It never fails. When I start playing an MMO I typically always role the same types of characters. Healers, or support classes. This would be why I have a plethora of healers on EQ2, EQ, LotRo, and yes, even WoW (80 priest). As it would happen though I learned an important lesson this week. It’s ok NOT to play your ‘usual’ class in a game. When I was playing WoW as my priest I was constantly stressed. I found healing people (mostly people who had no idea what they were doing and were very literally all over the place) difficult, I found myself questioning my ability as a healer because I would take the blame for everyone else’ actions. This is the wrong way to play WoW. If you play this way you will slowly drive yourself crazy (as I found out). It made LFD one of the single most stressful things I’d ever done. This week I decided ‘it’s a game.’ If you’re not having FUN playing a game, and it’s work – why are you playing it?!

I like WoW. I like how casual it can be while I’m playing other games like EVE. I like that I can log in and almost instantly be doing something instead of having to wait around for hours. What I didn’t like, was playing my priest. I decided to start over with a ‘new’ main since I was starting over on a new server already. I have played various characters through to the 20′s before, but had never gotten a warlock past that magical number, even though it was one class that I had the most interest in.

For the past three days I spent almost all of my in game time working on this warlock. She’s now level 61, and I have to admit – I simply love the class. I mean, in that WOW look how FUN the game can be way. It wasn’t WoW’s fault that I wasn’t enjoying my stay. It was all about me playing the wrong class.

I looked up some warlock mods. Necrosis is now my new best friend. I also got deadly boss mod, which I wonder how I survived without. Suddenly the game is not this stressful horrible place that I spend my time but it’s actually FUN. Who would have thought. In order to level the warlock so fast I decided to get a recruit-a-friend account between myself. I paid $20 for the base game and gained 10 days of burning crusade which allowed me to create a blood elf and level through the content quite fast. The benefit of a recruit-a-friend account (aside from the 300% bonus in experience which is simply insane) is that the RAF can ‘grant’ your main veteran account levels. For every 2 levels they gain, they can grant one (so long as the veteran character is not higher level). This works up to level 60. Not only do I have this new warlock that I enjoy very much, but I can level another character to 30 and grant them enough levels to reach 60. I haven’t decided what character I want to do this with yet. I’m thinking shaman or perhaps paladin.

It’s nice to know the game is still fun to me, now that I’m playing the right class.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

To the left is my first piece of heirloom gear – passed down to my baby warlock. This took 40 tokens of heroism to purchase, and while I know I could (should?) have used them to purchase gear for my “main” I decided that I spend enough time on my alts to warrant splurging a little on them too. Plus, I’m not exactly in a huge rush to join the gear race that begins at 80.

I like heirloom gear. I think that the ability to speed up the leveling process for alts is a great thing. Once you’ve already played through once there’s no reason why it should take longer then necessary to level again except to learn the new class. Plus it’s nice to be ‘uber’ for that tier.

I also completed my first heroic, Utgarde Keep. It doesn’t differ that much from the regular version, mobs hit harder but that was about it. The group consisted of myself (priest) two hunters, a rogue, and the warrior tank. Nothing of note dropped, but again it wasn’t a bad instance. Two group mates did die on random encounters, but there were no wipes and I think I did fairly well.

I also did The Pit of Saron, which was a lot of fun. Having never been there before I had some help to figure out the encounters. The bosses were a lot easier then I had thought they would be. I also won a really nice robe that I was happy to get. This unlocked the final instance, the most difficult one (or so I have heard). Calreth, Manos, and I also grouped together to do a random which sent us to the lower version of Utgarde Keep (since Calreth is currently level 71). Manos and I received a lot of praise for our healing and tanking, which was probably the first time I’ve ever gotten such a compliment. It was nice.

I’m also in the Cataclysm beta, so expect some postings on that to follow before too long. I’ve copied over a few characters, and created a warlock just to see how they work after the expansion.

Happy Friday, and happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Last night I headed in for two random dungeons along with two guild mates, and we had a blast. One of them is a little lower level, so we weren’t doing anything incredibly difficult, and he got a few gear upgrades which is always nice. Afterward myself and the 80 warrior decided to play in some ‘big kid’ zones, where I experienced one of the most frustrating things in LFD yet.

As a tank and healer combo there’s rarely ever a wait when it comes to LFD – even when selecting the dungeon. We decided to head to The Forge of Souls, which is not that difficult – unless you end up in a grp like I did. The first give away that it was not going to be a particularly pleasant trip was that the three other DPS were all from the same guild. So that left myself (priest) and my guild mate (tank) unable to vote anyone out since they certainly were not going to vote their own guild mates out of a group. Now, you can hate on gearscore all you want but one thing it DOES tell me, is how difficult of a time I’m going to have healing in a zone. That is not to say that someone with a higher GS is going to perform better (because that has certainly not been the case) but it DOES tell me how easy group members are going to DIE when they get hit with things.

