Well Fed & 80

Two things came of this extended, holiday weekend...
I ate lots of turkey and pie, enough that I think I'll be imagining a wedge of cheese in a box hovering over my head for some time.
I hit 80, last night, far past when I should have gone to sleep.

First, a look back on leveling.

If you can't tell from the picture, I'm in Grizzly Hills (less then halfway through). The attack plan was Howling Fjord -> Borean -> Dragonblight -> Grizzly Hills. Somewhere between those last two, I started running instances like crazy to get the normal lv 80 dungeon drops, and rep that I wanted (Wyrmrest) - so questing fell by the wayside. In general, the questing in Northrend is the most enjoyable I've experienced in WoW, and I'm looking forward to continuing through it for Lore (and Phat Goldz). I realize that not having unlocked some of the reputations and starting work on their dailies (Sons of Hodir) will hurt, so those are going to be fairly high on my priority list.

I kept alot of gear. I'd like to think that I'm not the crazy sentamentalist whom can't get over blues being better the purples - but I really don't think I've come across replacements for my Pendant of Titans, T6 Shoulders, T6 Chest, T6 Boots, T6 Gloves, Brutalizer, Shadowmoon Insignia, and Girdle of Stability. I think most of them got extended life by having so many sockets, that I could stick +16 Defense / +24 Stamina gems into. There are a few Wrath pieces I want to work in as soon as I don't need that socketed defense, so I can get more armor/HP - but I need to get a few things done before then.

I never ran Halls of Stone (awkward level, no rep) or Utguard Pinnicle (nothing Aertimus was interested in). I ran Oculus more times then I'll admit (fun, short, and dragons). The five mans were nice for leveling, and I'll want to get all the heroic achievements eventually, but I might need a break from them for awhile after I get at least some of the heroic drops I want.

I made a ton of money. Then I spent it, getting mats for my Armor Plated Combat Shotgun, Titansteel Shield Wall, Durable Nerubian Cloak, and leveling Engineering to make my Goggles. Having those boosts to my gear when I dinged 80 was worth it, though - and there is tons more questing I'll be doing that will get it all back in reasonable time. I also need to remember that the hojillion sonic boosters I made got DE'ed, and we should now have a comfortable stash of dream shards.

So what does the future hold?

Tuesday LOKI is going to aim to restart 25 man raiding. I'm very confident that by Sunday, I'll have to look back at screenshots to be able to list the bosses that we've killed. I know we've had members pugging bits and pieces of Naxx 25, but I look forward to being able to offer regular full clears.

We're going to try switching to a primarily hourly-based DKP system. Our old system favored boss kills, which made farm content more attractive. An entirely hourly based system doesn't provide insentive for people whom don't need loot to raid / use consumables / get repair bills - but I'm anticipating the massive quantitys of loot being insentive enough for Naxx, at least. Come the next tier of raiding, we may reconsider how we award DKP.

I'm really going to be pressuring our DPS / DPS officers, to make sure that we set our high standards early. I'm sure that we could get through most of Naxx with "meh" DPS, but I'd rather address it now. I'm not as worried about tanking or healing, since that tends to get corrected immediatly within the raid time period.

I'd opened up some of the GBank to raiders/core for wrath leveling, and it seemed to be really popular. I'll be looking to restructure the tabs again soon, and try to make that a permanent feature.

Finally, on a personal level, I need to finish getting updated enchants. +20 defense on my shield comes to mind, as does Wrath Head and Shoulder enchants (lol @ head & shoulders).