Re-visiting old world content
How can someone have amazing luck and then lack it at the same time? Witness my past couple days!
First off, I need to mention the moment that made my week. I got a message from Vene to check out a link to a new warrior blog that I have started reading. I am terribly flattered, flustered and happy about the reaction. I get so much positive feedback from y’all, via comments and mails, and reading that blog post, icing on the cake. I am really happy people enjoy my blog so much.
I usually don’t get excited about in-game festivals anymore. I have participated in all events but when you’ve played four years now, and have done them multiple times, they’re not so important anymore. The Lunar Festival is different however! Every Coin of Ancestry is 75 rep with all cities of your faction. As I rolled Kadomi in vanilla WoW, she’s not even Exalted with Orgrimmar, and I have long wanted to get a kodo. Pre-WotLK I did catch-up with Thunder Bluff quests, but never got closer than 7k/21k through Revered.
Saturday morning I started doing Elder runs. Elders of Northrend was completed quickly, but as we didn’t hold Wintergrasp for most of the weekend, I had to finish it late. While doing Elders of Kalimdor I also grabbed the ones in Maraudon and Zul’Farrak, reminding me that I could finish Classic Dungeonmaster. I even got Big Bad Pauldrons, I love those shoulders. Once Kalimdor was done, I ran a couple of heroics, then started working on Elders of the Eastern Kingdoms.
Now, I should mention that I did very little classic level 60 dungeon content because she wasn’t my main at the time and TBC was just around the corner then. I had never run Scholomance nor Stratholme with her, though I have extensive knowledge and memories of many wipes and four hour runs of those places. Originally I only wanted to grab the Elder in Stratholme, but then I decided to wander over to find Hearthsinger and get a shot at the piccolo. It didn’t drop, so I decided to kill the Magistrate for my key. Once I had the key I just thought ‘what the hell’ and toodled over towards deadside to visit Baron Rivendare, who magically can be in Stratholme and Naxxramas at the same time. What happened then, my screenshots can describe best.
Reactions in guild chat were a mixed bag, lots of congratulations but also screams of outrage that I got it on my first Baron run ever. What can I say? 
It’s a lot less spectacular to have when you’re horde, but it’s still pretty nifty.
After Stratholme I went to Moonglade to spend coins, and an Omen raid was forming at the time. Holy crap, what a zergfest. As you get quest completion no matter who kills Omen, Alliance and Horde teamed up to take him down, but it was extremely chaotic, with little to no heals, and his Starfall AoE made just about everyone die at least 5 times before he was down. It fills me with horror to think what would happen if only one faction would get credit for killing him.
Yesterday I finished up Elders of the Eastern Kingdom, but I started the day with a Scholomance run. Hello, Dark Shades, I hate you. If you ever want to run Scholomance as prot warrior, the only method that worked for me to kill the Dark Shades (immune to physical damage) was to get the occultists to 45% health with auto-attack and then pray for a huge Shield Slam. If that failed I had to reset the mob by jumping into the water in the room right underneath. That certainly took a while. I got phat lootz for my efforts, a Helm of Valor.
Thanks to changes in the mechanics I was finally able to finish up Uldaman, and got to compare the Titan lore from then with the continued stuff from Halls of Stone. Interesting. I then only needed to complete Deadmines and Stockades and got my Classic Dungeonmaster achievement.
Now, I am saying ‘only’ Stockades, but that part sucked. Of the Elders in the Alliance cities, Darnassus was extremely easy, Ironforge was okay but Stormwind really sucks. The Elder is deep inside Stormwind in the Park, there is no way to avoid the heavily populated Trade District, and the jerks-ratio seems to be higher in SW. I had several alliance chase me from the Trade District, so I made the mistake and ran for the safety of the Stockades. That achievement was done in under 5 minutes (what a stupid instance this is) and then I faced the dilemma of how to get to the Park now. I killed all guards outside of the instance, but the people who had chased me to the Stockades were all waiting right outside. Thankfully, none of them were there when I made it back to my corpse. Of course not, because where were all those happy PvPers? Camping the Elder in the Park. Why chase horde around and not just let them come to you? I have to say thanks to the Death Knights, they gripped me right to the Elder when I arrived in the park, so it was just a quick click, and I had my coin and the achievement.
I am now 15k/21k through Revered with Thunder Bluff, which seems a lot more manageable. I believe I will be doing either Scholo or Strat runs for Runecloth and AD rep in the near future. It was really fun to revisit all the old content that I have done so extensively in the past. Blackrock Depths took the longest, but it sure was fun, and as prot warrior it feels like you’re built to go non-stop. Once I get all the Elders in the Northrend instances, I shall be Elder Kadomi, I dig that.
In a separate post I will have to share my sob-story of how I will likely tank raid content wielding my Crescent Axe of Brooding Fury, because everything else refuses to drop for me, and how we’re doing our first 10-man this coming weekend. I will be healing, however, most likely, but still, exciting!
