Raid v3.2, or The Trial Of Wake Me When It’s Over

I think it’s kind of telling that I opted to sit out from our first 25-man kill of Lord Jaraxxus, the boss in the Trial of the Crusader who was unlocked this week, in favour of leveling skinning on an alt (yay for guides).

I was underwhelmed by the first encounter (the Northrend Beasts), and the second encounter left me equally unenthused after completing the 10-man version this afternoon.  It might just be me, but it feels like I’m being served the raiding equivalent of baked beans on toast when you really wanted a three-course meal.

Perhaps it’s the single-room thing (and it’s the same room we do the 5-man in, so we’re seeing way too often), or the difficulty (I think the more advanced raiders are expected to still be expending most of our time and effort completing Ulduar hard modes until we get access to the Trial hard modes), or maybe I’m just tired of doing the same old thing (Shadow DPS isn’t exactly rocket science, which may be why I’m beginning to lose interest).

I spent a bit of time today on Kringle with a view to replacing his Herbalism with Skinning, the one gathering profession I don’t have on a character at the moment.  He’s currently sitting in Feralas with around 230 skinning – he picked up a new pet, the rare wolf Snarler, while he was working his way around the east of Camp Mojache, out of curiousity about wolves and their hunter-buff.  (It’s pretty nifty so far – I can see the appeal for non-BM hunters)

It looks like one of my glyph competitors (the one who posted everything for 3g) has dropped out of the race, and prices have taken a leap upwards as a result.  The downside is my remaining competitors live in the AH, and undercut me pretty quickly.  But what I’m losing in sales I’m making up for with a higher mark-up, so I’m not too worried at this stage.

I’ve yet to experience the new dailies due to one little oversight on my part: you only have access to them on a character who has the Crusader title, and the only of my characters I’ve bothered to finish that particular grind with is Dingle.  Mingle is onto her third valiant faction, and I’ve forgotten which one Fingle is up to…  The problem is, the grind just isn’t fun.

Seriously, after going through it once I have zero interest in repeating it (especially now the two irritating jousting quests for commanders and their friends have lost their common elements, which combines more jousting with the added irritation of spawn-hunting to try find the commanders you need to kill).  So there is however many new dailies that I don’t have access to because I don’t want to subject myself to 25 days more jousting per character, and to be honest, I don’t really care.  I’m spending more time doing incidental things (playing the AH mostly, with the occasional heroic) than dailies, and it’s getting harder to find things to occupy myself with.

Incidentally, one of the reasons I’ve been finding excuses to not take tank Dingle back into Ulduar 10-man has been referenced by Ghostcrawler quite recently:

We aren't trying to make the fights easy necessarily, but we are trying to challenge the tanks and the raid in ways other than just pounding the tank as hard as we can such that cooldowns (from the healers even) and big heals become the only things that matter. Those are fine for some fights, just as having a tank and spank once in awhile is fine. The problem with Ulduar is that too many of the fights came down to these huge hits such that other parts of tanking (and healing) became pushed to the side. For example, nobody is as worried about being a mana sponge these days because mana isn't generally limiting and tanks can generally be destroyed in two hits.

One of the things I’ve disliked most about Ulduar has been the reliance upon healers being able to keep the bosses from 2-shotting your tank, and that doing so requires almost perfectly-timed use of cooldowns (often both on the part of tank and healers).  Sure, a good tank is required in order to get anywhere in Ulduar (thinking of encounters like the corridor trash before Thorim, or the initial trash pickup with Auriaya, or tanking the first phase of Mimiron, as opposed to the easier bosses before XT) but there’s not much wiggle-room if things fall apart: when any boss kill can turn into a wipe because of a single mis-timed cooldown, it gets a bit less '”fun” (at least, from my perspective).

If they can make Icecrown a place where you’re not reliant on cooldowns to keep the raid alive, I think it’ll be an improvement over the Ulduar model.  Admittedly it’s a fine line to draw between “the ability to recover from mishaps” and “insert faceroll here,” especially for more competent guilds, but I’d like to think Blizz can tune things a bit better in future.

I’ve also just come across the news that we’re going to get to go back to a level-adjusted version of Onyxia with patch 3.2.2 (posted here).  I think this could be quite entertaining (and it’s very much in keeping with Blizz’s apparent love of single-room boss fights of late), and it’s a pretty nifty way to celebrate WoW’s 5th anniversary.  It’ll be interesting to see what the 310% mount looks like, and the fact it’ll be a permanent upgrade to the instance is a nice touch.

