You can't equip stuff when you're dead!

Last night, DA started a fresh Kara, and the first four bosses were on the docket. We had some trouble filling the last ranged DPS slot, so we 9 manned the first couple of pulls. Things went ok, but the raid was sort of sluggish. We had one new person for a bit, but over all, things just weren't clicking like they usually do.

Attunmen wasn't a problem. We seemed to slow on DPS at about 25%, but picked it up to finish him off. No bow for Burz, and no scope recipe for Vlady. The drops were sharded...bummer.

Moroes was the real telltale sign that the raid just wasn't working together. We cleared the trash and room with no problems, and then proceeded to wipe twice on this boss. Now, I'm not saying that the raid group is all L337, epic'd out, PvE specialists that shouldn't have a problem on this boss, but we have had a relatively easy time with him as of late.

I'm not sure if it was the Moroes group makeup or a slightly different strat on our part. The shackles seemed to be breaking early, the freezing trap was broken almost right away, and the two priests (one of which was me!) died early on in the wipes. After the second wipe, we went back to the original strat, and Moroes went down easily.

Then, clearing out the trash to Maiden, the hunter's pet was sent in to a mob that had just died. So Sharptooth picked the next best thing to attack, which happened to be a group of elites that we didn't have to kill. DOH!! Wipe.

We didn't have any problems after that. We finally started clicking and getting back into the groove. On Maiden, I did die, though. One thing we've found useful for skipping the Repentance stun is to step into the Consecration AoE when Repentance is about to hit. I get stunned for 2-3 seconds, but the Consecration breaks me out of it, and I can continue dispelling the Holy Fire, healing the tank, and watching my party's health. For some reason, when I stepped into the AoE at about 75% full health, I got hit with something that killed me!

My death was the only one, so Maiden still went down. Then I hear gasps of awe and whoa's and all sorts of commotion on Vent about the drop.

"What is it?? What is it??" I ask. They don't answer. They continue to oooo and ah over what ever has dropped. Finally the loot master links the drops in /raid....and it's the Shard of the Virtuous!! Oh boy, oh boy!!

See, the other priest has Light's Gavel, an epic from rep. The healing pally has some sort of epic healing mace, possible the Shard. And I have a green piece of crap that's decent for healing. So, I know that I'd benefit the most from it, but of course, I don't want to assume....

The raid didn't jack me around or tease me at all. It was placed in my bag, and everyone grat'd me! And that's when I found out that you can't equip items when you're dead! "Uh, can I get a rez, please?"

This item seriously increased my +healing. I went from +1347 to +1516! I also got upgrades on +int and +sta, as well as 1 more MP5. Now, THAT'S what an epic upgrade should look like, especially from a green! Now to farm the Primal Water and Primal Life to get the +81 healing on it. I'll be approaching +1600 healing! Woot on me!!