(Note from Ego : guest post from one of our commenters, Shatter, helping me squeak out some more time to finish my NaNoWriMo novel before the end of the week! If he had a blog, I’d link it for you.)

As a long time proponent of the fact that Blizzard doesn’t care about its lore or its RPers, I’ve been forced to admit that Wrath of the Lich King seems like a game made just for those two types of people – loremongers and roleplayers. With all of the raiding content being cleared in three days, it’s clear that they didn’t aspire to create a game that was so difficult the people that wanted to learn about their lore would be incapable of seeing the final pieces to the puzzle, and with the fact we can’t fly until 77 well, you have to assume that they want you to take your time and soak in all the brilliance that is the story of this expansion.

Initially, as a pessimist, I was worried about this expansion. The zombie event was fun to me but they pulled it early because of whining and that made me fear Blizzard wouldn’t go full-tilt again, or they’d water down aspects of the expansion to keep people from returning to Mode QQ. Much to my relief, though, this game provides for me what TBC did not at all and Classic only did at one point of the game – excitement. It’s like for the first time we’re actually trapped inside of a war; a series of battles that range from zone to zone and lead up to the raid instances in a way that just embarrasses TBC. Who is the only person we saw build a story to their fight in TBC? Panthaleon. OoOoO, that was so inten… zzz… oh, sorry. Yeah, so intense.

You know that feeling you got when you walked into Ashlam Valorfist’s camp in Classic? Yeah, that same excitement that you’re done with the precursors and now about to really get into the game? Well, they made ALL of Wrath feel that way. From start to finish you’re IN it and your character isn’t just collecting 5 stones for someone to make a… thing that takes 5 stones. You’re helping the war effort and knocking Arthas down a peg or twelve.

Wrath of the Lich King has brought back the RPG feel to WoW, in my opinion. We land on the shores of Northrend and we’re already in the middle of a fight be you Horde or Alliance (I’ve played Alliance more, but the Fjord for Horde was under attack by the North Fleet). More importantly than that though, Blizzard is doing what I wanted them to do and forwarding the stories of the WoW-created characters into WotLK (and ending some. Alas, Abbendis, you were my first Blaumeux). I won’t spoil anything but quite a few characters that we knew from the past resurface in different places, and that alone is the kind of throwback you need for any epic story to truly be epic – heroes from all over coming together to make a final drive against an evil that has plagued the land for quite some time. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a Naaru stationed in Northrend, but I suppose Blizzard wanted to leave a lot of that for Outland (even though as far as I can tell, the threat there is finished. Illidan dead, Magtheridon dead, Kael’thas stopped, and the Gronn brought under control).

Beyond the fact we get an actual cinematic in the game (which is awesome), there are some quests that make me feel like I’m playing Secret of Mana or some other SNES classic. Hell, the music in Sholazar Basin + the creatures you find there are beyond nostalgic to me. I have a feeling that Blizzard saw the errors that came with TBC and rectified them in an amazing way. I haven’t felt out of the loop at any point in the game, and as Team Shaman burns through more content we’re pulled deeper into the story and lore that exists. Granted, I think Mistryza will pull out my heart and crush it if I mention Alexstraza one more time, but it’s not every day that you get to see the Dragon Queen standing around in mageweave, outside… in a coooold area. – I mean, yeah! It’s just very detailed and the amount of lore characters we are introduced to with Wrath is enough to make me feel like this could be WC4.

And that’s the truly amazing part (thanks to phasing), the story is MOVING forward! In TBC we had probably two story shifts… Kael’thas’ betrayal and Kael’thas death. In Wrath, as you complete content the areas change and you’re rewarded with knowing your addition to the game will have a lasting effect on your character.

Dalaran in and of itself, from the epic music that plays to the fact they set it up like an actual city is by far one of the most alluring things I have seen in this game, and while I cannot say that I don’t wish I could fly, at the same time I know it adds more to the city feel if everyone has to walk around instead of zipping about. Shattrath was just a bad time, bad bad time, and I’m glad that they didn’t remake the Exodar’s lack of navigability. It’s a nice change of pace, definitely.

