Thank You and You and You

When I woke up on Saturday morning, the first thing I did was consider whether I was backsliding into the bug I’d had for the two previous days. Feeling fairly good for the early hour, I then wandered out to my computer, and checked my email.

Early Morning Gifting

In it was a notification from Blizzard that I’d been gifted with an item from the Pet Store. It did tell me who sent it, but sometimes suspense is fun.  So off I went to retrieve my first gift of the day:

Still trying not to Destroy Pandaria

Doesn’t Kerridwen look lovely atop Heart of the Aspects?  Thank you, Navi!

RNG Gifting

A bit later, I decided that, since I wouldn’t be running raids with Bear any more, I needed to create a mog that Breige would enjoy wearing, and that I had half a shot of obtaining:

Purty Bow! Surprisingly, from Karazhan

The jury is still out on the hood.

One of the few drops in this set comes from Magister’s Terrace. The bow is, surprisingly, not the item. It’s the chestpiece.  So, off I went to Quel’Danas, to try my luck at getting the silly thing to drop. Each time I got to Kael’thas, I asked him for something pretty. You know, a bit of mail armor, a brightly glowing mount…

A pretty little bird!

The first time through, he thought I’d like a ring. He apparently has no idea how easily I could tear a finger off if I were wearing a giant gem! The second time, though, he provided me with a Phoenix Hatchling! Thanks, Kael.

The Best Gift of All

I took a bit of a break from hunting things to relax a bit before the scheduled run, and then after a most scrumptious supper (Shepherd’s Pie!) I hopped back online to start my birthday party.  We started with about a dozen people in Obsidian Sanctum, and a very strict loot rule: Just because the birthday girl wants it doesn’t mean you have to pass. Need if you want it for Mog/Mounts/Bags/Quests/Patterns. This was important to me. While yes, the raiding was all about my enjoyment of Wrath content with my friends, there was no reason to keep people from their shot at pretty shiny pixels. Krys won the roll for the Twilight Drake.

Off we went to Ruby Sanctum.  We actually wiped the first time, and switched off of heroic 25 to get the kill. Much easier that way.  Then I announced the next step was going to be Naxxramas. A few people bid us adieu at that point, including Phinkbunny and Mr. Amateur (who missed Obsidian as well, but I’m glad he could stop in for 15 minutes).

People were surprised that I wanted to run Naxx. It’s long. But, well, I had mog plans that required a certain drop from a certain Heigan. Not that he ponied up, but I got other things that fit in nicely with another mog I’m working on, and replaced the need to farm two dungeons.  Also, I had one raid boss to kill for a Title. And he’s in Naxx.

Besides some small things like an early pull on Heigan, and forgetting to go kill Maexna for a little while, things went quite well, and I got 6 achievements, including the coveted Champion of the Frozen Wastes. Sadly, no pets dropped, either.

We Win!

Thank You, Jelexie, Jackoby, Yawondergirl, Matty, Seraphinity, Tyledres, Wontan, Danea, Phinkbunny, Magik, JD and Krys. 

Also, thank you Kel’Thuzad.

I was completely satisfied with my birthday. It is one of the happiest I’ve had in memory.

But Wait, There’s More

On Sunday, I decided to go ahead and go on JD’s Laid Back Raid. Since I wasn’t bound to run with Bear any more, it seemed the perfect time to get back into the runs.  We hit up Firelands, and did a few of the bosses, but got stuck on Beth’tilac. I just don’t know the fight well enough to steer him around in his circle. Also, I don’t put out all that much DPS on Breige. I guess I’m just an average hunter. 🙂  When we called it a night, JD asked if I’d gotten my drake, and I said I hadn’t. So he suggested we do a run. I protested, because I’d already been in there this week, but then was reminded that alts can try too. Well, what the heck! So Breige and several others made their way to Obsidian Sanctum, while a few bid us adieu. Somebody else won the drake.

We discussed additional alts, and I hopped over to Shoryl. And JD finally won his drake.

Pulling from the dregs, I hopped over to Sveala, and attempted to heal. That run didn’t go well. We just didn’t have the firepower to kill him before the drakes joined him. But then Matty came and saved the day.  We swept through, though with a few deaths, and

I won the drake!

I don’t know if I only won because I was the only one rolling. When JD won his, I rolled an abysmal 17 to his 85.  I was too excited to care, and then discovered Sveala didn’t have the riding skill. So I had to hop over to money-bags (also known as Breige) to get the funds for some training.

Thank you, JD, Danea, Matty, and all the others who brought in every alt they had!

Random Laid Back Running

I’ve taken a couple of days of vacation – originally not for moving, though today has been lots of things toward that end.

However, I hopped online and saw a few of my favorite laid back folks on; and decided I might like a go at one of the old raids.  I put the call out, and Tumunzahar answered it without hesitation, requesting Blackwing Lair. With a little coaxing, we also got Flagsworth (on his rogue Duenan) and my long time friend from my vanilla days of raiding, Farron.

Sadly, the rogue wasn’t attuned, so he went and burned through UBRS while the rest of us tackled Razorgore. Talk about easy-peezy with the nerfs to the mechanics. We also got the Unscathed Egg from Razorgore, which I won! There was also an ingot that dropped, so Gurdrid is a tiny bit further on her way toward making the Hand of Ragnaros for Shoryl.

Unfortunately, Tum had to depart right after we defeated Vaelestrasz; but Farron, Duenan and I finished with relative ease. No more pets dropped; and Duenan complained about the utter lack of rogue gear.

Fun was certainly had; and Tum reminded me to poke Farron to come along on Laid Back Raids in the future, which I will most certainly do!