[Cataclysm] The Shattering: thoughts from my first week

 

Theophilos, lvl 18. Yeah, he's frost!

With The Shattering (patch 4.0.3a) occurring (arriving) last week in WoW, there have been thousands of people coming back to WoW after weeks, months, or even years of inactivity. Azeroth is abuzz with people dusting off old friends, or creating new ones, or both, in order to explore the massive changes that have happened.

I’ve been involved straight through the pre-Cataclysm events, obviously, so there hasn’t been much of a “coming back” experience for me. However, as anticipation has grown, I’ve been getting the itch to get down to the business of re-rolling my baby hunter, Ghilly (currently 24, from pre-Shattering play), in order to explore the revamped areas.

That’s something that, a week in, I have not yet begun.

First things first – Inscription

For the couple of weeks preceding the latest patch, I had been working on my baby resto/balance druid, Mydnas. She had been sitting at level 67 since the summer, with JC and mining professions stalled in the 100s. Because I’ve become interested in Inscription, both the idea of it and as a way to make some gold, I started pulling together some spare herbs from alts, buying some herb-dumps off the AH here and there, and dropped Mining for Inscription in October. I got her close to level 200 early this month, and let her sit there for a few days while I collected more herbs.

The week before The Shattering happened, I reached level 450. All in all, it wasn’t so bad. As my Inscription prowess crept up, I dropped JC and picked up Herbalism, which was extremely easy to level up. Along the way, I picked up much of what I needed to finish leveling Inscription. To prevent this from being an unnecessarily long story: both professions are now maxed.

Being a druid is awesome for herbalism, by the way. With rested XP at level 69, I was getting over 3000 XP from each Northrend herb picked. I went into Sholazar Basin at that level and picked tons of herbs, easily escaping the clutches of the 75 and 76 crocs, cobras, dreadsabres and rhinos by herbing in flight form. With the wealth of herbs in that zone, it took me very little time to max out.

Anyway, as I leveled Inscription, I tried to stick closely to two simple principles: make only one of each different glyph, and use as many 3-skill-up recipes as possible in order to stretch my mats out as much as possible. Through the process, I accumulated a nice stash of various glyphs, and I decided to put those glyphs to work for me.

I sold them on the AH, starting as soon as I logged in on the day of patch 4.0.3a. I initially listed about 125 different glyphs, just hoping that a quarter of them would sell. Between Tuesday and Friday, though, I ended up listing around 200 (reposting as they sold), and made about 7k. At the end of the “new and returning players buying glyphs” free-for-all, I was dumping certain glyphs that had been sort of necessary for gaining Inscription skill-ups, but are not good leveling glyphs, very cheaply. Additionally, as AH pros were in full swing, I very quickly found myself involved in a price war pissing contest, so it’s fine that I had to dump some glyphs – AH PvP gets old for me pretty fast. I accomplished my mission: my glyph stash is gone, and I was easily able to purchase my fast flying and still have plenty of gold left over.

A bit of my play-time over the first few days of the patch was spent monitoring the AH and so on, but I felt like it was time well spent, considering that I do not normally play the AH game.

New hunter… no, forget the hunter…

Initially, my plan for exploring Azeroth was to delete and re-roll Ghilly. Looking at the classes from a lore-ish perspective, it seems natural (to me) to think of a hunter as the ideal exploration class. I know that this probably doesn’t jive with a lot of people… but to me, a character who

• takes his own time
• explores the lay of the land
• provides for his own subsistence through fishing, trapping, tracking and shooting his prey
• can create his own clothing for protection from the elements
• is generally at ease in the solitude of the wilderness, as well as in any tavern

makes sense as a perfect exploring toon. Other than playing my main, the hunter promises the most immersive experience for me.

However, as I encountered various new areas on my established toons, I began to consider a new option. Anacrusa, who wasn’t a Loremaster before, has had all of her quest-counts reset in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. I would have to say that at this point, lore, as well as PvP, has surpassed raiding on my list of in-game priorities. With new quests and story-lines to devour, as well as a desire to get the Loremaster title at some point, I considered a radical (for me) change in strategy: knock out pre-80 Loremaster quest achievements until I have no more to do, and then go to Mt. Hyjal and start leveling.

