Back in the Saddle

It’s been a long time since I have posted but I actually have been playing. Recently I reconnected with an old friend and started up a new Death Knight on his server on the Alliance side of things. Asmodar just finished the DK starter zone and is now making his way through Outland. I hope to get him to Pandaria before too long and then go back to fill in what to me are essentials like the Argent Tournament and maybe even Firelands for mounts, etc.

One thing I may do that will slow my leveling just a little is making sure my Pet Battle team is leveled up once I get to the later parts of Northrend. If I am lucky enough to run accross an Unborn Val’Kyr I want to make sure I can attempt to capture it. Other than this I intend to press forward and perhaps try the new method of leveling of Mining/Blacksmiting once I get to Pandaria.

I am also leveling him in Blood spec so I can solo effectively both during the leveling process and at endgame. Once he is 90 I will be going back to solo old raids for the pets and transmog gear and from what I have read around the interwebs a Blood DK is about as good as it gets for that activity.

Suffer well.

The Road to Firelands

Leveling with Malcore has been going very well. I guess that isn’t surprising as Death Knights are pretty tough but without leveling speed bonuses I was afraid I might get a bit bored and stall out at some point. The easier leveling curve in Outland and Northrend has made a big difference in that regard. I have been able to focus on the quests and hubs I enjoy the most. As of today he is already starting the quests in Zul’Drak and I hope to have him into the Cataclysm content by the later part of next week.

For his professions I have been leveling Mining and Blacksmithing. Since this is my “no support” character this combo made the most sense. I can make him some armor and weapons and take advantage of any of those specific recipes that become available from the rep vendors later on. Without a gathering alt Mining is also essential so no dual crafting for him!  I will be getting all of his secondary professions done eventually (even Archeology) but I will wait on those until I am closer to the level cap. At this point I have Mining current and Blacksmithing is getting close. Even gold has been easier to come by now that he is in the Northrend content. I have to admit this is going much smoother than I had expected.

As a last note I want to mention one perk I am really enjoying as a Death Knight. The Acherus portal makes things just a bit easier for me overall. From Acherus it’s only a four-minute flight to Silvermoon so I don’t have to feel locked into making my home base Orgrimmar. Undercity might be a little closer but I like the layout of Silvermoon better and as a Blood Elf it feels more like home.

Right now I am just trying to keep my momentum up until I can finish leveling and get going on both the Tol Barad and Firelands Dailies. I may yet stall out but I am hopeful Malcore will make it through to 85 so I can spend some time on him in the Battlegrounds and catch up on all of those secondary professions.

I swore I would never level what I call a “complete adventurer” again. After everything is maxed I may even get him the Crusader title. After the fifth one I swore I would never do that again either but Malcore seems to be the exception to all my rules.

Soloing Again

Although it’s been over a year since I last posted I am starting up the blog again. I’ve been playing WoW since my last post but I’ve also tried some different games and even spent some time in the Mists of Pandaria Beta. With seven 85’s I have enjoyed playing WoW but at one point this past spring I just couldn’t bring myself to level another alt.

Still, here I am again. Oddly enough, it wasn’t Mists on the horizon that reinvigorated my interest in the game. It was actually a combination of factors and a little luck.

Just after the release of Wrath Blizzard offered free transfers off my original Horde server. With the queue times on Moongard exceptionally long our small friends and family guild took them up on the offer and moved all of our characters over to Sisters of Elune. I couldn’t stand the thought of just abandoning our 2-tab guild vault so I made a Death Knight to take over as guild master and promptly left him behind in Shattrath City.

Like many players I had been in the “end of expansion” doldrums lately and despite an arsenal of heirloom gear I still didn’t want to bother with leveling and gearing a new character. During this time I gave Star Wars the Old Republic a try but the games buggy nature and excessive (to me) downtime made that short lived. LotRO hasn’t been of interest for awhile and I even went back to Rift for a time.

As always I started to miss Azeroth again so I jumped back into WoW but the doldrums were still there. I just didn’t feel like leveling a new guy or playing any of my 85s. Because of Real ID our friends and family guild on Sisters is also largely unused since we use Real ID to keep in touch instead of the guild chat so we can play either Horde or Alliance without losing touch. Consequently we all went different directions with our characters, joined different guilds and whatnot.

On almost a lark I decided to log onto that Death Knight on Moonguard (named Malcore) I had left behind a few years earlier. I had a tough day of work ahead of me so during my morning game-time I just wanted to relax. To do this I thought I would just run around Eversong Woods and start to level his Mining. It was mindless but I love the zone and that activity really helped me to unwind.

