Raid Finder FTW

I hit the new 5-mans, and got a ton of upgrades. I managed to replace almost everything, except these damn blue shoulders which seem to want to hang around until the next expansion. I logged in last night with an item level of 371 - just one point shy of being able to do the LFR queue. I queued up for another dungeon, and when I zoned in I noticed that I didn't complete the quest in the Hour of Twilight dungeon. A quick conversation with Thrall netted me a new belt and a 272 item level! After breezing through the dungeon, I socketed and gemmed my new belt, picked up some buff food and a few flasks, and queued for the new raid.

After a whole eight minute wait, I was at the start of the new raid with no bosses killed. I've read up a little on the fights, but this was my first time seeing them. Things went pretty smooth - there was a lot of people coming and going throughout the raid, but bosses were dropping. I managed to snag a tier helm, along with finishing every boss in the first half of the raid! Even though I didn't really know the fights and had the bare minimum gear level, I managed to stay off the bottom of the damage meter.

I picked up my new helm, gemmed it, and picked up the arcanum for it. I queued for the second half of the raid. Another fairly fast queue (compared to a LFD queue, anyway) and I was in the second half of the raid - again with no bosses killed! This raid did not go as smoothly as the first one, however. We had several wipes on the first boss, due to the tanks not performing the mechanics right. They left (or were kicked) and two new tanks joined up, along with what seems to be the common ebb and flow of raiders in this new pug raid. We downed the boss without a wipe and moved on to this raid's "lootship". We one-shot that as well, and jumped down to Deathwing's back.

We had another wipe, mainly due to people not knowing or not caring about the mechanics of the fight. The fight was explained in raid chat, and we tried again. After another wipe, kicks were initiated against those that did not follow the directions. After a slight pause to fill the raid back up, we succeeded in grounding Deathwing. We had a few more wipes while people were getting used to the strategy, but in the end - Deathwing was destroyed. I managed to stay in the top 10 DPS throughout the raid, finishing at number 4!

I really enjoyed the new LFR, and I can't wait to do it again next week after the reset. I'll do one more heroic pug on my main tonight just to cap my valor points, and then work on my last three lowbies over the weekend. Speaking of which, I hit 68 on my Tauren and shuffled off to Northrend. I did some of the starter quests and dinged again. I have all the new armor for when I hit 70, and then back to tanking I go! My warrior is currently wearing my DPS heirlooms, so I queued as DPS while leveling my skinning on the rhinos in Northrend's tundra. I just respecced my second talent build to fury from arms, so it took a bit of getting used to. When they changed the dungeon quests in Outland and Northrend to the "inside the dungeon" model, they must have changed the quest ID as well. I was able to accept and "redo" the UK quests, and picked up some DPS pieces instead of the tanking ones I got last time. And I dinged 72 on the last quest turn-in as well!

10x85:
Hunter 85
Deathknight 85
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Mage 85
Druid 85
Warlock 85
Warrior 72
Paladin 69
Shaman 43