Time Flies When You Are Having Fun!

Also known as a Beru update!

Wow!  It was a whirlwind week last week, with tons going on both in game and at work!  I apologize for my lack of posting!  I have a few informative posts in the works, with one that should be up a bit later today.  However, I thought I’d drop a quick note now, with some updates on what’s been going on with me for the past week!

We went about our happy raiding way on Wednesday night, everything going smoothly and as planned.  Bill got his 30th fragment from Auriaya and there was much rejoicing!  Why?  Because it means the end of the full Ulduar clears for us, and lets us focus on Hard Mode work in both Ulduar and ToC.  Woohoo!  We went in Thursday night and pushed through the keepers to get to Yogg.  We offered a small bribe for a Yogg 3 kill (if we get this done tonight, repairs on the guild bank Sunday!).  It took us a few pulls to get into our groove, and we were almost resigned to having to return on Sunday to complete the mace.  But in grand Monolith fashion, we managed to eek out a kill on our final pull of the night, and Bill got his mace completed (grats Bill!).  WooHoo!

Also on during the week (on Wednesday), I devised a plan to get my 4 piece T9.  I had gotten the robe about a month ago, as I wasn’t using the T8 robe anyhow.  I was sitting on two trophies in the bank, waiting to see if VoA would drop a fourth piece for me before I could get another trophy lined up so I didn’t buy an item that I could get without the use of a trophy.  But, then I used my noggin a bit.  I made the T9 shoulders and helm with my two trophies, as VoA can’t drop them.  I then spent 30 badges on the T9 iLevel 232 gloves, which were still a fair upgrade from the T8, and 30 badges really isn’t anything.  And thus, I now have my 4 piece T9 bonus.

I’ve raided with it for 3 nights now, and have had a minimal time to look at my parses from those raids.  From what I did see, my rejuvs were critting around ~3650.  They critted about 22% of the time.  I haven’t had time to really dig down and look at my healing with the new bonus and compare it to my healing with the gear from the old bonus yet.  As soon as I have a minute, I’ll post my thoughts on it!  What I can definitively tell you from the change is that I had a 50 spellpower gain, 45 Intellect gain, 48 spirit gain…and a 40 haste loss.  The haste loss really bugs me a bit, as it drops me below the soft cap.  I tossed a haste enchant on my cloak and am back up to 355.  Anyhow, more to come on this once I have time to dig into my parses!

I did not organize any 10 mans for this weekend, and had the weekend “off”.  It was my first weekend completely off in awhile!  I was really excited.  So…what did I do?  I made a cream cheese poundcake (so yummy!) and watched a lot of Iron Chef (does anyone else find that show oddly addicting?!).  I joined an alt ToC 10 run with my shaman that was run by one of our mages.  Mynn got some booties, and had a good time chainhealing my way through the zone.  The other cool thing is that I didn’t have to lead it, the guy that put it together would shoot me a tell here and there with a question, which I was happy to answer, but he ran the raid beautifully!  Honestly, I think he was a bit surprised when I offered help as they were building the group.  But, I’ve told the guild before “If you organize something, don’t be surprised if you see me sign up to come help”.

Since I had the free time, I took the opportunity to finally finish my Loremaster title.  (Dear, Jarl, I love you and your hidden quest hub with all those follow ups!).  I was so excited to finally be finished with it, as I had been sitting at 65 quests left in Kalimdor for quite some time.  In the process of my Loremaster questing, I completed both the red and blue questline for the Scepter of the Shifting Sands quests.  Brade and I had fun two manning MC (took about an hour) for my scrying goggles and a rag kill (sadly no core  hound pup).  On our way to MC, we stopped by the bar in BRD and two manned Coren Direbrew who was gracious enough to drop his Brewfest Kodo for me!  I put a group together via guild and LFG for a fast BWL zerg for my Red Shard, and everyone had a blast (p.s. if everyone without an Ony cloak stands behind Nef’s throne, they can avoid the shadowflame on landing).  Going back in there reminded me that BWL really was one of Blizzard’s masterpiece instances.  I truly loved that zone! 

One of our rogues came out and helped me kill Maws for the last part of my Blue Shard (Dear Judis, your reputation with Beru has increased by 1000, and you now have 1 Beru IOU stored away for a rainy day).  I should note that this particular rogue and one other (Rholm) were of great help to me finding my last few Kalimdor quests as well.  It must be something with our rogues…these two are both “Insane” and loremasters!

And then to top off the weekend, we went in last night and knocked out Heroic Beasts of Northrend!  Everyone was so excited about it, as we’d not put a huge amount of time in on the encounter thus far due to our weekly Ulduar clears.  I wasn’t sure if we’d get it or not, but we made a tweak to our strategy and ~5 pulls after the change netted our kill.  The only thing that really sucked was having to sit some of our members who couldn’t stay online during the encounter, an issue that is on Blizzard’s end and acknowledged by them.  Hopefully they get it resolved soon. 

And, just because we could, we took a few pulls on Jaraxxus.  I think in our ~3 pulls we saw 64%.  With any luck, we will snag him tonight when we go in fresh.  There really isn’t much different about the fight, just a bit more healing that needs to go out, and a bit more attention to be paid to everyone’s surroundings 🙂

So…that is where I have been!  It was an extremely relaxing and fulfilling weekend!  All in all, this weekend did a lot to put a breath of fresh air into the game for me, which made me very happy.

 

My next goals for Beru?
Achievement– “The Exalted”.  I am sitting at 36 exalted reputations.  I am revered with: Oracles, Defilers, Warsong Offensive.  I intend to complete my Timbermaw Rep as well.  Of course, I’m not entirely sure how to raise my Warsong Offensive rep, it is done through the Northrend PvP dailies, right?

Achievement– “They Love Me In That Tunnel” and “The Diplomat”.  I just need to grind out my Timbermaw reputation for these two achievements.

Achievement– Mountain of Mounts.  I’m at 92.  All of the last mounts I need can be purchased (3 left I can buy) or ground out via PvP and AT daily quests.  Of course, I could also farm for the Barron’s mount, Anzu’s mount, and Midnight!