Priest @ 80!

Last Sunday I managed to hit level 80 on my Priest, which wasn't that hard considering I was only about 6 bars short. I discovered a few interesting things about leveling this character, which I leveled pretty fast (probably faster than any other character I leveled from 70 to 80).

1. The LFG tool is great for supplementing XPs assuming you are willing to go as a healer.

2. XPs gained from dungeons in the midrange aren't necessarily worth it because of just how short those instances can be. DK is an example of that...a single run through that instance may net you only about 1 bar of XP. As a result, questing is actually faster in some of these instances.

3. A combination of cherry-picking quest lines, skipping annoying quests, and supplementing with instances is definitely the best option for leveling.

4. It's also important to try to hit quest lines that net rep rewards with the various WOLK factions. Sure you can pick up that rep later doing L80 instances and heroics, but that's pretty slow going.

Now that I've hit 80, I've started doing dailies (hodir rep is now maxed, thanks to having saved hundreds of Ulduar Relics). I've also made back around 3k of the 7k I spent on the character just through leveling. I started doing some normal L80 instances, and this time since I'd been doing instances since 80 the transition was smoother. Most of my gear was comprised of questing and instance blues, with only a few green items. I spent a few hundred gold buying a few cheap purples (an inscription offhand piece, and a pair of moonshroud gloves), both of which I got for about 100g each.

Healing as Priest is a little more interesting than Shaman, and I've had less problems with it overall. Priest has some good AOE healing spells, and a few fast-reaction spells in addition to more normal casting spells. The combination seems better to me, though I can still see the value of a shaman healer.

Sunday I spent the better part of the day doing instances and had very bad luck with getting gear. I did TOC5 non-heroic at least 9 times, nothing useful dropped it was all plate and mail gear. I then tried a few specific heroics just to see how I'd do...turns out not that bad as long as the tank was well geared. So I also started doing some random heroics which also went OK. Still, the only piece of gear I got was a pair of gloves from DK that were virtually identical to the gloves I'd paid 100g for (the difference being 1 point of spirit lower)...fuck blizzard. So while I got a lot of experience, I came up with nothing gear wise even after 6 hours.

Yesterday went better, though. I also had a bad forge of souls run which I just could not keep people alive (though we completed the instance without any wipes, during the last fight the only two alive was me and the tank by the end of it). Still I started getting some gear. I picked up T9 Shoulders, socketed it with Haste and put on the hodir shoulder enchant. I also picked up a healing staff, which replaced my mace/book combo. And I picked up a spell DPS wrist which had haste, hit, and SP which I went ahead and equipped because it was still far better than the green wrist piece I was wearing (hit be damned!). By the end of the night, my SP had gone from 1300 to 1800. My haste had gone up by over 100, and my crit from 5% to 10%. My mana pool is also now over 15k, much better than the 9k I'd been stuck at for such a long time. I'm definitely interested to see how well I perform now. Hopefully some of those fights I was barely keeping up with will be easier to heal through and I'll stop feeling so mana starved.

After that, I got into a ICC10 man with my mage, which went OK. I kept dying though, mostly due to me not really knowing the encounters well enough to predict threats in the first place. I did pick up a a nice belt which had much better stats than my old piece. I lost crit about 50 crit, but gained around 90 haste and about 70 SP in return so overall I think it was a great upgrade. My haste rating is now sitting around 550, though my base crit is now only 36%. Still, for arcane haste trumps crit so I think that's a worth while trade off.

Not sure what's happening for the rest of this week. I might be online tonight, and if I am I'll probably spend much more time in instances and doing random heroics instead of TOC 5 man. I still don't think I'm geared enough for TOC5 + ICC heroics though, so I'm a bit leery of the random. Still, I'd like to get enough badges to get my next T9 piece (probably gloves?). So we'll see.

Dragonblight: The Return: The Return!

I have a confession to make. Besides my mage, I have several other L80 characters. A Death Knight. A Druid. And now a Shaman. So I have gotten used to leveling in WOTLK. I pretty much know how it works and have enough experience that I can do it pretty efficiently.