Then of course, there are the Death Knights. As someone that has loved Scourge lore since forever it’s amazing that I didn’t level a DK first, but I wanted to wait so I could enjoy all the lore that came with it. I will say that the little bit I did play was fun, and having done some of Naxx long ago the people you see in the quest lines make them even better. I was hoping they’d throw in a story for the three Horsemen that weren’t Mograine, but you can only take so much from something I suppose. A book would be nice on them.

So, anyway, I suppose what is important in the end is that Blizzard has given the RPers a reason to stop saying “Blizz doesn’t care about us!” If you play this expansion and you don’t feel Blizzard thought about you, then you should just quit the game and try something else. The hope that this game presents is amazing, especially since they’ve even incorporated things have been asking for (Hello, Vehicles? What’s cooler than riding on the shoulder of a Titan’s weapon while slaughtering scourge, frost wyrms, and all kinds of baddies?), and makes you wonder what future expansions will hold. Guild housing? Cross factional communication? I admit, after Wrath I feel that I may just stick around and find out.

I have a confession.I, Hannelore, was wrong.

I had high expectations. Perhaps I expected too much.

We’d been through a lot, together. We’ve seen the Earth Princess, then jumped down a thousand feet to battle her pet alligator for shoes. We went on to battle Liches, from Razorfen to Scholomance. From Un’Goro Crater to Winterfall, from Tranquillen to Booty Bay, we have adventured and fought and clawed our way, at last, to Northrend.

And then you went and lost your damn mind.

Hunters. Seriously. Dubya-tee-effffuh. I stomp my foot at you in frustration. Stomp stomp! Both feet! Stuh-stomp!

/break for mana crystal

Right. Wooof. Yes. Alright, everyone else, this is for you too. I don’t want you to feel left out.

Quick note about working with other people.

Just because you survived, does not mean “it’s fine”. What is it with everyone suddenly getting attached to this phrase? It’s not fine! It’s not! Stop thinking it is! Your healer is not throwing a hissy fit just because they’re having to heal! I like healing. Healing is fun. If I tell you to stop doing something, and even go out of my way to try and explain why? Do not laugh at me!

The tank was doing great. Even the overzealous fury warrior was doing alright. The boomkin beside me was rocking the starfire and wrath and pewpew and whatever it is owlbeardeers do. The only one left was you, Mr Hunter.

I have felt guilty about my hunter hate in the past. I have tried to reconcile our differences. I shoot people in the back of the heads to make them feel better. You shoot them in the face to make them feel nothing. We’re still shooting people, this should be a common interest! “I like shooting people.” “Hey me too!” “I baked cookies!” “I love cookies!” And then there is smooching or something, I dunno.

But you! YOU. Grrr! You are like the poster-child for the people that Thrall sent north just to get you out of the genepool. “Maybe if they become a zombie, they won’t breed…” I’m sure there was an entire, late night meeting about this. “We need strong warriors to go north and fight the Lich King!” “Hm, we could also do with a few less nubtards, Thrall.” “Good point, send them along too.” And then they ate lizards or whatever it is orcs snack on while discussing such deep concepts. Grody.

I guess what I’m saying is – how have you survived?! How did you survive puberty? Grade school? Birth?

Nnngh!

/break for mana crystal

Alright… Alright… Um. Oh, right. It’s not so bad. The rest of the little group was fine. Maybe they were a little soft-hearted, but people always seem to have a bleeding heart for those ‘special children’. The sin’dorei hide them in the back room and allow them to be productive members of society by making … things. I don’t know. What is this, an ash tray? Flower pot? Both? Stupid children…

So after I told you for the third time that volley was a bad idea when we were having trouble keeping agro on one person, and we wiped twice due to the complete chaos of all those monsters running everywhere – I let you die. No one else died. No one else got under 50% health or something. Do you know what you did? Volley. Before the tank even got there. And you kept doing the volley thing. Pewpewpewpew! Your dying words were “Anyone have a damage chart? Bleurrrgh!” I don’t know how to spell that last part. Use your imagination. Orcs die funny.

The fury warrior felt bad for you, said it was her fault, even gave you money for your repair bill after I resurrected your hoary corpse! Grrr. And then you did it again! Volley! Then when the arrows stopped falling … you must have noticed there were still badguys moving around, so – Volley!

What is wrong with your head thing!?

/break for mana crystal

I um…can quit any time I want to…shut up. Shut UP.

