So as I'm logging around my level 100 toons today, when I got to my shaman, I suddenly realized I didn't know if she was going to have a spec that she could transmog into Gorehowl with the artifact weapons. I don't play enhancement, and I remembered that elemental is getting a fist weapon (cool enough), but... Gorehowl?
Not all of my toons have weapon transmogs that I care about; my mage, for example, has the basic Draenor staff because all the staffs I like to go with her transmog are bound to other characters, and at this point I'm not buying duplicates when the looks are going to get shared so soon.
Some of them, though, I'm probably going to have to change.
Hunter (main), marksman
Currently: Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas
Changing?: Nope, hunters have been able to transmog between ranged weapon looks for a while, and Marksman is getting the bow artifact, anyway. The Windrunners are cool, and all, but I'm a Tauren. My alt hunters by and large don't really have a preferred mog weapon, although my original Night Elf is tranmogged into the Gorewood Bow (Blightcaller raids, heh) right now; most of them may use the artifact looks.
Warrior, protection/sometimes fury
Currently: Blazing Rapier/Drillborer Disk
Changing?: This pair was picked to go with her current transmog, so it really depends what pops up in the plate transmog, as well as my one-hand/shield options. I did pick up the sweet shield Naana has paired with Quel'Delar, so I may look at the blue/steel/yellow/gold options. That said, the base artifact look for prot doesn't jump out and grab me for the kind of transmogs I like for my warrior, so I probably won't be using that unless digging into the plate backlog turns up something I like with it.
Priest, discipline
Currently: Communal Staff
Changing?: Probably not, at least not for the initial discipline staff's look. I love the bits of disc priest artifact story I've heard, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how the quest story plays out, but my priest's current overall transmog is the one I'm most fond of, and I'm not likely to break it up for a while (unless I find shoulders I like better; the ones I have currently are because they're the best color match I had available; I'm not sold on the fiddly bits sticking out of them).
Warlock, destruction
Currently: Soul Harvester
Changing?: Eh... the destro staff looks cool, but... Soul Harvester. That said, I do have a lot of neat purple-colored cloth if I haven't vendored too much of it, so I'll probably see what it looks like on the goblin once before deciding for sure. Thematically, the Scepter of Sargaras isn't really a step down. If I don't like the way any of the purple looks, I'll stick with my tier 1/Soul Harvester setup.
Shaman, elemental/restoration
Currently: Gorehowl
Changing?: Unfortunately it looks like I'm switching off of Gorehowl once I get an artifact for the shaman; I'm looking at either a mace and shield or fist and shield. I have been accumulating something of a shield collection, so I'll see what options I've got to go with her current mog (which, at this point, is something of an iconic shaman look to me). I'm leaning towards elemental at the moment, but if resto solos okay, I tend to play my healing capable toons as healers (excluding the paladin).
Paladin, protection
Currently: Knight's War Hammer & Emerald Shield
Changing?: Like my other plate wearers, whether she keeps her setup depends what turns up in the plate transmog. I love emerald plate on my paladin, and the prot paladin artifact's basic look is more blue/silver than green/gold. If something turns up in the plate transmog I like as well, I might try it out. The Knight's War Hammer and Emerald Shield work with this set so well, especially using the Ripped Sandstorm Cloak heirloom with it.
Death Knight, blood
Currently: Darkened Broadsword
Changing?: As much as I love this sword (I shamelessly rolled need on it while leveling her through Outland since my troll's was bound to her (Titan Grip!)), it depends what pops up in red/silver plate transmog options. Being a green cow, I'm not sure the red/silver will look great on her. Some of the salvage yard swords for death knights were pretty cool, too, so I may go with the black/blue transmog options, again, depending what pops up in my plate options on Tuesday.
Monk, mistweaver
Currently: Aspirant's Staff of Harmony
Changing?: Not immediately - I don't dislike the Mistweaver staff, but it doesn't look like it goes as well as I'd like with the Wolf Rider's getup I've got my monk in. If there's a leather set that turns up in my mog interface that I like with the artifact staff, I might use it instead. This staff was picked more because it worked the best with Wolf Rider's of my available options. Wolf Rider's was picked partly so I had a toon that didn't clash with the Ruby Panther.
Don't care/waiting to see what pops up in the new transmog interface: rogue (subtlety), hunters 2-4 (all marksman), mage (frost), druid (primarily restoration but sometimes balance), priest 2 (discipline). I mean, I've got the Christmas Tree daggers for my rogue, but I'm not particularly tied to them. If I can ever transmog the Dark Herring, though, that's hands-down what my rogue is going to be using. And the Scythe of Elune! I may have to play balance more on my druid, because I love the Scythe of Elune. I was terribly frustrated in Vanilla when I found both halves of that story line in quest chains (first in Duskwood, then in Ashenvale), and they never linked up until Cataclysm and the Gilneans came in as a faction.