WOTLK is pretty fun to level through the first time. There is a lot of quest variety, and there is a bit more story to the whole affair which helps string everything together. But the fact is that it quickly gets boring through subsequent play throughs. Now, this is probably unavoidable. But IMO, part of the problem is still just the sheer volume of quests that have to be done. It's just daunting, and it gets worse with each new character you run through. And while the leveling speed actually increases as you go from 70 to 80, it's still just too slow IMO. A 25% speed increase to leveling would be a big help here and still not be 'too fast'.

Last night, I spent time with the priest instead of the shaman. I wanted to play around a little more with healing with it, if for nothing else to see if I liked it better. Things didn't really go as planned though.

The session started off on a bad note. I logged in, put myself in the queue for a random, and got into a dungeon (Nexus almost immediately). L80 DK tank, everyone else was 73...I figured it would go well. But I was having problems with the AOE damage on the first boss...my damned small mana pool caused me to blow most of my mana during the first two splits. Then I died trying to keep everyone else up; and then the tank started bitching that I wasn't healing him (after I was dead lol)...so he left. Then we went through 2 more tanks without even making a pull (tanks would join, then just immediately leave for whatever reason). So I left.

So, back in the queue I have to wait about 15 seconds before I get another group. This time its old kingom w/ a L80 druid and a everyone else 72 or so. This goes simple. Healing was a easy, but then the tank had 48k health and barely took any damage.

Even with that I STILL seemed to be having mana problems. Nothing major, but on boss fights my mana would get low real fast and it was making me nervous (even though the tank really wasn't taking much damage). This quite frankly worries me. I mean I understand that my gear was too shadow-oriented, and may not be all that good but damn!

So instead of 5 maning, I switched gears and went back to questing hoping for some better quest rewards to help me transition from dps to healer. The first thing I noticed was that questing with an epic mount in Dragonblight is a LOT faster. I got a level and a half yesterday, and could have easily gotten more...I'd say that epic flying increased my leveling speed by almost half.

I also picked up a few more quest rewards from 5-man quests, a healing necklace and belt. And I made myself a healing ring and a back piece. From questing I picked up a blue leg piece, blue healing hands and feet, and replaced a few greens with better greens. This increased my SP by over 100, gained me more than 1500 mana over what I was at, and increased my mana regen by about 100.

Hopefully this will help with the healing I need, but maybe not. With me hitting 74 yesterday (and almost getting to 75), a lot of mid level dungeons will now be open and the gear requirements will be higher. Still it's a good start.

Hmmm...

So, instead of spending more time with my newly minted Level 80 Shaman instead I goosed up my (only?) L72 priest spending another 7k gold buying her Flying, Epic Flyiing, Cold Weather Flying, a mount, and Dual Spec. To make up for this rather large loss of gold, I've started selling off some old mats and materials that will hopefully make the transition easier.

It took me a while to get things settled. But I got my priest a good holy spec and started doing some cleanup...I had completed several quests that I had not turned yet in for example and I did some inventory management. My priest is a Jewelcrafter/Tailor so I'm probably just going to stick with that for now. Both are in the 430 range and it'd be a waste right now to drop either of them when for the most part both should be fine.

So, then I went out and did a little questing, finishing up some old quests in Borean. It's a much better experience doing those quests with an epic flyer...big shock everything went faster and more smoothly. Tried leveling a bit as pure holy...bad bad bad move...so I queued myself up for the random normal dungeon and started completing some of the outstanding quests in borean just for the hell of it.

It didn't take long (maybe 10 minutes) for me to get a group. And there I had my first bad experience. I pop in, they are ahead clearing. Obviously they'd lost their healer. Highest level character is 77, the rest 73, so I figure it'll go well. It's the nexus, so not that bad. So I switch to holy and run to them. About the time I get into range, I see typed 'I'm pulling them all' followed by the DK pulling 3/4th of the mobs around the first boss intentionally with me at 1k mana. Big shock, he dies and we wipe. Then 3 seconds later the group disbands. lol. At least it was over fast enough.

