Teh Park

It will be missing in Catalcysm. Also, caption option on images? Sweet!

The Patched City

Just an idea that I had, kinda similar to the unbeatable instance. In that scenario, the instance would just be retuned so that it could not be beaten by current gear levels.

However part of Blizzards plan for both Wrath and Cataclysm have sparked a new idea in me. See, when Wrath was announced they planned on having Azjol Nerub be an entire underground zone. In Cata, there will be zones (Deep Holme(I think)) that will be nearly entirely enemy occupied. This is a long one, so I put in a nice break for you. Clicky-clicky!

Waterfall!

Until a couple of runs ago, I had never looked back in H-AN. And I see a couple of pretty damn epic waterfalls.

Gearing Up

I've recently been gearing up my two 80s, with a primary focus on my Paladin- Alenena. Before 3.3 I was gearing Vitos, my Warlock because it was just as easy to get into a group with him and he did much more dps. This makes sense considering he is a pure class, not a hybrid.

Anyways, with 3.3 Al can now offer to tank or dps and can consequently get a group in under a minute easily. Vitos has to wait fifteen+ minutes in general, and if he screws up, many people are very willing to boot a dps who does not perform to their exalted expectations.

In any case, 3.3 hit just as my winter break started so I could really sit down and gear up. Within a week I had 4 pieces of T9. In the month or so since then I've gotten another 3 pieces of tier (one more for tanking and two for dps). Additionally, I've gotten excellent loot from the new 5-mans, finally replacing a year old Demise.

I also got a Triumph ring and trinket as well as a Conqueror's Libram. My average iLv rocketed from 205 (tank gear) to 229 (tank gear). However, there were two pieces that evaded my grasp. Bracers and Back. I did buy one of the 30 emblem Valorous capes, but that left if at 213, which, compared to the rest of my gear, was pretty low. Even worse were my bracers. I had gotten them in my first H-CoS run. They were the blue iLv 200 bracers that dropped off Salramm. Now, they aren't bad, they did in fact serve me well through Naxx, Ulduar, some ToC, and Onyxia. Hell, they were with me when I went to ICC for the first time.

I spent a long time researching where to upgrade them. First there was a iLv 200 Epic drop in Heroic AN. A small upgrade, but one nonetheless- so far, it has not dropped for me. Then there are some other guys who drop much better bracers. Instructor Rasuvious- One of the first bosses in Naxx drops iLv 200 and 213 bracers- depending on 10 or 25 man. The Flame Leviathan, first boss in Ulduar 10, drops 219 bracers. Northern Beasts, first boss in ToC 10, drops 232 bracers. Lord Marrowgar, first boss in ICC 10, drops 251 bracers.

The problem with all those is that I rarely raid, and when I do, they don't drop for me. That makes me sad. In any case, there are two epic level BoE bracers. The 60 Emblem of Valor ones, which cost 900g minimum if you want to buy them because whoever it is could buy 6 epic gems instead, so that hardly makes sense for an iLv 213 at this point in the game. The other BoE bracer is Saronite Swordbreakers. They're a crafted piece and the recipe drops in ToC 10-H or 25 (I think). They require 8 titansteel bars, 4 crusader orbs and 20 saronite bars. There were two of them on the AH when I checked each going for about 3000g. I then chose to look at the actual prices of the materials and determined that, if I got them, I could get the bracers for about half price. I proceeded to do so spending- 1350 in total including a 50g tip for the crafter I found and got me my new bracers. Now I'm very much over def cap (by about 10 points) so I'm going to be regemming and reenchanting some of my gear.

AN and AK:OK

So on today's plate we have more of what we had yesterday. I'll go over the two bug city instances in EXTREME detail. You read that right! EXTREME! So:

Azjol-Nerub: A not to difficult instance with plenty of fun little bits to kill your guildies.

1. Krik'thir the Gatewatcher: Its not a difficult fight, pull the packs one at a time, kill it all. Use lots of aoe etc etc.... The achievement is where it gets tricky there are four strategies. One- send in a druid to pull everything (EVERYTHING) using starfall, then get the hell out either using cat form with dash or bear with feral charge and then improved cat. Two- Pull each of the groups and kill the two small adds. The tank holds onto the named add and pulls the next group, do that again and then move in for the kill. Three- use two tanks either one for all the adds and one for the boss or one for the named adds and one for the boss. Four- CHEARG and dps the bastard down.
2. Hadronox: Like Krik'thir, this is an event, if you wipe on the trash, the whole thing resets. This is important to note for the achievement. When you fight her, make sure that the spiders are dead before you begin the encounter. If they die while she is fighting them she will gain health. If they don't die, they'll eat your face next. The way for the achievement is to drop someone down to the trash, have them die causing the encounter to reset. At that moment, book it down to the cavern where Hadronox starts the encounter and burn her down. When the spiders come, don't use aoe or they will die and she will gain her health back. Warlocks can also use their summon to reset the fight by jumping down and teleporting out of range.
3. Jump down the hole. This is when you use path of frost and water walking. Everyone dies. You laugh.
4. Get out of the pond and head to the stairs. If you levitate someone on these stairs they will slide down them and pull the trash. This is another excellent way to get a good laugh in.
5. Anub'arak: Bash him in the face. For the achievement, bash him in the face faster. Its helpful if you're tanking as a pally or DK to lay down consecration or D&D where the trash comes down from the ramp when he burrows.

Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom:

1. Elder Nakox: Another simple fight. Bash the big guy and then, when the add comes out kill that. For the achievement have a second tank stationed on one of the room he is in. The MT takes Nakox while the OT taunts the adds to his side of the room. The healer should stay in the middle able to heal everyone.
2. Prince Taldaram: Run away from the fire. Kill the vampire. For the achievement kick the guy who has been showing recount scores from trash. Then find someone else.
3. Amanitar: Mushrooms! Kill them! When you get sent to Wonderland eat the Good Shrooms, not the Bad Shrooms.
4. Jedoga Shadowseeker: Kill the add as it walks toward the circle, its not a difficult thing to do. For the achievement, don't. When she comes down she will hit you with a nasty whirlwind. You can either have the tank soak it, disarm her, kite her across the stage.
5. Herald Volazj: A tank n' spank, except he casts insanity. At that point you get to fight all four of your party members. They retain their class ability and are (usually) worse with them than the player. They have 12k hp and should not be to difficult to deal with, especially in better gear. Its generally a good idea to take out the healer first, then all the other classes that have healing capabilities. Save the tank for last, considering that they generally deal the least amount of damage. For the achievement, the fight is similar to Anub'arak. Kill it faster.
6. Nakox, Amanitar and Jedoga are all skippable fights. Many people will ask to skip them and equally as many will demand that you do not miss a single emblem.