The Road To 85

As posted earlier, both Gomorra and Breeonna are 85 now. Brieanna and Brieonna are both a few bars away from 84 and should be 85 this week.

I have been doing random normal Cataclysm dungeons on Breeonna to get her geared. It sucks that they were all pretty well geared before the expansion came out and I either had to sell or destroy their 245 and 264 gear, but it is garbage now. You get green quest rewards that are better than the 264 gear.

I am working on rep with one of the factions now on Breeonna so I can buy a belt they have. I got their Tabard so all rep I receive in Cata dungeons goes towards their rep. That should take me a couple days at most to become revered so I can get the belt and not much longer after that to be exalted.

I will keep plugging away on Brieanna and Brieonna to get them to 85. I am not sure what I am going to do with Wranngar, I sort of lost interest in him after I stopped PvPing.

Merry Christmas

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from A World of Warcraft Blog.

Now I need to go see what Greatfather Christmas left under the tree :)

Brieonna - Level 82 Holy/Shadow Priest

I got a little bored leveling Brieanna, and I really wanted to try out Shadow Spec on Brieonna, so I started working on Brieonna.

Instead of going the usual route, straight to Vashj'ir then to Deepholm, I decided to start at Mount Hyjal. That was a mistake. I didn't like it there and there was nothing I was killing that I could skin so that wasn't working out. I did about half of level 80 there then headed over to Vashj'ir. I think knowing where all the quests are and knowing what to do in Vashj'ir had a lot to do with it. I got to level 82 no problem in Vashj'ir.

From there I headed over to Deepholm and started questing there. I will stay there until I reach level 83, then I will be off to Uldum. I discovered the entrances to The Throne of the Tides, Blackrock Caverns and Stonecore so I can start doing random Cata dungeons on her. I might switch back and forth between Brieonna and Brieanna, as a matter of fact I am almost sure of it. Get bored in one place switch and quest in another place for awhile.

Gomorra - Level 85 Demon Lock

I took a couple hours today and got Gomorra to level 85. I was going back and forth on whether I should finish my Hunter Brieanna first or not. I finally decided to just finish him off and get it out of the way.

I got the final half level I needed done in Twilight Highlands, that is the 84 to 85 area. There are a bunch of good quests there and a couple pretty funny ones. One of them was the dwarf's wedding you have to help set up. You help a song writer make a song for the wedding and then walk the blushing bride down the isle. To top if off you get to kill the minister who turns out to be a twilight guy and transforms trying to kill everyone.

I got no sense of completion when I finished Gomorra though, and I think that is because I still have 3 more to go so I am not really done, just a little closer to being done.

Red Winter Hat and Green Winter Hat - Seasonal Dungeon Drop

Some people like to get the Red Winter Hat and/or Green Winter Hat to complete the Full Winter Garb set. I guess you can get achievements by doing quests wearing it. This is the first year I have gotten the Hat. They only drop in dungeons and I wasn't doing dungeons last Christmas. This year however I have gotten the Red Winter Hat on Gomorra, Brieanna and Breeonna to complete the set. Breeonna also has the Green Winter Hat.

The two dungeons I know of that are dropping the Hats right now are Stonecore and Grim Batol on normal. I am sure other dungeons are dropping them too, but these are the two that I know are dropping them. They are a 100% drop rate. In Stonecore it is dropping off the last boss, High Priestess Azil, and she is dropping the Red Winter Hat. She is actually wearing the Red Winter Hat. In Grim Batol it is dropping off Forgemaster Throngus, and he is dropping the Green Winter Hat.

This is a seasonal drop and will be gone right after Christmas, until next year, so hurry and get yours now.

Gomorra - Level 84 Demon Lock

When I had the problem with Brieanna not being able to fly anywhere I worked on Gomorra. I got him to about half way through 84 now and don't know if I want to finish him off or get back to working on Brieanna, who is 83 now, and get her to 85.

I started off questing on Gomorra in Vashj'ir and got him to 82 there. I got a couple achievements while questing there, one from doing a certain amount of quests and another for finishing an entire quest line that is with you pretty much the whole time you are there.

From Vashj'ir Gomorra moved on to Deepholm, after getting the quest from the Hero's Call Board in Stormwind, skipping Mount Hyjal altogether. Deepholm is a pretty good place to level and is also the home to Stonecore, one of the Cataclysm 5 man dungeons. I have run that one quite a bit on all 3 of the toons I am working on. I stayed in Deepholm until I reached level 83, then moved on to Uldum.

