I Feel for the Person that Left This LFR

50min in the queue, zoned into an LFR with 3 stacks of Determination and promptly 1-shot Garrosh with next to no experience on him besides a few wipes in 10m for phase 1.

It pays to have patience, people!

On a side note, the bad thing about 1-shotting Garrosh this week is that I still don't really know what the hell is going on in that fight. Avoid stuff, kill adds, DPS MCed people is about what I got out of it... hopefully it's a lot more interesting on normal mode!

Standing Achievement

It's been a while since I last concentrated on getting some Achievements done, but I realised recently that I was close to another milestone. Perfect opportunity to knock over the Timeless Isle ones and hit 17000:

...or, I could have been procrastinating because I hate farming mobs and I still haven't got to Honoured with Emperor Shaohao yet. Possibly. *cough*

The Sound of a Body Hitting the Floor

Yep, Thok has fallen to our efforts on our second night of raiding this week, meaning we have a full night tomorrow to figure out Blackfuse.

It's pretty exciting to be on the frontline, yet again beating LFR and Flex gating to see new bosses. Although LFR has its merits - not having to use 10m to learn fights is one - I do think encounters are a little diluted when you go through an almost guaranteed version of it first.

Thok was actually the first boss this tier where the thought of perhaps needing a gear buffer (ie better gear to guard against our skills or lack thereof) crossed my mind, but on our last pull of the night (naturally!) we finally managed to get to the end with everybody alive.

It's nice to know that even though our limited raid comp forces both hunters to use specific pets to cover buffs, we can still progress well. The only real problem we still have is a lack of people on reserve - one person away is probably OK, 2 away means scrounging in Infamy or Trade chat for help.

We've been lucky so far in that we've only had to completely skip one raid night due to lack of numbers... but I don't think that will hold for long.

I Don't Like His Chances

Timeless Grind

Anyone else find the mob grinding for Emperor Shaohao rep tedious? The fact that I'm only Friendly with them shows how little patience I have with mob grinding, particularly as I have less time to play now than I used to.

I don't, in fact, keep track of Achievements, pets or mounts as much as I used to, since there isn't any way I can keep up with all the new additions at the moment.

Not that that's a bad thing; at least I'll always have something to do. I just don't feel like I have any particular thing to work towards right now, apart from keeping my gear up to date for raiding.

Oh well, I suppose I'll get my rep up some day... there is one thing I'm up to date with, after all - I have pretty much every single useful port item in my bag for ultimate mobility and I don't intend to skip this one!

LFRaiders

Yet again, my raiding team has a problem with numbers.

Losing one of our main tanks is going to halt our progression - and it was going pretty well, with 9/14 down in 10m - particularly as a few of us will be taking holidays in the coming months.

I don't know if I really have the patience to sit through LFR if we don't manage to find people. It had pleasantly surprised me how fast we went through content at first, but since my gear is significantly higher than LFR this time around (again, a novelty for me), I've realised that there's no need for me to do it unless I'm trying to get tier set bonuses. Even flex raids are barely an upgrade.

Luckily Zero Yard Range is the type of guild that doesn't mind the occasional PuG from Trade Chat (it's where they picked *me* up, after all), but it's pretty difficult to find a consistent, geared and reliable DPS, let alone a tank.

Crossing my fingers we find someone by Sunday!

Unprecedented

This is the first ever tier where I - and my raiding group - been heroic geared for new content.

I'm not sure whether it's because of that that my raid is breezing through the first few bosses or Blizz is just making content easier in general, but it's a completely novel experience for me to be so far into a raid dungeon this early.

In 10m, we got up to the 7th boss (Kor'kron Dark Shaman) in the first week of raiding... and even then, it doesn't look like too difficult a fight. We just ran out of time!

I think it's a lot better being ahead of the curve... you don't run into fights where you're lacking on DPS/heals - a source of frustration for everyone because there are usually people who "carry" the raid, whether it be gear or skill. It's never fun waiting for people to catch up.

In our case, even if there are some better geared (or better skilled!) than others, it's not enough of a gap to significantly slow progression. Woot for the new and improved raiding experience! :)

(On the other hand, I've suddenly discovered I have much less patience for LFR... was considering not bothering with it, but I feel obliged for the chance at loot :P)

Proving Groundless

I had been looking forward to the Proving Grounds, since I do like to challenges.

I did, however, expect somewhat more of a challenge for the Bronze, Silver and Gold trials. You are, after all, "proving" yourself. Maybe I was expecting the difficulty of Challenge Mode Dungeons, I don't know.

In any case, I breezed through the Gold DPS. I'm confident of doing fairly well in Endless, but I'll need to be more awake when I start it, not after a raid!

...and just because I'm me, I attempted the Bronze Heal and Tank mode. Sadly, pet tanking is seriously lacking, otherwise I'd definitely want to give it a go. I suppose this is one of those times that I'll have to make use of my druid. I only hope he's geared enough!

Well, that's annoying

This cloak does not go with my outfit :(

I will admit that the effects are very pretty, though!

...I do think rather wistfully that my first legendary really should have been a bow and not a cloak... but oh well. Rhok was orange to me!

High On Qon Kill

I finally got a heroic Iron Qon kill last week, making 4 heroic kills in ToT.

The only heroic kill that Infamy has that I still don't is Tortos - the fight I was probably the most intimately familiar with, since we spent so much time wiping on it.

With Patch 5.4 imminent, I'm hoping Zero Yard Range will be able to get Tortos next week, but I don't have any high expectations.

Somewhat related, I have high hopes for flex raiding in 5.4 - 3 of my former Southern Wardens guildies have come back to WoW and started gearing up in preparation for joining Infamy's planned run. Would be great to have 5 Wardens and Infamy in the one run - ZYR is good, but just not the same as having the old crew back together!