So I re-queue and complete another quest and then get another run. This one goes a lot better, though most of the characters are only 70. I struggled a -little- bit with healing here though no one died until the end where the mage blew his wad in the first few seconds of the fight and got 1 shotted (I'm not taking responsibility for that one lol).

Priest heailng is certainly a bit more varied. But with more options comes a bit more problems with knowing what to cast and when. (which was the point, so it's not a complaint). But my mana pool was being severely constrained and my heals just seemed fairly low compared to the damage being delt at points. Circle of healing is nice, but seemed to grab almost 20% of my mana bar in one cast...ouch.

Still, just that short run netted me about 6 bars of XP in about 30 minutes. And while it was a little more harrowing that the shaman, I had fun with it. And as a plan, leveling through the LFG tool seems very, very viable; with using quests only for having something to do during downtime and for getting rep.

I probably won't be in game tonight...I have other plans (which may or may not get canceled). And Wednesday is probably Avatar night...so I may not be back in the game till Thursday.

Being Sick...

Well, I spent most of this weekend being sick. So instead of doing all of the things I'd planned (including a ton of christmas shopping) I stayed at home and did nothing productive.

Instead I ended up spending most of Sunday playing WOW. Got my shaman to 80, and then spent some quality time getting it ready to do five mans. I decided that the best course of action would be to go Resto and heal. And I also decided to spend some more quality time with the new looking for group system.

I have to say, the LFG system is probably the single most important update to WOW in it's history. It's ability to simply the ability to form groups is a major deal, and it seems to avoid some of the major hangups of the system by automating it. And, by spreading it across many servers, the pool of potentials is much higher. Sure, getting into a crappy group will still happen, but so far it's gone well.

Of course, ever since I created my Shaman a long time ago, I have been Enhancement. And having never played a Resto or healing in a group, I was a bit nervous going into it. I spent a little time looking at the healing gear I'd collected...I'd been planning this for a while and discovered that I did have pretty much a full set of healing gear...minus a pair of shoes. So I bought myself a pair of crappy ilev 200 epic shoes for 180g no less, and then started studying.

I have a confession to make...I don't really know the Shaman Class very well. Though I've played it to 80, I'd never grouped with it and my play with that character was pretty sporadic. I am not up on what gear is good or bad, what enchantments I need, or anything else. Most of my LK rep levels suck, and my character was equipped with a combination of blues and healing greens I'd collected since around L74. My main weapon is a green dagger I got as an item drop no less!

So, doing some reading and some research I've discovered the following:

1. Gear Wise, Resto Shamans like Haste, Spell Power, and Crit in that order. This surprised me, I thought that MP5 would be higher on the list.
2. Resto Shamans do not stick with just Mail Gear...they will sometimes go for leather or cloth.
3. There isn't really a spell rotation that I can tell. Lesser Healing Wave, Riptide, and Chain Heal seem to be the main healing spells.
4. I can -barely- handle normal TOC...barely.

Though I had a lot of fun with it, I'm starting to wonder if Priest would be better suited for healing. Still, Shaman was fun and I had some good luck yesterday with groups so I don't know...

WOW 3.3

After the break up of Arete I haven't spent much time in WOW. I intended on taking a break, and that's what I've done (for the most part, with the exception of a few 10 mans and a couple of pug 25s which have almost completely dried up at this point). Now I'm wanting to see some of the 3.3 stuff. I'm not to the point where I'm looking for a new raiding guild at this point, but I do want to see the Frozen Thrown and try to keep up gear wise to some degree.

Post raiding guild Arete seems pretty lively, I've noticed...a lot of people online hanging out and doing 5 mans and stuff. I, however, find myself mostly left out of that...those guys know each other pretty well and stick to the same groups. They tried a 10 man last week but I didn't get in, so my options have been pretty limited.

Though I pretty much detest puging, I did use the dungeon finder tool and found it to be pretty good just as advertised. I started doing dailies, entered the queue for the first 5 man, and got in relatively fast (about 15 minutes). Then did the second, and the 3rd in quick order. The experience was pretty good, but I was kinda disappointed in a way with the actual instances which were very short.

