Today's PvE

CoT achievement
Amazingly I found a CoT group that wasn't doing a timed run. So I ran with them for Zombiefest. The trick to it was to run normally until the second boss. Drag him into the inn and then wait for the zombies to all respawn. Kill him. When Arthas arrives, carry on as normal until the gauntlet and then stop. The tank then runs around the start area to round up every zombie, taking care to not kill them. Run back to the gauntlet and pull a few more zombies, 10-20 should be enough. AoE them all down and there you go.

Well, I did it wrong. I completely outran the zombies and pulled too much of the gauntlet. I'd been very clear about doing nothing, not even healing, until I said. So, I was dying. I yelled for heals, and got the, just in tome for the 85 zombies at the start to arrive. It's best to let them catch up a bit before pulling the gauntlet rather than having them show up 15 seconds late and beat the crap out of your healer before you can react. But I lived and despite thinking I'd failed my group, we got the achievement.

OS 10

Skill karma caught up with me and just as my mistakes killed my healer, so did the OS 10 PUG kill me. Apparently no one knew the drakes, so we wiped. Also despite having two warriors in the group, one prot one DPS, meaning battle shout > untalented BoM, the shaman kept demanding might. We tried to explain that BS was better. He said they stack. After a bit of people spamming to give him might I threatened to stab the RL: "I will put sharp things in you" and he said not to give him (meaning the resto druid RL) might. I was too confused to be annoyed. Then the spoils and bag were mislooted (someone got spoils instead of the bag). I walked out with T7 gloves (made them into holy),my first OS 10 kill, and my first time tanking either mode.

AQ40
I was feeling ambitious and was still hated with the Brood of Nozdormu, so I did what any sensible person would do: went and did a raid that isn't two (three?) years old and instead did something worthwhile. Sorry, I mean I started a AQ40 PUG. It all went very well until Twin Emps. We skipped the optional bosses due to frost shock being our only frost spell and me forgetting that the bug trio exists (I later learned that I cannot solo them).

I tanked the left side, doing both caster and melee since we had very few tanks. The other side was supposed to be filled by a warrior and warlock. Unfortunately the warlock didn't know how to tank the caster, which in retrospect was probably because I never really told him. Oops. A few wipes ensued, many involving rogues spamming fan of knives into the scarabs (after I said no AoEs) and eventually a rupture (after I said no DoTs) causing major melee tanking problems (port->beeline to other side). Eventually they died after I had a DK tanking caster on the left with me tanking both on the right, though halfway in I had to send the fury warrior to go tank caster left because the DK couldn't get aggro. Yay dead things. I'll skip to the fun part...

C'thun's room: someone runs in, it chains to most of the raid, mostly wiping us.

Hunter feigns. Okay all good now? I pop SS. He sends in his pet to "finish it off." I die again. Due to not knowing about the sneaky dragons near the first boss, I run all the way back, having everyone else stay put so they don't get lost. We wipe again due to total fail involving eye beams. Then another time. I remember that it's bugged and shoots out the back as well. We start advertising for the last boss and get zerged with players. We go in with 20 people and down him in only a couple minutes, including the start of phase two doing raid-wise probably double-digit DPS. I then was blinded by the sight of 20 people getting the AQ40 achievement at the same time.

Unrelated News

In unrelated news I found another ore on the AH for 400g, so I'm at 5/10 ore. Trade chat turned up very little except someone that tried to charge 1000g each and then said I'd go no ore when I pointed out the two on the AH for 500g. I did eventually find someone who claimed to have a friend with a ton of ore for 500g each. I'll probably settle for that if my next BWL run isn't a finisher (5 ore in one run is pretty unlikely). Within a week I may be waving a legendary around and getting yelled at by guildies for wearing the wrong gear, because it will be paired with a few pieces of judgement, a force reactive disk, and a crown of destruction. But it's okay! I'll still be well-geared in my mind. Poor, poor healers...

On the subject of gold, I finally got back into the economy, selling off probably 1000g worth of various mats. Then someone traded all my titansteel for mats and 25g (each, 13 total), so that will keep me occupied for two weeks. Maybe this is why I'm so willing to drop 2500g for a pretty toy. I suppose that's cheaper than my mechano-hog.

I'm not sure what changed over the past few days, but WoW just seems to be fun again. Perhaps it's just luck that people are doing the kind of stuff I like: old raids and silly achievements.