Gomorra was in Uldum until 84, just one level and it went pretty quick. I picked up the quest to go there from the Hero's Call Board in Stormwind. This quest has you flying to Gadgetzan in Tanaris then heading over to the entrance to Uldum to meet someone. Once there you start a cinematic that takes you into Uldum and starts the quest line. As soon as I got there I made sure I physically visited the entrance to each dungeon so I could start running them.

At level 84 Gomorra moved on to Twilight Highlands, once again getting the quest from the Hero's Call Board in Stormwind. That is where he is now, about half way through 84.

To be honest I am getting a little bored of leveling and did dungeons yesterday on Breeonna, who is 85, instead of working on the other two. I got Breeonna's item level up to 331 so I can run heroic's now, but the few I have been in didn't turn out too well so far. They are brutally hard compared to LK dungeons. It is going to take some getting used to I guess.

The Vortex Pinnacle Entrance (77,84)

The entrance to The Vortex Pinnacle (77,84) can be found just off shore in Uldum. This entrance is floating in the air. For those without coord's you will want to follow the river down to the sea and head southeast (about 5 O'Clock) once you hit the sea. At that point you should be able to see the entrance floating in the air. There are three buildings out there, one is where you rez if you die inside the instance, the other is the entrance and I am not sure what the third one is.

There are some other sets of buildings floating out there to the west so if you can't find the entrance in the set you are looking in, you're in the wrong set, just head east. The buildings off to the west are the Throne of the Four Winds (38,80) which is an entry level raiding dungeon.

The Vortex Pinnacle is one of three, 5 man dungeons found in Uldum. There is also The Halls of Origination and The Lost City of the Tol'vir which I will be providing locations to in another post.

Blackrock Caverns Entrance

The entrance to Blackrock Caverns is pretty easy to find. You will want to head to Blackrock Mountain (Burning Steppes/Searing Gorge) just like you were going to go into Blackrock Spire. From the meeting stone at Blackrock Spire you will want to head up the passageway just like you were going to BRS. On the way in you may encounter a couple mobs by a bonfire. Right after the bonfire you will see some broken crates and stuff, you will want to look to your right. The entrance to Blackrock Caverns is right there. This is a pretty quick one to find and flying in Azeroth only makes it that much faster and easier.

I am not sure how I feel about this new process of finding the entrance to a dungeon before you can do it. On the plus side, if you queue in through dungeon finder, which most people do, and you die inside the dungeon you will be able to find your way back. Also if you have to meet there at least you will know where it is. On the minus side, it is kind of a waste of time while you are trying to quest.

Throne Of The Tides Entrance

The entrance to Throne of the Tides (70,29) is located in the Abyssal Depths in Vashj'ir. You will want to swim over to the Abyssal Depths and into the Abyssal Breach. Once there you will want to swim down right into the center of the whirlpool. At some point you will lose your mount and get fatigue, it doesn't look good. Then you will spiral down the whirlpool and suddenly find yourself falling. Things aren't looking great at this point and you fall for a long time. You will land in a pool of water right outside the entrance to Throne of Tides, in the Abyssal Maw, none the worse for wear. Getting out of there is another problem, I didn't see a portal or any way out. If anyone knows of a portal or a way out without hearthing let us know.

I am not sure how I feel about this new process of finding the entrance to a dungeon before you can do it. On the plus side, if you queue in through dungeon finder, which most people do, and you die inside the dungeon you will be able to find your way back. Also if you have to meet there at least you will know where it is. On the minus side, it is kind of a waste of time while you are trying to quest.

Blizzard In Game Support

Has anyone had to use Blizzard's in game support to get a problem resolved? Sometimes, most the time, it is not too bad, but other times...

I had to put in a ticket because I could not fly in Azeroth after buying the pilots license on my Hunter Brieanna.

While I was waiting for a response, I hit the forums and found one other person that could not fly anywhere. I immediately headed to Northrend to see if I could fly there. Guess what? I couldn't fly in Northrend or Outlands either.

Three days after I put in the ticket I finally received a response. I was told that I would be unable to fly in the starting area's of Azeroth as they are no fly zones... My problem was, as stated in my ticket, that I could not fly anywhere in Azeroth. They went on to say that they hoped they answered my question, but if not, feel free to put in a ticket...