I'm not saying that they were bad. In fact, considering their small size they were pretty dense and got right to the heart of the encounters. And the final encounter with the Lich King in the final dungeon was unique and very interesting to say the least. And despite the sparse start, the final dungeon had built up a real sense of dread and actually told a story from start to finish. That I'm pretty impressed with, even if it was pretty basic.

I haven't really paid much attention to 3.3 or read much about it. So I was interested to see the Disenchant Roll. Mage seems little changed (though I hear they changed frost a lot, who knows if it's any good or not. Recount wasn't working for me in a group, so it was hard to tell how bad my skills declined. I felt like I did ok, considering that I really haven't played at all in 6 weeks.

I do think that there should be something of a personal rating system involved with the dungeon finder. Not a global one, but a personal list where you can rate players and if those players are in the queue they are groups with you more often if you rated them higher. But still everything went pretty well so I was happy with it. I'll probably play some more this week to see if I can get into the frozen throne, and do some more pugs. I also went ahead and purchased epic/cold flying for my 76 shaman (now 77)...so I might try pushing him to 80 this week.

We'll see how I'm feeling tonight I guess. I have a 2 hour dentist appointment tomorrow where they are doing the first step of putting in a new crown, and dealing with a deep cavity that needs to be taken care of. That's going to be fun :(

Assassin's Creed 2

I have a confession to make. I bought Assassin's Creed 2 the day it came out, but I just finished it last night. I have an excuse though. Since I hadn't played the original Assassin's Creed, I bought that as well at a budget price of 9.99 and started with that one first.

I was worried playing the two one after the other might hurt the experience. Especially after I got into AC1 a bit and found it to be one of the most annoyingly repetitive games of all time. Brilliant concept, beautiful visuals, but utterly barren in the long run.

Yet surprisingly AC2 is very similar to the first in game play, yet instead of being boring and repetitive the game feels very fresh and innovative. And that was even after just playing the first one. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is, there is an actual story here instead of a couple of vague short mission briefings like the first. The progression is more linear, but as a result the game play and missions much more varied. It's not just 'save the woman/monk' 9 times, then climb 9 buildings, etc. Sure some are similar, but there is a story woven into the missions that make them much more compelling and the story itself is pretty cool.

The second big change in the game is the main character. In AC, Altair is something of an ass. And a bland ass at that. Enzio, however, is a much more compelling character and a much easier to relate to. His goal, to avenge the death of his family, makes him more than just as assassin. He also grows over the course of the game, which spans at least 12 years, becoming less of a hothead and more of a driven man as the story progresses to its inevitable conclusion.

There are some nitpicks I have with the game. The whole city-building system is half-assed and fucks the game's economy to hell. By the time I finished the game, I had around 780,000 florins with literally nothing to spend it on but bribing officials and hookers. You get so much money from your city that everything else pales in comparison. Who cares about looting a chest for 1k when you get 14k every 20 minutes for free and that new piece of armor costs 27,000. Money is simply too easy to get, and there just isn't enough to spend it on.

Another thing that's kinda annoying, and this is just as true as the first one, is how the main character handles on the run. The game tries too much to assist you, often leading the character to do stupid things had no intention of doing just because you ran close to something and it locked on. This was especially obvious in chases, where weaving through buildings caused you to hit every damned chimney in the area and causing you to do strange jumps that inevitably cause you to jump off buildings instead of up the next wall. At a slower pace it is MUCH easier to manage, but this has less to do with the actual speed and more to do with the character's actions at speed.

I also wasn't entirely convinced at the ending. The Truth, well, was obvious even from the first few clips...too bad there wasn't something more interesting there. I didn't collect all of the feathers either (I got about 45 by the end, less than half). And there are tons of treasures left to collect and a score of optional missions. I'm half tempted to go back just to finish them up, but I'm not sure if there is a real point.

Overall, I'd have to say that AC2 exceeded my expectations and has been one of the best gaming experiences I've had this year. It was a truly fun, though not particularly challenging, game. One that I'll probably play again at some point.