Last night, West Kingdom guild night, some of my guild mates offered to run a couple of instances with the guild’s lowbies (level ~20). Just as we were starting two of the other lowbies had to log off.. so it was just me Tatia (level ~18), Bankenstein (warrior level ~17) and Klee (hunter level 44).
We ran through Blackfathom Deeps and then Deadmines. Mostly I concentrated on healing.. getting my occational plink in when Klee pulled a single mob out of a group for the lowbies to play with. Klee died once. He ran out of sight while body aggro-ing a bunch of mobs and I couldn’t get to him fast enough to heal him. On Ventrillo Klee said that he was used to clearing that instance with a much higher toon. I did get to demonstrate my rad skillz at rezz. **
** On a mostly unrelated topic.. what pronoun should you use when refering to a male person playing female toon?
“Klee ran out of sight. She died before I could heal her. On Ventrillo Klee said that he was used to playing a much higher level toon” It just sounds weird. Even though it’s more technically correct.
Tatia picked up [item]Smite’s Mighty Hammer[/item], [Tortoise Armor], [Cape of the Brotherhood], [Lavishly Jeweled Ring], [item]Raider’s Boots[/item] of the Bear(+3 Stamina, +3 Strength), [Chausses of Westfall] and various other greens. I also picked up various bling for my family of lowbies. They’re all getting presents in the mail. By the end of the night I’d dinged 20 1/2. It was a very good run.
It seems to me.. once you finish the “learn the Furlbog’s language” totem questline in Draenei-land.. you really should have “Furlbog 300/300″ listed under your language skills. It may never be used again. But it would be a fun reminder of what I view as the most entertaining quest I’ve done in the game.
Tatia dinged 14 last night with 11 total hours of play.
I completed the Draenei Paladin quest. Summary: Go visit Jol in Exodar. Jol give you a book. Read the book. Talk to Jol again. Jol give you a resurrection device. You run to the Bristlethorn village just inside of Bloodmyst Isle and resurrect a Juvenile Stillpine Furlbog. Juvenile Stillpine Furlbog jumps to his feet and says “I run now” (I sorta wonder if I’d've been able to understand him if I hadn’t finished the Furlbog language quests the night before). Return to Jol and turn in quest. Jol gives you the ability to resurrect.
It was a quest.. and it was less disturbing than the Blood Elf Paladin quest (light a fire, kill a guy, steal life energies from a captive Naaru *!!*, use energies to resurrect the elf you killed (who is now conveniently in a nearby Inn)) but netted the same results.
Yesterday was all solo questing. This meant that I actually had a chance to hit the critters and use seals/judgements. I had a “swift slap to forehead” moment when I realized I could judge Seal of Righteousness multiple times in a fight without losing the “Judgement of the Crusader” debuff on the mob. For some reason I’d gotten it in my head that if I judged the scond seal I’d loose the debuff *sigh*.
Fight sequence:
Cast Seal of the Crusader - Attack - cast Judgement (at this point the mob has the judgement of the crusader debuff. This increases all holy damage to the mob. The debuff lasts 10 seconds but renews everytime you hit them)
cast Seal of Righteousness (now all my attacks generate holy damage in addition to my white damage and the debuff adds to the holy damage)
At this point, before my “swift slap to forehead” moment, I would stand toe-to-toe with them and beat on them until Seal of Righteousness ran out.. then recast Seal of Righteousness.
New plan:
When cooldown for Judgement runs out, cast Judgement (this causes Judgement of Righteousness which causes an additional burst of holy damage)(so mob takes damage from -this- holy damage AND from the debuff that’s still on them)
cast Seal of Righteousness, beat on mobs and wait for Judgement to cool down again.
After I figured that out fights got a little shorter.
I also figured out that you can “Lay on Hands” to yourself while running away. Being out of mana is ok if it means that you can stay alive long enough to run away from the mobs.
