ang griffen's journal

Okay, so ended up going for a Discipline spec for the priest. I was honestly considering going Holy, but I decided to get up to 20 as Discipline and then being open to re-evaluation, since I originally made a priest because I loved watching videos of Discipline priests PvPing. Anyway, here's Methodius. For RP purposes, I think I am going to make him Honor's brother, even though they look nothing alike. They clearly come from a very religious family.

Let me tell you guys, I am so excited for dungeons. This is like Paladin Leveling 2: Electric Boogaloo: This time, it's surprisingly less squishy! Bubble, Shadow Word: Pain, Wand wand wand wand wand wand wand. Repeat as needed until things die. Although it's a very different kind of painful than pre-Consecration Holy paladin leveling. That is more "continually cast Holy Light while occasionally judging and auto-attacking and watch things hurt themselves on my ret aura. This will take almost a minute per kill." Disc priest leveling is kind of fun because it's sort of an event when I actually take any damage at all.

Anyway, I went Enchanting/Tailoring for professions because he'll get a lot of mats for both leveling through dungeons. I actually need to go grind him up some linen and wool for bandages as well, since I haven't done any First Aid with him yet, and it's useful for mana conservation.

I know for gear, Disc priests want spellpower, and benefit less from Spirit than Holy priests, so Intellect is their main stat. Crit is nice too, yes?

What's my strategy aside from "Bubble everything!!!!!"? Should I pre-HoT the tank before pulls, or is bubbling my version of the pre-HoT? Do I bubble everyone, or just the tank and melee DPS? How much Sagefish and Milk am I going to go through? :)

Who's 999/1000 Exalted with Stormwind? OH THAT'S RIGHT, HONORATA IS. I also finished questing Loch Modan today, which means tomorrow: Wetlands!

( Reputation! )

Also, SC and I ran two random dungeons (one wing of Mauradon and Sunken Temple) today after doing Zul'Farrak on purpose. My first satchel of helpful goods wasn't very helpful. (I don't need tanking gear, RDF!) But my second satchel had a pair of +24 strength plate boots in them and my face is pretty much stuck like this: *_____________* when I look at them.

I also got to pretend-tank the boss that sleeps the tank in Sunken Temple, except then the boss didn't sleep anybody, and I was kind of disappointed.

Some of you understand how gear works better than I do, right? My ret pally (lvl 44!!!! now) has Bonebiter equipped. Lots of strength! Yay! Archaedas dropped the Rockpounder in Uldaman today, and since I was the only one who used two-handers in the group, I got it. Big loss of strength (and therefore attack power) there, but lots of crit and increased damage (as well as more procs because it's slower). Which do I use? (Wowhead item comparison says Rockpounder, but it seems to take gearscore/iLevel into consideration, and I'm not sure that's always a great plan.)

And I STILL haven't gotten a cloak with more strength than the iLevel 26 one I have on to drop. Can't find any on the AH either. This is starting to get kind of ridiculous. Actually, if, like, any strength plate would drop/show up as a quest reward sometime soon, I'd be really happy. Jeez Louise.

Anyway, Uldaman was my first time going into a dungeon since I started putting points into Judgements of the Wise. I don't think I went under 50% mana at any point in the dungeon, and I was consecrating pretty much whenever it was off cooldown. MADNESS.

edit: Also, the tooltip for my resurrection spell is still cracking me up.

So basically, I'm having a problem with World of Warcraft, and my problem is this: by nature, I am a slow player. I can make one regular console-type video game last a year at least. This is largely because I am bad and also because I go through weeks where I just don't feel like playing, but it holds true in WoW as well. I basically want to do anywhere from 1-4 quests per day and then I'm done. I'm not one of those people who likes to do like 15 quests all at once and then go turn them all in at once. I can do about 1 or 2 instances before I need to get up from the computer and go look at things that aren't computer graphics for a while. Basically, I want to savor it. I don't want to rush myself through questing to level when what I find most comfortable is a very leisurely leveling process.

