Turncoat time?

Well Faction change has arrived in the EU and I find myself contemplating taking advantage of  it. I’d really like to see the horde questline running up to Wrathgate but not enough to level from 55 and go through Outland again

Whenever I start a horde character the  vastness of levelling all the way to 80 with no support system overwhelms me and I rarely get beyond the starter areas.  I’ve three potential Alliance characters that can be turned

Arianthorn, forget it no way my druid is becoming a cow. Sorry Tauren’s but its a non starter.

Nia, well she’s 80 and maxed out  herbalism & alchemy so is self sufficent, the only choice there is blood elf, which I can live with, but and its a big but, Ari would have to start buying Flasks of Frost Wyrm again.

Daxtari. Stuck at 73  maxed out with two gathering professions so she can  support herself and struggling to find any interest in doing the  Alliance quests in Northrend.  As a hunter she can be any race but undead (which is fine I don’t like bones sticking through my clothes). I think I fancy a troll, something like this one:

Hidden away at the back of my mind is the thought that I could faction transfer do the Northrend quests as Horde & find out first hand why Garrosh is so disliked, Build up a nice little nest egg on her then transfer to another RP server and use her to support an army of horde alts.  I’m seriously short of character slots. Of course worse case scenario is I faction change and still don’t play her, which means Ari loses her ‘go to’ girl for leather and with Briar only being in her mid 30’s  she’ll have to wait a while for useful  free skins.  Then again I could work out what Ari needs to finish levelling Leatherworking and  grind them on Dax before I transfer.

I’m not going to make a decision this weekend, well I might you never know with me, but really even in their 70’s and in Northrend trolls go barefoot?

I’m a lumberjack

Well clearly I’m not but I have yet another alt and for the first time in too many years of playing WoW I actually noticed this  NPC in Eastvale Logging Camp.

Took a shot and msned it to a friend who SHoCK! HoRRoR! had to have it explained to him.

If you look closely you’ll realise that the gnome is twinked out in heirloom shoulders and  chest. I haven’t decided on the staff yet as I may just want to focus on  swords (seeing as druids can’t it’ll make a change).

Weapons are also the thing I’m used to seeing most on my moonkin and I like them upgrading, armour I’m less bothered if it looks the same for 80 levels.

Maybe that’s a way to tell orginal druids from reroll druids. I’ve never understood the complaint that druids can’t see their armour in forms unless they’re idling in cities. To be honest if I thought  any player was paying more attention to how cool they looked in their new  armour than in actually downing the boss I’d rather they weren’t on my team. You can always shift out for the kill shot if you really want some ‘coolness’ factor. If you want to feel leet & epic then idling in cities is the place to do it because that’s where you’re most likely to be being inspected.

I acquired the gear for my Kaldorei mage, but as there’s a while to go before I can have one of those, so rather than leave them mothballed in the bank I thought I’d kit a warlock out.

First impressions,

• Warlocks are less squishy than mages thanks to their pets taking the brunt of an attack and Drain Life.
• Why didn’t  Health Funnel become an instant hot when Mend Pet did?
• Voidwalkers should scale with race, mine is so big it scares my gnome, not to mention stomping all over what I’m trying to loot
• So that’s what that big swirly thing is warlocks do (Drain Soul) did they change the graphics since I last tried a warlock?
• Shards really are a nuisance why do they STILL not stack
• Soulstoning yourself only works if you remember to die safe

How far this one will get is anyone’s guess but for now she’s a nice change of pace from my rogue

Bambi goes ballistic

I saw this a while back when I was passing through on my way to kiss frogs. Bambini was still holding them off when I returned ten minutes later.

Other than funny glitches life’s been quiet on the WoW front. Raiding is still on a go slow as people enjoy the summer, we manage one maybe two nights a week of 25 man raiding.

Nia

Well after discussion with Ryton(the Pallie friend who ‘mentored’ Nia) Nia is going holy to heal him through heroics and the like. Five hours played and she’s jumping into TOC normal to grab any healing gear that drops and the healer doesn’t want. Paladins are complete gannets when it comes to armour  choices, leaving  druids in the dust. Her ret gear is mainly green and from item level 158 to 174. Her healing gear is all purple with an ilevel of 200 (though only 5 pieces so far). That doesn’t mean its itemised properly but its certainly a start.

Apart from running (being carried) in TOC pugs I’ve been levelling her herbalism and alchemy. Hopefully she can make enough money to gem and enchant the gear, and keep Ari in Frost Wyrm flasks.

Gwen

I decided to explore this levelling via PvP with Gwen. The XP isn’t major but if you’ve only 20 minutes to play and running around a zone takes up more time than doing the quests then its  a reasonable way to grab some XP. It’s certainly fun. The XP gain seems to have revitalised the lower level (61 to 70) bracket which I guess is the point. I like jumping into BG’s while levelling but its been pretty dead for a long time now, except for twinks who’s idea of  ‘fair’ is one shotting you so you can only really hope to do anything if you pop in at x9  which given levelling speeds can mean missing it for anther nine levels.

It’s true though DK’s are overpowered, or my PvP skills are a lot better than I thought, which I doubt.

Briar

She hit 32 and is currently resting in Duskshire Inn building up her rested XP (I like blue bars). She’s a herbalist too and really appreciates the HoT that comes with it. Funny thing she’s also the toon I actually remember to use the new shadowmeld on when she gets into trouble.  Ari goes travel form & runs away, Gwen relies on being OP compared to the mobs she’s fighting

Ari

Nearly forgot after more White tickbirds than the AH could sell Ari finally got her proto dragon whelp. That leaves the dark whelping and she has the in-game set.

On hold

I did a clean up of my alts and Calli has gone back into the Emerald dream, where she’s probably going to be bitten by a werewolf type thingy and re-emerge somewhere near a certain wall in around eleven months.

It wasn’t just the news about the Xpac though, I’ve been jumping between Calli and Briar (my rogue) since 3.2 came out and its a mistake to level a cat and a rogue at the same time, you see how much of a poor mans copy of a rogue a kitty is.

The rogue has a 20 level head start on abilities and so many more animations  to go with their attacks. I know perceived wisdom is getting cat form at level 20 is when the ‘fun’ starts with a druid but I don’t see it.

The gap between mage and balance exsists as well only it never felt as  wide as between rogue & kitty. At low levels because I can root, nuke & heal  the playing style is different to a mage but not sub -par in the way it feels it is between kitty and rogue.  I do think some of its down to the  order in which druids receive their abilities,  Balance & resto abilities come early, (though the forms later) bear and cat have  to wait for the forms & then start acquiring abilities.

Blizzard have said they’re redoing talent trees in Cataclysm and possibly moving around when classes get some abilities. I doubt they’ll do anything as drastic as switch  the levels when you get  cat and bear forms but it would certainly help given cat is the melee  levelling option much more so than bear. They’ve also said new quests and hinted at new class specific ones (lets face it for all classes a lot of the current ones are obsolete now) so we may be seeing Cat Spirit finally getting something to do beyond prowling Moonglade. Its all of the proposed or hinted at changes  not just the option to play Worgen that had me rethink levelling a second druid now. (Because I know I’d want to level one post Cataclysm to try out the new stuff anyway).

And then there were two…

That’s Nia my Pally hitting level 80 not Katherine the Pure she’s just there as its my last visit for new spells for a while. Now I have to figure out what to do with my second 80.

I’m considering dual speccing her, when she recovers from the cost of all those level 80 spells, to Protection and using her for tanking 5 mans. Only the thought is a bit scary.

I have tanked, bear tank in classic & panzerkin in TBC. The basics are the same, hold threat and protect the healer. So will read up a bit on Paladin tanking before I commit to anything

Nia hasn’t crossed the threshold of a TBC or a WOTLK instance though she’s just charged through the content  questing. She was 78 last night when I decided to  push for 80.

No point playing Calli before 2.3 comes out and I’m still struggling with Dax – who at 72 is  randomly killing things in Sholazer Basin as she needs to be 74 before she can do any quests there (just a bit more challenging killing mobs 3 levels higher than she is)

I also need to pick & level some professions for her, jewelcrafting & mining maybe.