Three Car Garage (10 player)
Volazj's Quick Demise
Storming the Citadel (10 player)
I've Gone and Made a Mess (10 player)
Nerf Gravity Bombs (10 player)
The easier way to get the SW coin is to get a boat from Auberdine to SW harbor, which is right at the back of the park.
And grrrrrrr… ats on the Charger, I have been running Strath for the last few months at least once a day and I haven’t seen it yet.
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Grats on that horse. I recently rolled an Alliance DK to experience that whole chunk of lore I’ve not seen before. That would make an awesome mount. I may have to try farming it myself some day.
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Oh god, tanking weapons.
I distinctly remeber running Heroic Pinnacle until mere mention of the isntance resulted in the D: face becuase my pet tank needed the sword.
They don’t like dropping for ANYBODY.
Skadi could have at LEAST given me my blue proto drake, y’know?
Don’t worry, you’ll get one!
And then you’ll replace it as soon as you get it enchanted with something expensive.
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Namthe Reply:
January 26th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Quite so. After countless runs for the sword I’ve thankfully been able to give up on that goal, because Last Laugh dropped.
If it hadn’t, I’d probably be insane by now.
Also, you say the Stormwind elder is bad for the Horde? I’ll raise you the Thunder Bluff one for Alliance. Knock backs plus a city half a mile above the plain equals pain.
Namthe´s last blog post..Paradigm Shift
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admin Reply:
January 26th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
If you take the back elevator instead of the front one, it’s just one bridge to cross to get to the Elder. But yeah, if one is not familiar with the layout, it might be confusing to get there.
UC, now that’s an easy Elder to get to.
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Namthe Reply:
January 27th, 2009 at 9:59 am
If you’d just taken the harbour rather than the front gate…
Touche
Agreed on the UC elder. I didn’t even slightly get the attention of any guards.
Namthe´s last blog post..Paradigm Shift
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admin Reply:
January 27th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Touche indeed! As I play alliance so very rarely, the harbor didn’t even occur to me.
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Glum Reply:
January 29th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Ogrimmar was my bane – all the PVPrs happily camping the elder. Maybe I should have thought about going in offpeak times.
I feel the tanking weapon pain as well, numerous UP, UK runs (for infantry blade) as well as Gothik a fair few times, and still running with my eternally folded blade (yay, i did get a drop).
Kodos are my motivation for getting as many coins as my lowbie-self can as well. They’re big and tough and grunty. Clearly made for Prot Warriors. Also, not neon colored is a bonus.
…the deathcharger is nice too of course.
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admin Reply:
January 26th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Yeah, I definitely still want a kodo. I just think orcs on kodos look awesome. Blood elves on kodos look silly however.
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I can see why people that have been trying for a while might be a little envious.
http://wowblog.grimmlabs.com/2009/01/25/its-your-own-fault/
One of our DKs got it his first try, too. I am plotting an appropriate response.
I’m sorry you got such a rough response in Stormwind, especially considering the warm welcome I received in Org, Thunder Bluff, and UC. Why, in Org they served me tea and dumplings and brought the elder to ME.* Completely shameful, I shall have a confab with my colleagues at once. Tsk, tsk, what has the world come to?
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* He’s lying.
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Death Charger makes me a sad panda. 30 runs over the last few weeks and nothing so far
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I admit I’ve killed a few hordies in the capitals, but I haven’t camped any. After all, what’s the point in factions if you don’t scuffle a bit?
Course, yes, there’s a lot more to it. My DK guildie was camped in Org for 45 min, not just at the elder, but several DKs were standing at the gy to D&D spirit rezzers as well.
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admin Reply:
January 26th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Yeah, I think DKs are all around hated this Lunar Festival, or at least the twits who use their abilities for repeated griefing.
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Grats on the Helm of Valor. Spirit on warrior gear! That brings back OLD memories…..
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admin Reply:
January 26th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Haha, yeah. The set bonuses were also pretty amazing.
A lot of the blue drops that I got in Strat and Scholo both were so weirdly itemized. Lots of hybrid leather that made me feel bad for druids back in the day.
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Probably going to take a night off instances and go round to get coins with friends tonight. Should be fun.
Once you get in naxx, tank upgrades are gonna be as common as candy in a candy store, so I would sweat the pain of farming.
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Kadomi…
What can I say, you just keep on giving me warm fuzzies! Thanks for the link. Also, gratz on the mount, if anyone deserves it on the first attempt it has to be you!
If the Alliance and Horde ever get over their mutual hatred long enough to quit slaughtering each other at the feet of their elders, Billy would like to propose marriage. Until then, however…let’s just say while the dual suicide thing worked for an old play, it won’t be very conducive to my guild’s progression, lol.
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Dark Shades. *grinds teeth in frustration* Rumor has it that they can actually be killed by using holy water from Stratholme – and one of these days I need to find out of a gnomish flame turret does actually do fire damage.
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Wow, you’ve got to admit you’ve done something right when you have fans! I hope that I can figure it out someday.
BTW, my bf harbors much jealousy over your mount. Grats!
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