Also, WoW.com apparently has insider information that confirms the rumour of Worgen and Goblins being playable races with the expansion, which makes me a happy pandaran.  It’s a pity Goblins are horde-only; my dream of a goblin bank alt will have to remain unfulfilled for now.  (sigh)

Last of all, I’ve finally gotten around to purchasing an authenticator for my account.  It’s probably a couple of weeks away from delivery, but it should add an extra layer of security to my account when it’s all set up (which will add some piece of mind, as my online assets continue to grow).

Oh, and speaking of assets, I’ve received another fan letter, I’m guessing from a competitor in the AH who fails to appreciate just how much fun I’m having.

I love the way I’m berated for farming too much (something I don’t bother with) and for making too much gold.  (It’d also have a little more gravity if I could believe he was concerning about my well-being, and wasn’t just complaining because I’m cutting into his AH sales)

Well, it’s time to get back to being too rich and wasting my life.  (Seriously, I’m so amused right now)

/wave

Diplomacy Has Its Place

Exalted with Timbermaw?  You know what that means…  Meet Dinglemouse the Diplomat.

Yay! for the WoWWiki Timbermaw Hold reputation guide, which made it quite a bit easier.  (Just a tip: If you want to work on it yourself, it’s a lot easier when you’re not doing at the same time as anyone else – I had to slow down the speed I was killing them in order to avoid getting delayed while waiting for respawns)

It’s actually been quite a fun few days.  My assorted decks have almost all sold (I’ve still got a single Berserker card to liquidate), and I was able to get a second pair of Spiked Deathdealers crafted.  That was sold, and I used the proceeds to get a pair of Indestructible Plate Girdles crafted, one for Dingle and the second to sell.

I’m currently waiting for it to sell, with a view to getting another item or two crafted for resale – sadly, patience is essential when trying to sell items at this kind of price, even when there’s no competition.  I’m also dabbling in the Eternal Belt Buckle and leg armor markets, and picking up cheap Runed Orbs as the opportunity presents itself.

If there’s one thing I’ve not experienced anywhere near enough, it’s the pleasure of tanking for a capable (and well-geared) group of players – this occurred last night, when I managed to finagle my way into the hard-mode Ulduar 10-man run that was idling last night.  They weren’t working on hard modes though, other than plans for hard-mode Mimiron – the main tank wasn’t able to get online at the planned time, so there was a couple of hours to play with, and they had Thorim, Freya, Razorscale and Ignis to play with.

Needless to say, I felt a tad overwhelmed (as this was my first time tanking these bosses), but apart from a nub mistake on Freya trash (where I used thunderclap next to some CC’d mobs, causing a wipe) I think I performed competently enough.  I was the Arena tank for Thorim, and we finished without a wipe (and in good time).  Freya wasn’t quite as smooth, but we downed her despite some co-ordination issues with the 3-add group where we kept killing one too soon, and had to deal with the trio self-rezzing while we were dealing with the exploding swarm of lashers that came next.

Thorim dropped the T8 shoulder token, but I passed on it for the other tank (who tanks the 25-mans, and needed it to get the awesome 4-piece bonus).  I was rewarded for my generosity with the T8 glove token from Freya, which has given me my first piece of T8, the Valorous Siegebreaker Handguards.  (The fact that it co-ordinates with my awesome new boots and belt is something I’m quite happy with – sure, the better stats are nice, but there’s still something to be said for aesthetics)

I’m still doing the fishing dailies on all my characters who can reach Dalaran, but the appeal is slowing fading – probably because of the lack of interesting rewards.  I think I’ve got a Porcelain Bell once in the last four days, and worthless glass the rest of the time.  (Mingle really needs that skull fishing rod – the one from the Walrus-men is quite lacking, especially for a shadow priest.  And whatever became of those fishing bobber models?)

Mingle only has four days remaining of Argent Tournament dailies before she’s an exalted champion with all the Alliance factions; she’s currently working on Gnomeregan.  It’s a pity that the limited appeal of jousting runs out so quickly – only Dingle has completed the grind so far, and the new dailies with 3.2 are quickly approaching, with the extra dailies that are only available when you’ve completed the existing Tournament quests.

But now it’s time for dailies (and regular AH checks – Yay, the belt just sold!)

