With no trash farming at all, just 10 and 25 man runs, I got exalted on Tuesday, well before all of ICC was even open.

i forgot to comment on the rep grinding. if i felt that grinding this rep was an exploit, i would be against it. but i’m in favor of maximizing my character. the revered ring has a REALLY nice on-equip proc (although it still has the placeholder name of something along the lines of Item – Icecrown Reputation Ring Healer Effect) that has a huge uptime. the exalted ring has a gem socket, the importance to me i will get to in a moment.

the first week ICC was out, we cleared 10man on the first day. by thursday of the following week i had my exalted ring, with gem socket. the reason i put so much priority into this ring was because i was looking ahead to not only the changes in resto-shaman tier itemization but also towards my guild’s intentions to clear as many of the meta-requirement achievements towards getting our 25man drakes as soon as they were available. putting in the 9 or so hours of reputation grinding was not a big deal to me, as i’m a little bit obsessive compulsive and completely fine with repetitive routine, and i had the time to spare.

unlike other classes i cannot just focus on spellpower received from raiding professions/base stats. i have to shoot for the haste-moon and that is why i chose my professions (JC/BS) as they provide more flexibility in the raid-benefits available and why i aimed for the socketed ring and not just the SP-proc bonus from the revered ring. in fact, because haste>spellpower for me, before revered i was using the caster DPS ring because haste was a base stat on it. i paid the gold to switch paths once i’d be able to get the healer proc.

another really attractive quality to this ring is the ease in which it is received. this is great for people who have many alts they can’t focus on 100% and who don’t want to fall behind on gear too much, as well as people who simply don’t have the opportunity or ability to regularly raid 10 and/or 25 ICC. while i think gear comes far too easily now and that one thing many new-players are lacking is the experience of REALLY working hard to climb the very long gear-ladder. having nice gear was something to actually be proud of because of the dedication and skill and patience it took to acquire it.. where as now you can be fully epic within minutes of hitting 80, with many end-game content level gear. my level 77 druid is the epitome of this! she currently has Lunar Eclipse Robes, Moonshadow Bracers, Tears of the Vanquished and some epic helm or another in her bags as well as enough triumph badges to get at least 2 or 3 pieces of t9 the moment i ding 80… and i plan on grinding with guildies who are still working on rep with this druid to help out but also to get a really nice ring at friendly or honored.

the way i see it there are only positives to this. people have to work for this reputation, even if it is incredibly easy (too easy, imo) to grind, instead of it being handed to them in a 5man heroic. they will get very accustomed to many of the fight mechanics found throughout the raid instance, beyond the trash. this will increase their raid awareness and the stats from the ring will help them maximize their raid contribution.

i’m all for it. and now i will shaddup since i’ve babbld and taken over your blog, it seems :X

also, my boyfriend and i find that queues are INSTANT if you queue as tank/healer. so, we have various tank/healer pairs now that do instances on. our 80s: his feral druid/my resto shaman. my dk/his priest. our mid 70s: his prot pally/my resto druid. our pally/druid pair have been grouping with guildies as well that we know are solid players. we can clear our regular instances before the LFG debuff is gone, queues are instant and we went from 72-75 in 3 hours. this is fantastic.