3.3 thoughts so far

We haven't seen Icecrown yet because we don't raid until Thursdays. I'm looking forward to seeing the place with fresh, new eyes tonight. Now Tuesday night, a group of us did go into the new 5 man heroics.

I was very clear to everyone that I wanted to go in blind. When I see something for the first time, I am zealously overprotective about not wanting to hear too much from others about their experiences or how they did something. I want to just do it. If you try to say something, like Kalthan tried, you will be met with something equivalent of "shush please".

So off we went blind to heroic Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron. Forge of Souls was pretty easy, as was Pit of Saron. We did have some experiences on some bosses where since we were going in blind, we didn't know the whole don't heal this person or don't dps when you have this buff thing. But we did end up breezing through both heroics.

I will put my stake in the ground here though that I think going in blind to something puts the most pressure on the healer. There were some trash mobs in Pit of Saron, where I did 5000 hps. What in the? I was doing more healing on trash in this heroic 5 man that I do on most TOC10 fights apart from perhaps Twins.

Anyways, I was very impressed with both FoS and PoS, especially with the scale of the instance inside. I don't know if it was just because it was my first time seeing it, but it just felt big. In Pit of Saron we had a funny bit when we were freeing those slaves and because I was standing in the back, I wasn't seeing how the others were freeing them. Thus:

K: How are you guys freeing those slaves?
Jess or Wut or Heidikins: By clicking on this little ball thing.
Kalthan: Of course women can never see the ball and chain.

Badum-ching! So we also stepped foot in heroic Halls of Reflection. It was kinda funny when we just charged in the middle with no clue what was going to happen. I will say that I am pleased that they made this final instance somewhat difficult. And while I know it will get easier as folks get geared up, I'm glad it isn't super easy. It shouldn't be. I mean its Arthas for pete's sake.

We did end up getting bugged down the hall part and haven't gone back yet, but hope to finish it soon. I will say that during the hall encounter, I was literally shrieking over vent as the Lich King's shadowy outline got closer and closer to us. I think Blizz did an amazing job of creating a sense of scale and drama to these 5 mans. It almost felt like a raid, you know?

While we were doing these 3 heroics, all three of the possible epic trash drops dropped. I'm not sure if we were just lucky, or if they are common drops, but we saw Unsharpened Ice Razor, Seven-Fingered Claws, and I picked up Ghostly Wristwraps.

Final point about 3.3, I think a lot of folks missed the fact that two new vanity pets are for sale now as well. A number of guildies did not know about it. Breanni in Dal now sells Calico Cat and Albino Snake. Go get yours now!