/wave (of a profitable nature)

More Numbers and an Ex-God

You’d think the flu would end a lot more quickly, but nooooo.  Which isn’t to say I still have the flu, because I’m no longer contagious, but I’m still coughing.  Needless to say, I’m getting rather tired of the whole thing.  (cough)

Raiding with Mingle has progressed, and above me is exhibit A.  Meet the ex-old god, Yogg-Saron.  Of course, that’s the good news.  Now we’re going to be doing hard-modes in an attempt to reach Algalon.  (Sadly, I wasn’t blessed with any loot to commemorate the event, so I had to make do with a fleeting feeling of relief – it’ll be interesting to see how we do next week)  We followed that up with a 6-minute Malygos kill which was quite satisfying.

I’ve spent a bit of time on Dingle as well, running Naxx10 and some Ulduar10.  Naxx was as much of a pushover as you’d expect, but Ulduar was a tad more punishing.  (Just a tip:  The trash before the cat lady Auriaya can’t be 9-manned by alts – we had someone go afk to go to the dairy and buy some cigarettes who didn’t come back for over an hour, and we had to do something with our time.)

Also, PvP.  Yes, Dingle actually did a little, and even picked up a couple of the simpler achievements from it.  (She picked up the end of a fail AV, an AB, a couple of EotS, and the tail end of Wintergrasp)

The Midsummer Fire Festival has been and gone (yes it was very funny, celebrating summer in the middle of the southern hemisphere winter while I was sitting in front of a heater, wrapped up in multiple layers of clothing, sipping a hot cider vinegar and honey drink while recovering from the flu), and I mostly ignored it.  I did a little exploration while honouring/extinguishing fires to get Tingle some flightpoints and a little more xp (she’s currently in Southshore, sitting on level 35), but I didn’t spend much time on it with any other characters.  (My money is on the next in-game event being Northrend Children’s Week, which is apparently being introduced some time after the 3.2 patch goes live.)

Glyphs are continuing to treat me well, not to mention profitably.  I’ve switched from manually price-checking and listing them over to batch-posting, and the time it takes to post them all has more than halved (plus I can be afk while they go up).

Anyway, here’s the (100% batch-posted) numbers for last week:

For the seven days from 29th June – 5th July:
Total glyphs sold: 721
Average price per glyph: 8.88g
Average sales per day: 914.89g
Total income from the AH: 6404.22g

Remember those extra books of glyph master that I assumed I’d be able to resell for a profit?  Well, do you remember the saying about assumptions?  Needless to say, I suspect if I want to sell these anytime soon, I’ll have to eat a small loss on the deal.  On a more profitable note, I’ve sold about half of the decks I made for the Faire; I still have a handful to go, but I expect to have them sold before the faire moves on.

I’ve spent quite a bit of the proceeds already, on Runed Orbs to make a pair of Spiked Deathdealers for Dingle (which was a little cheaper than it would otherwise have been, thanks to Mingle being able to buy four orbs with Emblems of Conquest) and a Scroll of Blood Draining to put on Stoneguard, which dropped from Kologarn.  The crafted plate tanking belt from Ulduar is the next upgrade I have planned, but I’ll have to check if we have a blacksmith in guild who has the recipe.

After the mixed results from my minimal time spent tanking in Ulduar, my respect for Ulduar main-tanks who also lead their raids is substantial.  I had enough trouble keeping track of the things currently pummeling me, without keeping track of everyone else at the same time.  But on the positive side, I’ve managed to get an achievement on Dingle that my ‘official’ raiding character hasn’t managed yet:

Meet Flame Leviathan+2.

/wave

(cough)

A Merchant’s Work Is Never Done

Inscription is proving to be surprisingly time-intensive, but the semi-steady income makes up for it to a surprising degree.  But does it really need to take an hour to price-check and list the 580-odd glyphs I put up last night?  Well, at least I had 10-man Naxx to distract myself with.

