I’ve been off on holiday for a while, but before I left I managed a visit to the Black Morass for the Opening of the Dark Portal, and since getting back I’ve popped in to the Arcatraz.

Our Black Morass party consisted of me as a Rogue, a Mage, a Warrior and a holy Paladin. Nobody else from the guild fancied it, so it was off to the LFG tool to find a bit more damage. Another holy Paladin offered his services, and nobody else seemed too keen to join, so our existing Paladin switched to his feral Druid, and off we went. Considering three of us were visiting the place for the first time and we had a pick-up healer, everything went remarkably smoothly. Although we wiped on the last boss, Medivh’s shield was still around 85%, so we made it back in, buffed up, and finished Aeonus off in time for tea, cake and the unleashing of wave after wave of invaders upon Kalimdor.

The Arcatraz group consisted of two Rogues, two Paladins (one healing, one DPSing) and a feral Druid tanking, and again we romped on through, wiped once at the last boss, then finished him off at the second attempt. On the way I picked up the last fragment of the key to Karazhan, which means I’ll need to head back to the Morass sometime to ask that Medivh chap if he’d mind awfully letting me in to the place. That suits me fine, as I’m rather after a certain item there, which neatly brings me onto loot…

The item I’m really after is Latro’s Shifting Sword, dropped by Aeonus, the fastest sword in the game, and about the best off-hand weapon a combat sword Rogue can get. Despite the post title, that didn’t drop on my first run. I did, however, end up with a pair of Sun Gilded Shouldercaps, which are pretty nifty, and a Cowl of the Guiltless (which, on reflection, is more for a tanking Druid, really, with +Dodge and Resiliance, but I saw leather with attack power and sort of Needed on reflex; fortunately the feral Druid in the group assured me there are plenty of better tanking helms, which http://druid.wikispaces.com/Tanking+Gear+Head bears (no pun intended) out, so no harm done). What the post title really refers to is the Arcatraz, where the final boss managed to not drop part of the Hunter set. No, he only went and dropped… the Helm of Assassination. And I ended up with it, huzzah! I bet you’re glad you don’t have to endure a loot whine in this post. After all, a single run through the Arcatraz and I get the Dungeon 3 helm, plus two other blue drops from the Black Morass, what could I possible complain about there?

Well… since you ask…

There was one piece of armour of my patchwork set that I was perfectly happy with, that was right up there with the best items outside epic pieces, that there was no real upgrade needed for. Can you guess which? Yup, the Stealther’s Helm of Second Sight. The other Rogue in the Arcatraz passed on the Helm of Assassination, partly ‘cos he was a nice chap, but mostly ‘cos he had all the other pieces of Assassination armour for the four piece bonus, and the Stealther’s Helm is better for DPS than the Helm of Assassination. In fact, there’s a veritable plethora of decent helms you can get without holding out for that 10% drop from somewhere; the Stealther’s Helm of Second Sight (as modelled by every Rogue ever seen anywhere) from a Shadowmoon quest, the Exorcist’s Leather Helm for Spirit Shards (which are pretty easy to come by, so long as your faction controls Terokkar a decent amount of the time), the Helm of the Claw from a Steamvaults quest… Still, I won’t complain too much; after posting about how much I wanted the Assassination armour before, it would be like nagging your parents from June onwards about how much you want a shiny new bicycle for Christmas, then unwrapping one on the day, stamping your feet and shouting “I wanted a *red* one, not blue!”