WoW Update - 5 May 2008, The Weekend That Was

Just to recap: I filed a leave on May 2 to have a four-day weekend. Work's been a little stressful lately and I felt myself begin to burn out. I wanted to be able to spend some time playing WoW without being interrupted; my beautiful wife would be out of town the whole weekend, too.

From Thursday morning to Sunday evening I was on the computer for nearly 12 hours a day. Most of that time was spent doing dailies. I resolved to finally go after my epic mounts - the Cenarion War Hippogryph for Avierra and a Purple Riding Nether Ray for Froufrou - which will mean an outlay of more than 12,000 gold. As of week's end I am at nearly 3,000. I hope to get at least one epic mount in May and a second in July.

Thanks to a few crappy instance runs and a few lucky Supply drops, Avierra is at 82 badges. I'm torn between saving up for a Chestplate of Stoicism and splurging on a High Justicar's Legplates. If I buy the Chestplate I'll be a better tank on the rare occasions when I indulge my tankadin side. If I buy the Legplates I'll heal better, which is in line with my role as a raid main healer. At the moment I'm leaning towards the Chestplate. I'm doing quite well without the Legplates just yet.

Oh, and Avi finally looted her Libram of Souls Redeemed from Karazhan when she PUGged it on Thursday morning. Which means that she's officially all purpled out; all her healing gear is epic level, no exceptions. Woot!

And on an unrelated note, she had her first critical Lay on Hands the other night. LOH for 13k... brilliant.

On a ZA run the other night, Avi looted a Mask of Introspection. With a few gems, it turned out to be a moderate upgrade from the Justicebringer 2000 Specs, although the loss of a meta gem slot really hurts. Avi's mana pool and hit point pool are slightly bigger now, though, which is nice, and I've even managed to raise her +heal by a few points. Still, I've put the old specs in the bank just in case I ever get a shot at crafting the Justicebringer 3000 Specs.

Froufrou, meanwhile, took up most of my attention. I wanted her to exalt with the Shattered Sun Offensive for her first title... and so I present you:



Nice, huh? That's the orphan from the Children's Week event. The Draenei kid is already taller than the gnome. Bah.

Froufrou had a really good weekend. Doing 24 dailies takes only four hours on Frou while Avi can take almost six. Her Leatherworking is now at 371 and I'm seriously looking at crafting the Primal Intent set for her, as there are no easy to get leather chestpieces in Karazhan.

So tonight in Kara Froufrou was able to get herself into the final final bosses (doing crap dps, but that's the way it is when you're a mostly blued combat rogue with poor skills). She downed Prince and Netherspite for the first time and paid a repeat visit to the chess event. My crappy connection conked out on me during the Illhoof fight, though, so we had to leave Kara with Illhoof and Nightbane still at large.

Karazhan put her above 45 badges, which meant a new weapon: Swift Blade of Uncertainty. And she also walked out of Karazhan with Skulker's Greaves. As Nethercobra Leg Armor is expensive (500+ gold on the AH) I'll just use a Cobrahide Leg Armor to get by. The new pants have lower stamina than my old Nomad's Leggings, but they do offer me superior DPS, which I definitely want in a raid.

And that's it. I'm hopeful this new week will be great.