Oh, man! The idea was so tempting! I mean, think about it. The old game is new again. Some quests are the same, but most of them reflect large changes and a significant amount of time passed. Ana is my one and only true love among my toons, and I am highly interested in experiencing the entire world with her as my vehicle.

-

I toyed with the idea for several days, even mentioning it to my friend Somb, who thought it was a cool idea, although he was not going to adopt it himself. In the end, I decided not to do it. I’m going to go to Hyjal when Cataclysm drops, because, among other reasons, the druid lore there is important and exciting to me.

There have been other ideas running concurrently in my mind, but one has been stronger than others. I had mentioned in a previous post or two that I was thinking of making a new Night Elf mage named Droig. With 4.0.3a, this class/race combo went into effect, so I created him, set up his UI, and gave him a quick spin.

I hated it.

Not the mage part. No, the thing that sucked was the Night Elf Male casting animation. My goodness. I guess it’s cool, but… no, it’s not cool. The guy stands there and pushes fire spells out like he has a wall at his back, with no consideration for the concept of kickback that other races have. Night Elf females, Dwarves, Humans, and just about every other race that I’ve seen has one foot behind the other , bracing themselves when they cast. It looks cool, and it makes sense. This put me off. I never had a male Night Elf priest/druid/caster before this, so I didn’t know what I was getting into.

So I deleted him.

Since Night Elf females look like they’re hurling a basketball, baseball-pitcher-style, when they cast, I had to decide which race to pick. Since I’ll be exploring Dun Morogh on my new Dwarf hunter eventually, I don’t want to do the Draenei starting area again, and I don’t want to be a Gnome mage, I brought my long-dormant 43 mage, Theophilos, out of Stormwind for a look. After killing a few wolves and Defias in Elwynn Forest and watching him do so from different angles, I was satisfied that I liked the way he looked.

So I deleted him, too.

I transferred all of his worldly possessions to other alts, took a screenshot of him, and deleted him. Then I remade him, with the exact same looks, and started playing him on Saturday night. I’m really glad that I did.

As King Wrynn is the leader of the Alliance, and the story around Westfall was supposed to be pretty good, making a Human mage was a solid choice. Being a hunter might still be a better option for exploring, but I’ve been fascinated with mages for a while, and this is as good a time as any to start one.

The leveling process, post 4.0.3a, has generally been a very positive experience. The new story lines are a lot of fun to work through. The Westfall story does a lot to both satisfy my lore craving and to whet it further, and the phasing is definitely cool – I’m so glad they decided to use it in low-level zones. The notifications that you get as you level (“New Talent/Ability!” etc.) are definitely helpful. I’m having more fun than I had ever had when previously trying to play a mage.

There are some drawbacks, and I’ll mention two of them here:

1. Leveling is almost too fast. I’m leveling herbalism, because it feeds mats to my alchemist and scribe. This worked well for the most part, although I found that I out-leveled Elwynn before I was skilled enough to pick several of the herbs in Westfall. And I significantly outleveled Westfall by the time I finished with the majority of the story there.
2. There are a couple of quests that don’t make sense at times. For instance, why does Agent Kearnen, a stealthy, SI:7 undercover operative/sharpshooter dressed in black, send me, a big muscle-bound magic-wielder in a dress, into a tower after picking off a six-pack of guard-thugs with her big-ass rifle, and then have me drink a shrouding solution and climb to the top in order to witness a secret meeting? Why doesn’t she do it herself? I guess, now that I think about it, it’s to protect me from the other thugs that respawn… but why doesn’t she have me do the protecting, and go up herself? I don’t know – that was one of the quests that, while pretty cool, didn’t flow well for me. That’s World of Warcraft for you, and that’s one of the things that hasn’t been eliminated from the game.

Overall, though, I’m really enjoying casually leveling my mage.

