Odds and Ends

Over the weekend, I tried to run through Highmaul again to get my weekly allotment of Abrogator Stones. I don't know if I just got lucky last week or unlucky this week or what ... but I must have tried at least 10 groups over 3-4 days before we were able to defeat the second to last boss, Ko'ragh. After spending so much time in the LFR tool, I began to wonder if Normal and Heroic Highmaul were on the same raid ID. I asked in the next group I joined, and they told me that it was possible to do both every week and get loot from them both! Fantastic! I just doubled the amount of potential Stones each week.

So I joined a heroic Highmaul group. The first boss went down pretty easy. I believe the mechanics for most bosses are the same in heroic and normal, but the damage and health are higher in heroic. And, of course, the gear is better. Unfortunately, the first boss was pretty stingy and didn't drop any stones. The second boss is a really easy fight for melee - you just stand around and dps. There's nothing to dodge, the boss only moves occasionally ... easy to put out good dps. In fact, I managed to top the meters again!

Heroic Highmaul

I did learn, later on that weekend, that Recount does not always accurately record DPS, but I don't think that was an issue for this boss. #1 in heroic! Wow. I actually used the bonus roll you see in that screenshot and got exactly what I needed - a good trinket! But again ... no Abrogator Stones. At this point I went to wowhead and checked the comments on the quest; turns out you can only get them from one difficulty each week. Bummer. I stayed in the raid to see if I could get any other upgrades (the iLvL for gear in heroic is 670-675, higher than my PvP gear) but we wiped a couple times on the next boss and then the group broke up. I'm currently 50 stones short which will probably take 3 weeks.

PvP-wise, I needed two more pieces of gear (keeping in mind that one of my rings is the PvE because it has better secondary stats) for a full set. I was going to be 200 conquest short this week, but on my second RBG win of the week I actually got a piece of gear! I went about 4-5 weeks without getting any gear until last week, when I got non-set pants ... which I didn't need. This week's piece of gear though? One of the pieces I needed! I am now fully decked out in PvP gear. We also managed to break into the 1800s in 2s which was pretty exciting.

I did a couple more dungeons with my priest last night, got up to level 85! In one run, we somehow managed to accidentally pull a boss while already engaged with a large pack of mobs. What ensued was chaotic, frantic, and totally awesome. Check out chat!

Take note of my sweet transmog!

And lastly, I know that I mentioned I had hit exalted with 4 of the Pandaria reps, but I'm not sure I ever showed off my new mounts! I'll spare you a picture of every new mount (some of the reps gave 3 mounts), and instead just do one for each rep. Here is the Klaxxi mount:

He is SUPER excited for this picture

The Shado-Pan tiger (1 of 3):

Apparently I got a little carried away with hitting the space bar before the screenshot

Order of the Cloud Serpent:

The lightning is constantly moving on this one!

Golden Lotus (1 of 3):

The animations for this guy are hilarious