All in all, I think the Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas, and the Communal Staff are the two weapons I'll be keeping for sure; a lot of the others are dependent on keeping the transmog they're currently part of. I'd keep Gorehowl if I could (partly because I find the idea of healing while wielding it amusing), but alas, there are no two-handed shaman artifacts.
Bonus Transmog Discussion: Axeclaw Mail
I'm using the Axeclaw set (the Tanaan token drops) on my main for the bulk of her set right now basically because the gloves sold me on the set. I love the green/white contrast and the rivets up the inside; I this may be the only armor set where the gloves were the piece that jumped out and grabbed me enough to make me want to use it. I had been using the set belt in the transmog, until I got the Girdle of the Legion General and I suddenly had 3D pouches on my belt. I'll probably mog out of this once I find a set in Legion that I like, but pouches on my belt. I'm probably keeping the belt if they don't have any as neat in Legion.
Showing posts with label warrior. Show all posts
Showing posts with label warrior. Show all posts
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Prot Warrior Deck
So the caveat with anything Hearthstone is that I'm not that good - the best I've done is rank 15, once, and I did that on the back of Oil Rogue and Mech Mage decks. That said, I do enjoy playing around with random decks.
This warrior deck is okay - it works well enough for quests, but you're unlikely to get anywhere on the ladder with it. It's all weapons and armor for the most part, with some warrior spells thrown in to flesh it out.
The problems I've run into most frequently with this deck is the card draw hitting a patch of all weapons, or getting stuck with a freezing minion in a mage deck with no removal or minions. When it works out, though, it can be quite fun - build up armor, smash things with axes.
Card list:
This warrior deck is okay - it works well enough for quests, but you're unlikely to get anywhere on the ladder with it. It's all weapons and armor for the most part, with some warrior spells thrown in to flesh it out.The problems I've run into most frequently with this deck is the card draw hitting a patch of all weapons, or getting stuck with a freezing minion in a mage deck with no removal or minions. When it works out, though, it can be quite fun - build up armor, smash things with axes.
Card list:
- Inner Rage x1
- Execute x2
- Shield Slam x1
- Upgrade! x1
- Whirlwind x1
- Fiery War Axe x2
- Cleave x1
- Slam x2
- Armorsmith x1
- Ogre Warmaul x2
- Bouncing Blade x1
- Shield Block x2
- Death's Bite x2
- Mortal Strike x1
- Arathi Weaponsmith x2
- Defender of Argus x1
- Arcanite Reaper x2
- Brawl x1
- Siege Engine x1
- Shieldmaiden x2
- Gorehowl x1
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
6.0 - Initial Thoughts
Patch day has come and gone, and besides Battleground queues being temporarily broken...
First and foremost, my warrior looks amazing. When I first saw her updated model in the beta, I nearly cried. Troll hair has been notoriously... sad, and she just looks awesome now.
My wolf dances again. I started burning party grenades after watching my tauren’s facial expressions while dancing, and I had puppy out from a foray into the new UBRS, and... I may have kind of shouted in excitement to my husband.
I only changed 7 of about 40 faces: three unfortunate human eyebrows; two unexpectedly scowling gnomes; one overly perky night elf; and one troll that has so many awesome options now that I liked better. The rest I’ve been happy enough with, although I might go change some hairstyles now that they’re less blocky.
My rogue won the most-filled-crafting-tab. She’s the one that’s kept one stack of every type of herb.
I shoved so much stuff into void storage on my main hunter... and then went and did the same on my warlock, because wow, she had a lot of banked gear.
My shaman won the most-gold-from-currency-conversion: ~1400g.
I snagged the Bottomless Bag pattern for <100g. Thanks, combined Auction House!
And soloing... Just, wow. Last time I hopped into Dragon Soul 10N (about 3 weeks ago?) Morchok killed me since my pet wouldn’t tank him. I killed him in 9 seconds last night. Everything up to Spine was a cakewalk; Spine does some weird rolling stuff that’s going to take some work to get down smoothly.
I haven't tried out healing on my priest yet - I have heard mixed reviews. I'll see how it goes later this week.
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| I need a 'mog worthy of her now. |
My wolf dances again. I started burning party grenades after watching my tauren’s facial expressions while dancing, and I had puppy out from a foray into the new UBRS, and... I may have kind of shouted in excitement to my husband.
![]() |
| eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee |
My rogue won the most-filled-crafting-tab. She’s the one that’s kept one stack of every type of herb.
![]() |
| Yes, that's Blood of Heroes. |
My shaman won the most-gold-from-currency-conversion: ~1400g.
