Pre WoTLK

As the week prior to release of WoTLK wore on and the Scourge Invasion began to fade, my last minute preperations changed drastically. Friday night prior to release we called into Kara for a run at the bottom half and a chance to kill Tenris Murkblood. Better late than never!

This was a pug a friend put together with different people she has instanced with before. I would not call it a Guild run with a few adds, more like a pug of four different small guilds, but most people had not played with one another. Though I had never been in Kara before, I was familiar with most of the fights having read and listened to many accounts and walk throughs of the instance.

The Attunement / Midnight fight went pretty well, a few people died, but we got them down on the first attempt. We moved onto to Tenris and the wiping commenced. Our raid leaders did not make it clear, perhaps they were not that aware of how his exploding blooddrops worked, but it was causing me a lot of problems. It was not until I quickly looked up the fight and began running in front of the tank that we were finally finding some success. After we had wiped on Tenris a few times we headed over to Maiden and took her down.

Before we quit for the evening, we went one last time after Tenris which is when we finally defeated him. The Arcanite Ripper dropped and the raid leader wanted only those that could use the axe to roll on it, myself, my gf's pally and another hunter. She rolled first with a whopping 34, I followed with my usual suckiness in rolls with a 32. At that point we assumed the other hunter would win, but he pulled up a 20 amazingly enough. After a long negotiation, I ended up with the Ripper, and it is wonderful.

The next day we headed back in for a few hours, we downed Moroes, wiped a lot but finally completed the Opera event of Romulo and Julianne, but had to leave after the first wipe on Curator. Still it was nice to see it pretty level 80 and get some decent time in there, and some soon to be useless badges of justice.

Sunday I got called into Heroic Underbog, Heroic Slave Pens and got to run through regular Magister's Terrace. Though no loot was to be found for me, the tank and I were the only ones left standing in MT. This was some slight compensation for me, since I was then removed from the group for someone else, and my BC instance weekend came to a bittersweet end.

Also finally got my epic Undeadslaying chest piece Monday night from the Scourge Ziggers. At least I got the set on one of my toons, never did get it on my shaman.

Scourge Invasion

By now everyone has lived through the Zombie portion of the Scourge Invasion and lived to tell the tale, so here goes mine.

Zombies, 10 minutes to find a healer, no problem, leave the Goldshire, ride up to the healer at the front of Stormwind. Next day, 5 minutes, ok no problem, 2 minutes, um heal, 1 minute, face the fact that you will become a zombie. It was taking my pally partner 3 or more dispels to remove the disease at that point.

On our server, Hydraxis, where we re rolled prior to the Burning Crusade launch, by the last day, the zombie pack was holed up in the mage tower. They were making claims of a world boss in Stormwind, trying to get people to port in from Shatt. Where of course they would promptly be attacked by 25-50 zombies, it was pretty crazy. I was one of the folks assaulting the tower from within Stormwind, it started to feel like Dawn of the Dead, you just keep shooting until you get turned.

New old rep to grind, welcome back to going from revered to exalted with the Argent Dawn. The last few nights have been filled with fighting undead in Winterspring and Tanaris, for the most part. Collecting necrotic runes, I have purchased the tabard, shoulders and gloves for both my Hunter and Shaman. Waiting for some mail to drop off the elites. The Silver rare spawns we are getting a 100% drop of an epic piece 3/3, the gold elites only maybe about 3/15 or so. We cannot two man them, but we usually find a helper to tank for us, last night a crazy druid while I healed.

Both my hunter and shaman began this grind being just ticked into revered, so I will have to see how close to exalted I can get before the invasion ends. Luckily the necropolis mobs drop scourgestones, which can add up quick so making some progress, but not as much as I would like.

Trick or treating has taken a back seat, but I got the sqaushling / hood achievement on my hunter, shammy got the squashling, so still a chance on her as well. Lots of masks for belfs and Draenei showing up now, there was a rumor they were not in the game, maybe hot fixed in the other day. I will need to spend the next couple nights trying to finish a few more Hallow's End achievements on my mains.

Blizzard is doing a great job of keeping everyone busy in these last few weeks leading up to Wrath. I have found my energy renewed and am logging a lot of time right now.

Repgrind

Hello and welcome to Repgrind, my World Of Warcraft blog and hopefully one day podcast. I have been working on this concept for sometime time now, however it keeps getting delayed. At least the podcast portion of the project keeps getting delayed.

In the meantime, I at least want to get blogging on some WOW issues, especially with the new patch dropping on the realms yesterday. The concept of Repgrind is just day to day play, the grinding, the getting about to whatever goals you have in game. It is not hardcore, it is not raiding, it is not pvp, it is pve and casual.

While the word casual has a certain stigma attached to it, much like the word hunter, it does not mean that a lot of time and effort are not put into the game. It just means life does not revolve around the game, certainly, leisure time and work time and thought are put into the game, but I do other things as well. Heck just check out my other blogs to see what else goes on in my life.

While this is not a particularly strong time for MMO's, a lot of people are down on them, especially WOW, I continue to play. I will continue to play and listen to podcasts and read blogs and write about it myself.

If you are interested in hearing my opinions on WOW, my opinions about other people's opinions, then welcome aboard. If not, go play WAR.