A ticket is a maximum of 500 words. I could not express what I was feeling at that point in 500 words or less. I tried though. I really didn't want to wait another 3 days for more "advice" so I sent an e-mail directly to Blizzard. For those of you who do not know how to do this, the e-mail address is: wowgm@blizzard.com. That would be used for technical support only I would think. I received an answer in less than 3 hours telling me that they had fixed my character and I was all set. Sure enough, I logged onto Brieanna and could fly in Azeroth. I should have done that in the first place.

Anyway, because Brieanna could not quest in Deepholm, I switched over to Gomorra and he is now 83. I got Brieanna to 82 before I could not go on anymore due to not being able to fly. I will get Gomorra to 85 then go back and finish off Brieanna.

I also dual spec'd my Priest Brieonna to be Holy/Shadow. I have been wanting to try Shadow for awhile now and, with what I have seen of the Cata dungeons and how hard they are to heal, I figured now was as good a time as any.

Why Can't I Fly In Azeroth?

Everything was going pretty good, I got Breeonna to 85 and started working on Brieanna. Everything was fine for a little while, then I lost the ability to fly in Azeroth. I can fly on all my other toons, just not Brieanna. Needless to say, that is putting a damper on my ability to quest. Brieanna is 82 and should be questing in Deepholm. I did all the quests there that I can from the ground but you need to be able to fly to get up on the shelfs for the other quests.

I have had a ticket in for 2 days now with no end in sight. This is keeping me questing in Hyjal and Vashj'ir where you don't need to fly too much although it is very helpful. I deleted my WTF, Cache and Interface folders but that didn't help so now I wait...

Breeonna - Level 85 Elemental Shaman

I finally got Breeonna to level 85. I followed the quests from Vashj'ir to Deepholm to Twlight Highlands where I finally got to 85.

The problem I had was running out of quests. I could see in the achievements how many quests there were in each zone, but found myself unable to find any more around the half way mark. I still have 4 80's to level to 85 and I figure by the time they are done I will know where all of the quests are.

Gearscore seems to be out the door, now it is item level that determines how good your gear is. My current item level average is 326. That means I can only do normal Cata dungeons because you have to have an average item level of 329 to do heroics. Right now I am doing Stonecore, Vortex Pinnacle, Grim Batol, Lost City of the Tol'vir and Halls of Origination. All on normal. I will have more on the dungeons once I get a little more used to them. The sad part is, after waiting up to 45 minutes in queue, I usually end up getting queued into a dungeon in progress. I have done all the above mentioned dungeons start to finish but only a couple complete runs in each, the rest were partial runs.

I am going to continue to work on Breonna and get her geared up a little more before I start to work on the others. While I was questing I was making between 400 to 600 gold a day from quests, dungeons and the quest rewards I couldn't use and sold to a vendor. There seem to be a lot of Plate rewards along with a lot of Mail with Agility and Strength on it.

How Do I Get Back To Vashj'ir?

"Where's the boat back to Vashj'ir?" and "I hearthed out of Vashj'ir, how do I get back?" are questions you see in Trade every couple minutes lately.

I made this mistake myself. In my rush to get out and explore I forgot to train my professions. Once I got to Vashj'ir and realized that the things I was skinning were not giving me points, I hearthed back to Stormwind and got training. Then I went back to the docks to wait for the boat back to Vashj'ir. It never came.

You can only take the boat to Vashj'ir once, when you have the quest. After that you will have to use the portal found on the island in the middle of Stormwind Lake. The portal is available to use only after you have been to Vashj'ir on the boat. As for the boat, it takes awhile to get to the dock in Stormwind the first time you go so be patient. It comes to the last, most northern, dock, the same one that goes to Northrend except this boat looks like the one you would take to Darnassus, it is a sail boat, not a steam ship like the one that goes to Northrend.

There is also a flight path above water on Vashj'ir, at a place called Sandy Beach. There are what I call "swim points" in Vashj'ir. They are like flight points but you take a Sea Horse instead of a flying mount. Once you find one of these, located in underwater caves, you can take it to the flight point on the surface. It will drop you off right on the edge of the beach at the flight point. The flight point is directly connected to Ironforge and all points from there.

Flying back there you just land at Sandy Beach then go over to the "swim point", on the shore, and take a Sea Horse back to the depths.

You will also get a Sea Horse mount relatively soon after you get there. That makes things so much easier as your swim speed on it is pretty fast, allowing you to get around quickly. It is a big place and you have to go all over it. You will also get a buff shortly after you arrive, I think it is a reward for the first quest, that allows you to breath underwater and swim faster. This is a permanent buff meaning every time you go under water in Vashj'ir it will kick in and you will be able to breath.

