LFR

I've been neglecting my 10x85 project as the Darkmoon Faire and gearing up a few of my alts for LFR has filled my free time. The first alt to enter LFR was my rogue. I spent some time running both normal and the older heroics to be able to enter the new five-man dungeons. I didn't want to be "that guy" showing up in PVP gear and being carried by the rest of the party. With some JP purchases, I was competitive with the rest of the party. After a run through all three, I had enough upgrades to my gear to be very competitive on the DPS meters. I wasn't able to meet the gear requirements for LFR until the second week, but once I did I had a blast. I've never raided on a melee character before, but I managed to make it through without any major issues and picked up a few drops as well!

I started the process with my deathknight, whose best items were leftovers from the holiday bosses. As I did some questing in the Twilight Highlands, I queued for a Cata heroic. I zoned in to Ripsnarl in Deadmines. After the first wipe, I knew it was going to be a rough one. I wasn't happy with my DPS, but it was better than anyone else in the party. I inspected the tank after the second wipe. He had half tank gear, and little to no gems or enchants. Instead of dropping, I decided to just use the experience as practice.

We managed to drop the boss, and made it through the nightmare portion of the next boss. I managed to not wipe on the rope boss, only to have us wipe a few minutes later. We did eventually down the boss. I managed to pick up the achievement for Cookie, and went back to working on my Wildhammer rep. I still wasn't happy with my DPS, so I took a better look at my spec. I realized that I was setup for a two-handed weapon build instead of the two one-handers I was currently using. I fixed my spec and hit the auction house. I picked up a bunch of PVP gear and did some reforging.

The next day I was back in the highlands, and was doing a lot better. I queued for a new heroic, because I didn't want to get stuck in another fail group. I managed to make it through all three new heroics, and the only people that beat my output were those in raid gear. I ran the new heroics until I was valor capped, and between the quest rewards, boss drops, and justice/valor purchases I had replaced all my PVP gear and was eligible for LFR. Even though i was capped on valor, I still ran LFR hoping to get a new piece of gear.

The first run started like they all do, with a faceroll of the first boss. When the only death didn't get rezzed, I felt something was off. We cleared the trash around the beach ball boss, and again the dead didn't get rezzed. We one-shot the boss and moved on to the next one. We made it through the trash ok, but then things went downhill. Normally, the raid lead would either mark or call out the kill priority; nothing but silence. We managed the first two add waves ok, but the third is where everything broke down. Half the raid went to the wrong add, and we eventually wiped. As we were being rezzed, the boss respawned and engaged again with half the raid dead and the rest at partial health. I dropped group for the first time in a LFR. I repaired and queued up again. The second time through we one-shot the entire wing. The overall DPS was better, and there was communication during the fights. The difference was night and day.

I have a three day weekend coming up, and after running LFR on my other two raid-ready 85s I'll most likely get back to leveling my 10x85 characters.


Hunter 85
Deathknight 85
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Mage 85
Druid 85
Warlock 85
Warrior 72
Paladin 70
Shaman 45