Current Progression

 

This past week we had a pretty good set of raids. I decided to pug even though we only had 5 people online. We actually had heals and tanks so we just needed to get some dps. It worked out, we had different pugs every day of our three raid nights, but they were all pretty good. Oddly, the pugs we picked up on Sunday night were better quality, both gear and skill, then the ones that we had on Tuesday. I can't tell if that was because people weren't busy on Sunday night, or if better people respond when I say we're starting on Malkorok.

Either way, after a rough start on Tuesday we killed Nazgrim on Thursday. On Sunday night we got some pretty well geared people who were done with their guild raids for the week. It took us a bunch of wipes to get the coordination to cover all the purple puddles, but once everyone knew the plan we were good.

We also had a really easy time killing Spoils of Pandaria. It took us one wipe and then we annihilated it. I think a big part of that was that I and the other tank had practiced it when we ran it on Flex three the week before. Both of us had the crate opening rhythm down. Despite that I was still afraid that it would be a wipe when I had trouble opening the first couple of crates on the Mogu side. Fortunately we were able to recover and get everything opened up and then dead in time.

We headed to Thok after knocking over Spoils, and had a couple of good pulls on him. I am confident that we'd have gotten him the next pull, but we ran out of raid time and people had to go to sleep. Sadly our last wipe was my over-aggro fault. Turns out that I'm really looking forward to the removal of Vengeance in the Warlords expansion. Right now it's a bit of a clunky mechanic that can make tank swaps, especially the initial tank swap, really hairy.

It was a pretty good raid. I know that several Darkfall people hadn't been there when we first killed Malkorok, so they got a new kill for that. I was lucky enough to get the nice tanking boots that Malk drops: the Malkorok's Giant Stompers, but warforged for extra awesomeness. And I remain pleased with our speedy kill of Spoils. 

Burnout? Not Today!

 

I had been feeling more than a bit burned out lately. It's the end of the expansion, and it felt like Darkfall was falling apart like it did at the end of Wrath. A bunch of people have stopped logging on and other people have gquit or stealth server transferred. I'd been super stressed and worrying about attrition and progression and generally dreading logging on to raid.

At the end of Wrath of the Lich King, Darkfall had a lot of attrition and turnover and, both personally and as a guild, didn't end up killing the Lich King until much later. It was pretty rough, but DraNgNon and I ended up having a good time by pugging our way through Ulduar to get the achieves and fast protodrake. That was a tremendous amount of fun. It also facilitated the swap of my main to Mornara and polishing my tanking skills. Additionally I honed my raid leading skills, by getting us and a half-regular merry band through Ulduar.

Fortunately I was recently reminded that despite the guild issues the end of Wrath was a lot of fun. I still have many fond memories of Ulduar. And I actually don't mind pugging, even if every so often there is someone who is all "zomg a female tank!!!" I'm pretty good at shrugging that off as long as there are no sexist comments following on to it.  

So I'm feeling revitalized and ready to raid. I'd prefer to have a full Darkfall raid to run with, however, if people aren't going to be around I'm cool with pugging and killing bosses. 

Transmog

As much as I adore the Valorous Scourgeborne look, with all it's black spikes and red accents, it was time for a new transmog for Morn. However I was unpleased with all my options. A lot of the DK sets are far too monochromatic: all blue or rusty red or horrible poisonous green. I was considering the heroic set from Dragon Soul, but I am missing the matching boots, and don't have a pair that wouldn't clash horribly. I was sad and resigned myself to keeping my Valorous Scourgeborne, which wasn't really such a bad thought.

Fortunately I was running DraNgNon's not-so-little-anymore boomkin through the ICC 5mans and I picked up the Pauldrons of the Souleater from the last boss in Forge of Souls. They are pretty striking shoulders. The understated spikes and fiery runes look pretty awesome. So I took a look through Wowhead and the looked at the loot drops from the various ICC 5man bosses, and eventually figured out that the set I now wanted was the Scourgelords's Frigid Battleplate recolor. I went with the Sollerets of Suffering rather than the boots suggested on that page and I think it looks pretty spiffy:

For a weapon I went with the Pit Lord's Destroyer, from the final pair of bosses in the Well of Eternity.

Rascal-Bot

I was chatting with a few people in guild the other day and one of them was asking for suggestions of things to do. Honestly I don't know how anyone gets bored in WoW, there are so many different things to do. So I suggested a few options, but mostly I suggested he try out pet battles!

He was dubious at first, about the fun value in pet battles, and worried that he didn't have enough pets to battle with. I gave a few basic tips and suggestions, and then he was worried that he'd get too addicted to pet battles. So score one for pet battles!

Anyway after he logged off for the evening I sent him a present. I had a couple extra Sunfur and Snowy Pandas so I sent him one of each. I also shipped over a Pandaren Water Spirit. I get so many of the Panda and Pandaren Spirit pets from my daily rounds of the Pandaria Master Tamers, it can be hard to sell them all.

Imagine my surprise when I logged in the next day and had a mail in return from him! A mail containing a Rascal Bot!

After leveling him I took a closer look at the little guy and his abilities. And then immediately renamed him Bad Robot.

All these abilities are awesome references to JJ Abrahams works. Having just recently rewatched Star Trek Into Darkness, I'm most amused by Phaser, Lens Flare and Reboot.