450 Mining

I got Breeonna's mining skill up to 450 yesterday. I finished up in Sholazar Basin mining Saronite Ore. That gives her 2 maxed professions, Mining and Skinning on the eve of the Cataclysm release.

I had mining on a couple other toons but never got it too high, I think 326 on Gomorra was as high as I ever got. Other characters I think I deleted it before I got to 50. I made a lot of gold leveling up my mining and as I was 80 I wasn't too worried about the mobs that can be a real pain when leveling. I made over 1,000 gold leveling mining up. That is already spent on 300 riding skill on my Priest Brieonna.

Lets see what Cata brings tonight.

Mining...

First off I would like to state I hate mining. It is one of Breeonna's primary professions. Why would I make a primary profession that I hate? Because there is a lot of gold in mining. If you don't have another profession that uses ore then it is a gathering skill and pure profit.

A couple days ago I looked at Breeonna's mining skill and saw it was at 91. That is because I hate mining and could never bring myself to do it. I decided I would either have to get rid of mining or level it up. I decided to try and level it up. In the course of a couple days I have brought my mining from 91 to 425. I am now mining Cobalt Ore in Northrend and making a lot of gold in the process. I have made about 1,000 gold so far. I just got my 425th point and now I am heading over to Sholazar Basin to mine Saronite Ore. From what I have read online, Sholazar Basin is the best place to mine for it. I have mined some Saronite Ore in some of the dungeons I have been through, but not enough to get a full stack to sell yet.

4 Years Playing World of Warcraft - 12/1/10

It was 4 years ago today that I loaded up WoW on my laptop and found Azeroth. A lot has changed in the last 4 years.

My first character was a Warrior named Durgan. I leveled him to 19, then saw a Warlock on a Felsteed and decided I had to have one of those. The Felsteed that is. I put the Warrior aside and made Gomorra, my Demon Lock. It took me until April 2007 to level Gomorra to 70. I was 56 when Burning Crusades came out and reached 70 in 49 days /played.

As 70 was the cap, and I was there, I decided to make a Feral Druid which I named Wranngar. I leveled this with another player, Axeelina, and reached 70 in 23 days /played. Wranngar was my first level 80, beating out Gomorra.

When Wranngar and Gomorra were both 80 I started playing a Beastmaster Hunter again that I had made a year and a half before. Brieanna was 27 when I stopped playing her. I got her to 80 pretty quick, a total of 15 days /played. That was when I started wondering how fast I could get a character from 1-80.

I started Breeonna, an Elemental Shaman, and decided to see if I could level a character from 1-80 in less than 10 days /played. I did a combination of dungeons and questing to level this character up. I never sat around and if I was going to be away from the keyboard for more than a minute I would log out. During this time I started another character, completely throwing out my rule of only leveling one character at a time, and made Brieonna a Holy Priest. Both the Shaman and Priest were wearing 5 pieces of BoA gear. They were wearing shoulders, chest, weapon and 2 trinkets. I only had one set of trinkets so I would send them back and forth depending which character I was playing.

I ended up getting Brieonna to 80 first in 12 days /played. Then I got Breeonna to 80 in 8 days 14 hours /played satisfying myself that I could get a character to 80 in less than 10 days played.

Times have changed since I made that first Warrior, Durgan, who I ended up deleting. I have seen new worlds come, twice, and I have witnessed The Shattering. I am now looking forward to Cataclysm and flying in Azeroth. Let's see what the next year brings.

More Dungeons

I have been doing a lot of Dungeons on Breeonna, as a matter of fact that is about all I have been doing. I have been exploring what is left of Azeroth between dungeons.

I did find something amusing in Lakeshire last night. Apparently they have bare knuckle fights in the basement of the Inn there. Last night was a dwarf against a human. There were a lot of people there just watching the fight and cheering on their favorite.

I had one Halls of Reflection last night that I didn't finish. That was the first one in a long time that I didn't finish. It was a Heroic and we died 4 times before everyone bailed. The problem seemed to be the healer not being able to keep up. But then again the whole group had some problems. We wiped for the first time on the second boss, Marwyn, in the first part. When we came back from that the tank ran to the other side as soon as the spirits came out. I thought that was a little weird but I thought maybe he had a plan. He didn't. He thought we would only have to fight the last boss and not the waves of mobs. That cost us another wipe.
Finally we got everyone on the same page but still couldn't bring down the boss in 2 more tries, that is when everyone bailed.

