The 5th Horseman

Baron Soosdon has a new Happy Halloween movie on his blog site which he took 2nd place for in the WCM Halloween Contest movie. Posting it all here for all to see since I like his Machinima movies. Posted in DIVX Stage 6 for better viewing.

Blade Edge Mountain Quest - Random Blues

Was helping a friend and group out in North Blades Edge Mountain (Bash'ir Landing) on a group quest when this blue dropped. We had to do the quest two times to get the item needed from the Elite Ogre King Dorfbruiser. Couldn't find this anywhere on Thottbot or Wowhead and found it on wowwiki.com. Anyone of 5 random Elite mobs can spawn on quest that also drops several nice random/enchanted blues. Its from the chain quest The Mark of the Nexus-King and gives Consortium reps. I haven't done this quest myself was only there to help out.

Things I've Noticed in PuG's

Beside all the usual things everyone may be used to by now in PuG's these are some the things I've notice or observations while Tanking in various groups.

1. Very few people in PuG's have a Threat Meter installed. Needless to say few have Damage Meters either. Watch out for people that are obsessed with damage meter report. I have both though for more than obvious reasons since I'm tanking. But its amazing to see DPS in a PuG with no Threat Meter which makes it more difficult on the tank since neither the DPS nor the Tank have any idea where the DPS threat level is at untill you magically pull aggro. As a mana user tanking it means I sometimes have to burn more mana and have more downtime than I normally should.

2. I've seen and grouped with some Hunters with very good trapping skills. But the ones that are very good at trapping when required or when someone else pulls aggro and trap are very few that I have seen. Last weekend through 8 runs through Botanica we had one specific Hunter for three runs and that Hunter I had no doubt if I marked anything to trap he had it trapped for sure. He had excellent trapping skills.

3. Some Mages love to always sheep....... next to a tanking Paladin. Any Paladin that's tanking will just about always consecrate. If we see a mob already CC will try to move and consecrate to CC all the mobs to the Paladin if they can that's not already CC. If a mage has to sheep a marked target do it right after we throw Avergers Shield when there is still some distance to the mob marked for sheeping usually a caster mob.

4. Very few people carry water (Mana Drink)! If a group don't have a Mage to make free water not sure what some people will do. Some people run out of water during a instance run not having enough when they are already a mana using class. I always have three full stacks of water that 60 full mana drinks.

5. Few people in PuG's have really every had the experience to group with a good paladin tank. Its obvious when you hear them in party chat.

6. In some the PuG's I've seen often enough some DPS classes love to always attack the mob right after you pull it with Avengers Shield and before mob gets to you to hit the mob. I sometimes just let that person have the mob to take a beating for a while as lesson in aggro management and not to hit the mob before its in range for me to hit or drop a judgement on it.

7. Few people will use Elixir's in PuG's if they need to. Its can be obvious why if your not sure your going to wipe or not. Some people will though as I've seen. As a Tank I use Elixir's or Wizzard Oil if I have to because some people pack a lots of DPS in their Epic'd/Enchanted out gear set.

8. People love to go AFK in PuG's for all kind of reasons. It helps to do it if you can before the run starts if possible.

9. Some people have no idea how rolling for loot works in a Instance. Roll Greed on anything Green that's not BoP (Bind on Pickup) when it pops up on screen. If its a Blue boss drop Need if you can use it or its a upgrade to your class and Pass if you cannot use or loot is not for your specific class. If lucky to have a Enchanter in group and everyone passes on loots and no one wants. Group will usually agree to then roll for the Shard piece. Last Botanica run I was in we had one Mage that roll need on everything that dropped. He even rolled need on a healing Libram he couldn't even use. It was funny.

10. You will be amazed at how many healers in PuG's I've seen other than a Holy Paladin maybe that have no idea how a Paladin Tank gets his mana or maintain it when tanking. Paladins get majority of their mana back while actively tanking through a passive ability called Spiritual Attunement from being constantly healed. We get 10% of that heal back in mana as long as the Paladin is not on full health. Having Blessing of Wisdom up helps the Paladin or using Seal or Judgement of Wisdom as needed. However while tanking we get majority of mana from Spiritual Attunement through heals. I've had times in PuGs when I notice I'm barely getting heal, be maybe close to half health and be starving almost completely OOM and then a big heal. I'm wondering if healer is on coffee break or something. Sometimes I deliberately take damage just so I can get healed to get mana back. Usually I have to explain to the healer how that works, even some the other classes in PuG's have no clue either when I explain it in party chat.

PuG Tales - Thrallmar Revered

Was back again to The Shattered Halls in a PuG group with some friends, just about knew everyone in the group. Was myself Protec Paladin, Warlock, Priest (Shadow), Mage, Shaman (Resto). Nice group setup for a Tanking Paladin. Group was doing run mostly for rep points with Thrallmar. So in two back to back smooth runs reached Revered with Thrallmar and went and picked up my Heroic Key for Hellfire Citadel.

Once on the run we ended up pulling all the mob group in front of us, both groups to either side of hallway and was one big fight. Was fun for sure! Was me and Shammy left and didn't look good and was first time ever I had to use Devine Intervention. Since I've never used it before took my mind a while to even find the button. Stuck it on the Shammy since he can rezz and it worked! He rezzed us all when things cleared up. Was fun run and group had fun and that made it all the better. The Figurine of Colossus did drop once again on that run but fortunately I picked it up the day before.

Did a run through Mechanar with some other friends from a guild I often group with to tank and was a fun run there as well. The waves of adds on hallway to last boss was fun as usual, we ended up running back to the elevator for that trick so it worked fine. The chest piece did not drop but at some point I'm sure. We didn't get to do a second Mech run but later maybe. I'm already Exalted with The Sha'tar so just doing it for the fun and hope the chest piece drops.

WoW Paladin Forum Post of the Day

If you want a good laugh you can check out this thread "Kicked because I was Tanking" on the Paladin forum if you haven't seen it. Its just too funny. Some people that play this game even at lvl 70 are unbelievably stupid when it comes to other classes. They give PuGs truly a bad name. But the thread is just funny. Make sure you check out the screenshots in the first post.

Thread Linked Here

Tanking Trinket

Logged in, did a LFG for a PuG for The Shattered Halls. Turned out it was some friends most of them I already knew for the PuG. Anyway on that first run of the day the trinket dropped from the last boss Kargath Bladefist. I did make a wish before we beat the crap out of him. Dunno if that helped but if it worked. I'll make a wish ever time before I beat up the boss. Need all the loot help you can get for drops. If I was to swap out my Darkmoon Card: Vengeance Trinket and replace it with this, its 4% more block rating. That leaves me just 4% short of uncrushable with Holy Shield up and using my Crystalforged Blade. That's attainable by just replacing my Libram alone with Libram of Repentance earned from doing Heroics.

