A chill wind howls across the tundra…

Yeah, it’’s official, I’m the worst blogger.

So what’s Mintaka been up to of late? We’re raiding ToC and Ony on a regular basis but the guild is floundering a little. Not enough consistent raiders and we’ve gone to a DKP system which is not well liked. Even for me, who shows up regularly, it’s not ideal. Min’s wearing a mix of T8.5 and T9 gear so I’m putting up pretty good numbers. I’ve joined a regular 10man group one night a week and I’m liking that a lot. It’s a fun group and we get things done. no DKP and not as stressful as the 25man raids.

Outside of raiding I’m leveling some alts, a DK right now, and getting achievements. Loremaster and Seeker titles are mine. I have a shiny hog to ride around Dalaran on. I also did the dailies for Netherwing rep and the Un’Goro crater raptor mounts.

Wow, has it really been 5 months since I posted?

Obviously yes.

Well, what has Mintaka been up to you ask….. crickets, lol.

Mintaka is a pretty high-end raider now. His gear is among the best a hunter can have but I’m missing a decent ranged weapon as Kel-lhuzad only ever dropped it once and another hunter got it. I’m wearing 2 pieces of T7.5, a pice of T8 and a T8.5 right now. My only non-tier slot is my help which is best-in-class any way. I’m raiding Tuesdays and Thursday, mainly Ulduar 25 man. I ran Ulduar 10 on weekends for about a month but summer is here so I’ve backed off.

Lately I’ve been pursuing the Seeker and Loremaster titles. These are really tough to get but I’m having fun and I get to solo all the old world dungeons I never did back in the day. I also have been earning a ton of nerd points so it’s been a fun trip.

Hopefully I post here a little more often.

Survival finally becoming comfortable

I respecced to survival after the great nerf of 2009 and it’s taken me a couple of weeks to get a handle on the new tricks I need to make it viable. Trap dancing is a pain but I’m getting used to it.

Gear wise I’ve now got 2 pieces of T7 and 2 pieces of T7.5. There’s not a lot of upgrades available to me but I’m hopeful for some lucky drops off of 25man Naxx tonight.

I’m in the process of leveling my fishing as I make Fish feats for raids and buying the mats is getting expensive. This is the most boring profession to level but I’ve got it to 275 now.

I’m also in the process of getting the objectives done for the “Chef” title. Another reason I’m levleing fishing as one of the recipes I need, Rimsey’s Rum, is onlyavailable as a drop reward from a fishing daily in Outland. Sigh, thank you Blizz.

Last night I spent a wonderful 3hours with Malygos. We were so close to getting him down but called it after 13 attempts. Ugh.

Finally a 25-man guild run

We’ve been runnning 25 man content by either pugging or in conjunction with another guild. Last night we were supposed to run a 25 man Naxx with them but things fell apart. As I suspected would happen their guild started whining about the number of our guild going, what positions we were taking etc. Both guilds decided to do their own thing and it looked like we were out of the 25 man area, but a quick look in guild and we realized that we had 22 80’s online and with the help of three friends we put together a rag-tag motley crew, some very fresh 80’s and cleared two quarters of Naxx.

We ended up failing on Patchwerk, too many healers (8!) and not enough dps, but he’s a gear check and we kinda figured. hopefully we’ll be able to finish him off tonight. I was very proud when the raid leader commented on my 4200+ dps on the Patchwerk fight I must admit. Hopefully that doesn’t drop a lot after the nerf.

I picked up the second best dps ring in the game right now so I’m down to 3 blues left, a ring, a trinket and boots. I have 22 heroic emblems though so the boots I want for 40 emblems are within sight.

We’re getting a lot of guildies geared lately and that makes me very happy.

Well I’m still here

Mintaka has been very busy since before Christmas. He’s pretty much epic’d out (I think I havd 5 blues, 2 rings, a trinket, one-handed weapon and boots) and I’ve been running 10 and 25 man instances a lot. There’s a few rings or trinkets I need from 10 man Naxx but most of my upgrades are coming from 25 man content now.

I’m getting a little frustrated with some of the guild members who aren’t doing all they can to be as well-geared as possible before running higher level content. It seems that a lot of people figure that just hitting 80 means they can raid and they don’t need to grind rep, heroics, buy crafted eipcs or spend money, sigh.

I’m busy trying to get my dps as high as possible before the great hunter nerf of 2009, probably occuring next Tuesday. In 10 man Naxx last night I was averaging 2300 dps but in the 25man I did on Monday I was top dps and doing 3843 dps on average. Yeah, I was proud

I’m taking a more active role in my guild, both in game and on the forums. We’re looking at out officer structure right now and Im hoping I’ll be asked to be an officer as I’m quite curious about the inner workings of a guild and hope my supervisory skills will be benificial.

I’ll try and update more often and keep you updated on my guild participation.

Kel’Thuzad Down!

At approximately 9:30 server last night Baraka downed Kel’Thuzad for the first time completing a clear of Naxxramas 10-man that took a couple of nights to finish. This was after running a 25-man Obsidian Sanctum and downing Sartharion.

