Ulduar is still ultimate.

We’re currently at the stage where regular ToC is too easy (we’re clearing it, VoA, and Onyxia in just a couple hours or so), but heroic ToC is a serious pain in the badonkadonk. So the other night we took a night off from serious progression and went back to Ulduar to clear out The Keepers and General Vezax so we could take another shot at Yogg-Saron sometime. We thought it would be a faceroll and so we were a little surprised to find that even after gearing up from multiple clears of ToC, Ulduar is still pleasantly challenging. Hodir was less than forgiving of the fact that everyone except for me (I was tanking him) didn’t bother to bring any frost resist gear this time. Our healers were a little frazzled after we downed him. Thorim was fine after one wipe due to deaths in the arena, but it’s still one of those fights where you might be biting your nails waiting for the corridor group to clear through if you weren’t using your fingers to mash buttons. Freya was fine. She gave us quite a bit of trouble in the past but she was the easiest of The Keepers that evening. Mimiron is, well, still Mimiron. Unless everyone is on their game you can easily find yourself with only half your raid at the last phase. I am looking forward to doing General Vezax again when we get back to raiding again after the holiday. I really enjoy the mechanics of that fight.

My thought after that night is that of all the raid content in Wrath of the Lich King so far, Ulduar is the most interesting, challenging (once you account for gear), and rewarding. Naxxramas and (regular) ToC were/are fun, but at times they feel too much like a heroic 5-man with 5 to 20 extra people. But Ulduar feels like raiding.

She’s a one-toon woman.

So there’s something rather unusual about Keredria that I’ve been meaning to write about. (Well, there are several things unusual about Keredria but tank-healer confidentiality prohibits me from writing about most of them.) Of all the people I’ve met while playing WoW, disregarding a few people who are relatively new to the game, Keredria has the largest proportion of her time devoted to just one toon. Most people I know have at least a few alts, and many have alts that are 80 and quite a few have alts that can raid content at or near the same level as their main. Some people I know don’t have a well defined main but rather distribute their time quite evenly to several toons. I have four 80s, two of which I can raid with, and a handful of alts at various levels that I play for fun once in awhile. But Keredria is almost always Keredria, and except for a few goofy nights when she felt bearish, always resto. As of late she spends a reasonable amount of time on her inscriptionist alt (she says her “alt” is making monies), but she doesn’t play it, and she does have a 60ish priest although I have no idea how she managed to level it up so high. She’s had that toon for some time. All of my high-level toons at once time or another quested with her priest but eventually passed her up.

So anyway the point of this post was that I got to wondering how the one-toon experience might change one’s perspective on the game in comparison to having spent a significant amount of time on one or more alts. There are some obvious advantages to having alts. They give you some flexibility in terms of things like roles in parties and raids, PvE versus PvP, and professions. And as a raid leader I think I do get some additional insights into various classes and specs based on my experience with my alts. But I wonder sometimes if this has at all detracted from my experience and relationship with my main. My main is very special to me for a variety of reasons, and I feel like I’m really “into” my main, but I wonder if that because I usually have the option to play another toon, and often do, if I’ve missed out on something.

행운

My resto shaman Makawee is ridiculously lucky. I enjoy healing and for a long time I’ve kept a healer alt geared-up as much as possible so that I could heal when we were short or to PUG a raid or two when I had the itch, but of course my main Jessika the protection warrior is who I usually take on raids. But the funny thing about Makawee is that she is very lucky when it comes to loot. I mean I don’t often take her into raids, and when I do I will pass on loot if someone else needs it since she is an alt, but serendipity follows Makawee like an extra water shield charge. Doing just a few late night Naxxramas PUGs she collected enough gear to quickly surpass Jessika in terms of her IMBA rating. And while Jessika could not for the longest time get any tier gear to drop for her in Ulduar, the week I bring in Makawee she gets three pieces! And remember that the token for the warrior tier gear is also the same token for the shaman tier gear. WTF? And then last night I brought her in to heal Anub’arak and the very very pretty Vigilant Ward drops and our healadin Nico already has it! And it looks fantastic with her Tier 8.x and Mariel’s Sorrow.

I think the fates want me to pay a resto shaman. I won’t listen of course. Jessika is my main and always will be, but OMG have you seen the new pics of the Tier 10 shaman set? Want!