Why am I in northrend with people that act like they are new to carrying weapons? How desperate is Thrall?

…Or does he just secretly hate me…

I bet it’s that Jaina wench. I’ve said some unfriendly things about her, and there are rumors that she and Thrall… Hm.

Oh, you people are still here. Well then. Have you noticed anyone apparently losing their mind on the Zeppelin ride north? LOOKY LOOKY I HAVE A BOW!! LAWL.

/break for mana crystal

These little Blizzard bears are sooooooo soft…yes you are. You’re a soft little bear. Soft – little – zzzz….

Setting the Scene

Vonya’s still not quite level 74.

When she entered Northrend, she was wearing mainly badge gear, with a smattering of Zul’Aman and Kara pieces, augmented with a few five-man bits and the shoulders from Gruul.

She was well geared, but certainly not geared out of BC content.

Upgrades vs Sidegrades

As we quest and instance in Northrend, I am still not seeing what I would traditionally term “upgrades”. 

I AM seeing quite a few things that I might call “sidegrades”. Gear that is similar to what I’m currently wearing, with boosts to some stat or another but with some drops in a few other stats.

I’ve been hemming and hawing, dancing from hoof to hoof, trying to decide whether to take the sidegrades. It’s an especially disconcerting decision because in almost every case, I’m looking at significant stam and int boosts with a drop in spellpower and some drop in mana regen.

Ten spellpower here, eight spellpower there, another fifteen spellpower there…it all adds up, and the numbers I’m seeing would make BC-Vonya cringe.

Northrend

But that was BC-Vonya. Northrend is a brand new game. Stats are weighted differently, talent changes mean that traditional strategies are, in some cases (such as downranking) completely thrown out the window.

It’s new. Fresh.

I know that if I just hold off, I’ll start seeing geniuine upgrades and not just sidegrades. The difference will be clear instead of muddy – the benefit obvious without a whole lot of face-squnching and hurried mental math to try and weigh the benefits against the losses.

But I have made a decision, and I thought I’d share it with you.

The Decision

I’m taking the sidegrades.

I’m not taking anything that’s obviously a downgrade, but I’m taking a lot of very shady, iffy sidegrades. From now on, if I spend more than a minute trying to decide whether the Northrend gear is better for me than my Outland gear, I’m going to take the new gear.

Why?

New Game

Partially because of what I said earlier – it’s a new game. The weights are different, the talent changes still have my head spinning, and this gear was developed specifically for Northrend content.

My old gear was developed for Burning Crusade content.

Does that mean the new gear is intrinsically better? No, not necessarily. But if Blizz is throwing items with 20+ more stam on them, and 8 less spellpower, maybe they’re trying to tell me to expect a lot of AOE damage. Maybe they’re telling me that I’ll need my mana pool boosted, with that 15+ int upgrade, even though I lose the MP5 I had on the previous gear.

Blizz would probably be the first to tell you that they aren’t perfect, they don’t know it all.

But they’re practically shouting this to me, and I am going to listen. I will trade, cringing and unhappy, my Outland gear for the new Northrend stuff, and put my character in Blizzard’s hands. 

I’m hoping they don’t drop me.

Elitist

The other reason is a bit more…egotistical of me.

Maybe this gear really is a downgrade. Maybe my old, awesome, shiny, fabulous, glittering gear is better than this stuff.

…what are other priests out there using, kleenex? Hell no! They’re using THIS gear! This gear, that I’m so torn about turning to, they’re gobbling up like the true upgrades they really are.

And then they’re turning around and healing the pants off these instances I’m running.

So what, I’m too good for the gear that other priests are using? Just because I managed to hit more end-game content than they did in BC? 

Why should any of you listen to me prattle on about how to heal in Northrend if I’m not even wearing Northrend gear?!

That’s like a wealthy housewife telling you to save money by firing one of your extra gardeners. Gee, thanks, that’s helpful. Now how about some advice from someone who actually knows what it’s like to pinch some pennies?

How about some advice from a priest who’s doing the same desperate dancing with the Five Second Rule that you are?

Summary

I’m taking the side grades. And I’m going to heal those instances, heal those raids, learn the new rules of this class, and I am going to ROCK at it.

Why? Because priests are the best healing class in this game.

