2/3

Last week we had to pug a tank and healer for raid night two due to real-life issues, so I had to take on the role of main tank. During the previous night, we had cleared up to Tortos. He still gives us problems with the bats and the turtles flying about. The fill-in tank didn't have any experience with Mags, but after a multiple attempts we were able to get the kill. We were debating going on to the next boss due to raid time getting short, but we decided to press on. Our reward for continuing was a nice shiny purple drop from the trash. We made a few attempts, but failed to get the boss down. We decided to lock the raid in order to get some real progression time with Dumuru.

This week we used the raid lock of our main tank, as there was still gear to be had from Mags. One attempt, one kill. Same with Ji-Kun. We spent the rest of the raid getting some quality time with Dumuru. By which I mean he repeatedly killed us, although we did get him further along with each attempt. On night two, we finally downed him. We blew through Primordious, getting him on the first attempt. Dark Animus initially kicked our respective tails, but we may have all the kinks worked out and should down him next week. We will again extend our lockout and try to get further into the Throne of Thunder.

I didn't spend a lot of time on my alts over the past two weeks. After running ToT in LFR on my main, I mainly rotated my other 90s and my Warrior (now 89 - Ding!) through the holiday boss for a shot at the pet and the capes while catching up with my Netflix queue.

 11x90                                   "new" team

Hunter 90                            Death Knight 90
Rogue 90                            Hunter 36
Mage 90                             Rogue 29
Druid 90                             Mage 22
Warlock 90                        Druid 24
Priest 88                             Warlock 20
Warrior 89                          Priest 21
Paladin 85                           Warrior 15
Shaman 86                          Paladin 16
Monk 84                             Shaman 19
Death Knight 63                  Monk 17

At the Halfway Point

We downed Mags on the third attempt, and then made our way through the next batch of "fun" trash to Ji-Kun. The big bird bit the dust on the fourth attempt, but just barely. I was the only one left alive, and I managed to utilize the few remaining cool downs that I had left to outlast the boss. Plus tier pants to boot! We had enough time left to get a few pulls on Durumu before calling it a night. We're now 6/12, and looking forward to possibly getting the raid finished before the next patch drops.

Last night I managed to get all of the world bosses done, and was back to getting nothing but gold again. Even with the bonus rolls on Sha and Gal. I had time to queue for LFR, and with my tank gear pretty squared away I can focus on my lacking DPS set. Zoned into wing four and got a fresh run for a change. Iron Qon - loot! Twin Consorts - loot! Lei Shen - loot! I hit the trifecta! No tier gear, but solid upgrades none the less.

I hopped on my new lowbie priest and queued for a LFD run before bed. I zoned into a Ragefire Chasm run already in progress. The tank seemed to be a little bit lost, which is expected in the lowest level dungeon. As he made his way around the loop of mobs that surround Slagmaw, the DPSers got bored and engaged the boss about 3/4 the way around. I was running back and forth healing both groups until the tank finally caught up with everyone else. The tank did eventually die, but only because he ran off the ledge and into the lava right after the boss died. Because I zoned in on a run in progress, I missed out on the quests. I wanted that sweet XP, soI manually selected the same dungeon and got a fresh run. Feeling a little more confident with this character, I started DPSing between shield cool downs. I ended up on in the number two spot, right behind the DPS warrior (who also had heirlooms)! These things are going to be crazy overpowered once we can use the good enchants in the next patch.

11x90                                   "new" team

Hunter 90                            Death Knight 90
Rogue 90                            Hunter 33
Mage 90                             Rogue 25
Druid 90                             Mage 20
Warlock 90                        Druid 23
Priest 88                             Warlock 15
Warrior 88                          Priest 18
Paladin 85                           Warrior 15
Shaman 86                          Paladin 16
Monk 84                             Shaman 16
Death Knight 61                  Monk 15

50

50 attempts and Tortos finally went down. With the "One-Up" achievement to boot! We spent the previous (2 weeks ago) raid trying to down him, getting to about 20% on our best attempt. Last week, we started the second night on him, and downed in on the first pull which left us the entire night to work on Mags. We were getting almost through the last rampage before wiping on our best attempts. We came into this week with high hopes. We two-healed Jin and got him down before the third throw. Horridon also fell quickly. We tried to two-heal the council, but went back to three after having some issues with people standing in the bad too much. We got to Tortos, and he decided to slow us down. We did eventually get him down on the twelfth and final attempt of the night. Tonight is Mags again, and hopefully we'll get the kill.

My new army of alts is slowly but surely leveling, and I managed to get their main professions leveled up to 75 across the board so I could get the Darkmoon Faire profession quests done on them.


11x90                                   "new" team

Hunter 90                            Death Knight 90
Rogue 90                            Hunter 33
Mage 90                             Rogue 25
Druid 90                             Mage 18
Warlock 90                        Druid 23
Priest 88                             Warlock 15
Warrior 88                          Priest 15
Paladin 85                           Warrior 15
Shaman 86                          Paladin 16
Monk 84                             Shaman 16
Death Knight 61                  Monk 15

Progression

In our last raid before the patch, we changed our strategy and dropped the Council. Instead of trying to keep Malakk and Mar'li apart and killing the healing loas, we grouped Malakk, Mar'li, and Sul together. This allowed us to avoid having the tanks too far apart for timely taunts, and out cleave damage managed to get Sul down and take care of the empowered boss. We only worried about the shadowed loa and ignored the blessed ones. One of our members had to leave with about 30 minutes left on our raid time, so we only managed to get one pull on Tortos on the first raid night. We spent the next night wiping on Tortos, with our best attempt getting him just down below 60%.

I did the first new scenario last night, and then popped into LFR. The raid group one-shot all three of the bosses of the last wing, and I picked up tier shoulders! I managed to time my $10 purchase of the battlechest and its 30 free days to get my "new" team on the new server to high enough levels to get into LFD. I healed a LFD run on my druid, and even though the tank was pretty clueless about the dungeon (Shadowfang Keep) I managed to keep everyone alive. I reconfigured my VuhDo layout and bar layout after the run to work with my Nostromo; we'll see how that pans out. I've had it for months, but I've been reluctant to use it. Now that I have new "fresh" characters with limited spell choices it should be easier to learn to use the device.

With the new leveling requirements for Pandaria, I should have more progress on my 11x90 project. Both of my higher level pre-90 characters are much closer to a ding after the patch.

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90
Mage 90
Druid 90
Warlock 90
Priest 88
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 84

Dino Down!

Our first weekly raid on the new server had our first kill of Horridon, and I won the tanking helm! I've started to set up shop on the new server, bringing almost all of my heirloom gear over for my next army of alts. I am still going to finish up my 11x90 project on the other server, but I can't stand having all those empty character slots on the new server. I did pick up the digital WoW battlechest when it was on sale, and I have been multiboxing a few DPS pairs. I was going to make a bunch of Worgen in various classes, but after going through the starting zone twice...

The zone is nice and all, but it just gets boring. I think I'm just going to stick to races that aren't locked down in a phased area and use the ones that are done to grant them enough levels to just start hitting the LFD. I did successfully dual-box a few stockades runs with my hunter twins, but my free 30 days will run out soon and I really don't see me extending the time on the new account. If I can tank or heal, that's what I'll do to get quick dungeon runs.

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90
Mage 90
Druid 90
Warlock 90
Priest 88
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 84

Some Progress

Just a quick note to update my 11x90 progress. While the raid team is getting ready to server transfer to a more "raid friendly" server, I've been doing dungeon runs daily on my highest low-level characters and managed to get two more to level cap. I now have three end-level characters that just miss getting into the first LFR.

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90
Priest 88
Mage 90
Druid 90
Warlock 90
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 80

Looking for loot in all the wrong places

Timing is everything, I guess. After running all of the LFR dungeons and using bonus rolls on the ToT bosses that drop tier gear, I ended up valor capped on my DK and winning nothing but gold. On Wedsnesday, I took my Hunter through the last two wings of ToT and got gear off nearly every boss. Go figure. Even my Druid had better luck, picking up two drops from ToT and one from MSV (still trying to get that last sigil). My last 90, the Rogue, is still too undergeared to join LFR. I got my boots from the Sha and a nice chest from the auction house, but I'm still 13 points shy.

My two level 89 characters are coming along nicely. The Warlock is one bar away and the Mage is past the halfway point. My other characters are moving along, albeit slowly due to limiting them to one PUG a day. I did run a bunch on my Monk, because the queue times were so short. Most of the runs in both LFR and LFD were pretty uneventful. There was some asshattery, but things were mostly ok. There was a vote to kick a player because they were AFK according to the person spamming raid chat, but my meter showed them in the top five dps for the last fight. I guess facts are for chumps though, and he was kicked. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. My favorite asshat was the gogogogogo Rogue that spent most of the dungeon run fighting the floor boss. He was added to the ignore list before the run was over. The funniest thing was the Monk tank that had a fishing pole equipped the entire run. It ruined his DPS, but he was able to keep threat. I whispered him before the second boss "been fishing?", but it didn't seem to matter to him.

Our Sunday raid was called on account of not enough people, and tonight's doesn't look to promising. I'll most likely push into 90 with the Warlock and try and get some more gear for my Rogue is the raid falls through.

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90
Priest 87
Mage 89
Druid 90
Warlock 89
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 79