PuG Tales: 10 Man Ulduar Adventure

After finishing up my Argent Tournament quests, I was set to go fishing. Try to fish me up the new Turtle Mount maybe, but go fishing for a while maybe for fun as usual. So random PuG in trade was looking for tank and dps. I hesitated for a moment and though to myself. Thou shall not PuG raids. Nonsense! Dunno, but I seem to go about PuGing everything. So off to adventures in Ulduar as the OT. The MT was another Protect Paladin from a guild that few of the raid was apart of including the Raid Leader. Rest of raid was random PuG.

Well Kologarn sure didn't stop the PuG Raid. He went down for the count the first time around. And thanks for giving me the nice Stoneguard sword too. And the Neckpiece as well I picked up. Stoneguard is a really nice blade but has no defense rating and really had to see how much it dropped my defense with it equipped. 

Lucky for me I have enough defense with various gear piece change or shield swap since I have and always carry multiple shields with different enchants and still remain at or above 540 defense. Think i'll throw Accuracy Enchant on my new blade since my hit rating will drop a bit from hit capped on hit rating.

Auriaya is a real bitch to pull correctly with her two adds. But we managed to get it right about the third time after I dropped a consecrate at the bottom of the steps there and fired Avengers Shield at her and run back to the right corner at the top of the stairs for the other tank to pickup. We killed the 2 adds first then focus on the boss. She also spawned a guardian add thats hard to target. So we tried to target/kill the guardian add while she constantly feared the group. All in all its a fun fight especially seeing it the first time as well as hearing the strat as well. Yeah for dead bosses!


Thorim is really cool fight. Much of it being the gauntlet. I didn't quite get it the first time just having it explained. So we ended up just running it and that made more sense. After killing the mob in the arena one group went though the tunnel which I was in another stayed in the arena somewhat. On the tunnel run though we were too slow but the arena group died as well when we were in the tunnel right after the first boss. 

We regrouped and redid the run. We got it the second time and was much faster overall. It helped we had a really good raid leader calling out things as needed on vent which made a huge difference the entire raid. Almost though it was going to be a wipe in the tunnel on way to second mini boss due to the adds. But we made good time and got to Thorim. Lucky bastard went down the first time we engaged him. Fight didn't seem that hard thinking about it. All the Ulduar nerfs maybe at play. But a dead boss in my book is dead boss.

Just taking a landscape shot. I had forgotten to take a screenshot of dead Thorim. Probably because I died on Thorim with less than 100k to go as well. So I paused here to just take another screenshot. Ulduar is really pretty! Big difference it is to being in Naxxramas.


We got to Freya, played with the adds. Wiped on the adds, learning the adds. A few times actually! CC didn't go right as a few people didn't have their CC buttons on their UI. Duh! Some CC really required here so we did that and we made some headway. We killed the 2 mini bosses in the area. Interesting bosses, but you get badges for them as well so great also, no loot though. The trash right before Freya eventually got us due to CC. Getting proper CC didn't seem to go off well sometimes.

Maybe we were all tired. But the Raid Leader eventually called it a day here and the raid was called. I was tired as well running on empty for food. We may try again tomorrow night. At least some time to read up on some strat in the process before we do. I was tired as well so was just good to stop here also. But it was a fun time in Ulduar again for the 2nd time. 

Two times I've been here and both in PuGs. Makes you wonder, who needs a guild to raid Ulduar if you can PuG it. But really half the PuG was at least part of a guild including the Raid Leader, MT and had some good players as well. Wasn't super stellar dps but was still a good and fun group. One thing for sure is repair bills are damn high in Ulduar. I just off the head counted my repair bills and they were easily over 100g easily. Before you head to Ulduar make sure you can afford the repair bills as well.

Edited: Some Grammar.

