Week one of raiding 5.4

This week my guild started tackling Siege of Orgrimmar and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed what I'm seeing from Blizzard in terms of fight mechanics, I haven't seen alot of "mechanic recycling" thus far. Our first team made it through the first four bosses, putting our guild at #1 alliance side (you guys and gals rock!). My team made it to the second boss and at this point I think the majority of the issue is that we weren't entirely prepared for the content, even though we had a few days to catch up for day #2. Crossing my fingers for some improvement from them this week. We tried Flex raiding this week as well, interesting concept with increasing or decreasing difficulty depending on the amount of people. It was great for us, when people felt too tired they could just leave and not feel guilty as as long as we had 11 people we were good to keep continuing without searching for more people to join us. Made it up to Norushen in that difficulty and got some quality time with my guildies, we haven't done much of that for the past while!

Big thing that came out this week, Legendary cloaks! I worked on that as soon as I possibly could and the last step was fairly easy and quick to get, took me a whole hour! (sarcasm intended) The addition of the legendary seems to be getting some of my group members into gear to get it, I've known that there are some that haven't put in alot of time outside of raiding and I'm glad to see that they are now trying their best to get caught up to the rest of us.

Almost a year...

Wow, I can't believe it is coming up on a year since I've posted anything; time has flown! It's almost like another lifetime ago.

Alot has gone on in my WoW career. I've become a raid lead, I've been reinstated as an officer of my guild in April and also I've changed which role I play when I'm raiding, I've gone from being a Restoration Shaman to Enhancement (it's a melee dps class for those that aren't familiar).

I've celebrated my two year anniversary with Epicism this past March and am I glad I stuck it out after last year, it's almost like I've become a different person in the meantime. Some may say that I "got my head out of my a**" or that I've grown up, it may be either one but I like to think that with everything I've gone through in my personal and WoW lives that I've finally become capable of dealing with the stress of things a little better, not perfect mind you but a little bit at a time.

For those that have read the rest of my posts you may ask, what happened? Well, to keep things at a TLDR level I'll keep it as simplified as I can! Prior to 5.2 coming out I was given the opportunity to become a raid lead, it was either that or I wouldn't have a full time raiding spot. I didn't enjoy the team I was raiding with for Mogushan Vaults, Heart of Fear and Terrace of the Endless Spring anymore and I really felt that there needed to be a change to see if I still enjoyed the raiding aspect of WoW. This is a game after all, I play for my enjoyment! And so, with the raid lead position taken up there was only a space for an Enhancement Shaman, a spec I've played on a casual basis when it was needed since I've created the toon in Wrath. That was all in February.

By the time April came around, we didn't have a whole lot of active officers. The majority of them quit the game or raiding for the time being to have more time with their non-gaming lives. That left a bit of a predicament for the guild, with one officer left there was alot of burden for them. By default since I was a raid lead and starting to chip in on the work that the guild needed done I was offered to have an officer's position again, which of course I accepted. I like to think that I'm doing pretty well with handling it so far, I just take it easy instead of seeing it as a job like I did in the past. It really helps.

For the most part, that's what has happened this past year. The guild has also gotten a new Guild Master since the other was inactive and we promoted some others to complete our officer core. Wondering how my raid team ended up doing with 5.2 Throne of Thunder? We did pretty well considering I've never raid leaded when people listened to me instead of trying to overpower. We cleared out 12 out of 12 bosses in normal mode, it was an incredible journey and my goal for the tier was completed so I am extremely pleased. We had our ups and our downs, but I feel we've become a better team in the end of this tier. I'm confident we'll perform even better this coming one.

September 10th is the date 5.4 is supposed to be going onto the live servers, with the Siege of Orgrimmar raid being included....meaning Garrosh Hellscream better be prepared to meet his doom! It's almost time for another round of racing with the other guild group and the server, crossing my fingers for my WoW luck to continue and having another great tier!

Feng gets Fanged, Gara'jal proves to be a wall

This past week my team did manage to kill Feng the Accursed, yay! Got myself a nice ring out of my token roll, it didn't use my need roll for the week so I was pretty impressed by that. Loving the token system that was added in Mists, for 90 coins a week you get 3 tokens (each turn in) that will allow you to have an additional chance at loot, that no one else is able to roll on. It's pretty sweet!

