Dungeons and Achievements! Oh Boy!

Yesterday I was on Tyle trying to figure out what to do and realized I had a long way to go to cap my vp this week. I've gotten pretty used to raids and lfr making up a big chunk of my vp earnings but not this week. We'd only killed Lei Shen in our normal raid and I only ran the 2 lfr's that I needed to try and get more secrets to advance my legendary questline. I really didn't want to go back and run more lfr but it's better then daily quests. But I decided that I'd actually hit up the dungeon finder and run a dungeon. I'm really glad I did. Because in that first dungeon was a really awesome tank and healer who were chaining heroic dungeons and inviting dps along for the ride.

screenshot of the awesome warrior tank Vichaells and monk healer Saeka

I had only intended to run one heroic but since they asked I kept going with them. We did enough dungeons to take me from about 300 vp to 700 vp. And they also tried to get any of the achievements for the group whenever they could. I even picked up a few on Tyle.

I'm not really sure how this achievement is gotten other then to pull all the things in the room and go to town killing them.

I had suggested trying for cleaning up when we got the Jade temple and most of the group was willing to give it a try. The only sour face we had in all our dungeon running was found in that run. It was a mage who started in on us that if we wanted achievements we should get a guild group together to do them. He just wanted his vp and to get out of there. Most of the group was willing to give it a shot so we headed to kill the boss in the library before the other one. Right after we killed the fish boss the mage dropped group and we had to 4-man the trash and the third boss. We kept pushing and got a fifth right as we started the last boss. This was a really close achievement. I wasn't sure we were going to make it. But we killed the sha right as the last second was ticking off us and managed to snag Cleaning up! That was incredibly awesome.

Eventually the tank had to go so it was the end of some really awesome dungeon runs. I was feeling pretty inspired by the healer so I went to go level my monk to 15 so she could start using the dungeon finder.

I had reached 14 and was making my way to 15 when I got a whisper from Navi asking if I thought heroic brd could be three-manned. Particularly the omnotron boss. I had no idea but I was willing to give it a try.

I was a little worried I would be tanking but then I saw that Navi had gotten Arv to come. I knew Arv would take all the damage so that meant I could just stand around and look pretty... I mean, do lots of damage. But even more fun was that Luxy was able to come as well! So we 4-manned Heroic Omnotron. And then went to see what else we could kill.

Magmaw is really different on heroic. There were skeleton adds and I wasn't too sure what to do but to dps stuff. And try not to get myself killed.

The last boss we got was Heroic Atramedes. He didn't even have an air phase. Navi needed to afk, something about work and patients. We tried to three-man on of the other bosses but it wasn't working. Arv needed to get going because it was getting late so that was the end of the raid. It was still pretty cool.

But I wasn't done getting achievements for the night. Navi got back and we chatted for a bit and then tried to think of a place to go duo. I still had a few achievements to finish in Forge of Souls so we headed there.

We didn't get the first one. Your supposed to kite him and get 4 soul fragments up. The fragments need to be slowed but my chains of ice were throwing one of my diseases onto the fragments. I'm not sure if that's because I'm frost or if that's a talent or something else. Anyway, the most souls we had up at once was two. They would either die or get absorbed when the boss would stop to cast another fragment. This one will definitely require some more planning to get.

Now I just had to hope I didn't stuff-up the last achievement. Something about interrupting something. Anyway, I summoned up my army and began to kill. I was just starting to get into my rotation when it died. That wasn't so difficult.

I still had two achievements left to get at toc so we left the dungeon and headed north. Navi had to tell me that I was in the wrong instance. Oops... no wonder I wasn't seeing my ponies around the outside of the ring. I suppose it's kinda funny, I'm not sure who gets more lost, her or me. I think was the winner last night since she found 2 of the 3 places and I only found 1.

The first fight was a giant pain-in-the-ass. Jousting. With two people. Poor Navi got trampled. A lot. They really liked running her over. It took a long time but we managed to joust our way to victory. I would dearly love to be able to skip that part of the fight. I was worried I'd feel a little odd about killing the Alliance heros but at that point I really wanted to bring them some pain.