The day before I started my Paladin I was chatting with a guildie on Ventrillo and I mentioned that I had decided to make a “main” Draenei Paladin. He paused for a moment and then asked “Why Draenei? Why not Dwarf or Human?”
Now I admit my reason for not doing a dwarf is all vanity. I don’t find the dwarf females attractive.. and if I’ve got to run around staring at something’s ass for the next few months I’d rather find that ass pretty darn lovely.
The reason for not being human though is more tied to my enjoyment of the game. Warcraft is a fantasy. It’s about the fantastical. Humans are not fantastical. They’re humans. Been there, seen that. So although human’s have a nice ass… I wanted the fantastic.
Guildie listened to my explaination.. and then he and another (male) guildie tried to convince me that if only for the end-game, I should roll a human instead. In their opinion, the faction bonus that humans get far outweighs the aesthetics.
I considered their words.. and then made a Draenei. From my understanding, faction is more of an end-end-game thing. Since my goal is to achieve level 58+ and start playing in Outlands, I don’t think faction figures into it. It may be that after I get into Outland’s I’ll wish I would have gone with the human.. but future pain/suffering does not disuade me from my current fantastical and aesthetic dream. And even with a tail, Draenei gals have a nice ass.
Finally I started my new “Main”. Following the first part of this guide: 1-20-Draenei
I dinged 6 in under 2 hours (give or take the 20 minutes I futzed with macros and the 10 minutes futzing with screen shots). Tatia is currently a level 6 1/2 Paladin hearthed at Azure Watch.
Loving the Paladin, though I find that I miss the Blood Elf’s Mana Tap. I’m sure I’ll get over it.
My intention last night was to create my new Draenei Paladin and play her up as far as I could get her in one night. Instead when I arrived home Fiancee said that a couple of the guildies were going to be running through level 20-ish quests and that I should join them with Tikataka (24 Rogue at the time).
So I toddled off to Menethil Harbor and started on the quests there. We had two warlocks, a paladin and myself, a rogue. In level we ranged from 22-24. We killed Croc’s, Orcs, Gnolls, Oozes, Murlocs (I hate Murlocs), Raptors and some sort of stealthed bog timberling. It was a fun night. The most fun I’ve had at a West Kingdom guild night since I started playing Warcraft.
I made two levels and was able to train to the next level in first aid, herbalism, skinning, and cooking. I was the only person actively skinning in the group so I got tons of leather and hides. Very welcome for my Leatherworker.
When I started playing warcraft Fiancee said “It’ll be so fun. I’ll start a new character and we can level them together.” Unfortunately I started playing about a month after BC.. and Fiancee is madly trying to level his main to play in outlands.. or farming for gold to buy his flying mount.. or grinding for rep.. or exploring all the wizbang cool stuff in the Outlands. I don’t blame him.. I’m going through all of the been-there, done-that newbie stuff. It’s kinda boring if you’ve already done it 3-4 times with your own newbies. But for now, for me, it’s all new and very cool. So I’m not mad at him for not wanting to play with me.
Last night I mentioned to him that “West Kingdom” guild nights are pretty boring for me. I’m level 14-25.. and the West Kingdom guild are all 58+. So on WK guild night I go off and solo level but with the added bonus of listening to them chat about the high level stuff they’re doing.. and the ability to click on links to weapons I won’t be high enough level to use for a long while.
Since it is all new to me.. and I’m enjoying it, I’m taking my own sweet time. I’m reading the flavor text and trying to follow along with the story. I’ve also refused all offers to “drag me through an instance” for gear or for leveling. Also, harboring a family of lowbies isn’t going to bring me to 58+ in the next six months.
I really do want to play with him and WK guild. So I think I’m going to concentrate on a single toon and call it my “main”.
The problem is.. I like all my characters in general.. but the only character I’m loving is my BE Paladins. Not being squishy, being able to heal, being able to resurrect, being able to hit hard. All these benefits far outweigh the draw back of not being able to fire at range. So I’m starting a new Draenei paladin (fiancee will probably cringe at me) and playing this character swiftly up to 58+.