The second give away was that one of the three DPS was an incredibly under geared warrior, who had never been there before. The two guild mates were explaining the fights as they went along. No problem, it was my first time too after all.

What I had a problem with was that they won every single piece of plate gear, and did 400 dps for the zone which is an abysmal amount for a DPS warrior. I really dislike gearing up other people’s characters like that. Run the instance with your own tank and healer instead of queuing with nothing but DPS from your guild. My heal parse was 2k for the zone which is a lot higher then it typically is when I’m running an instance. I felt as though I was healing a group of cloth wearing group mates instead of a rogue warrior, and shaman.

The instance was completed without any deaths, which is always good in my opinion but it was incredibly stressful to heal. I went through a lot of mana potions and while I pride myself on having done a good job, it still irks me that in instances it’s only too easy to ‘pull’ an under geared badly played character through so that they can obtain loot. I know, I could have left (along with the warrior) but in most situations I’d rather just tough it out. It was also nearing 2am and I just wanted to get the instance done with and move on.

Aside from the group aspect, the dungeon was fun. It unlocks another dungeon, and then that one unlocks a third. I should be saving up emblems for some gear for myself, but since I’m always bouncing around characters I’ll probably use it for the alt army and get heirloom instead. We’ll see.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

I finally hit level 80 yesterday on my first ever character in world of warcraft. I was pretty excited to get there – and then once I was there I looked around wondering ‘what now?’ The thing is I don’t know anyone on my server. Thanks to the LFD tool there’s no reason to actually talk (or even group) with anyone, and there’s rarely anyone in my dungeons from my own server any how. I don’t belong to a raid guild, and I don’t know anything about ‘end game’ in world of warcraft, aside from it being a gear grind. Manos has been 80 for a little while now, and had a few suggestions for me. I’m obviously not geared well enough to go jumping into heroic dungeons, even though I do have some available to me.

What we did for the majority of the night was run the Trial of the Champion instance, which is a three part ring event that rewards one epic loot the first round, two the second, and two the third. It’s notorious for it’s trinkets – and bad groups. It seems like after 2am EST all of the groups went significantly down hill. I suppose that’s to be expected on a Thursday night, but I wasn’t prepared for it.

There was the group that wanted to vote someone out simply because they had never been there before. One incredibly impatient person started the event before the new 80 even had time to know what was going on, and then he spent the next little while dying through no real fault of his own. The impatient person screamed for him to be voted off, and in fact a second member of the group /spit on the new player. I decided this was not a group I wanted to heal for, because lets face it I’m just as new, and I left.

The first event can be confusing for any new player. You’re required to grab a lance from the sidelines of a huge arena, and then mount up on a warhorse. The main event is jousting, and you’ve got to run around charging the enemy and knocking them off of their mounts. If players know what they’re doing it can be quite fun, and it’s relatively painless. If you notice your mount is dying the best thing to do is to move to the sidelines and grab a fresh one. A few times I didn’t get there in time and once my mount ‘died’ I was pummeled to death by the enemy, which wasn’t fun. The revive point is very close by, thankfully.

The second event compromises of two different names, it’s random which one you get. The female encounter is the more difficult of the two, but the male is quite simple, you just have to face the other way while he’s blinding everyone. Literally, look towards the wall.

The last encounter is great if you’ve got the dps, and painful if you do not. Since this is one of the entry level dungeons for level 80, you’ll end up with a lot of under geared players very easily.

Needless to say, I started the evening with a gs (gear score) of 2700 and ended with a 3250 or so. Ideally, I’d like 4-5k – and higher than that requires raiding. I ran the instance 6-7 times, and obtained three pieces of gear. A huge upgrade over what I had been wearing, though it quickly became too late for me to test it out and see if dungeons were any easier. I’m attempting to gather shards for both gear (myself) and heirloom (the alts) and in the mean time I’m pondering creating an alliance character on another server simply to experiment with that side of things. I’d rather it not be on my ‘regular’ server because – well because (for those who don’t know, I play on Ravenholdt). That will require some research on my end, maybe I can find myself a good home.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

The Lich King is a scary sounding guy. I love every quest that brings him out to talk to his failed minions – it’s pretty exciting. Almost as exciting as me finally reaching level 79 on my priest, and 50% through. That’s right, I have less then one level to go before I will have my first ever max level world of warcraft character. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but to me it is. I’ve played since release, and never come close to the cap. Of course I’ve also never stuck with the game for more then a month or two at a time before growing bored, so that has certainly played into things as I just started my 3rd consecutive month of playing yesterday.

Now. I did two new (to me) dungeons using the LFD tool last night. One was The Oculus, and the other was Halls of Lightning (not to be confused with the easier Halls of Stone). You will hear this a lot from WoW healers – we don’t heal stupid. That means, if you’re in the Oculus and you stand IN the lightning, expect to die. I’ve noticed that for the majority of named fights there will be some AoE that goes off that you’ll want to avoid – as long as you’re looking at your screen you’ll see it coming so it’s just a matter of moving out of the way. For example in the Oculus (lightning mentioned above) the warlock lived. The paladin and druid died. The warlock being a cloth class already had points against him – but he was smart enough to move OUT of the lightning. Just take a few steps OVER THERE.

One thing I’ve had to come to grips with is that I can’t save everyone. My job is to keep the tank alive first – and everyone else alive second because without a tank we’re going to die anyhow. If people are being smart and managing their aggro (hey, we have threat meters for a reason) and watching where they’re standing, it makes my job a billion times easier.

Halls of Lightning is not an especially hard zone – but fill that group with a bunch of *ahem* people not paying attention to what they’re doing, and suddenly there are deaths all around. The tank never dropped, and neither did I or the mage in group – but the DPS spec’d druid who kept meleeing the dwarves as they whirlwind sure did. So did the DK who pulled before the warrior tank was prepared. Or the druid (again) who walked right up to the named while he was stealthed, not realizing that the named could see him. It’s really easy guys. Just pay attention. Let your tank do their job, and you do yours which is to assist (did you know the F key is the assist button by default?) and dps the mobs and be a little responsible for yourself.

As a healer in a dungeon I come well prepared. I always put out a fish feast for players before we start, I group buff, I use an int scroll if there are no mages around, and I use a guardian and battle elixir to up my spirit and spell power. I come well supplied with mana potions, and I really try to bring my “A” game. When people die I typically blame myself for not being able to save them in time (just a knee jerk reaction) but the more I do instances the more I realize that 90% of the time someone dies it’s because they’re doing something they shouldn’t be. As long as everyone is paying attention and doing their job, I rarely have a death in group.

Now, lets see what 80 brings. I’m very nervous to hit this level, as I’m certainly not geared for it (my GS is 3,000 or so) and I don’t have the faintest idea about anything ‘end game’ – but I do pride myself on being a quick learner, and I expect I can pick it up before too long.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

I really dislike that WoW has caps on crafting based on your adventure levels. I wouldn’t mind it quite so much if you could choose multiple professions on your one character, but since you can’t that means that any alts who craft will eventually also have to level in order to maintain their crafting. If you happen to be a heavy crafter (as I am) this presents a problem. Even more so if you don’t have heirloom gear and leveling tends to be slow. I have four other characters who craft alongside my priest. The priest does tailoring and enchanting (a typical rout for cloth wearers) and is pretty close to 450 (460 in enchanting due to being a blood elf) in each. I also have an alchemist / herbalist (the Death Knight), a jeweler / inscription (the Shaman), and a skinner / leatherworking (the hunter). Then there’s my low level warlock who does mining / engineering. This craft has barely been leveled so I don’t really count her. The DK and shaman have been at their caps of 375 for quite some time while I attempt to catch up in adventuring in order to raise it. I need 65 in order for that to happen – and in the case of the DK I need 68 so that I can specialize.

Thankfully, it’s not such an impossible task. Burning Crusade dungeons reward a lot of experience, and Manos has been kind enough to run me through them. The Death Knight managed to reach level 65 yesterday, and with the help of a few hundred pygmy (fish) as well as some sarnite bars, I am resting at a comfortable 430 alchemy. I love the potions I can create, and I go through a lot of them. Wrath also introduced some neat items that each craft class can make specific to their own craft, typically for self use only. In the case of the alchemist these were endless potions of mana and health, as well as some really neat trinkets. The tailor makes some neat items to use on her pants, enchanting grants some ring enchants that are self only. I haven’t raised the jeweler / inscription high enough to discover what they make, but I’m excited about it. The shaman is resting at level 61 right now, so that’s four more levels before I can raise her current cap.