I had a few more dungeons that were pretty interesting. I do a lot of random dungeons because the normal randoms queue in half the time a heroic does. That way I have less wait and more play. In normal randoms you get a lot of people that are under geared and inexperienced. I learned my lesson on healing, it is usually easier to heal a heroic that it is a normal because the people in the heroic are usually more experienced. Another problem with the normals is I end up queuing into Oculus, Culling of Stratholme and Trial of the Champion a lot because a lot of the players are under 80 and those are the only ones they can get into.

Redridge Fox

I got a Redridge Fox for Brieanna yesterday. I saw someone else with one and figured, why not? The Foxes, tamable as hunter pets, are new with patch 4.0.3. I am not sure if I will use it, but it only took me a minute to run over to Lakeshire and tame one.

**I mistakenly called this the Redwood Fox in the original post, it is a Redridge Fox.

The Shattering - 11/23/10

It took some time to get logged in today between maintenance running over then the problems people had logging in but I finally got in. Of course there were the mandatory disconnects following that but after an hour or so it stabilized and I was able to take a look around.

The first thing I went to see was the Park in Stormwind. That was a total wash, gone. It looked like it got blown off the face of the world. I also noticed that Stormwind got a face lift. The cobblestones in the street were much more defined and had a pattern to them. The outsides of the buildings were crisper and cleaner. The colors were more vibrant. Then I got to the center of town, the Trade District. There were some more changes there too. The fountain outside the bank has water in it now. The auction house moved to a new location, across from the bank. It is now bigger and less crowded.

When I went outside Stormwind to the Valley of Hero's I saw where one of the statues got knocked down (into the water I assume) and now is on a sled to be brought back up. You can see the feet still standing on the pedestal where it once stood. Looking back at Stormwind from the main gates you can see damage to the towers. There is already scaffolding up so I assume they are already fixing it?

I didn't notice any real changes in Ironforge.

From there I headed to Westfall. I got a surprise when I got there. Sentinel Hill is now a fortress. It has walls around most of it and a lot more buildings. They moved the flight point up next to the original tower now. All of the original buildings are still there, they just added a lot more to it. There was really a lot of content in this patch even though the expansion is not out yet. I noticed a lot of homeless people around Westfall and other areas as I explored them, I guess some of the ones in Westfall used to live in the park in Stormwind as they are labeled as Stormwind refugees.

From Sentinel Hill I noticed a vortex of some kind throwing trees and rocks up into the air. I decided to go over and see what that was all about. What I found there was a glowing hole in the ground. It is called the Raging Chasm. I didn't spend too much more there and these were the only 2 things I found.

I headed to Blasted lands from there as I heard there were going to be some changes there too. I found Nethergarde Keep to be pretty much the same as it was although I ran into some mobs by the mine. I headed south east from Nethergarde Keep and eventually ran into Shattershore. This is all new territory in Blasted Lands. I headed west along the shore and found the Red Reaches. There I found the Bloodwatch Shrine. Continuing west I ended up in the Tainted Forest. As soon as you enter the Tainted Forest from the Red Reaches there is a tiny village called Surwich right on the shoreline. There is a dock there that looks like it is set up to receive a boat, another sailing point? Surwich had an Inn and a couple houses and is dark like Duskwood. From there I headed deeper into the Tainted Forest which eventually lead me back to the Blasted lands I knew. I headed back to the flight point and took a flight to Arathi Highlands.

When I got to Arathi Highlands everything seemed to be the same. My real destination was Southshore as I noticed there was no longer a flightpoint there. While heading to Southshore on the road I noticed a new road (31,54), right across from Stormgarde Keep, with a sign that said Hinterlands. I followed that and found they had put in a tunnel from Arathi Highlands to Hinterlands. I think this is a great idea. When I was leveling up my first toon, Gomorra, I looked all through Arathi Highlands to find a way into Hinterlands from there, there is none. I went through the tunnel to Hinterlands and found that there is a road right from the tunnel to Aerie Peak making that a lot easier to get to.

