“Phew, Finally!” and Other Jibba Jabba

I know it’s been a few days since I’ve last updated, and many of you are thinking “Wtf, Lass?”. I know. Bad Huntard is Bad. Simply saying “Well, sorry… I’ve been busy” leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so rather than bother with that horrible utterance, instead, I’ll give you a taste of what’s been going on in the Land of Lass.

The Great Ding

First, I finally hit 80. Yes, I know. It took me long enough, didn’t it? I had fully intended to get a screenshot of The Great Ding; in fact, I had been avidly watching my XP bar most of the afternoon as I leveled, so my trigger finger could be poised over the Print Screen button when it happened. But things seldom work out the way we plan.

I was in The Storm Peaks doing some quests for most of the day. I finished off my remaining K3 quests, and moved on to Thorim’s various quest chains. I think my favorite part of the whole day (and this is, in fact, what managed to hold my attention for several hours) was getting to dress up like a Vyrkul chick and smash faces in NPC duels.

Anyway, it was as I was wrapping up some of the Sons of Hodir quests that I dinged. I had to report back to Thorim at the Terrace of the Makers to turn in the quest that would provide The Great Ding. As I was flying over, I kept thinking to myself “Yes! Finally! Better have my finger over the Print Screen button as I turn the quest in so I can post a screenshot!” And it was in the midst of this internal monologue that my screen started to flash and an achievement popped up.

“Uh… what the hell just happened?!”

Guild chat flooded with “Grats!”, “Finally!” and “It’s about time!”s. Awww crap.

Discovery ding.

Yep, you read that right. As it turns out… if you’ve got a master plan for your Great Ding screenshot, and it’s about to happen… don’t fly unexpectedly over territory you haven’t explored yet.

Fail.

Life in the Fast Lane

So, after I turned in the quest that was supposed to give me The Great Ding, I hearthed to Dalaran and started to get my shit together, as they say. As we all know, life at the level cap is vastly different, and I needed to prepare to start raiding. I still wasn’t at the Hit Cap, which was my first priority, and Heroics were there for the pillaging.

Once back in Dalaran, I polished off my two city dailies (Cooking and Jewelcrafting), and wandered back towards Violet Hold to pick up the Heroic Daily. While sitting in LFG, I hit up Strand of the Ancients just to see what it was like. I hadn’t been in a BG9 battleground yet, and wanted to see if I was up to snuff, while checking out the newest battleground.

I did… okay. We all know PvP isn’t my forte, though I do enjoy it from time to time. I didn’t get horribly beat up, and I killed my fair share of Horde while picking up a few more achievements in the process, so I’m happy. Strand of the Ancients was pretty fun, and I discovered a heartfelt love of harassing Death Knights. (The trick is to wait for them to Death Grip you first–so it’s on cooldown–and then Disengage. Just watch out for terrain snags. Readiness makes this process even more amusing.) Anyway, after a couple matches, I found a group for the Heroic Daily (Ahn’kahet) and went off.

As we reached the third boss, the call went out in guild chat:

“All level 80s drop group so we can start raid invites.”

And I thought to myself, “I hit 80 like an hour ago… they can’t mean me too.” I sent the raid leader a tell just to be safe (he was on when I dinged, so I knew he was under no illusions about my state of preparedness):

“Do you mean me also, or nay?”

“We’ll probably need you, yeah.”

Uh oh. “Okay, just let me know.”

Down the third boss, and I get the tell: “Yeah, we’ll need you.”

Aww crap. “Do I need to drop group now, or can I finish this out? We’re done the third boss.”

“Take your time.”

Well, thank god for small mercies. It was my first heroic, the daily, and I was in desperate need of the badges. So, I finished off the instance with my group, thanked them and promptly hearthed.

It was shortly thereafter that I discovered: we were doing Malygos.

Game Face On

Once back in Dalaran, I made what meager preparations I could (thankfully, I happened to have some +Hit food in the bank that would put me over the cap) and took my summons to the Eye of Eternity.

Let me get this out of the way right now. This is not some grand success story: New 80 Kicks Malygos’ Ass! No, no. I was at the bottom of the damage meter. (Well, above the tanks, at least.)

Part of this was because I didn’t have my pet out the entire raid. (Incidentally, I discovered I could do 1300-1500 dps without my pet. Interesting, if nothing else.) Why? Heh. Funny you should ask. Earlier in the day, my pet bar disappeared. Yep, just straight up disappeared. I’d been using the default UI, too, so I know it wasn’t because of addons. Anyway, I was so unprepared to be called in to raid that I hadn’t even set up my raid UI yet, and didn’t have the time to figure out what was up with my pet.

Sure, I could toggle my pet’s abilities from my spellbook. But I couldn’t change aggro settings from there, and that’s what I was worried about. So, rather than chance it, I just kept my pet dismissed all night.

Despite my poor showing and piss-poor performance, Conquest did quite well in Heroic Eye of Eternity. By the end of the night, we were consistently getting Malygos to Phase 3, and then we were hitting his Enrage timer. (Clearly a lack of DPS, which was in part my own damn fault.) The important part was that folks were learning the fight.

Shinies

Last night, Conquest paid a visit to Heroic Obsidian Sanctum and Heroic Naxxramas. I was with them.

OS seemed pretty straight-forward to me, and since most folks had been there numerous times already, it went quickly. The place really reminded me of Ony in some ways, which was kind of nice.

Sartharon was down and out in short order, and folks were picking up their loot. Fury of the Five Flights dropped, and while Loot Council didn’t pass it off to me, I know it got a good home. My general philosophy is that I’ll get the things I want eventually, so a heartfelt Grats went to the happy owner. Hunter tier gloves also dropped, but I didn’t put my name in for consideration. One of our other Hunters was kind enough to supply me with the Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets, and it didn’t seem proper to me to replace them immediately since he’d gone to the trouble of gemming and enchanting the gloves and giving them to me out of the kindness of his heart. Once loot was doled out, it was off to Naxx.

We finished off the Spider and Plague wings quickly enough. I managed to pick up the Torn Web Wrapping from Maexxna, which was on my wish list. We also finished off Razuvious in the Death Knight wing before our time was up for the evening, and I picked up the Shoulderpads of Secret Arts to replace my Kirin Tor rep shoulders. With a gem waiting for them back in my bank, they just need an enchant to be ready and raring to go.

I’m now sitting at 6 Emblems of Heroism and 11 Emblems of Valor, with another raid waiting tomorrow. Tonight, I’m going to try and knock out another Heroic daily, some PvP, and maybe a couple other Heroics if I’m lucky. I’ve also had a regular dungeon daily quest for Utgarde Pinnacle sitting in my quest log for a few days, so I’ll probably try to knock that out as well.

It’s been a busy few days in the Land of Lass, and I’m loving it!