Yogg Down

With the team expecting the patch this Tuesday, we knew Sunday would be our only shot at getting Yogg'Saron down without having to do another full clear of Ulduar when we'd rather be in the Coliseum, so we gathered up at 5pm, found our trusty PUG who had helped us on Thursday, and quickly went after Yogg. On our first attempt, our tank had a fatal error, on our second, we had some issues with clouds, on the third, I think we had problems with people getting into the portals on time due to constrictors, but on the fourth...it was perfection. We had the minimum number of Guardians spawn during Phase 1, we we able to get almost every tentacle down during Phase 2 (one corruptor tentacle remained for Phase 3) and our DPS split perfectly during Phase 3 with myself, Grenchlok (our trusty mage PUG), and Comador on the Immortal Guardians and all of our melee DPS on Yogg - Vetarra, Magnidur, Weser. Our healers, Dylana, Xenoxa and Jizo performed perfectly, and the amazing tank, Aravic skillfully held the immortal guardians, DPSed Yogg'Saron, and managed to keep his sanity about him throughout the whole fight. In fact, everyone stayed sane, enabling us to not only down Yogg and clear Ulduar, but also to receive Drive me Crazy (not pictured)

Afterwards, we went over to try doing Sartharion with 3 drakes via the zerg method. We had one near perfect attempt, but all the other attempts fell just a bit short as we would have someone die in one way or another from not paying attention or not knowing positioning. But on that one near perfect attempt, we had him down to about 160k health, so I think with just a little bit of increased DPS, we'll get OS3D down. But until then, we'll have the wonderful Yogg'Saron victory to revel in.

One Down, One to Go

Last night, following up on a very successful Wednesday night pre-clear (which saw us get all the way to the Keepers of Ulduar, and Thorim down), we continued with a strong push on time to clear Ulduar. We quickly one shot Hodir, Freya, and Mimiron (yes, our first Mimiron one-shot) and we had plenty of time to work on General Vezax. We had previously reached him twice. With just one try the first time and just two tries the second time. Well last night, we reached him with 2 hours to work on him. Luckily, we didn't need all that time.

After a first failed attempt as we got him to 40%, but the healers didn't conserve mana, we had to wipe it and try again. Attempts two through four featured little issues that caused wipes - try three I believe was started off with our pally DPS dying within 10 seconds of the pull due to threat, after which Vezax quickly turned to me after a few crits without my images up and we were immediately down two DPS. So we wiped it again.

But on our fifth try, he went down. I think we got him just as he was about to enrage, so we cut it close, but we did it. He dropped a couple of nice items, including an amazing chest piece for Xenoxa, our new priest healer. The whole night, just one tier piece dropped for me, but it was the helm which I already had. Luckily, almost all the pieces dropping last night went to main specs, so I'm happy to see the raid getting geared up further. And though some may say it was our practice, our awesome healers, and good movement that took down Vezax, I'm convinced it was the power of the Emerald Whelplings...

So we continued on with a couple tries at Yogg'Saron. After a lengthy explanation of phases one and two, we decided to focus just on phase one's explanation, gave that again, and went on in. We had 4 tries or so I think on Sara, and almost got her down, but we never did get to Phase 2. Luckily, we got some practice and I'm certain we'll see Phase 2 next week (as long as we have another good Wednesday run).

New Mounts?

Last night, someone in guild chat mistakenly thought that I had over 100 mounts (I have over 100 pets, not mounts). I lamented the fact that reaching 100 mounts is a pretty tough feat as I don't have any of the PvP mounts nor any of the AQ40 mounts. Then I received an interesting whisper - right when you enter AQ40, there are 4 giant guys sitting there. Kill 3 of the 4 of them, run out, and they reset. They all have a pretty high drop rate for three of the four resonating crystals and a low drop rate for the red crystal.

Of course, we had so much fun fighting them, we killed all four along with the patrol that came along. So we then went on and found two more pats down the stairs which we killed and another set of four of those giant guys. So we killed them too. From those, I was able to get a Blue Qiraji Resonating Crystal and a Green Qiraji Resonating Crystal. So I was pretty happy with the run. We of course tried to kill the boss, just the three of us, but had many failed attempts (his mind control is devastating).