Gear Goals

There isn't that much gear left that Galo really need to have for his Tanking/Spell Dmg gear sets for mix and match sets and for Heroics. My gear is good enough to do Heroics already. But will farm some regular instance for a few gear pieces that would like Galo to have as options. Also still working on getting to uncrushable status pre-Kara in tanking gear as well as in the process get Revered/Exalted for a few factions remaining. Anything else I may pick up along the way is just a gear bonus.

Trinket:
1. Figurine of the Colossus from The Shattered Halls which drops from Warchief Kargath Bladefist.

Chest:
1. Breastplate of the Righteous from Steamvault which drops from Warlord Kalithresh.
2. Jade-Skull Breastplate from Mechanar which drops from Nethermancer Sepetherea.

Libram
1. Libram of Repentance from running Heroics for 15 Badges of Justice.

200 Blog Postings

I've managed to survive long enough blogging about my adventures in WoW to have done 200 posting. I never thought I would get though doing ten when I started let alone this many this long.

Faction Reputation Update:
Thrallmar - Honored (8458/12000) - Need Exalted.
Scryers - Exalted.
The Shat'ar - Exalted.
Lower City - Honored (7276/12000) - Need Exalted.
Keepers of Time - Revered (2512/21000).
Ogri'la - Neutral (1025/3000).
Netherwing - Neutral (0/3000)
Cenarion Expidition - Revered (4070/21000).
The Consortium - Honored (6010/12000).
The Mag'har - Revered (8238/21000).
Sporeggar - Honored (671/12000).
Sha'tari Skyguard - Friendly (4112/6000).
The Violet Eye - Neutral (2175/3000).
Karazhan - Master Keyed

Weekend at Botanica - Sha'tar Exalted!

Got Exalted with The Sha'tar and picked up the nice faction reward tanking shield for Galo. Was very happy to say the least and Galo more than earned it. Ran Botanica 8 times over 24hrs to grind out the reps fast and farming Botanica to also get my shoulder piece. Why? Botanica gave the most reps for regular Tempest Keep instances for a full clear. Me and a healer friend ran Botanica all day long swapping in and out various people for DPS and CC we made Botanica home for a full day running Instance run back to back to back. Healer friend got himself Revered and Galo became Exalted with The Sha'tar. Several people we had swapped in and out including another healer friend got themselves reps and keys and such over the course of 8 full runs.

We had plenty of fun and I say we had a good day. All the PuG's were great. I would say the hardest DPS combination to run Botanica with other than Galo as tank was having not just one but 2 Hunters a Mage. Was hard to get down the second boss with 2 Hunters for adds as well as most the bosses somehow including the last boss also. Might have been their gear can't all say for sure. All in all I call that a fast grind and it wasn't too bad at all to get to Sha'ter Exalted. Placed a Shield Block enchant placed on the shield and got it socked with 2 Solid Star of Elune for +12 Stamina each blue socket.

Persistence and perseverance. On the 6th "back to back" ALL DAY LONG run through Botanica for Sha'tar Reps and farming the shoulders when Laj finally decided to drop my shoulders. Made my day so had to screenshot it!

Yes it took a lot of PERSISTENCE to get the shoulders. The fourth boss Laj got so tired of seeing me and having me beat the crap out of him that he finally gave up and decided to drop these shoulders I needed. The current green shoulders that I have has more avoidance than these but they can be interchanged for gear as needed or for spell damage. So far only managed to put the Scryer shoulder enchant on them. Can't seem to find a JC to get some gems cut to socket them.

Dropped from second boss on the 5th run. Was a bit surprised when it dropped as forget it even dropped form the second boss. Was glad to pick it up. Will find some good enchant for it among the multitude of tanking shields I now have.

Was nice to get as a Paladin another Libram even if its for healing even though Galo don't do much healing duties. We just don't have much Librams at all as it is to use. It dropped 3 times off the first boss.

Edited: Gem Socketed Shield.

The Road Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

...Robert Frost

Nine months ago barely heard of or even knew what World of Warcraft was. Took me eight months of dedication and persistence to reach level 70. A few days ago finally decided to go and pick up my Karazhan key Quest and its now completed. I now have the Master's Key and did it being guildless all in PuG's. It didn't take me that long to do the quest but in reality I probably already did the quest 6 times over already. Its was just deciding to do it. Some people have played this game since its Beta days and still not 70, but to each player his or her destiny in their own time.

Completed a smooth Black Morass (BM) run smacking around big boss Aeonus with some friends all of the same guild. They just love to have Galo tank for them on their instance runs. They've asked about Kara, they offered and though it was humbling to be asked I respectfully declined all offers! Every man must choose his or her destiny and at that appointed time we all choose a path to decide our faith. I have no regrets! It is not at this appointed time that I choose to seal my faith as a raider in Karazhan purging undead. Yes Galo has much better gear than half the Protec Paladins starting Karazhan. When the man is ready the Holy Blood Knight within will appear at its gates. Until then I'll have my fun grinding my Instance/Heroics and Faction Reps for my few remaining gear pieces.

Steamvault

Another few Steamvault run with some friends and Warlord Kalithresh is getting so tired of seeing Galo he finally dropped my much needed Devilshark Cape for tanking. However he's still keeping a grip on that chest piece that I still need from him. Will see how long it takes to get it or the one from Mech. Have the enchant materials to get +12 Dodge put on the cape just haven't found a enchanter as yet to smack it on the cape. Also picked up my Kara Key frag in Arcatraz, so be off to Black Morass later to finish that part of the Key Quest.

Though working towards getting the needed shoulder piece Spaulders of Righteous from Botanica whenever it decides to drop, did a quest in Netherstorm and picked up a nice green shoulder piece. Got the Nexus-Guard's Pauldrons from a not too long relatively easy chain quest takes about a hour or less. The quests starts at Midrealm post in north Netherstorm. Its one the huge bubble domes of the Consortium and speak to Mehrdad. Shoulders got some nice shield block rating and block value which I can sure use. I put the Scryer Shoulder enchants on then for +15 Defense/+10 Dodge that gave me 2% more block than what I had before and a bit short of 1% more dodge altogether than before. Small increases makes a big difference until I can get the gear drops I need and faction revered rewards to uncrushable.

Unlimited Escapism - Shock Your Senses.

