It’s been a long time coming. I’ve heard about these big, bad 25 man raids in BC for some time. I’ve hoped to get there some day, and it’s difficult with the playtime I have available. Well, my druid is nearly as well equipped as he can be, short of a drop or two in Kara and the new badge loot in 2.4. It was finally time for me to start participating in SSC raids and beyond.

Saturday night was actually my second trip to the instance. 2 weeks ago I went along and got to experience Lurker for the first time. That nasty old spout must have gotten me 4 times, but we did take him down. Now fast forward to last night.

This time I was there from the beginning. We started by clearing our way to Hydross. As far as trash goes, there are large groups of hard hitting mobs, but they really don’t see all that difficult. As long as people are staying on CC an the healers are doing their jobs, it’s fairly straightforward. Also, as a healer, it’s nothing more than whack a mole, yet again. I swear my grid layout is going to burned onto my retinas at some point. I’ll find myself walking around in real life wondering who the tanks are.

Anyhow, we get to Hydross and the explanation ensues. Hydross is an interesting fight, what with the two different aspects and the tank dragging. Still, for a healer it’s more of the same. The only question is whether I’m responsible for a tank, the raid or whatnot.

I’m going to step back from SSC in particular here to talk about healing. You’ve heard me mention before how playing a healer is kind of like whack a mole, and this is especially true for a druid healer. I have no useful CC, and I have no real utility to add to a raid. I’m there for one thing only: healing. Does it get boring? Sure, in a manner of speaking. There are times you kind of get on autopilot and lose sight of the fight in general.

However, there are also many whiteknuckle moments where you wonder if you’re going to land that big heal in time. Those times when you wonder if you should burn Nature’s Swiftness. Those times when you have to stay on healing while locating a downed raid member to battle rez. Healing IS fun, and it can be very exciting. The only issue is that, when you get down to it, it’s the same thing over and over again. I suppose you could argue it’s the same for every class, though, just in different ways.

So anyways, back to that unstable guy. We wipe the first two tries. In one instance, a couple of healers went down to the adds that spawn occasionally. In the second wipe, one of the DPSers got overzealous, and the tank couldn’t get Hydross back quick enough.

The third try, though, was pretty cake. We didn’t even come close to the 10 minute soft time limit, either. He dropped the [item]Idol of the Crescent Goddess[/item] and I grabbed it. I didn’t necessarily want it, but nobody else did and I was at the bottom of the SK list anyhow.

We moved onto Lurker, and it took us a few tries again. I believe it took us four to take him down. We still have quite a few people that are new to these fights, myself included, and we had quite a few deaths due to that nasty old spout. (Thankfully, yours truly learned his lesson last time and was in the water in PLENTY of time and didn’t get spouted once!) We did take him down eventually, and that was it for the raid. We had a 3 hour time limit and reached it just after taking down Lurker.

So, there’s the summary. What do I think?

Honestly, I’m a bit underwhelmed. It’s fun learning new boss fights, and I do like the way the two I have seen are set up. Afterwards I took the time to look through the loot tables a bit. For those first two boss fights, there is literally nothing I want. The real problem, then, is that I can really only raid once a week. That means there is a good chance that those will be the same two bosses I see most of the time.

Hmmpph.

Am I better off farming badges in Kara?

Maybe, with the new uber loot on it’s way once the vendor opens up, farming badges in heroics and Kara is a better short term proposition for me than raiding in SSC.

Long-term, however, I do realize that the only way for me to REALLY progress is to stick with the raiding. It’s just that the thought of devoting my one raid night a week to something that doesn’t have a lot of payoff early is a little problematic. There is a pair of bracers that drop, whose name escapes me, but they don’t seem like much of an upgrade at all over my [item]Windhawk Bracers[/item], especially if you factor in the set bonus I’m getting for 8 MP5.

So what should I do with my one raid night? I’ve been organizing Kara myself, and the 23 badges or whatever in 5 hours or so is pretty nice (This is still a “new” Kara group, so I expect if we can stick with it we can trim that time to clear significantly). There are drops there for my Druid still as well, like the T4 helm.

Then again, don’t I want to some day see Hyjal and Black Temple, and actually be able to contribute? With Wrath not all that far away, do I really care? I suppose, at this point, I still enjoy Kara more, as I like the smaller group setting where I feel more “important.” I should also add that I’ve still only done Kara about 6 times now. Decisions, decisions…

There has been much discussion over the past couple of days about the newest five man instance, Magisters’ Terrace. I shared my initial thoughts about the instance yesterday, and I was not alone. A lot of folks in the blogging world took the time to share their experiences as well.

