Pug Runners

The weekend was a fun little eclectic mess. Everything from Wintergrasp to Ice Crown Citadel with booze in-between.

Friday evening included Strev running couple of random dungeons with the guild and quite a lot of working on Cyandra. I had a self-imposed goal to get her to 60 before the end of the weekend and there were a few hundred buzzards between her and that. I wound up falling a few birds shy of my goal (though I hit it this morning out of spite).

Cyandra’s main issue has been damage output. This is hardly a shock, as she’s not retribution-specialized. I thus put “heirloom weapon” on Strev’s shopping list. Per usual, I had a choice between grinding tons of dungeons or doing a bit more PvP in Wintergrasp to collect stone shards. I wasn’t actually doing anything else with Triumph badges, so my thought process went something like this: I can get the PvP weapon, which provides a nice little stamina boost and a major jump in Cyandra’s spellpower AND get a PvE breastplate with badges in a week or so. That’s when someone in guild chat through a Cataclysm curve ball.

When patch 4.0.1 goes live (it is on public test at the time of this writing), there’s some pretty big changes to the badge/emblem system. Badges and Emblems that are less than Triumph will be converted to gold and gold will be used to purchase all rewards that could have been gotten with those types of badges. By that definition, it includes heirloom gear. Triumphs and Frosties will be converted to ‘Justice points’ AT EQUAL VALUE and used to purchase the same gear they used to. This is a serious “wow”, but it all hinges on whether or not the 4.0.1 patch goes live before Cataclysm is released. When Cata hits, the Justice points are pretty much worthless unless you need a particular trinket. So, I think I’m going to hedge my bets by hanging onto Triumphs for another week, spend Frosties if I can get to a nice piece of armor, and burn stone shards like the trash they are.

Earned enough Brewfest tokens to join the Brew of the Month Club, which granted Strev the Brewmaster title. I’ll still need to ride the rams daily to earn enough points for the Brewfest costume, but with more practice, I should be able to snag all three pieces before the holiday ends. My record so far is 13 keg deliveries in the allotted time. I’ve heard of some people getting 23, but I have no idea how.

Fidelis grew in a most unexpected way late Friday night. I’m up a bit later than normal and I get the message that new member has joined the guild. This is always a happy thing and I offer my welcomes. A minute later another person joins…and another. They weren’t announced as alts—maybe a few close friends? I’m given a two word explanation: Pug runners. Confused, I guess they meant these were unguilded people in a pug they just ran More welcomes sent. I’m halfway through typing a message telling the 2nd person that ‘Good news—he’s no longer the new guy.’ when three more people join up. I’m now perplexed and a couple of us are wondering if an Officer has gone on an insane recruiting spree through Ironforge. The flood gates open with new members and I get a more detailed explanation.

Pug Runners was a guild whose people often padded our raids when we were a few short. Likable and friendly, some of them were even former members of Fidelis. For reasons unknown, The Runners decided to disband and merge their guild with ours to make a larger and stronger team. This works out well for everybody and I’m glad to have them on board; it was pleasantly stunning to see 28 people in guild chat without a raid going on.

Saturday night, we took the combined forces into ICC again. I now had a good idea of how these fights worked and was eager to test my mettle. We blew through the first few bosses with little effort and although I blew the roll on a staff I really, really needed (“Strev: I got a one!” “Looter: I guess you REALLY didn’t want that staff.”), I wound up getting some incredibly good gloves instead so I’m not heartbroken.

The Plagueworks was where it got rough again. We barely missed the enrage timer on Festergut (again) but downed him through the power of DoTs and thus avoided a raidwipe. Rotface chewed half the party, but we brought the abomination to the floor. At last, we were face to face with my arch-nemesis, Professor Putricide.

I had promised this bastard a rematch a while back and I was finally going to have my revenge. We reviewed the strategy and the tank pulled. In seconds I was dead from having stood in the fire like a newb; I couldn’t make it out of the ooze that was ticking off 5k a second. Sigh. Battle-rezzed and killed again in seconds. Sigh. I wasn’t the only one having issues by far, so we regrouped to try again.

This time, I easily dodged the plague splotches and when the oozes erupted from the floor, I flawlessly shifted from target to target to save the pursued. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, someone exploded an ooze in the middle of the raid and wiped most of us in a single fell blast. Time was running short, so we opted to pass on a third attempt and instead fought something…Norse… for an easy frostie.

By Sunday evening, I had nearly enough stonekeeper shards to get Cyandra’s mace, so I hit Wintergrasp to work the weekly quests I had missed. By the time the battle started, I was 5 shards shy and had one quest remaining: destroy three siege engines. This is utterly cake, since normally the Horde sends many tanks against our fortress and I’m very diligent about blasting them to pieces. This time, the Horde had other plans.

In WG if a side is outmatched or their opponents have held the keep for a couple of goes, they get a stackable buff called ‘tenacity’. It grants extra health, damage, and probably keeps their teeth sparkly clean. When the other side’s tenacity score exceeds ‘6’, we’re in for a rough ride. This time they had 20. With an amazing buff of 20 tenacity, the Horde players had something like triple health and damage, yet they just could not get it together.

The Alliance utterly steamrolled them. We controlled all of the vehicle production sites and within ten minutes kept them locked down to their graveyard spawn point. Amusing, but it kept me from getting the mace. It wouldn’t be until nearly midnight that I’d be able to complete the quest, but it was a good feeling to mail the shiny heirloom to Cyandra just before going to bed.