So Baron Soosdon has finally finish his new Epic Machinima Unlimited Escapism - Shock Your Senses movie. I had a few his movies posted a few days ago here. After making many short clip versions of the Unlimited Escapism volume series he's finally finished his latest feature film. Its 13:38 minutes long but I know I've been waiting to see it for a while and its Awesome!

Its in wide screen format so Enjoy.

There Is No Tanking Shortage!

That's just my opinion of it. The question is asked over and over and sometimes in different ways its asked. People sometimes go in LFG: Need Tank, can't find Tank (Healer), We really need a Tank (Healer), been looking for 3hrs, Please we just need a Tank and we're good to go (gtg). So WoWInsider had a short article asking if adding the another new tanking class (Death Knights) going to solve the tank class shortage. My Answer is No! What you may end up with is a lot of new elite tanks in Death Knights maybe.

As a tanking class and person that's unguilded I spend all my time in LFG so I know and I hear those cries for needing a tank all day long. One of the things in playing WoW is that the people are real people vs all NPC's. Thus people of all kinds can be found to be contrary to the normal as: idiots, jerks, inconsiderate, selfish sometimes and some just don't try to learn how to play their class properly. Dealing with a lot of those people are just not worth putting up with sometimes as a tank even in PuG's. I've flat out walked out of PuG groups as the tank. Lot of Tanks choose the safety net of their own guild rather than helping out PuG's. The thing I often hate the most is getting stuck with the high cost of repair bill or due to DPS. Getting a big repair bill and no loot doesn't always sit well when you loose roll after roll on shards either when no one can use the BoP loot. When it comes to soloing as a tank that's not a problem to me yet everyone is different.

Most people just rather sit back and easily DPS its no stress for them. I do like the role of defending my peers. Tanking can me fun and stressful all at the same time. Tanking is a Thankless Job. There are times when I just choose not to respond to a LFG call to come lead a group through a instance. Often I respond more to a friend call with a good group to do a instance run or people I've grouped with before unless I really need the run. There are times when in Shattrath city that I can clearly see a few tanks around and a dozen healers of all kinds sitting on their mounts doing what seem to be nothing. Yet you can hear in LFG people are clearly asking for healers and tanks for quite some time for a instance. There is a reason for that. Healers don't like getting killed. Decent tanks don't like people telling them how to do their job and dealing with idiots, people that can't control their dps/aggro or start fights before the tank is even ready. I've been in lots of groups where people start fights and I'm still drinking for mana and not ready. That irks me.

Often if the group fails somehow everyone seem to point fingers at the tank somehow more so that at themselves or failing to CC a mob. Yes sometimes that could be valid to blame a inexperienced tank, but then again person is inexperience. It takes a coordinated group to get anything done correctly or efficiently. How often do DPS blame themselves in a 5 man or for been afk in middle of fight? Its my experience in 5 man PuGing that VERY FEW people have Threat Meters installed thus easier to pull aggro. I'm a tank I see it because I have both a threat/dps meter. Someone sometimes pull aggro and my job gets harder and as a mana user I have to burn even more mana when someone pulls aggro. If you got poor DPS its hidden in the group. If you got a poor tank its obvious and he dies group wipe. A poor healer its obvious and tank dies group wipe and then group blame the tank for dying. Tanks take a lot of crap period.

Who needs that in a game that should be fun. If your decent tank you get asked to join a guild or hopefully get put on other people friends list as a alternate to their guild tank. I get asked allot to join guilds but I refuse of my own choice and choose to be guildless as a tank for now. In the end the tank gets stuck with a 2 digit gold repair bill, as I've seem many of those and I think to myself all my profit is gone. I have to make that back up somehow. Tank repairs are allot more than anyone else in the group and more likely more than everyone combined for repairs even if you wipe a few times in 5 mans.

Most people have seeing big numbers syndrome and crits so they love to DPS and they vastly out number what you see tanking or healing. When I'm tanking often I'm not really looking at numbers I'm busy enough doing my job and what I'm managing is generating enough threat to keep the mob CC glued to me or managing cooldowns. So I'm not big numbers happy. I just show up and do my job as a tank. My belief is that tanks and healers are both more so selective in the instance they choose to do and with whom. Often they prefer their guilds vs to group PuG with. If a tanking class has nothing to gain from a Instance run they almost have no good reason other than gear or faction reps to come or volunteer to go tank for a PuG doing that instance. Thus you have a certain level of players that just wont respond to a group in LFG needing a tanking class nor put up with a lot of stupid stuff people often do to cost them extra repairs. So having Death Knights won't solve that problem from my point of view.

WoW Players: Hardcore, Casuals and What Else?

If your neither a Hardcore player nor a Casual World of Warcraft (WoW) player, then exactly what are you and what category are you?

I'm not a Hardcore player. Yet neither do I play WoW casually. I log at least minimum 30 hrs a week just thinking. Yet I don't consider myself a Raider either and though Epics are nice I'm not all crazy for them either. When I'm playing in game its all about consistently and progressively playing my main character daily for improved gear, quest fun and improving faction reputations. I spend more calculated time reading WoW blogs of other good players that play my specific Class and WoW more so than some casual players actually play the game itself.

I have a few alts but I have no love for playing alts it just does not appease me to play any of my few alts which are all barely level 20. Alts I just use them as banking depository. I enjoy playing my Paladin. I guess in playing my Paladin main character its a commitment to "Galo" whenever I do play to be consistently progressing my character in some way. Yet the question remains..... what definition do you give to a character if your neither Hardcore or Casual?

I think I remember it was Tobold on his blog says their are two kinds of people that play WoW. What category exactly am I? By what metric you define just exactly what makes a player Hardcore, Casual or Other (Progressive Players) Maybe?

Gearing Up Continues - Gear Upgrades!

New character stats as well as pre-Kara gear upgrades. I've been at 70 for about a month now and collecting all my pre-Kara gear as well as 3 successful runs short of my Kara Key. However Kara can wait!

What's a good Blood Elf (Horde) Protect Paladin Tanking Specialist without a fine Blade. Obtained with Revered with Keepers of Time (KoT). Its a good must have for pre-Kara gear as well as having the Crystalforge Sword. I now have both and fully enchanted for +40 Spellpower.

Again from reaching Revered with KoT. This is my much needed Tanking legging upgrade. I had it fully gemmed and enchanted it with the Clefthide Leg Armor for the Stamina for HP & Agility for increase Dodge Rating as well as Armor increase. A must legging piece for any serious Protect Paladin Tanking Specialist.

My long lived green old Chest piece.

