Tradeskills suck...

Most of the weekend was spent leveling tradeskills. From 0 to 300+ mining and herbalism on my main (wanted to impale myself on a hayfork 10-14 times in the process). 275 enchanting and 300 tailoring for my healer. I had some time for PVE and did the Slave Pens from start to finish. The second boss hit kinda hard, but it gave me an opportunity to work on hard dps'ing and maximizing aggro with the tank. I judged Seal of the Crusader, then used Seal of Righteousness and spammed Holy Shield and Consecrate. Wicked threat, the boss was glued to the paladin. Frost Resistance Totem came in handy, but this encounter is all about fast and crazy dps. I also made a sort of duct-tape and chickenwire solution to a cast-bar for my mages/shammy, using AG_Unitframes and focustarget. Works pretty well and I've upped party wide dps alot by it. Final boss of the Slave Pens was just a pushover. I dinged 62 on the dps/healer, and my pala tank has just dinged 63. A couple of semi-difficult patrols/spawns, but they're only a problem if I'm noobing and reset focus instead of sheeping and such. I'm curious on how the final boss of The Underbog will be.

Outlands

I got impatient and decided to go to Outlands at level 58. It's a complete change of pace and I was level 60 after some hours of questing (bombing missions etc). At level 60 I went back to Ironforge and trained new spells and skills, and went back to Outlands to try some instances. I was curious how I would do on especially Nazan since I'd heard some people had some problems here.

Ramparts went really smooth up to Omor the Unscarred. I got owned twice, and after some research found that I'd written my decurse macros quite poorly. Once I fixed them he was pretty easy (if slightly chaotic with the bouncing around and stuff). My first try on Vazruden & Nazan ended pretty bad as I took over 2500 damage (over a period of 1-2 seconds) when the mount landed. Second try I downed them both with relative ease. Slight problem with a oom healer, but I had symbol of hope cooldown ready, so I was able to endure until Nazan was dead.

I then went to Furnace and proceeded to clear this instance as well. Some minor problems with healing aggro (I still suck at utilizing the priests fade and fear spells). Also the dual Felguard Annihilator pulls by the final boss gave me a headache or two. Need to work on iceblock/fear/fade those times where stun and taunt are on cooldown. It's alittle down to luck I guess as the felguards can charge different persons at the same time, and you have no way of taunting both. It needs to be said that my mages are extremely squishy though. I replaced some items yesterday that I'd had since before level 10. My Paladin went from 3500 buffed hitpoints to 6000 buffed hitpoints in one afternoon, so that should speak volumes for the changes that happens when you enter Outlands. Final boss in Furnace was really easy, although I had to reset the first encounter (Divine Intervention) due to healing aggro. But that was just because of sloppy play on my part. One thing that I've found is that having 2 extra ressers can be golden. If the priest dies and I see that I'm about to wipe, I can DI the shaman and save anhk. And vice verca, DI the priest.

Got the instance quests for Ramparts and Furnace done, and upgraded quite heavily on gear, and will continue to do this until I have all that I need from these two instances. After that I will probably run Slave Pens and The Underbog, but I will also probably do some questing since it's quite effective experience. Also worth noting, I did the Overlord quest, and almost wiped here due to totally underestimating him. This was fairly early in the day, so I hadn't upgraded much gear.

Great Success!

So my new priest has reached the rest of the DPS group and they are level 58 now. My tank is level 60, closing in on 61. I got ahead of myself in the last post, naturally I had to ditch Earth Shield when I respecced the Shammy to DPS. Changing the setup around took a good 3 hours work. I basically had to rewrite all macros, and change the positioning of the clones, do some respeccing and familiarizing myself with the Shaman in the DPS role. Really learning this setup took me the better part of the day on Sunday. Getting the hand of it now.

LBRS has been cleared from top to bottom, every nook and cranny. It's a step up in difficulty from BRD for sure. But with this new and improved team, I only wipe on stupid pulls and "unforseen accidents". I once pulled the entire subfloor with totems (40-50 mobs) in the crack where Bijou the npc stands. One pull next to the Quartermaster mini-boss gave me some trouble. 2xWarmonger, 1xSummoner, 1xRanger and his 2 wolfguardians, but it gave me an opportunity to practice sheeping under stressed conditions. Rule of thumb: Don't Panic. I also have the AOE fear ability that the priest brings to the table, and although I've had little use for it yet, I'm sure it will come in handy later. I find this group setup to be immensely powerful, and as I'm getting smoother with my micro I find that things have sped up. I'm also starting to get that feeling of control and mastery where I do things without really thinking about what I'm doing.

I haven't gone to Outlands yet. Don't know when I'll go, but probably soon. I've had a heck of a good time doing the Old World instances. Wish there was time for a trip to Stratholme, Scholomance, Dire Maul and UBRS, but I doubt I'll do them all. Some proper gearing in Outlands is really tempting. Oh, and I had my first epic drop for this group yesterday. Dwarven Hand Cannon dropped from one of the spiders in LBRS. Great Success! =)

Changes, changes...

Ok, after running BRS for a while I got really bored with getting my tank Hexed by the Trolls. This caused some wipes and I decided I could not go on having to dodge encounters like the Shadow Hunter boss in LBRS. So I decided at first to add a holy/disc dps priest to my setup, but something was nagging in the back of my head and finally I found out what it was. I went Shammy healer for Tremor totem alone, and I never considered going with priest healer because I (thought) would loose Tremor Totem. The answer was naturally just to kick out one of the mages, respec the shammy to elemental and add a priest as healer. So I did. The priest is level 54 at the moment and I'm boosting him up to the rest of the group which is level 57.

This gives me the setup of Paladin Tank, Priest Healer, Shaman Elemental dps and 2 mages. The bonuses and synergies are off the charts. In a pull I'll be able to use Earth Shield and Power Word: Shield, and Renew on top of that. 5xGift of the Naaru is a sweet backup for those extreme pulls as well. I lost one sheep that I honestly never used, but I also gained a shackle. I will loose some dps due to 2.5 sec casttime on the mages and only 2.0 sec casttime on the Shaman (Lightning bolt) but hopefully Totem of Wrath will make up for that. Now I'll be able to disspell the tank whenever I need. Divine Shield is on too long of a cooldown to solely rely on. I've also gained 2 new buffs; Power Word: Fortitude and Divine Spirit. I'm excited for the changes I've made, it will not impact my playing style at all. I'm alittle weaker in the AOE department, but that doesn't worry me at all.

Level 55

Turned level 55 yesterday. Pretty much been grinding BRD with the occational detour to Western Plaguelands, Eastern Plaguelands, Burning Steppes and Winterspring. Also did the Jailbreak! quest. Wiped once but survived the second time. The supply room was hairy though and Windsor barely made it out alive. Almost time for Outlands, that's when the real gearing will start.

My G15 keyboard finally arrived. Took half a day to set up. New mouse (G9) as well and with Logitechs SHITTY setpoint mousedriver software, figuring out how to get stuff to work took hours.