Time to change it up!

Well after reading this from Doofy, I think its about time Dradis went under the knife... so to speak. I had heard rumors from some of you guys about his, and looks like you guys were on the money! It will also give me a chance to pick a new skin color and I may even do a name change. Whenever I think of my little Dradis, I always think of a woman. That won't do.

So I have been trying to think up some new names. Here is what I have come up with:

Dais
Sekhmet
Ruyvivar
Aucassin
Suren
Devivar
Geste
Palantinus
Eran
Tyr

Hopefully one of those is free. If not, sticking with the name Dradis won't be the end of the world, but it will feel a little... weird.

On a different note, I have been working on leveling up Ryukyu on my brother's server. Let me tell you, leveling as Ret is soooooo easy now. I rarely drop below 90% health and mana. I think the reason for that is the lack of Divine Storm. The excess mana means I can hit those Art of War procs every single time they are up. Also, if I have to burn up extra mana for Consecrate, Bubble, in fight heals, or whatever, I don't have to stop and drink because I get surplus mana from JotW right now. No Divine Storm means lots of extra mana. Its a great thing. At level 54 its really not needed either. I put out about 210 dps right now on average. Its not great, but its more then enough to mow down old world mobs and not think twice about it. I also had been running around without any glyphs. I just added Glyph of Judgement and Glyph of Seal of Command right before I logged off. I should see at least a small DPS increase off of those. Anyway, I will report back on the leveling front once I get past 60.

By the way, once Ryukyu gets past 62, he will be only the second character that I would have leveled from 1-62. Lets hope I can stick it out with him to see him through to 80. After all, the game is a bit a easier now as far as rep and such goes, so it should allow me to play two characters at the same time without much of hassle. And since I work third shift, there is no danger of me ever getting into a hardcore raiding schedule, so it should work out. If not, then I will have to pick a toon... again.

Last thing. I am thinking about replacing my venerable Saitek Gaming Pad (link), with this new offering from Logitech. What do we think?

Ding 51!!!!

Did Blizz take my levels away? What the hell is this ding 51 stuff? Well I have started leveling my Horde Pally again. I think I just like to level. Also, I have always wanted to see things from the Horde side. So far, the quests are very different (unless its neutral like Steamwheedle Cartel or something). The art direction is very different too, as well as how the different races seem to interact with each other.

Alliance, for the most part, is very cohesive and there is a decent amount of trust among among the races. The humans might have a slight superiority complex. For the most part though, no race is overly concerned about the other. They all also seem to have the same goals. Mainly, stop Arthas and maybe squash the Horde.

Horde is a bit different. No cohesive goals. No cohesive plan other then the Alliance has to die. Arthas should probably be killed too because he insulted Thrall's mom. The Forsaken want *EVERYONE* dead, only to be raised again at a later time. The blood elves want their land and maybe some kind of gum to help with their mana addiction. The Orcs and Trolls seem to just want to be left alone, maybe the Tauren too. No one trusts the Forsaken, I would venture a guess that they don't even trust each other.

All this stuff manifests itself, to some extent, in the quests that are done. When you get done with Tarren Mill, you just leave thinking that those Undead a-holes are up to no good. You get done in Feralas and you think to yourself, I would not want to anger the Tauren, they WILL hunt you down. That is about as far as I have gotten on the Horde side, but I expect things like that to continue through Outland and especially Northrend.

So maybe I like leveling because I like the story, even if I have heard it a few times before. That, and I haven't done all of the quests, I haven't seen all the zones, and I haven't seen everything from both sides yet. And yes, I will probably be one of those people LFG for SWP/MH/BT/SSC just because I have never seen them either. Chances are that I won't see them, because no one is ever interested in running old stuff, but hey, a guys gotta try!

And yes, I am OCD for some Pally action. Don't get me wrong, I like other classes. In fact I have a bunch of alts that are different classes. But my best chances for long term success/sustained interest seem to lie with Paladins. And I thought I was done leveling for a while. But, I think that more applies to leveling in Northrend on the Alliance side. This is different, at least a little bit. I am also in no hurry to progress quickly on Dradis. I really don't want to get burned out and disinterested in WoW becuase I am pushing to hard to fast. I don't want to be progressed so far right now that I am waiting on the next content patch for something to do. Not my idea of a good time. C'est la vie.

Ding 80!!!!

Well I hit 80 on Friday afternoon! It was a great feeling. But, now its more questing still. I would like to finish everything in Northrend. Then I am going to work back through Outland and Azeroth for the Loremaster achievement. I have managed to come within 1 point of the defense cap, so that makes me happy. I need to go look for upgrades so I can start collecting those as well. Ahhhh.... 80. Now the rest of the game starts again.

