Feeling Guildy

So, if you look at Aeven's armory link this morning, you'll notice something different: she's got information on her "Guild" tab now.

I've been a member of Council of Fate on Kirin Tor for a while now... more than a year, certainly. Ever since a couple of folks (Whisper and Elrock, IIRC - correct me if I'm wrong, folks!) helped my first character kill some giants in southern Winterspring. They are a truly wonderful bunch of folks, and over the past few weeks, I was really missing interacting with everyone in guild chat.

There's a couple of reasons why I didn't immediately get Aeven in as an alt on the guild rosters. Mostly, I'm an amazing slacker. I'd log in, see that there were a few folks on line and that they were all in Ulduar or something, and think, "Oh, I'll bug them later..." and forget to do so. Plus, there's the fact that I wasn't sure that Aeven would even turn out to be viable. I might hate playing a pally, or get disgusted with playing another Dwarf, or find out that leveling in venfor gear was just Too Stinking Hard and call the whole thing quits.

So, my getting Aeven into the guild is both (a) a refutation of my general slacker-ness, and (b) an acknowledgement that I like Aeven, and I'm going to stick with her as far as she can go. Oh, and (c), that I've got an awfully nice bunch of online WoW friends that I was missing quite a bit. I think it's that last one that really tipped the balance, though.

Leveling: took Aeven all the way up to the brink of 43 in Dustwallow Marsh, then over the top thanking the Scarlet Monastery Armory.

Yes, I know, I said I was heading for Desolace. I'll let you in on a secret: slacker I may be, but it's a defense mechanism. against being obsessive-complusive. As in, "I'm going to ride by that quest giver. I don't need that quest. I'm going to Desolace, uh-huh. No, don't look at me like that... I know you're having trouble with deserter agitators, I've been here before, but... would you stop looking at me like that? Sheesh! OK, OK, one quest. I'll do one quest for you. Oh, it's part of a chain? Man, don't cry, you know I won't just leave you hanging..."

And BAM! Before you know it, I'm running errands for Tabetha and finding unpopped spider eyes for the crazy old guy who lives in the swamp. It's like some sort of weird co-dependency relationship, really.

Anyways... running the Armory went well. I've decided that Blessing of Sanctuary is my new, special friend. Put that up, switch to Devotion Aura, make sure Righteous Fury is up, and Aeven's all set. Pull mob #1 using Hand of Reckoning, switch to mob #2 to lay down Judgement of Justice, pop Consecration, and start whacking on mob #3. Re-apply Consecration as needed, hit the other mobs with JoJ when it's available to keep them from rabbiting.

At that point, I think, I can pretty much just stand there and make rude gestures, and the mobs are going to stay on me. Well, no, not really, but I was holding them pretty consistently at 2k-3k threat. Aeven managed to do 161 dps overall, mostly thanks to trash mobs - her dps on Herod was much lower, but if I understand things correctly, that's more or less the way it should be. As long as the big bad nasty is trying to eat her face off, instead of smooshing the squishy dps, she's an adequate tank.

A nice, smooth, fast run... though I have to admit, I didn't check the gear in my party. Everyone else may have been horribly overgeared, and just good at managing their aggro, or a veteran of vanilla WoW running their 14th alt through SM:A. So, jury's still out, I think - either I'm turning into a decent tank, or I'm completely fail and just getting carried by good groups. I'm going to have to start paying more attention to party gear and see if I can't get a better indication of how Aeven's doing, overall.