That’s a pretty opinionated statement, but I’m a pretty opinionated person, and when I say it, it’s absolutely true. There might be one or two other healing blogs out there that would disagree, but if Phaelia from Resto4Lifewere to say that druids were the best healing class in the game, I’d nod and raise my glass, one healer to another.

Is my decision the right one? Who knows? It’s the right one for me, I know that. Whether or not it’s the right one for you is your call.

So what about you guys? How are you approaching the gear in Northrend?

I keep promising to post and I keep failing. I blame myself for not having just stuck with what I should have stuck with the whole time.

Stuck with what you ask? My Rogue. It’s the only class I never tire of. I can play for days on end without even going “man I wonder what this other class is like”. It’s the class that I feel at home on, I just know how to do what and why and when and feel I do so pretty well.

If I do say so.

I was running around on a Ret Paladin before the expansion playing Mana Battery again. The first weeks of OP were fun but got boring fast and felt like it took virtually no skill to play in PvE content, again this is my personal feeling. Oh, I know not everyone will agree with that, but when your rotation is “First Come, First Serve” it seems a little bit silly. (FCFS means as soon as an ability comes off cooldown you use it.) And if you’ve taken offense to that I’m sorry just remember it’s my opinion, and not anyone elses. People were kind enough to let me switch back to my Rogue. For that I’m grateful.

I’ll be focusing more and more on the Rogue, trying to find that niche of a money making scheme in Northrend. Much like the days of Mana Tombs in Buring Crusade or further back yet farming the Arcanite Reaper Pattern in Blackrock Spire in the Vanilla WoW days…Oh yes I will makes me some cash!

Last time I found the cash cow (Mana Tombs) before I even stumbled across the idea of farming on the internet (yay me!). While everyone else was doing the Mechanar Chest Farming which Blizzard eventually fixed, I was in Mana Tombs having a blast. Once I find the new cash cow, I’ll be sure to share. And from the taste of the expansion so far, these past 6 days, it looks like we’ll need it.

Of the dailies I have seen or bothered to do this far, the max gold I’ve seen rewarded is 4g and 40s. Even the old Outland dalies have been fixed to that amount. Even the lovely “Gather Nether Residue” I could do via mining nodes which gave 18g and some odd silver has been removed completly from what I can tell. Maybe it’s bugged?

I dropped my Rogues Leatherworking in favor of Skinning. At first this was to make some cash off the AH, but it turned into funding my guilds Off Tank’s Leatherworking. He’s of course sharing the benifits with me and often tells me how awesome I am. I’ve also been dontating all my ore to fund Ego’s Jewelcrafting as she doesn’t have a miner either and threatened me with doom if I didn’t do it.(Mostly kidding, but not really. No kidding, but seriously. I need HALP, she’s after my SOUL!.)

I am now kicking myself in my ass for not doing my dailies on all 3 of my 70s like a diligent person and having close to 20,000g by the time expansion hit. While it would have been nice, I just didn’t feel like doing it at the time. To busy hanging out and goofing of to bother. Now I know I’m only 74 and things may change at level 80, but I haven’t seen anything about it. We shall see. Gold has never really been a problem for me, but I usually have a plot already started by now.

I will add that I have been mining Thorium in my free time. Seems as if a lot of people need the ore and are more than happy to pay the 40g a stack on the AH. And until they stop doing so I will gladly go to Silithus in my free time and continue to supply. Pro-Tip!:if you have a miner and are bored or leveling with friends and don’t wish to get to far ahead or just need the cash for those freaking expensive skills, go bum around in Silithus for a while. Assuming your server is like mine and Thorium is the most expensive ore on the AH, regardless it will sell.

My Rogue is 74 and as to my first impressions about the expansion? It sure is pretty. I can “see” why they didn’t want us flying past everything untill later in the levels, cause you’d miss a lot of cool looking stuff. And man oh man some of those instances are just stellar. My personal favorite, going of the whole instance would prolly be Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. If I was just to pick a room it would have to be where you fight Grand Magus Telestra in The Nexus. All those Runes are sooo cool.

I give mad props to the Art Team this time around, I actually spend time looking at my surroundings rather then running past them at top speed. The armor so far has some pretty cool models but as usual soooo many of the new models are reused over and over agian. I know it’s not easy to make everything unique but they could mix it up a little bit.

So far I’m enjoying this expansion. I hope everyone else is too.

See ya next week.

I promise otherwise Ego has permission to “punish” me.

P.S. – Kwane pointed out all Rogues should be steller dancers as all we ever do is count “One, Two, Three. Four, Five, Finisher.” And for this I hate him, mostly because I can’t argue agianst it.

Tuesday again, eh?

I suppose I could do an insightful look at talent points (eGADs don’t look at my current spec. I’m…uh…experimenting. And by ‘experimenting’, I mean ‘too lazy to do the research yet’.).

Maybe I could do a comparison of holy versus disc healing? How holy will still play footsies with the FSR, but disc will scorn spirit on gear?

Or maybe I could do an in-depth review of stats at higher levels! I could discuss how spirit is getting nerfed but isn’t useless by a long shot. Or how int is actually one of our major regen stats now if we can depend on replenishment in our raids?

Nope.

No, today, I am going to talk about yarn balls.

In Dalaran, there is a little building with a bunch of new mounts displayed outside. It’s a pet store. Go inside and talk to the little gnome who runs the joint. She sells stuff for your vanity pets. Something to make it sparkle, something to make it happy (complete with little heart bubble of joy), a leash that’s more irritating than not….

….and yarn balls.

That’s right.

You can play fetch with your vanity pets.

And let me be the first to say that the smolderweb spider hatchling pet looks incredibly adorable chasing after a ball of yarn and bringing it back to you in its mandibles. All it’s missing is a cute little jump and spin excitement combo.

…what? There’ll be plenty of time for insightful and useful posts on playing a healing priest. Later. For now, I’m still giddy over the sea cows. And the walrus people. And my obsession with getting a little baby penguin pet. Have you SEEN the anvils for blacksmithing in the walrus villages? They look like sushi! They ride turtles! WE ride turtles – boats back and forth from their villages. Their moustaches twitch when they’re preparing to fight.

I swear, that entire race and faction was created just for me. Naxx will have to wait. There are walruses to save!!

(Right, so maybe the quest where you toss wolvar puppies into a sack and hand them over every day is a smiiiiiidge on the creepy side. And maybe killing the leader of the wolvar and then bathing in his blood is closer to psychotic than adorable. Seriously. That stain’s never going to come out of my robe. Just think of the penguin, just think of the penguin….)

I have been busy, my lovelies, but not so busy that I’ve forgotten about your desperate need to be educated and enlightened by the fruits of my hand.  This week has been enlightening for me, as well, as some things have been made clear to me that they aren’t exactly sharing in Silvermoon.  So much for that ‘promised land’ thing they’ve been spouting.  Prince whatshisname apparently messed up somewhere along the lines and isn’t quite the hero we’ve been led to believe.

Oh well, I’ll spare you my shattered rosey glasses view on Outland.  Instead, lets discuss our new friends, recently turned traitor again.  See, they turned traitor by joining the Scourge and getting all these nifty powers.  Then they turned traitor again by giving the Scourge the finger and coming back to us.  I’m sure they will be very trustworthy from here on…

Anyway.

I have a hypothesis.(That means “i c wut u did thar”)

I believe every rouge, loladin, fury warrior, and those enhancement shamans and mages that were always ticked off whenever a warlock beat them on the meters, all got together and rolled death knights.

In the spirit of continuing to differentiate between those people and the ones that have evolved beyond slime mold into a player that learns about the class and is willing to work in a group situation, we shall now be calling them DoucheKnights.

DoucheKnights can tank, no matter what tree the majority of their talent points are invested in. From experience, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter if the points are mostly in ice, blood, or undead – they can tank. Just as the druids’ feral tree is not ‘just’ cat, or ‘just’ bear, it depends on where the points are placed within that tree; so too are the trees of the new hero class.

The problem is how LONG they can tank.

DK’s are inherently squishier than warriors or bears or paladins. In their defense, they have a lot of abilities that heal themselves through damage. In a regular, non-spike fight, a DK could get by with no external healing. It is possible, as was called out many times in general chat across Hellfire Peninsula, that a group of 5 DKs could do fine through an instance. No healer needed, no healer wanted. Who wants someone in your party that can’t take hits when everyone else is focused on one target? Who wants to wait for mana after that last battle knocked everyone down to about 20% health? And no one wants to hear some blood elf priestess in the back going “Will you f-ers decide which one of you is going to f-ing tank?!”

