Random Daily Heroic - 4/14/11

Today my daily random heroic dungeons were Halls of Origination on Wranngar and Blackrock Caverns on Brieanna.

I did Halls of Origination on Wranngar first. The tank on this run had an item level of 330, 11 unenchanted items, 5 missing glyphs, 2 unsocketed items and was missing the Ebonsteel Belt Buckle. This goes back to my always saying that 329 item level is too low for a Tank or Healer in heroics and when you get someone like this, well, they shouldn't be tanking anything.

Needless to say the run was a little rough. I wouldn't expect a healer to be able to keep that tank up at all but the healer we had, one of my guild mates, did a pretty good job. We didn't wipe at all but came close a few times. The tank died a few times, which is to be expected with the way they were geared, but we got through it somehow. I was pretty happy when they went right to the last boss when we got up top instead of trying to do all four, I had enough of a repair bill as it was. I didn't get the Chaos Orb from this run, a Warlock that came in right before the last boss got it...

After that I jumped on my Hunter Bireanna and did Blackrock Caverns. It had been awhile since I was on her and it was like learning to play her all over again. I really need to rotate through my characters more, I don't even want to think what it will be like when I finally get back on my Shaman Breeonna again.

We had a pretty smooth run through Blackrock Caverns, no wipes and the Healer was able to pick up a few items they needed. I was hoping the bow would drop off the last boss but it didn't. The only time I ever see the bow drop is if I am not on my hunter. As Brieanna doesn't have any professions that use a Chaos Orb she wasn't even in the roll for it.

I did get my 70 Valor Points on both toons though and will be able to get my Cloak on Wranngar in 4 more days.

Random Daily Heroic - Halls of Origination 4/11/11

Today the random daily heroic I completed on Wranngar was Halls of Origination. As you might have noticed I said completed. The first one I was in for my random daily was Deadmines. Deadmines is a tricky one and I would say the second hardest heroic after Grim Batol.

I got in to Deadmines right after the group I joined finished downing the third boss, Foe Reaper 5000. I figured it would be a pretty easy 70 valor points, boy was I wrong. I noticed in the very first fight that the tank, a Deathknight, was looking kind of squishy. The Healer had 103k mana using a flask so I figured we would be ok anyway. Wrong again. We made it through the trash between Foe Reaper and the boat without too much difficulty, but when we got to Ripsnarl, the next boss, things went downhill fast. The Healer was running out of mana about a quarter of the way through the fight, which tells me he had very low Spirit/Regen, I ended up innervating him a few times but it was not enough. To make a long story short we wiped on Ripsnarl 5 times before I finally bailed. I was doing 12k dps which was double what the next highest person was doing, we just didn't have the dps to get him down. Funny thing is we came the closest to getting him down on the first attempt.

After I bailed out of Deadmines I requeued and got Halls of Origination. Once again I didn't get in at the start, I got in right after the first boss. I figured that was from someone either getting what they were after off the first boss and leaving or not getting what they were after off the first boss and leaving. This group turned out to be pretty decent and we only took down the bosses we needed to so it was pretty quick too. I didn't get any gear, any upgrades I get from here on out will be coming from raid mobs/bosses, but I did get the Chaos Orb at the end so I was happy. I also got my 70 valor points for the day.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I strongly believe that a 329 item level is too low for a Tank or Healer to be entering heroics. It is too low for a lot of the dps too in my opinion. The bosses in heroics, as well as the trash mobs, have a lot of health and hit hard. Low dps makes the Healer run out of mana because the fights take too long. An under geared Healer is going to run out of mana anyway because they didn't have enough to begin with and an under geared Tank is not going to be able to stand up to the beating required to tank a heroic. If you get a 5 man group of people in a heroic who all have a 329 item level it's just not going to happen.

Buying gear with justice points combined with 333 item level drops from normal dungeons and rep gear can get you an item level of at least 340, why not wait?

Wranngar - 4/5/11

I have been working on getting my Druid Wranngar geared and getting his professions and skills up to maximum level.

So far it is coming along well. One week after leveling him to 85 he has a 350 item level, has his Leatherworking, Skinning, Cooking and First Aid at the maximum 525 and his Fishing at 498. I have all the 359 Cataclysm patterns for Leatherworking and am currently running heroic's for Chaos Orbs. I currently have 3 Chaos Orbs but can always use more. Chaos Orbs are BoP (Bind on Pickup) so if I am going to make 359 items I am going to need to run heroic's to get them. Usually when you are making a 359 item for someone else they will supply all the mats and you will supply the orbs for a price. The going rate for orbs is 200g-300g on my server. That means if I make a piece for someone and use 3 of my orbs I will make a profit of 600g-900g on the orbs plus a tip. One Chaos Orb drops off the last boss in every heroic dungeon and it is rolled on by everyone there who can use it. I ran 6 dungeons and got one orb so they are not piling up but over time they will.