Big Bear Butt Blogger, Asleep at the WoW, and Ferocious Bite are just a few of the bloggers to have thoughts about the new instance. It’s also not hard to find approximately 1.2 billion posts on the subject over on the official WoW forums. Everybody’s talking about it, so what are they saying?

Well, my take is that the overall reaction is positive. I think most everyone can agree that it’s a very pretty instance with great music. For the most part, people agree that it is also quite challenging, even on normal mode. The reaction loot-wise is that there is some good stuff in there, but perhaps not great. I would suggest that the loot in normal mode is better than any other five man out there overall, and the heroic loot is perhaps slightly better as well.

There is some divergence here, however, and I thought we’d take a look at that. It seems that overall the instance can be a bit of a “gear check.” Even in normal mode, you can’t take a freshly minted 70 in mostly green quest rewards and expect to succeed, as you can in other instances. This is even more true in the exceedingly difficult heroic version of the dungeon. I haven’t personally been in the heroic as of yet, but from what I understand it is VERY challenging, on par with or more difficult than the other “tough” heroic instances, like Arcatraz.

People also differ in how hard they judge the instance to be. I personally started a thread on the official forums asking if Magisters’ Terrace was now the most difficult 5-man in the game. A lot of people agreed with my assessment, that it is the most difficult 5-man, but a few people did not.

I noticed something interesting about the posters who claimed the instance wasn’t all that difficult. When looking at their respective armory pages, most of them were sporting Tier 5 gear and beyond. Well, in all honesty, I would HOPE that someone in tier 5 gear wouldn’t have too much trouble with those encounters. If you’re working on or have downed the real Kael’Thas, I would hope you could handle his watered-down twin brother!

But of course, as is the case with most topics on the official forums, you have a large swath of board trolls who like to brag about their accomplishments incessantly. I’m used to it.

As a player in mostly Kara gear, I found the instance to be a nicely tuned challenge. It’s tough, but I think it’s doable. I also believe it will actually help me progress as a player, as some of the trash pulls and boss fights required more “advanced” strategy. Frankly, this is the kind of thing I was hoping to see with ZA. A nice difficulty progression from Karazhan. As it turned out, ZA is too tough for most Kara geared guilds, and doesn’t act as the bridge to 25 man content we maybe hoped for.

Overall, I think Magisters’ Terrace is just the kind of instance to keep guilds that are stuck in limbo somewhere between Kara and SSC occupied until Wrath hits. It is challenging, but I wouldn’t say frustratingly so. It might take some time to get all the fights down, but at least you only need to drum up 5 people to try it. I think it’s a find addition to the available 5-man instances, and goes to show that Blizzard doesn’t necessarily need to create bloated, ultra-difficult 25-man raids to please a lot of players. Some of us out here are awfully happy to have our new 5-man to master, Magisters’ Terrace.

I logged on around 10:30 last night. I just wanted to mess around with the new dailies and run around the new zone a little bit. Well, after a few minutes someone decided to put together a group for Magister’s Terrace. It’s way late for me already, but I figured what the hell. I can go short on sleep to see the new instance.

**Disclaimer: There are some minor spoilers below. I won’t get into full on strategy, but if you want to go into MagT completely green without knowledge of any bosses, quit reading now.**

My very first impression? VERY NICE! I loved the art direction in this place right away. I should add that I play Alliance, so I’m not as used to that architectural style as some of you horde players might be. The colors are rich, the layout is interesting, and it’s straightforward. The music is also excellent, on par with the music from Kara, which I think is some of the best in the game. Here’s a shot from the very first hallway.

The mobs are pretty normal to begin with. Just your garden variety blood elves. They have a few painful and irritating abilities, though, and I’m not even sure who had them or what exactly they did. One was some kind of glaive that seemed to stun me for a few seconds. (Never good if you’re a healer!) Another was a silence (Again, no good for healers!). Those abilities popped up again and again throughout the instance, and by the end I HATED Glaive and Silence!

