Hitting the Heroics

I have made a decision in guild to switch my main from Crash to Acidlake my paladin who has been so much fun to play as ret both in solo play and in groups.

However given the guild is preparing to hit IceCrown Citadel and I'm still rocking heirloom items and quest rewards some severe gear upgrades will be required. Fortunately the recent change in badge drops and that tier 9 is wholly available from badges means that there is a clear and straightforward route to getting raid ready, heroic instances.

Normally this would have required trying to grab any groups that were forming in guild and possible get one or two done. But given we're now in the land of patch 3.3 and the new looking for group tool.

I'd only had one experience with the old LFG tool when we picked up a healer for heroic Ramparts back in TBC days. It didn't end completely well due to the complexity of heroic instances back then and since then the only random dungeons had done had been pugs organised either through whispers or adverts in /2.

Hoping that I wasn't too undergeared I signed up for a random dungeon looking forward to the possibility of new emblems and a chance to try out running as part of a group with people who don't know me from Adam.

Getting Azjol-Nerub was a bit of a blessing and having completed all the heroics before means I know the tactics well enough to know what to hit and when. We completed all the boss kills without a hitch, including the speed kill achievement on Anub'arak. Achievements appeared, extra boxes appeared to say the dungeon was completed and my collection of badges had increased.

From then on I've been hooked. The simple way of getting to the instance, not quite knowing which one it will be and the extra badges every time it completes mean I can just queue up at a time I'm able to play should I not be able to fit things in around what the rest of the guild is doing.

I'm probably 2 runs away from getting the 'the Patient' title which I shall proudly display in future pugs and have picked up a couple of very nice pieces of T9 ret gear.

The new instances also provide a great way of getting gear as well as containing a fantastic part of the storyline but those journeys can wait for another post.