Whether or not I’ll level either character past 65 I’ve not yet decided. I tend to wander through each of my characters simply because I’m trying to avoid burnout in a game that leaves little for me to do aside from questing and dungeon running. Unlike EQ2 where I can take a ‘break’ from things by decorating or finding some other small task to do (working on aa, etc) there’s very little for me to do in WoW. I’ve found a few things that hold my interest when I don’t want to do the ‘regular’ grind, like working on harvesting craft items, and doing achievements, but eventually after playing and doing the same thing over and over I need to step away to another game for a short bit. This is the longest I’ve stuck with WoW consecutively, and I think that speaks volumes about how dedicated I am to eventually reaching level 80 on at least one character.

I’ve been taking a little break from the priest since she hit level 77, but once she earns some more rested experience I’m sure I’ll be back at it. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Yesterday was a holiday for us here in Canada (it was Canada’s 143rd birthday – so young!) and to avoid the millions of people down town hoping to get a glimpse of the Queen I stayed home safe and sound, watching episodes of LOST (I just made it to episode 13 season one, it’s my first time watching), knitting, and generally relaxing. Evening came and I decided to make the final push for 77 so I could drop another 1,000 gold on my final flying skill. Being able to fly in Northrend is something I have really missed. Especially since all the level 80′s keep swooping out of the sky when I’m running on the ground and killing me.

I meandered my way (with the help of Manos) through a few dungeons I had never been to before in order to get those levels. I picked up as many quests as I could (they give huge amounts of experience) and did the Halls of Stone (my first time there) as well as Gundrak. I obtained a few upgrades along the way, including a new robe, two new rings, and new shoulders. The experience in the dungeons themselves was pretty poor, but combining them with the quests available made for a much easier time. I could have just quest grinded my way through the level but I’ve been feeling a little burnt out from my latest attempt.

Now that I’ve hit 77 I’d like to focus on my alts a little. I’m still trying to get both the shaman and the DK to 65 so that I can raise their crafting levels (jewelcrafting, inscription, and alchemy). The DK is only two levels away, and the shaman four, so it shouldn’t be too big of a deal to hit those goals. I’m doing my daily random so that I can eventually purchase some heirloom gear, and aside from that things are going pretty well. Once I hit 77 four more dungeons opened up to me, and I’m looking forward to learning them and exploring.

Hope everyone else is having a great day, and enjoy your 4th of July weekend! Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

I always wanted to reach ‘end game’ in World of Warcraft. I’ve got so many ‘max’ level characters in EQ2 that it always surprised me that I didn’t have any in the only other game I’ve played for as long as I have, which is WoW. My priest has slowly been inching her way towards 80 – and I do mean inch. From 71+ the best way to gain experience seems to be through doing quests (remember I have no heirloom gear to provide bonuses) and I’m just not a great quest person. Sure, I get in my moods where I’ll want to do nothing but quest, but for the most part I find them boring and tedious. Especially if you spend a few hours doing nothing BUT grinding quests.

By the end of the night the priest managed to clutch onto level 76 – which means just ONE more level and I can finally purchase the skill I need to fly in Northrend. Excited? YES I am. Flying makes things so much easier.

I spent most of my time questing in Dragonblight and Zul’Drak with Manos, though I was sure to pick up at least one random dungeon for the day to get my two tokens. I completed Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom, as well as Drak’Tharon Keep. It was my first time in each instance, and they went pretty well. I also picked up a few upgrades which is always nice. Healing is a little easier now, and instances don’t bother me quite as much as they once would have. I still don’t know what to do for every encounter but I’ll learn as I go along. That’s one of the downsides to still being relatively ‘new’ to the game. I don’t have the faintest idea about tactics for a lot of places. Thankfully I do pride myself on being a good healer, and that has gotten me by in most cases. I make sure that I’m stocked up on mana potions, food that increases my buffs, and potions that may help me out. I pay close attention to both the health bars as well as what’s going on in front of me because as I’ve been learning a lot of damage is avoidable if you simply move out of the way. Hard to know when to move if you’re not looking at the screen. This is almost refreshing, as EQ2 requires me to pay attention to little more then health bars and detriment windows. I don’t have to physically move too many places to avoid spikes jabbing me or missiles flying at me and the like.

One thing that I’ve noticed, and even WoW can not escape from it – is the running involved in every quest. Zul’Drak is HORRIBLE for this. I’m working under cover for the scourge, and it requires running from the NPC quest giver, to the scourge base, doing quests there, and running back. Basically back and forth between the two places which are a relatively good distance apart (and remember, I can’t fly) popping on a disguise and making sure it doesn’t fall off while I’m talking to the other side. The story is fun, and I’m not finding the quests themselves too annoying but the traveling between the two points is something I could do without.