The first boss, Selin Fireheart, was pretty straightforward. We wiped the first try, though not due to difficulty. There is a door that appears when the boss is triggered, and myself and a mage were trapped behind it. Doh! Anyhow, once we got a REAL try in, he was easy. He is a lot like Kalithresh in Steamvaults, only with Crystals in lieu of tanks. If he starts sucking on a crystal, destroy the crystal or else. Other than that he was pretty easy. As far as drops, he dropped some blue mail +attack power thing, [item]34698[/item]. Nobody in the group could use it. Oh well.

Selin Fireheart before:

Selin Fireheart after:

On to the second boss. If you’ve ever done Curator in Kara, you’ll find him familiar. He’s in a room filled with flying mana worm dudes, like a LOT of flying mana worm dudes. The boss himself is like a steroid enhanced version one of those Arcane elemental guys that hung out in the Curator’s room. He played somewhat like the Curator as well, with some flares and the like. He was easy enough to down on the first try.

And, wonder of wonders, I got a drop! I don’t know if what I got will replace [item]28663[/item], but [item]34707[/item] would be real nice boots for a druid not already in Kara purples. I’m still debating whether I can live with some of the stats I’d lose, because they do have two gem slots. I could easily slot a stamina gem or something else to make up the stats. We’ll see. Anyhow…

Around this point in the instance there is a crystal you click to enjoy a little cutscene. It was a VERY nice touch. From what I could tell, it looked like a preview of the 25 man Raid in the new zone. Little things like this are the reason I have played this game for so long, with no signs of stopping. Let’s face it, Blizzard is STILL on its game! I loved it!

Onward we go. The third boss is in a nice, big open aroboretum type area with fountains. Very nicely designed room, just as the rest of the instance is. The third boss is a lot like Moroes, in that you have a boss and four random adds of different classes. We got some kind of Paladin, a rogue, and I don’t know what else. We spanked her pretty well on the first try, as we cleared the room so the Lock in our group could CC two of them with Banish and Fear. One sheep from the mage, and the fight was pretty easy. I could see it being tough if you didn’t have appropriate CC. Here is a shot of the third boss, Priestess Delrissa.

What did she drop? She dropped a pair of blue spellcaster shoulders, [item]34788[/item]. From what I’ve seen of the loot so far, it’s some fairly nice pre raiding blue stuff. If you’re clearing Kara on a regular basis, maybe not so much.

Here is where it got ugly. I’ll be honest, we didn’t finish. Next on the list, and the last boss was Kael’Thas Sunstrider.

I won’t mince any words here. Kael’Thas is one TOUGH cookie. He beat us like red-headed stepchildren, repeatedly. He’s simply a very tough fight with a lot of different elements you have to get right to succeed. We had a few specific problems with this fight.

• It was VERY late – Everyone was a little tired by the time we got here, it was close to 2 am
• There is flat out a LOT of damage being thrown around to multiple group members – as a Druid I struggle in that kind of situation
• In the second phase, everyone takes a lot of damage on a constant basis…something like 300 or more damage per second, on EVERYONE (again, tough for a Druid)

So sadly, our run ended in failure. We wiped on him five different times, for a different reason each time. I didn’t realize until it was too late that what I had to do was try to get Rejuv on EVERYONE before the second phase, and keep refreshing it along with tossing lifeblooms. Oh well. I did get to see most everything there, and got a decent drop to boot. (Pun intended.) I look forward to trying Kael again soon.

Overall, I give the instance an A+ on first impression. It is quite challenging, and could be the most difficult five man in the game now. There are some tricky pulls and some tricky bosses, and it really keeps you on your toes in a good way. I shudder to think of trying this in heroic, but at the same time really look forward to it.

I’ve been back to focusing on my alts in recent weeks. I’m still running Karazhan with my resto Druid, but frankly there isn’t much left there for me other than badges. I have started getting involved in SSC runs as well, but I’m not sure if I’d just rather run Kara every week. That’s another topic, though.

I have a nice stable of alts at a decent level I could work on. I have a 42 Rogue, 40 Warrior, 43 Priest and a 41 Shaman. I also have a handful of alts in the 20 range. Recently I’ve been concentrating on the priest, as I wanted to see what all the fuss was about regarding shadowform. (Again, another topic, but I do indeed see what all the fuss was about. Only the hunter was close to the power of a shadow priest at 40!)

So now I realize it’s time to get serious. I want to focus on at least one of those characters, or possibly a different one altogether, and get them to 70 by the release of WotLK. Looking at what I have, I can really only eliminate the rogue. I like the damage output, but I don’t like the constant misses inherent in dual wield until I can get some +hit. I can conceivably eliminate the Shaman, who is enhance, for the same reason.

