It’s Monday and the first raid reset of patch 3.3 is about to come to close. This week I want to share my thoughts on the new dungeon tool, Icecrown Citadel, and more.
Dungeon Finder
First off, I love the new dungeon finder. I’ve had great luck with random pugs and random dungeons. It appears that the dungeon finder is filled with the holiday spirit and is decking the halls left and right. It selected Halls of Stone, Halls of lightning and Halls of Reflection more than any other dungeon for me. The luck of the draw buff is a great bonus as well.
Regarding moving onto another guild, I’m beginning to think that the grass may not be greener on the other side. From a 10-man raiding perspective my current guild is quite good.
Icecrown Citadel
I love it! I was very surprised to see our ten man group go in and clear all four bosses the first week. We needed about six attempts for Marrowgar, we one shot Lady Deathwhisper, and we needed a bunch of attempts for the Gunship and Saurfang. Saurfang was by far the toughest encounter, and I had to spend a fair bit of time kiting adds (not my favorite thing to do).
The thing about Saurfang is this fight gets tougher as you get closer to the end. Contrast that with Lady D, where once you get to phase 2 you’ve pretty much won. We managed to get the I’ve Gone and Made a Mess achievement. Quite frankly I can’t imagine downing him without getting it.
Our 25-man team was not nearly as productive. We didnt’ have our regular compliment of raiders (especially healers) so that made our task all the more difficult. We did four attempts on Marrowgar before calling it. I was not happy about this. Wiping isn’t fun, but it’s essential to progression. The only way you learn the fights is to keep trying. I know that I was getting better with each attempts and really would have liked some looks. Hopefully we’ll have our A-team this week and give it a serious try.
Still, it was only the first week, and we have some solid raiders as evidenced by our two 10-man groups. I can’t imagine that we won’t be DE’in all the Marrowgar gear or extending lockouts sooner than later.
Gear Watch
I’m off to good start with gear. It’s funny, I really went on a dry streak regarding range weapons, and now they seem to be raining from the sky. Hopefully bodes well for Zod’s. Here are a few things I picked up this past week.
- Njordnar Bone Bow
- Runed Band of the Kirin Tor
- Crusader’s Dragonscale Bracers (yeah I waited until badges were easy to get, and orb prices dropped before I had these made).
Ten Things I’m Thinking About
- No more “Don’t forget the quest item” when running heroics. I like this.
- There is a decided lack of range weapons in ICC (25). “Kneel before him” is right since Zod’s will be the hunter weapon of choice for a while.
- My heroic runs with random groups have been better than my heroic runs with mostly guildies.
- I got the Don’t Look Up achievement in a completely random pug. Talk about pure luck.
- I got the I’ve Gone and Made a Mess achievement in ICC (10). This is one where I can’t imagine being able to defeat the boss without getting it.
- That fact that I chose Gnomish Engineering back in Vanilla, seems like the lucky choice (at least until I get a gun).
- Blizzard is going proc. crazy with items in the this patch. Even the exalted ring from the Ashen Verdict has one.
- It was very refreshing to see new raid content. Of course I said the same thing the first time I entered TotC. /cautionary tale off.
- Jaina, Fordring, and Muradin are some of the chattiest npcs I’ve ever seen.
- This week is a four day week, followed by another four day week, followed by three day week. It’s the most wonderful time of the year…