Oh yeah, I got my Black War Bear mount. It is awesome! I pugged with a group ranging from 70-80. Went pretty well, and it was a lot of fun! And school is out for a while, so time to game game game until Jan 5th when school starts back up again. Oh yeah, I changed my major to Web Development. I am excited!

Go go Pally Bear Mount!!!

Ding 79!

Woot! Dinged 79 on my Pally earlier this morning. Still chugging along to 80. Should hit that tomorrow morning. So far I have cleared out Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Dragonblight, and Grizzly Hills. I am almost done with Zul'Drak too. Then I am heading to Icecrown for some hot quest rewards.

I have leveled Prot most of the way. I have to say that I don't think there will be anything easier to level then a Prot Pally. In fact, the only quest I ended up needing a group for was the last three parts of Amphitheater of Anguish. I solo'd the first three parts. Everything else requiring a group has been done easily on my own. That is a huge time saver! I also rarely need to stop for anything. There is virtually no downtime thanks to Divine Plea. That is possibly the best spell I have seen for Paladins overall. Thank you Blizz!!

DK will be next to 80. I am not in a big hurry for that though. I think I am about done with leveling for a little while. I can't wait to tank some instances though! That will be interesting as I have little experience as a tank.

I did join a new guild today as well. They know I am a tank nub, but they seem more then happy to train me. We will see how it goes.

Almost done with exams too. Woot! Then I will have a two week vacation over Christmas!

/excited

More Paladin Craziness......

I'm mad I tell you! MAD!! Why? Cause I started a new Dwarf Paladin. Yeah I know, I just deleted a level 8 Draenei Paladin. I was pissed off when I did that, mainly at Blizz for jerking me around so much with the changes. Changes that really didn't amount to much in actual use, although I still don't agree with the way they are doing things, I am learning to deal with it better. Change is the nature of the game, and I just can't abandon a character because I am feeling pissy.

Anyway. So you may be asking why I would want to level another Paladin when Dradis is already level 71. Well the answer is simple, as much as I like to look at her ass, I am tired of running around as a girl and I don't like the way that armor looks on her. Everything ends up really small, not quite as bad as a Belf chick, but almost. So I am going for something more.... errr manly I guess? That and I am tired of the /flirts and the always being asked if I am a girl or not, and then when I say "No", I get the "Why are you playing a girl then?" response. So there you have it. Purely asthetic. That and I want to compare Pally tanking to DK tanking. So how am I going to level up Mr. Stoneforge? First 13 points are going into Ret to get Pursuit of Justice. The rest will be filling out the Prot tree. So basically I will leveling Prot after level 22. If it doesn't work out very well, then I will go with the tried and true Ret leveling, but I would like to give Prot leveling a second go around with all the recent updates.

At this point, Amadis is my main. He has fought hard for it, and he has earned it. The mechanics are awesome. Easy to level with, good DPS and lots and lots of options with specs. Maybe too many. I have already dumped over 500g in respecs, but then again I am learning the class still. Currently I have what I consider to be an Unholy Tank spec. We will see how it works out, but I am a little concerned with tanking. The lack of a shield means that I have to rely on pure avoidance, which from what I can tell will never get anywhere near 102.4%, but I could be wrong. The added stat of block really really helps to cover that gap. And yes, I know crushing blows will not be an issue. But if 102.4% is still obtainable, then I can see at least Pally and Warrior tanks working for it, which means that DKs will have to be able to match them in some way in order to avoid being second string. If Pallys/Warriors are easier to keep going during a fight, then DKs will be second string for sure, and I don't want to see that happen.

Granted, Bear tanks don't have block OR parry, just dodge and miss. Then again, they really don't have to put a lot of gear into getting uncrittable since they can basically talent for that. That means they can dump a bunch of their stats into dodge, which also happens to be the cheapest avoidance stat that you can get (block rating being the cheapest of all tank stats, but that is not an option for Bears or DKs). They also have a much larger health pool then DKs, but they have fewer emergency buttons from what I have seen. DKs have a lot of short cooldown tricks, but it looks like they will have to be used all the time, so I can't really call them 'emergency buttons' since most of them will have a high uptime. Hell, i think that Icebound Fortitude will have almost as much uptime as a Warrior's Shield Block. Then again, I am no authority on any tank class, so take all of that with a grain of salt and a trip to Tankspot.com.

