2 Week Update

So, as you might have figured out, I'm one of the many suffering from WoW burnout. I log on every so often to check some auctions and maybe run some dailies, but for the most part, I've been logging on only on Thursdays and Fridays for raids and then spending the rest of my days playing different games like Civilization III (yeah, old school fun) or Torchlight (yay for Diablo clones).

So, with that being said, there has been very little progress on my character. Mount upgrades are not going to happen because I'm not running the Argent Tournament dailies. Pet upgrades are not going to happen because I'm not camping spawn points. Achievements are not going to happen because I'm not grinding anything or even online to attempt different achievements with guildmates.

However, logging on for Thursday nights has afforded me a great many new achievements. We've scrapped our Trial of the Champions runs on Thursdays and instead, we're focusing on Glory of the Ulduar Raider. In our last two weeks, we've made significant progress.

Last week, we started with a new raid ID, so we of course started on Flame Leviathan. It took us some time and some luck (just as to which vehicle he picked to target first) and we got him down with all four towers up. We then continued on to Razorscale and, though the fight was insanely long, we got Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare. We then continued on to the Assembly of Iron, and since we had done Steelbreaker the week before, we did Molegeim this week. And, luckily, I remembered to use my Iron Boot Flask for But I'm on Your Side.

Continuing on last week, we then skipped past Auriaya and went to Hodir who we absoultely destroyed. I think I did another 8 or 9k dps and we got Aravic his first sigil. We called it at that point and were ready to return this week.

To start this week's attempts last night, we went straight to Ignis for a couple of people who had not done the achievement the first time we did it. The first time we attempted Ignis, we got him down with just a couple of seconds to spare. This time, we got him down in under 3 minutes. We then moved on to Auriaya, quickly one-shot her with both her guardians up and then moved on to Thorim. We then moved to Freya.

We had never attempted Freya with any guardians up, so it was a new fight for all involved. We knew the basics - she'd have more powers, hit harder, the adds do more damage, etc. It took us a good hour to learn the fight, but we did it. She went down and gave us tons of flasks and other good gear. With just an hour left, we had Mimiron to go. After a few attempts at the hard mode, we gave up for the night and opted instead to go get Koralon and Onyxia.

And you'd think we'd one shot Koralon, but due to a healing mix-up, we wiped once and had to come back in to get him down. He dropped nothing of consequence, so we quickly headed over to Onyxia. On our first attempt (yes, it took us 2), we were absolutely destroying her. So much so that our healers and tanks weren't ready when she landed for phase 3. We burned her in Phase 2 so quickly that she didn't have a chance to deep breath at all. Unfortunately, she landed quickly, did a fear and we got some extra whelps, and the healers and tanks weren't ready to transition.

So, try 2 went much smoother, unfortunately, one person got hit in the one deep breath we had, so we didn't get the achievement, and we probably missed the 5 minute timer by just a few seconds (unfortunately, a DPS went down in phase 2). But a new cloak did drop for me - Fluttering Sapphiron Drape which is a significant upgrade at the one slot I was still using an ilvl 219 piece.

So in the past few weeks, we've made great progress on our proto drakes. I expect us to get Mimiron down next week and hopefully Vezax. Yogg will be tough for us, as we've only gotten him down one time in the past. With one less keeper (probably Freya), we should be able to do it with our better gear, but it could still be a week or two until we can see Algalon. So that's it for Ulduar...

Pets! Two new pets were released at the Blizzard Store this week. I of course bought them both as soon as I could and I love my little Pandaren Monk and Lil' K.T.. That brings me to 124 of 131. I'm still looking for some cheap raptors on the auction house, but I haven't seen any recently. Maybe I'll camp out in Un'goro Crater this weekend looking for a new one.

On the subject of microtransactions, I have absolutely no problem with the way Blizzard is handling the matter. I don't mind paying $10 for a pet or $20 for a mount. In fact, I welcome these transactions over the trading card game. The cards from the trading card game are extremely rare and, if bought on eBay, cost much more than $10 or $20 or even a $50 mount that Blizzard might offer (though at some point, you've moved away from microtransactions).

As long as they steer clear of offering gear or other items that directly benefit your character for cash, I don't see how anyone can complain. Pets, mounts, and tabards are all purely cosmetic. Offering these items for cash is a logical extension of their business plan and perfectly acceptable within the way the game is played.

Even though I have been on a break of late, I did log in for Day of the Dead. It was easy to quickly power through the one achievement and get the Macabre Marionette (which still works today even though it isn't Day of the Dead any more). And with the Ulduar achievements and the Day of the Dead achievement, I've quickly made progress and I am now at 7,865 points.