At Last

As you are probably well aware, Svenn has delusions of grandeur from time to time. Previously, those delusions have been held in check by the absence of one critical piece of gear: Essence of Gossamer. This tasty trinket is by far the best tanking trinket pre-Naxx and arguably beyond. The stamina on it is immense, and the random shield proc is nice as well, making it sought after by PvPers as well as PvE tanks.

The trinket drops off the second boss in Azjol-Nerub in Heroic mode. Svenn had been farming it on and off for two months (a little bit of that place goes a long way), with little success. Hadronox gave it up once on the second or third kill but Svenn, as is his wont, rolled a particularly crummy 7 or so, and was beat out by a warrior who was "planning on switching to prot in the near future". (That was a PUG run.) This event so demoralized Svenn that he said goodbye to AN for about a week, before the siren song of the Trinket called him back.
Wiser now, Svenn gathered a loyal cadre of Guildies around him to avoid the near soul crushing experience of being out rolled should the trinket ever decide to drop again. Hadronox, sensing something was amiss, promptly clammed up and dropped everything except the trinket on nine straight kills. Disheartened by the utter failure of the desired loot to make another appearance, he gave up on the trinket and moved to greener pastures.

Yesterday, riding the euphoria of several successful nights in Naxx, I decided to give AN one more shot. With most of the usual suspects in tow, I headed back in for one more try, Lucky 13. We struggled through Krik'Thir and on to Hadronox, that malicious spider that was bent on denying Svenn what should rightfully be his. Time or Fate or just dumb luck intervened and the trinket finally fell to the floor, rolling to a stop in front of Svenn's eager and outstretched fingers. We ventured further in to kill off the last boss and bid the place adieu, hopefully for the last time.

Svenn would like to extend a special thanks to a few folks from FIST who put up with his incessant nagging for yet another Heroic AN run. In no particular order they are:

The lovely Grayce, whose untiring DPS saved the day more than once.

Hamm with his cleansing totems, I have no idea why he kept coming back time and again.

Jazzmynn, a cheerful volunteer on many of the runs.

Qwen, who filled various roles on various toons for various attempts.

Rew and Mandan who filled in as DPS on the 13th and final run.