Full tier 1

After slightly prematurely celebrating over a month ago I finally got the last two pieces of the Cenarion set - the head and the bracers - in Molten Core last night. It was definitely a druid night, both there and with Onyxia lots of set pieces dropped, generally to be sharded as both me, the other resto druid and even the feral had them already. Much chat from the rest of the raid about how soon they would be able to bring their druid alt along.

I'm not sure I quite believe them - although I'm sure lots of alts will make their way into raids as they move more towards farm status, I think the demands of progression and their original motivations for choosing whatever class is their main will keep druids in the minority generally.

Kara Team 3

A while back our Karazhan team 1 disintergrated, due to a combination of summer holidays and other real life commitments. It's now being re-formed, although we're now called team 3. We had our first run last night which went pretty well - over half the raid had good experience of the place (although some where on new characters) and we all seemed fairly well geared. Four bosses down last night, it will be interesting to see how far past the Curator they get tonight, although sadly I can't join them.

Fat lootz: Totem of Healing Rains

Win some, lose some

Had a guild run in Shattered Halls last night, and got my first piece of dungeon set 3 when the Tidefury Shoulderguards dropped from Warbringer O'mrogg. However my enduring memory will be of having the Major Mageblood elixir recipe drop in a group with three alchemists. Ah well, at least there's now someone in the guild who can make them. Really want that recipe..!

I'm progressing nicely through Honoured with Thrallmar and Lower City, less so with the Sha'tar. I'll get there eventually though.

I'm in Karazhan again tonight following the reset. Tuesday's run went very well from a rep point of view - we killed Nightbane and the Prince, which meant I could complete the New Directive quest line. No luck on my rolls for a nice healing mace or neck, but as they went to raid regulars I can't really complain. I did get the Scaled Breastplate of Carnage though, which was otherwise unwanted, as we had no sharder.

Into Karazhan

Just a quick update ahead of my first Karazhan run with Grulnak tonight.

I logged on to WoW early on Sunday and asked in guild if anyone wanted to do Black Morass, and pretty much instantly had a full group. Our druid tank was the off-tank for our most advanced Karazhan group (although his prediction that he'd basically not need healing turned out to be untrue), and a rogue, warlock and hunter rounded out the group nicely.

We cleared the place fairly easily, netting me my Kara key in the process, then went back in to do it again as three of us needed drops from the place. Unfortunately nothing useful appeared, although the warlock got a nice staff for her off-spec set.

I'd previously netted the Stormsong Kilt from a heroic Underbog run, which resolved my worries over getting enough int together. With some appropriate gems and spellthread they're now my main healing legs, and my previous pair go into my stamina set for fights like Aran and Illhoof.

Dilemma

Finally got a successful run through Shadow Labs last night, so I've now got my Auchenai Boots. A bit of a strange run - it was all good up to the warlock boss, where we wiped 3 or 4 times. But once we had him down we got Murmur first time.

That leaves me with just a sub-par trinklet and bracers to replace, although the bracers do give nice mp5, and OK int and +healing. I'm now up to our guild minimum stats for Karazhan (although I don't have the last key fragment yet) for health, mp5 and +healing, but well short in mana. With some top range enchants I can just squeeze up to the limit, but it's going to be close. It's also going to be expensive, which is a shame as I'm rather skint at the moment.

I'm also up to Honoured with Lower City and the Scryers, and 5999/6000 through Friendly with the Sha'tar.

And then comes the dilemma. Just as I'm about to log out for the night I get a whisper from our Kara team 2 leader - can I bring Tukkillen my shadowpriest to replace a rogue that's had to log out? The run's gone on pretty late, but they just have Netherspite and Illhoof to kill for a full clear.

Of course I go, and we down Netherspite on about the third attempt (a first kill for that team), and then finish off with Illhoof. And I had a great time. There are good things about being a healer - being able to help out when someone asks in the guild chat, and a good sense of achievement from keeping people alive, but DPS (when it's not become too routine) is a blast. Whether it's burning through trash we used to have to take slowly and carefully, or those last few seconds of a tight boss fight: he has 8k health left, one mage is a squishy mess on the floor, you're pretty much out of mana and then the tank dies! Will it be you or the boss?

There were also some nice comments in Ventrilo from my group about having a mana battery around, which was nice too.

So what now do I do?

Nearly ready for Kara

It's been a hectic week at work, so I've not really had the time nor inclination to spend time with this blog, but I have managed to squeeze in the odd bit of WoW.

The drive for better gear is going quite well, with neck, chest and leg pieces from group quests and a new cloak crafted by my priest. I also got two upgrades to my main hand in a single day, the second of which came from a ridiculously lucky Botanica run where I got 6 drops in all. As well as the healing main hand I received enhancement drops for my off-hand, chest, back, waist and feet. We sharded 2 blues in all, one of which was a nice 2 handed axe that I thought I'd better pass on, mainly because when enhancement I duel wield, but also because by this time the group's sense of humour was failing them. They didn't mind too much, as we had 3 cloth-wearing DPS they couldn't use any of the items that I received, but I think they might have liked at least 1 cloth drop (the other sharded blue was a piece of plate that the tank didn't need...).

"All" I need now is the key fragment from Arcatraz, a successful BM run, and upgrades to my wrists and feet.

Just to keep tab of my goals, I should also note that I've got hold of the Shadow Lab and Shattered Halls keys. The Sethekk run for the former started at midnight - my wife thinks I'm mad for some reason...

One level to go...

And then the real work starts.

My healing gear is coming along nicely, with a good run main-healing Old Hillsbrad netting me my Tarren Mill Defender's Cinch and getting me very nearly to level 69. I also got lucky and picked a pair of Pauldrons of Surging Mana cheaply from the AH.

But there will still be plenty of instances to grind between hitting 70 and getting into Kara, especially as I want an Alchemist's Stone. It's a nice enough trinklet for anyone, but even more so for shamans with our poor mana efficiency. It's also probably the toughest item on my "must get" list to obtain, given where you need to go to get rep with The Sha'tar.

Between some nice rewards from group quests, PvP items (Veteran's Ringmail Bracers - niiice, although that resilience is basically wasted in PvE) and some rep rewards, you're a lot less reliant on drops in the Burning Crusade than you were at level 60. That doesn't make rep grinds any less painful though.