Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

"...and the Sun did'th shine, and down from the Heavens reach'eth yon holy hand. And that thither hand shall typeth "/roll" and thine Lord doth smile upon thee, and upon thy screen shall appear 72 for thine raid to see, and the Lord boometh in deep James Earl Jones'eth voice'th....Thou Can Haz T5"

-Amava 25:17


So, any long-time readers here in my little corner of the information superhighway know that my WoW career, nay, my very existence, lives and dies by the never ending insatiable desire for phat lewtz and winning at WWS. And you've also likely figured out that my reasons for lusting after shiny purplez is purely so I can make those less fortunate or those with a smaller....er...um...dps bar, feel like the dirt under my dog's paws, and that burning drive nothing to do with lame and wishy-washy pursuits like seeing gear as a means to access more content for the team or using data to analyze my personal performance in my primary job of hurting bad guys.

Additionally, if you truly are a long-time reader over here, you've probably picked up on my sarcastic side.

As a player who has done most of his raiding during the "nerf content / buff players" phase of The Burning Crusade, I've been fortunate enough to avoid most of the Random Number Generator or Loot Envy issues that can plague raiders.

For me, most gear comes from faction rep, battlegrounds, arenas, badges. Makes it nice to have rarely even rolled "against" my teammates for loot.

But there is a strange thing that did happen. When we progressed into the 25's, the occasional loot item started becoming upgrade-quality, and as such, Amava threw a couple rolls out there. And wouldn't you know it, all that karma from earlier comes back and stings you in the tush, and you go ahead and win the first two rolls you go for.

Instant Looters Remorse! Go back to passing on everything. Ah, feels nice again, no rolling the dice, no feeling like you've taken from your teammates.

This little process takes us all the way to T5 and beyond. Kill Void Reaver a couple times, ok, now its time to start rolling on T5.

Wouldn't you know it, wham-o, win the damn roll.

Ok, ok, fine. Up to this point in life, no piece of loot or any roll for loot really made a profound impact or was something I was actively seeking or wanting.

Until the possibility of that tasty morsel of 2-piece T5 Bonus was dangled in front of my face.

With the introduction of all the new pets and capabilities in patch 3.0.2, the draw to T5 is just too great. Like Gollum on Mt Doom, I'd bite Elijah Wood's finger off for something to match my shoulders. A girl's got to accessorize, after all.

The 2-piece "indestructible pet" bonus is simply too game-altering for any sane hunter to NOT drool over.

Luckily, the T5 bonus is something lots of classes drool over, so the Guild made a decision to include some new T5 bosses into our raid schedule before WotLK, and while our focus is primarily on progress and new bosses, trying to farm T5 for people is also a priority, since its game-altering for a variety of classes.

So Wednesday night. SSC. Included in our raid is a trial tank we're reviewing, a friendly healer visiting, and a guildie playing on her out-of-guild alt (its complicated). Ultra smooth one-shot of Leotheras the Blind, and a progression kill of Fathom-Lord Karathress. Six T5 tokens!!!!

3 of the first 4 tokens go out of Guild!!!!!!

ZOMG! Never before has loot ruffled our feathers, this is just silly :-( But fair is fair, so to speak, and that's our loot policy, so gratz on you.

Then, on the fifth and most beautiful of all the Leg Tokens......I can haz T5.


Indestructible isn't even the right word.

I took Bubbles, at level 66 (note: not my raid pet...skittle the wasp is a nice and healthy level 70), straight over to western Nagrand to farm snakes for Cobra Scales, since these new pants are gonna need some polish.

Using instant-cast halloween broom mount, very easy to sneak in between the patrolling elites.

What fun is that?

Level 66 pet against level 71 elite. Pish posh. Ok, so threat was a bit of an issue and I had to shadowmeld once while FD and MD were on cooldown, but T5 bringeth health, not threat, and she misses a lot given the 5-level difference. Not even a scratch. Did have to keep Mend Pet running, but come on, this is a 71 elite here, high enough that he could deliver a crushing blow (four or more levels different). Probably been nerfed on 3.0.2 to hit more lightly, but don't tell Bubbles that.

Didn't have the balls to try out the 73 elite, largely due to the threat thing, so I'm gonna have to try that out, maybe with Aspect of the Beast to buff my pet's threat production. And I'm soooo going to see how many Outlands dungeons can be solo affairs as she gets closer to and actually dings 70.

Never thought I'd see the day!

Now, lets go farm whoever drops the T5 chest, because I'd rather put my Leggings of the Pursuit back on in favor of Merciless Gladiator's chest, but lets not get greedy here.