High-end leveling prep

To be honest, there isn’t a whole lot that I’m doing to prepare for leveling. My druid is ready to go. My hunter needs a respec (I’m leveling as Marks, but he currently has a dungeon build – anyway, we’ll see how that goes!), and I just need to finish leveling my gorilla, Korak, to 80. The paladin is as ready as she’ll ever be. I’m working on getting Mydnas (71) to 75 so she can begin training Inscription again next week.

The only new thing that I’m doing diligently is the daily cooking quests in Stormwind. I’m trying to do them every day on my three 80s, figuring that the more Chef Awards I have, the more recipes and meats I’ll be able to buy. Cooking will, hopefully, not be much of a problem to level when Cataclysm arrives.

Closing

Anyway, it’s been a week since I posted, and I just wanted talk a little bit about what I did throughout the week, and to express a few thoughts about my impressions of the remade world of Azeroth. Overall, I’m liking it a lot. There have been many exciting changes, and it looks like I’m in store for plenty of non-grindy fun when I come back and dig deeper into the lore on my main.

Raid Warning: SHIFT HAPPENS – A Warcraft Druid Roundtable Podcast

Click to check out the sweet lineup!

For those who play druids or are interested in listening to a podcast featuring druids, Raid Warning is recording its druid roundtable podcast. The podcast should be available next Tuesday (Oct. 12). The roundtable will feature prominent voices representing all four specs, including Graylo (Gray Matter), Keeva (Tree Bark Jacket), Lissana (Restokin), and Astrylian (Rawr).

I’m particularly excited to hear the podcast because we’ll get to hear from Kalon (Think Tank), who has put in extensive time on the Cataclysm beta and written several articles about the outlook for ferals, as well as the venerable John Patricelli (Big Bear Butt), who is currently preparing for Raid from the Heart.

Click the banner to the left to check out the full lineup, as well as to find out how to submit questions.

Being reasonable about heirlooms

A long post, in defense of the following: using heirlooms (and not using them), reasonable people making reasonable decisions about how they play their games, a blogger’s right to express opinions about how people should play, and the reader’s right to reject those opinions and play his/her games their own way. Some ranting involved…

I’ve written in the past (both distant and recent) about alternate toons that I’ve played, and in some cases, I’ve mentioned heirlooms that I have or have not used.

Heirlooms are a popular topic around the WoWblogospherenet. Over the past several months, I’ve read many posts about heirlooms, from “heirlooms are cheating/lame/ruining the game” to “I just spent 1100 million emblems and honor thingies buying 2 of every heirloom in the game for Cataclysm.” Each person who knows what they are has an opinion on them; they loathe them, or they feel justified in using them, or they just don’t know what to think, or they think heirlooms are the greatest thing in the world.

I first started really thinking about the issue in March. Gordon (We Fly Spitfires) wrote a post earlier this year about ways to cheat in WoW, and he included BoA gear on his list, specifically mentioning that it gives an unfair advantage at low-levels for PvP (twinking was also included on his list). It was a great post, highlighting several questionable practices that are not only cheating but are dangerous to account security, but I respectfully disagreed with his points about both heirlooms and twinking.

Since then, as I said, I have read the range of discussion about heirlooms. However, today I read a post by Adam (The Noisy Rogue) called Heirlooms or Endgame? that triggered my written response.

Now, I have to say that my post is not Adam’s fault – not by a long shot. His post is about heirlooms, but it’s also about endgame: specifically, how he’d rather play his max-level rogue, but he finds little value in doing so at this point, and how he feels that Blizzard is not ending this expansion very well compared to Burning Crusade.

However, for whatever reason, his post is what prompted me to say my piece about heirlooms. This has been building up within me for a while, and his article was just catalyst for me.

Regarding heirlooms, here’s what he has to say:

I don’t do heirloom items. It’s just not my thing. Maybe if they were a bit more bondage like, but probably not even then. The very idea of taking the same item through 80 different levels is anathema to me. Where is the discovery of new gear, seeing what it looks like when it’s on, seeing if the stats give you something more? There is no need to look at an heirloom items stats, it’s just ticking away as you level up. It’s not boring, it’s more than that. It’s not a game. Heirlooms reduce 80 levels of going up to drudgery. The gear upgrades are the only surprising thing that can happen to you now when you level up, if you know the class that you are levelling well enough that is.