Not bad for an off-the-cuff group of ex-guildies, alts, and bored mains is it?  (We killed Patchwerk in 2:50, and cleared the entire instance in just over five hours)  Dingle picked up that rarest of the rares, a tanking trinket, but there wasn’t anything else worth rolling on.  Maybe next time we’ll go explore Ulduar.  (Incidentally it was surprisingly profitable; Dingle was 257G better off from gold looted)

The latest Ulduar nerfs have meant the unofficial guild 10-man progression raid downed Yogg on Friday night (I sat out this week), and we’re quietly optimistic about our chances in 25-man tonight and tomorrow

Back to the subject of Glyphs, the exercise is slowing coming together – Bingle listed a substantial number last night which I’m dreading checking today, and yesterday’s goal was to have 10 each of the saleable DK, Druid and Hunter glyphs before I started re-listing.  If I’ve made enough sales today, I’m looking at increasing my pre-sale stocks of the remaining class glyphs from 6 to 8.  (It’d be nice if my nobles deck was to sell, but I may have missed the rush at the start of the faire – time will tell on that one)

But for now, time to do stuff!  (I suspect ‘stuff’ will be ‘Fallout 3’)

/wave

Contemplating Change, Leveling, And A Meme

Well, 25-man raiding is slow and…  not really fun, to be quite honest.  I’ve had a chat with an officer about my dissatisfaction raiding on Mingle, and have decided to take a couple of weeks (while I continue to raid) to think about what I want to do next.  (I’ll be passing on loot in Ulduar as well, as it wouldn’t be right to take loot that other people can use if there’s a chance I may be not raiding on that character)

Unfortunately there’s no openings for another tank, with one of our old guildmates returning his gnome warrior to the game.  (He’s a far better tank than I am, and a nice guy, so I’m not complaining about it)  I’m trying to come up with ways I can get raid time (in some capacity, probably outside of the guild) on my warrior, but options are pretty limited.  I might have to go raid-hunting, and see if there are any guilds who’d be willing to take a tank from outside their guild, and who raid on nights I’m not raiding on Mingle.  Possibly a bit of a reach, but I’ll see what I can find.

Speaking of Dingle, she has ventured into 10-man Ulduar again, and has another boss kill under her belt.  Most of the raid members are from another guild, and we managed to kill FL, Razorscale and XT-002, but Ignis and the Iron Council proved too much for us.  Sadly, Dingle has no shiny tank loot to show for it (although she did pick up a dps helm that would otherwise have been sharded – I really need to gem and enchant it at some stage).

My tanking inexperience showed itself with two bosses during the raid, both bosses we couldn’t get past.  First was Ignis, where I finally realised my taunts were ineffective if I hadn’t first damaged the target – I was on construct duty, and at the start had trouble keeping aggro on the constructs long enough to get them into the scorches.  I also caused one wipe when I wasn’t tanking the construct far enough into the scorch, so it wasn’t picking up the debuff that turned it molten.  By the end, though, I’d worked out what I had to do (and was doing it correctly, as best I can tell).

With both of these issues worked out (to my satisfaction, at least), we were left with issues with dps (we only had one character capable of enough burst damage to kill the molten constructs, who was unfortunately very attractive to Ignis, and kept getting hot-pocketed) and main-tanking (a DK who was having problems getting positioned correctly, and kept getting the scorches positioned either too far from the pools needed when killing the constructs, or positioned too close to the healers/dps who died pretty rapidly when accidentally scorched).  Eventually the raidleader threw his hands up in despair and we moved on to XT (who we one-shot).

I had a brief positioning issue with the Iron Council, where I was tasked with tanking Steelbreaker at the start, and didn’t pull him out of his damage-amplifying rune quick enough on one attempt, but in general the group just didn’t perform well enough get any further (although it was getting pretty late at that stage).

Other than that, I’ve been putting some time (and gold) into leveling Kringle over the last few days.  He’s currently about a third of the way through 79, and should be 80 today if I don’t get distracted (which is pretty likely).

Some time fishing on Kringle yesterday means he’s now officially a fisherman – which by my standards means he has the 200 points of fishing skill required to equip and use his Fishing Pole.  That gives me 6 characters I can do the fishing daily on, which is about the only daily I’m doing regularly currently (apart from the cooking daily for Fingle and Kringle, who are both working towards the 100 Dalaran Cooking Awards achievement – they’ve both passed the 50 awards part, and are on the home stretch now).

But before I get back to my leveling, here’s a meme that caught my eye.  (Snagged from Mend Pet)

The instructions:

1. Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random… Read More”
   or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
   The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2. Go to “Random quotations”
   or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
   The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3. Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
   or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
   Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

And what did I end up with?

