Well, when I posted on Friday, I had forgotten about the fact that we had bonus aa and tradeskill xp this weekend to celebrate 4th July in the USA.   Happy 4th of July to all my American friends by the way 🙂

As a nice start to the weekend, Friday night was a lovely relaxing evening hooked up with the boys.   We decided to hit up a couple of void shard instances including the DD.    I was absolutely thrilled and astounded when those three zones earned my girl more than a full aa level.   Bless bonus aa weekends!!

I had set myself a goal this weekend also, to finish leveling my 9th and final tradeskill girl to 80.    For about a year and a half I have been working toward that goal – obviously on and off.    Finally this weekend it happened.    My Woodworker girl is now 80, and so finally I can call myself pretty much a one stop crafter shop for the guild.

I say pretty much … for one good reason.   As I understand it, TSO faction tradeskill recipes are still not heirloom.   Given that my crafter girls are all between 10 and 20 in their respective adventure class, none of my girls will be able to make those items.   I will however start working on getting the girls their faction with Mara also.   I do enjoy my tradeskilling I must say.

Between quality time with the nephew and some fun girl time, I only managed to get back into Norrath to finish the weekend off ever so nicely.   I grabbed my baby dirge, and headed back to some old school tier 7 zones with the gang.   We checked out Obelisk of Blight, Crypt of Valdoon and Den of the Devourer.

It was an absolute blast.  My baby dirge dinged both an adventure level (now 68 Dirge) and 3more aa points 🙂   There wasnt any lewtz to note but it was a lot of fun, and now is the time where I really get to learn how to play a dirge in a group.    I have only really played this girl in a couple of mentored groups where mobs just die so quickly you dont really get to see what your character can do.

I have to remind myself that a dirge is NOT a dps machine, but is primarily about buffing the attributes and abilities of the rest of the group, and debuffing the mobs.  As long as the mobs are dying and we are not, then all is good.   I will no doubt ask lots of questions while I work out how to get the best out of this little girl.   She really is soooooo much fun.  While I absolutely adore my Killy girl, it is nice to have the option for another girl to play sometimes.

So back to work it is…

Happy hunting and crafting all.