Continuing on my way to Southshore I noticed a lot of Horde (PvP) mobs everywhere. I even got flagged when I stopped to help out a Rogue that was fighting some. When I got to Southshore I found total devastation. The place was taken over by someone (Forsaken?) and was deserted of Alliance life. I went into the Inn and it was deserted. It looked like they had just packed up and left a few minutes before I got there. There were still fires going in all the fire places but there were no people or furniture. It reminded me of the abandoned Inns you find in places like Moonbrook in Westfall and Raven Hill in Duskwood except this place was still clean and not falling apart.

I headed up to Chillwind Point to catch a flight to the Wetlands to see if anything happened there.

When I got to Wetlands I couldn't believe it. Menethil Harbor was flooded, the docks were all warped and busted up and houses on one side of the keep were under water. The whole place had 1-3 feet of water in it. They had sandbagged to keep the water out of a lot of the buildings. I took a quick ride around outside of the keep but didn't notice anything straight off. It was getting late so I decided to call it a night. I will do some more exploring tomorrow and see what I find.

Black Temple

I had the opportunity to run the Black Temple the other night. It is a level 70, 25 man raid located in Shadowmoon Valley, that I had never done before. We had a group of 21 players with about 35% level 75+. There is a lot of nice scenery in Black Temple as in most the dungeons/raids. From what I understand a lot of the older dungeons/raids are going to be changing in Cataclysm.

Here's a little history on the Black Temple:

The Black Temple is the fortress of Illidan Stormrage, the lord of the Outlands. It was once known as the Temple of Karabor and has changed hands many times over the years. This raid drops Teir 6 and also drops the legendary Twin Blades of Azzinoth. The entrance to Black Temple is not at the gates but through a breech in the southern wall.

You used to have to be attuned to run this raid but attunement is no longer required.

Before the shattering of Draenor the Black Temple was once called the Temple of Karabor which was a sacred site of the Draenei. Shortly after the formation of the Horde, Gul'dan ordered the temple to be taken and made it into the headquarters for the Shadow Council. They also named it the Black Temple in the process.

Following his defeat to Arthas Menethil, Illidan returned to the Black Temple where he resides today. Neither his activities or mental state are known at this time. While Malfurion has stated that Illidan has become mad and delusional, believing that he killed Arthas and accomplished the mission Kil'jaeden had sent him on. If Illidan has descended into madness and believes he accomplished his mission it would make no sense for him to worry about Arthas or Kil'jaeden coming after him; he would believe the former dead, and the latter appeased. But then again, those afflicted by madness rarely make sense.
**Source: WoWWiki

So that is what we walked into. Overall we didn't really have a problem and moved through it quickly and smoothly. A few of the lower level players died a couple times but we really didn't have that many deaths and no wipes. Due to the higher levels present we were able to pull whole rooms at a time. I can see how this would be a pretty tough raid if everyone was level 70, it sure wouldn't have went as fast and smooth as it did I am sure. Unfortunately the Twin Blades of Azzinoth did not drop. I have been playing WoW for 4 years (December 1st) and have yet to see a legendary drop. Here are some screen shots I took during the Campaign.

Random Dungeons 11/22/10

I have been pretty busy lately. I gave up doing my daily's because they nerfed the gold payout, and started doing dungeons instead.

I have done most of the dungeons on Breeonna and have been getting her some better gear with Justice Points in the process.

When I first enter a dungeon, first and second fights, my DPS is really poor. Usually less than 3k. Then I find my groove and it starts climbing, up to as high as 6k. That is about as high as I ever get on Breeonna but she is slowly creeping up as I get better gear on her.

In the past few days I have done every heroic dungeon at least twice, some a lot more. I just got out of a heroic Halls of Reflection that went really well. I remember when a chill would go down my spine when I would queue into it. Now I look forward to it. If you have a good group it is a cakewalk like it was today. If you have a poor group, and I have been in many, it can be pretty rough. I remember starting a lot of them I never got to finish because people bailed. I got a couple achievements on Breeonna who apparently didn't have them.

I was in a pretty funny Trial of the Champion yesterday. The Tank was a Paladin in blues and greens and had 20k HP. Did I mention it was heroic ToC? That was interesting, there were a couple wipes, and a lot of the Tank dying which would leave the tanking to me and a Rouge. But we got through it. Normally I would have bailed but the Tank and Rogue informed us at the start that the tank was a fresh 80 looking to get geared so I figured I would stick around and help out. The Priest that was healing ninja'd the Tank neck piece that dropped for some reason. It was STR and STA, not usually what a Priest is looking for in a neck. I think he did it just to be a jerk.

