Cooking up a Storm

Due to the holidays and some out of game events, my play time was limited over the past weeks so little progress was made on my 10x85 project. I did, however, manage to level my cooking on all my characters using the holiday event. I am also going to be temporarily suspending two of my accounts until after the holidays, so I had some professions to switch around. I needed a blacksmith on my main account and I had enough mats to powerlevel my warrior up to 295 before running out of thorium. A quick flight around Un'Goro netted the last 150 that I needed. I remember what a pain it was to try and mine that up pre-WOtLK.

I did have a few dungeon runs of note. While running Underbog on my paladin, there was an asshat deathknight. We weren't at the first boss before the healer asked him to stop pulling. I eventually initiated a kick after the second boss when he kept pulling wasps even though the healer was out of mana. A nice DPS plate helm dropped on the next boss - sucks for him. I have very little tolerance for people that have a class that can tank, queue as DPS, and pull like they are the tank. If you want to tank, get a tank spec and tank. The queue is instant instead of 30-45 minutes, and you'll get kicked a lot less. I don't understand what kind of jackass mentality these people have.

I had an interesting run on my shaman. This is my first shaman I've ever really played, and I've been leveling it as a healer. I just got chain heal, which brings my healing toolkit up to three healing spells plus earthshield. As we are making our way through Scholomance, we end up with most of the first room down the staris being pulled at once. Somehow I manage to keep everyone up. In the next room, we start the fight against Kirtonos with the hunter locked out of the room. Around halfway through the fight, the tank gets launched off the balcony and out of the instance. We have a plate DPS (I don't remember if it was a pally or a warrior) that I'm able to keep up, and eventually Kirtonos dies before I'm completely out of mana. We finished the run on a fairly brisk pace, and I managed to get two levels out of the single run. I may have to swap out the healing totem for the mana totem until I get a few more healing spells.

10x85:
Hunter 85
Deathknight 85
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Mage 85
Druid 85
Warlock 85
Warrior 71
Paladin 67
Shaman 43  

Getting Closer

I managed to make it to 85 on my pink pigtailed warlock, which leaves me with the last three classes (two if you can't the paladin on my other account). I finished the weekend with my Worgen warrior at level 70, resting in Stormwind in his new cobalt armor and ready to take on the dungeons of Northrend. My Tauren paladin is four levels from leaving Outland behind, and my Goblin shaman is moving right along through the Scarlet Monastery. Having two tanks and a healer makes queuing up a lot less painful than it was with my warlock and mage. The groups have been mostly good, with a few being quite good indeed.

So no asshats to report this week. I'm not going to complain. Not. One. Bit.

10x85:
Hunter 85
Deathknight 85
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Mage 85
Druid 85
Warlock 85
Warrior 70
Paladin 64
Shaman 37  

Two More

On Sunday night I was too tired to do any serious playing, so I decided to finish leveling my second profession on my druid. I managed to get to Professional Grand Master picking herbs before Walking Dead was over. Two more hours on Monday night capped my profession and put me over the top to 85. The next night I picked up a blue helm at the JP vendor to replace my heirloom one, equipped my rings from the Headless Horseman and my Brewfest trinket, and did the Thrall quests for a new cape and the intro Firelands Dailies. I will most likely try to keep up with the firelands dailies on the druid and keep healing 5-mans.

My mage was a bit further away from 85, and required a few dungeon runs. The first was in Stonecore after a 30 minute queue. One of the DPS remarked how much he hated this dungeon and dropped group. Enjoy your queue time, I guess. It was one of the smoothest runs in that dungeon I've ever had. We didn't even have any issues with the hallway before Ozruk. Managing about two runs a night, with the dungeon being either Stonecore or Vortex Pinnacle, I hit 85 on my mage. Only one run had a jackass, and he was quickly kicked for pulling additional groups from behind us several times and doing craptacular DPS.

My little gnome warlock will be 85 soon, and I can turn my attention to the last three: my prot warrior, prot pally, and my restro shammy.

10x85:
Hunter 85
Deathknight 85
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Mage 85
Druid 85
Warlock 84
Warrior 65
Paladin 61
Shaman 33

Tricks and Treats

The past two weeks have mainly been spent getting all my level 85 and 84 characters through the daily holiday run to pick up some new gear from the Headless Horseman. I managed to get the sword for those that could use it and the helm for my deathknight. I didn't get the mount, but I had it from last year on the characters that I wanted it on. I was hoping for a helm drop for my paladin, but he never saw it. Continuing the RNG's mocking me, it did drop for my mage. All of my other characters got the rings that mattered to them, and I was able to get the last few holiday achievements on my main. The LFD holiday boss runs were easy enough (not like Ahune), and only one moron was trying to tank in a DPS spec (a deathknight without a tank spec and in frost presence) which merely resulted in him loosing aggro throughout the fight.

The only non-holiday specific gaming I did was a retro raid into Ulduar on my main. It was an achievement run, and I racked up a bunch that night. I never ran Ulduar when it was current, excepting the first few bosses when the weekly raid quest was active.
10x85:

Hunter 85
Deathknight 85
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Warlock 84
Mage 84
Druid 84
Warrior 64
Paladin 61
Shaman 33