. . .

I am back to levelling my priest. I would prefer to be on my rogue, I really would. But the sad fact is that levelling is more rewarding these days than the end game. That is, unless you deck yourself out in heirlooms. Then you will have cheated yourself out of that part of the game as well.

* * * * *

To me, the issue around heirlooms comes down to how you want to play the game. If you want to get all of your toons to level 80 as fast as possible in order to see what their classes can do (as well as test your mettle in the endgame content), then using heirlooms will benefit you. If you want to take the leveling process at a more leisurely pace, taking what the game gives you, seeking out rewards and completing the objectives to get them, seeing the world and digging into the lore as you go, then heirlooms are probably not for you, because even without heirlooms the leveling process is faster than it has ever been.

If you really want to fill those weapon, shoulder and chest piece slots with new gear as you go, then definitely forego heirlooms. However, assuming that the statement “Heirlooms reduce 80 levels of going up to drudgery” applies to everyone is a huge assumption, and, in my opinion, an errant one. It may apply to him, and that’s totally fine! But it does not apply to me.

* * * * *

My history with heirlooms has varied. Here is part of it.

• Bloodheim (R.I.P.), my first hunter, did not have heirlooms.
• Anacrusa, my first 80, did not have heirlooms. Again, she was my first 80. The elder of the family, so to speak.
• Abenadari, my paladin, did not have heirlooms until she was in her mid-40s or so, at which point I cobbled together enough emblems on Anacrusa to spare for a set of plate BoA shoulders to help with the leveling process. I didn’t like my paladin very much, and I still don’t, but at that point she was on her way to being alchemy-capped, and I needed to level enough to get to 450. Keep in mind, this was quite a while ago, and spare emblems were hard for me to come by at the time.
• Mydnas, my second druid, had the weapon, shoulders and chest from day one. My plan was to level her as resto, and I was scared to death – I had no confidence in my ability to be a healer – so I wanted the best gear possible. I also kept her highly medicated with potions, scrolls, magical little stat foods and anything else she could get her grubby little hands on for buffs. Call it cheating, but it gave me the confidence to try out healing dungeons as I leveled and do a good job with it. So sue me.
• Ghilly, my second hunter, has no heirloom gear, hand-me-down gold, or expensive BoEs. As I’ve mentioned before, he is a character that I am playing for reasons more related to lore, exploration and creativity than level-progression.
• Mushan, my third hunter, is the opposite. I am trying to get him to the level cap at a relatively quick pace, because I want to explore the hunter class capabilities at the level cap before Cataclysm arrives, and because I want to have a max-level alt that I will enjoy leveling from 80 in the expansion. Therefore, he has the chest and shoulders.

* * * * *

The purpose of the above list is to show a few things. First of all, (disregarding the massive Refer-A-Friend XP bonus, which is something I have absolutely no interest in) everyone’s first toon goes heirloom free, so everyone gets to experience that part of the game at least once. Secondly, having heirlooms is not ruining my game experience at all – in fact, it has enriched the experience in almost every case. Thirdly, I’ve made different choices for the toons following Anacrusa, and I’ve chosen to use heirlooms for different reasons on my various toons. With me, it’s not all about the heirlooms, and it’s not all about hating on the heirlooms.

