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

We have Spirit!

After almost two expansions, I have finally managed to fill the spirit beast void in my stable. I was making my usual rounds of Storm Peaks Friday morning, and my NPC Scan lit up. There Skoll sat, just waiting to be tamed. I finally had a spirit beast! I flew south over Zul'Drek, stopping to kill Terror Spinner. Continuing south, I swung by Grizzly Hills. Arcturis was up! Two in one day! Sweet!

This turned out to be the weekend of spirit beasts for me. I managed to also nab Ban'thalos, Ghostcrawler, Magria, Gondria, and Loque'nahak. I also managed to make some progress on Frostbitten by killing Syreian and Dirkee. I even got a nifty hat from Burgy Blackheart.

I normally don't play in the mornings, so I think this change in schedule worked in my favor. I was away most of the weekend (I won two three-day passes for NY Comic Con from a local radio station), and I was surprised by what I was able to accomplish such a limited time. I picked up a healing spec on my little shaman and banged out a few dungeons as well.

10x85:

Hunter 85
Deathknight 85
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Warlock 84
Mage 84
Druid 84
Warrior 63
Paladin 61
Shaman 33

Found Them!

It has been a while since I ran into any asshats on my higher level toons. It seems that they all swapped factions and rolled alts. I was pugging on my goblin shaman and found them. I zoned into a Wailing Caverns already in progress, in the middle of an actual fight. The run was already half over, which was fortunate because I don't know if I could have stayed for a full run. The healer would not stop commenting on how bored he was and he may go low on mana because he "needed" to DPS. It was distracting and got real annoying real fast. If you are bored healing and want to DPS, queue as DPS. Or turn off the computer and do something else. Like play in traffic. I DPS sometimes when I'm healing too, but healing is my priority and I don't let myself or someone else die because I'm too busy doing DPS to toss out a heal.

I was able to pick up the dungeon quests when we had to go back to the entrance to start the escort for the final boss, but I wasn't able to complete them on that run. I was hoping to get them done on my next run, but it was another "in progress" dungeon. This one did not have any issues. I managed to get some done, but I still needed the first two bosses. My next run ended up being Shadowfang Keep. I managed to get the quests done and we cleared the run nicely. I was wondering why there wasn't a level 20 quest at the shaman trainer, and requeued.

I hit the asshat trifecta. Clueless tank in DPS spec with a two-hand weapon - check. Healer in DPS spec - check. DPS pulling - check. I got a Shadowfang run in progress that was just a train wreck. I had to heal myself on the first boss, and even when I let the tank get solid aggro I had to throttle myself to keep from pulling off of him. The pulls went something like this: the "tank" pulls one mob, the warlock another. The tank, healer, and myself kill that mob while the druid DPS goes bear and he and the lock burn down the other one. It was a total clusterfuck in the dining hall before the second boss.

After the second boss dies, the healer drops group. Druid DPS starts asking if he can tank, over and over. We finally requeue. The "tank" selects Tank, DPS, and Heals. The druid selects Tank and DPS. The former tank is now the healer as a retribution pally, the druid is now the tank, and the trigger happy warlock drops out of the group. We requeue again, and we get another DPS. We sit around and do nothing. I finally get fed up with the paladin's asshattery and initiate a vote kick. It passes and we get a real healer.

We make our way to the last boss with no problems, and then things go south. The druid gets killed and we wipe. He drops. We get a new tank, and proceed to wipe three more times. We did manage to get the boss to 124 health on the last one. If the healer had popped one damage spell we would have made it. The tank, the healer, and one of the DPS drops group. I've had enough and drop group. I ride up the hill to repair my gear and notice the other shaman trainer. This one has the class quest I was looking for earlier. I guess it would be too much to ask to have the class quest available at all the class trainers.

The next day the pugs went a lot smoother. I managed to get through Stockades and Blackfathom Deeps with the same group. All smooth runs. I did forget to loot a quest item. This left me with unfinished quests in Wailing Caverns, Shadowfang Keep, and Blackfathom Deeps. Instead of tempting fate with asshat pugs, I decided to let my last pugs remain a good pug and logged onto my level 61 Orc deathknight. I boosted my shaman through the dungeons to finish the quests.

I'm dreading the upcoming Gnomer pugs.
I did a little bit of questing on my warrior and paladin to replace my outdated gear before I start tanking on them again.

10x85:

Hunter 85
Deathknight 85
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Warlock 84
Mage 84
Druid 84
Warrior 62
Paladin 61
Shaman 24

Post Brewfest

I managed to get the relevant trinkets for each of my toons, along with:

7 Tankards
3 daggers, all on my warlock :(
2 Kodos, neither on my main :(
3 Rams, one on my main :)
3 Remotes

I also got the Brew of the Month on the toons that didn't have it. I don't bother with getting the holiday titles on my alts; it was fun to do once.