Lo-Quality WoW

As I said in my last post, I had agreed to give the Shaft of Glacial Ice he had won over to our druid tank.  Both of us had a Lupine Longstaff equipped, so all things being equal, it made more sense for him to have it.  Took me awhile to track him down but I did hand it over. 

The raid leader was also nice enough to contact me and thank me as well.  Although I did tell him that that staff better drop again.  He said we probably will since it does look like we can take Rotface down in heroic mode. 

But why is this a Warrior post?  Well, after I traded the staff, I was told we would be doing the weekly raid quest which was Razorscale.  Now my hunter actually had last weeks weekly quest which was Marrowgar and had turned it in.  So I asked if I could instead bring my Warrior and they said it was alright.

 Now, I have never done Ulduar on my Warrior.  And it had been a long time since I did it on my Hunter.  But I figured it was some extra emblems and maybe something good will drop.  Of course, being my alt that I rarely play, and being comperatively undergeared(even other people’s alts were in the 5000 gearscore range while I was barely over 3000), who knows how well I’d do. 

Actually, if this was months ago when Ulduar was the “big raid”, my Warrior’s gear would barely qualify.  Also, there’s a big difference going from a ranged dps to a melee dps.  (It would have been laughable if I even tried to do anything as a tank.) 

So first off, as always, was Flame Leviathan.  I jumped in as the gunner of a Demolisher.  I figured that with my lower gear score, being a gunner with a lower vehicle dps would be better than a driver with a lower vehicle hp.  The fight was REALLY quick.  I think it did one target change and died shortly thereafter.  So naturally my Warrior ended up with the Shutout (10 player) achievement.

Next was Razorscale, where I managed to disconnect just as the fight started.  Although it took me a couple of minutes to get back in, fortunately I was still alive, despite standing in the middle of some flames.  The healers probably was wondering why I was being so stupid. 

Actually the whole group was a little disjointed.  For instance, we didn’t have anyone on the harpoons!  Finally someone ran and activated them and we were able to ground Razorscale without her returning to the air.  Again, we blasted through her and I got my A Quick Shave (10 player) achievement.

Normally we would have called it here since it was the weekly target, but the raid leader decided we’ll just continue on for the heck of it since we weren’t going to do ICC regardless.  So it was off to XT-002 next.  And since we were so overpowered, we did it in “hard” mode.

This actually was the first fight where the difference between me being ranged and me being melee really hit home.  Normally, as my hunter, I’m on the edges so that if I get the Gravity Bomb or light bomb it’s easy to get away from everyone.  As melee, I’m right in the thick of things, so the one time I did get gravity bomb placed on me, I had to immediately disengage and run, or in this case slowly saunter, away from the group.  I also wasn’t responsible for the scrapbots and boombots as I usually would be on my hunter.

So that fight went well.  We initiated hard mode, which surprised a few people because they didn’t realize that XT-002 would go back to full health at the start of it.  But we did it and my warrior nabbed the Nerf Gravity Bombs (10 player) and Heartbreaker (10 player) achievements, the later of which I never even got on my hunter!  I also picked up the Magnetized Projectile Emitter as well.

Ignis was next.  Fortunately, I never got plopped in the slag pot since I think I had even less hp than some of the spellcasters.  Either way, he went down easily and I got my Stokin’ the Furnace (10 player) and The Siege of Ulduar (10 player) achievements.  I also won the Drape of Fuming Anger as well.

Kologarn was our next target.  This time we decided to try for the With Open Arms (10 player) achievement by just attacking his torso.  What we didn’t think about was our normal aoe attacks, like my Whirlwind, which did enough splash damage that we took out Kologarn’s right arm about 15 seconds before we took out his torso.    But that was alright, because I walked away with the Stoneguard and Shoulderguards of the Solemn Watch.

At this point, some of the other guys started joking that “we didn’t know this was a equip Key run”.  (Short for Keyalnon, my hunter, who I’m usually on as when I run with them.)  But like I said, my gearscore was almost 2000 less than anyone elses, I really was the only one who wanted the stuff anyway!

Auriaya was the next boss we faced.  Again, a relatively quick and easy fight, netting us the Crazy Cat Lady (10 player) achievement.  And everyone started snickering when I ended up with the Chestplate of Titanic Fury.  The raid leader said “man you must be lucky that all this plate keeps dropping.”  My response?  “It’s karma for giving up the stick!”  I should have realized it when I rolled 100 on a greed roll for one of the earlier items and the only other roll was a 1!  Too bad I could just stock that karma for a rainy day…

Hodir was next.  This fight I actually got killed when I got hit by the Freeze attack, holding me in place long enough for an Icicle attack to kill me.  Stil netted me the I Have the Coolest Friends (10 player) achievement.  And to add to things, I ended up with the Leggings of the Wayward Protector and Stormedge.

Thorim was next up.  Normally, as my hunter, I’m part of the gauntlet group.  This time I was placed in the Arena group.  So I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but it wasn’t too bad.  We did have our first complete wipe here, the gauntlet group got wiped out, mainly because the off-tank in there hadn’t been around when Ulduar was being run and didn’t quite know the mechanics of the fight. 

Second time around was smooth sailing.  I picked up the I’ll Take You All On (10 player) achievement.  And as usual for the night, I also picked up the Spaulders of the Wayward Protector.  I was starting to feel slightly guilty at this point and had to remind myself that karma dictated that I get it!

Freya was the next boss and we planned on doing it in hard mode.  Unfortunately, at some point, two of our other dps had dropped out.  I did offer to switch back to my hunter but they said to just stay on my warrior for this one.  Wasn’t enough and we wiped.

So we decided to take down one of the elders and try again.  Nope, didn’t work that time either.  Then we dropped another elder, figuring we could at least get the Knock on Wood (10 player) achievement.  Nada.  At this point, it was getting late but we figured we came this far.  So we took out the last elder and then burned Freya down.  Unfortunately, this time it was cloth items and the Gloves of the Wayward Vanquisher that dropped.  Just as well, I probably was pushing my luck as it was.

So, for giving up my heroic staff, I got something like 9 achievements, some of which my hunter doesn’t even have, and about 8 drops.  Not a bad exchange rate.  Still means that my warrior is undergeared but it wasn’t quite as bad as before.  Her dps is still low, a mixture of poor gear and the fact that I still don’t quite “know” how to play her correctly.  At least I managed to out dps the off-tank and the healers, although the main tank smoked me…

At least now I feel I can take my Warrior into most 5-man instances without worrying that I’ll be highly undergeared.  And the fact that she is dual-speced makes gearing up both builds a bit of a chore but I guess I’ll see what I can do with it.  That is, in between my regular raiding of my hunter, leveling my death knight and paladin, and gearing up my rogue and mage.  There’s always something else to do, isn’t there?