I’m hoping today I can climb my way to level 77, and then it’s just three more to go. We’ll just have to see. Until later, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Yesterday in a rare decision I wanted to actually play my ‘main’ in WoW which happens to be my priest. I had been bouncing around between the shaman and the death knight attempting to reach level 65 on each of them so that they could begin Wrath crafting, but was feeling a little burnt out from each and I was only 40% away from leveling on the priest. I headed to Nexus (and before hand picked up three quests for the dungeon) with Manos in a LFD group, one that had already cleared all of the zone except the bosses. They mentioned that they had been trying to complete the zone all day long which made me a little sad since it barely took us 15 minutes to complete the rest of it. Quests completed, upgrades obtained, and the priest easily found herself at level 73. Only four more and I can learn Northrend cold flying. Finally.

Later on in the evening Manos and I decided to attempt to duo the Nexus instance, it’s always nice to be able to claim all cloth for myself and disenchant all the greens. My enchanting is currently at 430, and my tailoring the same. In order to progress either of them I need to make incredibly complicated recipes that take a lot of rares. I have slowly been purchasing my extra enchanting recipes from Dalaran, but tailoring seems to be a little lacking in that department, unless there is something I am missing (which is more than likely).

I’m certainly not the quickest at leveling in WoW, but I seem to have more patience then I would normally have, and it’s enjoyable. The priest is able to hold her own fairly well (imo) and though I am still incredibly nervous healing when I don’t know an encounter, I imagine it will be something that I can overcome with time. We’ll just have to see.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

I absolutely love this view, it’s the inscription trainer in Dalaran, and the rows upon rows of books just appeals to me on so many levels. Of course in the center is my little (not so little) tauren shaman, who inched her way to level 59 yesterday! One level away from owning her first flying mount, and exploring Outlands in full. I’m pretty excited. Of course this is all part of my ‘I need level 65 so I can craft’ expedition, but it certainly helps that the shaman is fun to play.

Some differences I have noticed. I’ve got a dual spec on her, but tend to stick with the restoration (healer) side of things for convenience. At her level I don’t find the heals very handy. She has three heals, one is a chain heal and two are direct heals. The shaman works a lot like a support class via totems, and another huge issue I have is agro control. When the priest gets agro she has fade, and she’s also got her instant cast shield that she can put up to duck out of instantly being smushed. The shaman on the other hand has no instant cast heals, and no instant cast de-agros (or any at all for that matter) and if she’s got agro the best I can hope for is to heal myself and use my one ‘lose threat’ skill that has a long recast and is only single target. Now, maybe I’m missing something but from forum posts I’ve read this seems to be an issue that a lot of shaman have, not just myself.

I’m not sure if the restoration spec is worth it – when I already have a priest, who can heal “better”. Thoughts? If I’m running an instance and am playing a full blown healer, I’m expecting the priest to do better (although I’ve heard a lot of people using paladins to heal so of course I created one of those too).

I also discovered the most ANNOYING quest ever. No doubt a few of you have run into this one before. It’s the one where you require to be .. milked. I know, doesn’t that sound delightful? As if the traumatic experience of being milked were not enough, in order to get to that stage you have to be poisoned by a giant spider inside of an instance, and NOT cure yourself (or anyone else doing the quest). Then you have to walk back to the npc and turn the quest in while poisoned. Sounds easy? Well. This particular poison causes you to fling spider webs at anyone infected in close range, and root them to the floor. Of course since both Manos and I were doing the quest we spent almost an hour flinging spider webs at one another and sticking the the floor. Taking three steps only to be rooted to the floor again.

Thankfully once you’re outside the dungeon and mounted, the spiderwebs no longer affect you (you get a “you’re mounted!” message) and you can proceed to the npc for milking. *shudders* I’m going to have nightmares about that one for a long time.

I also managed to take the shaman to Dalaran (thank you mage who ported) and bind her to the inn there. I love Dalaran, and I’m sure Shattrah would have been a sight to see too when Burning Crusade was “end game”. There are so many people all over the place both horde and alliance. Channels are bustling and the game just feels so alive. I miss having central locations where people can get together, much like PoK in EQ1. EQ2 lacks this with guild halls taking everyone out of the world and into their own little caves.

I know a lot of people are upset about the newest round of Cataclysm announcements, and the fact that a lot of ‘features’ have been chopped, but I’m going to wait until it actually comes out (such a long wait) before making any judgment calls. There’s still so much time before it goes live that there’s no reason for me to get up in arms quite yet. I was reading over the shaman talent changes and felt my anger rising, only to realize that there’s no reason to get upset because chances are things will go through numerous changes. After playing MMOs for so long it’s something I’ve now come to expect.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!