Wranngar is geared pretty well now, his item level is 350 and all of his gear is either 346 ilvl or 359 ilvl. I am working on getting the 359 trinket from Baradin's Wardens and have about a week of doing their daily's every day before I can get that. I was running specific dungeons for gear until I got all the 346 pieces I needed with the exception of a weapon. I was hoping to get the polearm from the Lost City of the Tol'vir but didn't have any luck after running it for 5 consecutive days. You can only choose to run a specific heroic dungeon once a day, after that it might come up in the random dungeon queue allowing you to run it again or it might not. I ended up getting the Spear of Trailing Shadows from Baradin's Wardens which set me back some on getting my trinket.

I am also working on my reputation with all the Cataclysm Factions and that is coming along well. I have gotten all the rep pieces I can and am now working on getting my reputation to exalted with the other factions that don't have anything I need. Who knows, in future patches they might get something I need so better safe than sorry.

Bracers of Some Consequence

After running heroic Stonecore and heroic Deadmines every day for 5 days in a row my bracers finally dropped.

The pair I finally got, Bracers of Some Consequence, dropped off Vanessa VanCleef. The other pair, Elementium Scale Bracers, drops off Ozruk in heroic Stonecore.

They replaced my item level 333 bracers, I got from a quest in Grim Batol, bringing my overall item level up to 348. That also makes 346 my minimum equipped item level piece again.

Now it is time to start raiding for more 359 gear.

Cataclysm Dungeon Hero

I got the Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achievement on my Hunter Brieanna yesterday after completing heroic Stonecore. You earn this achievement for completing all the Cataclysm dungeons at the heroic level.

Recently I replaced my item level 352 PvP bracers with a pair of item level 333 PvE bracers because PvP gear is just no good in dungeons. In doing that I lost a point off my item level but my dungeon score on WoW Heroes went up. Now I am running heroic Deadmines and heroic Stonecore every day, as well as my random daily heroic, to try and get the 346 bracers that drop in there. That will bring my minimum item level back up to 346.

I ran each one yesterday but had no luck, I will try again today when I get on later. I have around a 30 minute queue time with my DPS toons compared to a up to 2 minute wait on my healer. That gives me time to get my Tol Barad daily's done on my DPS toons while I am waiting for the queue to pop.

Corded Viper Belt

I picked up Corded Viper Belt for my Hunter, Brieanna, yesterday. It is a item level 359 belt to replace the 346 item level belt she was wearing. I got it off the auction house and it cost me 4500 gold. That is the cheapest I have seen it going for on my server so I figured I would grab it. That puts her item level at 349 now. So close to 350 yet so far away.

I am thinking about respecing her SV to MM to see if I can get any better dps since they nerfed SV in the last patch. I am still doing decent dps in SV, around 13k on bosses in normal, but if I can bring that up a couple thousand it wouldn't hurt.

So far I have been concentrating on gearing 3 of my toons, Brieanna, Brieonna and Breeonna. It is taking a lot longer than it did in WotLK but you appreciate the gear more when you get it now because you really have to work for it. My Priest, Brieonna, is at 345 item level and my Shaman, Breeonna is at 342 item level so they are getting there, slowly but surely.

Wranngar - Level 83 Feral Druid

I worked on Wranngar for a little while today and got him to level 83. Wranngar is the last of my 80's I need to get to 85.

I was questing in Deepholm when I hit 83 and headed right over to Uldum to start questing there. I am more interested in getting to 85 than I am with rep or achievements at this time, I can always go back later and finish up all the quests to get the achievements later. I will get more XP per quest in Uldum and get to 84 quicker there which will then allow me to start questing in Twilight Highlands which will get me to 85 pretty quick.

After Wranngar is to 85 I will have to start working on getting them all geared. Right now my Hunter, Brieanna, is the best geared with an item level of 344. My Shaman, Breeonna, is the next best geared with an item level of 336 and my Priest, Brieonna, is next with an item level of 330. My Warlock, Gomorra, is coming in last with an item level of 320. It is gonna take awhile to get them all geared and I was more interested in getting them to 85 than getting them geared right away. Once they are all 85 there will be time for that.

Since they changed the armory around none of my character links were working. The ones in this post are updated and I will work on getting all the other links on this blog updated in the next couple days.

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.

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.