Hmmm, lets see. How do I use this thing? Sorry for the lack of updates over the last ohhhhh 6 months or so. I have been pretty damn busy with a new job, running , etc… But enough of that, thats the same old song and dance.

has been doing fairly well, and fairly bad at the same time. We rushed through Karazhan pretty fast. We have the entire place on farm for nearly 3 different teams. We killed Maulgar and Gruul fairly easily. Then, everything stopped. Recruiting on Burning Legion is dead as far as I can tell. Every recruit that comes along, either has no clue how to play their class or doesn’t want to show up to raids. So, with people transferring servers, quitting the game, moving onto more progressed guilds, etc., Core is left at a standstill. We still have some people that need Karazhan loot, but that is getting old fast. We are at the point where we will either have to merge with another guild, or go our seperate ways. I am hoping I can find a guild willing enough to merge with us, and hopefully then progress through SSC & TKE, as I really want to see these zones.

As far as Aeigelus, he has pretty much EVERY piece of gear from Karazhan and Gruul’s with the exception of 2 pieces (Fiend Slayer Boots and Dragonspine Trophy). Both are decent upgrades, but I am definitely not in NEED of either, especially with the Haste nerf. Oh yeah! I changed to Beast Mastery. My dps in raids shot through the roof like never before. I consistently hit 900+ dps now (don’t laugh progressed hunters!).

Well, I’ll leave it at that. I will try to update the blog a little more often, but I am not promising anything.

Late last night, we finally downed the Romeo & Juliette event. This was our second straight reset with them spawning, and I must say, it is quite the annoying fight. Everyone has to be on their toes, or one thing will wipe your raid easily. We have been having a ton of fun in Karazhan, and hopefully Core will be fielding its second Karazhan team in the next week or so. Still have a few classes to recruit, but other than that we are ready.

Our first Karazhan team is nothing less than amazing. I would say it is the best group of people I have ever played this game with. We might not have the best gear, but everyone makes up for it by listening, coming prepared, etc… I really wish Blizzard would do something about the trash respawns, but I don’t think its too game breaking (although, I hear the Aran trash is the most annoying in the zone).

Loot from last nights run…

Harbinger Bands - Attumen
Spectral Band of Innervation - Attumen
Boots of Valiance - Moroes
Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch - Moroes
Barbed Choker of Discipline - Maiden of Virtue
Shard of the Virtuous - Maiden of Virtue
Ribbon of Sacrifice - Romulo
Despair - Julianne

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. I have been pretty busy at work, running the guild, and other misc. things. Core has been a little late getting in on the Karazhan action, but the 3 times we have gone, we have had a TON of fun. The first two times in, we had a definite lack of healers, so we couldn’t down Moroes right away, but got the pull & fight down pretty well. Last night, we went in there, quickly killed Attumen, and went in and 3 shot Moroes easily. The Moroes fight is a lot of fun. I love how you have to remember each of the adds abilities, and not just CC whichever you feel. In each of our outings, we have had 3 plate wearing adds, so coordinating that was fun.

Drops…

Worgen Claw Necklace - Attumen
Bracers of the White Stag - Attumen
Handwraps of Flowing Thought - Attumen
Harbinger Bands - Attumen
Emerald Ripper - Moroes
Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable - Moroes

Other than that, its actually been a fairly calm couple weeks in WoW. I have been having my worst loot drought ever. I have seen about 2-3 drops in probably 30-40 runs. If that… The thing saving it though, is that I am running all of these instances with close friends and guildies, so it keeps it fun.

We should be going back into Karazhan on Monday, hopefully Maiden of Virtue will go down easily.

Sorry these are a little late. I promised to upload some screenshots of my adventures through the expansion, and here they are. A little bit of news first. Boxter, Hank, and Rhone have all hit 70, and Kogu is right behind us at 68 (almost 69). We ran Shadow Labyrinth last night, and I will have a post up on that later. Let me just say this, that was by far the best 5 man instance I have run in the game…

So, last night around 11pm, I dinged 70. It was definitely an epic journey that I will never forget. First off, I want to thank everyone in Core for all of their support. Without them, this would have been a lot more difficult and boring.