PuG Tales: KT and 25 Man Naxx PuG

Ah life on a new Realm. Its pretty damn quiet when you don't know anyone and no one at all. So it can be very relaxing just going about doing whatever you feel like doing or doing nothing at all. Its often good to be stress free! So was in Dalaran saw a note in Trade a Paladin was LFM for 25 man Naxx. They needed some dps. Hey I got dual spec. /w I can dps Ret. Yeah PuG always get a bad name, right! Have a little Adventure sometime to see what goes on on your realm.

This happened on the weekend. It was about 3PM in the Afternoon on Saturday. I said why not, I have no guild that I'm apart of, and If I don't take the chance to PuG it despite whatever may happen either way that's a potential loss of Badges and chance at loot. Hey may make some new friends as well on my new Realm maybe. 

Took a little while to get all the group together. Raid was mostly a 25 man PuG group made up with at least a dozen members of one the guild on my new Realm that was leading the run of which both Tanks the Warrior and the Paladin belonged to.

So I DPS as Ret and only switched back to Protection for adds on Glutch to help out. Just about somewhere in 4-5 hour later. We full cleared Naxx 25. And with that I got my first kill of KT and as dps. Unfortunate that I didn't get a KT kill with my recent and former guild on my old realm I just left. 

The run was the fastest run of Naxx I've ever been on. There was one break at Thaddius for like 5 mins max at most. So was good for a Bio break. But the run went rather smooth for the most part and fast. Though close a few times, we had no wipes of any kind until Sapphion if I remember correctly where we wiped once due to positioning mess up and on KT we wiped twice once due to not making the enrage timer and too many people down other time was on some positioning as we had a bit of melee group as well.

But loot distribution was damn fast. You rolled on everything if you needed it for your spec. Roll was on main spec and if no one did you roll for gear for off spec. Since I showed up as Ret that was my main for the raid, so I only rolled on Ret gear only. Funny though more tank gear seemed to drop as well. That always seems funny how that works, bit I had no stress about it though. 

Everything on loot distribution went real smooth without all the crazy stuff you sometime hear about on loot. The Paladin who OT/MT with the Warrior not sure if he was using a addon of some kind but seems liked it. But as soon as he posted the loot to roll on it auto counted down from 5 down to 1 and you had to have rolled on the loot in that time. If you didn't you missed it. Yeah some people missed it if they weren't paying attention as well. So loot was done real fast. 

Most i really cared on the run was to just have some fun and maybe pick up a Libram for my Ret set. Unfortunately no Libram of Radiance dropped. But I did pick up a nice Ring for dps and I got my teir Shoulders finally for Ret set as well which was really nice pickup. My Historical /roll on loot is very un-impressive in all of WotLK and all the way back in Kara days. As well picked up another nice Belt for my Tanking Set. Will have to edit that in when I can as can't remember what it was.

But it was nice to do a run and seeing things differently as a DPS and much different things are as well vs from a Tanking view usually. But I had fun and in a PuG raid as it was. Didn't make any real friends as things was just going fast really. Both Tanks was really cool and friendly and we got a full clear and downed KT which was all great for the Achievement finally. And thanks to popping Divine Sacrifice with KT low on HP that saved the day as well. As a result I picked up enough Emblems of Valor from the full clear to finally get me the Epic Badge Boots as well which is another good thing to finally pickup also. As for DPS I was somewhere usually between 5-10 for dps and on KT I was #5. I guess thats good for being a non DPSer at heart as well.

I'm glad I decided to so have some fun. PuGing is a way of life for me so nothing new. Some new badges, some new gear. Repair bills I can afford because I make enough money in my business dealings that I don't have worries of any kind. 

I guess It was a good day and thanks to the guys from the Brew Crew guild as well for fun times and seem like good people there. Was a damn fun run. That reminds me why I personally play WoW, for FUN. I don't play WoW for raiding or for epic gear. I play to have FUN, the rest happen in the process!

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.

The Event we love to Hate - Pugging!

BRK has a nice little post about something we all know of. We have to and will all do at some point in WoW and the thing we all love to Hate with a evil eye and to much frustration it always is. List of good PUG's I've Galo has ever been on is short. So direct link to BRK: Top 10 Rules of Pugging.