 I'm incredibly pumped about how geared my shaman is at the moment, I've never been one that has been able to achieve the top 20 under on the server due to my previous guilds, but this time around it looks like I'm in the running! I'm currently sitting at 15th on the server, 3rd shaman (only 1 Alliance ahead of me), 3rd Alliance side, 1st in my guild. This past week I had a moment where I was in the top 700 shamans in the world (651st to be exact)! Very exciting stuff for me!

Gara'jal the Spiritbinder has proved to be a brick wall for us, we just can't reach the dps required without switching one of the healers dps. We tried having me go dps on Sunday (I was the only one with a decent off set), and the other two healers just couldn't keep up /sadface. Hoping to have better luck this week, possibly having one of the monks healers go dps may help things; hopefully they've upgraded their offsets to the point where they'll be able to help out.

 I started leveling my monk as well this past week, and I have to say that Brewmaster is crazy fun! I've tanked one dungeon so far, but I've really enjoyed it. The idea of throwing specialty brews at mobs (including an AoE one with no CD!) is very appealing, I can't wait to get to higher levels :).

Week one of raiding, one boss down!

This week we managed to get into raiding; had to take some people that were 90 because some of our team members weren't, but oh well whatever works!. Last night (Sunday) we killed the first boss of Mogu'shan Vaults, the Stone Guard. All I know is, man these fights are designed to drain a shammy's mana dry! I had barely any mana for the majority of it and I have a feeling this will become the norm since the second boss Feng seems to be just as mana draining, possibly even more so! I'm currently attempting to up my spirit and some crit (without losing 50% mastery benefit) so I can benefit from more mana via Resurgence , we'll see how that goes.

Got myself the Sixteen-Fanged Crown off of the Stone Guard, which I find looks kind of odd with it's large plume, thank god for transmog and the ability to hide my helm! Rest of my gear still looks pretty hot, liking the detail on the crafted item models. Because of this upgrade, I've moved up to the #1 shaman on the server (take that Farm Status! I'll gloat while I can ;P).

Tomorrow's the start of another raid week and hopefully at least another boss down. I can only hope :).

Mists of Pandaria release - End of first week

So, tomorrow is the mark of Mists of Pandaria being released for one week, woot! My poor elbows and wrists are telling me all about it....been playing for the majority of my spare time. My shaman hit level 90 the other day and the goal since has been of course grinding dungeons and doing dailies each day, which by the way takes quite a while if you're trying to do as many as possible! I hate that I need at least honored with the Golden Lotus faction in order to get leatherworking patterns, the grind is so slow with dailies being the only way to get reputation.

 Got myself a few mounts this week, the riding turtles from the Pandaren faction, my blue dragonhawk and the wonderous Grand Expedition Yak (for only 108k gold :P). I love having myself a mount that people keep asking where I got the gold for that from, the answer is being smart and selling things before MoP release :).



Hoping to get my nose into raiding next week. We have a raid group meeting Thursday to see where everyone sits. I just hope our druid healer is able to log on and level before then! I'm fairly well geared and hope to be even more so by then. Speaking of gear, I like the models for the dungeon/questing gear available to shamans in MoP, my shaman looks darn sexy in my opinion :P.

Mists of Pandaria release, first two days

 So, MoP came out this past Tuesday and I have to say, it's been quite the blast! I've really enjoyed the new content even after leveling to 90 via the Beta. The journey is taking longer because of the increase in exp needed, my dungeon guide is helping folks, the new gear (even the greens) looks really nice and the new features are extremely fun from Pet Battles to the WoW version of "Farmville" (I don't see the two as one in the same really, some likeness but not entirely). I love getting to see the scenery again from a different view as I am leveling Elemental questing instead of Enhancement while trying to do quests I didn't do on Beta, makes it feel like a bit of a different experience for me! Has some funny things happen the day before the release and now, a cubed box on a Fel Orcs head in the Netherwing questing area (got my mount!) and what looks like a barrel on my Ghost Wolf's butt, made me giggle a bit!

Dungeon Guide Completed, Alliance pattern sampled

Not a whole lot going on these past few days, I've completed my Mists of Pandaria dungeon guide (you can find it here:  http://www.epicism.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=3704, it is a public forum on my guild's website) and I'm crossing my fingers that it will help some people out as I'm quite proud of the work I put into it :).

I made a sample Alliance lion knitting pattern the other day and am going to make myself an Alliance themed scarf with it, putting one lion on each end. I think it'll look really nice in Alliance colors! I already have someone debating on buying one off of me depending on the pricing, going to need to go shopping for some cheapish wool to make it cost effective.

Mists is in 2 days 5 hours and counting!