Exalted with Netherwing and Gavel of Naaru Blessings

I wasn't going to post over the weekend, but I had an extremely good Saturday in terms of game accomplishments. First, I knew I was in arm's reach of hitting Exalted with the Netherwing on Gillien, which meant that bastard would finally get his epic mount. I don't like to be wasteful, so even though I paid the 5000g for his epic riding skill I didn't buy him a regular epic mount because I knew I'd throw it away once I got his "real" one.

Much to the amusement of one of my guildies, I then spent a few minutes standing around in Shattrath pondering which netherdrake to get. Being that I'm something of an RPer, even though I'm not on an RP server, my debate wasn't "Do I want the green or the black?" so much as "Do I want Malfas or Jorus?" I decided on Malfas, the purple netherdrake (though I think he's more of an indigo or something; that violet nether drake looks purpler to me).

Here's a pic of Gillien with his new partner. :)



Shortly after that, I noticed that the daily was heroic Mech. Now if there's a heroic that any brain-dead pug can manage, it's heroic Mech. I generally dislike pugging heroics because you never know what you're getting. With DPS it's forgivable if one or even two members are under par, but it gives me the chills when I look at a tank and they're all in greens and blues. I don't, and won't, care if it's a normal instance, but I can't do anything if the tank is unable to prevent him or herself from getting two-shotted.

Fortunately, today's tank was mostly in purples. I think there's a bit of a trend lately in tanks picking up PvP gear for PvE, which I find rather bothersome. Certainly this tank had the health and was undoubtedly uncrittable, but he or she wasn't as easy to heal as some of epic-geared tanks I've run with have been. I don't mean tanks in T6 either; just those a mix of T4 and badge gear. I think this may have been because he or she wasn't getting enough avoidance with all the PvP gear.

It didn't end up being a make or break anyway. We finished the instance with only a couple accidental deaths of the dps. Then, being six badges richer, I went and got the mace I'd long saved up for:

[Gavel of Naaru Blessings]

Let me tell you a story, about Gillien and his horrible luck with healing maces.

Back when I was leveling him, I parked him in 51-60 AV for a period of several weeks. I was busy at work so I couldn't raid and my leveling partner was also busy so I didn't want to keep leveling without him. So I whiled the time away in what was currently a Horde dominated bracket.

I earned enough honor to buy the [High Warlord's Battle Mace]. I even enchanted it because I didn't know how long I would be there and I figured I might as well make the most of it.

Eventually, my work schedule lessened, my leveling partner freed up, and Gillien moved on. He got the [Mogor's Anointing Club] from the Ring of Blood quests, but given that the High Warlord's Battle Mace was enchanted, it wasn't as good, and I wasn't about to enchant Mogor's Anointing Club since I would obviously replace it at 70.

I continued leveling Gillien and [Northshire Battlemace] dropped for him in Old Hillsbrad. Again, it wasn't as good as a 70 blue healing mace, and my High Warlord's was better since it was enchanted.

But then I ran into a problem. I hit 70, and much to my embarrassment, I was still using the High Warlord's Battle Mace. Both Shattered Halls and Mechanar refused to drop their 70 healing maces, and random people I didn't even know would whisper me asking about why I was using an old 60s epic. I did my first Kara run as a guest in a friend's guild run and one of their healers asked why I was using it. (Talk about mortifying, trying to explain why you're toting around a 60 pvp weapon on your obviously created after 60 pvp ceased to matter blood elf paladin.)

One kind person informed me of a healing mace with the new Shattered Sun Offensive faction, and so with some reluctance (because my luck in getting a free healing mace to drop in SH, Mech, or Kara continued to plague me) I ground up the rep to Revered and got [Kiru's Presage]. With the spirit it was some wasted itemization as a pally healing, but otherwise it was servicable. Even without an enchant, it was at least better than the High Warlord's Battle Mace, but I still wanted something better.

I ran Kara some more, and more, and I kept accumulating badges. Gillien is now a couple bosses away from hitting Exalted with the Violet Eye and still a healing mace has yet to drop for anyone on any Kara run he's gone on. But he hit the 150 badge mark today. I wager most people don't make crazy jumps from a blue to [Gavel of Naaru Blessings], but I'm not complaining. With my luck, he's going to be toting that thing around at 80 and will have to field a whole new round of questions.