End of the Molten Front

End of the Molten Front 12/31/2011

Kallixta sat heavily on the chair. Her enthusiasm drained as muscles unclenched. She was tired. The dwarf had been diligent, spending her time fighting on the Molten Front. She had found herself returning to assist the Wardens far more often than elsewhere. This regular exercise yielded its own rewards. Every week seemed to see more measurable progress

• King of the Spider Hill  11/19/2011
• Have... Have We Met?  12/22/2011
• 500 Daily Quests Complete  12/23/2011
• Unlock Varlan Highbough
• Nemesis Shell Band  12/24/2011
• Lylagar Horn Ring  12/24/2011
• Relic of Tortolla  12/24/2011
• Unlock Ayla Shadowstorm
• Moonwell Phial  12/31/2011
• The Molten Front Offensive  12/31/2011

Now with the completion of the offensive, Kallixta finds herself at loose ends, but too weary to worry what comes next. The obvious thing would be to advance into the Firelands or the like, but the ache in her bones fills her with more doubt than she's used to. She wonders why she can't feel more satisfaction for her existing accomplishment. Maybe tomorrow she'll feel it.

Day One Hundred and Seven to Ten - 7-11 Oct 2011

Retribution Spec

Three days and three returns to Mount Hyjal and Molten Front dailies. I remembered to wave a few times, picking up "Chromie" and "Hemet Nessingwary" on the Have... Have We Met?  achievement. Three days adding to the Marks total and little else to say. Oh, one thing: 200 Daily Quests Complete.

It was on the fourth day that something different happened. I had mentally reconciled that I wasn't going to be running a healer anytime soon. I knew it wasn't going to happen, but I also wasn't making any progress as a Tank, really. When I saw my guildies heading off together for another dungeon run, it struck me that I could go with them as a DPS.

So I dropped my Holy spec and started building a Retribution spec. There was a lot of anguish, but I wasn't selling off my Holy gear, just crowding my bank with yet another set of gear.
I also did research. I'm using a couple sites for education:

• Haz Mace, Will Raid I've been reading Antigen for a long time and knew his stuff could get me started.
• Elitist Jerks - Ret Paladin thread
• Retribution FCFS Addon (clcret)
• MaxDPS for Retribution Paladins

So I spent the rest of the evening reviewing my equipment and spending some gold. I'll review my complete gear in a subsequent post.

Now that Kallixta has the Spec, Glyphs and Gear and I've installed an addon to help, I went to the target dummies and was very disappointed. I was barely breaking 6k. That didn't sound like a lot. Luckily I had helpful guildies that helped me understand a few things. After maybe an hour, I had managed to break 10k. Now that's still not very impressive to me, but for one night, I concluded I was on the right track.

The whole change meant Kallixta had new things she needed to test out on the weekend.

Day One Hundred and Six - 5 Oct 2011

Here was Kallixta's first evening logging in already at Level 85. She immediately headed off to the Molten Front to get her dailies done. After that, she was trying to think of her next priority. Should she head to Uldum and do the Ramakahen dailies?

Someone in the Guild asked if anybody wanted to do Coren Direbrew. Holy Socks! Wasn't that over already? Oh, I see. It's the last night. Well, sure. Kallixta switched over to Holy and joined the party, offering her healing services. She had done this before a bunch of times and this time it was with guildmates. If she was doing something wrong, they'd let her know, right?

Coren went down extremely quick and then something funny happened. We qualified as a Guild Run Dungeon Challenge, 1 of 7 for the week. Really? That was a dungeon challenge? We could see the extra guild experience and gold. Huh. And we never had a qualifying guild run on Coren before? Let's try another!

Soon we had done 5 runs against Coren, but the last one somehow didn't pop a Dungeon Challenge 5 of 7, why not? If we weren't all level 85, would that disqualify us? Funny how having someone weaker would mean we weren't as well rewarded.

We kept rotating guild alts, allowing folks to pick up their daily keg, but Kallixta kept returning as healer and noone else was interested, but then things took a turn downhill. On the final run, the tank suddenly was taking huge damage and Kallixta couldn't keep up. I got flustered and wasn't finding the right keys in my panic. I looked for, but couldn't find the Lay on Hands I wanted. I couldn't find my cool downs. Divine Lights weren't keeping up!

And then the tank died! Kallixta and another party member were heavily damaged. I quickly put Beacon on the new tank volunteer and tried my best, but I was still all off-kilter. And I was too focussed on the new tank and saw Kallixta's heal go down more. We were going to wipe on Coren!

Kallixta died and rathered quickly, I thought, managed to re-entry the dungeon. Amazingly I had kept the second tank alive long enough for the remaining party members to take out Coren before a complete wipe. But my confidence was shattered. I knew I hadn't handled things well. Others were willing to take some blame, but I knew I hadn't done all I could. I knew a few correct uses of my cool downs wouldn't have allowed the tank to die. I logged off the night in shame.

Day One Hundred and Five - 2 Oct 2011

Level 85!

Kallixta started the evening with about half a level to go to 85. She had already done the quest leading from the King and Prince in Stormwind, but hadn't hopped on the plane to Twilight Highlands, so that was the first step. Martuska's experience was still fresh enough that when the immediate battle on the arrival boat drew too many mobs, I knew to swim to shore so as to handle them one at a time. Determined now that the end was in sight, Kallixta did what was necessary. She experienced much more of the zone than Martuska had, with almost half of the zone's quests done when IT happened. I considered continuing on a bit, but I knew Kallixta should immediately head to Hyjal for the Firelands Invasion start.

Kallixta wrapped up her business with the Wildhammers, a third of the way from Friendly to Honored, and took off to Stormwind. She had a few items awaiting this point, such as her purples won from Coren Direbrew that required level 85 before equiping. It did not take long before she was off to Hyjal and the Sanctuary of Malorne.

The beginning quests were little trouble. The first sign of difficulty was zoning into the Molten Front and immediately finding myself in battle with a Obsidian Slaglord. Wasn't the quest name Through the Gates of Hell a big enough hint? Apparently not because I dithered in panic and died quicker than I thought possible. Maybe a fresh 85 isn't ready? After a bit of research, I tried again and had little trouble. Soon enough I was back in my stride and romping around, doing my dailies and happy with my performance.

Once Kallixta found her rhythm, she completed her first day of dailies and unlocked Zen'Vorka. She bought 2 purples for the Protection spec and 1 for Holy.

Returning to Mount Hyjal, Kallixta flew back to where Thrall and the Elemental Bonds quest chain was waiting. I did my research before starting this quest, or so I thought. However, I discovered dying during any of the boss battles zeroed out any accumulated points and requiring me to start over. I had difficulties where my rotation gathered too many mobs plus a big elite. I finally became extra careful on using things with an AoE component and got back on track. When the wedding finally got going, I had a happy face and was pleased with a new purple cloak for my Healing spec. I had been trying to concentrate on equipment for Holy. After updating, Kallixta's Item Level Average was 338 for her Holy spec and about the same for Protection. Her Amory lists her as having 343 in her bags. That's quite a difference!

This ended an extremely productive night, having finally brought my little paladin to maximum level and playing in current end-game content. Obviously there's more to do, but I'm happy to sit back and reflect on this accomplishment.