New Opportunties

Last night there was a strong push from some of the members of Dominion to go kill Kael and Vashj one last time before the Expansion Pack to let people get their Rings and Titles.

It turns out that if you had the quest for the Vials of the Eternity in your quest book when Patch 3.0.2 hit, you could still get the title from completing it.

The night started out with a real treat when I saw Aoesrus got an invite to the raid. Aoes and I have very disparate gaming schedules so we don’t get a chance to run together very often. It’s always nice when we do.

Lady Vashj

We quickly cleared Hydross’ and Lurker’s trash and activated the bridge to Vashj. I don’t care how many times you’ve seen it - that is a seriously cool way to get to a Boss.

Vashj was the very first boss I went to with Dominion, and because it’s a two tank fight I had to go Holy. (What is it with the ‘Hat’ bosses; I had to go Holy for Archimonde as well). I was actually worried Vlad would ask me to throw on my Healing set and help heal.

As much as I would have loved to say ‘No’ when asked to Offheal, I don’t believe that’s acceptable. When you join a raid, you are implicitly agreeing to follow the orders of the Raid Leader. If she says stand in the corner and dance, you best head for the corner and hope you like your toon’s dancing animation.

I stayed in my full tank gear. Kee’s connection was acting a little strange. I think in my entire time with Dominion I’ve seen him have connection problems only once or twice. So Vlad and I charged in to take on Vashj. Kee came back somewhere in Phase 2.

We all worked at picking up Naga. It seemed that as soon as I would get one, one of the dang Strider's would hit me with a fear.

Vlad had 3 Naga on her as Vashj came up so Kee and I went after Vashj. Only I think he may have had connection issues because next thing you know, I’ve got Vashj’s attention squarely on my little dwarf self.


I ended up tanking her all the way to the end. That’s something I never would have had the opportunity to do pre Patch 3.0.

But it seemed that somewhere in Phase 2, Aoesrus computer had died. He disconnected and didn’t get credit for the kill. I was able to log into his account and loot the Badges from Vashj, but the Vial of Eternity wasn’t there.

I switched back to Honorshammer and we moved on to Tempest Keep.
Prince Sunstrider
A couple of people need to kill A’lar in order to continue on their quest for the Hand of A’dal title.
Usually for A’lar I find myself handling the Embers that spawn, but this time I was put up on a platform to tank A’lar himself. I had never had the opportunity to do that before so that was pretty cool. I almost got assigned to the Melt Armor taunt rotation for Phase 2, but she decided to put a Druid on it instead.

After A’lar, Chief switched from his Priest to his Paladin. If I understood correctly, each of his toons had killed one of the Bosses before Patch 3.0, and now he needed to kill Vashj on his Priest, and Kael on his Paladin. His Paladin was Prot which gave us about 4 Prot tanks plus a Feral druid.

Vlad was a little concerned since we had so many Prots so I offered to let Chief tank and I would go back to Ironforge and respect Ret. We had a new Warlock and Vlad was a little concerned about having a new Telonicus tank as well. So she asked me to stay Prot, which was fine. Chief ended up staying Protection as well. We decided that if we had DPS issues we would address it after the wipe.

Only a couple of pulls away from Kael, Vlad announced a change to the Loot Rules. All night, all loot had been Free Roll with one epic per person for the night. I had decided to save my roll for the Verdant Sphere which drops off of Kael as a quest item. But then it was announced that at Kael, if the Mount dropped, it would be DKP.

I think it’s wrong to change Loot Rules in the middle of the run, and especially so when it’s done to benefit the Raid Leader. Vlad has more DKP than anyone in the guild, so basically what she was saying was, ‘Everything is free roll, except what I want'.

As the proud owner of one of the best flying mounts in the game, I certainly understand her desire to have a cool mount. But that should have been stated PRIOR to the run.

It was really surprising to me that no one really challenged her on it. Of course, I didn’t either so maybe others were thinking the same thing I was. It wasn’t a cool thing to do, but just not worth an argument.

We get to Kael and I set up to pick up Telonicus. Man, did he go down like a sack of bricks. We jumped up on the stage and I picked up the Phaseshift Bulwark. It wasn’t quite dead when I headed over and picked up Telonicus again.

Once we got into Phase 4, I decided to try to interrupt one of Kael’s Pyroblasts. I think I actually got one (it may have been just a fireball though). If you weren’t aware, Blizzard added an effect to Hammer of Justice to interrupt a spell cast from a mob immune to stun. I’ll have to try this in Heroic Magister's Terrace sometime.

I helped out a bit with the Phoenix in Phase 4 and 5 and soon Kael was out of commission. Vlad decided that since the Verdant Sphere was a quest item everyone should roll, regardless of any prior loot gained during the night.
I didn’t win it. (Technically, I don’t NEED the quest reward, but I’ve never won a boss quest item going all the way back to Onyxia’s head at level 60).
LEEEEEEEEEEEROY!!

After the raid, I saw a group advertising in Trade chat for a UBRS run for the LEEEEEEEEEEEROY achievement. I joined up and we headed over to Blackrock Mountain.

We cleared to the Rookery and I went running willy nilly through the eggs until my screen was filled with little baby dragons. I laid down my consecrate and went to town. A few seconds later, I was Honorshammer Jenkins!