Of Sparkly shoulders:

I had another random bought of raiding luck the other night, and this one was a doozy. As my paladin, I got PUGed into a guild run of Firelands that was on Majordomo Staghelm, which is my favourite boss of Cataclysm so far. Not only that, but I did so without the raid leader insisting on 7/7 heroic experience, a blood test, and a rectal exam.

We killed him with only one wipe, and that was plenty fun, but then it got better. The paladin token dropped, and for just once in my raiding career, I had a good roll.

(Apologies for the less than stellar screenshot. I was too excited.)

I’ve never been happier to disenchant an item than Pauldrons of Ambition. No more ugly, crappy Troll shoulders. I’ve had those things since my first ever ZA run back in the spring, and I was starting to think I’d be saddled with them until Mists of Pandaria. Normally, I don’t care too much about gear, but spending more than half a year without upgrading a major slot is a bit much. Plus, this is the first piece of tier not from valor points I’ve gotten for any character all expansion.

Then, we went on to fight Ragnaros, something I honestly didn’t expect to do until the next expansion. We wiped our faces off for an hour without even getting him to 50%, but it was interesting. This was the first time I’d ever fought an end tier boss while it was still relevant.

It did convince me I’m not interested in proper progression raiding.

I must have done something right, though, because the other people spent the whole run trying to convince me to join their guild.

Aside from being insanely hard, I didn’t find it a terribly interesting fight, either. Just a lot of hammer-smashing and fire-dodging; he doesn’t even move. Staghelm, Rhyolith, and even hated Alysrazor all felt more epic. Great visuals, though.

Of Bribery:

Regular readers may remember my epic nerd rage over the Fangs of the Father legendary quest chain in 4.3, and how it excludes all non-rogues and non-raiders from a very important piece of the storyline.

I’m still pissed, but there may be some hope. I’ve learned that, while one does need to raid to start the chain, the first stage — nearly half the chain — requires only one thing from the Dragon Soul raid, and it’s very simple to get: a decoder ring pick-pocketed from the fourth boss.

This means that if I can bribe a raiding guild to let my rogue into their run just long enough to get that ring, I can still do a good chunk of the chain, and get some very powerful — if not quite legendary — daggers in the process. (Hey, just because gear isn’t my main goal in playing doesn’t mean I don’t like getting it when I can.)

Operation: Pay-Off is a go.

I’ve already started a thread in the official forum for my realm, and I’ll put out feelers to the few raiders I know. If you have a raiding guild on Antonidas US and would like some easy money, please get in touch with me. I’m not a very wealthy player, but what I have is yours if you can get me that ring.