 

Mushan with Tirion, Eastern Plaguelands

Mushan

In the case of Mushan, this is the fastest I have ever leveled a toon – 67 levels in 36 days so far – and so the heirloom gear, which I picked up before level 20, has certainly paid dividends. However, an interesting thing happened on the way to “face-rolling” toward “endgame:” over the course of the past month, I have done quests and seen places that I’ve never done or seen before. Two of these stand out to me, although there are several more:

1. I’ve quested with each toon in EPL before, but never liked it. However, this time I did a lot of questing there, and for the first time ever, I completed all of Tirion Fordring’s Redemption quest line, finishing it after I turned 58 (about halfway to 59, actually). While it wasn’t a spectacular quest chain, it was a huge piece of lore that will certainly be gone in Cataclysm, and I was extremely glad that I found and completed it. I will definitely be going back to do this one on my main very soon.
2. Similarly, in WPL, I had never done the Skeleton Key quest chain. I did most of it on my hunter, and then went back and completed it on my main, getting both that part of the Keymaster achievement and the achievement for Scholomance, an instance I had never set foot in before. I could have eventually looked it all up and done it anyway on my druid, but it was fun to find myself on the way there as part of the normal questing process.

These are not the only things that I’ve done differently than on previous toons, but they are two of the highlights of my experience playing my hunter so far, in spite of the fact that I’m using two BoA pieces.

I like playing/leveling my hunter. I’m getting to see some parts of the world that I’ve never seen before, and some that I’ve enjoyed on previous toons. Some quests are new and fun, some are old favorites, and some are jobs. I’ve run some dungeons, but I’m not missing the world in favor of LFD-leveling. Other than PvP, which I haven’t done at all yet, I don’t feel that I’ve missed out on a whole bunch that Azeroth etc. has to offer during this go-round. I’ve been playing for over three and a half years; I’ve seen a lot, and I’m looking forward to the new world that Cataclysm brings.

 

Lots of non-BoA gear here.

As for Adam’s “heirlooms make getting gear a drudgery” statement: I’ve got two BoA pieces, but that leaves me with over a dozen slots in which to see what kind of gear I can get. There has been plenty of gear excitement along the way as I’ve leveled, and the fact that I’ve gotten some pieces that I didn’t use in those slots does not bother me at all. I’ve gotten to play with bows and scopes and melee weapons, necklaces, rings and trinkets, and every mail slot except for the chest and shoulders. I’ve made almost a dozen pieces with Anacrusa’s leatherworking along the way. Trust me, I’m not missing out on anything at all.

In addition, I am not face-rolling toward endgame with the idea that I’m going to run ICC and “pwn” with my new hunter. The idea is to get to level 80, but it’s September 27th. If Cataclysm comes out in November, there isn’t much time to worry about squeezing as much gear as possible out of the remaining time. I’ve already written about being burned out by ICC anyway – we killed the Lich King months ago, and I’m happy with that. I’m working on other things, and getting enjoyment out of them. I’m working on earning gold, playing with friends, and finishing up achievements on my druid, and on leveling my hunter. I’m stocking up on gem transmutes on my paladin. I’m reading about the new expansion. And I’m doing other things with my life as well.

No, with the death of ICC drawing nigh, I am leveling the hunter for the experience of leveling it and in anticipation of having the complete set of abilities that comes with being level 80. I’m leveling it because it’s fun. I’m leveling it with the intention of taking it into Hyjal and Vash’ir and Deepholm when Cataclysm arrives. I’m leveling it because I want a new character to get some gear for, to gem and enchant it, which is a fun part of the game for me. I’m leveling it to have some adventures with it.

I’m not aiming to get as much ROFL-easy-gear as possible. I’m not trying to build a stud. I’m doing it for the enjoyment.

See, I play this game for fun. I certainly enjoy challenges – I’m attempting to solo stuff that I shouldn’t be soloing (with variable results), learning about the specs and abilities, playing around with pets, etc – but I’m also just enjoying the experience of playing a hunter. I’ve talked with several people who, upon learning I’m leveling a hunter, have said some variation of “ooh, hunters are fun!” That’s what I’m here to do – enjoy the game.

* * * * *

Adults, labels, and disagreeing with other bloggers

I’m an adult, and I don’t necessarily think that I fit into a popular label as far as WoW-players go. Some of the most popular labels that I see include “n00bs,” “facerollers,” “casuals,” “socials,” “hardcore players” (both raiders and PvP-ers), and “M&S.” As an adult, I think of myself as simply a person who enjoys different aspects of the game. There are many of us out there, but we don’t light up the internet like the high and low extremes we see out there.