Replaced with the new Breastplate of the Bold. Its not the actual tanking chest piece that I really need but its a very nice upgrade to the old green piece for now. Has much more HP gem socketed and at least 1% more Dodge as well as Armor increase and other stats. Enchanted it for +6 to all stats which is really nice as it increase ALL stats, so more HP, Mana and Agility (Dodge & Armor). For a while I kept wondering just where I was getting 90 extra Mana from. Yeah came from the enchant for +stats also. Hoping can get my correct chest piece to drop from Warlord Kalithresh in Steamvault: Breast Plate of the Righteous. So far he refuses to open his vault to drop the chest piece run after run as well as the needed Devilshark Cape.

Needless to say constant proper gear enchanting, getting gems for gear tanking pieces so you can tank properly and make a healers life easier constantly does leave a Protection Paladin a bit on the broke side of things. Dreaming of a elusive expensive Epic Mount that cost 5k gold when your putting all your gold into your gear and repairs.

Edited

Weekend in Review - Adventures in Puging

It has been a really busy weekend! Galo spent a lot of time building up valuable experience in the Tanking Corp or as I rather like to say as a Tanking Specialist. So let me see if I can even remember what when down.

Did some more Tempest Keep run for Acatraz all in PuG's but with some friends I've run with before that needed some help for reps. After that some of the people in the group needed to do some Black Morass (BM) runs for reps and I went on my first BM run (finally). We laid the smackdowm on "Aeonus" and all his Rift Lords and crew for about 4 times in a row. We never wiped, but we almost lost the very first event due to a bit untimely heals on the tank within the first 12 sec's of the last boss. Immediately released and ran back in quick as everyone went down and ran back in to revive the healer while everyone else later ran back in to the event. Luckily we had good control of the adds before, so Medivh shield started at 100% and was now down to like 30% at the time.

Back on full health/mana with healer rezzed started tanking the "Aeonus" the boss and popped the last beacon. Group was also back in time to help and we got the boss down with about 7% to spare on Medivh Shield. Good fast recovery I call that. We spanked him for the next three runs. Was allot quicker with just keeping up Judgement of Crusader and Seal of Righteousness on the bosses with a nice rotation of Holy Shield and Consecrations. Always find hitting Holy Shield and then when the quick global cooldown is up hitting Consecration put them all in constant sync for long fight.

Needless to say for BM all nighter runs on Saturday got Revered with Keepers of Time. Went spent some gold and picked up the Continuum Blade, Timewarden Leggings, Heroic Key and the Glyph of the Defender enchant for the head piece enchant. Was a busy night!

Sunday did a some Sethekk Halls so Galo could get his own key for Shadow Labs from the final boss which we did get. Then tanked for the healer a friend that needed to do his Kara key quest in Shadow Labs and I reluctantly tanked it as much as I hate to go to Shadow Labs. I had the same Kara key quest as well so we completed that quest. Then we one shot both Vorpil and Murmur the 2 bosses that gave me the most trouble there. As usual the 2nd Boss in Shadow Labs gave us trouble we wiped 2-3 times there just having almost no mana and used all 10 mana pots I had on that boss. Burned down both Vorpil & Mumur both quick with just keeping up Judgement of Crusader & Seal of Righteousness.

On Murmur again having enough health I just tanked him in place to make it easier and had the priest heal me through it as I popped a Nightmare Seed right before his Sonic Booms for priest to top me off. That strategy had worked every time (3) so far but then again I had like 11k health doing it. Its just strange and funny how some days the bosses that can give you trouble there can completely flip around and with a different PuG group.

Was back in Arcatraz to help out another PuG group on Sunday for which I thought it was a Botonica run so I could maybe get my needed shoulder piece and the reps. Had three people in the PuG group raiding Kara on full time basis. The Mage newer at 70 in group and also had a Hunter. I happened to be the only person with a key for Arcatraz. This seem to be common on a lot of my Arcatraz runs and I'm not sure why. Its also amazing the amount of people that don't use Threat Meters either. Anyway we had a good run of Arcatraz again up to the last boss event. On the third and final trash wave before the Harbinger Skyriss one the trash the dragon looking one with the lance hits me with two solid knockbacks one after the other straight across the room to the other end. I got no heals for the entire time. Tank dies... we wipe.

Then right after in graveyard the healer gets mad and says why I keep moving out of range. Duh!!! I said to the priest healer, he trash mob kept hitting me with knockbacks. Healer goes: "Nonsense, you move out of my healing range". I'm like dude.... I was airborne two times no way I can airborne myself across the room. He didn't say much after that. I'm not going to tell the healer how to do his job and that he needs to stay in range to heal vs not moving at all. Forget to screenshot text of chat. Last I need is to be on bad terms with yet another PuG healer and this one is a Kara raiding healer with epic gear.

So we all rezz and back to the trash wave event on the last boss cleared it and now to the big boss Harbinger Skyriss. However on this very event Harbinger Skyriss was in rare mood this time for no nonsense! He FEARED the ENTIRE fight from beginning to end! We had two Kara raiding priest in the PuG group one healer and one DPS spec and myself been the Paladin tank with a Mage and Hunter. I was all over the place been feared every few second literally as well as everyone else. We just wiped badly. The group quit after that because the two priests had to go to their raid and so rest that was left of group just called it there. Adventures in Puging.

Spend a few hours in between Shadowmoon Valley & Netherstorm grinding constantly killing evil Elf's for Sunfury Signets and Arcane Tomes. Took about 6 hours of dedicated evil Blood Elf eradication and on turning in all my Sunfury Signets and Arcane Tomes Galo is now completely Exalted with the Scryer's. Yeah! As a result went to get and upgrade my shoulder enchant for the Greater Inscription of the Knight enchant. My gear is not bad. Its as good as it could possibly be currently pre Kara with the correct enchants and every single socketed gear gemmed until something else comes along better for upgrades.

Spend the entire rest of weekend farming to replenish constantly consumed consumables like buff food for tanking, endless mana pots and consumed supplies. Needless to say I was in constant gear repair all weekend. As much as it is fun tanking sometimes is a thankless job. Did get some gear enchants, gemmed some gear for upgrades. That adds up to allot and any savings I'm managed to do for a few days is totally gone.

Another Alchemy Discovery - Flask of Fortification

It was only a few days ago that Galo received his 3rd Alchemy Discovery while brewing up a storm. So I was surprised like heck while again burning down some of my herb stock to make room in the bank when yet again received another new Alchemy Discovery. Another Flask (Flask of Fortification) that will be usefull to tanks raiding and whenever I get there myself. Per Auctioneer its 35-40g on my server whether it actually sells for that is something else. With that I've received some of the prime flask any tank need for adventures in raiding that I can make myself.

