body check to the ego

Can I tell you how much I stunk last night in heroic Black Morass? Holy crap. There were BBQed chicken feathers all OVER that swamp. Oi.

So last night I hopped online hoping to get some healing practice in, but again couldn't find a group. However, a guildie wanted to run heroic Black Morass for the daily and I said I'd respec and bring my boomkin. I've done regular BM a couple of times before and have run a few heroics, so I figured I'd be fine. I played like a complete spaz. I managed to (almost singlehandedly) wipe us two of the three runs. The first time through, I sat to eat and drink too close to the first big boss and got my ass stomped, leading to an eventual wipe. The second run through I did essentially the same thing, running towards a normal wave boss ahead of the tank who had stopped for a moment to bandage or something and I didn't notice. They brought me back after getting that Rift Lord down, but from then on we were behind and eventually lost Medivh. The third (and final) attempt we actually did pretty well and made it to the final boss with Medivh's shield intact. Unfortunately we all were in combat after killing the final Rift Lord and couldn't eat and drink before we took on Aeonus. We let Medivh's shield fall to about 8% before we engaged and started okay, but our healer grabbed aggro almost immediately and went down (and my battle rez was on cooldown, so I couldn't bring him back). I tried to heal the best I could in my DPS gear, but it wasn't enough and we eventually wiped. We might have been able to finish the third attempt but I borked up my Chrono-beacon. The times I had run the instance before, we used it to help control the adds. Apparently everybody else knew to drop the beacon next to the portal. *sigh* We were all exhausted by this point, so I logged off after the third attempt and stumbled down to the couch to watch TV with my wife who had just come home, thoroughly down on my game-playing abilities.

Oh well. You live and learn, right? Next time through, I'll know better. Feh. Gotta get some better DPS gear.

After last night, I'm reevaulating my healing experiment. I'm now leaning towards staying as a boomkin and farming some good healing gear prior to fully switching. Maybe I'll heal lower-level Outland instances, but not the 70s.

grinding rep, gaining idols

I spent my time online this weekend finishing a few long quest lines and improving my reputation with a couple of factions. As of the end of yesterday, I'm only missing the [Flamewrought Key] to get into heroic dungeons. Woo-hoo! I know, I know...it's pretty silly that Thrallmar is my lowest rep, but there you go. Another Citadel run should get me up there. I'm gunning for that [Ivory Idol of the Moongoddess] from Shattered Halls, so that sounds like a good way to get both goals done.

Speaking of Idols, I finished the long quest line in Shadowmoon Valley and got my [Idol of the Avenger]! Woot! It was really an easy quest line but took some time due to its length. Driving a Fel Reaver was totally worthwhile, too. After dancing around for a bit after getting my idol, I did a little googling for idol-swapping macros and found a couple that work nicely. If anybody's interested, I can post the code that I'm using, but it's pretty simple and easily accessible if you look around. The two I'm using now swap in the [Idol of the Moon] for each moonfire cast and my new [Idol of the Avenger] for each wrath cast. I don't have good numbers, sadly, but qualitatively I feel my damage is up quite a bit. Wrath was hitting for about 800-900, I think, and criting for 1800-ish.

I'm now revered among both the Mag'har and Sporeggar after this weekend's grinding. The Sporeggar grind was easy but fairly time-consuming. I kept repeating the Now That We're Still Friends... quest line, killing hundreds of naga. It took me about 15 minutes per iteration for 750 rep, which really isn't too bad. I went from honored to revered in an afternoon and think I can push my way to exalted by this weekend. And you know what that means, right? [Tiny Spore Bat]! I'll be able to give my Wolpertinger a rest for a bit. The cutest pet I've seen so far is Peanut, who I hope to be able to grab next Children's Week, but the Spore Bat is pretty sweet.

Along with the Mag'har rep came some new gear. I bought a pair of [Tempest Leggings] -- which I now need to gem and imbue with spellthread -- and the [Band of Ancestral Spirits]. The ring was a frill and probably isn't worth the money, but oh well. I've already described how much of a spendthrift I am...it shouldn't come as a surprise.

My goals for this week are to finally finish a few more questlines. I've been trying to fire up interest in the guild for the Gorefiend quests without much success, so I'll just have to pug it, I guess. I also want to finally finish the Ogri'la attunement quests (yay, more dailies!) and...something else. I can't remember now. Finish my own Arcatraz key, maybe.

my first heroic

Last night I ran heroic Sethekk Halls with a group from the guild, to help another druid finish his epic flight form quest. I had been on for a few minutes trying to farm primal airs for my Windhawk set when he started asking for another druid to help, but I was nervous about running a heroic so I mostly ignored his call. When he whispered and asked me specifically, though, I explained my anxiety then decided, "What the hell," and joined the group. Good decision!

The five of us were me (boomkin), two mages for ultra-uber DPS, a feral druid tank, and a healer on her first heroic (in fairness, an alt healer of a raider running her first heroic as a healer so it's not like she didn't know what was going on). This ended up being a really good group, with lots of CC and plenty of firepower. Plus, Bora's a really good tank and leader, so that made things *so* much easier.

We had a few little stumbles (FYI, the Ravenguards on heroic can't be sheeped...whoops) but overall the run went pretty smoothly. We had a bad strategy on the first boss and wiped but fixed that pretty quickly for the second time. He spawns these elemental adds and we tried to just ignore them and burn the boss quickly, but that wasn't such a good idea. We survived the first wave of adds but died as soon as the second wave spawned. The second time around we just burned down the elementals as soon as they spawned, and that seemed to work pretty well. They weren't elites, I don't think, so they didn't put up much of a fight.

The Raven boos, Anzu, wasn't a bad fight at all. For those of you not familiar with the fight, there are three statues that can be brought to life by a druid's HoT and give really nice buffs while they're up. My job: keep them up. At Bora's suggestion, I tried writing macros for each of the three but couldn't get the syntax quite right for whatever reason. The macro would target the right statue, but then wouldn't cast Rejuvenation. I'll have to figure that out sometime later. What I did last night, though, was to use my essentially-unused second hotbar for each of the targeting macros and the rejuv. Much of the fight for me was hitting 1, 5, 2, 5, 3, 5, repeat. :-) That's not entirely true, but it's pretty close.

Flushed with success after taking down Anzu, we progressed to the third boss. This fight was much harder but we got him on the first try. I say we, but I actually had little to do with the fight. One of the mages and I went down after the first arcane explosion (I think our pillar was defective) but the remaining three were able to take him down. Amazingly. These raiders are pretty good, I tell you what. I knew Bora wasn't going to be able to battle rez me during the fight, so I tried to run back in. Sadly, this didn't work. I got stuck at the entrance and it wouldn't let me "zone in while an encounter [was] in progress." Or something like that. Oh well.

We got some nice loots for the run. Three [Badges of Justice], hurray! My first badges! As the only leatherworker, I got [Pattern: Stylin' Crimson Hat] and [Pattern: Shadow Armor Kit]. Nice. I also picked up the [Sethekk Oracle Cloak], a slight upgrade, and a [Large Prismatic Shard] from a disenchanted drop. Not bad at all.

I logged off about an hour after I had intended to, full of excitement and confidence. I survived a heroic. I was helpful and brought some useful skills to the group. I'm still not ready for Kara, but I think I will start running heroics on a regular basis. All in all, a really good night.