As adults, we make rational decisions when it comes to game-play, and those decisions can vary from time to time, even for the same person. Sometimes that means devoting yourself to min-maxing and being as skilled as possible for top-end raiding or PvP. At other times it means enjoying the world and/or the leveling process, or concentrating on achievements or the AH game. In our experiences, we run into the highly skilled people, the teeth-gnashing masses, the fun people, the quiet-but-respectful ones, the terrible players, and so on.

What I don’t see is just one type of player out there. Or two types. Not all players are hardcore, or casual, or morons.

There are many different ways to enjoy whichever game(s) you play, because people are different. They have different views and values and real-life conditions that affect their abilities and playing styles. And those who blog about the games they play are most certainly entitled to their opinions. However, whenever a blogger implies that there is only one correct style of play, I have to respectfully disagree.

I feel no guilt about choosing to play parts of the game that I enjoy, and playing them the way that I like, even if someone considers that “lame” or “wrong.” In my opinion, things like heirlooms are not just for M&S and are not a form of cheating, and do not diminish my gaming experience. They are a part of the game that the developer has provided, and I make rational decisions to use or not use them as I please, to get the most out of my experience and reach the goals that I have for each toon. And I think that’s a perfectly valid way to play.

Big Bear Butt on CASTaclysm podcast!

For anyone who likes BBB, and missed the live stream of his interview on the CASTaclysm podcast Thursday evening, you can check it out at this link. The show starts out with some honest-to-goodness druid love!

I’m listening to it now.

Update Sept 1st: The podcast is now available on iTunes.

Comment on class-specific quests in WoW

This is a copy of a comment I left this morning on an article by Big Bear Butt entitled Flipping Positions!, which talks extensively about his thoughts on Blizzard’s reluctance to add more class-specific quests in Cataclysm.

Well-said, BBB.

After spending a year progressing through raids in WotLK, and then taking a break, I’ve been spending most of my time in-game as “me-time” with my druid. I’ve done a lot of PvP, which brings me closer to my class. I’ve changed my soloing/questing/farming playstyle. I’ve finally completed “Vanquishing the Raven God” and the druid questline. I’m working on fun and different achievements. I’m soloing old content. I’m more in love with my feral druid than ever.

As I completed “Vanquish the Raven God” and got my Swift Flight Form feat of strength (LOL!), further class quests in Cataclysm were high in my mind. The druid questline made me feel special, and I like that.

This won’t be a “rail against Blizz” comment, because others have said it better in previous comments, and like I said, this was a very good article. It’s just to express that I really enjoyed the druid questline, and I wish that there were more to come.

That being said, class-specific quests add to both the epic and personal/individual feel of the game. As you stated, they also add to the uniqueness of the experience when playing multiple characters. If Blizzard wants to retain subscribers during the lean months, it seems to me that developing class-specific questlines makes good business sense after all (no math involved, just common sense as I see it).

Thanks again for the article, BBB!

I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks, but I’ve gotten a decent amount of work done in-game. I hope to write a little about that soon. In the meantime, if you haven’t seen BBB’s article and the comments that follow, it’s highly recommended!

A few recent achievements

It has been a few weeks since I last posted an update on achievement progress. With that in mind, here are some of the achievements I’ve picked up recently:

1. Um, we killed the Lich King!

Victorious at the gates of Icecrown Citadel

2. Today, I finally snagged the title, Guardian of Cenarius! I picked up Cenarion Expedition on 4/28, which netted me 15 Exalted Reputations. Yesterday and today I ground out the rest of Cenarion Circle.

Anacrusa, Guardian of Cenarius, @Cenarion Hold, Silithis (4/30/10)

3. While working toward Exalted with Cenarion Expedition, I decided to try my Steamvault run on heroic mode. I am getting more and more interested in soloing dungeons…

4. The Northrend Gourmet (4/29)

5. Deadliest Catch (Zul ‘Gurub) (4/16)

6. Master of Arms (4/16) (finally!!)

And finally, I reached level 60 on my resto/balance druid, Mydnas, yesterday.