That leaves me with the Warrior, Shadow Priest, or something else entirely. So what is it I want?

• A class that has some flexibility. I want to be able to fill more than one role if possible.
• A class that’s fairly easy to level.
• A class I will enjoy playing the whole way

Quickly, I realized something. What I really want, that would fulfill all of my needs, is another Feral Druid. I leveled Pummra as a Feral all the way, and played him as a Feral spec for a good 3 or 4 months before switching over to Resto. I love playing the Resto Druid now, but I do miss the flexibility of the Feral spec. After all, what other class can act as either a tank or DPS equally well with the EXACT SAME SPEC? Not a one. Sure, you need two sets of gear, but it’s a heck of a lot easier than respeccing any time you want to switch roles.

Yeah, yeah. I hear you right now. “Why don’t you just respec your Druid when you feel the need?” Because it’s so darn expensive. I don’t know if I’ll ever get that epic mount, but I certainly will not if I have to spend 50g once a week or more. If it were 10g to respec, it would be a different story. Especially since I still have all my old tanking and DPS gear, some of it good!

So what about the benefits of me leveling another druid? There are many!

• I already know how to play a druid, and play one well
• Druids are great levelers once they get cat form
• I know what gear to shoot for, I know what tradeskills play well with druids
• I already have a lot of experience not only with druid, but with the feral spec
• There are a lot of things I just love about the class, perhaps its flexibility most of all
• I could level a new tradeskill to max (Alchemy?)
• How much better could my blog be if I could become a top Resto AND Feral Druid?

So what are your thoughts? Is it a waste of time for me to level another? Do any of you play multiple versions of the same class?

By now we all have a good idea of some of the fantastic badge gear that will be available in 2.4. Along with the fantastic stats on these pieces is a frightening price tag. (I won’t argue that they are over priced, this is truly great gear and worth every badge IMO.) For a casual player, though, that’s an awful lot of badges. 150 badges can take a LONG LONG time if you only have a few hours or so a week to play. The good thing is, that just like the 5000g riding skill, with time it is doable for anyone.

With that in mind, though, you better spend those badges wisely if you can’t farm 50+ per week like some more hardcore players. So, what should you spend them on? Well, I won’t pretend to know all the classes, but I thought I’d take a look at a few and suggest what I would personally spend my badges on first. Yes, I understand a lot of decisions will be based on players’ individual gear situations, so take these with a grain of salt.

Resto Druid

First, the class with which I am most familiar. Right now I am pretty well decked out in Kara and badge gear, and there are a few directions I could go. Should I invest in [item]34900[/item]? Well, I’m currently wearing the [item]Windhawk Hauberk[/item] and this chest piece is a bit of an underwhelming upgrade over it. Sure, I could care less about the spell crit on the Windhawk, but the overall bump I would get stat-wise makes it tough for me to make the plunge. The [item]34901[/item], though, are looking real nice compared to my [item]Earthsoul Leggings[/item]. They afford me a bigger stat jump, and will certainly push my +heal after gemming and spellthread as well. One last item that is intriguing is the [item]34896[/item]. Right now I have [item]28522[/item], and this is a big bump in +heal and stamina, at the cost of a little MP5. I also HATE how the shard looks. If pressed, right now I think I’ll shoot for the Gavel over the leggings, at least to start. (If I weren’t a LW, and didn’t have the Windhawk, I think I’d go with the chest first.)

Feral Kitty Druid

This is a little tougher. Feral druids fill multiple roles, so a lot of it depends on which role you concentrate on. I think it’s almost a slam dunk for Kitty druids with [item]34898[/item]. Wow, what a DPS staff. It’s superior to [item]28658[/item] and makes a perfect complement to [item]29171[/item] for those times when you have to tank. There are also a number of nice armor upgrades to look at. [item]34927[/item] and [item]34928[/item] are both very nice upgrades for most casual cats, unless of course you’re sporting T6, in which case you probably AREN’T a casual cat! I would personally probably start with the leggings, as they have 2 gem slots and a nice slot bonus. I couldn’t fault you for either choice. So what would I go with first? I would probably start with the staff, as I nearly always take care of weapon upgrades first.

