The Fated raids were a treat. For simplicity’s sake, we opted to run the raids on normal mode. Many folks in the guild get their gear from M+ and the vault, so this was basically just a nostalgic trip-down-memory-lane of all the raids for this expansion. We knocked everything down each week at a leisurely pace. The mount looks amazing and of course it looks great with the accessory companion pet Jiggles.
Season 4 KSM achieved on first day of of week 3. I know a couple toons that have purple mogs in their closet that will be cleaned and pressed to accessorize with the Restoration Deathwalker mount. Except for Aes and Raz. Aes will be fluctuating between druid-y looking xmogs and mostly-nakedness. Raz will likely always be a mostly-gnaked gnome.
On reset day of week 3 of the season, I just needed to time a Lower Karazhan at 14 or higher (or two chest a 13) and KSM (and the purple drink mount) was to be mine.
The first Karazhan group I joined didn’t even start. I think they messed up the LFG settings and were wanting to do Neltharion’s Lair. They were all in Highmountain. No where near the Eastern Kingdoms, much less Kara.
The second group was at least in the right dungeon. We get to the Opera – Wikket encounter and completely blew it. We all forgot on the first pull about jumping into the gravity wells and it instantly wipes out two of the party members and causes a third to get seeded. Unfortunately, the seed took too much damage, so it was just me and the tank. We got overrun by the adds pretty quick. In pull #2 one of the melee hits 2 of the gravity wells before necessary. When it’s time for gravity well, the tank tells us he’s gonna pop a defensive and the 4 of us can fight over the remaining 3 wells. The hunter turtles and the remaining 3 of us do the mechanic properly. The next time we need the wells, they’re all available and we do the mechanic properly. We were in the clear, right? Wrong. The dps starts tunneling the boss and we get overrun with adds again. Wipe 2 and the group falls apart.
Third time’s the charm though, right? RIGHT?! Two of my fellow guildies wanted to run an Lower Kara and asked if I’d heal it. Now in attempt number 3, we do complete the dungeon. However, we’re over by 10 minutes. This tank sought out EVERY. SINGLE. NATHRAZIM. MOB. for the buff. Taking us waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over the enemy forces percentage needed. As a result of this run, we learned that the Shrouded affix has a buff cap of 20 and Lower Karazhan has at least 19 infiltrators in addition to Zul’gamux. One of the two guildies was in the same boat as me. They just needed a timed Lower Kara too, and we’re both just ready to rage (not rage quit, just yell into the void).
Fourth group was a +15 and we time it with just a minute or so to spare. Two KSM achievements pop up in the green text and we’re beyond excited. Each week, I’ll be making sure that my M+ great vault is maxed out, because I would like to push past +17s. If I get portals from timing +20s, awesome. If not, no worries. I just want to see how far I can push. In addition to Aes running +15s and higher, I’ve been dabbling in M+ on some alts (namely shaman, warrior, hunter, and priest). This week’s weekly Oribos quest that asked for 5 time walking dungeons to be run (along with it being Legion time walking which means the dungeons can be run as mythic+) had me taking a couple toons into mythics that typically don’t do that cotent.
My tauren shaman is still my favorite alt and my Horde main, so of course I don’t want to neglect him. I’m also running my dwarf fury warrior, dark iron dwarf marksman hunter, and draenai priest through baby keys. On the shaman, I’m comfortable healing +5s and dpsing +7s. As he gets more gear from the keys and the vault, I’ll push him into the low teens for both healing and dps. The warrior and hunter, I’m comfortable with 7s. One of them will probably push towards +15 and higher, and the other will be low teens (which will be which is yet to be seen).
The priest… um… well… er… let’s just say that she provides keys for other players to get bonus valor off of. I’ve discipline priest healed a +2 and I didn’t suck (of course, I had a full-guild group and they played to my healing abilities). I’ve shadow priest dpsed a +5 and I definitely sucked. Priest is definitely the class that I’m the weakest on. I’m using this as a way of trying to get better. I used to disc in Wrath/Cata and loved it a LOT. About the time atonement was reworked, I was healing/melee-dps on Aes with the guild I was in, and the priest was shelved for a while. I’ve never really tried shadow until MoP and it just never clicked with me (just like holy priest and holy paladin never clicked with me). We’ll see how far I get on her and if I finally have that “A-HA!” moment where I finally understand how it all works.
Outside of that, I’m taking a page out of Gnomecore‘s play book and I’ve got a spreadsheet for tracking the various things I want to work on for each toon (xmogs, achievements, crafting, whatever). It’s not a list of weekly chores that have to be done, but rather a list of things I can work towards when I have the time and inclination. While some folks are upset about the content lull, I’m finding plenty to do each week.
Bodhi Rana 