Thursday, August 17, 2006

WoW Journal - 18-August-2006

Another milestone in my raiding career, my Horde priest got his first tier 2 item, the Halo of Transcendence. As I was still wearing the blue Devout crown, that was a really nice upgrade. I don't even mind that the priest headpieces generally look so silly, some sort of upturned collar. What I really would have liked would be the Halo of Transcendence being displayed as a real halo. That would have looked cool, Saint Tobold of the blessed heal spamming. :)

I don't usually raid during weeknights, as we usually start too late for my taste, and then the raid goes on until after midnight. I prefer to be in bed by 11, due to having to get up at 6:30 the next morning. But of course I make an exception for Onyxia raids, as these are much shorter. And there is a certain sense of obligation, not everybody has the Onyxia key, and getting enough players, especially healers, together for killing Onyxia is always a challenge. We waited over 1 hour in front of her lair before we had enough healers to try it.

Getting the tier 2 item was a bit of luck. There are half a dozen priests with more DKP in my guild, and as we have a highest-DKP-wins system I don't usually expect to get anything but items that the others already have. But as I said, we didn't have all that many priests in this raid, only 4. And of these 4, only one was ahead of me in the DKP list, and he already had the halo, so I was next in line.

I guess that the tier 2 headpiece is the first tier 2 item of most people. It is a lot easier to kill Onyxia than to kill Ragnaros or Razorgore. And even the upgrade from tier 0 to tier 2, skipping the tier 1 headpiece from Garr in MC, is probably not that unusual. While most guilds are likely to have their first Garr kill before their first Onyxia kill, it takes many months to kill Garr often enough to get everybody his tier 1 helmet.

My Horde priest now has quite a good collection of epics. Three pieces of the prophecy set, the halo, tailored truefaith vestments, the epic tier 0.5 gloves, and the Will of Arlokk staff. In addition I have two tailored flarecore epics, the gloves and shoulders, but I only wear them when I need fire resistance. But sometimes I wonder if the main effect of epics is looking good when somebody inspects you. The difference in stats between the halo and the devout crown is 4 more stamina, 3 more intellect, 7 more spirit, 10 more fire/frost resistance, and +48 in healing. Very nice, but not a huge step change, not something that turns me from useless to useful. My favorite epic is the Will of Arlokk, because it is my only epic that is hugely visible as such, and gets me noticed in a crowd. Benediction is arguably better for a priest, but that is one item where I'd be willing to let all the other priests in the guild get it before me. Benediction looks boring, and while being better, I don't feel I'm gimped without it.

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