lootfest!

so, it's been kind of an exciting week , and hopefully will continue to get even better. i've done quite a few instance runs, which is getting to be less stressful, finally. i was trying to help my in-game friend sera begin his kara attunement, which of course, brought me back to shadow labs. we spent a few hours there friday night, and never got blackheart down. i hate blackheart. i hate mind control. i hate blackheart's mind control. bah! even with the help of some excellent guildies, we just couldn't seem to do it, and finally gave up, drunk and frustrated. and no, the drunk wasn't the problem. :P after that painful experience, he somehow convinced me not only to come along AGAIN the next day, but to come along at 6am. i was reluctant, but eventually caved. and we did it our FIRST TRY. a full run! the only bad spot was when our gnome tank got stuck feared behind a lantern and i couldn't heal him. i love gnomes. who else could ever have that problem? the other bonus of that run was that we had an EXCELLENT boomkin druid (he doubled the dps of every other person), and he was also really helpful. he used to do a lot of raids as a tree, and gave me some really nice pointers. AND! thanks to him, i may be running kara for the first time tomorrow! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) it's still up in the air as of right now, but here's hoping. he passed my name along to a guild mate of his (possibly the leader of the kara run? not sure) who contacted me yesterday. he was incredibly nice as well, even though i confessed that i have zero raiding experience. the group is apparently an established one, which has it's good and bad points. part of me would like to get in with a group that's new to it, so we can all learn together, and part of me wouldn't mind just being an addition to a group that has done full clears. i've been trying to upgrade my gear like crazy, just in case i make it in tomorrow. ..and making lots of golden fish sticks. actually, if you're a resto druid looking to begin getting into kara, there's an excellent write-up on the official forums here.

let's see, what else? oh yes, i had another alchemy DISCOVERY! and this one....woohoo! it's the flask of fortification! i almost peed my druid pants. i was reading on thottbott the other day that you can apparently discover recipes without having chosen a mastery, but i'm a little skeptical, as i've gotten two since choosing my specialization. i amazingly had the mats to make the flask as soon as i discovered it, but i'm holding off until i actually have a use for it.

i also ventured into the mechanar last night. we didn't get too far (one mini-boss, and one real boss), but it was a great run for me. i ended up with new boots, shoulders, and some green healy bracers. the bracers and shoulders were both upgrades from cloth to leather, and the boots finally got rid of my last piece of tanking gear. so, now i'm up to 900 and change bonus healing (so close to the kara benchmark), and 106 mp5. after we called it quits in mech, we decided to try a short shattered halls run before the server shut down. in between, i made a quick run to stormwind after honor had reset and picked up my very first piece of purple gear! i went with the gladiator's idol of tenacity. i debated between that and an off-hand item, but decided that 1) i already have a good off-hand, and 2) investing in an epic off-hand will limit me to one handed weapons. granted, i just bought my first one-handed mace, but it something better comes along, i don't want to have to sacrifice one or the other. as far as the quality of the idol goes, there is one that drops in shadow labs that is more beneficial (increasing the lifebloom ticks rather than the final bloom), but should that drop for me sometime in the future, i'll just kick myself then. anyway, we didn't get very far into shattered halls, but we had a blast. i was actually pretty sad when the server shut down simply because i was having so much fun, and laughing so hard. as a related note, here is what happens when selphi marks:



also known as, general mayhem and hilarity. that's all for now, i'll be back with something besides my loot for the week later, i promise. (: