A recent trade post said LFM Toc25 PST with achievement. My DK definitely didnt have it, so i figured i’d shift to my feral/boom druid to get him some offspec feral or resto gear even.

after the invitation and summon, i inspected the raid and saw that it was decently geared, except for maybe 2 or 3 “welfare-epic” geared toons. i immediately asked the raid lead if i could bring my fresh 80 dk. i told him that he’s a fresh 80 but i have enough gold to fill the pot.

almost two hours and 3k gold later, i had 2 trophies, a pair of tanking boots, a tanking neck and a tanking belt. also, because of some good, sought-after items dropping, the pool grew big enough such that each person got 800 gold by the end of the run.

not bad for a net cost of 2,200g. i was at the bottom of the dps meters obviously, but where else can a fresh 80 dk with /played of 2 hours at level 80 get decent epics like that? hehe

Pros:
- there’s no such thing as mainspec/offspec rolls/bids on these runs. so ideally you can bid on as many things as your pocket can handle.
- if the raid is geared, you wont have much competition on gear. with initial bids at 250, id normally just start the bids at 500 to “intimidate” potential rollers.
- since trophies have been around for a while and dropping in both 25man and 10heroic toc, their demand has dropped and so has its price. the 2 trophies i got went for 500 and 700. not bad!! (now to farm the badges zzz)

Cons:
- since there are people being “carried,” there’s a big chance that the run won’t be as smooth as say, a guild run. our run took almost 2 hours due to 3 wipes on anub (2 where we hit the enrage timer) and low dps overall on the other bosses.
- there will always be people that will bluff. some are more obvious than others. I had a shaman bidding against me on a piece of plate gear. we bid to as high as 700 gold, and when he bid 800, i just passed to him. no loss to me as they were just a pair of bracers =) that’s an obvious example. another instance was when a dps warrior bid against me on the tanking belt. it went to as high as 1k. i went for 1.2k and won it. at the end of the run when the gold was being given out, he stood in line in his tank gear (probably his main spec), and on inspection he had a similar/sidegrade belt equipped. zzzzzz
- for geared toons wanting to roll on that 1 item that he/she’s always wanted, come prepared. ive seen a solace drop twice and both went for 4.7 and 5k on separate runs. im pretty sure a dual blade butcher, reign of the dead, death’s choice and probably juggernaut’s vitality will go for at least 2.5k