Didn't do anything special to discovery making this flask as its completely random. Just kept refilling my bank warehouse with new HIGH LEVEL potion stocks and using up herbs that taking up valuable space from time to time. Often I make some random & usefull potion or elixirs for sale or my personal stock. That's all that I have ever done to discover new random flasks as some people have said they have yet to have any discoveries of their own in alchemy.

Screenshots - Scarlet Monastery/Headless Horseman

Scarlet Monastery hasn't seen this much action since it opened probably with everyone laying the daily smackdown on the Headless Horseman. Who needs to go to the Battlegrounds. Just go to SM and flag yourself and you have a ready made battleground with the Alliance and all the dead bodies to boot. Got all three of the rings in over 15 runs just no helm.

Machinima - Shake That!

WoW is indeed great Escapism! We play to have fun, socalize and relax away from the world of things to worry about. So for the weekend I can write some stuff I've been doing but its weekend on the light side of things. Spent several hours just browsing through Machinima movies. So here is another of one Baron Soosdon great movie to enjoy for all you who ever stop here to relax and enjoy. I also linked his work on the blog in a Machinima link so his movies can be found by anyone who stops here.

Here is a link to Baron Soosdon vast collection of visually stunning Machinima Videos to enjoy. All the movies best viewed at Stage6 and wide screen format. Bookmark it and Enjoy!

Shake That!

Shake That Thing!

Machinima - Unlimited Escapism

I glimpsed this over at WoWInsider.com earlier and have seen this guy movies before. I like watching Machinima movies allot especially visually stunning presentations. This is a Machinima Trailer by Baron Soosdon for his latest and upcoming movies piece. He makes some of the best, coolest and visually stunning WoW Movies I've seen so far. The movie come out sometimes next week which should be really interesting to see so you don't want to miss when it comes out. He always manage to make WoW look and feel better than the game itself. That's if you enjoy watching Machinima movies of course.

In Case You Missed It - Protec & Ret Paladins

Another Protection Paladin improvement confirmed by Blue that should be coming in 2.3 is the Talent Precision will now also improve "Spell Hits" other than just Melee Hits. Great because I sure don't have any. I always hate when my spells get resisted as I do see it happen. How much change that will be to improved precision dunno. Awesome change though. That's all good for my 3/3 Precision build. Link to Blue Forum Thread Here!

In other great news for our Retribution brothers and sisters are getting a THREAT Reduction to their damage output as quoted by Eyonix on the Paladin forum as quoted below. Link Here.

After further discussion and testing we’ve decided to add threat reduction deep in the paladin's retribution tree. Fanaticism will now reduce threat caused by all actions by 6/12/18/24/30%, in addition to its current effect.

Deep Retribution spec Paladins are so happy they probably wet themselves with more control over their burst damage in Instances/Raids. Cheers!

Broke the Defense Barrier!

Had no post yesterday, just got caught up a bit questing and running Instances over and over. Since I've being having such bad luck getting Instance loot drops I often go and find quests that can more easily upgrade reward Galo with gear improvements till stuff finally drop in Instance off the Boss. Much to cheer about is after weeks of trying to gear up Galo and lack of Boss drops finally break the 490 Defense barrier. That puts me at uncritable defense wise for my Paladin with this new awesome Dabiri's Enigma Trinket. Still need work to get to uncrushable status with Holy Shield up.

In Netherstorm you can do the quest Recipe for Destruction given by one of the Consortium agents at the outpost close to Manaforge Ultris. Its not a long quest just three chains to it and a very tough Void Boss which the Consortium agents and NPC actually fights. One of the reward to pick is the Dabiri's Enigma Trinket which is really awesome tanking trinket. Tried a few times to solo the quest with the NPC's and just couldn't. This is not a melee fight by any means but a Range casting fight at best. After a few tries though I strap on some healing gear in the bank and heal the NPC's from range to see if that works. Tried a few times but my Paladin healing is just wet noodle healing before NPC died due to out of mana/mana pots with boss at 45%. Eventually got a group after a Acatraz run to help and was lot easier. This quest gives nice Blue rewards.

Instance
Did some Durnholde runs since couldn't get a group to The Black Morass and got Honored with Cavern of Time. Still long way to Revered. Somehow Arcatraz was the place for Galo to hit up yesterday for most the day logged on. Blessing of Silvermoon (maybe) was on me and finally got some boss loot though NOT what I needed but it was plate drops. Final boss Arcatraz on 2 smooth runs dropped: Breastplate of the Bold & Doomplate Chestguard which may use for a Ret set maybe. Did about three runs thru Arcatraz. On last run Galo got Revered with The Sha'Tar and so eventually got to pick up my 2nd Heroic Key this one for all Tempest Keep Instances. Need a lot more Tempest Keep runs to get that awesome Crest of the Sha'tar shield at Exalted with The Sha'tar. Went and finally picked up the Kara key quest though haven't started it as yet.

Takes a lot of work to get good gear and much harder when your gear just won't drop. Will have to run Steamvault over and over till my chest piece finally get released from the vault.

PuG's
Yeah Galo is still guildless and wonders into every instance with new faces and I get tons of guild invites daily. Most people hate PuG's but you do meet some good people in PuG's contrary to the norm that most people experience. Most my experience has been good despite a few that I've had and I'm sure bad experience will happen again. However I do have a very long friends list now and a few good healers on it. Not all PuG's are bad, it just happens allot to get a bad name.

Edited:

Herbalism - Farming Shadowmoon Valley

I'm a Alchemist and Herbalist. In my down time you barely see me waiting around in Orgrimmar or Shattrath City. In that time I go farming often for herbs to use for Alchemy or my character needs. But in Shadowmoon Valley Nightmare Vine is the herb of the zone and its really nice to fly around doing donuts in the whole area looking for this herb as well as Felweed/Motes of Life. Nightmare Seed is gathered from picking Nightmare Vine. You can also be poisoned when picking this herb!

I have Cartographer and that really helps to spot herbs nodes you have farmed. When you herb pick Nightmare Vine you have a chance and its not a big one of getting Nightmare Seed with it. Nightmare Seed is really nice to get as its really nice to use for Tanking. Its also not a Soulbound item and if you ever see them on AH they also cost a bit. I did donuts around Shadowmoon Valley for 2 hours farming herbs I need. Most I got was 50 Nightmare Vines and 5 seeds for the effort. That's the most seeds I've ever collected at one time. However as a Tank myself the 2000 extra health for 30 sec is a whopper when your tanking a hard fight and need that extra edge. Nightmare Seed can work wonders if you can get your hands on it with Herbalism or on AH with the low drop rate.

