Mt. Hyjal

Saturday night, MK gathered up a group of players to go take a look at Mt. Hyjal. Saturday is typically not a raid night for us and most of our Core people we off doing their own thing that night. We ended up PUGing about 1/4 of the raid. This was really cool because I got to invite a couple of my old friends from Heroes Inc including Wichita.

Our main goal for the night was just to have fun. We just wanted to see what Mt. Hyjal was all about. We didn't have any aspirations to kill any bosses.

We were a little light on tanks. After having done Mt. Hyjal now, I'd really like to go with 5 tanks (2 must be Feral Druids or DPS Warrior who can DPS on bosses).

Hyjal seems like an upgraded version of Black Morass. The trash comes at you in waves, cresting over a small hill before coming pouring into your base. It was like I was playing Warcraft 3, only this time, I was the Hero unit. There Knights, Riflemen, Footmen, and Priests fighting against Ghouls and Crypt Fiends and Abominations. We felt like we were part of this really big battle going on.

I got see Jainia Proudmoore again. The last time we crossed paths was in Dustwallow Marsh as part of the Missing Diplomat quest chain. This time, however, we were fighting side by side. Blizzard even gave her the exact same Brilliance Aura she had in Warcraft 3.

I ended up AoE tanking the first two waves. The first wave was all Ghouls. After a couple of seconds in my Consecrate, the Mages and the one Warlock we had started bombing away. The second wave the plan was for the Warrior Tanks to each pull out 1 Crypt Fiend while I played with the Ghouls. I usually ended up tanking 1 of the Crypt Fiends as well.
(I'm in there somewhere, I promise)
We actually did quite well until we got to Wave 5 or 6. This wave had 6 Abominations. These I could not AoE tank. I found (after a couple of wipes) that 2 was about the most I could handle. We eventually figured out to shackle them.

DPS had a rough time because we couldn't mark anything until we saw the whites of their eyes. Generally I would mark my target and DPS would tank it down.

Looting was also a big problem. When we wiped, everything (even unlooted mobs) would despawn when Jainia died. We ended up having to put it on Group Loot and just Need/Greed everything. We had two Epics drop. Both were the same Neckpiece with loads of Fire damage. One went to a Mage and the other to a Lock (yes, he is Destro spec.), much to the chagrin of the other Mages.

We were consistently able to get to Wave 5 and 6. One time we even got a "Boss Incoming!" message from DBM just as our last raider died.

I don't know if I can adequately communicate just how much fun this night was. For this night, I was playing the game again. It wasn't about loot (though that would have been nice), or rep (though I did get some) or anything else. It was about a group of heroes banding together to fight an enemy bent on their total annihilation.

I wound up getting to Friendly with Scale of Sands and buying the Gem Cuts for a bunch of Yellow, Red and Blue gems. I can now cut the +15 stamina gem and it cost me WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY less than the +12 pattern did.

I know alot of people were upset that the attunements were lifted from Mt. Hyjal and Black Temple. I might feel the same way were I in their shoes. All I know is I had a BLAST in Mt. Hyjal and I am very thankful Blizzard opened it up for us.