“lawl were all tanks”

I don’t know much about the names of DK titles. Most of the DKs I worked with were not the communicating type. There was a lot of whining about needing a better weapon, but otherwise the conversations revolved around arguments about which tree was ‘good for tanking’ (see above). Otherwise, they were telling me not to worry about it when I told them to wait for mana. I imagine this allegory to my situation.

“Excuse me, sir, but your horse just stepped on my head.”
“Oh don’t worry about it, he is fine!”

Whatever the names of the spells, I could easily tell which groups held one or more DoucheKnights. They were the ones making liberal use of what I came to call “Yank and Spank”. This is some bizarre purple beam which shoots out, grabs the monster by the face, and yanks them through the air towards the knight for spankies. This is a wonderful spell to force a caster into melee range. This is a terrible spell when used by the knight who just woke up from a coma, standing beside me, and yanks a monster away from the group being beaten by the tank far ahead of us. Suddenly I have two tanks. Now another one does the same trick, and I have three tanks.

There are now three knights, spread out from each other, fighting one or two monsters. When called on it?

“I was helping CC that mob. I saw DK#1 taking damage. Geeze, it’s fine.”

Fine indeed. Rofl, good sir, rofl.

Another fine ability is the “I’m bored, lets make some friends” ability. It comes in the shape of a gargoyle. Every time this ability is used, some friendly gargoyle comes out of nowhere and proceeds to hover above us and shoot things. It is fairly epic, and I’m sure it is very fun for the knight who wields such power. Inevitably, however, things die. The gargoyle, lonely and looking for something else to play with, lazily wafts away on the breeze.

I have watched this thing go through walls, ceilings, and all-girl school dorms overseen by massive women with more testosterone than Grom Hellscream. These are things that would be impenetrable by mere mortals. Not only do these gargoyles easily slip through these barriers, but they find friends, then tell them where to find me and my party.

And then there is death. Always, death. In the form of nearly every monster in the dungeon, piled up on top of each other, and charging around the corner as though Jaina Proudmoore had just announced her debut strip tease right behind us. It is an ugly sight. I have seen it in my sleep…

Anyway.

DoucheKnights – all the people that cried when they weren’t top of the damage meter, and were tired of having to constantly wait for a tank, and were irritated by a pushy healer, now have all the tools available that allow them to completely ignore any of the things previously holding them back. If the tank is taking too long, bam, now DoucheKnight gets to tank! Healer is up to 30% mana, that should be enough, BAM, DoucheKnight is tanking. Oh no, you’re number 2 in the dps meter! BAM, bring in more mobs so your AOE racks up the points!

And then when BAM everyone is dead, all four DoucheKnights have to go do something else while the priestess runs her ghostly tush off to get back to the dungeon.

“rez plz”

/stab

Yes, well. At any rate. DeathKnights! Woo. At least some of you backstabbing, weak hearted, scourge-loving miscreants are useful for something. I’ve reached level 66 in the past week by being the one NON scourge-lover in the party. Questing is useless, because nothing out there survives long enough for me to get credit for the kill, because eight doucheknights just jumped on it. So all the dungeons got to see my pretty face, twisted in rage and impotent hate at the back of my party members. At least the guards in Orgrimmar have apples to throw. I should have joined the beer of the month club, just so I’d have a bottle every once in a while…

Alright alright, not all DeathKnights are DoucheKnights. Some made healing a joy, and it was a cinch even through places I’d never visited before. I’d get agro, and before I had a chance to fade, the thing would get yank-an-spanked. I still had to fade a lot, simply because of the nature of how squishy they are, and the amount of big heals I kept having to throw. Prayer of Healing always gets a workout when everyone else is a DK.

So. Quick recap.

Things I learned this week:

There are way too many doucheknights.
Healing in dungeons is fun again.
All three DK trees can be used for tanking.
DKs are squishy tanks.
I hate proximity bombs and the people that run over them after a fight.
Leveling up tailoring really really sucks when you’re starting from scratch.
Leveling up herbalism is very relaxing, which is a nice counter.
There are way too many doucheknights.

Your Questions!

