Illidan Down, Resto Fun & Other Goodies

The guild has reached a new milestone, so it's high time I wrote about it. Last month we completed Black Temple. Yes, we finally killed Illidan! It still hasn't really sunk in for me. To be honest, it was kind of anti-climactic. I think the reason for this is because we worked on him for two solid nights, and then he was dead. For our guild, Illidan proved to be much, much easier to kill than Kael'thas and Archimonde. Granted, Kael'thas is still considered the most complex fight in game pre-Sunwell, but he honestly makes all following encounters seem simple in comparison. Poor Illidan. Regardless, I'm thrilled that we completed BT and we have many Illidan kills in our future. I'm sure we won't stop farming him until we have at least one set of warglaives for our warriors and/or rogues, and I won't rest until I've scored myself a delicious Cursed Vision of Sargeras for my shaman. :)

Since I stopped raiding with my druid, I decided to mix things up a bit and play her as restoration for awhile. Riven has been feral for about 2 years and previously she was restoration for about one year, but this was when there was no treeform or lifebloom, and my main heal was Healing Touch rank 5 (with lots of +heal gear stacking!). Oh, the good old days. How I don't miss them! Seriously, I remember pvping as resto back in those days and it was utter hell. Now if you PVP as resto, it's freaking amazing. I don't even have any resto resilience gear and I run into BGs feeling practically invincible. Then again, there's a lot of dummies in BGs, and it is almost too easy to avoid being focus fired when you're hiding in the crowd throwing up HoTs. Arenas? Probably a different story entirely. I'm willing to give arenas as resto a shot as soon as I get some gear for it. Right now all of my PVP gear is feral. I have to say resto PVP is extremely fun. I just wish I could switch between feral and resto with the push of one button. ( I hear that's a possibility for the expansion! ) I think I still prefer feral for PVE purposes, but damn if I'm not having a blast healing as well! Speaking of druid specs, I haven't tried balance since pre-moonkin ( Hurricane as 31 pt talent ftw? ) so I'd like to give it a go again someday just so I can dance around as a fat bear-bird. The only problem is I really don't have room for the gear! ( Oh, the bane of being a druid! ) I want a 51 point talent that gives me some sort of unlimited bag space... I'm totally serious. T_T

The summer festival was pretty fun this year. I got Itami the Brazier of Dancing Fire Sluts and a Summer Dress, as well as the blue skies tabard (Although I'm wishing I got the Flame one instead.. matches my piece meal gear better but oh well.) We farmed for the scythe and the pet from Ahune and I never did see either, but we did get about 20 of those healing cloaks. I also got Riven that neck that's identical to Choker of Vile Intent. Since she's not raiding anymore, she's glad to not have to spend the badges on a "for when I need to substitute in some more +hit gear" neck. What's silly is that even with T6 equiv gear for feral in her bags, she's still stuck with Mithril Chain of Heroism from Karazhan as a neck piece. It's really the fault of poor itemization, and the fact that we never killed Kael enough to score the only AP+crit upgrade pre-sunwell ( Telonicus's Pendant of Mayhem or whatever it is. ) There's always these items that seem to last us forever despite their lower iLevel. Shard of Contempt is just damned ridiculous for being a heroic drop ( and I am so very grateful for its existence! )

In other more useless news, I scored a Phoenix Hatchling on Riven last night. I've lost the roll on at least 3 of them so far so I'm very glad. I'm a pet collector although I've really been slowing down because Riven is plum out of bank space and still "needs" a bunch of PVP gear. Still, the baby phoenix is a must-have. I honestly really wanted it more for Itami, but I don't know when I will be taking her to Magister's again. She's exalted and has everything else she wants from there, while Riven is after Shattered Sun rep, badges and a couple more trinkets. Healing that place sure is a bitch, but it's great practice for me as resto spec and I have very understanding guildmates! Overall, though, Magister's Terrace is an instance where keeping control over the enemies is key. ( Alas, it was still a pain in the butt keeping our bear tank alive through Kael's constant 5k fireballs and zero forms of interrupt. )

Oh yeah, I opted into Wrath of the Lich King beta this past week. I'm crossing my fingers that I get the opportunity! I've been playing long enough that my input is actually valuable. C'mon Blizz!