Feral Bear Druid

For Bear druids, it’s tougher. [item]34911[/item]? [item]34906[/item]? I don’t know, I’m not the most experienced in this area, but neither seems like a huge upgrade to T5 or even T4 stuff, if you factor in set bonuses and gem slots. What kind of effect will haste have on a bear tank? I’m not real sure. Then there’s [item]34910[/item]. The problem with these, and with many feral druid pieces, is a lack of hit rating. +Hit is very important to a bear tank.

There’s got to be something here. Ahhh, there it is. [item]34888[/item]. NOW a lot of Bears are drooling! Real nice combo of dodge, armor and stamina. Even better than [item]29279[/item], and makes an awesome 1-2 punch if you put the two together. I’d probably go with the ring first, as it seems most obvious to me. I’m a little unsure about the armor pieces.

Boomkins

Ok, I’ve never played the spec, I know very little. I’ll see if I can at least give you some stuff to look at. From what I can tell, there are two definite upgrades in the mix. [item]34889[/item] and [item]34904[/item]. Both will help out a boomkin looking for some extra spell hit for bosses and such. The ring in particular seems like a very nice upgrade all around from presently available rings. The gloves might be more of a sidegrade with [item]33586[/item]. If you’re not yet hit capped, though, these gloves might be a nice upgrade. After all, what difference does crit rate make if you can’t hit? [item]34905[/item] looks to be a nice pair of pants for the Boomkin in you. Good slot bonus, nice stats, all around a good looking pair of pants. There is also a new chest piece that seems to be built with the Boomkin in mind, but it seems they dropped the ball. [item]34903[/item] isn’t much of an upgrade over the presently available [item]33566[/item]. There’s also a good chance you already have the latter.

Well, there you go druids. Hopefully that gives you a starting point for evaluating how you want to blow your cache of badges once the new stuff is available. I feel bad for Blizzard in their attempts to itemize for druids. We must be tough to please, since we can do so many different things!

Well, maybe not quite. 40 has got to be one of my absolute favorite levels, though. I consider it the cutoff point for whether or not I’ll keep going with a given alt. My priest, Emerson, is on the crest of that hallowed level. He’s sitting at 39, and I’m giving him a few days to get rested before moving him to the big time. So why do I love 40?

Mount, duh! Sure, this doesn’t mean all that much for a shammy or druid, maybe, but just about everyone else sprints to the nearest stable. Well, walks SLOOOWLLLY to the nearest stable. Those days of long, slow jaunts through Stonetalon to reach Desolace are over. No more slo mo crawls to Booty Bay. Ahhh, the mount. Now to choose a color.

New Armor! Time to suit up your hunter in mail. (Don’t get too worked up about it though, stats are more important than AR for a hunter!) Also time pick up some plate if you’re a warrior or pally type. Seriously, could that stuff be any more expensive? I hit 40 on an alt warrior a while back, and I had to get a second mortgage on my house in Elwynn to afford it. Ugh! Not to mention after I’d just bought my mount! Still, it sure is shiny.

31 Point Talent! This is the big one. Sure, it’s great to get a mount, and move up to the next armor class, but some of those 31 point talents are really key.

A warrior just changes when he gets mortal strike. Suddenly, he can deal out some steady DPS. Yeah, he could take anything out before, but now he does it in half the time. That’s only for starters, too.

How’s about a little shadowform for the priesty types? As mentioned above, I’m on the verge myself. I can’t wait to click that Uber button and turn all evil. And my shiny new mount can be evil too? Bonus!

That’s only a couple of examples, too. 31 point talents are a smorgasbord of awesomeness. Bestial wrath for hunters to make that pet get on its nasty. Shammies get their dual wield goodness. Druids get Dire Bear so their bear form looks…well…it looks the same, actually. But the bonuses are better!

Let’s face it, when you hit 40 you’re either going to know that you’ll keep going with that character, or you’ll retire him. At 40 you have a great idea of how your toon will be shaped in the levels to come, and have a good idea of whether or not that play style will work for you. You get to cruise around in style on your horse or elephant or whatnot, peruse the AH for a new, more uber level of gear, and your dedication to a single talent tree finally pans out. Yay for 40!

I’ll preface this post by admitting that I don’t have a whole lot of experience here. I’ve only been a few times, and have yet to see the entire instance.

Of course, that’s half the reason I decided to write this post. I was under the impression that Zul’Aman was designed as a bridge between Kara and SSC. Meaning that once you got almost fully Kara geared, the next logical step is ZA. I guess I was wrong.

