Toon Update: 12/31/2008

My last post of the year. To be honest, I haven't played a whole lot in the 3 weeks since my last Toon Update. I was out of town for 9 days and wasn't able to play during that time. Plus as any raider should know. The holidays is a very bad time for raiding. However, I did do some fun things before I left and have played a little bit in the few days I've been back.

Alts:
There hasn't been much progress here. I leveled Grayfel a little bit and have gotten him about 6 or 7 bars into level 70, but that isn't anything to really be excited about. I hope to get him some more time soon. I want to use as much of his rested XP as I can since I have the MLK holiday coming. I have the day off from work but my wife does not and my son still has school. That means a full day of wow for me. So I would like to burn some of my rested XP quickly so that I can accumulate it back up before the holiday. Other then that, all I've done is level Graypal's professions a little bit.

Raiding:
My 10 man group has now cleared Malygos for a realm 3rd or 4th. It was a skin of our teeth kill but satisfying none the less. We ended up killing him 10 or 15 seconds after he enraged, but got him down with two people still standing. I really like this fight.

Naxx 10 is pretty much a joke now. I don't think there is any gear in there that is of interest to me for my moonkin set, but I can start building a Feral and Resto set. Other then that the only really reason I have to go in there is for emblems and for achievements. Hopefully we can get the Undying soon.

The really challenge for my 10 man group is Sartharion with 2 Drakes. We put a lot of attempts in on this before I left but we have yet to succeed. It's really just a DPS race with a lot of stuff flying at you, but our DPS hasn't been high enough yet. We can kill the first drake but not before the second one spawns and the two debuff together with two sets of void zones are a little to much for us to survive right now.

We think part of the problem is group make up. Lately we have been going in there with 2 tanks and a DK to double as tank and DPS, 3 healers, 2 physical DPSers, and 2 caster DPS. Its not a bad group but it doesn't maximize synergies. For instance the two caster DPSers are a lock and me. So only two of 3 of our DPSers benefit from my aura, and we don't have a mage to provide the 10% crit. On the flip side we don't have a feral druid for the physical DPS or an enhancement shaman.

The idea that is being passed around right now is that we need to stack the group. A group that had 2 hunters, a feral druid, DK, and enhancement shaman would probably be successful. By the same token a group with a moonkin, mage, Spriest and 2 locks would probably do well also. I don't know what is going to happen, and it will suck if I'm not there for the first kill but I understand. I would rather the guild get the kill without me then not with me.

From a 25 man perspective raiding is very well also. We killed Malygos for a realm 6th kill. The guild killed Sartharion with 1 drake up while I was on vacation and we are starting to work on the achievements in Naxx. Naxx is going so well that we cleared it in just over 3 hours last night. I think we are going to get to a point very quickly that we can kill Naxx and Malygos very quickly and have a day and a half to 2 days to work on Sartharion with drakes. Hopefully by the end of January we will be working on Sartharion with 3 drakes if not killing it.

Over all I am very proud of my guilds progress. We are ranked 6th on the server, but raid much less then most of the guilds ranked above us. We have made all of this progress and raid only 9 hours a week. Most of the guilds above us raid at least 4 nights a week for at least 4 hours. It will be interesting to see how we do when the next raiding tier is released.

Graylo:
As you can see from my lack of progress on my alts, Graylo is still my main focus even outside of raids. There are still several goals that I am working on but have yet to complete.

First and foremost is running Heroic Drak'tharon Keep, to complete the Champion of the Frozen Waste's achievement. I have tried running it several times but I've had very bad luck with pugs and such. The really sad part is that I actually ran it and completed it last night, but did not get credit for the last boss. I died right before the end and it bugged out for some reason. I contacted a GM and they said that this is not something they can fix. So, I am still looking for the kill.

My second goal for Graylo is getting exalted with the Sons of Hodir for the new shoulder enchants. I haven't been as dedicated to it as I should be but I am finally feeling like I have the time to dedicate to this each week. I am currently about 4000 into Honored. I should be able to make it to Exalted in about 2 weeks if I focus on it.

My third goal is to do all of the quests in Icecrown. I don't really care about the loremaster achievements but I do want to complete all of the phasing, and Icecrown as a lot of it. You never know what will happen there in the future and I don't want to miss out on a piece of content because I hadn't finished all of the quests there. Though I am dreading doing this on my alts a little bit.

Anyway, that is where I am at. Happy New Year everyone.