Instance Weekend

The weekend in WoW seem much like a blur I would say. I read patch notes on Friday and can't remember just what I did after that. Saturday my Broadband ISP was on and off on and off almost all day as we had a area wide outage in our area and it was frustrating trying to do instance runs. Twice I got caught in a Instance run when I lost my connection and that just blew it for that.

Did some more PuG runs of Steamvault nothing dropped as usual but finally did get Revered with Cenarion Expedition. For that I went ahead and picked up my new neck piece of Strenght of the Untamed which has a bit more defense & dodge rating than the one I had though -10 stamina to get me over at 485 Defense. Keeping all my armor gear though. Also picked up my Heroic Key also for Coilfang Reservoir and a Alchemy Transmute for Primal Water to Air recipe. So that's my first of the Heroic Keys so far.

Went on some Shadow Labs PuG runs for Lower City reps and ended up doing about 4 Instance runs. So now Honored with Lower City and need a 7.5k rep points to Revered and get my Heroic Key. I think Galo needs Exaulted to get his Alchemy Recipe but quite frankly after Revered really don't care to see Shadow Labs much.

Shadow Labs is not on the list of my favorite Instance by far. After 4 runs of Shadow labs over the weekend that place gave me a big headache. The Boss Blackheart was not fun by any means with all the mind controlling. It was amusing to watch but was damn hell to execute getting him down. We wiped 3/4 times on him every time. We wiped multiple times on Boss Vorpil and took quite a while for me to get the hang of him. I hate to admit but it took a few tries to figure out where north really was when fighting him. Seem you fight him going south to avoid the Void Walkers then on Teleport go north of his normal position and then on teleport back south of his normal position. Took a lot of wipes to get that correct I have to admit and we wiped enough times that at end of the run I had 15% Armor.

Actually we wiped more in Shadow Labs than all my other instance runs combined. The plate repair wasn't fun (11g) and considering nothing dropped I could use either. After really figuring it out after that the first try we got him but it was real close at that. Needless to say that boss gave me a headache.

At Murmur we wiped a few times due to his Sonic Booms and Resonance. Trying to tank him and having time to move in and out and always getting slowed down when he starts to Sonic Boom was just hard to get timed properly and moving back in place fast was just not working well. Our Druid healer had to leave and we swapped out for a Priest. This time we had the Priest try and heal me through all of Murmur's Sonic Booms without having to move. Priest timed all the heals just well enough that she was able to keep me up every time Mumur did a Sonic discharge and was able to top my health back off.

Gave everyone Greater Blessing of Wisdom and just kept up JoC & SoR/Consecration in sync rotation and went all out DPS till was almost OOM. Popped a mana pot and switched up to JoW. Needless to say my gear helped as I was avoiding a lot of the hits so that worked. We did a few back to back runs with the Priest and did same strategy and it worked. Really good healer at that the Priest. If someone knows a better exact strategy on Murmur I sure would like to know. May not have a Priest next time though I sure will look for one. After 4 runs of Shadow Labs that place just gave me a big headache and that was it for Sunday playing WoW. Don't care much to see Shadow Labs after Revered. Had to go and take a nap after that.

Instance Gear
So far the only gear on all my instance run after run I've managed to get so far is just one Ring of the Silver Hand from Steamvault (7 times). All my gear though somewhat decent is either quest reward or created. Otherwise as a Tank I'm just instance unlucky. Most of all I see on every run is Cloth, Mail & Daggers. Crude joke been played by Blizzard on me I guess.

PuG Tales - Arcatraz

Headed into Arcatraz for my first run. Somehow its taken me a while to get a group to so this Instance. Probably because Galo was too busy doing another Instance run for gear and faction reps. Anyway another tanking assignment and was good to finally see Arcatraz. Other than Galo it was a experience PuG group, so made it much easier with guides. Arcatraz seem to be a place with all kinds of demonic mobs, a lot of what you see in nothern Netherstorm somewhat.

Made real good use of exorcism spells here. You also get lots of rep points here for The Sha'tar, allot more than the Botanica or Mech. Place was fun and was just a smooth good run. Those fire demons in there hit pretty damn hard even with fire resistance aura. The last boss event was really fun to watch involving the mage gnome I think it was. Got confused a bit tanking the last boss Harbringer Skyriss especially since its so big its all you see tanking him. Fortunately he was already skull marked for the real one. When he split in duplicates I barely realized the boss had done so and took me a while to figure it out so we could kill the fake one first. Anyway I did and we down the boss, everyone was happy and I competed my quest for Adal in Shattrah City. Needless to say nothing dropped I could use. Other than a tanking ring I got in Steamvault no other gear has ever dropped anywhere from any boss I needed. I guess I know how most tanks feel on that.

Other Interesting Notes Coming in Patch 2.3

After reading the entire upcoming Patch 2.3 list notes yesterday. This is just a filtered version (Not Entire List) of the patch notes without the Class Specific Notes or PvP/Battleground notes. Only making note of other important little things that may be good to know or missed in that long list of patch notes. Again for the entire list its linked here.

Zul’Aman

Zul'Aman is a 10-player, level 70 outdoor instance located in the
Ghostlands. Players will be able to confront six new bosses including
the Forest Troll Warlord Zul'jin.

Guild Banks Introduced

The Guild Bank is a shared repository for an entire guild and will be
accessible through new NPC’s called guild bankers. The Guild Bank will
allow players with the appropriate permissions to store items and money
for use by the rest of the guild. Permissions to withdraw and deposit
money and items are controlled by the guild leader through the guild
controls menu. The Guild Bank is divided up into separate tabs so that
the guild leader may restrict access or group items into distinct
categories.
- Up to 6 purchasable tabs each containing 98 item slots
- Permissions to view/deposit/withdraw per tab
- You may use your Guild Bank withdraw limits to pay for item repairs
(now enabled on all merchants)
- Transaction logs of the last 50 actions in the bank viewable on a per
tab basis

General
- Experience: The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been
decreased between levels 20 and 60. In addition, the amount of
experience granted by quests has been increased between levels 30 and
60.

- Expertise: We have added a new stat and associated rating called
expertise and expertise rating. Expertise rating converts to
expertise at the same rate that weapon skill rating formerly
converted at. Each point of expertise reduces the chance for your
attacks to be dodged or parried by 0.25%.

