The easter break means raids have been put on hold for two weeks. The first week was a little ‘confusing’ for the few of us who were logging in. Not enough to raid and not wanting to Pug some angry teenagers, we inevitably just hung around in our Garrisons until boredom overcame us.

This week I’ve been a bit more proactive. I competed lfr in one go and then did something I haven’t done in a while. I opened up my achievements tab.
I was suprised to see I had over 11,000 points. Not bad for someone who discovered dungeons for the first time at the tail end of Cata. Now Dungeons and Raids is my ‘go to’ section for things to do during downtime.

Having a flick through I settled on the Cata dungeons to have a crack at. There was a lot I hadn’t done. Zul’gruub and Zul’aman being two I hadn’t done at all. I knew where Zul’gruub was so I headed off there.
The last time I went in here on my own I failed miserably. The boss on the altar with the two swirly green lines had hexed me or done something to me where I couldn’t kill it. After ressing I just left not giving it a second thought. This time (and with me being slightly over geared for it) it should be a walk in the park/jungle.
It was to an extent. I got lost. I had to keep checking my mini map to try and work out where mobs were. On the final encounter I had to check Wowhead to see what to do with the chains. The time spent meant that I had a zillion ghosts pummeling me and was in the 30% health region. After completing it I did discover a while host of achievements that I’d glossed over. Some I had got just by being able to one shot bosses. I’d missed the kitty one and also due to being a bit soft and feeling that I should let him get on with his work, I’d not killed the master chef either.

Briefly looking through I paid a visit to Uldum as there were three dungeons there that I needed things in.
Heading into the Lost City first I knew I needed a lot of angry crocodiles and also to get electrocuted a whole bunch. Both of which were easy to come by. I’d also killed everything in there and when I got out, mounted up and headed into the sky just in case the reason that there were lots of skeletons around was still about. I checked my list again and realised that I’d missed one. I’d have to wait to come back for that solitary achievement.

I then made a list. On actual paper. Of The dungeons and what achievements I had left in them. I didn’t particularly want to have to keep going back to shrine and then to Stormwind every time because after I’d killed things I’d realised I’d missed something. I was wearing the portals out as it was and I’d run past the same character afk’ing at the Mage Tower at least five times.

Onwards to Vortex Pinnacle. Which I really think is quite a beautiful dungeon. When it isn’t covered in skeletons.
I had ‘kill Asad quick’ and ‘gather 5 Orbs’. I had the crazy notion that the Orbs were the light pillars of which there were two at the start. I wandered over to it and just sort of walked off the edge thinking I would land on it and jobs a good’un. The answer was ‘no.’ and I fell off the edge like a fool. I had to admit I had no idea what the Orbs liked like so had to have a quick Google of what I was looking out for. Turns out they were pretty large and I really shouldn’t of been able to miss them but after taking three chars through this dungeon on HC I could honestly say I had never ever seen them before. Observation skills 0 – treating all chars like a Hunter and going ‘afk’ 10.
I got two really easily, another two were with the Drake boss (which coincidently handed me the reins to the Drake of the North Wind again) the fifth one nearly lead me to punching my laptop.
‘Jump off and click furiously!’ Claimed nearly every single wowhead user. That’s all very well and good but I have a track pad and having to use the up key and then the space bar to jump up and out, and then to position my cursor over the orb to then be able to click furiously was easier said than done. After six attempts at one orb I was just left furious.
I went off to clear the rest of the dungeon. Orbs were quite literally everywhere and all just out of furious clicking reach. I ignored them for a while and just went back to kill Asad, fed up of being ported back to the start for every failed attempt. I know you can use the wind tunnels to get you back to certain points but after 20 minutes of trying on different ones, any run at all is too far away.
With Asad dead I took the wind tunnel back to the start and flexed out, ready for another go at the ones near the start. I tried zoomed in, top down, far out… All these helpful tips seemed like the most unhelpful things ever written. I just went back to a normal camera and started throwing myself off the ledge, hoping for the best and pummelling my track pad.
The achievement popped up! AwwwwwwYiiiiiissss! I could finally leave this shitting cloudy hell hole (it had lost its allure after all that time spent spinning around mid air)

I did Halls, Deadmines and Shadowfang before heading to Throne of the Tides. I used feign death more times in here than I’ve used in a whole raid night. Old Faithful took some working out as I thought that you needed to kill the three adds to get her out of the phase where she is shielded. This resulted in what can only be described as a Benny Hill sketch with me running around trying to avoid her hoping that more adds would spawn. Three attempts later she had blown to bits one of her Naga witches and I was off for the last boss.
This one really showed how little I had paid attention to it. Keeping behemoth alive until you get the buff. I just killed everything and then was left twiddling my thumbs when no others came out. I got the buff but had to let the dude in the middle with the water ocd die to reset it. I then let the add live but it killed ocd dude. Once again I was perusing wowhead to see how to do it. Bandages was one option. Going BM for sprit mend was another. I had Raidwiper 1.0 with me so a quick respec and I was away. It was a face roll when you actually knew what you were doing. Sprit mend kept ocd dude up and I picked off the other adds around him. I got the buff and ‘boom’ everything dead. Ocd dude was happy again and I got my achievement.

I did also go to Stonecore. A tedious dungeon. All I needed in there was the 60 disciples to be killed in 10 seconds while the encounter is active. I’m not going to lie, I’d been here before and killed all the ones in front before I’d pulled the boss and lost it. So this time I pulled and then waited. As I was trying not to get sucked into the gravity wells I somehow lost my mind and didn’t kill anything. A few died to the wells which meant the timer was started and I just kept kiting what was left. Once the floor was completely covered in shit and I realised the error of my ways I was so annoyed that I just killed her and hearthstoned out in true stroppy teenager style.

Sulking on a roof in Stormwind I had a look through what was left in my achievements. There wasn’t much. I did still have a few loose ends to get through and the whole of Zul’aman to do but the list was a damn sight shorter than when I started! (Even if my stress levels were higher)