The first album from BNS Turag.  Brought to you by random wikipedia links, a quote from Socrates, and a photo that felt surprisingly appropriate (well, to me it did).  I’m not going to do the ‘name people to continue this meme’ thing, as I’m just not really into that, but if anyone reading this wants to give it a try, put a link to your results in the comments.  (I’d love to see what other people come up with)

Time’s passing, so I guess I should log on and get Kringle to 80.  (That Nesingwary 4000 he has in the bank is waiting to get brought out and equipped)

/wave

Busy, Busy Busy.

I had a pretty full-on afternoon (and evening) last night, and somehow managed to finish Naxxramas, Vault of Archavon and Malygos 10-man raids with Dingle.

Now, for an alt I think that’s pretty good. (At least, it is for my alts, the rest of whom aren’t getting out of Dalaran much) And the group worked pretty well, with quite a few one-shot bosses (including Gothik, who crushed last week’s group). I got to experience the terror of tanking both Kel’Thuzad and Malygos, but our DK tank had the death-of-boredom that is tanking Loatheb all to himself.

Tanking Sapphiron wasn’t that hard (having Dingle defence-capped in her frost-resist gear helped, I suspect), but KT was something of a challenge – originally the DK was tanking KT, but after a couple of wipes I inherited the position and he tanked the adds. It was tricky to fit both HS spam and frost bolt interrupts into the routine, and to move out of the things that appeared on the floor underneath me (at least, to get out of them without moving the boss too much – rotating around the boss slowly seemed to work) but I pulled it off (somehow).

Malygos was something of a shock to the system – in all my (short) time tanking, that’s the first time I’ve been seen my health dropping so drastically, so often and so quickly (no, Gluth doesn’t count). And I have a new respect for our 25-man Main Tank/Raid Leader, for being able to tank and watch for sparks and raid lead.

What I’ve learned from all this is that my tanking, while not as bad as some of the green-clad newly-80 DKs lurking in trade channel, still needs work. I was often rage-capped, and kept letting both my Sunder Armor stacks and battle shouts drop (when I remembered to put a shout up at all).

Fitting Heroic Strike spam into my rotation is tricky, and I’m definitely needing practice getting it all together a bit better. I also need to do a bit more research into the various battle shouts, to get a better idea of which to put up and when to do so. I will probably also have to put together more warnings in Power Auras to help keep track of whether a shout is up or not, although I should probably have a look to see if there are other ways to track them. (I’ll be sure to post my findings on here – if I don’t get sidetracked by new shiny toys and other distractions)

I have an empty ring in Opie that could be very useful for putting up short-duration buffs like battleshouts, but I think this is something I might have to get some advice with – I might see if I can have a word with our Guild Leader (who’s a very skillful prot warrior) and get some tips.

And the run didn’t leave me empty-handed – Dingle has finally picked up some T7, in the shape of shoulders and chest tokens, and Malygos blessed her with a shiny new shield.

Well, dailies are waiting for my participation, so I must get to it. But here’s an image of the fruits of yesterday’s labours.

/wave

A Sword, A Sword, My Kingdom For A Sword

For all the hiccups and stresses, no-notice bails, and AFKs without warning, sometimes a pug will deliver.  Such as, a sword!

And now, the Wrath version of The Sun Eater, namely the Red Sword of Courage, dropped in heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.  And it was most definitely a pug, complete with a shaman who bailed after we killed Skadi the Ruthless (possibly leaving because the drake didn’t drop), and a death knight who went afk while we were waiting for a replacement mage.  (The DK got back just in time to help kill King Ymiron, and was able to pick up his emblem with the rest of us)

But with my shiny new sword, I’m that one step closer to being fully epic-geared (and Ulduar-viable).  And all this is thanks to some useful guides to prot warrior gear (and another guide to consumables, which has proven invaluable)

First of all, TankSpot is a very useful site, and was one of the first to be bookmarked when I rolled my warrior.  TankingTips was not far behind, also very useful.  Anyway, these guides have been indispensible gearing Dingle up:

• Wrath Tanking Gear List (also has gems and enchants – very comprehensive)
• Best In Slot! Warrior Tanking Gear “At a Glance”
• The Badge er… Emblem of Heroism Pick Order
• The Emblem of Valor Pick Order (mostly theoretical for me, as my 25-man experience is limited)

I’ve also found the Tank Consumables post from Tank Like A Girl to be very helpful, while I get a grasp on what’s effective and what isn’t.  Now I just need to get some more raid experience – 3.1 is getting closer, as is 10-man Ulduar.

