Zul'Gurub post-BC

I had the most fun evening in World of Warcraft since a while, joining a guild raid to Zul'Gurub. We were about 15 people, levels from 61 to 70, but with most players being 70, and we totally kicked ass in that place. Which wasn't really surprising, but it *is* fun.

When we look at our characters and see the numbers, how much health, mana, armor, etc. we have, and how many points of damage our attacks and spells do, or how much we heal, we are aware that we have become much stronger through the Burning Crusade expansion. The problem is that we often don't feel it. Killing a level 70 mob at level 70 isn't much easier than killing a level 60 mob at level 60. And if your guild moved from "farming" Molten Core and BWL to wiping in Karazhan, you can't help the feeling that you actually got weaker.

Visiting Zul'Gurub really let me feel how much stronger my character had become, and that was just the level 65 warrior. I survived two exploding bats, because I have so much more health now. Tanking boss mobs with a level 70 priest healing me was very easy. At the panther boss, where previously we often got swamped with panthers, our single mage just sneezed at them and they all dropped dead. There were a couple of boss special abilities that still hurt, and where we still needed to use the right tactics, like the tiger boss resurrecting his mates, or having to poison yourself for Hakkar. But mostly we were just reducing our strategy to blasting everything to smithens, and it worked. Not something you'd want to do every day, but nice and relaxing for one evening. Oh, and I dinged 66 in ZG, which was funny, because people don't usually level up in raid dungeons.

Of course we couldn't use much of the loot that dropped. There was some interest in the 18-slot bag the panther boss dropped, but the Will of Arlokk staff he also dropped just got sharded. Man, my priest ran around with that staff for many months and was so proud to have gotten it. One level 61 warrior still could use the 2H-sword that Hakkar dropped, but I had gotten a polearm from Hellfire ramparts that was already better. So we just got a lot of disenchanted shards, and lots of bijous and coins.

I had first thought that I'd need the Zul'Gurub reputation to finally get the mageblood potion recipe for my warrior. But as it happens I got lucky the same day, and found a "cheap" (400 gold buyout) recipe for major mageblood potion in the auction house. Previously I had seen the same recipe for 600 gold bid, 1000 gold buyout, and had only bid on it, only to have it bought out shortly afterwards. No more need for Zul'Gurub reputation for me now.

Next stop is Molten Core, where I will go with my level 70 priest. My warrior was so rarely in MC that I wouldn't have a point for comparison. And I want to see the effect of Mass Dispel on Lucifron, and other dispel-heavy encounters there. I think these occasional visits to "old" level 60 raid dungeons go a long way to raise the spirits in a guild, especially when not everybody is happy with how Karazhan raids are going. Imagine that, Molten Core as a kind of picnic, a party among friends to have some fun together, instead of seriously being at the top of the raiding circuit.