I ended up logging in on Malcore again the next morning (my only time to play is before work) and I kept working on his Mining. It was nice to have the two-tab vault so every now and then I would head back to a city and dump all the mats into the extended storage space he has. I wanted to keep the mats as I had decided Blacksmithing would be my profession of choice if I continued to play him. A few mornings later I had caught up his Mining to 300 and I could gather Outlands mats. My first thought was “okay, now it’s off to Hellfire Peninsula”.

There were a couple of problems though. The big one was that for the last few years I had always had heirloom gear for leveling – but that was all on another server with my 85s. Another was that when we left Moonguard we had stripped out all the cash and mats from the vault and I had only left Malcore with about 10g in his pocket. He also had no glyphs, flight training, or any gear other than what I had received from the DK starter zone. The guild itself was from before guild leveling existed so it had no guild levels and no guild perks.

Then it hit me – what a perfect soloing experiment. Death Knights are great soloers in general so I decided to make that my theme for him.  Malcore would be self sufficient to the best of my ability. I wasn’t even going to make a bank alt for him. I would have only one character on this server with only his personal guild to add extra support. I don’t know anyone on Moonguard any longer so that fits well also – no help from anyone outside the guild either.

I took advantage of the guild rename feature and choose “Solo of Fortune” to reflect more accurately my little project. Old timers will probably recognize the name from an old Cyberpunk supplement and career type. That in itself was a play on words from the magazine called Soldier of Fortune. The name just seemed to fit all around.

Thanks to Real ID I am not that isolated and I can chat with my family and real life friends whenever they are online. I must admit that at first I thought Real ID was a useless feature (sorry about that Blizzard) and now I couldn’t be more thankful it was added to the game.

Malcore is now embarking on his adventures in Outlands and beyond.  My initial concern about the lack of heirlooms, cash and guild perks has actually made it more fun to play him. I am sure this style of play isn’t for everyone but for me it has been like a breath of fresh Azerothian air.

Fisherman’s Gloves

It may be an old habit but I still like having a pair of gloves with the Angler enchant on them. The bonus to Fishing used to be more important when most fishable water had a minimum skill level required to use it. Although I don’t really need the bonus anymore I keep them in my pack along with my Weather Beaten Fishing Hat.

In the past I have put the enchantment on a grey or interesting looking quest reward glove that I would otherwise vendor. Recently, while leveling one of my Goblin alts, I ran across a quest that even gives you a pair of gloves that are perfect for the Angler enchant – Fisherman’s Gloves.

You get this as a reward from a quest called “Beware of Cragjaw!” that starts at a sign beside Cragpool Lake in the Stonetalon Mountains. This is a Horde-only quest chain added with the revamp to the old world in Cataclysm. Before you rush out to the lake to pick up the quest (as I did on Tazok) it is actually gated along with all of the quests for Krom’Gar Fortress. This should have been a one-off quest but with the new quest structuring you need to do a chain to access it. It’s mildly annoying but it doesn’t take long.

To get everything started you need to pick up the breadcrumb quest in Ashenvale at the Horde occupied outpost of Silverwind Refuge. Take the quest that has you ride a wagon into the Stonetalon Mountains and then sit back and watch as you bounce along.

After this you pick up the quest from an Orc named Saurboz to rearm the mines along the path. Once completed he then sends you to find a missing Goblin engineer. The Goblin is dead but a note on his corpse leads you to a leader of the Night Elves who is at a nearby tent with her pet cat. After defeating her you get the Alliance Attack Plans and then Saurboz finally tells you to take them to Krom’Gar fortress. This opens the quests at the fortress along with the one at Cragpool Lake for the gloves. Just fly over to Cragpool Lake and pick it up. Cragjaw may look mean but even at level he is very soloable.

So if you are a Horde player these might be worth a little side trip to pick up. The gloves are cloth so any class can use them. On Tazok (then level 82) it took about 20 minutes or so to do the whole chain.

Happy Fishing!

Assignment: Goblin Operative

Back in early December I wrote a post about wanting to change my poor, long suffering Rogue from a Human into a Goblin. I say long suffering since he has undergone several racial incarnations at this point and a few faction switches to boot. I did it the first time before there were any faction changes. At level 56 I was so tired of being Undead I deleted him and rerolled as a Troll. Sadly, it didn’t stop there and I am at the point where I now RP him as an agent of Ravenholdt Manor. I look at each change as a new assignment he has been given and his new race as his disguise for wherever Lord Jorach is sending him.

After seeing and later playing the Goblins I still wanted to make him one.  Then last week, while I was in the midst of uncertainly about which main character to play, I found myself inspired by the Horde for Life podcast to try out the Wyrmrest Accord server on the Horde side. I mulled it over for awhile (okay, I asked my wife if spending the money was crazy) but in the end I bit the bullet (with her patient smile of support) and made the change.

I knew from past experience that the main things he would lose with a faction change were his Crusader title and all of his rep with the Silver Covenant/Sunreavers faction. At least he got to keep his Argent Tournament Tabard and can still use it.

Although he kept all of his Horde faction reps I was surprised that his Orgrimmar rep was changed over to Goblin. Now he is only Neutral with Orgrimmar but he did keep his wolf mounts and can still use them. I guess if I need to do one rep over again then Orgrimmar isn’t a bad one. There are lots of quests around that grant the rep even if I decide not to go back and take it to exalted while regaining my Crusader title.

It is sure nice to be settled though. Wyrmrest is turning out to be a great server and I am so glad I made the move.

 

Why do These 5 Levels Seem so Daunting?

When I log on these days I have continued to suffer from an odd feeling of restlessness. I don’t think its burnout, especially so early in an expansion, but something is certainly up. With only 5 character levels ahead of me I have had less motivation than ever to level my existing 80’s or even new characters beyond level 30 or so. This lack of leveling ambition feels strangely out of place given the new content and races and race/class combos that are now available. This should be the perfect time to start fresh – perhaps even on a new server and do it all over from scratch. So what keeps holding me back?

Whenever I have felt like this in the past I have just started a new guy and off I would go. This time around I have noticed that I stall out on all of these new alts once I began to get serious about their professions.  This expansion may have only added 5 character levels but the professions have advanced as if it were a full 10-level expansion.  With 75 more points and the addition of Archeology I have found that starting a new character seems like a more daunting task than ever.

This got me thinking about the next expansion and what it might bring. My guess is that the next and subsequent expansions will all consist of 5 levels. This seems like a reasonable expectation, especially if Blizzard is shooting for an 18 month development cycle for new expansions. Increasing the cap by 5 levels is probably more achievable with that time frame in mind.

I think the next expansion will also include a content update to Outlands and any remaining parts of Azeroth that haven’t been already done. However, I think the professions will continue to advance by 75 points each time. From this point forward I feel that a character’s leveling will be much easier to max out than their professions. This is especially true with Fishing and now Archeology. Both of these are pretty hefty time sinks to level up.

I think we may very well have seen the last of the 10 level expansions. I doubt Blizzard is in any hurry to have the max level reach 100. Stretching those levels out over the next three expansions makes a lot of sense.

 

Diving Back In

Still struggling to find a new main for this expansion I decided to level my original main, a Tauren Hunter, while I puzzled it out. With a three day weekend I had a little more time to play him than normal and managed to take him from 80-82 and get him into Deepholm.

I may be slow but it took me from 80 to 81 to feel comfortable with the way Hunters work now. I shelved him after the change from Mana to Focus not because I thought the change was bad but because I didn’t feel like taking the time to relearn the class right then. Since I felt like I was in a bit of a holding pattern anyway I thought it was a good time to dive into it and I’m glad I did.

So, for the time being I will be writing about life as a soloing Hunter. It’s a great soloing class but my struggle will be when I try out battlegrounds again on him at 85. I had a mixed experience with it during BC and Wrath but hopefully I can have fun with it until I settle on a new guy to level.

 

The Goblin Starter Experience: Revisited

I still haven’t settled on a new main but in experimenting with a few more alts I decided to try out a Mage again, but this time a Goblin. The only downside is the linear, no options, 13ish levels of questing to get him out of their racial starter area. I really didn’t want to do all of this again but I was enjoying him (despite the robes and no melee) so I kept going.

Going though the Goblin starter experience a second time was a little easier and I even paused a few times to enjoy the best parts and grumble at the worst. I have been better able to see a few of the problem areas this time around and I want to mention them.

Kezan

First, if you like the Vegas style of Kezan (as I do), then don’t rush to finish it. Once you leave it’s gone for good. I only wish I could come back to hang out at higher levels. I really enjoy these first 5 levels so it’s nice that I can go back on alts anytime I roll a new Goblin just to mess around there again.

The Islands

The questing here is where I started to get antsy again. In my personal opinion the island zone where you wash up on shore should have been close enough to swim (or find a raft) over to the Echo Isles so you could continue on to Durotar if you so chose. This way you could head off to the other early Horde zones if you like or stay with the Goblin Quests. I know this stage sets your character up for joining the Horde but I just feel like it goes on too long.

