The Badge Grind

Now that I have my main over on ER, I've had a more relaxed experience. Earthen Ring is much more active than Malygos. On average, I would guess that there is usually about twice the number of active players on ER and there is a lot more activity at all levels of the game.

This has been helpful, as pickup groups and pugs have been pretty easy to get into (at least they were last week). But is also results in some very wierd and unstable auction-house pricing, and more competition than I'm used to.

Since I haven't been pushing myself to level anything in particular, this also means that I ran out of stuff to do last week. On my mage I ended up doing: VOA-10, VOA-25, TOC-25, Uldaur-10, ICC-25, TOGC-25. Essentially I only missed Ony (not really a loss there), and ICC-10.

I also started looking into guilds, making contacts with people that I could. I didn't seem to make much progress until this week though, when tuesday I was flooded with people returning my messages. I got into a TOGC-25 group as a 'trial run' which didn't go well. Their requirements were for a mage that can hold 8.5k DPS (I can only hold 6.5k under normal conditions with my gear). In the end, I ended up being lower than normal (holding about 5.5k), dying twice during the twins (the way they did it was just to clump together and ignore the balls; my health was just too low for that I guess). And I was pretty much ignored after that. As a raid they seemed like good enough folks; but obviously I'm not at the gear level they need. I thanked them for the invite and decided not to even bother apping.

So right now I still have two other prospects. I got a trial run with another guild in ICC-25 last night which I preformed much better in even on the bosses I had not seen before yesterday. My average for the night was around 7.5k DPS, and I had 2 deaths (one on Marrowgar, due to his whirlwind), and one on Lady Deathwhisper at the very end due to a frostbolt literally right as she died. I was much more comfortable with that performance even if I did end up around 11th place in the DPS chart. And the group seemed pretty nice and friendly. And I got 24 Frost Badges in the process.

After that I replaced 3 pieces: I got the next level of the Ashen Verdict Ring; I went ahead and purchased T9.5 legs with a trophy I got from that TOGC run Monday; and I went ahead and purchased T10 chest for 95 Frost Badges. This upped my SP by about 50, my haste by about 30, and my crit by about 20. Overall, I nice upgrade and one that I hope reflects on my DPS the next time I get to run something.