Friday 16 August 2013

Top Of The World


Back in December only a couple of months into the Mists of Pandaria expansion, I attempted to solo Tempest Keep. It was the one missing fragment from my days spent in the Outland. During the Burning Crusade, I was part of a 10 man casual raiding guild, the pinnacle of those days was Karazhan. This one raid kept us occupied for a long time, mostly due to the fact Blizzard decided the next couple of Raids should be 25 Man and then back to 10 Man for Zul'Aman (the original). It was a huge leap up and difficult to bridge without access to the next level of gear. It was a truly awful bit of design from Blizzard, one which they would rectify by having 10 and 25 man versions of all Raids after the expansion.

Tempest Keep was well and truly out of my range, and for some reason I used to get Tempest Keep and Black Temple confused, so if there any retro runs during Lich King, I would invariably miss them due to stupidity.

In December I was probably in the iLevel range of 450-460, but now that is 503. The gear/stat inflation means that I am probably at least twice as powerful now than then. Cymre wrote a post yesterday about obtaining the Ashes of Alar. This was my cue to go back and complete my unfinished business.

The rest of the story is a complete non-event due to the relative power of a juggernaut Hunter able to completely overpower the mind control effects of Kael'thas Sunstrider and his cronies. There was no need for special tricks or Tanking pets, just raw power and a wait for each of the phases to time out.


Another 30 points to my achievement total. Achievements are something that motivate and also turn me off. I like to do the achievements that are obtainable and dislike the ones that cause unnatural player behaviour. Something like "All 25 members of a Raid team must drop their pants and moon at the Lich King During the Tea Party Phase".

This is just a waste of time, but we do it because it is 10 Points and it is needed for the Larger Raiding achievement. It is no great Feat of Strength merely an annoying distraction.

There are just too many achievements that are merely not achievements or just plain annoying that I have stopped actively chasing them. On the flip side it is rude not to complete all the Raids even if you are 3 Expansions too late.

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on getting around to the kill. Now keep killing until you get that bird. I love the trail it leaves behind when you fly.

    I am with you with some achievements, the worst is school of hard knocks. Not only do you force people that do not PvP into battlegrounds but some of the things you need to do effectively teach you the wrong way to do the battleground. That has to be the number one worst achievement ever made. I did it back when they first added it and it seems like everyone and their mother was trying to do it which made it 10 times worse for some parts.

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  2. Thank you very much, unfortunately I was not lucky enough to get it on my first kill. That would have been too much for people with our luck.

    I am absoulutely amazed at the number of Epics that dropped from 2 bosses and the trash. I counted 20 Epics which is just raining down even for a 25 Man raid.

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