Achievement Whoring

Last week/weekend was a pretty nice week for me and my obsessive compulsive achievement gathering. It started on Thurdsay with our 10 man Gold Team run. We cleared ToC in 45 minutes, then quickly cleared VoA and Ony. After that, we had plenty of time to take up our new venture: Ulduar hard modes.

We skipped Flame Leviathan hard mode and went straight to Ignis. After quickly getting through his hard mode (with about 5 seconds to spare - we could have done it quicker, but I tried helping out by frost nova'ing the adds for the off tank when I should have just focused on Ignis), we went on to XT. We were thinking about doing the hard mode, but for some reason, we just didn't have the DPS to get the heart in the first try so we skipped it for the night and went straight to the Iron Council. We wanted to get a data disc so we could work our way towards Algalon.

After a couple of wipes learning the fight, we managed to get Steelbreaker down and retrieve his data disc. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to use my Iron Boot Flask, so I missed out on But I'm on Your Side (which I have in 25 player mode oddly enough).

After that, we called it for the night and gave our Raid ID up to another run in our guild so they could work on Mim hard mode on Sunday night. Fast-foward to our 25 man run on Friday night which involved yet another quick clear of ToC (Hemnetcher was nice enough to pass the trophy on Anub to me, so I now sport 4 piece Tier 9), and then of course Ony and VoA before we headed back into Ulduar with our raid ID from the previous week. We had skipped Ignis, Razorscale, and the Iron Council as we attempted Thorim the week before, so this week, we went back to clear them out.

We started on Ignis, and even though I didn't think we had the raw DPS to do Stokin' the Furnace, we managed to pull it off in one shot. Go team! We then went on to the Iron Council looking to get a 25 man data disc for our intrepid raid leader, Aravic and after a couple of wipes on Steelbreaker, we decided to switch it up and kill Runemaster Molgeim last. He was a piece of cake and Aravic received his data disc. And with that, we called it a night.

The fun continued on Sunday as I was invited to a Black Temple run. I had previously run Black Temple a couple of times in the past with PUGs, but this was a group I had run Sunwell, Molten Core, and other early instances with, so I was fairly certain we would clear the place out. And despite quite a few deaths on my end (because I like to DPS and pull aggro on large pulls), we quickly cleared BT, I got 7,500 Ashtongue Deathsworn rep, and I finally completed Outland Raider:

Back to our 25 man group, as I stated earlier, I got another trophy, so I bought my second piece of tier 9.25. This goes with my two pieces of tier 9.0, so I now rock the 4 piece bonus: Mage Tier 9. It's pretty amazing to get an extra 5% crit and I can't wait to see how it works out in our next raid this week. Additionally, I have paired it with the new helm I received from our 10 man raid on Onyxia, the Netherwind Hood, and if I do say so myself, I'm looking pretty damn good these days!

Tonight's Gonna be a Good Night

Friday night - 25 man...Started at the Coliseum. And after 2 hours to master the Northrend Beasts last week, our 25 man went in and one shot them this week. An amazing improvement. Then we moved on to Jaraxxus. Again, most of the team hadn't seen the fight, so it took them one or two tries to see how it all worked, and on our third attempt of the night, he went down! I'm still convinced that no cloth items drop in there, but nonetheless, I got myself a Trophy of the Crusade. I currently have 28 emblems of Triumph, so when I get to 45, I know what I'm getting...new shoulders! Khadgar's Shoulderpads of Triumph. I can't wait!

We then moved over to Ulduar, and blew through Flame Leviathan, obtaining Unbroken (25 player). So it was a good night. I had to leave early, but the team continued on through Auriaya and we'll probably extend our raid lockout through next week so we can again work on the Coliseum and then go to work on Hodir, Thorim, and Freya.

On an unrelated note, after two weeks, my Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed finally sold. I got a nice 3,500g out of them. So I'm once again above 10,000g. I am debating saving up for the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth or the Grand Ice Mammoth. I'll probably keep saving for the Tundra Mammoth so on my farmings of Strat or Wailing Caverns, I can easily get rid of my extra loot by breaking him out. Having access to a vendor at all times would be really nice. Just 5,000g to go.

And speaking of mounts, I've switched my mount collection over to WarcraftMounts.com. My 91 mount collection can now be viewed here.