Today was a bit of a busy day.  First I went out to Deepholm and meant to herb but ended up picking up some good quests.  I did the one where I put down a totem that helped me zap mobs

then went to the Alliance airship where everyone was killed by cultists that have infiltrated the area.

then I got to drag an unwilling ogre over the blades of the airship engines to convince him to talk

yes we do, but we’re still angry!  My favorite text from Stormcaller Mylra was “Doesn’t say a damn thing about dog-ugly ogres” in reference to what her code of contact refers to.

when she reveals she had elementals waiting to catch him should he drop, the ogre freaks out realizing what the Twilight people will do to him, and throws himself into the blades and gets shredded up. Wicked!

Then I get a visit from my rogue friend!

then blow kisses at this guy, who is underwater.. just chilling, I guess?

And see, this herb? Yes it’s floating mid air.  I think only a druid in their cheating flight form would be able to get it.  Herbing is very hard any time of the day right now, basically you either never see an herb, or if you do it’s lagged and vanishes soon as you set down, or it vanishes as you are trying to pick it.  The new flasks and such take upwards of 12 herbs per, so trying to farm has been very difficult.

As I am flying around Twilight Highlands trying to get my Alchemy up, I run into this sad, sad area of chained, and slaughtered red dragons.

I’m too low to do anything about it, yet.  Sadface red dragons!

In the interest of herbs, thanks to Stouts advice I go pick up the scenic quests to get to Uldum. We head out on a caravan.

and we are taken prisoner.

But! I am out here to herb so I don’t do any questing right then and head back to herbing. I find I have to fly low to the ground to have a chance at getting anything.

Later on I get a guild group and run VP, but I’m unable to get into their dungeons at 85, and someone in the party is unable to get into any dungeons I have open because they didn’t find the entrances yet or something.  I leave group and queue up for more, and get Stonecore, which is in progress, and their healer once again has ditched them mid mobs.  We finish that no problem, then I queue up for Throne of Tides.

That went ok, other than the paladin getting himself killed twice by standing in green mess.  Twice. I only had to sit and rest/drink once, then the DK started telling me to stop using Greater Heal.  I asked why and he said to only use Heal because it’s cheaper.  Well, yes, but it’s just as slow as Greater Heal and heals for at least 50% less.  And long story short, with hp pools being giant it’s not really efficient to spam cast a 2.3 second heal for 700 mp and heal for 6-10k several times when everyone is taking a lot of damage, all the time.  Yes, I use Heal when no damage is incoming and a non tank class needs a heal.  But a Heal on a tank is like 2% of their hp, it’s not worth it.

In fact the damage in the new dungeons vs heals not being any stronger, makes it so even the strong heals get “eaten up” as I call it.   In other words, a tank takes damage, you throw say, Penance, and their hp stays the same because the damage they took was equal to what you just healed for. I think that needs some adjusting.

Last night I did almost nothing but queue up for dungeons.  I got in at the last boss in the Stonecore, finished it no problem and got the achievement.  Now I say, no problem, but the fights still require a high amount of healing, and I did die once when no one was getting the masses of cultist adds off me, which appear to be designed to run straight to the healer.  I’m not geared up for defense and survivability on my PVE disc spec.

I get Vortex Pinnacle, then Stonecore full run, then Vortex again.  At that point I am rather exhausted from the demanding healing required now, and pick up on my quests in Vashj’ir.

I get this funny little hat which attracts monsters in the Underlight area, which is beautiful as I have noted before.  I finished a few quests down there for that upside down dwarf we met earlier, and hit 83.  I head back to Stormwind, learn some more alchemy potions, repair my gear, learn Inner Will, put some stuff in the guild bank and my bank, etc.  I group up with Janusz again only we cannot queue for pvp together now because of the level difference. Ugh.  I really don’t know how people got to 85 in 6 hours.  I expect it to take me at least another week to get to 85, if not longer.

This morning I got nowhere with that naga quest again, because other players kept killing the mobs before they went anywhere.  I gave up and went out herbing, then decided to go find some dungeon entrances so maybe I can actually do one. I find the Throne of Tides since I’m in the area. My gut feeling earlier to jump in the vortex was right apparently.

I queue for for Throne of Tides and about 15 mins later I get in.

It is BEAUTIFUL.  Again, still shots really don’t do it justice, and later on there is a movie sequence.

Though I will point out, when Lady Naz’jar yells out “Meddlesome gnats! you think us defeated so easily!”… Blood Queen in ICC says the same thing nearly word for word.  And the last  boss, is clearly, clearly a poke at  BP with the nasty oily filth pouring down staining the NPC you have to protect.

We do pretty well, for a first go, but there are deaths all around. I died once, the rogue, the shaman, basically everyone but the tank died at least once. I RIP through my mp now like nobodies business.  I am going to HAVE to start using the regular Heal spell, as renew is too pricey, and Flash heal, geez.  Flash is 2k mp and heals for around 10k (I have 45k right now), Heal cost about 700 and heals for 5,550, and Greater Heal costs 2k mp and heals for about 15k.  And the heals are all base amounts, no crits, buffs,  and gear figured in.  Oh and renew costs 1400 roughly and heals for around 1800 every 2.5 seconds for 12 seconds.

I think after this little dungeon I’m going to move Renew to where I had Psychic Scream, since I really only need that on my PVP/soloing spec, put Heal where Renew was, and start using Greater Heal a lot more.

I’m sort of afraid to see how pvp is going to roll.

Anyway I came out of that encounter with a new cloak (i level 308), a new ring (308) and a new trinket (308).  This takes up my average item level to 282.