So we were just about to leave when the first five enemies respawned - so we killed them, but no more crystals dropped. In the end, I got blue and green while Weser got blue and Xenoxa passed on them all. Thanks guys! They look especially cool when they jump. Unfortunately, their use is restricted to AQ40 only :(

On another note, they reset the fire festival fires yesterday so I was able to quickly zoom around Northrend and Outland collecting the burning blossoms and was able to get enough for the last part of my midsummer fire festival set, dance around the pole, and receive my new title, Flame Warden Tiddlywinks.

Also last night, I was able to get a huge upgrade to my belt. On our Friday night raids of Ulduar 25, we put all of the Runed Orbs into the raid bank. When we have enough, we pass them out to be made into belts. As we had stocked up over 18 orbs, we handed them out last week and only three people had the materials ready to go to have the belt crafted; me, Jizo, and Hemnetcher. So the orbs were passed out and I am now the proud owner of a Sash of Ancient Power. It works perfectly with my set as it has the same amount of hit as my old belt, and though it has 7 less spellpower, it comes with two gem sockets, so it more than makes up for that loss. Best in slot, woohoo!

Well I'll Be...

I never thought I'd see the day, but there I was, in Arathi Basin with my pocket healer (who didn't stay in my pocket like I trained her...), Xenoxa, and we were just going back and forth with the horde. 2 bases to 2. 1 to 1. 3 to 2. 2 to 3. At one point we had 4 to their 1, but quickly lost that advantage. But as we neared the end, the horde hit 1800 resources about 1 minute before we took back a third node and we hit 1800 not soon thereafter. Then it was a race to the finish. The horde had 2 minutes, 30 seconds until they won, but when we capped and held that third base, the timer switched over. We knew it would be close, at one point, Xenoxa pointed out it'd be 1980 to 2000. What a let down that would be.

But in the end...1990 to 2000! We won! And I got an achievement I never thought I'd see: We Had it All Along *cough*. And not only that, I had picked up the daily battleground quest two days earlier for Arathi Basin, so I just went and turned it in and received Call to Arms!. And with those two achievements, I broke the 6,800 point barrier. Not long now until 7,000!

Of course, the Summer Fire Festival isn't helping much. I finished my fires and juggled my torches, but I can't get the last achievement which requires a full set of Fire Festival gear. I currently sit at 45 blossoms and can only get 10 per day. There's 12 days left, leaving me just 165 blossoms, 35 short of the sandals I need. Hopefully Blizzard will fix this soon so as to not penalize those of us who did the fire festival fires last year. I also can't summon Ahune so I can't get my pet either...

Great Achievements

Last night, I got two awesome achievements done. The first will result in me getting my Hallowed title. Right when I awoke, Xenoxa wanted to run the Horseman - and of course I was ready to go. We quickly found a tank, assembled some other DPS and went to the Monastery.

Four of us made it there quickly and while we waited for the fifth to arrive, Xenoxa and I decided to raise our unarmed skill a little with some Spirit Boxing.


After our fifth arrived, we had five shots at the boss, and on the fifth...he dropped...the one...the only...the Sinister Squashling!

We all rolled for it and wouldn't you know, I rolled a 1. Luckily, the great people of the greatest guild in the land, even though they rolled higher, gave the pet to me! I love you guys. DarkLight Resolution is the greatest bunch of people I've had the pleasure to group with. So we ported out (bonus points if you can tell where I ported to) and I took some pictures with my new pet:



He's just so amazing as he collapses into a jack-o-lantern if you're not moving for a while, and his short legs have to work overtime to keep up with you while you're on a mount. This addition brings me to 77 of 88 pets! And I love them all.

Following the Horseman runs, I got back into my regular schedule and went off and did my dailies. Utilizing money made from the dailies, I bought mounts #47, #48, #49, and #50 giving me the awesome achievement, Leading the Cavalry. My new Albino Drake is amazing, but he was unwilling to pose for any photos last night, so hopefully I'll get those up soon. The guild was quite impressed with my latest achievement and I'm working my way up on the Loremaster achievements.

I now have 2 quests to do in BRD, 4 to do in Uldaman, and a couple of those are chains, so hopefully I'll get much closer to the 700 (I'm currently stuck at 686/700 quests). I might have some time to complete those quests tonight providing the instances cooperate. After I complete the Eastern Kingdoms, I might head to Kalimdor, but there are other achievements I'd like to complete - most notably Old Ironjaw.