Vashj down

It would have been nice to get Lady Vashj without needing everything nerfed to hell and back, but it's still better than not getting her until lvl 80. As expected, it's still a pretty technical fight and it took us 3 tries to get smooth on handling the Tainted Cores. But the first time we saw Phase 3 was the only time we needed to. Thanks to everybody who came out and stuck around through the stupid server reset (15m) between attempts 1 and 2.

On the running theme of pally dps, I think it did help a bit to have 3 ret pallies in the raid. I'm sure we all had about the same experience with the Elementals of vaporizing them in 2-3 instant cast spells. Probably the 3 rogues did too, but in addition to killing the elementals, the pallies could self-heal in between, which meant we were able to get by easily with just 5 healers and the stairs-positioned healers could even pace themselves to avoid aggroing incoming Elites and Striders.

BTW, one of the reasons we might see a nerf to ret pally PvE dps is I feel like we've overwhelmed the Rogue class. In theory, we were supposed to have a dps penalty to balance our healing, buffs and extra armor. Maybe at lvl 80, rogues push back out in front in dps or something (or Evasion tanking becomes relevant), but with a 1m in-combat "sap" (Repentance) for pallies now, I wouldn't blame Rogues for saying "wtf? why the hate, blizz?" Note that this is particularly about Rogues, not the ranged dps (Mages, Warlocks, Hunters) because in general Blizz makes melee dps harder to use than ranged. And Warriors catching rogues in dps seems less OP since they can't heal or CC (their buffs are an advantage, armor less so in a raid where the dps isn't supposed to take physical dmg).

OTOH, I noticed my dps dropping down the chart through the run last night and it wasn't really unexpected. I actually like reacting to circumstances more than standing and delivering, so I was trying to watch for loose mobs on the healers during trash and ran around a lot on the Lurker adds (although I also amused myself by dpsing through the Spout by strafing around the Lurker instead of getting in the water). I was also already noticing the different feel to being the one setting the pace, e.g., yelling "incoming" and grabbing the next group instead of "ok, go get 'em Ragon."

I *think* I can resist respeccing back to prot before the expansion and try to make my contributions with the extra dps. I'll almost certainly level as Ret, but I'm pretty sure I'll be insisting on tanking again at 80 (still negotiable based on need, I'm willing to dps or heal if that what completes our raid group in Naxx).

Side note on gear -- I passed on the T5 helm and let Guardian take it (does anybody else find it amusing that *every* single person who jumps into a l8raid from a progression guild acts almost exactly the same way? Knowledgeable and fairly helpful, but very intense and very talkative :). According to MaxDPS.com, it would have been the tiniest of upgrades for me: +9 str, -.25% crit, -12 +hit. But I wonder if that's assuming being at the hit cap, which I'm just shy of. OTOH, I might be over-emphasizing hit. I thought it affected Crusader Strike and Divine Storm as well as melee + SoC (SoM too since it procs on every hit), but Barantir has less hit and it doesn't seem to produce a noticeable difference. Or maybe it only makes a difference at the margin, i.e., once we're both practiced enough to be optimizing the rotations already. I still see that I let the Seals lapse from time to time or don't max button pressing with cooldowns, which is probably more important and 1-2% of hit.

However, if I get a shot at the T5 chestpiece of Kael, I will not be passing. My ZA chest is one of my weaker pieces of dps gear.

But I won't /cry if I don't win. I don't think I'm too worried about any gear upgrades between now and 80. Frankly, if it makes somebody else really happy to get something, I'd probably enjoy that as much as getting it myself.

Couple notes on raiding schedule:
* I'm thinking the order of business for the rest of the week is: finish SSC & visit TK to kill A'lar and get a few get-to-know-you pulls on Kael'htas (Thurs), revisit TK to kill Kael'thas and celebrate by clearing the rest of the instance (Sat).
* However, I think I might be significantly late on Thursday (yeah, yeah, I know, big surprise) as I think I'm picking up my mother-in-law from the train station at 11:30pm server time (10:30pm local, but the train station isn't close either :().
* On the other nights (Fri/Sun/Mon), we might revisit some of the old world raids for people who missed those quick runs last week.
* I might also start working through the Outland Heroic Dungeons to make sure I have credit for all of those. I haven't really been bitten by the achievement bug generally, but the ones that are tempting to me are the raids, dungeons and faction reputations. The last surprises me somewhat, but I'm exalted with a lot of factions already, so maybe I should wrap up the cities and go get the last few missing ones like Consortium & Kurenai.