- Weapon Skill: All items and abilities that granted weapon skill have
been changed. In most cases, they were converted to expertise or
expertise rating. Ranged attacks do not benefit from expertise, so
ranged weapon skill has generally been replaced by critical strike
bonuses or hit bonuses. In a few cases, talents have been changed to
other effects to avoid granting players excessive amounts of
expertise.

- Healing: Almost all items and enchantments that provide bonus
healing now also provide a smaller number (approximately 1/3) of
bonus spell damage. There are a few items and enchantments where this
was not possible, such as random-stat items and Zul'Gurub
enchantments, but this is now the case on virtually all other items.

- Quest givers who have available daily quests will have a blue
exclamation point instead of a yellow one.

- Vendor Discounts: All vendors with an associate faction now give
discounts at all levels above neutral.
Friendly: 5% discount
Honored: 10% discount
Revered: 15% discount
Exalted: 20% discount

- Blacksmithing
A new world drop recipe for an Adamantite Weapon Chain has been
added. This new weapon chain both reduces disarm duration and
increases parry rating.

- Cooking
Daily cooking quests are now available from The Rokk in Shattrath
City! In addition to gold, you can receive random cooking reagents
and new recipes as a reward for completing these quests.

- Enchanting:
Duration of wizard and mana oils created by enchanters has been
increased.

- Engineering:
Engineers can now create incredible new flying machines! Find Niobe
Whizzlespark in Shadowmoon Valley to learn these fantastic new plans.
Plans for a new Field Repair Bot are rumored to belong to a select
few Gan'arg Analyzers in Blade's Edge Mountains.

- Fishing:
Fishermen and women can now track fishing nodes. This ability is
learned from a journal sometimes found in crates obtained through
fishing.
New fish can now be caught in Zul'Aman and Deadwind Pass. Recipes
for preparing these new fish are obtained through the daily cooking
quests.
Fishing difficulty reduced for some areas in Nagrand.

- Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee
combat.

Items
- All old world dungeons have had their loot revisited. Players will
now find that all loot dropped inside instances will be of Superior
quality.

- Arena Relics: New relics have been added to support all talent trees
for relic users. In addition, most of the arena-system relics have
been renamed so there is a more consistent naming convention.

- Gladiator’s armor pieces of like nature from various seasons will now
all meet the requirements for their shared set bonus. This means if
you are using 2 pieces of Season 1 gear and 2 pieces of Season 2 gear
of the same design you will now have your 4 piece set bonus.

- Low Level Cloth Items: All agility and strength on low-level cloth
items has been replaced with other stats, usually bonus spell damage,
but also sometimes other stats beneficial to mana users.

- Ogri'la Faction Vendor: This vendor now sells potions useable
anywhere for a large number of Apexis Shards.

Dungeons and Raids
- Elite mobs outside of pre-Burning Crusade dungeons have been changed
to non-elite.

- The level ranges of pre-Burning Crusade dungeons have been adjusted
to a narrower range.

- Meeting stone level requirements, the Looking for Group system, and
quests have been adjusted to match the new dungeon level ranges.

- Auchindoun: Sethekk Halls
Mobs inside Sethekk Halls will now continue to award Lower City
reputation into Exalted.

- Karazhan
The number of creatures that must be killed in the Karazhan Servants
Quarters area before a miniboss spawns has been reduced.
Phase hounds in Karazhan will now phase out less frequently.
Coldmist Widows no longer wipe threat when casting Poison Bolt volley.
The Chess Event chess in Karazhan now has a tap list so it can only
be looted by players who were involved in the chess event.

Quests
- New random Daily Dungeon quests have been added for both the heroic
and non-heroic five-person Outland dungeons, as well as for the
5-person Caverns of Time instances. Each day both a single heroic
and a single non-heroic dungeon are randomly targeted by these
quests. The Consortium quest givers can be located in Shattrath's
Lower City.

- Dustwallow Marsh
Many new quests have been added to the zone.
The Steamwheedle Cartel have just completed building the new town of
Mudsprocket in south west Dustwallow Marsh.

- Level 1-60 dungeon quests have had their experience and faction
rewards increased.

- Many elite creatures and quests in the level 1-60 experience have
been changed to accommodate solo play.

User Interface
- The Auction House UI has been much improved. The useless categories
have been removed (Plate-Cloak for instance) and a number of
additional sub categories have been added. In addition, many items
have had their category changed so that they make more sense.

- The Auction house time periods have been changed. Now items can be
put up for sale for 12, 24, or 48 hours. The option to put up items
for 8 hours has been removed.

- When you take damage and have a full screen UI up, the edges of the
screen will flash red so you know you are under attack.
- Inspect distance has been increased to 30 yards.

- When you inspect another player, you can now see their talent choices
as well as their equipment.

- You can now send up to 12 items in a single mail message.

- When you have unopened mail, you can mouse over the recent mail icon
and get the name of the people who most recently sent you the mail.

- Quests that are much below your level will now have the tag
(Low Level) in the gossip pane attached to the quest. This will
make it easier to tell which quest to accept when a quest giver has
both low and high level quests.

- When raid bosses send an important message to the center of your
screen it will be larger and have an effect that makes it more
noticeable.

- The raid warning command now appears in a larger font in the center
screen and grows and shrinks slightly when it appears to make it more
noticeable.

- The tooltip for Block on the character sheet now displays the amount
of damage reduced by a successful block.

Blizzards Paladin 2.3 PTR Notes

I spotted the reference to the new Patch 2.3 PTR notes while on a quick stop reading over at Honors Code blog. So posted a copy of notes list for Paladins and other notes. Don't have much time so posting it here for quick reference. Weapon Expertise seem to be getting a Buff and with some Stamina. WOOT! Link to entire PTR 2.3 Notes here.

Paladins
- Cleanse and Purify range increased to 40 yards.
- Crusader Strike (Retribution) cooldown reduced from 10 to 6 seconds.
- Exorcism mana cost reduced.
- Hammer of Wrath mana cost reduced.
- Holy Wrath mana cost reduced.
- Improved Seal of the Crusader (Retribution) benefits folded into the
base spell. This talent now gives the benefits of the Sanctified
Crusader talent instead.
- Pursuit of Justice (Retribution) is now 3 ranks and increases
movement speed by 5/10/15% and also reduces the chance you'll be hit
by spells by 1/2/3%.
- Sanctified Crusader (Retribution) renamed Sanctified Seals, which now
increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and melee
attacks by 1/2/3% and reduces the chance your Seals will be dispelled
by 33/66/100%.
- Vengeance (Retribution) duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds.
- Vindication (Retribution) frequency and duration increased and now
reduces all attributes by 5/10/15%, not just Strength and Agility.
- Weapon Expertise (Protection) renamed Combat Expertise, now increases
expertise by 1/2/3/4/5 and total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%.