Guild night number three was much less bumpy than guild night number two. For the most part my mapping of quests worked out well, at least for my group. Because we have six players.. and the biggest party can only be 5 we broke the guild up into two groups of three. These groups were affectionately dubbed the “Blueberry” group (since they had the warlock) and the “Bear” group (since we had the hunter with a bear). Because we were in separate groups it made sense to split up and work on different quests. This was a good plan except that I hadn’t given the “where to go, what to do” list to anyone on the other group. I’ll have to do better next week.
At six players Bawk Bawk was at a disadvantage. Two groups of 3 aren’t as wonderful as two groups of five. Class-wise we lacked a warrior or a druid since Blood elves can’t be those classes.
Knowing this was the case I invited James to start playing with us. He agreed, and when he heard we lacked a warrior, he rolled up a Tauren Warrior. I also invited my brother and a friend from high school, Gina, to join us. They made a Blood Elf Priest and a Blood Elf Warlock respectively. So now we are at 9 players. The three new additions say they’ll try to level up to 16 by next week.
Ghostlands quests have been fairly predictable. Mostly they’re “kill X number of Y creatures” or “retrieve Z number of A item from the corpses of Y” pretty easy and requiring little thought. I still hate murlocs. *sigh* I wonder if there are murlocs in Outlands?
Does anyone actually use WoW mail as a way to exchange letters? I mean written notes of any importance?
I’ve received gold, goods and notes from the Auction House.. but I don’t think I’ve actually received a honest to goodness, actually-full-of-content letter.
Wait, no, the only letter I’ve rec’d has been from NPCs as parts of quests.
I sent a letter once.. part of an Act of Randomness. When I was level 10 I sent a not-so-bad piece of armor to a level 2 (figuring that after an hour in the mail they’d get it around level 5-8). With this I sent a note telling them that it was a Random Act of Randomness.. and that they were welcome to use, give away, pass on, or sell the included armor bit.
Two days later I got the note and the armor bit back. They didn’t open it. They just returned it. Kind of a let down.
Speed skilling is for the birds. Or at least it is when you’re speed skilling a lowbie. Obliette started the night at level 10 with alchemy up to 130. A quick visit to the trainer showed that she can’t train to the next level of Alchemy until she hits level 20. Ugh.
First things first she completed her druid bear-form quest (which actually dragged her off to Darkshore). “Run off to this cave east of town that’s guarded by moonkins. Sprinkle dust on the crystal in the cave. Kill Lunaclaw, named summoned moonkin, and then come back here”. Cave guarded by level 12&13 moonkins. Me being level 10. Ugh. The 12s I could do.. but the 13 kicked my butt. After it killed me the first time I took a couple of minutes to examine the situation. It turned out I could circle around to the side of the cave entrance and bypass the level 13 moonkin so I only had to deal with one level 12. Killed him, sprinkling the dust, killed Lunaclaw and Shazam! All set to go. Hopped a hippogryph back to Darnassus and turned in the bear quest.
Ok.. I’m trying not to be vain here (at least with my night elf) but OMG the druidic bear form is U G L Y! Sort of a cross between a bear and a half-way-changed-to- night-elf-werewolf (though I guess that would be werebear). *shudder* Gathering herbs is kinda funny though.. the digging bear makes me laugh everytime.
So off to cut a wide bloody swath in the Teldrassil landscape on my path to level 20.
Bear form was.. interesting. Can’t cast buffs.. can’t heal self.. can do rage-related things. I’ve never played anything with rage.. so this was new to me. After a swift night of questing I’ve cleared all of the quests for Teldrassil and dinged 13. The only quests I have now are shepherding me to Darkshore.
**
Ok.. I’m trying not to be vain here (at least with my night elf) but OMG the druidic bear form is U G L Y! Sort of a cross between a bear and a half-way-changed-to- night-elf-werewolf (though I guess that would be werebear). *shudder* Gathering herbs is kinda funny though.. the digging bear makes me laugh everytime.
