Patchday with Thunderclap

Hmm.. today it was the first time i had trouble downloading the newest patch. Somehow the seed from Blizzard was not working properly, giving me trouble to download it. Luckily i remembered that filefront always mirrors the patches, so i canceled the blizzard downloader and downloaded it from
Filefront Patchdownload

With the warrior changes to Thunderclap, I'm thinking about respeccing slightly. The 3 pts in improved def-stance are ok, but not *that* useful. If we assume some mob shadowbolts me for 3000dmg, thats 180dmg less per hit. Make that 10 hits its "only" 1800dmg less. Now set that into heroic relation and it's really not that good. I'm thinking of taking improved thunderclap instead, looks appealing now and the +10% for the slowing effect should prevent some damage as well. Plus the doubled damage will improve the aggro for TC. So probably I'll respecc into this.

Tracking all the attunements and who has heroic keys for what can be quite tiresome. Did you see the Guild Attunement Chart from battlechicken.org? Fast to setup and easy to track. Maybe they should have added the other instance keys as well, but not that important. You can register your guild/community here.

As a sidenote, i picked up Truncheon of Five Hells during a heroic Ramparts run today. Gives me at least the opportunity to tank with some different weapon then the axe everyone and their mother are using. For trashmobs i use my Blinkstrike anyway.

Heroes in Heroic

A few days ago i went into the Black Morass Instance (2nd in Caverns of Time) to complete my Karazhan attunement. After you "beat" the instance, you get the chance to talk with Medivh about your key. So finally I'm attuned for Karazhan! I should try to set up a group or join somewhere else to get a sneak peak into the instance - from what i hear it's lots of fun. BTW, the recent patch changed it, so those attunements like the one for Karazhan or Arcatraz will only be possible to complete by the actual group starting the instance - so far it was possible to just hold the door open for someone else. But tbh, it's all not that hard.. so no big deal.

If you want to have a look at the different attunement quests/keys, you can check them all out here.

Since i went into BM with friends and we had a really good group, we decided to grind reputation with the Keepers of Time until all of us hit revered. I think we did like 5x Black Morass and 2x Old Hillsbrad Foothills until all were done. This was a great thing to do, as for a tank there are some nice reputation rewards available, especially nice leggings and a tank head enchant. Talking about tanking, i think i did not report it in detail in my blog yet... but yes, Thulf respecced to nearly (I think Piercing Howl is very valuable) full protection again when i hit 70. It's nice to be back to tanking, but i seriously miss the DPS i had solo before. Ah well, i guess you can't have everything. ;) What is very annoying tho, is all those whispers i recently get, only inculding "What specc?" or even only "specc?". What's wrong with people?!? You think that's the best way to win a tank to come to an instance with you? Sorry, but it's not.. and what specc i have is none of your freakin' business. I tanked all 5ppl instances i went to before 70 just fine being full fury specced btw. I just think if you want someone to tag along with you and your group, put at least enough effort in it to write full sentences, increases the chances of success exponential.

After we all got to revered, we decided: "Heh! All got their heroic key, lets do Old Hillsbrad heroic!". Mind you we were running instances for hours before and BM is fun and fast paced once or twice, but after that it turns into hard work. So we turn on the hardcore switch and enter the instance... Hmm.. first thing you realize is, that all trash mobs switch to 71/72. In full tanking gear they did hit me for approx. 1500 dmg per hit, you can imagine a cloth wearer won't survive many hits from them. The first pulls went ok, nothing major problematic.
Next thing we encounter is one of the Lookouts with a dog. As soon as he spots us, he sounds the ALARM and two more mobs spawn, those were immune to many CC abilities. O.o We were so surprised, it was a fast wipe. hehe. We went deeper into the barracks, pulls went ok after some tactical adjusting. The next thing we had to realize was, that the patrols are on a respawn timer of approx. 10-15 min. After we wiped from respawning patrols, we called it for that night as we were already tired. But heroic was definately fun! Hits you right in the face... we'll be back, you bet.

I got heroic keys for Coilfang, Tempest Keep and Caverns of Time so far. Should you try heroic on these, feel free to invite me. ;)
Talking about keys, did you know that keyrings automatically expand now? No need to throw some away if you feel you get low on space.

I'm also up for Mana Tombs and Old Hillsbrad, as there drop the last two BoP alchemy recipes i still lack. Seems like every profession got a longer list of BoP drops you can farm. Here is a post with all the necessary info, should you have missed it: TBC BoP recipe drops

On a final note, i got a new ranged weapon in Black Morass, a wicked bow: Melmorta's Twilight Longbow
The ends of that bow got a particle trail attached. When you move it looks a bit like the wings from a Netherdrake, very cool.