that magic number, 68

We finally got Tylara and Kairon to level 68. That magic number, where both the beginning Northrend quests light up, and the Karazhan keying quest chain opens up.

The question is, do we start questing them in Northrend, or take the time to get them Heroic-keyed like we did with Mornara and Ikoli. The only keys they have left are Sha'tar, Keepers of Time, and of course, Karazhan.

It was going to be Lower City, as well, but we ran a random dungeon and ended up with Tylara tanking Sethekk Halls (at 67! OMG). That would have been more fun if the shaman in the party's answer to my asking for Tremor Totem when we got the the groups that feared was something other than "Meh."

old addons

I just found a folder with addons going back to June 2006. I wonder if I should just trash that, throw them in with all the other old addons we hang onto, or just leave it be.

A month's hiatus

Sorry for the lack of updates in the last month. The non-Wow life has been busy, and my laptop has been rather ill.

Last night I updated my desktop so I could play some anyhow, but the frame rates never cleared 15fps. So I didn't instance but instead (after dealing with most of my mail) got Ikoli her last point in Tailoring (the screen shot didn't work, it just snapped a black image) and then Northrend Explorer.

Tonight I get to log in and explain why no, I am not interested in trying ICC with single-digit frame rates. I am promised my laptop back tomorrow. We'll see.

ICC10

Last night Kuan and Viljo went with Darkfall into ICC10. It was actually a very imbalanced group. We had 1 mage, 1 hunter, 1 druid, 2 DKs, 2 priests, and 3 shaman. Fortunately we actually had a good spec distribution: within that group the only overlap was a shaman who swapped from enhance to resto as we got to the harder bosses and needed 3 healers. I think the only buff we were really missing was Kings.

We pretty much trounced ICC10. We had a bit of a slow start as we were waiting for a healer to log, and when they didn't we had to find another one. Once we started we once shot the first 7 bosses. Yes, that includes Putricide. Our first wipe of the night was on Blood princes. Only having one melee meant that kuan and I had to adjust ourselves to take some shots from the empowered flame sphere. Previous to that Taldaram had an annoying tendency to cast it at our orb tank... Anyway once we realized that we killed him next attempt.

We even one-shot BQL. That part I'm extra-special proud about that. Especially since Viljo was the first one to be bitten. I wasn't expecting or even trying to get bit first. But I did manage to bite the right people when I was supposed to. It's easier on 10 man because there are fewer people to bite, and more time before your next bite, but really it just is a matter of paying attention.

Valithria was also a speedy one-shot, and then we were on to Sindragosa. Her gauntlet wiped us once because at least 3 of us had never seen it before. We only had time for one try on Sindragosa, but we got her down to 28%. We had a couple of deaths mostly due to people never having seen the fight before, but I think we'll kill her the next time.

Then it's on to the Lich King.

You're welcome?

Right after the ICC10 raid last night Kuan and V did a speedy heroic.

It's always a bit odd to go into heroics. Regardless of who I bring, at this point all my characters are over geared for them. And since Mornara is my newest 80 and is actually still pretty undergeared relative to the Triumph badge median, that's actually saying a lot about easy the standard Heroic is. So Heroics are not as much about the content as a contest with the other players. Unless it's the new ICC5s or TOC5 none of my toons are going to wipe due to not having good enough gear for the content, they will wipe due to someone being an idiot. Either with a bad pull, or fear getting a 2nd group, or dps being aggro-stealing jerks.

Razaruckus from Shu'halo was the pally tank we got last night. His health and gear was a bit low, but still way more than enough to do H Nexus. We smashed through Nexus quite fast. The only one who died was the rogue, who was clearly someone's alt who had forgotten that if a boss does whirlwind it'll hurt.

Anyway after blowing through the instance I whispered Razaruckus saying "ty for tanking". He responded "ty for not pulling aggro". I'm at a bit of a loss how to take his thanks, because I *did* pull aggro a few times.

I meant my thanks sincerely. The bosses died, and, aside from the rogue being dumb, the rest of us didn't. I did pull aggro once or twice, but honestly with V in almost full ICC25 gear that's not surprising. No matter who the tank is at this point I have to be careful with aggro, especially in aoe situations. For the vast majority of the run I kept myself in check and Razaruckus did a good job holding aggro.

So Razaruckus, wherever you are on the internet, you did a good job tanking. I appreciated it.

Arena Time report

Saturday Kuan and V ventured into the arenas. It was their first time since level 70. And it went surprisingly well.

We didn't win every match, oh no. But we did win a couple of them, which is more than the zero wins I was expecting. And even better we didn't degenerate into screaming or snapping. It was a fair amount of fun. There was learning, both with tactics and with arenas we'd never seen.

It was even fun enough that we did more fights than we were required to. Yes, you read that correctly, Kuanchichi and Viljo voluntarily went into the arena past the minimum of ten fights.


Though I did learn all over again that I hate paladins.

Arena time

Kuan'chichi has something like 1150 resilience and 7250 achieve points. Clearly it is time for Kuan and Viljo to try the 2v2 arenas we've been avoiding since WotLK was released.

I've put Beethoven's 6th Symphony on as calming background music for this adventure. Clara, meanwhile, has broken out a bottle of olaliberry wine.