There are a few bright spots where these quests are interesting or fun but many of them feel like filler to me. You know what? I think they are filler. Between taking Skulzy (my Hunter) though and coming back on Gonzo I played though the Worgen starter experience to check it out as well. By comparison, the Worgen zones were great from 1-13. I never got bored or wished I could head somewhere else.

I think that the content and quests for the Goblin storyline fell short of what was needed to match the Worgen starter experience. As a result the Goblin zone feels stretched by comparison. I feel like there are several quest hubs that I could easily skip (but you have to do them to progress) and still get the best parts of the story. I guess Blizzard needed to add this filler so the two starter experiences dropped new characters out with the same amount of experience. Sadly, the Goblin zone suffered for this.

The Fate of Candy Cane

Then, almost at the very end, there is one quest that actually irritated me. As a player I really hate it that you are forced to kill Candy Cane to finish the Goblin zone. I frankly didn’t care that she hooked up with my old buddy Chip and then Gallywix. She wasn’t a girl you could count on. Gonzo knew that from the outset. He certainly wasn’t going to kill her over it.

It makes me wonder what bad dumping that Blizzard writer had that made them feel killing this NPC was necessary for ALL Goblin players (I am guessing the females have to kill Chip in a similar fashion) to get to get off the island and into the rest of the game. That is somebody with a lot of bitter feelings toward their ex.  I should be clear here that I don’t mind that the quest is in the game but I think it should be an optional side quest and not necessary to progress to the final confrontation with Gallywix. I don’t think Gallywix even mentions her death in the final fight.

With no other option, and to his eternal shame, Gonzo did the quest and killed Candy to get off the island. The real kicker? Candy is a hostile mob but she doesn’t aggro on you. You actually have to initiate the fight. You can’t even lie to yourself that it was all in self defense. I know I sound a bit dramatic here but I just think this particular quest was one of the creepier ones I have had to do in this game.

Gonzo had come to really despise his old assistant, Sassy. She had him by the balls and she knew it. There was no profit in what she wanted and he didn’t want to do it. When he saw Candy standing atop the overseer’s platform in the slave pits he knew she was bad news. He had always known that but she was still special to him. He guessed he was a sucker for a pretty face.

As he approached Candy he gathered bands of shimmering energy around him.

Candy looked at him in disbelief, “Sweetie, don’t…”

Hardening his resolve Gonzo said, “Sorry, it’s just business.”

The fight didn’t last long. Candy was no match for Gonzo and they both knew it. Tears welled up in his eyes as he released wave after wave of destructive force at her. She rained blows down upon them and he let them all land, hoping she would find a killing blow. It never came. He encased her in ice and then lashed out with a final burst of energy that left her lifeless on the platform.

The deal with Sassy was clear. He had to bring her Candy’s heart in payment to get off this island. Gonzo wept over her body but did the deed. Her brought her heart back to Sassy and spat in her twisted face.

“Sassy,” Gonzo said, “mark my words. One day this’ll be you. I don’t care how long it takes but you and your cronies will burn. I will see to it.”

Sassy tested the weight of the heart in her hand. She appraised the little package and looked at Gonzo with a broad smile full of pointed teeth. She blew him a kiss.

There was more to do in the deal, but once it was all settled they sailed for Orgimmar. The first thing Gonzo did when he set foot in the city was hit the bars and get sloppy drunk.

Adrift in Uncertainty

Like the Balloon here I am still drifting along while I contemplate where I want to go in this expansion.

In my previous post I described the awesome advantages of playing a Mage and the good points in general about playing a DPS caster. I have continued to play my Mage since that post and in the process I quickly discovered a few glaring oversights to my original praise of my class/race choice:

1. In general I am not a fan of cloth armor and robes in particular. As an Alt it’s no problem but as my Main? Maybe I could get used to it, but I don’t think so. That being said, I think the Night Elf males look better than most in robes.

2. Spellcasting is cool but I like to swing melee weapons. Yep, I like to hit things with big sword or mace despite knowing that the classes that use them will be dependent on those weapons for their base DPS.

3. This is the most important factor: despite how hard I have tried I just like the Horde better than the Alliance. There is no contest and I am done kidding myself. It’s fun to play on the Alliance side but what keeps me wanting to log in every day is the chance to play as a Tauren, Orc or Goblin. I still think Shadowmeld is an awesome racial but Night Elves are not for me. If I am going to stealth-pause it will be as a Druid or Rogue.

I guess I am happy to discover more about myself as a player but it still leaves me in limbo for what class to focus on in Cataclysm. As I am still shopping for a new Main for this expansion I will have to see which melee DPS classes are the least gimped with the limited weapon choices I will have come endgame.

/facepalm

And here I was so sure I had it all figured out.

New Expansion, New Year, and a New Main

I am promising myself that this will be the last time.