I snagged the Bottomless Bag pattern for <100g. Thanks, combined Auction House!
And soloing... Just, wow. Last time I hopped into Dragon Soul 10N (about 3 weeks ago?) Morchok killed me since my pet wouldn’t tank him. I killed him in 9 seconds last night. Everything up to Spine was a cakewalk; Spine does some weird rolling stuff that’s going to take some work to get down smoothly.
I haven't tried out healing on my priest yet - I have heard mixed reviews. I'll see how it goes later this week.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Hearthstone
Once upon a time, I played M:TG. Back when, you know, I still lived around other people I knew who play. So getting into Hearthstone hasn't been terribly hard. I have a hunter deck I like, a rogue/murloc deck that works for the quests (and murloc swarming is always hilarious), a warlock deck that's fun (and not just because getting screwed over by your own demons is awesome), and a priest deck I made for the daily quest to summon something like 30 minions that cost 5 or more... that turned out to be fairly decent for casual play, as well. And of course the mage deck with Archmage Antonidas and his endless fireballs never fails to disappoint for the "deal 100 damage to enemy characters" daily quest.
So why am I playing Garrosh, damn it?
I set the deck up thus, with a Gorehowl at the bottom that's below the scroll:
I wanted to make a deck that would play off the Knife Juggler, Violet Teacher, and Imp Master, which meant also pulling in the Frothing Berserker, Cult Master, and Flesheating Ghoul to play off the deaths of all those little minions you're hopefully summoning. Questing Adventurer got thrown in because, well, why not? It's a fairly light deck mana-wise, and it's easy to bump him up fast.
Warrior decks seem okay for buffing minions if they can survive a little damage. And a Frothing Berserker hitting for 20 points in round 5 is just... impressive. A bad draft means you lose pretty fast, but if a couple cards come out in combo and your opponent doesn't or can't knock off the dangerous ones (mainly the Berserker, Ghoul, and Adventurer) in a timely manner, they can quickly become overwhelming. The Warsong Commander to give them charge when they first come out, the Cruel Taskmaster and Rampage to quickly ramp them up even more...
It's not a perfect deck, but it's making the non-class-specific dailies go pretty fast.
So why am I playing Garrosh, damn it?
I set the deck up thus, with a Gorehowl at the bottom that's below the scroll:
I wanted to make a deck that would play off the Knife Juggler, Violet Teacher, and Imp Master, which meant also pulling in the Frothing Berserker, Cult Master, and Flesheating Ghoul to play off the deaths of all those little minions you're hopefully summoning. Questing Adventurer got thrown in because, well, why not? It's a fairly light deck mana-wise, and it's easy to bump him up fast.
Warrior decks seem okay for buffing minions if they can survive a little damage. And a Frothing Berserker hitting for 20 points in round 5 is just... impressive. A bad draft means you lose pretty fast, but if a couple cards come out in combo and your opponent doesn't or can't knock off the dangerous ones (mainly the Berserker, Ghoul, and Adventurer) in a timely manner, they can quickly become overwhelming. The Warsong Commander to give them charge when they first come out, the Cruel Taskmaster and Rampage to quickly ramp them up even more...
It's not a perfect deck, but it's making the non-class-specific dailies go pretty fast.
Monday, November 11, 2013
On classes
Why do I like the classes I play? Why don't I like the ones I'm not? A few bullet points:
Classes I'm playing:
Hunter
- Independence: I'm a solo player by nature, and being able to do so when I want to is great. Hunters are great for soloing.
- Ranged: I have a ranged mentality; I like being far enough away to have a chance to run away if things go pear-shaped.
- Manageable rotation: Okay, so marksman doesn't really have that reputation, but for me, it works. I can macro the core of it (Chimera/Steady/Arcane) and work in all the specials (Stampede, Crows, Rapid Shot, etc.) as they're available. I can't make that work on every class.
Priest
- Multiple healing styles: A priest can go Disc or Holy, and within each, switch it up even more - single target, AOE, direct heals, indirect heals. I love options.
- Reasonable healer soloing: I can quest as a disc priest and just not die. Is this what it feels like to be a pally? I'm not sure.
Rogue
- Stealth: I discovered the thrill of just walking by stuff to pick flowers way back in Azshara at level 50, and it's just wonderful. I don't have to fight stuff unless I want to. It's like flying before there was flying.
- Survivability: Evasion tanking the 2nd boss in the Black Morass for the last ~20% was a rush, and not doable on every class.
Shaman
- Chain Lightning: I love elemental, and spamming chain lightning is a bit disturbingly satisfying, especially when it procs and you get double chains.
- Ghost Wolf: Happy puppy dances!
Warrior
- Shield Slam! Shield slam is so fun it warrants an exclamation point rather than a colon.
