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:

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.

PuG Tales - Botanica

What a difference a good group makes. It sure was a lot different than my last PuG attempt to venture into Botanica (See below). Anyway the run was oh so smooth. One shot all the Bosses including Warp Splinter himself. I tanked him in the middle right where he stood and had his back facing the rest of group who were positioned together on the grass a bit off the bridge as you see in map. The druid helped tanked him also as well as the hunter pet. This fight seem to go pretty long. The adds that spawned were mostly CC when I consecrated as I saw them spawn. Yes I also threw Gift of Arthas on him for every bit of difference it made over time and I'm sure it did.

Only person died during the entire run was the Warlock a few times. Otherwise it was a clean run and everyone did what they were suppose to do. Its just nice to run with a good group and the healer was awesome! Unfortunately I didn't get any Tank loot. I did win a Primal Nether and picked up a blue cape no one wanted to vendor as well as all the trash loot to pay for my repairs (2.5g) and they did cover it. Also got lots of needed reputation points which is much needed so 9k will make me Exaulted. And for all that Galo made his some more friends!

Screenshots - Two Views of Tempest Keep.

A view looking straight at Tempest Keep in Netherstorm. Home of Kael'Thas Sunstrider and his crew.


Tempest Keep as seen from above at maximum altitude. I guess the sky does have a altitude limit in WoW and it was at that point above the central tower of Tempest Keep I took this shot.

Screenshots - The Botanica

The Botanica at Tempest Keep as seen from the Tempest Rift in Netherstorm. I'll be back!!