I stayed with them for another random which turned out to be Violet Hold. He had a lot better time in there and got a nice set of leggings. I have been seeing some new drops from these old bosses lately, ever since the last big patch as a matter of fact. I got a new shield for Breeonna the other day in Pit of Saron that I had never seen drop before. It is a pretty nice caster shield.

The bottom line is I make more gold doing random heroics than I do with my daily's now that they nerfed the payout.

Stratholme - Mount & Rep Runs 11/19/10

I did some mount and rep runs in Stratholme on Breeonna and Brieanna tonight. I didn't expect the mount to drop and it didn't in the 5 runs we did. I did get some rep tho. There were 3 of us that were doing these runs, me and 2 people from the guild. We had no problem at all because it is a level 60 dungeon and one 80 could solo it, never mind 3.

What we were after, besides rep, was the Deathcharger's Reins that drop off Baron Rivendare. It has a .02% drop rate, not that great. I have done runs for this mount before but have never seen it drop. I know it does drop because I see people riding it, but not a lot of people riding one.

I did manage to get the Key to the City, which drops off Magistrate Barthilas, for Bireanna and Breeonna, which allows you to enter through the servants entrance and open gates inside so you can do quick mount runs. I now have this key on Brieanna, Breeonna, Wranngar and Gomorra.

The reason I was trying this again was someone said they are revamping the classic dungeons and this mount, along with others is going away. I have not verified that but I am going to look into it.

Random Dungeons 11/18/10

I did some dungeons today for the first time in quite awhile. Seeing that the daily quest gold got nerfed already, I decided I could make more gold doing dungeons.

I did Nexus as my random daily heroic on Brieanna and then got Gundrak for my next random heroic. Both of them went really smooth. We had a good group in Nexus and tore through there without any problem. Being the Hunter I made sure I dismissed my pet before jumping off anything. I have been in more bad situations in Nexus, and other dungeons, because the Hunter doesn't dismiss their pet before jumping and the pet takes the long way around, aggroing everything along the way. We had no problem at all with the Bosses but I couldn't skin Keristrasza at then end. It said it required 455 skinning skill, I have 450. I am pretty sure I have skinned that Boss many times before but, oh well, times are changing.

Gundrak went smooth too. When we went to kill Eck the Ferocious I couldn't get through the entrance for some reason, I don't know why. After everyone else came back from that we finished up the rest with no problems.

I didn't do any heroics on Brieonna because it has been so long since I did any healing. That, the fact that they took away some of my stuff, and just being out of practice had me doing normal dungeons on her. My random daily dungeon on her was Utgarde Pinnacle. This was actually the first dungeon I did today which got me going on them. I didn't do too bad considering. I lost one person by the time it was over. That was a combination of line of sight, lag and being out of practice. Usually when I am healing I try to keep an eye on everyone and not let anyone get out of my sight. Well, I let someone get out of my sight and by the time I could get them back in sight and get a cast off it was too late for them. We finished up though without any more problems after that, I paid a little more attention.

My next random daily on Brieonna was Trial of the Champion which I got into already in progress. I lost one in there too. It was phase 3 of the Black Knight and too many people were taking damage at once. That's where being out of practice really hurt, normally I have no problem in there. This is why I decided to do normal dungeons on her instead of jumping right back into heroics.

My last random daily dungeon on Brieonna was The Forge of Souls. I almost bailed as soon as I queued in, I didn't think I was up to that one yet. If it was Halls of Reflection or the Pit of Saron I would have bailed, but I decided to stick it out and see what happened. We had no problem at all. It was a smooth textbook run. We had a good tank and a good group, not that there was anything wrong with the other groups. That was about all the stress I could take on Brieonna for one day so I switched over to Breeonna to do a few.

I only did randoms on Breeonna and my random daily was Forge of Souls again. We had another good group and tore through there pretty smoothly. I then proceeded to do the Pit of Saron, Halls of Reflection and Utgarde Pinnacle. We had no problems in any of those although one person died in UP. At least I wasn't healing it :). I noticed it takes about twice as long, twice as many harpoon shots, to get Skadi the Ruthless down in UP than it did the last time I was in there. The first time around I thought he was bugged but them second time took just as long.

The nice thing about Brieonna is she queues in a minute or less usually. There is no waiting for queues on her. On Brieanna and Breeonna it took about 10-12 minutes to queue in. I want to get back in Dungeon shape so I won't be lost when Cata gets here as I am going to have to regear everyone.