Vurnak's day

After several days grinding quests endlessly it's done! Vurnak got the Loremaster of Northrend achievement. And not only that. I gathered enough Emblems of Triumph to get the Mantle of Catastrophic Emanation, picked up the recipe for the Deathchill Cloak (which I crafted and enchanted and I'm wearing right now), bought him Artisan Riding and spent some emblems in Band of Channeled Magic. I crafted the Magnificent Flying Carpet plus finally I can use the Bronze Drake that I had in the bank collecting dust. Yeah, he's like Paris Hilton with daddy's credit card on the wild. But he deserved it. The Loremaster achievement was a frigging pain in the ass. Hours and hours of grinding. While Borean Tundra was tedious at least you could skip the group quests. Not with Icecrown. I had about 120/140 done and all I could see were group quests. Oh my... luckily I found two ret paladins who were doing these quests and we all three managed to do them all, included the Battle at Valhalas line (a mini-arena chainquest). Looks like Blizzard's obssesed with arenas... expect 5 or 6 in Cataclysm *roll eyes*

So now I'm wondering who should receive more attentions in the form of Emblems of Triumph (until 3.3 comes and all heroics drop that). I wish to do it with Kurnak to get these sexy Pauldrons of Trembling Rage but I fear he would only be invited as tank when pugging, and I never feel comfortable tanking with him even in guild runs (I always feel I can't grab enough aggro when pulling groups of 3 mobs or more), so no way I'm bringing him to pugs where dps are so trigger-happy. And ticking off the Tank checkbox would reduce his probabilities of getting into a party a lot. Oh well, we'll see...

Loremaster of Northrend

I've decided to get the Loremaster of Northrend achievement for Vurnak so I get the recipe for the Deathchill Cloak. That means doing tons of quests on every Northrend area (save Wintergrasp). I checked the amount pending for all areas and on most of them was only one or three left, so I got these easily (Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak) then came the Fjord (missing like 20) and the hard ones: Scholazar Basin (about 15 done of 75), Borean Tundra (15/130) and Icecrown (75/140). I grinded quests all the sunday and managed to complete the Fjord and Basin and also gave a big thrust to Borean Tundra. Ironic that the achievement is called "Nothing boring about borean", because doing these quests at level 80 is something more than boring. Obviously by the end of the day I was really tired of questing. Luckily I won't do it again with another alt, it's only useful for tailors plus when 3.3 hits the street they will make reputation earning faster and also items like the Sons of Hodir shoulder enchants will be treated as heirlooms, so you can grind rep to exalted on one char and forget about the rest since you can buy the item and mail it. Only head enchants will remain as they're now (not entirely confirmed, need to double-check when definitive patch notes come now).
Although doing quests you've already done before is certainly boring, doing them at level 80 has two advantages: the first one is obvious: you already know the drill and quests are easy to complete. The second one is gold. Tons and tons of gold. In just one day I did about 1000 gold entirely of quest rewards (also since Vurnak is enchanter I got my bags flooded with Infinite Dust and Greater Cosmic Essence). I think I'll purchase Vurnak the artisan flying so he can finally craft and ride the Magnificent Flying Carpet. Right now I have money to buy artisan flight for 3 chars but since normal flying mount speed was enhanced to 150% is not so mandatory anymore. Also I like to keep some gold for any contingence (as in real life) that may happen and I want to have a good amount of cash ready for Cataclysm to purchase all the skills, spells and recipes for all my chars.
Update: yesterday finished the Borean quests. Now I hate the zone with passion.

Pugging ain't bad sometimes

Pugs aren't always that bad, specially when you know several of the members. And more specially when you know they're good players. Last week I was invited by Sempher Fi (a guild we've been playing with since the times of Molten Core) to play Trial of the Crusader 10man (normal) as dps and brought Kurnak since he's the best geared. Coliseum is serious business, so I didn't want to bring someone who wasn't truly prepared (well, Vurnak could do well but I wanted to bring a char that didn't seem it was slacking as dps). I thought it was a guild run but when I arrived I found people from other guilds. Ops... a pug. But people seemed well geared and the game was already started, with Northrend Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus already down, so the pug didn't smell like failpug. New content to see and the possibility to get some gear were enough :) so there I headed in my trusty Onyx Nether Drake.
The Faction Champions was a very tricky fight, were a good strategy is needed and everyone has to squeeze the most out of his character. After a pair of wipes we got them down and faced the Twin Val'kyr, another tricky and crazy fight that we also did after a wipe. Then came the Lich King (again the boring Arthas... sometimes I think he's going to appear while I'm grinding mats around Northrend to brag about how powerful he is and how squashable I am) and we faced the last fight: the revamped Anub'arak 2.0 (yes the last boss of Azjol-Nerub is back and on steroids) who was killed on first try. Everybody was happy with the group and agreed to do it again this saturday, hoping to convert this pug in a stable weekly run.
This time the game was a fresh run so I was hoping to get the achievement. And after some wipe here and there... you can call me crusader!
Not only that, I also managed to snatch three items to boost my dps: Girdle of the Impaler, Victor's Call and Legplates of the Silver Hand, so today I'm a happy warrior :) Waiting for more next saturday!
Post soundtack: Crusader by Saxon