Mydnas is 60! Cenarion Refuge, Zangarmarsh

Other than that, there hasn’t been as much activity as I had envisioned a few weeks ago, but I have checked some of the goals off my list from January. I am pretty much done reputation grinding, thankfully… it gets so monotonous, so I don’t really see myself being interested in it for a while. I may deviate a bit and try to knock out some more solo dungeons in the next week or so, because that is one of the things that I’m enjoying about the game right now. I’ll let you know!

Alliance vs. Horde: thoughts on factions in World of Warcraft

Tobold, who has been leveling an Alliance paladin of late, pointed out in a recent post that it seems that the final four levels of Wrath of the Lich King do not have any non-neutral quest givers. Specifically, he’s looking for variety, having already done most of these quests as a member of the Horde. A couple of commenters (myself included) noted that there are some Alliance quests aboard the Skybreaker and in Storm Peaks, while others went into some deeper discussion about factions and PvP. I wasn’t particularly interested in their specific topics, but thinking about factions reminded me of a topic that I’ve thought about and discussed with friends.

I play a druid. I’m also interested in the lore of the game, and have read almost all of the novels. Obviously, I like the game and enjoy learning about it. One thing that has often crossed my mind is that it might be nice to have the choice to be able to group/quest/communicate (other than with emotes) with others within our cross-faction factions.

The disparity between “heroes” and NPCs, factionwise, doesn’t make sense as far as the lore goes. Or, at least, the way that the game limits players in this manner makes me wonder where exactly we as “heroes” fit into the picture. If we can only be Alliance or Horde, based on our race, that sort of puts us on a level with the forces of Stormwind or the demon-controlled Orcish horde that came through the portal. In-game, we have the ability to raise our reputations to “Exalted” with other factions, but we have no choice to truly join forces (a la The Ashen Verdict) across Alliance/Horde lines, to take an elite combined force into Icecrown Citadel in order to destroy the Lich King. Instead, while we (both factions) are urged by Tirion Fordring to battle our way through the Citadel to rescue Bolvar Fordragon and destroy Arthas, a mere three bosses into the raid we find ourselves involved in a fierce battle with the opposite faction aboard our respective gunships for some reason. There is really no true cross-faction Ashen Verdict for players: it’s the Alliance Ashen Verdict and the Horde Ashen Verdict. We are hero-grunts; in my case, working for the Alliance.

Druids are trained in the ways of Cenarius, and “heroes” of the druid persuasion nominally come together under the Cenarion Circle/Expedition. In-game, we take quests from Tauren as Night Elves, and vice versa. However, I and my Night Elven brethren cannot communicate/group with Tauren druid players, even though we are exalted with a faction that includes races from both “sides.” Druids, who draw their power from the same sources, kill each other in various forms of PvP all the time, completely based on racial affiliation. Later on, those enemies will accept a quest from the same quest giver in Blade’s Edge, complete the same neutral task, and turn it in for the same reward.

We are, above all, Alliance or Horde, and as players we are powerless to change that. However, we are supposed to be heroes, not common folk who align with their leader, die once and are either gone forever or, in the case of this game, sometimes raised as an undead being or death knight.

This is not a major issue to me, but I find it an intriguing one. I understand that it’s a game that is extremely successful in its current format. As such, I do not foresee the game ever changing to more closely follow its lore in this regard. The game has been created, from the Warcraft through WotLK, as a segregated world where certain NPCs get to be diplomatic and players have to choose one side or the other. PvP is a popular part of the game play, and the overhaul required to enable exalted members of certain factions to be “friendly” with one another (even part-time) would most likely be massive and not worth the time, effort, or money to develop. To me, it’s an interesting idea, but the reality is that it’s probably not practical.

Blackrock Depths madness

This is REALLY late. Bad blogger!

