Old habits are hard to break

Not so very long ago when Drupadi made it to 70 I made the decision to (within reason) not worry about gear. Her quest blues and greens, supplemented with a few BOE blues and greens, would be more than adequate to get her leveling her way through Northrend. Then came Brewfest, and Corien Direbrew.

I ran the event for the achievement, and to help a friend. I had no intention of getting anything. On the fifth try of the day wouldn’t you know it she ends up with a Brewbale Charm, it dropped all 5 times. I didn’t really think about it much as it replaced a quest blue from Winterspring. Then came The Headless Horseman.

I was just after the Sinister Squashling, honest. In the process I seem to have come into the possion of a Riing of Goulish Delight. Odd that I don’t even remember equipping it, I seem to remember some quest green from Hellfire in that slot. I still was not really looking for upgrades, they just kind of happened.

Then came the invite to Karazhan. I had never actually finished it on my Troll hunter, and I had the evening free. That led to a fast furious run  wherein I received no less than 5 major upgrades. I was counting my lucky stars that I had a few pieces of the gear that I had been wanting for a long time. I hardly had a minute to settle down however before the scourge invasion started.

It all started with wanting the tabard of the Argent Dawn. I always liked the look of it and knew it would be a limited time thing. For the first time I actually set off to grind for gear. I farmed solo for a while, then just before I had the 18 Necrotic Runes I would need to get my tabard a group showed up. I wonder if things would have turned out differently had I just grabbed my 18 and left. Perhaps I would have gone back to leveling my other hunter, I’ll never know.

For about two hours I had great fun running around busting scourge at the circles. I spent it chatting it up with the group joking around and generally having a blast. It did not hurt that a set of Blessed Greaves of Undead Slaying dropped, they were a clear upgrade over my greens. It hurt even less that I was able to pick up both the Blessed Pauldrons of Undead Slaying and the Blessed Handguards of Undead Slaying with all the stones that had dropped.

Three pieces of a four piece limited edition set in two hours of “work”? Not bad at all. It made perfect sense to put everything else on hold to try and get the last piece of the puzzle, the Blessed Hauberk of Undead Slaying. Who wouldn’t after all? It’s a set right? Well four days later I did finally finish the set.

The thing is after I finished the set I did not just go back to leveling and relaxing. I was curious to see what Wow-Heroes thought of my new gear, so I pulled it up and checked. Not bad, not bad at all. But there was one piece sticking out like a sore thumb. My boots are still green. Not bad, not unable to carry me through into Northrend, just green.

That is how a good friend of mine came on to find me yesterday running Eye of the Storm. For those of you who don’t already know I absolutely despise PVP. I actively go out of my way to avoid it and have in fact never gotten a single pvp reward on any of my many toons. What was I doing in a place I hate she asked?

Tokens….. Need tokens for boots.

I had somehow gone from not caring a bit about gear to doing something I hate for what will be vendor trash in 3 weeks or less.

It’s easy to stop hunting epics, honest. You just have to watch out for that first one….

The one that seems nearly free.