Khol asks: I bring you an offering of burnt grain!
– I accept.

Weta wonders: Why do people still want 20 slot bags?
– Because they, and the larger ones, are still blasted expensive, and will be for months.  Big bags hold MORE STUFF and MORE STUFF is always better than less.

Tomo ponders the worth of the discipline tree.
– I have the stamina and mana to survive in a pug, even when things are nuts.  My favorite part is the completely worthless spell at the very end.  Didn’t a spell by this name use to do something useful?  Like stun or interrupt a target?  What the crap is this weak channeled orc poo spell doing in my discipline tree?

Axethrower is still curious about BRD.
– About 3 hours.  It’s a hellacious dungeon that, according to legend, was once going to have wings like the Monastery.  Then the dwarves got lazy and it’s one big, long, slogfest of dwarf killing.  Don’t wipe.

Phaedor asks: Why are some people so poor?
– Some people are poor and fat, and walking is good for them.  The rest of us require speed to go with our svelte appearance, and hot girls on fast rides are better than scrubs walking from The Great Lift to Gadgetzan.  If you feel bad, start a fund for ugly girls who walk too much.  Or something.  Sheesh, what kinds of questions were these?!

I know it’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, but this isn’t a real post anyway, it’s more of a compilation of impressions from my first day in the expansion.

1. Penguins on ice floes! *squee*
2. Holy crap, could the boats be any slower?
3. Comparing the population of players at the Menethil destination versus the Stormwind destination is like comparing the mall in February to the mall in December. If you’re Alliance, I highly recommend taking the boat from Menethil.
4. I did not get to do the Nexus instance – we spent too much time fighting people for mobs needed for the prereq quests on that side. Seriously, random male belf warlock, was it necessary to come up on our full group, set your pet on aggressive, and start AOEing the spawn point? Seriously? Your mother would be ashamed.
5. I am sadly not going to be getting one of the new wolves on my hunter. Their front legs look…odd.
6. I LOVE the mage-hunter frost demon dogs. Very cool.
7. Dragons as flight paths? Awesome.
8. For anyone who is a little grumpy about how they don’t have superawesome gear that’s going to last forever, let me be the first person to debunk that. Vonya has TWO upgrades already – a ring and (shocking, to me) a hat. The ring was from an instance quest turnin and the hat was a drop from the dual-boss in Utgarde Keep. The hat I was wearing was from Zul’Aman and was fully gemmed and enchanted. Granted, the new one looks like something a whip-weilding prison guard might wear, but it’s a definite upgrade. (The old one looked like I was being attacked by a dislexic face-hugger, so I can’t complain too much about a bit of bondage gear) And I’ve had more than one quest reward that was pretty gosh darned close to what I was wearing already.
9. For tips on healing Utgarde Keep, check out GLDC’s Guide. I used it. It works.  Notes from healing it myself would be – tell your tank to pull a bunch or make sure you’ve got your damage spells handy. It’s boring if you pull it one group at a time. Also, your meleers are going to HATE the last boss. He does a series of AOEs, and one of them is almost a guaranteed death for anyone nearby. It has a long cast time, but it’s still distressingly easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ranged players don’t need to worry. Ah, Blizz loves the meleers.
10. Check out my quick post from yesterday for what I believe to be the first time you can see the Lich King. If it weren’t so gosh-darned well done, I’d be tempted to shout “Aha! I caught you monologuing!”
11. Did I mention the penguins yet? Egads, that much cute shouldn’t be allowed.
12. The frost whelpling from the collector’s edition is giant. And by “giant”, I mean that mass-wise, he’s bigger than Vonya. If you rolled her up into a ball, she’d be smaller than him. (No, he’s not mine, but a guildie did get him. Very cute, in an “I can see your ribcage” sorta way.
13. It’s beautiful. So much attention to detail, the new models look fantastic, the world is gorgeous (and I need to get my zoom in and out fixed so I can start taking screenshots again). They really and truly did a fantastic job on it. Remember walking into Hellfire Peninsula and going “ugh, this is nasty” and then hitting Zangarmarsh and feeling like you’d been given a gift? Northrend is a gift from the start.
14. Seriously though, fix the boats. Add another boat on the rotation if needs be. Sightseeing is all well and good the first time, but I’m having serious issues trying to swap between Northrend and Classic continents. And by ‘serious issues’, I mean falling asleep waiting. Get me some kind of albatross flight path that can just fly it. A portal. Anything, so long as this fifteen minute wait stuff is curtailed. (Yes, yes, I know Dalaran will have portals. I want my fix NOW! *stomps hoof*)
15. PENGUINS!