As you may have seen from my previous post on ZA, my first trip was unsuccessful, to say the least. I have nearly all the drops I need from Kara, and am pleasantly decked out in almost all purple gear. ZA still managed to make me go splat, and quick. The trash in Kara, for the most part, isn’t devastating, it just takes some time. Any decently geared group can work their way through it without many problems. Sure, there is a LOT of trash to clear in Kara, but at least it can be handled.

Trash in ZA, on the other hand, can really pack a whallop. As a healer, I’m used to going down fast if I get aggro. But in ZA it was almost comical. It seemed like any one hit could take me down.

SCOUT GOT AWAY!! SCOUT GOT AWAY!!

Sorry, had a little flashback there. Anyhow, in ZA I might not even know I was about to be hit until I found myself eating dirt. No fun. I do like a challenge, but at the same time I’d like at least a little room for error. But that’s just me.

And those are just my limited experiences in ZA, and that’s not really what this post is about.

Just who is ZA designed for? After doing some research in my guild and around various forums, I found an answer to that question come up again and again. ZA is designed for Tier 5 and Tier 6 equipped guilds that are bored or want a break from 25 mans.

Huh?

So after they get done trouncing Lady V, they hit ZA up for a quick breather? Wow, I guess that shows how far removed my guild is from the “real” raiding guilds out there. We only recently began SSC, and our alliance just killed Hydross and Lurker for the first time. Meanwhile, we often get our butts handed to us in ZA.

Honestly, that doesn’t make any sense to me. I know that ZA is “doable” by groups decked out in mostly Kara gear, but from all accounts it’s PAINFULLY doable. It’s also nigh impossible to really take on the whole of the timed event — something that an SSC geared group can handle, farming badges, getting more loot, and a shot at the all important bear mount.

So what are we to do? This has put my guild at a crossroads, as many members have become a bit fed up with ZA. Where we initially rejoiced at its announcement — seeing another opportunity for a more casually oriented guild to progress — our initial optimism was eventually beaten into a bloody pulp by Zul’Jin and company.

So where is a guild to go after Kara? My guild can get enough people together to run 25 mans, though not consistently. We thankfully have an alliance to help out in that respect. But what if we didn’t? As of right now, I don’t see any real progression from Kara for smaller groups. If you can clear Kara, you can pretty much do anything for non-25 man raid guilds. I guess we should just admit that right now Kara is the end game for casual guilds. Though Kara is a great instance, it’s still sad. Maybe Blizz will throw us a bone in Wrath. Who knows?

Ultimately, we’ve decided to remove ZA from our raiding schedule. It is now open for anyone to run it, if they can get 10 crazy people together, but ZA is no longer a focus for us. And why should it be? Heck, with the new badge loot coming, you’re almost better off farming heroics. Heroics can be quite difficult, but they are all doable. ZA? We’re no longer so sure. I guess we’ll leave that to those bored of farming Black Temple.

So what are your thoughts on Zul’Aman? Is it worth running, or not?

At one time, he was my main. I’m talking about Feroz (whose name I now hate…I think that’s half the reason he’s not my main anymore!) by level 70 BM spec Hunter. He was the first character I rolled on my home realm of Whisperwind. Pre BC, he was my first and only level 60, and even ran MC a handful of times.

Back when BC was released, I was a little tired of the hunter. There were also about a million hunters in the guild. That’s when I rolled Pummra, my at-the-time feral druid, and I leveled him to 66 before I got insanely bored with Nagrand. I think what ultimately pushed me away from him at that time was those stupid Nesingwary mastery quests. Ugh.

Anyhow, I then jumped to my hunter and leveled him to 70. I ran a few instances to start working on my gear. I had a bad incident involving my [item]Beast Lord Helm[/item] and the hurt feelings of a fellow guildy. At that point I swore off my hunter for awhile, and jumped back to the druid to finish him off.

When I hit 70, I ran a few instances and worked on my tanking gear. I found myself having a hard time finding guild groups for the instances I needed to run, as I was well behind the gear curve, and nobody wanted to run regular SL anymore. One thing everyone DID want was more healers. I respecced resto, had more group invites than I could count, and the rest is history. Now Pummra is nearly in full purple/Kara gear (other than the [item]Hallowed Crown[/item] and a pair of Prayerbooks) and I’ve been spending my short gaming sessions on various alts.

Feroz, my buddy, sat around collecting dust. I played him for a few hours recently to farm [item]Primal Air[/item], but other than that he’s been dormant for a good 9 months or so.

