The month that got away

It seems it was a long time my warrior hit the magic 80 level and to be honest my playtime has been declining ever since. Although so much more are currently happening in my life. I am in  the middle of a divorce, I've sold an apartment and bought a new one... there are tons of stuff to do and so little time to spend it on. One of the first things that is getting cut away is WOW time. Even though I've been playing WOW off and on from the very launch it is simply a time filler for other activities.

I do have a lot of things I need to do with my warrior... I've come to realize that I need to complete things to have fun. So while I've had few play sessions this month I have been able to take my character from honored to exalted with ... Argent Dawn. Guess I still like old content eh =)

Almost exalted with the Wyrmrest Accord as well.. and I guess Argent Crusade is next. However... dailies is the killer of joy. I log in and do the same stuff over and over again... bah. Need to breakout and do other stuff.

Finally 80 & Azjol-Nerub

Actually my warrior managed to reach 80 at least a week ago but I've been to busy with life to actually do something about it. With the Big Ding! I flew around Northrend to pick up a few pieces of reputation gear. Pants from Argent Crusade, breastplate and boots from Wyrmrest... in the end it actually seemed that Urthiel would be ready for his first heroic.

A guildie whispered and asked if I would like to tank the daily HC. With my defense stat a little over 540 I thought this would be a great experience. The instance of the day: Azjol-Nerub. It is at least in normal a rather quick affair but with interesting pulls that challenges the tank. Great fun.

At the time I did not have skype/vent installed on my computer so while the rest of the party would talk I had to rely on /party. The party by the way consisted of Protection Warrior, a resto druid, a retribution paladin and a dagger rogue. We started making our way into the instance... and there was lots of killing and after a while we ended up at the last boss. I did not think of it much at the time but rather now afterwords... we didn't CC anything, just hacked adn crushed our way through multiple-mob pulls. Great fun. Now that I've read up a bit on heroics it seems that at least a little CC is recommended. Oh well my guildies have pretty decent gear to carry up a fresh 80.

Oh, the end boss... well here we started to wipe.  It was a very hard fight with the dangerous POUND spell killing me once and our resto druid another time. The cheer amount of poison from the spider adds racked up two more wipes. A total of four wipes was necessary before we could down the might beetle. A plate belt dropped out for me... great success!

Cheap Titansteel Shield Wall

My warrior is only halfway to 79 but I could not resist a quick glance at the AH  to scan for interesting gear upgrades. Once you hit 80 you are expected to start replacing those nice blues with fantastic purple epics.

I found that someone was selling the Titansteel Shield Wall for only 600 gold. I have no idea why the sudden drop in price as these usually sells for 1200-2000 gold on my server. There was no hesitation though - bought!

Urthiel the Explorer (my first title besides the old PVP titles) tanked Utgarde Pinacle yesterday. My first 80 instance... Had a lucky run and besides the nice quest rewards (Silver-Plated Battlechest & Faceguard of Punishment) the first boss (Svala Sorrowgrave) dropped Svala's Bloodied Shackles which was a nice upgrade.

I'll be trying to get another PUG to the Pinnacle in order to have go at  the nice tanking neck - Amulet of Deflected Blows - that is dropped by Skadi.

Urthiel is starting to look like a proper viking.. but you do know that fighting vikings did not have horned helmet, right?

5 Great uses for Spell Reflection

One of my favorite skills on my warrior is Spell Reflection which you'll get at the venerable age of level 64. You need to have you shield equipped and 15 rage. It is not affected by global cooldown. It gets even better with talents - improved spell reflection allows you to reflect spells from party members as well. It makes it more "unpredictable" in PVP.

1. You can use it to reflect a Paladin's Hammer of Justice. They are usually very predictable and unless you happen to meet a skilled retadin odds are that he'll use it quickly to dish out some burst damage. GIB!
2. Use it in boss fights to avoid super damaging spells or stuns. Check out WowWiki for a few boss uses (TBC only)
3. Death Knights have several spells that can be reflected - they are far more than just melee combatants.
4. Charge close to a recently blinked mage, activate it and watch him frost nova himself. GIB!
5. If a warlock tries to cast Unstable Affliction at you, reflect it and watch with joy as his party members tries to dispel the curse without expecting the unstable debuff.

New gear = great fun

My warrior, whom I started just a month prior to WOTLK, have reached Northrend. It is a blast. Now that the main crowd has moved beyond the starting zones it is less crowded and you don't have to stand around waiting for specific spawns.

My warrior was 68 when starting out in the Fjord and after an initial burst of questing I relocated him to the Borean Tundra. A great move. The quests in the Tundra is so much more fun... in the initial quests around the Warsong citadel you can save horde prisoners who will join you temporary while in the quarry. It felt like running around with a five-man party. Heals, fireballs and charging warriors. The quests in the Howling Fjord are not in any way bad - it is just that the Tundra quests are so much better.

Another great thing with my warrior is getting new equipment with almost every quest. It wasn't half that fun with my hunter who was decked out in (pvp) epics.

New equipment = great fun!

I'll try to get a PUG together for Utgarde Keep tomorrow. I am sure it will be an amazing experience.