So on April 1, right after my resto druid, Mydnas, had turned 50, I entered LFD and drew Blackrock Depths – Prison. BRD-P is a lvl 50-55 instance. The make-up of the party for the meat of this run was as follows:

1. Tank: Redcough (51-Paladin)
2. Heals: Mydnas (50-Druid)
3. DPS: Ballzdeep (52-Shaman)/Eibonix (51-Warlock)
4. We also had a couple of different DPS along the way, but this was the core for the entire run.

Notice that none of the players was higher than 52. Trash were level 54 (Elite) and up, and the end bosses are 56 (Elite).

I won’t go into detail about the whole dungeon. I have to say, though, that it was by far the most intense experience I have ever had as a healer.

We took our little low-level group and made the best of it. The poor tank took major damage on trash pulls, and it was extremely difficult to keep her alive at times. In addition, had it not been for the shaman, who guided us through the instance, explained boss strategies, and threw out some critical heals, we would have been totally lost.

It was a good group, though, and with short explanations for each boss, the boss encounters were the easiest thing to handle. The trash on the other hand? Brutal. However, we survived with only a handful of deaths and no total wipes, ground our way to the end of the instance, and sighed a huge sigh of exultation when we had taken down Emperor Thaurissan!

As we took care of loot, I tossed out “screenshot?” and went up to sit on the throne. The shadow priest that was with us at the end had already left group, but the rest of us positioned ourselves, and, after Redcough barked “lose the felguard!” to the lock, we had our screen.

Blackrock Depths - Cleared!

It was a sweet, hard-fought team victory, one that I will remember fondly for a long time!

Mydnas is a Tree!

Mydnas achieved level 50 at 11:30 this morning. It took me two weeks of semi-casual playing (even with a 4-day break last weekend) to get the 7+ levels since I last wrote about her. I am so psyched to have Tree of Life form finally!

Mydnas, dancin' in the streets

It’s exciting. I started this toon in December. This is by far the fastest I have ever leveled a toon to this point, and it has very little to do with BoA gear (although that helps). Combining the LFD function is a huge part of it, as it makes it very easy to try out a new style of play in a dungeon setting, learning my role and getting the experience as I’ve leveled. It also reflects that I have enjoyed leveling her more than any other character, with the exception of my feral druid (and I know so much more now than I did then!).

Ideally I would like to start PvP-ing with this toon at some point. I tried a random BG once at level 48 as a healer. It was late at night, and I drew Alterac Valley. It was a disaster. Problem #1: The Alliance party was NEVER filled! Problem #2: The Horde quickly came up and camped our graveyard. The result: a quick BG loss, and 5 deaths, 4 of them in the graveyard. It was discouraging, and I logged off and went to bed. Now that I’m 50 and would fit into the next tier, I won’t be attempting a BG for a few levels since I am so low-level for a 50-59 BG. However, I would like to try some more BGs, because I enjoy them on my kitty, regardless of the fact that I am still learning about PvP in general.

So there it is. Hope you like the goofy pics of her lately!

Anacrusa the Argent Champion

I’m finally done running Stratholme. After seven Baron Rivendare kills (two on March 19th) and other grinding, I picked up the Argent Champion title. I then went into ICC last Monday morning to grab a screenshot with two abnormally large humans…

Hangin' with a couple of regular-types in ICC

From my list: Argent Champion, CHECK!

So now I’m grinding Cenarion Circle Rep, which is easy but boring. The next title on my list is Guardian of Cenarius, which is essential to a being a real druid, in my book. I went from Friendly to Revered with them pretty quickly last Tuesday, and will probably start working on getting Exalted once I get back home in the next couple of days – we’ll see how much grinding I can stand!

Along with the Cenarion Circle, I soloed a couple of Steamvault runs the other day to work on Cenarion Expedition rep. I was easily able to earn the 5k rep that I still needed to be revered, thanks to all of the Coilfang Armaments that I picked up (soloing dungeons is nice for stuff like that!), so now I just have the Exalted grind to do for that as well. It shouldn’t be too bad – I think I’ll enjoy it better than the Circle rep grind, due to the dungeon-soloing thing.

At any rate, I’ll let you know when I get it!