Last night I had a couple hours and jumped on my baby shadow priest. He’s up to 36 now and I’m itching to hit 40. Don’t you just love level 40? Anyway, there was a guild group trying to put together a Heroic Bot run, and they were short a DPS spot. I figured they’d surely have a quick taker. Well, a good 15 minutes go by, and I notice they are now asking in our alliance channel. Still nothing.

There are a couple important things to note, for emphasis:

1. I haven’t played him in earnest for 9 months or more.
2. His gear stinks, bad. Other than one or two blues, he’s seriously bad off for gear. We’re talking mostly greens, [item]The Gunblade[/item], and Valanos’, though his bow skill isn’t even maxed.
3. I don’t even know if I got him to honored with Sha’atar.
4. I never ran a heroic with him. Ever.

Just for kicks, I log over to him to see where he stands. It’s just as bad as I thought, but he DOES have the Warpforged Key. He’s also been running around with both the gun and the bow, with ammo for both, though not great ammo by any stretch. So, I ask in guild chat: “Just how desperate are you guys for a DPS?” Not 2 seconds later, I get an invite followed by a summons.

Ok.

That desperate.

I’m already a little leery. I’ve messed with my UI a lot since then, so I have no idea how my bars are set up, etc. I take a few minutes to make sure the important stuff is there, and I get ready for my first real work with him in awhile.

Looking at the group, I’m not so worried anymore. If I was going to run a heroic with a character I hadn’t played in 9 months, this is the group I’d want to roll with. I don’t need to get into particulars, but other than me it was like a dream team. Well geared Warrior, Pally, Priest and Mage.

Then me. With Valanos. Without a scope. Blackflight arrows. 329 bow skill.

Of course I was iffy at first. I never used macros, so I couldn’t lean on any fancy shot rotations. My pet management was way off. He died probably 10 times for the whole run. Poor little dude. I also didn’t realize till halfway through that I had growl on…it didn’t seem to be a problem for our tank– but it may explain all those deaths.

Since the overall group was so strong, the Priest and Pally were both kind of running hybrid. Half DPS, half healing. They both out DPSed me, I’m sure, though I don’t run meters. Overall, it went ok. We only wiped once, on the trash leading up to Warp Splinter. I always seem to wipe there. I got a nice blue ring off of the boss before Warpsplinter, my first five badges, and the purple epic AP/Stam gem. The best thing, though, was I got the Nether I needed for my Engineering shades. Not bad! I also managed to get my bow skill up to 349.

I had a lot of fun, it was good to get back in the damage game a bit, and now I think I’ll start running five mans with him to get geared. Here I had been searching for a good complement class to my 70 Druid, and my 70 Hunter was just sitting out there. Sometimes you just can’t see the forest for the trees, ya know?

Well, not necessarily pavement, per se. More like dirt, grass and the other fauna that populate the zone. Last night was my first foray into ZA, it was short and full of…well…death.

In the last couple of weeks I finally met my guild’s minimum requirements to participate in ZA runs. Sadly, they run them Monday and Tuesday nights, and I can almost NEVER make those times. I bowl in a league on Tuesday nights, and I just plain generally can’t play during prime time hours. That’s when I spend time with the family.

Anyhow, as of last night I didn’t know when I’d be able to go. But my wife was quite tired and fell asleep about 8:30 last night, and the baby was already in bed. When I get an opening, I log on immediately. Sure enough, they were losing a DPS and were looking for a replacement just a bit before the Dragonhawk boss. To fit me in they had one of the healers switch over to DPS and I filled the healer slot.

Up until now, I have never been to the zone. I wouldn’t even know how to GET there. I know it’s in the Ghostlands, but I don’t know where the heck the Ghostlands are. Thank god for meeting stones.

I snapped up a flask off the AH, grabbed some food, and got the summons. I must say, it’s a really nice looking zone. I was thinking it might look something like the troll areas I had seen before, but it was far better than that. Many different levels, good design…but I didn’t have time for that, as I was off right away following my guides to the group.

First thing was what I believe they call the “gauntlet.” A bunch of nasty, four mob plus pulls on the way to the Dragonhawk boss. Well, the first pull something went wrong, and it seems everyone in the group knew where to move except me, your friendly neighborhood tree. About 2 seconds later, I was eating dirt.

Well, at least I got that first death out of the way.

