Tale Forty Nine: With 3.3 on the Horizon...

I can actually say, "Bring it on!"

You see, I've never before been prepared or cared about a patch. EVER.

I was BC Baby and got my first level cap toon to 70 in August 08. Lich King came out in November and by then, I'd gotten bored of my hunter Thienna and started leveling my druid, Littlebark. The xpac hit -and despite having 2 level 70 toons (Thienna and Jezabeth the lock), I continued to level Littlebark who was level 64 that weekend.

So of course I missed the first weeks of Naxx. And of course, my work schedule is weird, so I could only raid on the weekends. As fate should have it, my guild did not do weekend runs back in the day. So I didn't really get any Naxx25 gear sadly and only got Naxx gear because I volunteer to start up Naxx10 runs on the weekends.

3.1 comes out, and with it Ulduar. Again, I'm not quite ready for it. I'm mostly geared in Naxx10 gear with some Naxx25 here and there. I take a break from raiding 25 mans because I am not compatible with the guild we did our joint runs with. Start leveling the dwarf Alliance priest instead of pugging Ulduar. Get the priest to 80. Start a guild with Mr. Littlebark so I raid late night weekdays and thus, After Hours is born.

Start missing the druid. Family and friends pop up in WoW... Alliance side. Make the painful decision to tranfer LB to Alliance. Start Naxx10 from stratch with the new guild. Progress to Ulduar.

3.2 comes out. ToC. After Hours is NOT ready for it. Keep doing Ulduar. Not enough people to raid. I start to get restless with no raiding. Start working on my Argent Tournament dailies instead of recruiting. A week later we try ToC10 even though our gear sucks. We down Anub on our second night.

With After Hours taking me by suprise, and finally having our core members, I truly do feel ready for Icecrown. I know the raiders like me in the guild are itching to get in there.

I've taken a few steps to actually be ready for this:
- Sold a couple of things from the gbank so that we'll have repair money.
- Stocked the bank up on Flasks.
- Made 60 Mana Pots.
- Went fishing for 3 hours today just so we'll have enough Fish Feasts.
- Bought extra head, shoulder, and leg enchants so I can put them on new gear I gear.
- Have extra glyphs to switch in and out.
- Sent a bunch of greens to my enchanter so she can disenchant mats for me. Mr. Littlebark is a enchanter, so I'll be able to have my new gear enchanted and ready to go as soon as I get it.
- Bought extra water and bandages (no mage in our raid ): )
- Bought extra reagents (for our paladins, priest and druids) and poisons for our rogue in case they run out.
- Watched and read up on strats.
- Reviewed and triple checked the patch notes.
- Almost decided on my spec/glyphs.

So yeah. This is a big deal for me. I've never ever been this crazy and ready for any raid before.

Is it slightly crazy? Yes.

But I'm totally glad I did it.