Archbishop Benedictus down!

At some random early-morning time this weekend, Miller Time pulled together a raid to kill Archbishop Benedictus in Stormwind and the Gnome King in Ironforge. I was on and had nothing better to do so I joined up. Having for the first time seen the inside of Ironforge the day before to get the bonfire, I figured it would be nice to see more of it.


I doubt I was much help beyond being another target, but it was amusing. And I did get to see a bit of Stormwind, as well, which helped me orient myself for the bonfire run later that day.

(I didn't remember that I had [Mind Soothe] until I hit Stormwind, the last of the 4 bonfires I needed. D'oh!)

No screenies of the Gnome King because I R DUMB and forgot. Oh well.

I do it on the daily

My Daily rotation doesn't require any rep grinding to start, nor any group quests. (Ogri'la and Netherwing Dailies require a bunch of group quests before you can get to the daily quests.) It does, however, presume that your server has unlocked all of the SSO quests.

Start in Shattrath. Pick up:

1. [Maintaining the Sunwell Portal] from Nasuun at the Quel'danas portal (10g)
2. [The Multiphase Survey] from Haronem on the upper tier by the BG ramp (9g)
3. [Gaining the Advantage] from Mordin by the flight point (16g)
4. [Sunfury Attack Plans] from Torvos right next to Mordin (10g)

Fly to Nagrand.

1. Fly to Oshu-gun. Don your [Multiphase Spectrographic Goggles] and get your 6 multiphases.
2. If you are a skinner, while at Oshu'gun, kill any [Aged Clefthoof] or [Clefthoof Bull] mobs you see. Fly back toward Garadar and kill more clefthoofs until you've got all of the [Nether Residue] you need. You should also get a few [Oshu'gun Crystal Powder Sample], [Clefthoof Meat], and [Thick Clefthoof Leather] which are good for Halaa and the AH.

Approximate time: 15-25 min.

Fly to Blade's Edge.

1. Head north to Bash'ir Landing.
2. Kill ethereals until you get your [Bash'ir Phasing Device].
3. Phase, then kill [Phase Wyrms] and pick up [Smuggled Mana Cell]. You should get a few [Mote of Mana] and [Apexis Shard] Save the shards for the Ogri'la questlines later.
4. If you need to farm [Mote of Fire] for crafting, head east and kill off a few [Searing Elemental].

Approximate time: 15-25 min.

Fly to Area 52.

1. Run west to Coruu and kill BElfs until you get your [Sunfury Attack Plans].
2. If you need to grind Consortium rep, head south and kill ethereals to get [Zaxxis Insignia]. It's not worth any gold, but it does convert to rep.

Approximate time: 5-10 min.

Hearthstone back to Shattrath and turn in those 4. The whole trip should get you 45g and several mats for crafting or the AH. If you're lucky, the whole trip will take 30 minutes. If the drops aren't so good, it might take an hour.

Port to Quel'Danas. I'm not going to bother detailing the SSO Daily quests here, as they are all on one place.

• [Further Conversions] (9g), [Arm the Wards!] (9g), [Crush the Dawnblade] (12g), and [Open For Business] (12g)
• [The Battle Must Go On] (10g), and [Know Your Ley Lines] (12g)
• [The Air Strikes Must Continue] (9g), and [Keeping the Enemy at Bay] (8g)
• [Don't Stop Now...] (12g) and [Disrupt the Greengill Coast] (12g)

Approximate time: 60-90 min. Revenue: 105g.

Pick up two more quests before you leave Quel'Danas: [Ata'mal Armaments] (18g) and [Rediscovering Your Roots] (14g).

Hearthstone back to Shattrath.

Fly to Shadowmoon Valley.

1. Fly out to Ata'mal Terrace.
2. Kill Shadowmoon orcs until they drop enough [Ata'mal Armament].
3. Fly to Skettis.
4. Pick up [Fires Over Skettis] (12g) from Doryn.
5. Bomb the eggs.
6. Land and talk to the Skyguard Prisoner to pick up [Escape from Skettis] (9g).
7. Help the Skyguard Prisoner escape, then fly back to Doryn.
8. Fly to Razorthorn Rise.
9. Kill [Razorthorn Flayers] until you get a [Razorthorn Flayer Gland].
10. Use the gland on a [Razorthorn Ravager] and get it to dig up [Razorthorn Root].

Approximate time: 25-45 min. Revenue: 21g.

Fly to the Throne of Kil'jaeden in Hellfire Peninsula.

1. Talk to Seyla to get [Blood For Blood] (12g) and [Blast the Gateway] (10g).
2. Use your [Sizzling Embers] so that your [Fel Flare] is out as you kill 8 [Fel Spark].
3. Kill [Wrath Herald] to get [Demonic Blood].
4. Use the blood on the [Felblood Initiate] to de-elite them, then kill them.
5. Use the flare to blow up the gateway then turn in the quests.

Approximate time: 15-25 min. Revenue: 22g.

Fly or Hearthstone back to Shattrath. Port to Quel'Danas and turn in the last 2 quests for 32g. Use the [Darnarian's Scroll of Teleportation] to get back to Shattrath.

Total quests:	20 Dailies.
Total revenue:	225g, several greens, some crafting mats.
Total time:	2h 15m to 3h 45m.
Realistic time:	3h.
Wage:	70g-80g per hour.

While you can certainly farm for stuff that will AH for more than 80g per hour, call it 100g per hour including all of the extra motes and greens that you get, it won't be nearly as varied and far more boring. It also probably won't get you nearly as much rep as the Dailies will. You get a ton of SSO, some Skyguard, and even some Consortium if you kill a few extra things along the way.