So we move on to the next pull, and again a scout got away or something, and again I found myself dirt napping. It was a little embarrassing, to be honest. I’m a better player than that, I have pretty good gear, but I really didn’t have time to prepare. I’ll usually read up on a raid beforehand- analyze maps, chat with people, get an idea on how it works. I really wasn’t expecting to be there, though.

So it’s time to buckle down. One thing with me and healing is sometimes it takes me a few minutes to get “warmed up.” If I’m not expecting to be running a heroic, for instance, we might have an early wipe as I get my game in gear. Once I’ve been healing for a few and start to get my feel, though, it’s smooth sailing.  I get in a sort of healing “zone” as I play whack-a-mole with all the little boxes.

Thankfully, that was once again the case. I got nice and focused, tried to stick with one of the other healers, and kept a lookout for stray mobs. (This is where I’m glad I don’t need my heal target in LOS to get off my heals.) I managed to make it through the rest of the trash to the boss without dying again.

If there’s one thing I love about WoW, it’s seeing new bosses. I love to learn new encounters, and figure out how best to help in tough situations. The Dragonhawk boss is the perfect example of this. There’s a few things you have to keep in mind during the fight, and it makes for a very interesting encounter. The bombs are easy enough to deal with when you get a good idea of their range. Once you realize random hawks may be flying around, they’re easy enough to avoid as well.  Overall he was very tough, but also very fair.

I only died one time on the 4-5 times we tried that boss. (I’m not counting the 2 extra “run away and try to reset” deaths. ) It was a lot of fun, but sadly we weren’t able to take him down. I feel like we were really close, but the raid was only scheduled to 10 and we lost a couple people at that point and called it a night.

THIS is what I’ve been looking for. Kara, almost from the start, was flat out too easy. (Part of this is due to being a healer, which is a pretty easy job in Kara with a decent group.) Sure, there’s a thing or two you have to learn, but nothing like what I saw last night in ZA. Now I can’t wait to get in again. I’m just disappointed that I don’t know when that will be.

As I continue to improve Pummra’s gear, I find my opportunities for him shrink further and further. Friday night I got one of the last few drops I need from Kara in the [item]Earthsoul Leggings[/item]. I got them gemmed up and threw on some [item]Golden Spellthread[/item], and that pushed me over 1700 heal.

Once I got that cleared away, it was time to re-evaluate my gear and set up some new milestones. I looked at Heroic drops, badge gear, and Kara drops. Not much there for me, anymore. There are some marginal upgrades in badge gear, but nothing I wanted to grind out badges to pick up. Kara has a few drops I’d like to see still, but nothing that I NEED.

That led me to look at sidegrade items, in case I ever wanted to respec to feral (which I do miss) or try a balance spec some day.

So what’s the problem? 2 months ago I had a nice, big list of gear I wanted/needed for Pummra. I needed to level my LW for Windhawk, I needed to get in Kara for a variety of drops there, many heroic drops and much of the badge gear were nice, big upgrades for me. Now, more and more, I’m seeing that if I really want to progress, it’s time for 25 man raids.

Ugh.

Double Ugh.

Trust me, I WANT to run SSC. I want to hit The Eye and work towards Hyjal and beyond. The problem is, I’m lucky if I can set aside four hours for raiding once a week. My guild recently moved Kara to “full farm” status, so anyone and everyone can set up runs. I’ve started running Kara once a week in a way that fits into MY schedule.

This just isn’t possible with SSC or The Eye. Not only do you need 25 bodies, you need 25 very specific bodies. With Kara, I’ve been able to take all comers for sign ups. Get two tanks, three healers and fill the rest with DPS. Pretty simple.

With SSC, my guild has just begun working on it, and have only had one run so far. As was the problem with Kara before, I CAN NOT make runs at the times my guild has them. This past Saturday I had a VERY rare opportunity to raid on a Saturday, signed up for SSC, and it was cancelled due to a lack of signups. Bummer.

I guess that’s just the way things are. That pretty much sums up what it means to be a true “casual” player. I may never see Hyjal, the Black Temple, or any other real “end-game” raids. I just have to learn to live with that.

So now I’m torn.  I suppose I could drop skinning and work on another tradeskill.  (Alchemy maybe?  Engineering?)  I would also love my epic flying skill, but 5k gold is awful intimidating.  Of course I have a variety of alts, too, including a shadow priest I’ve begun to play again.  So who else finds themselves in a similar predicament? How do you adjust? Find other people to raid with? Go back to leveling alts?