids have gone to bed, hopping around in Falconwing Square with players who have spent days clearing the latest raid content.

I have the pleasure of occasionally raiding with the aformentioned top ranked raiding guild, so I know how serious they can be about their WoW. I can assure you that they’ll destroy any self respect you may have if you mess up even the smallest task in a raid. To see them frantically searching for Easter eggs in the starter zones with 100 other people is hysterical.

3.1 is live now, and I’ve initially gone with a very similar spec to what I had before. However, I’m going to take this evening to seriously revisit each talent I’ve chosen and evaluate it for threat and survivability. I’ll be searching around for anyone who’s done any of the math already and doing it myself where I can.

I won’t be able to test everything immediately. Glyphs come to mind right away. As near as I can tell, no one on my server has discovered *any* of the new druid glyphs (if they have, they’re not talking). Let alone the Feral ones that I am looking for.

I’ll update this post as things change. Information seems very limited at the moment, and I think it’s because on the surface, the Druid changes feel quite lackluster. I have a feeling though that there may be some gems hidden in between the lines.

My initial spec and glyphs (what I’m starting with): 0/60/11