I do think that DKs will be able to tank. I just don't want to be in the situation where someone would take my DK as a tank just because they have no other options at the moment. That would be a crappy situation. I have also seen that its going to be challenging to get to 540 defense. I am all for a challenge, makes things interesting. I just don't want it to be the case where overcoming the 540 hurdle will put us behind the other three tanks who don't have to work as hard for it.

I would also like to understand effective health, or EH. I don't know how that differs from your normal health pool. Is there a formula for this? Filters at work prevent me from checking on it. Also, I understand that DKs will have the smallest health pool, does this translate to the least EH as well? That could make healers a little nervous.

Even if tanking doesn't work out for some reason, DPS is freaking fun as a DK! So there is always that. I would have no problem DPSing in a group. Its just that I have always wanted to tank, and the DK seems like it would be a lot of fun to tank with, assuming its on level with the rest of the pack, and not just a "filler tank". Basically I don't want to have my DK in the same position as my Paladin at 2.0. That would suck. Of course at that point, I don't think Bears were that well received either. In any case, we will see how it pans out. I guess the best way to find out is to have Jendreka, the Healy Shaman, heal me on a run and see how it feels to him. Having been a healer myself at one point, the fight is only going to last as long as the healer has mana. If the healer has to use all their big heals all the time, then they will be OOM fast and you will be dead as soon as that happens. That's just my take on it.

On the upside, TPS and holding aggro does not look like it will be a problem. My DPS is great, and AoE situations are just fun with a DK. Between DnD, Pest, Blood Boil, and Unholy Blight, drool. So at least that is a hurdle that will not need to be overcome by any DK.

Upon further thought, this won't quite be an apples to apples comparision between the Pally and DK since the Pally is a dwarf and the DK is a human. Should be close enough though, so I am not too worried about it. Besides, I never had a dwarf before and they seem like good fun. The whole Scottish voice and obsession with drinking makes me chuckle. Variety is the spice of life.

Back to work and studying.

Suffer well.

Level 73!

Woot! Dinged 73 earlier this morning. I have almost finished all but four quests in Dragonblight. I need to review WoWhead to see what I missed. Dragonblight is by far my favorite zone in the game at the moment. Its a very epic place between the storyline and the scenery. You get to see crazy Ysera even! And the Wrathgate, OMFG!!!! I won't say what happens, but I hope there is more of this stuff. And after I figure out what quests I missed and get honored with the dragons, then I am heading over to Howling Fjord.

I am still Blood specced, but On A Pale Horse was too much to live without, so I am Blood/Unholy now.

Blog posts are still going to be slow. I have a lot on my plate right now. Thanksgiving, school, family, leveling Amadis, its a lot to do. The blog is going to take a back seat, but I will get at least one post in per week. Have no fear, they will have as little actual content as always. I have also been toying around doing an RP story for Amadis. Inspired by the one and only Ratshag! Actually Khol Drake's "A Stab in the Dark" had me thinking about it first, but Ratters just about gave me that extra nudge. We will see.

Leveling my DK

Well I am about to hit 71. I think it should only take about an hour when I get home. I have tried out each spec, mostly switching between Blood and Unholy. I know that most would go Unholy for leveling, if for nothing else then On A Pale Horse. However, I am currently using a 44/17/0 build. Let me tell you, it friggen rocks! I smash things like you wouldn't believe. I specced into all DPS talents, so I don't think this build will be real good for tanking. However, some of the strong points of what I have come up with are:

- Blood Aura for health regen while in Unholy Presence
- Haste Haste Haste
- Lots of RP
- Lots of Health Regen
- Awesome single target DPS
- Oddly, my AOE DPS is not too much different from Unholy. Just have to spam Blood Boil instead waiting for RP for Unholy Blight.
- I don't miss the Gargoyle or Unholy Blight too much since they really sucked down the RP, especially the Gargoyle
- I do miss the Ghoul, but the Bloodworms are good company too

All in all, I will be sticking with this spec through 80. I miss On A Pale Horse a lot, but I like the feel of this spec a lot, and that more then makes up for it. Also, several classes are missing a talent/ability that gives a mounted movement speed increase, so I am in no worse position than they are.

Amadis is definately my new main. I will level up the Warlock and the Paladin later. If you haven't rolled a Death Knight yet, you should. If you are busy leveling your main though, of course wait til later. But I feel that you will be doing yourself a disservice if you don't roll one at some point to see the storyline.

Borean Tundra, not terribly exciting. I was kinda awestruck when I first landed there, but overall, I don't care for the zone to much. That being said, I really like Coldarra. It just looks cool and the whole dragon thing over there is awesome. Aside from that area though, Borean Tundra is just somewhere for me to get a few levels. I have heard really good things about Howling Fjord though, so that is where I am heading next.

Suffer well.