Great Expectations

I've been pretty busy lately so I haven't had time to do much blogging but I'll squeeze this one in.

Last night Heroes hit up Kara again and we had a strong group so everything went very smoothly. The raid consisted of:
Honorshammer (Protection Paladin, main tank)
Origami (Feral Druid, offtank)
Sameth (Holy/Discipline priest)
Sweatyz (Holy Paladin)
Dlow (Holy Paladin)
Ferth (Arms Warrior)
Jagdelf (Beast Mastery Hunter)
Darolynn (Shadow Priest)
Regolas (Affliction Warlock)
Lakini (Balance Druid)

This group had it all: lots of healing power, high DPS, shackles (kara is a place of undead afterall) and banishes, and solid tanking.
We took down Moroes (adds: Holy Priest, Retribution Paladin, Arms Warrior, Shadow Priest), Opera (Romeo & Juliette event), Curator, and Maiden all in one shot. There were no wipes in this raid and only a few deaths during trash pulls. Most epics were claimed except 2 which were disenchanted to void crystals (I'm not saying what what was disenchanted!).
I was pretty lucky to get the T4 glove token with a winning roll. I hope it wasn't a huge upgrade for the others but it was a pretty significant tanking upgrade for me and the set bonuses for the Malorne gear are pretty nice.

After Kara and after getting my new Gauntlets of Malorne enchanted I went to Stormwind to make my latest PvP purchase. As I already have the epic Belts, Bracers and Boots (although the boots are not Veterans so they need to be upgraded eventually), I purchased the Veteran's Band of Triumph which was a PvP upgrade for my ring slot (increased resilience and stamina at the cost of some AP). My resilience is up to 235 now and that makes me happy. My next PvP purchase will likely be the necklace, then the cloak and then lastly updating my boots. My next Arena purchase will be a difficult decision: I can get the gloves in one or two more weeks but the pants will be a bigger upgrade but costs more. I also have a feeling that just before I can get my last piece of Arena armor, they're rolling out Season 3. *sigh*

I also did some 2v2 last night. 2v2 is interesting because it's where feral druids are purportedly better but for most people, it's just a practice venue for their 5v5. Anyway, we had some tough fights and I lost a couple of fights that ended as basically a 1v1. There's nothing I can really do versus a mage - they have too many instants and can blink or trinket out of my stuns so I can't really keep them locked down to beat on them. If they're any good, they can use their ice spells to keep me snared and bear attacks are too slow to beat them down.
One 1v1 fight was against a MS Warrior who had lower health than I did in bear form. But he's going to out-dps me in a straight up warrior vs bear fight. I couldn't get away from him very effectively because of his hamstring spam and intercepts. I need to duel Ferth some to get an idea of the range I can go to avoid intercept so I can cylone/root a warrior and get some heals off.

Anyway, PvP has gotten challenging and less frustrating with the higher stamina and resilience. At least I don't drop in 3 or 4 hits now. :)