/wave

Sometimes Your Best Just Isn’t Good Enough

Dingle has had another venture into the depths of Naxx-10, along with experiences with the Vault of Archavon in both 10- and 25-man flavours and the Obsidian Sanctum in 10-man.  While both VoA and OS turned out fairly well, the Naxx run clearly demonstrated that when your group is undergeared it can be a rather unforgiving.

The first part of the Naxx run, on Saturday night, wasn’t too bad – at least, not until we got stopped cold trying to down Grobbulus.  After 6 attempts where we had multiple problems with poison clouds being dropped in the middle of the raid, and some bad timing a couple of attempts with Dingle getting the injection debuff while attempting to pick up and tank the slime adds, we called it a night.  (We did manage to clear the Spider and Plague wings, and downed Patchwerk, so it wasn’t too bad.  Plus I managed to get the 50 Emblems achievement)

Last night we went back with a few less pug members and a few more guildmate alts, and apart from managing to get Razuvious down, failed miserably on the only two other bosses we could attempt after him.  We didn’t have anywhere near enough dps for Gothik (I was tanking the live side, and on our best attempt we only just managed to get down the last adds right before he spawned – the dead side didn’t do as well) or Grobbulus (I switched from tanking the slimes to tanking the boss, and it was an… interesting learning experience). Still, 60G in repairs isn’t that bad for a single emblem, is it?  Right?

However, Dingle needs many more emblems (and yet more loot) to finish gearing up before Ulduar, so I suspect I’ll have to brave the world of pugs again, regardless of whether I’m looking forward to it or not.

Perhaps I’ll get lucky, and get in with some groups who’re capable, competent, and well-geared.  Failing that, I guess I’ll find out if there’s any truth to the saying that suffering builds character - if I have a really well-built character by the time 3.1 goes live, this will be why.

/wave

Continuing In The Deep End

After our latest attempt to complete The Immortal in this week’s 25-man Naxx run was defeated by server lag and player disconnections, I was given the chance to sub Dingle in to off-tank for the rest of the night, and it proved to be even more effective in gearing her up than the 10-man run I participated in last week.

Nine bosses later, I’ve not only picked up one each of the best tanking rings and tanking cloaks in game, but also three additional gear upgrades.  And I’ve also been reminded (again) just how good our healers are.

• Pauldrons of Unnatural Death replaced Abomination  Shoulderblades
• Breastplate of Tormented Rage replaced Tempered Saronite Breastplate
• Cloak of the Shadowed Sun replaced Tattered Castle Drape
• Callous-Hearted Gauntlets replaced Daunting Handguards
• And in the biggest upgrade, Sand-Worn Band replaced Stoneguard Band

I’ve also spent a couple of days farming Kurenai rep with Dingle, and the end result was the addition of several Talbuk for my favourite tank to ride around on.  Admittedly, they look better when someone else is riding them – from behind they look like skinny Ironforge rams wearing stilts, but it’s more mounts for her collection (although she only has 16 so far), and one more exalted faction.

In not-related-to-WoW news, I’ve finally been watching the last season of Battlestar Galactica over the last couple of days.  3 more episodes to go, then I can join the masses in complaining about the end of the story.

Starting In The Deep End

I did indeed end up tanking something with Dingle.  We did a guild run of 10-man Naxx.  An achievement run, to do The Dedicated Few, where you have to defeat most of the bosses (apart from the Four Horsemen) with only 8 people.  Talk about trying to fly before you can walk.

All I can say is that our healers are awesome.  And I only occasionally failed (such as a death to a soft-enraged Patchwerk), thanks to an equally awesome main tank (who kept me from looking foolish, especially on the AoE trash pulls).  Of all the bosses, we only have Four Horsemen, Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad left to clear; we called it after a single attempt at the Horsemen, as we need another couple of people (at least one more healer) for that (and it was ridiculously late, especially by NZ time).

But I managed to get not only two straight upgrades (new shoulders and leggings), but also a couple of items (another pair of shoulders and leggings) towards a DPS set that may possibly get some use when dual-specs go live.  I crafted a set of frost-resist gear as well, for when we go back to Sapphiron, so I’m pretty much set for the rest of the run.

I think I need to start running heroics, though, if I want to get Dingle geared up any further; there’s only so many more Naxx runs left before we get Ulduar to explore, and there’s a few toys I can still pick up from heroics before then.

For now, though?  Time for dailies.