In Other News: Professions (Entire List)

Professions
- You can now control-click on a recipe to see how the item that is
made by that recipe will look on you in the dressing room.
- Alchemy
Added a sound for when a cauldron is created.
- Blacksmithing
A new world drop recipe for an Adamantite Weapon Chain has been
added. This new weapon chain both reduces disarm duration and
increases parry rating.
- Cooking
Daily cooking quests are now available from The Rokk in Shattrath
City! In addition to gold, you can receive random cooking reagents
and new recipes as a reward for completing these quests.
- Enchanting:
Duration of wizard and mana oils created by enchanters has been
increased.
- Engineering:
Engineers can now create incredible new flying machines! Find Niobe
Whizzlespark in Shadowmoon Valley to learn these fantastic new plans.
Plans for a new Field Repair Bot are rumored to belong to a select
few Gan'arg Analyzers in Blade's Edge Mountains.
- Fishing:
Fishermen and women can now track fishing nodes. This ability is
learned from a journal sometimes found in crates obtained through
fishing.
New fish can now be caught in Zul'Aman and Deadwind Pass. Recipes
for preparing these new fish are obtained through the daily cooking
quests.
Fishing difficulty reduced for some areas in Nagrand.
- Herbalism
Picking herbs will no longer cause effects on items to trigger.
- Jewelcrafting:
A new skyfire meta gem recipe can be obtained from the Coilskar Siren
of Shadowmoon Valley. This new meta gem increases critical strike
rating and critical strike damage with spells.
- Leatherworking:
Stylin' hats no longer require Zhevra leather.
Greatly increased the radius of the Drums of Battle, Drums of
Restoration, Drums of Speed, and Drums of War.
Removed the casting time from the Drums of Battle, Drums of
Restoration, Drums of Speed, and Drums of War.
Slightly increased the radius of Drums of Panic.
Reduced the casting time of Drums of Panic and added a global
cooldown equal to the casting time.
Drums of Speed and Drums of Restoration are no longer world drop
recipes, and can now be obtained from the Mag'har and Kurenai faction
vendors with revered standing.
A new recipe is available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers
to create glove reinforcements, providing a substantial armor bonus.
Reinforcements are a permanent enchantment and cannot be placed with
other permanent enchantments.
New recipes are available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers
to make 20 slot quivers and ammo pouches.
New recipes are available from the Honor Hold, Thrallmar, and Lower
City quartermasters to create 24 slot quivers and ammo pouches.
- Mining
Mining will no longer cause effects on items to trigger.

Quick Observations in Notes:

- Darkmoon Card: Vengeance: This item will no longer trigger from
environmental damage.
- Ogri'la Faction Vendor: This vendor now sells potions useable
anywhere for a large number of Apexis Shards.

Slow Week for WoW

On my night shift again on the job all this week so slow post week on anything WoW till Friday. But does allows me to catch up reading blogs and forums in the late hours of the morning just no blog posting.

Alchemy - New Discovery!

Discovered my Third Alchemy Flask. Yes, you do get a Alchemy Discovery recipe IF you make enough potions in varying quantities. So today when making potions Galo got this new discovery potion it literally scared the crap out of me as it always seem to do as it happened so unexpectedly. This Flask will be a nice one me a Paladin since this flask also increase Holy spell damage...Woot! Immediately I was off to the Alchemy Lab to make 5 of these Flask for my stash. More spell damage ftw for this Paladin!

If you keep making 300+ level potions never know you can get a few discoveries too. So Galo can now make both Flask of Relentless Assault, Flask of Mighty Restoration, Flask of Blinding Light ...Woot! Yeah you really do get the very elusive discoveries in Alchemy...once in a while.

Screenshots - Steamvault Boss Warlord Kalithresh

Dead boss Warlord Kalithresh. Another morning run of Steamvault, another good PuG group and this time its was smooth clean full clear run. Galo and his new shield (Tank), 2 Warlocks, a Priest and a trigger happy Hunter (Good Hunter & good guy). Made some more good friends :) Three cheers for good PuG's. Healer also made me look good. No one died on the run. And the vault refuse to open up and give Galo some loot. Maybe I need to rob the boss when he's not looking or something. Picked up Mask of Pennance since Galo only one wears plate. Will just throw the mask in my own bank vault. Picked up lots or armament for reps as well as complete the kill Warlord Kalithresh quest for CE. First time I forgot to get the quest. Herb farmed Ancient Lichen after the run was all over in the Instance.

PuG Tales - Mechanar

Another PuG group and another smooth instance run with Galo tanking his first Mechanar Instance run. Was Galo as Tank, 2 Warriors Arms/Fury spec a Shadow Priest and a Resto Shammy. Always nice to run with someone that's been there before as well as a good functional group and good healer (Shammy). We spanked all the bosses (5) and we clobbered "Pathaleon the Calculator" and picked up the 2nd shard to complete my Quest and key for Arcatraz. Actually Galo was having so much fun I walked out the instance and forget the shard, so had to run back in all the way to get it.

We had a few crazy mob moments after the boss Nethermancer Sepethrea with 4 waves of rushing mobs and a few more to Pathaleon. Turning in the quest (How to break into Arcatraz) at A'dal obtained my Sha'tari Vindicator Waistguard which was great to get. Was also hitting at times over 1K TPS (Threat Per Sec) which seems pretty good in just the gear I have but I think it usually average somewhere about 700 TPS usually in a good cycle. Also picked up Cloak of Arcanistry which probably will use for DPS gear. For Alchemy picked up Major Fire Protection Recipe off one the mobs one the mages maybe in the room before the pull with boss Nethermancer Sepethera.. Woot!

Anyway made a lot of friends from the run as the tank, also seem I'm getting more popular with the more runs I do for friend. Galo's now getting lots of whispers to come help with quests or Instance runs. All great though as sometimes I have to decline a invite as can only do so much at one time. Not many Paladin Tanks on my low population server either, as I've personally seem only 3 maybe and all in more progressive guilds. Spent rest of Sunday helping out the same group and a few other people swapped in completing tons of hard group quests in Shadowmoon Valley. Some quests I didn't have as yet, so some was shared that could.

However it was all just goodwill to help friends out for the quests they needed to complete since its usually hard to get anyone to help on group quests. That goes along way to having goodwill among friends as someone that don't mind helping out. In time that often goes both ways. Was going to attempt a SV or BoT Instance run later but was too tired from questing and end up taking a very long nap.