Lich King finally goes down.

Since the beginning of time (or at least the middle of the Lich King expansion), I have wanted to fight my way to Arthas' throne and beat some sense into the guy.

Even after hitting 85, that was my main goal. There is a lot of stuff going on in that fight, so it was hard for a noob like me to manage.

But victory tastes sweet, now that I have my Kingslayer title. Granted, it's a day late and a dollar short, but at least it's done.

Archaeology finally pays off.

All that hard work digging for fragments and piecing together vendor trash finally paid off when I completed my first Tol'vir rare: Ring of the Boy Emperor.

That ring was the reason I started the profession in the first place. That, and the fun I had with the Harrison Jones quest line in Uldum. Too bad the actual profession isn't as glamorous as the quests.

I'm now done with Rare #13 for my Professor title from the achievement It Belongs in a Museum. I can't wait for this title. Finally, I'll have something to replace my Brewmaster title, another one I enjoyed getting.

I also realized I'm at 94/100 commons from getting Diggerest, so I guess I do want some more commons to proc.

I actually have enough fragments to complete the Fossilized Raptor, but I'm holding onto it. For some superstitious reason, I think having a rare that is being built helps other rares to proc. Consciously, I know that's not true, but I can't help it. It's kinda like Indiana Jones needing to have his lucky hat with him at all times.

So I just need six more rares to be a Professor, but I think Ring of the Boy Emperor will be my favorite find by far.

What is your favorite archaeology find?

Old raids can still be fun.

Well, we cleared Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep. I know these are level 70 raids and shouldn’t pose much of a problem at level 85, but I found both enjoyable. There were some interesting mechanics involved in some of those fights. I especially enjoyed the Hot Potato passing feel of Lady Vashj.

We had a good raid leader taking us through and explaining the fights. Luckily, we had enough firepower to make many of the fights much less dangerous than they could have been, even for the level 85s in the group.

Since I reached level 70 for the first time a matter of weeks before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, I didn’t have much time for raiding in Burning Crusade. I got myself geared up a bit and ran Karazan once before the expansion.

Afterward, there wasn’t much of a reason for me to go back. The gear was obsolete and I was more focused on new content. Since there was an achievement for it, my wife and I eventually wanted to complete it, but it wasn’t high on our list until we started working on[Outland Raider].

So, I was glad to see that our guild was running the old instances/raids for achievements. I was even more impressed that we had someone who knew the fights well and could explain them for us who hadn’t been there before.

Two more achievements down. Next, I’m looking at the Battle for Mount Hyjal.

Why not kill Deathwing?

I'm not concerned with Deathwing's demise.

I'm not sure if I haven't been paying as much attention during leveling, but I don't have any feelings toward this world-changing upstart at all. It's almost the opposite. Thanks to Deathwing, I get to fly around Azeroth and witness some major scenery changes in the old world. He helped bring heroic versions of Deadmines, an instance I always liked and spent a lot of time running.
I have only leveled my main character to 85, but I didn't seem to learn too much about the black dragon supposedly bent on world destruction.

This is quite a change from the Wrath of the Lich King for me. As I leveled Morkk to 80, many quests gave me Arthas' backstory and I didn't like what he was becoming. I started a death knight, like everyone else, and absolutely loved that storyline. I was surprised by how much I wanted to kill the Lich King for telling me I was nothing and he was the next best thing to sliced bread. By the end of that chain, I was more than ready to off the big guy himself.

Of course, I had to wait. As others have commented, we got to storm all the way up to Icecrown Citadel and then turn around and fly off to Ulduar. Just you wait, you evil man, we'll be back for you. Then we had to prove that we were up for the challenge, which was a step I didn't mind, before getting a shot at Arthas himself.

Granted I don't raid much, and didn't spend much time in Ulduar or ToC until I needed gear for Icecrown. Mostly, I didn't care about those raids. But when the ICC 5-man instances showed up, I was all over those. They offered tougher fights than heroics at the time, and added even more to my quest to hunt down the Lich King. Plus, I got gear to help me be less of a smear against the floor in ICC.

