My Eleanor

If you’ve seen “Gone in 60 Seconds“, you know it’s a movie about stealing cars. Memphis is a retired car thief who returns to the car stealing game to save his brother’s life. There’s a bad guy who’s going to kill his brother if he doesn’t steal 50 cars by some random deadline. The cops are aware that Memphis has returned to town and are sniffing around, so the crew decides to steal all 50 cars in 1 night. They research the cars and give each one a lady’s name. Eleanor was the name given to the 1967 Shelby GT 500. The crew said Eleanor was Memphis’ Unicorn.

Why am I going into detail on a movie the majority of you probably saw 10 years ago? Memphis was the king of thieves. He could steal any car…except when it came to the Shelby GT. It has a direct correlation to the World of Warcraft and our pursuit of Phat Loots. What’s the first thing that we, as raiders, do when a new patch comes out? Yeah, we go look at the new loot that’ll be dropping in the new dungeon. You update Rawr or a spreadsheet or you may write it down on a napkin. Don’t lie, you look at the loot then try to figure out how to kill the boss to get said loot.

I’ve played WOW for about a year and a half now…I’ve been at the level cap for around a year. Do the math…that means I couldn’t have raided in BC. My experiences with loot began at 80. I knew I wanted to raid, I knew I wanted to tank. I did what any want-a-be would do, made a gear list. #1 on that list….The Red Sword of Courage, which I believe is still one of the coolest looking weapons in wrath. Anyway, I started running heroics crossing out pieces on my list 1 by 1 until only 1 remained….yep, the Red Sword of F-ing Courage. 10 days in a row I had run Heroic UP and still it evaded me. It had become my first Unicorn. That mythical piece of gear that evades your grasp until you’re sure there’s some sort of conspiracy against you. There are times when you believe even wowhead is lying about it’s very existence.

Finally after 13 straight days of running the dungeon, I looted the boss and there it was…my Eleanor. I was ecstatic, all that work had finally paid off…yeah, I was a noob. I had no idea that it was just the first of many. That unicorn was quickly replaced by Essence of Gossamer (10 runs to get) which was replaced by Last Laugh (17 runs) and Wall of Terror (never dropped for me). Then Ulduar came out and with it, you guessed it a new unicorn. Heart of Iron was the tier 8 version of Eleanor. It took me 13 runs to see it drop, lucky I had the dkp to win it.

Then came patch 3.2 and with it TOC and of course a new unicorn….Satrina’s Impeding Scarab. This ones a little different, see the unicorns in the past were mine before they dropped. I either was the only tank that needed it or had the dkp to get it. After 13 Faction Champ kills, I have seen the Scarab drop twice. The first my off-tank had 5 more dkp than me and won it. The second was this past week. My guild had an alt/new 80 TOC 25 run. I volunteered to tank it for a chance at the trinket. Guess what…it dropped…guess what else…I rolled a 14 off-tank rolled a 22. Since it’s now old content, dkp doesn’t matter, all loot was open roll.

This newest Eleanor has by far been the hardest to swallow. Twice now, it’s been in my grasp, yet has failed to land in my backpack. It makes me wonder if she will show up in ICC…as of now, no gear really jumps off the page as “I gotta have that”. Most of the really sweet gear is either from badges or craftable. Although, I can see the tier armor tokens being a pain. This tier I’m running with 2 shaman, 2 hunters and another warrior. I’ve already lost 2 dkp battles for a token but at least there’s more than 1 boss per week that drops them…I guess.

Lets hear it, what’s your Eleanor? I know most tanks I talk with have a problem upgrading shields. I’ve been fortunate in that respect, for me, it seems the fabled unicorn will always be a trinket….maybe this one will take the scarab’s place?