The weekend is quite a blur because of how many groups, quests, and levels were going on. Gitr really moved up the ranks and got lots of experience, almost 350,000xp. He did everything from ZF to southern Tanaris to Un’Goro to The Hinterlands to Blasted Lands.
Much of his time was spend collecting quests and doing those he could solo while Inebriate was signed on as Intoxication, and then grouping together for the harder ones Gitr can’t solo. Neb has ridiculous crits with his frost spec and gear, killing most things 2-4 levels higher than him before taking a hit. Combine him with a tank 1-2 levels higher (Gitr at the *beginning* of the weekend) to keep things away for good, and we did MASSIVE damage.
At the very bottom of Tanaris is a big door with about 7 51-53 elites guarding a quest podium. We decided to test ourselves. To our great delight, we came, saw, and conquered. We only made two mistakes, one killing Neb in seconds, and another finishing me off and Neb finishing the elite off. The first mistake was critting a frostbolt for 1100HP with only one sunder armor. The mob ran, Neb died, I ran for the hills. The next problem was a patrol that got too close before I could pull us back far enough away. We ended up killing both, though.
As we finished turning those quest in, I got an invite to run ZF, and Gitr still needed quite a few quests there. Keep in mind, I HATE PuGs with a passion. I hate people. I know it’s kind of hard to tell here, but I’m an introvert. Get to know me and trust me, and build my trust in you, and you’d never know I’m introverted. Meeting people just wears me out. It’s the same online. I spend too much time trying to figure out the roles in the group, how to get classes to do what they are supposed to, etc. We had a mage who wouldn’t sheep, a rogue that didn’t do enough damage, and a priest who liked to use fear so much, we were constantly fighting 5-6 mobs. Oh, did I mention that he forgot to heal? Yeah. I popped 4 major healing potions because I had to watch my health instead of tanking. Sure I tanked. Had to keep hitting challenging shout every 10 minutes when it cooled down, taunt every 10 seconds, bandage after every fight. I did 36% of the damage (in 1H defensive stance) and took 43% of the damage in a 5-man, like-level group. It broke up after 3 wipes.
I didn’t play too much on Sunday, but Monday brought my first BRD run with an all in-house group. The best learning environment. I died 2 or 3 times, but I was pretty small. I think I was only 50, maybe even 49. After so many quests in Blasted Lands as being lower than the Golem Machines, it’s hard to remember if I was higher yet or not. It even turned out to be quite profitable. I got 2 black diamonds, which sold for 25g each within 2 hours. I learned so much on that run and people were pretty patient with me, too. Gitr took the normal low 40s% damage and had a 2g75s repair bill. The only thing not broken were his Truesilver Gauntlets, which still had 2 points left. 🙂
That about covers the weekend. Hope you’ve all enjoyed it and are still happy and safe.
Once home, I took Gitr to the Scar Yetis to the North and fought them for a little while and then Inebriate logged in and we got a group together to go to Zul’ Farrak. My first trip to the legendary ZF. We had a 49 Warlock, 45 priestess, 45 mage, 41 rogue, and Gitr at 46. It seemed a bit cumbersome for me because, for the first time ever, I was in a group with 3 male humans without a helmet. It was very hard for me to tell the difference from Gitr and Homerjay, and several times I was behind the mob facing the wrong way thinking that I was controlling the toon that I could see in front of the mob. This was largely due to the cape he was wearing looks exactly like the one that I wore for about 12 levels.
We got to an area with dozens of scarab beetles and one 46 elite troll doing laps around a stone block. It got ugly. About 10 of those beetles decided to attack when we assaulted the troll, who had a very wicked spear thrust. Being the tank and up in someone’s grill, I never really see the whole thing, but about a minute into the melee, Inebriate, Rani (priestess), and the rogue were all dead. It was only a matter of time before I dropped, and I did, about 20 seconds later. He was TOUGH at like-level, already at 30% health. I couldn’t break this last block of health to save my life, so I died. Rani resurrected me, then Homerjay (warlock), and as I saw her hands go up for the next one, I saw the troll round the corner. I tried putting on a runecloth bandage as fast as I could, and didn’t quite get up to full health. I aggroed him since I was with 2 squishies. I kept him busy and tried to let Homer do as much damage as he wanted, and Rani to heal me for the rest of the fight, but they were both out of mana within 15 seconds. Not good. I went down and watched them fight valiently. Homer finally downed him with a sliver of life left, but not until Rani dropped and we all had to run back.
Then we made it to the top of the temple thing and released a prisoner. That was the end of our playing well. We fought the fight too close to the stairs (probably because Inebriate was talking to me on TeamSpeak and we went to look down at all the mobs) and never moved them back to the platform. The first 5 elites were all ranged attackers, so I wasn’t able gain aggro without going down the stairs, which was expressly forbidden. We handled about 6 or 8 waves of single elites with three 46s. Then we all died. The instance reset, and we decided to call it off. Too bad I only needed one more Troll Temper for my quest.
It was time to mount up and ride to Feralas to pick up the elven gryph point. I flew the rest of the way to Feathermoon and headed to the Scar Yetis again. I realized after a couple of minutes that the amount of time it took to drop one was not a high enough xp reward to warrant the time. Gitr needed easier prey, so he took off to the Feral and Rage Yetis again. That is really becoming a favorite grinding spot. They are fast, skinnable, and repop fast enough for 2 to be in the cave at the same time. I even got an uber-drop about half-way through my remaining xp bar: [Sheepshear Mantle]. It ended up selling within 5 minutes for nearly 18g. That alone paid for all the expenses for the night, AND I finished with 18 stacks of heavy and thick leather to sell. Yes, it was a lot of grinding. The last hour was just loot and charge, loot and charge, bandage, loot and charge.