As I continue to improve Pummra’s gear, I find my opportunities for him shrink further and further. Friday night I got one of the last few drops I need from Kara in the [Earthsoul Leggings]. I got them gemmed up and threw on some [Golden Spellthread], and that pushed me over 1700 heal.
Once I got that cleared away, it was time to re-evaluate my gear and set up some new milestones. I looked at Heroic drops, badge gear, and Kara drops. Not much there for me, anymore. There are some marginal upgrades in badge gear, but nothing I wanted to grind out badges to pick up. Kara has a few drops I’d like to see still, but nothing that I NEED.
That led me to look at sidegrade items, in case I ever wanted to respec to feral (which I do miss) or try a balance spec some day.
So what’s the problem? 2 months ago I had a nice, big list of gear I wanted/needed for Pummra. I needed to level my LW for Windhawk, I needed to get in Kara for a variety of drops there, many heroic drops and much of the badge gear were nice, big upgrades for me. Now, more and more, I’m seeing that if I really want to progress, it’s time for 25 man raids.
Ugh.
Double Ugh.
Trust me, I WANT to run SSC. I want to hit The Eye and work towards Hyjal and beyond. The problem is, I’m lucky if I can set aside four hours for raiding once a week. My guild recently moved Kara to “full farm” status, so anyone and everyone can set up runs. I’ve started running Kara once a week in a way that fits into MY schedule.
This just isn’t possible with SSC or The Eye. Not only do you need 25 bodies, you need 25 very specific bodies. With Kara, I’ve been able to take all comers for sign ups. Get two tanks, three healers and fill the rest with DPS. Pretty simple.
With SSC, my guild has just begun working on it, and have only had one run so far. As was the problem with Kara before, I CAN NOT make runs at the times my guild has them. This past Saturday I had a VERY rare opportunity to raid on a Saturday, signed up for SSC, and it was cancelled due to a lack of signups. Bummer.
I guess that’s just the way things are. That pretty much sums up what it means to be a true “casual” player. I may never see Hyjal, the Black Temple, or any other real “end-game” raids. I just have to learn to live with that.
So now I’m torn. I suppose I could drop skinning and work on another tradeskill. (Alchemy maybe? Engineering?) I would also love my epic flying skill, but 5k gold is awful intimidating. Of course I have a variety of alts, too, including a shadow priest I’ve begun to play again. So who else finds themselves in a similar predicament? How do you adjust? Find other people to raid with? Go back to leveling alts?
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I can definitely empathize you on the inability to attend guild raids. My job required me to change from first to second shift mid-2007, and as luck would have it, most of my guild’s raiding happens on thursday and friday nights. I’m still fortunate to attend most progression nights (since thats usually just saturdays), but miss the chance to actually gear up on the old content. Fortunately, as a feral, there isn’t much that drops for me (even T5 isn’t that big of an upgrade due to the T4 four piece bonus, and upcoming badge reward chest to fill in the fifth slot).
I understand the frustration. I’ve had struggles making raids, with family, school, and (for a while,) work. If I was lucky, I could make it into Kara. (I have since then managed to find a bit of time, and on lucky raids rather like one you’ve documented before, gotten quite a few pieces of gear in one run.)
For me, I focused a lot on my professions (finally getting leatherworking to 375 a little bit back, and even Cir’s (my level 68 now hunter) alchemy is at 375. And rep as well, with quite a bit of instance running — most memorably, Steamvaults on both the druid and mage (Losse for Earthwarden, and Mel for the enchant) — and helping friends with whatever they needed. And leveling new alts, slowly as well.
Since Losse and Mel hit seventy, I’ve gotten Cir from fifty-four to sixty-eight (very slowly and very painfully — I happen to dislike questing, and try not make that the main form of experience), and started a baby shaman that is, as of today, twenty-seven.
Despite all the instance running and leveling, the game, I have to admit, is losing its luster… So I try new ways of making the game a bit more interesting. Such as switching Losse from feral to resto, and back again whenever it suits my fancy…
[ Geeze, this is too long. Sorry for babbling, Ryan! I'm done now. xD ]
I have the same predicament….wife, kids and a home to run. I find it hard to commit to even an instance run, so I tend to alt a lot. One thing that I’ve found refreshing is to roll on the opposite faction and experience the quests and places from the other perspective.
Quick tip for making some gold for that epic flying mount, or to twink an alt….spend an hour farming Netherweb spider silk from the Venomweb spiders in Terrokar forest, I almost always end up with 10 or more of them and on my server at least, they seem to be in high demand and fetch a very good price. Also with max lvl of cooking and fishing, the buff foods sell very well too, especially golden fish sticks
Fynn–
You also reminded me of a similar mob to farm that fills two purposes…the wind serpents in Blade’s Edge. I can skin them for knothide and Wind Scales, which sell well. They also drop the meat for Crunchy Serpent.