So it has been a while since I have played World of Warcraft seriously. Last July I had switched my job at work from a primarily evening shift to a day shift. This didn't work to well for my raiding guild since it started raiding at midnight. I was also getting burned out from raiding constantly. Ulduar was on farm, people weren't showing up for raids, frustrations was high and it was a great time to pursue other interests.
During my break 3.2 came out and I found myself leveling up 2 alts. I got both my warrior and my shaman up to lvl 80 and pretty well geared out. Without being on a raiding schedule I was able to have fun, join pugs and get tons of gear but still go out when I wanted to. I had for the most part ignored Bladez considering I was still overly geared for anything I wanted to do and there weren't any big upgrades unless I wanted to raid full time. I also spent weeks at a time not logging into the game at all.
Then a few weeks ago patch 3.3 came out and it was calling my name. 3 new 5 man instances, a brand new raid and the new Dungeon Finder. On top of that everything was dropping emblems of triumph which rewarded gear that was better then what I had. Although I enjoy playing my alts and gearing them up, Bladez is who I love playing. I enjoy tanking and I love doing it on a Paladin. I started using the Dungeon Finder and was chain running heroics. There were so many upgrades to get and I was so overgeared for heroics that I wanted to push myself and the healer but taking 3-4 pulls at once. I survived almost everyone of them to. instances that used to take 45 minutes I had shaved down to 15-20 minutes. Often times the debuff for using the random heroic finder was still ticking down while we were fighting the last boss.
I had the itch to raid again. I was able to get into a few pugs doing ICC and it felt amazing tanking progression content again. I decided to find a new guild to call home. There is a sad feeling when you don't feel like you belong in the game. There is plenty to do but you don't have a team you rely on and they rely on you. I decided to app to Last Hope which has a raiding schedule that fits better with my lifestyle and is constantly pushing the latest content. I put in an app to the website but was told that I have to up my level of gear. At that point I had 33k unbuffed health and I hit the floor running.
I started chain running heroics, pugging raid content, and crafting epics. Since the patch came out I have gotten 75 emblems of frost and over 230 emblems of triumph to max out my tanking gear. Luckily during my crazy heroic runs a battered hilt had dropped and I was able to sell it for 25k. This helped fund my need to enchant and gem all my new gear. I also took this time to max out both Shieldz and Giaz alchemy so that I can transmute my own gems.
Now I am sitting at 40k health unbuffed with a Gear score over 5k and an average item level of 240. There is nothing I can do now outside of running a daily heroic for 2 emblems of frost and getting accepted into a raiding guild. Icecrown Citadel looks awesome and I can't wait to be kicking the asses of new bosses.
During my break 3.2 came out and I found myself leveling up 2 alts. I got both my warrior and my shaman up to lvl 80 and pretty well geared out. Without being on a raiding schedule I was able to have fun, join pugs and get tons of gear but still go out when I wanted to. I had for the most part ignored Bladez considering I was still overly geared for anything I wanted to do and there weren't any big upgrades unless I wanted to raid full time. I also spent weeks at a time not logging into the game at all.
Then a few weeks ago patch 3.3 came out and it was calling my name. 3 new 5 man instances, a brand new raid and the new Dungeon Finder. On top of that everything was dropping emblems of triumph which rewarded gear that was better then what I had. Although I enjoy playing my alts and gearing them up, Bladez is who I love playing. I enjoy tanking and I love doing it on a Paladin. I started using the Dungeon Finder and was chain running heroics. There were so many upgrades to get and I was so overgeared for heroics that I wanted to push myself and the healer but taking 3-4 pulls at once. I survived almost everyone of them to. instances that used to take 45 minutes I had shaved down to 15-20 minutes. Often times the debuff for using the random heroic finder was still ticking down while we were fighting the last boss.
I had the itch to raid again. I was able to get into a few pugs doing ICC and it felt amazing tanking progression content again. I decided to find a new guild to call home. There is a sad feeling when you don't feel like you belong in the game. There is plenty to do but you don't have a team you rely on and they rely on you. I decided to app to Last Hope which has a raiding schedule that fits better with my lifestyle and is constantly pushing the latest content. I put in an app to the website but was told that I have to up my level of gear. At that point I had 33k unbuffed health and I hit the floor running.
I started chain running heroics, pugging raid content, and crafting epics. Since the patch came out I have gotten 75 emblems of frost and over 230 emblems of triumph to max out my tanking gear. Luckily during my crazy heroic runs a battered hilt had dropped and I was able to sell it for 25k. This helped fund my need to enchant and gem all my new gear. I also took this time to max out both Shieldz and Giaz alchemy so that I can transmute my own gems.
Now I am sitting at 40k health unbuffed with a Gear score over 5k and an average item level of 240. There is nothing I can do now outside of running a daily heroic for 2 emblems of frost and getting accepted into a raiding guild. Icecrown Citadel looks awesome and I can't wait to be kicking the asses of new bosses.
