Ding 80!

Some heavy questing (thanks in part to a four day Thanksgiving weekend, I'm not American but whilst working here I get the holidays) has meant that Crash has dinged 80 and now it's time to play the rest of the game without the nagging though in the back of my mind that I need to be levelling and how much XP I need to hit that next level.

Along the way I've replaced nearly all the epics I had from TBC which was a bit hard for the first few but gave way over time as it became clear they were definitely upgrades. Also with the exception of trinkets they've all been blue rewards from the end of quest chains or group quests.

I managed one afternoon of serious instance boshing doing Gun'drak, Halls of Stone, Drak'tharon Keep and the Violet Hold (twice). In all this I managed to pick up one drop, sometimes the RNG is a harsh mistress. The instances on the whole feel very good, the trash isn't horrendous and the bosses are different without being insane. My only complaint would be that too many so far have relied on switching target or some other mechanic which causes a loss of combo points or things like Slice'n'Dice fading. While it's not been a massive problem or caused a lack of damage output on my part it does seem slightly frustrating.

I've switched back to Mutilate and wow, it's just fantastic now. Mobs die within a stunlock if I cheap shot them or if I'm not in stealth then they don't have long to hit me before being stunned and finished off. I thought losing blade flurry would hurt more when I had two or more mobs on me but due to the speed at which things die it hasn't been a problem.

For weapons a friendly blacksmith made me a couple of Saronite Shivs which are so loaded with goodness that I don't see them getting replaced quickly and the speed means that poisons are nearly always up, which is handy for using Envenom to refresh Slice and Dice. I'm just about getting a skills rotation down but the fights and spec means it's not as cookie cutter as combat swords was at 70 so expect a write up soon(ish) on what I do and the spec I'm going to use for raiding. Currently my spec is more suited for solo questing so when duel specs finally come in it may be worth switching between the two rather than anything else.

Right, time to decide which faction to champion first :)