In the end, I had plenty of reasons to want to see Arthas dead. Unfortunately, my guild and I weren't skilled enough to tackle him and I didn't get to see him drop. (Now, I have a new guild and am level 85, so you can't avoid death forever, Arthas.)

But in Cataclysm, I don't have that passion against Deathwing. It was interesting to see some folks from vanilla instances come back and the effects they had on the world, but I don't really see Deathwing as a threat.
I plan to pay more attention as I level up my death knight, but right now, I don't see myself caring if Deathwing lives or dies.

Does anyone think the "World Destroyer" needs to go down?

No winner makes me even sadder.

In a disturbing turn of events, no one won the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby on Saturday.

Normally, I participate in that tournament at every available opportunity. I really want the [Dread Pirate Ring] simply for The Princess Bride reference. Plus, extra 5 percent experience while leveling is always cool.

Anywho, it was Saturday again and I was busy writing an article for the local newspaper when my son tells me that the tournament has started. After I landed from my leap off the couch, I realized that by the time I started up the game and hauled my Draenei butt to Northrend, I might just be in time for Elder Clearwater to announce I was a loser yet again. Twice before, I have found the [Blacktip Shark] only to have someone else beat me to the turn-in.

So, I decided to save myself the grief and finish writing my article. I was supposed to be working anyway.

About an hour later, my son makes another announcement: the tournament is over.

What?!? The tournament never lasts more than six minutes. What are these strange words you speak?

But, sure enough, it was true. The tournament had expired because no one had claimed the top prize. I cried a little inside because I had been trying to get this goofy ring for such a long time and here nobody even wanted to try this week — the one week I was too busy to participate. Needless to say, I was not impressed. I will be even more frustrated when I fish up the shark next week just as Elder Clearwater announces the winner.

As a word of advice, if you are on the Dalaran server, I wouldn’t bother with the tournament on Saturday. This week, I’ll be carrying home the prize.

Sindragosa fight shows promise

Sindragosa fight shows promise

I found myself as the 10th man in a guild run shooting to down Sindragosa. I had read about the fight and watched videos on it, but actually being there is another thing.

For instance, it's easy to know that you have to run out of her Blistering Cold blast radius whenever she sucks you in with Icy Grip, but actually turning around and running out of range fast enough is much more difficult.

We decided to run back onto the stairs after she pulled us, but I have a hard time turning around and hauling my hooves up the stairs. Even with Tuskarr's Vitality, I couldn't get out of the way fast enough. On the last few tries, I started just running to the other side of Sindragosa to get out of the blast radius and then rejoining the group later. Sure, I didn't get to heal much doing all that running, but at least I could stay alive that way.

Other than running from her Blistering Cold, I didn't have many problems with the fight. Staying to the dragon's side always seems like a good idea any time I see one. Hiding behind frozen people reminded me of Sapphiron . While I didn't do that fight often, I had plenty of practice line-of-sighting Forgemaster Garfrost's Permafrost.

The group consistently got to Phase 3, even if I didn't make it that long on the first couple tries, but we couldn't seal the deal.
Even though we didn't make it out of there with phat lootz, I learned a lot about the fight and should be able to best her the next time I'm in there.

ICC progress report

Rotface is down.

Our casual guild finally made it through Putricide's other creation.
We didn't have any problems taking down the first four encounters plus Festergut, but Rotface stopped us dead. We gave him half a dozen tries the first night, and about that many more on the second night and we got him down.

Some may complain about the repair bill, but I enjoyed learning, troubleshooting and finally getting the fight down. Since ours is a casual guild, I know that others have accomplished this faster, but for us, this is a great achievement.

After downing him, we decided to take a few shots at his creator, but that didn't go so well. But at least I saw the fight, so I can read up on the strats more and it will mean something.

And just for fun, we decided to take a stab at the Dreamwalker encounter. As a healer, I was pumped for trying this one out, since the encounter calls for the dragon to be healed 6 million hps before completion. That's another fight that I will have to read up on because me and two other healers were only able to get her healed about 1.1 million hps before we wiped.

Obviously we have some more learning to do, but I have to admit I enjoyed fighting our way to the Lich King.

I hope to see him sooner than later.