In Valgarde (reachable via Menethil Harbor) there is a quest to use an incense burner and enter the spirit world to overhear some ancient spirits talking.

I recommend completing that, and then committing suicide.

Out in the big central area, you’ll find…The Lich King.

He grabs you, slaps you in a bubble, then monologues fabulously and kills you.

It’s worth dying, just to watch him wax poetic about killing you.

I never could get the hang of Thursdays…

Ho-hum, no big deal, right?

Oh, right, there’s that…*waves hand vaguely*…expansion. thingy.

…

Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in Northrend by now?

Tech Support

On a side note, you know you’ve got the right web hosting company when you put in a ticket about your site being down and the tech that responds asks you why you’re watching your site when you should be out getting the WOTLK expansion!!

*waves to SJ, Tech Support Extraordinaire*

That’s What You Call A Post?

I do not know if there will be a “real” post later today or not. If there is, it may just be a long series of incomprehensible squees and flailing. You know…assuming the servers are up, which is about a fifty/fifty chance at this point, I know. (Edit : Zasp very kindly informed me that the servers are stable and he’s been having a lot of fun playing. *sticks her tongue out at him and blows a raspberry*)

Hopefully I will come home to a shiny, perfectly patched computer with the login screen already up.

Looking Forward

There is a possibility that our guild will be recruiting VERY LIGHTLY moving forward in the expansion. We are a small guild, we will stay a small guild, we are picky, egotistical, demanding, crude, and we’re damn good at what we do. Delicate flowers need not apply. This is NOT a call for applications (because we’re going to be playing the expansion and so should you be!) but it IS a notification that the call may come in the next month or so. Think about whether or not you might be interested. It’s not for everyone – it’s not even for most people.

Still Here?

That probably means you, like me, don’t have the expansion in front of you right now. You have my sympathy.

If only it weren’t November…

If only it weren’t NaNoWriMo…

I would write a post answering Tomo’s excellent emails regarding what the new “no stacking” rules will do to the viability of the Divine Spirit buff. I’d give examples of the other spells that buff spell power, and show which ones are going to overwrite the DS buff. I’d give my opinion on how the dual speccing will lead to some priests speccing just for DS, and then swapping into a deep holy build for actual healing.

Or Tomo’s OTHER excellent email, wanting to discuss the details of the new talent trees, and the viability for certain builds depending on situation. I’d finish the post I started on how awesome Serendipity is as a Holy talent and why I believe it’s one of the best new priest talents available.

I’d give a shout out to the author of the Spot the Cat and Cuddles the Ravager Saga emails that I’ve been getting, because I’ve been incredibly amused by every single one of them even though I don’t have time to properly respond to them.

I’d talk about preparing for Wrath, making sure people knew that there were TWO starting zones – one accessible from Stormwind and one from Menethil (you’ll have to talk to someone else for the horde starters, but I’m guessing there’s one from Orgrimmar and one from Undercity) and how the one from Menethil will probably be less populated than the Stormwind one.

I’d talk about how excited I am to start new five mans, and how I’m at least a little bit disappointed that I’ll miss out on the fun of getting all new gear right off the bat (and how I realize that if the only thing I have to QQ about is that my current gear is too shiny, I should just shut up and play).

I’d talk about how Hanners has been changing the alt text on the sidebar image every week and nobody’s noticed yet.

I’d talk about rhinos and how irritating I think the knockback will be for me as a player, but how I’m going to try it anyway. I’d talk about how much I hate the gorilla butt-scratching animation. I’d talk about how I want them to put the flying vanity pets back at a higher flight path so my moth isn’t skittering willy-nilly across the floor like a slowly exploding cockroach.

BUT

But it IS November, and it is NaNoWriMo, and I don’t have time to do the research necessary for those posts. Instead, you get a big long list of post topics that I may or may not ever get around to writing, and I’m going to go try and knock out a few more sprints with Bre from GLDC to get my NaNoWriMo word count up.