We got lucky with the second boss and got Eadric so we could try and get me The Faceroller achievement. I threw on a piece of my tanking set so I wouldn't be accidentally summoning troll minions who could ruin our attempt by killing him. We just stood around at first and tried to figure out how to throw the hammer back at him. We figured it out and began to slowly work his health down to 10%. I took off my main-hand weapon and was just punching him. It took awhile but I got the achievement.

Navi thought that was it but I reminded her that there was still the Black Knight who had the last achievement I would need from toc. Something about not getting hit by exploding ghouls. Navi was off yonder and I stayed back to smash him with howling blast and my own ghoul. He died really quickly 3 times. But we made it without getting hit by a single ghoul.

It was starting to get pretty late in the night even for me... Ok, it was only 12:30 so it was an earlier night for me but I was ready for bedtime.

Runs with Shoryl

On Tuesday I got a whisper from Shoryl who was on her hunter Breige asking if I'd want to run some heroics when she reached level 90. What kind of question is that? Oh, course I would! She said it would be a bit so I figured I'd get my weekly hunt for raid pets done and Tyledres managed to snag a Stitched Pup! Only two more left! I'm going to have to stay away from the auction house because that achievement is calling my name.

Once Breige reached 90 and managed to get her ilvl high enough to run heroics we set out. Shoryl wrote a pretty good post about that over on her blog. We ran three dungeons and had a few mishaps such as me running and pulling the first boss with only one dps. I now have complete confidence in my survivability as a tank. Those runs definitely helped to give me a big head.

On Wednesday, Shoryl thought she'd restart her Laid Back Dungeons and since it was just her and me we did heroics again. And first up was Gate of the Setting Sun. I waited for the whole group this time. Although I did a number on the group during the Commander Ri'mok fight. I've yet to figure out a way of doing that fight smoothly. It annoys me that there's really no point in the fight where I can stand still, it's move him out of the green puddles, get out of his cleave, and catch all the adds that spawn and repeat. In the end I just have one ugly mess.

The next dungeon we got was Scarlet Monastery and we had a really amazing priest healer. When I messed up the pulls getting into the Catherdral she somehow managed to prevent a wipe and said next time I should los those pulls. Oops. I suppose that makes sense. For the last boss we decided to go for the achievement And Stay Dead. I'd managed to get it before so I knew it was going to be lots of damage on me so I unglyphed my army of the dead. As soon as the boss started casting her mass rez I started summoning my army. It was glorious! I didn't take much damage from all those adds and I managed to impress our healer! She thought it was a smart idea and I told her I had to redeem myself from those awful pulls somehow.

The whole group stuck together for one last heroic and we got Shado-Pan Monastery. I was a disaster and a half on that last run. I really can't remember the last time I tanked this dungeon. I suppose I've been running as dps more often than tank. The amazing healer managed to get our group to the last boss without too much trouble but we did wipe on the first attempt at the boss. Someone managed to pull a group of adds during the boss fight and it was too much to get though especially since the adds won't die without having the floating bodies clicked. The second attempt went much better but I was glad to call it a night after that last run.

Friday I was attempting to gather the pieces I needed for a new transmog for my rogue when I got a whisper asking if there was any strategy needed to kill Vaelastrasz the Corrupt. The only answer I had was pure dps to burn him before he burned you. Since Shoryl was on her tanking Paladin Gurdid I figured that would be difficult so I asked if she'd like me to join her. She agreed so I finished up what my rogue had been doing and then switched to my druid and headed to BWL. While we got Vaelastrasz down it wasn't soon enough to avoid Gurdid getting the debuff and dying. The run went smoothly and she had both a Death Talon Whelpguard and Chrominus drop. The only downside to having more than one person in BWL is on Nefarion since he mind controls. He snagged my druid for a new minion and stun-locked Grudid down. Ouch. I rezed her and the rest of the fight went well but I sure felt embarrassed about that.

We also did some exchanging of pets. I'd gotten another Mini Mindslayer and Viscidious Globule from my pet runs so I offered than to Shoryl and she offered me some pets that she had extra of. So I got a new clockwork gnome and a Snarly!

So now it's back to hunting down Rogue transmog gear.