Yesterday I chronicled my first steps into Ulduar on the World of Warcraft Player Test Realms (or PTR). The results weren't so hot. My pickup raid was able to make an attempt on XT-002 Deconstructor, the giant robot boss in the forthcoming Ulduar raid content, but the server went down while we were taking him out. wow gold One of our readers suspects this was done on purpose, essentially taking him back to the drawing board and keeping the test players from thinking it would be an easy kill.

Despite the lackluster results from the previous experience, the raid testing schedule posted on the WoW Test Realm forums had me excited about a new boss encounter to try out. Hodir, the massive patron of the Sons of Hodir, inspired by Norse mythology, would be next in line for the raiding community to try and take down.

Hodir is a big bad dude with an icy disposition.
The same raid leader from my first session on the PTR invited me on day two, so I must have done something right. He either remembered me, or my clever advertisement of "geared Hunter lf ulduar" did the trick a second time. I was the only Hunter in a well-balanced 10-man party that included a very well-equipped Warrior, a decked-out Mage, and a trio of capable healers.

Surface, our Priest and raid leader, explained the fight over Ventrilo, wow gold which got me pretty nervous. See, I'm experiencing some firewall issues with my gaming machine at GameSpy HQ, so I'm currently unable to get the ubiquitous voice chat system running. If you're a WoW raider, Ventrilo is an absolute requirement, so I was more than a little hesitant to speak up when he asked, "is anyone in the raid NOT on Vent?"

I privately messaged him, "Yeah, I'm not. I'm at work