Ding 79!!

Zul'Drak was a pretty fun zone to level through. The zone almost feels like two zones in one. You have the Argent Crusade half, and then the Troll half, which has a completely different look and feel to it. The Argent Crusade half is dark, gloomy, and filled with Undead. The Troll side is snowy and brighter and filled with, well....Trolls.
One of the first things the good guy Trolls do is ask for guidance from their gods. If these guys look a little familiar to you, it's because theses were the Animal Bosses in Zul'Aman. I guess now they are the good guys in the fight against the Ice Trolls.
Most of the time you are working for Har'koa, one of the new Animal gods. He's the same model as the Spirit Beast that every Hunter seems to want to tame. Big congrats to Araxe in Mal Katai who recently napped the Spirit Beast for his very own. I look forward to seeing it in raids (once I start raiding).
The storyline in the zone concludes with a fight with the Prophet of Akali. This is supposed to be a Group Quest recommending 3 people. After a couple of minutes of unsuccessfully trying to find a group, I figured I would see if I could solo it.
When trying to solo Elites, I usually keep a close eye on my percentage health, and the mobs percentage health. If I fall more than 10% behind, I know that I likely won't be able to pull it off.
When I started out, this particular fight wasn't looking good for me. Then out of nowhere, Har'koa shows up, and starts helping fight the Prophet as well as drop a Tranquility from time to time. With Har'koa's help, I was able to defeat the Prophet. With that done, I had also completed the quest achievement and exploration achievement for Zul'Drak, and I can officially say I'm done with the zone.
The problem was I didn't have a breadcrumb quest leading me to the next zone. I was at a bit of a loss for what to do, but I did have a breadcrumb quest to go to K3 in the Storm Peaks, so that's where I'll head next.
But before I could dash off to the Storm Peaks, I saw someone asking in General for a tank and healer for Gundrak. I had not run Gundrak yet, so I offered to run with the group. I used my standard PuG protocol of "Thank The Healer". After he boss fight, I would whisper the healer to tell him he was doing a good job, and that I appreciated him. He was a little nervous about the first boss fight, but we didn't have any problems. Apparently, he had been running with crittable tanks, so it was a nice change to run with an uncrittable one. We both put each other on our friends list. Good healers are hard to come by these days.
What was odd was that I lead the group in DPS. This is a position I'm not used to. We used minimal CC. Basically the Rogue used his Sap on some of the caster Trolls so we could burn down the melees. We didn't wipe once, and honestly, I don't remember anyone even dying, or having many close calls.
Honorshammer looks completely different now than he has in a long time. He's almost completely in Lich King gear at this point save for his Tier 6 chest, one ring and his trinkets. I'm wearing the Wyrmrest Accord tabbard as that is the first one I'll use the new Championing system to rep up with.
It doesn't look like I'm going to make my self imposed deadline of hitting level 80 by Christmas. I'm only 20% of the level away, but playtime is going to be virtually non-existent between now and the first of the year. We've got a ton of real life stuff going on with the Holidays and traveling hither and yon.

Comments

ZOMG Bananas said…
Gratz on 79, Honorshammer. I'm posting as your experience in Zul'Drak has practically mirrored my own. I finised up the zone today, completing the "Complete x quests" on the exact same quest as yourself, the end of the Har'oka chian.

My only difference is I'm still about 120k from 79, and would be there now had it not been for weekly maintenance.

I know I was wondering for a while where the breadcrumb quests were after Zul'Drak, but if you take a quick ride up to Dalaran, there is a quest giver right there on the entry platform who provides the beginning to the Shozalar Basin quests, the quest being "Where in the world is Hemmit Nessingwary".

Take care;
Seraphyna, Blackrock US
Anonymous said…
The route I took was howling fjord, partial grizzly hills, dragonblight and then went to zul'drak. I hit 77 there, so I got quests going to sholazar and to the zep flying around icecrown. I would recommend picking up the quest chain in storm peaks that starts with "They took our men!". Once you do that you can start grinding out the dailies with the sons of hodir faction; which will provide the new shoulder inscription at exalted. Not only do I recommend it for that reason, but since you will be 80 soon you would do best to combine questing for money with rep you will need eventually.

Wankster of Magtheridon



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bobpally said…
I haven't done anything in Zuldrak except the quest to kill the lake monster and get the flipper. (I wanted the defense ring) and I'm one bar from 79. I have a question, at level 80 (I'm prot spec and have leveled that way) to begin to get ready for tankadin raiding should I get a spell damage weapon? There are some very nice choices out there, but I'm not sure what to do since the addition of some new abilities and talents. I'd like to know what you think as you have been the holygrail of my tankadin knowledge thus far....
Anonymous said…
While I'm not who you asked, I remember reading mostly that spell power weapons are out as the main thing for us anymore. With the talent that makes Stam -> SP, we have plenty.

I think there are a few breadcrumb quests in Dalaran (at least one for IC) if you're interested in that.

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