Don’t get me wrong, I love leveling Alts. They can be great diversions (as my previous posts can attest!) but I simply don’t have the time to develop new main characters anymore. Secondary skills take forever to level up and old factions are usually long thankless grinds. Oh, and don’t get me started on great titles like Explorer and Crusader. A main character is a huge time investment any way you look at it.

Despite the time spent on my Mains from the previous expansions I have known for the last several months that a change was in the air for me.  Taking a new approach to playing has been nagging me ever since I realized I should drop my old physical DPS classes for a caster.  As I kept playing my old and developed characters I knew I was just postponing the inevitable. Still, it has been hard to let go and I even leveled my Paladin recently to 85 in the hope that I was wrong. I wasn’t and I know in my heart I need to start again.

This time around I have decided to make the most informed choice possible. Cataclysm is a new start for the game so I am going to make it a new start for me as a player as well. During the last few months I have weighed my options and tested new classes while leveling my old ones. This is what I came up with.

Number 1: Needs to be a Caster

A few months ago I had an epiphany when I realized my approach to class choices had been off the mark since I began playing WoW. It is hard to admit that the classes I have leveled (along with their professions, achievements, faction grinds, etc) don’t provide me with what I need as a player. It kind of sucks actually. It reminds me of the old Dutch proverb that says, “we grow too soon old and too late smart.”

If you have found your way to this blog the odds are that, like me, you solo some or even most of the time. If you can find the fun in PvP (which I did) then there is a gear progression open to you even as a soloer once you get to the endgame. That endgame is Battleground PvP.  The gear you can get for just Honor is always a season or two behind but I have found it to be something to work towards. More than that I have found I enjoy the challenge of battlegrounds.

My problem has been that I went about choosing my classes all wrong. Here is the thing; if you want to do battlegrounds with only gear from Honor you should really be playing a caster. Any class that relies on weapon damage as its base damage will underperform compared to casters. Maybe that sounds a bit off, but the epics available for Honor can fill any slot except Weapons and Shields. With this in mind I have known for awhile now that I should move away from weapon dependent classes focus my time on a caster.

That leaves the caster classes: Mages, Warlocks, Moonkin Druids, Elemental Shaman, and Shadow Priests. These are my options for a DPS caster. I used the subsequent criteria to determine which would be my new main.

Number 2: Time Efficient

After becoming a parent my needs as a player have definitely changed. I just don’t have the amount of time to play that I used to so things like prolonged flights and waiting for boat rides can eat up a big chunk of my playtime on any given day. The Mage, who is also conveniently a DPS based spellcaster, solves this problem for me with all those wonderful portals. Druids do have a portal to the Moonglade but otherwise the Mage is the only choice in this category. If you want to get around Azeroth fast it’s hard to beat a mage.

Number 3: Ease of going AFK

My life is very interrupt driven. These aren’t always issues necessitating me logging out of the game but I need to be able to pause and step away from the keyboard with some degree of safety. Originally I leveled a Rogue for this purpose as stepping out of mob pathing areas and stealthing was an effective method of pausing the game. The Night Elf racial Shaodowmeld also grants this ability and opens up my class choice to more than just a Rogue or a cat-form Druid. I decided that if I went with a Night Elf I could also choose to play either a Mage or Shadow Priest and keep my “pause” button.

Number 4: Pet Class

I like pets. Maybe it’s because my first Main was a Hunter but I actually like managing a pet. As a solo player I have found it’s also nice to just have a buddy along to keep me company and help me out in fights. Most importantly, pets are a damage boost to your character that is not based on weapon DPS. Warlocks get a pet at level 1 and Ice Mages now get a pet as early as level 10. I leveled my only Mage in Wrath up to 50 just so I could try out the permanent Water Elemental and I liked it. Warlocks get a greater variety of pets but they can’t be Night Elves so I would lose Shadowmeld if I went with a Warlock.

In Conclusion:

When I looked at the pros and cons carefully the choice seemed pretty clear to me. By playing a Night Elf Mage I get a class that is DPS focused, is independent of weapon DPS for base damage, can portal to almost anywhere, has a spec with a permanent pet, and that can be stealth-paused via Shadowmeld. There was just no escaping that this is the character that fits best with what I need in the game. In fact it has pretty much everything I could want. I even had that Mage Alt at level 50 collecting dust. At least 50-85 is a lot shorter than 1-85.

As a result I started up on my Mage again and race-changed him into a Night Elf. So far it’s working great and I am getting the hang of how to play him. I am no expert at playing a Mage but as most classes just got a major overhaul with Cataclysm it is a good time to start learning the class again.