Lo-Quality WoW

I’ll get into my impressions of the changes to the hunter class a bit later, after I’ve had some time to think it through a bit more. I probably should do it for all classes but I haven’t gotten to them all just yet. Oh well. But first off, let’s get into last night’s action.
Which was, for the most part, nothing. First off was getting a couple of guildmates to assist in some of those annoying 5-man group quests in Icecrown. Our Ret Paladin and one of our Holy Priests joined me. I also pulled Fluffy out to act as a tank. And it went well, we completed a few of the quests I had stored. Then we ran into a problem I didn’t quite expect. We flew to the area for one of the mobs I had to kill and lost track of the other two members of the party! It took a few minutes before I realized that the problem was that the other two were in a different “phase” than myself. Which cut that trip short, leaving me shy of the 140 quests needed for the Icecrown: The FInal Goal achievement.

Since nothing else was going on, I went over to Sholazar Basin in order to do the Oracles daily quests. While there, I got an invite to a 10-man Vault of Archavon. With a hearthstone on cooldown, I was in the worst possible place to get that kind of invite since you fly a very roundabout path to get back. But I tried anyway. I even got a “There’s no stone here, you guys have to get here on your own” which I replied with “I know, this isn’t exactly a fast ride!” If he had checked, he would have seen I was traveling, it was the rogue who was pissing around in Ironforge instead of hoofing it.

I was almost there when the raid leader finally goes “there’s only 10 minutes left, we’re gonna start.” I said to go ahead and that I would be there for Archavon himself. I actually made it for the last mob as well. We were down to 4 minutes left, the rogue still hadn’t made it, and for some reason the tank was waiting for, well, something, to start. Finally go in. It’s amazing how seeing the “this raid will reset in 2 minutes” flash by gives you a sense of urgency. Sometime during the fight, the rogue finally got there and joined in. I see the 1 minute warning and realize it’s going to be close. Then finally Archavon drops, and there’s a mass rush towards him to loot. Fortunately the raid leader realized that we wouldn’t have time for the master loot and just had to trust people to roll appropriately. Among the drops is the Reins of the Grand Black War Mammoth, which I don’t. But among the other drops? Hateful Gladiator’s Chain Leggings, which I roll need on. I believe one of the Shaman armor pieces drop as well. We loot and about 5 seconds later, are kicked out of the instance because the battle has started.

We get out and I check and found I won the leggings. Not surprising when I check and realized I was the only hunter anyway! (There was also only one shaman, who naturally got that piece.) Haven’t quite decided if I’ll use them yet, but darn it was nice getting a new set of pants anyway. I also check my dps and damage counts and I know I topped them for the period I was there. Which meant I was probably third or fourth on the list for those there for the first three mob fights, so hopefully nobody resented the fact that I got that drop.

Not bad timing when you think of it and Archavon is a big dps race for the most part. But that was still cutting it close, even with the Plush Kitty Toys tradition of finishing quests in the last possible moments before a server shutdown. That was enough excitement for me, so I decided to get my pink underwear on and play my warrior the rest of the night.