Leafshine: Lust for Flower

First Time in Naxxramas

Finally.

Literally months after most of the people reading this, I should imagine, I hit Naxx for the very first time last night. And it wasn't a particularly auspicious start, to be honest.

We had nine people signed up for the run, and when the start time came we had but seven online, and a quick phone call brought us one of the missing two (the other, we later discovered, had been called away by a family emergency). Eight people for the guild's fourth trip to Naxx. Not good.

Still, off we trundled, one DPS and one healer down. We went through the trash like a knife through butter, and found ourselves at the first boss. And nearly dropped him. A little more care on positioning from the healers, myself included, and we got him second time. We were, to say the least, surprised. He'd been a real issue for the full 10 man teams we'd sent in the past, yet he fell. As did the Grand Window, on the first attempt.

However, we bounced off the third boss once too often, the lack of an extra healer and my tendency to get cocooned costing us dearly.

So we pootled off to Obsidian Sanctum, sliced through the trash, and dropped the first drake - not bad for our first ever trip in there. And then we called it a night.

It was a bizarrely encouraging restart of raiding for the guild. Sure, we were two people short. But even in a combination of quest blues and greens, plus some badge and crafted gear, we could put out the damage and healing to get bosses down. With a couple of extra people, we should be gearing up pretty fast.

A Tree, An Instance and An Heroic Setting

I never did get around to talking about my first step into Wrath heroics, did I? 

A little background: I pretty much missed out Heroics during Burning Crusade. My guild pretty much went straight from instances to Kara, and skipped the heroic stage. I did the run for my epic flight form quest, a few slave pens runs and the like for Cenarion Expedition rep, and, errr, that's it. 

But, last Thursday, I was shanghaied into an heroic Culling of Stratholme run by a couple of mates. And I'd never even done it on non-heroic. Or, in fact, done a level 80 instance before. How did it go?

Well, I died a couple of times on the build up to the first boss, as I figured out when I could safely start healing the tank. But the first boss went down easily enough:

And then we settled into a groove. And my luck seemed to be in:

1 Lich King, 2 Lich King, 3…

I was struck again by how hard Blizzard have worked to incorporate the Lich King into Wrath. We did two instances last night, both of which were new to me. First up was Culling of Stratholme, which I knew would contain Arthas.

I've played Warcraft III after all… 

However, I was caught on the hop by this:

Of the four instances I ran for the first time this week, Arthas or the Lich King appear in three of them. That's pretty consistent.  

It was very easy to forget that there was an ultimate purpose to Burning Crusade - to fight the demonic forces there, and find and slay Illidan. That was something that other people did, for most of us, that was just for the raiders.

The Lich King, though, is right there, in our faces, the whole way. Yes, it makes him seem a touch less powerful when we defeat every obstacle he puts in our way. But he's there. And we know that Icecrown is our goal.

Zul'Drak and Viole(n)t Hold

So, how did my evening's instancing go?

Well:

Drak'Tharon fell easily to us, after some faffing around before we got going.

But that was only the start (beware, some bad language after the jump)

Sixth Son of a Sixth Screenshot

I've been tagged so often in the last few days that I feel like a rare spawn mob. I've been tagged by Phae and Bell and Gnomer and Northern Spiced Tuna Steak and possibly others…

What do I have to do? Find my sixth folder with screenshots in it and select the sixth screenshot in it. 

Well, guys, it's an old one. Let's go back to April 2005 when Leafy and some Shattered Ravens colleagues face this:

Yes, my very, very first Deadmines - and instance - run.

And it's still a big ship. :)

I'm tagging - anyone who hasn't been tagged yet. First six people to self-tag themselves in the comments will get linked. Have at it! 

Auto-Tagees

1. Averna of Nerf this Druid goes dancin' (You askin'? She's dancin')
2. Megalis of Vendor Trash can't decide if it's Naxx or Ironforge
3. Icedragon of Druid Main is busy doin' the BOOMkin in Shattered Halls
4. Xeonio of Rez the Weak (but only if they beg) is cutting the rug…

Leafy Ding 72

So, slightly earlier than expected, I've dinged 72. I had a little time to spare this evening, and ended up doing a Nexus run with some guildies whose healer had been called away. It was a pretty successful run - two wipes (neither on bosses), and all four bosses down. And I've done another couple of blue-for-epic swaps. 

My Signet of Unshakeable Faith, removed from Mr Moroes a long time ago, has made way for Tome of the Lore Keepers, a pretty clear upgrade. And Red Riding Hood's Cloak has been displaced by a quest reward: Mantle of Keristrasza. That makes four Epic to Blue upgrades in a week. Whoa.

There's no doubt about it: I'm going blue faster than expected…

Zul'Aman Night

And a chance to test the iPhone Typepad app..

Zul'Aman: Akil'zon Down

A happy, happy night. For the first time in two months my guild has progressed. We plucked, stuffed and roasted the eagle boss in Zul'Aman at our fourth attempt last night.

2/5 in Zul'Aman. That gives us 3 more bosses to get down before Wrath...