Now onto the meat of the story. I wanted to post something to this blog, voicing my general opinions on the Burning Crusade. Everything from the quests, the zones, the instances, etc. I forgot all of my screenshots at home, so I will hopefully be able to make a seperate post in the next day or two with all of my screenshots.

Levels

This was one thing I dreaded in TBC. I figured with the levels being anywhere from 400,000xp to 800,000xp, it was going to take days to get a single level. Damn I was wrong. I dinged 61 the first night I had TBC, and at some points, took out 2 levels in a long days playing session. Now granted, I had the week off work, so I had a good amount of time to play, but levels were on par with 50-60 levels. At some points, I was getting 150k-175k xp/hr. On average though, I would say I got 75k xp/hr though. In a marathon grinding session last night, I even went from 5% of level 69, to dinging 70 in a mere 6 hours. Congrats to Blizzard on getting this right.

Questing

This, to me, was the biggest change in TBC. The amount of quests you burn through from 60-70 is absolutely amazing. I dinged 70 in Netherstorm, but had only been there for maybe 6 hours, and didn’t even come close to completing half the quests in the zone. Every zone that I went through (Hellfire, Zangarmarsh, Terrokar, Nagrand, Netherstorm) is like this, with the exception of Blades Edge Mountains. There just weren’t enough quests there to keep my interest. I also found the quests in Blades Edge to be quite annoying. Most of them required 3 or 4 completely different objectives, and made for a very frustrating time.

The quest rewards were also very nice. Granted I only replaced about 4 pieces of my gear along the way, but I could see how a person coming through the portal in Tier 1 would replace almost every piece of gear they have. I am hoping to run some of the higher level instances in the next few weeks to be able to replace more of my gear.

Zones

The zones themselves are stunningly beautiful, as I have said in previous beta posts. You could literally explore for hours on end, and love every minute of it. Everything from the mobs, to the sky, to the mountains, to the plains of Nagrand…. stunning. Now, it’s really hard for me to pick a top 3 for zones, but here it is (know that I haven’t really been through much of Shadowmoon Valley yet)…

1) Nagrand - Clean, crisp, tons of quests, and it just feels nice. Plus, you get to see your first Netherdrake.
2) Hellfire Peninsula - For a first zone, this one is amazing. The quests are easy, yet unique. Great intro into TBC.
3) Netherstorm - TONS of quests, fairly easy mobs, amazing scenery. Just wait till you get to see it from above.

The Alliance & Ganking

This is my biggest surprise. I got ganked literally 4 times the entire time I played. There seems to be an understanding between all Alliance & Horde, to just quest and level, without PvPing. Now, thats not to say I didn’t see my fair share of ganking, but it was usually because someone accidentally AoE’d, stole a mob, etc… Thanks to any Alliance on Burning Legion that might be reading this.

I’m flying!

For 800g in training, and 100g for the mount, I bought my first flying mount last night. I wasn’t able to buy the epic version yet (5000g training, 200g mount) but should be able to get it fairly soon. Flying around Outland literally changes everything about travel in this game. And I can’t imagine how much more it will change whenever I buy an epic mount, seeing as how it flys the same speed as a gryphon. The things you are able to see from above changes the way you will do things in this game. You will just have to wait and see for yourself. My only gripe with the flying mounts, is that the non epic version should be 100% speed, not 60% speed. When I pay almost 1000g for a mount, it should be 100% speed in my opinion. But hey, I am flying so what do I care.

In Closing

I would give this expansion an A+. This expansion met (and exceeded) my expectations. I cannot imagine it getting any better than this, but Blizzard consistently surprises me. Thank you Blizzard, the devs, the CM’s, etc… You did a wonderful job.