Being part of a guild first filled me with an immense sense of pride and accomplishment. The team we had seemed well-balanced and we learned the fights quickly, one or two-shotting most bosses. Personally I had one of my best nights ever from a game play perspective so that’s always a good thing.

Gear wise it wasn’t a huge night for me but Kel’Thuzad did drop the gun and although it’s basically the same as the crafted one I have, I shall use it with a sense of pride.

Tonight we finish the second half of the 25-man version we’re doing with another guild and I feel like I have a good jump on some of them as I’ve now done all the fights. Hopefully some decent loot drops for hunters.

With the Christmas season now upon us this is the last scheduled raid until January 8th. This is probably a good thing as I need to run a bunch of heroics for rep and badge loot. I still have a blue chest piece that I’m only 7k rep away from replacing. There’s a set of epic bracers I want that are crafted, assuming the heroic Nexus ones don’t drop, and after that I’m pretty much looking for melee weapon(s), necklaces, rings and trinkets to finish off being equipped in all purples again. I’m also quite broke and find myself weighing the cost of things, not something I’m used to, so mining will take up a big chunk of time. I’m sure there’ll be a few impromptu raids in there too, lol. Plus that damned hog is calling me…. 12k+ in mats, ouch.

Life is very good.

Now, which alt. to start leveling…

What the heck have I been doing?

Well it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve posted so lets catch up shall we.

I’ve done a bunch of heroics, a couple of 10-mans and a 25-man. The problem I’m getting is that I’m not getting the epic drops I need form heroics to do 10 and 25 mans effectively.So I’m stuck in heroic hell right now.

I do have 5 epic pices now though, and should get another one shortly from rep. So I can’t complain.

Dealing with guild politics lately. Not so much politics but we’ve still only a few 80’s. Not enough for a 25-man raid or even 2 10-man beacuse of healers, so the same people are doing the 10-mans. Kinda frustrating. They take the same 10 as they have the better gear, they get the even better gear, there’s no hope for me, oh well. I’ll just do heroics until I get the 3 epics I need and see what happens.

Let the epics come! Heroic dungeons and loot

Play time was at a premium this weekend as real life events took the fore. I did manage to run a few heroics and we handled ourselves quite well I thought. No drops for me but lots of fun regardless.

I do have two epics now, both crafted by my engineering skills. Truesight Ice Blinders, a great head piece, and the Nesingwary 4000, a great looking gun.

The Christmas season should curtail a lot of raiding but I’m hoping to get most of the heroics done and maybe even some 10-man Naxx’s.

I also plan on earning a lot of gold to replace the 5500 gold it cost me to level my engineering.

Cut scenes, plans, moving forward

I finally did the Wyrmrest quest that triggers the cut scene and takes you to the battle of UC… I won’t give anything away but this was quite amazing, great story telling by Blizz.

Last night was a night of no runs but I did get some of my to-do’s done. I replaced my chest peice but chose the Aviary Guardsman’s Hauberk instead as the stats were better. I also picked up the Fang of Truth swords so my hit rating is back at a respectable 140. I got my cooking up a little and also my engineering, made a bunch of Mammoth Cutter bullets and look forward to using them once my supply of Timeless bullets is used up.

This weekend I won’t get to play as much as I like as there’s Christmas decorations to put up, gifts to buy and a family supper to attend. I’ll run what I can, hopefully a heroic or two, and grind some reputation.

There are three groups I need to grind reputation with at the start. Knights of the Ebon Blade for the Spaulders of the Black Arrow and the Arcanum of Torment head enchant. Sons of Hodir for the Lesser Inscription of the Axe and at exalted the Greater Inscription of the Axe shoulder enchants. The Wyrmrest accord is a must for many people I think as, well flying dragon mount, say no more.

New things to do – short-term version, loot luck once more

There are so many things i want to do it’s just silly, but here are my short-term ones.

Do a couple more of the Wyrmrest quests to get honoured so I can buy two <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37050">Fangs of Truth. I need to get my hit rating up badly and replacing my pvp axe with two of these will add around 66 hit rating.

Buy a Swiftarrow Haubrek. A new chest piece is all I need now before I start heroics. I've been lucky with everything else. Once I replace my chest and weapon only my back piece will be an old epic.

Make Mammoth Cutter bullets. I finally got my engineering to the point where I can make these now. My myterious shells add 46.5 dps and cost 2gold per stack of 200, mammoth cutters add 67.5 and I can make them with mats, the math’s easy.

Level my engineering so I can make two items. The Nesingwary 4000 gun and the Mechano Hog.

Get the tabard for Knights of the Ebon Hold. I’ll need to do a few more Icecrown quests for this but it’s all gold so no worries.

I have almost 8,000 gold on Mintaka which allows me the luxury of paying the outrageous prices for new things right now. I think this is a good thing, lol.

Ran Halls of Lightning again last night and a ring and some legs dropped. I’ve been so lucky with drops it’s not funny. Like I said, if I replace my chest piece tonight I should be set for heroics with little problem. Now I just need groups to go with. Our guild still has no level 80 healer so it’ll be a bit tough to start, I might end up pugging, we’ll see.

I do ridiculous amounts of dps at the moment, my crits are consistently in the 2k range and my  kill shot has almost topped 7k on many occasions. I’m really loving being a hunter right now.