During the Midsummer Fire Festival, the Daily [Striking Back] is good for 7g and can be done in under 5 minutes including travel time while you are in Hellfire. If you make it back to a main city at any point, you can also do [More Torch Tossing] for 12g and, if you have enough skill, [More Torch Catching] for another 12g. If you are geared and can get a good group, you probably want to do [Summon Ahune] on Heroic for the extra badge instead of one of the torch quests.

That should leave you with 2 free Dailies. One, of course, should be the Daily Heroic for the Badges. The other, also of course, should be the Daily Battleground for the Honor. If the Daily BG is AV, I suggest you take the time to do it before all of your other Dailies. You have a better chance of getting Biscuits in AV than any other BG, and an 80-stack will easily last you the rest of the day.

Yesterday was a "WoW day"

You know what I mean. Yesterday was one of those days that you want to remember and put on your "Top 10 Best WoW Moments" list.

• Helped get our last guildie up to 70 and made her a 3-set of Tailored gear that should last her a while.
• Got my [Belt of Blasting], which hit-capped me.
• Helped another guildie get what may very well be the last cloak he ever obtains.

In short: I did stuff that made me realize that for all intents and purposes I have already beaten the game.

What do I mean? Two things, really.

Thing One:

1. I finally have Dailies figured out, which means that I pretty much have an unlimited supply of gold.
2. I finally have Heroics figured out, which means an unlimited supply of Badges.
3. Combine unlimited Badges and unlimited gold and I can get the gear that I won't be able to surpass before Wrath, without ever stepping foot in a 25-man.
4. At the rate that I can farm Badges and gold, I have a very real chance of being geared enough to see at least some of the 25-man content before Wrath.

So, yeah. While I may not be full-T6, I've already won — the rest is just a matter of time. If Blizzard shut down the game tomorrow, I would still feel completely fulfilled.

That's a pretty good feeling. But I have something better for you.

Thing Two:

Now that I've already beaten the game, I can make serious strides towards helping my friends beat the game, too.
Need gold? No problem.
Need mats? No problem.
Need contacts? No problem.
Need to know where to go next? No problem.
Need another body? No problem.

Yesterday I was able to help two of my other guildies log off feeling good about the game and looking forward to coming back tomorrow. There's a pretty good chance that I will continue to be able to do that. My own progression is fun, but it's a means to an end.

The ultimate goal is to drag my friends along to every last corner of the game. I want to /point and say "Look at that, isn't it cool? They made this for us".

Daily Quests: 24/25

I passed a milestone this weekend. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.

I managed to do 24 of my 25 daily quests. And, really, the only reason I didn't hit 25 was because I wanted to do another Heroic instead of doing the regular dungeon daily (Black Morass).

Heroics have begun!

As I've alluded to in my past couple of posts, I did my first Heroic run last weekend. The Daily was for Slave Pens, and I'm still locked out of Kara until Wednesday, so I figured it would be worth a shot.

Heroics are actually easier than I expected. For a Shadowpriest, you really aren't doing anything different. In a nutshell, Heroics make the group coordinate and work together better than Regulars where you can get away with winging it. Thus, if you are an “always bring your A-game” kind of person anyway, Heroics won't give you any problems.

It's oh so nice that everyone gets badges every time. Badge gear is still wicked expensive — figure no less than 6 to 8 full Heroics before you get to the first gear, and weeks of farming before you get to the really awesome stuff. But I'll still take that over the drama and chance of farming for loot. (Even with as lucky as I have been with Kara.)

Just one piece of advice: Take the time to get all of the keys before you PUG any of the Heroics. The keys aren't hard to get, especially now with the lowered rep requirements. If you've been following normal progression, you probably already have enough rep to get all of them.

But when you go for that first Heroic PUG, you don't want to walk through the instance portal and not zone in. It's embarrassing. Trust me. Get all of the keys and you won't have to worry what the daily is or what groups are just looking for one more DPS/CC and if you can get in or not.

How do you know if you're ready? In case you missed it in my last post, you are “Heroic-geared” when you are greenless, hit-capped, and sitting on roughly 750-800 unbuffed spell damage. By the time you've gotten your keys and have run Kara a few times, you're probably ready.

Ahune

Finally managed to down Ahune this weekend. Heroic Ahune, no less!


We wiped a few times. We had been trying to deal with the adds as they spawned, leaving me and the tank to down the elite. On our third or fourth try someone piped up that the elite was taking too long to go down. There was much grumbling, as I was the only ranged DPS and no one else wanted to get close enough to melee DPS and thus suffer the DOT. But, we figured it was worth a shot.

Long story short, the elite was down in under 15 seconds and it freed up time to deal with the adds. We had the core DPSed down the second time it popped. w00t!

Never settle. Ever.

Clicky-clicky for the larger version.  Or, just know that I hit 820 this morning and am now over my hit-cap, thanks to my brand spankin' new [Belt of Blasting].

After three straight days of 250g Daily farming and 15 badges, I was able to afford all of the mats.  I sent out the call on /Trade and Osiro, #10 SPriest on the server, answered.  Less than 5 minutes later I had my belt, and a few minutes after that I had my gems.

Not two weeks ago at my first Kara run I was at 653.  This morning I am at 820, hit-capped, and completely greenless.  I am sooo jazzed.

Oh, and Kara unlocks this afternoon.  Yay!

Gloves next, maybe?  I doubt I'll be lucky enough to snag some [Handwraps of Flowing Thought], but I can dream, right?