Caroling in Ulduar

Tis the Season

It is that time of the year when we naturally reflect upon what was good and not so good from the previous year. I myself am planning a post like this in the not so distant future. However this blurb is not about that at all. Yesterday the amazing Queen of Faff, Alternative Chat posted her very on audible review of the previous year. It is most definitely worth a listen, but then again everything she does is worth a listen. I have to say that while I knew of her before this year, it was a few months ago that I first listened to her podcast. I have to say I am truly thankful for discovering it, because now along with several other podcasts I look forward to hearing each episode.

She brings a deeply thought out quality to the air that reminds me in many ways of NPR. I am very much an NPR junkie so I think this soft spoken and rehearsed manner suits me very well. In the podcast she has declared that 2014 will be the “Year of Faff”, and I wholly support this notion. Before her I tended to view “faffing about” as a generally negative thing. Now I have embraced my inner faffitude and find myself doing odd little things on a regular basis. I look forward to seeing what directionless madness comes form this new venture.

Early in the week my good friend Rylacus, and the warden of House Stalwart while I was away… asked me if I would be willing to do an Ulduar run. He needed a single meta achievement to get his 25 man proto drake. I told him initially that I was not sure if I would be around, but if I was most certainly I would help out. I have had both the 10 and 25 man versions of the drake for quite some time, but as I know the achievements pretty well I am always willing to help out. Since last night ushered in yet another icebound weekend here in Oklahoma, I was most definitely available for faffing about in Ulduar.

My only requirement was that we try and get EVERYONE that came along their drakes. No one seemed to mind and as a result we filled the ranks with tons of folks hopefully seeking their own. Additionally we managed to knock out Algalon, who’s room is pictured above. Most of the achievements quite honestly were pretty easy at 90, or at least easy if you knew what you were needing to do. Yog’Saron of course takes a few tries mainly to remember exactly what we need to do. The three of us that went into the portal went insane because we could not remember how to exit. We then proceeded to murder everyone else in the raid.

After that little set back we pushed forward and got him on the next try earning everyone on their drakes. Currently the only really annoying meta achievement is the “kill 25 dwarves with razorscale” one. Initially we had this idea of just gathering up all of the dwarves and letting Razorscale enrage… theoretically killing them all. This would in theory kill us all, but we should have also gotten the achievement at the same time. Two things we found out… firstly the enraged flame breath is still not enough to kill a dwarf that is sitting at full health. Secondly we can easily survive the enraged form and ended up going four rounds after that in order to get all the dwarves.

Desperately Seeking Weapon

While I managed to walk away with some really cool transmoggy bits and two pieces of the tier 8 set, I did not further my overarching mission of finding some weapons for my shaman. Granted I didn’t really expect to do so in Ulduar, but the Heroic Scenario that we ran beforehand proved both painful and fruitless. My hope is today that I can finish running Siege of Orgrimmar and that the loot gods will smile on me and let me win the axe that can drop in the final part. If this continues to prove futile I may just run Throne of Thunder as well. I need to farm up the magical happy luck coins so I can turn them into extra roll chances for Siege, but I do not have the stockpile on my Shaman that I have on my other characters. Other than this… I am going to try my best to stay warm and hopefully continue having power since the entire world outside is coated in an inch of ice.