On the other hand, I really, really, really want to hit 60+ before Cataclysm comes out. I want to get full Old World exploration* before all the regions change. I want to possibly have a chance to find a group doing nostalgia runs through some of the old world raids (or farming them to get some of the old world legendary weapons) and get a chance to experience them, even if I'm just getting run through by higher level characters/better players/better geared players**.

If I play at the pace I would prefer to play at, reading all my quests in full, exploring the lore, taking my gameplay time some days to just ride around and get full exploration of zones 10+ levels below me, I will probably not ding 60 by Cata. (I've taken a little under two months to ding 35, and some of that was SC and I questing together. He is basically exactly the opposite of me when it comes to leveling. It took me about 3 weeks to ding 20. It takes him about 2 days.) And this makes me sad. Either I can rush through all the old content, or I can basically never get to experience some of the content that is going away with the expansion.

And we're not even including that I'd really like to be 75+ in time for the pre-Cata Operation: Gnomeregan patch, and I know this is never going to happen and really, I just picked a horrible time to start playing.

edit: Also, omg I really hope that the possible portal between the Exodar and Stormwind really happens in Cataclysm so that, like, the Exodar isn't all sad and abandoned. I went there today to turn in my silk cloth for rep (since I'd already done a silk turn-in with the Gnomes), and ran into literally one other player there. It was weird as hell. I don't care. The Exodar is the city where I know where all the stuff is, okay?

* Technically this is going to have to involve naked corpse running through Horde starting zones, since the guards leveled with the expansions, and I'm okay with that.

** Speaking of how ridiculous power level differences between the expansions have been, last night I watched a video of a Death Knight and a paladin two-manning*** C'Thun. WTF.

*** Speaking of two-manning. The other day, SC and I two-manned some of Gnomeregan, mainly to get me an engineering schematic, but also to see if the 2H Axe would drop on Thermaplugg. It didn't and I was sad. I swear, I have more blues in my theoretical "oh shit the tank DC'ed" set than I do in my actual gear my character wears set.

My belf (ignore the stats, he still has rez sickness) went to his first instance (Deadmines) today! (With some friends of SC's and some randoms) and I got my first experiences with 1. healing aggro, and 2. realizing you can't heal stupid. And Vrindon is now no longer deathless. So sad. So sad. (We had a warlock who kept jumping up onto the inside of the boat and pulling the boss when we were still trying to clear out the trash mobs. And I died. A lot. Usually in about 5 seconds. Maybe. Mmmm. Clothadin.)

On the plus side, I really like healing? And also SC's friends? :D?

( WoW jibber jabbber )

Then my internet was questionable, so I spent like an hour playing around with making a skill/stunt set for a Spirit of the Century character. I remain unclear on the rules for artifacts. "Like gadgets, but not!" is not an answer, rulebook. >:(

So today at work, I discovered my coworker brought in a NEW AMISH ROMANCE NOVEL that I have NOT YET READ. It is called White Christmas Pie, and it is exactly as amazing as that title makes it sound! ( Feelings! )


( My WoW failures )

Oh ugggggh. Now I have to wait around and find another draenei player who wants to run the Clearing the Way/Ending their World quests, since the boss in Ending their World can only be attacked if you have the quest, and the quest is only available to draenei. WHY ARE YOU FORCING ME TO INTERACT SOCIALLY WITH PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW, WOW? WHY? (Because, look, I am not doing elite quests/elite mobs with a recommended group size of 2 BY MYSELF, kids. I am just not. See also: Razormaw, although I think I can con SC into doing that with me with his dwarf, since it's open to everybody and everything NEEDS MORE DRAGONS. Also, it is an UNDEAD elite dragon. Our characters are paladins. Fighting undead is what they do!)

So my point here is that if you know anyone who plays a level ~20 draenei on the Earthen Ring (US) server, HOOK ME UP.

(Also on the plus side, holy cow reasonably-priced ore in proper lot sizes sells quickly in the auction house. Clearly this is a Note For The Future, since I will need to sell SO MANY THINGS to fund engineering. Perhaps I shouldn't have given my very first character a profession that is a total gold sink.)

[okay, reading up on the quest at wowhead and it looks like it's possibly soloable if you're careful/lucky, so I'll try it that way a couple times first, unless I run into someone when I go to do it.]