- Charge: I leveled in Battle Stance way too long just to keep using charge.
- Victory Rush: Because hitting things makes you feel better!
Warlock
- FIRE. Uh, yeah, that's most of it. BURN ALL THE THINGS goes a surprisingly long way with me. And I love my little goblin destro lock.
Druid
- Flight Form: I'll admit it, I made the druid initially for faster herbing. And then I discovered just how amazing flight form is: hop out of water, keybind, A BIRD! As I said earlier today, such freedom.
- Healing: My second favorite healing playstyle; variety of buttons, instant heals, some AOE "oh crap" options.
- Downside: I like the Balance playstyle, but moonkin form just does not do it for me. If I could glyph to play Balance and still look like a Tauren, I would. (Am I the only Resto druid not glyphed to look like a tree?)
Classes I'm not (really) playing:
Mage
- Main server is full. That's pretty much my main reason my mage got stranded at 40. I was enjoying fire, then moved her to move some heirlooms when server transfers were cheap. Then I rolled my druid on my main server...
Death Knight
- Confusing rotations: I don't know which buttons I'm supposed to push when. I'm not sure which abilities really go with which spec.
- Starting zone: I've played through the DK starting zone... five times now? It's like the Worgen, Goblin, and Pandaren zones - once was enough. Having the option would be nice, but having the option to skip it would also be nice.
Paladin
- Confusing rotations: Same problem as the DK, really - I was okay until Mists, and then enough changed fundamentally that I don't know what I'm doing again. There's even only one DPS spec and I'm not sure what buttons to push for AOE vs. single-target.
- Healing not compelling: I tried healing briefly, but stopped because I couldn't figure out how to not run out of mana. That was really unfamiliar.
- Upside: Since the paladin is my last character under 87 on my main server, I'm probably going to try her again when I finish my druid. Maybe *gasp* tanking.
Monk
- Late to the game: The monk suffers from being a new class when I'm full on my main server.
- Melee animations: The monk animations override a lot of the best melee animations - undead female special melee attack, the flippy one. I just... wasn't as interested when I saw that.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Deficiencies
As the title of this blog probably makes clear, I play Marksman hunters. Four of them, three of which are 85, and the fourth is 82 and waiting for me to get around to doing Cataclysm zones yet again. But as I have eight characters at 85 and a slew of lower level characters, it's probably also clear that I play other classes.
Like with hunters, my foray into other classes tends to be specialization specific: I play priests almost exclusively as discipline, for example. I think my 85 priest has two 5-man runs as shadow... ever. I've never specialized into Holy. My warlock (who will likely get bumped up the alt chain due to the 'lock changes in Mists) is exclusively destruction. My rogue was exclusively subtlety until dual-spec and the simplification of okay assassination damage rotations in Wrath made it possible for me to do more than solo or PVP on her. My warrior was my most frequent foray into active dual-specializing; I leveled her as fury, but also kept up with her prot spec (which I love to pieces). My shaman has an offspec (right now it's enhancement, though for a period in Burning Crusade it was resto), but she hasn't actually queued as anything but elemental in probably three years.
For the most part I do okay with these alts. My priest has done 6/8 of Dragon Soul 10, somehow missing a random boss in each half, but having killed Deathwing. I healed extensively with her at 70, gearing her out as well as Duskhawk through both Karazhan and whatever we were calling Justice/Valor points back then. My warrior (whom y'all have seen in her shiny new transmogrification recently) can tank the new five-mans okay when I get up the nerve to queue into them, and my baby warrior is being leveled prot and doing random dungeons exclusively as a tank - I haven't even given her a DPS offspec. (Prot AOE with Blood & Thunder, Cleave, and Victory Rush is a surprisingly satisfying way to level if you can find areas dense enough to pull enough mobs at the same time.) I haven't done as much with my rogue recently, but I very much enjoyed 2v2 with my brother's rogue way back in the day, as well as Extreme Herb Farming (AKA getting exalted with Sporeggar via solo herbing trips in Underbog). My warlock is... complicated as destro right now, but I think I'm getting a feel for it again. She's got my transmutation alchemy, and I like her more as a goblin than when she was a blood elf. My shaman I've taken through raid finder and gotten geared about equally to my priest - spammable chain lightning is awesome.
Those are the alts I'm at least marginally good at. Combined with my hunters, that's six of ten classes. The remainders (death knight, druid, mage, and paladin) I haven't gotten to level cap. Even with all my baby alts, the ones I play the most are the priests (discipline, one of each faction, both in Northrend) and my warrior, who's in the upper 40s right now. I like priest healing, and the queues for both the priests and the baby prot warrior are generally fast and painless. That doesn't help with the "expand my horizons" kind of stuff I figured I would do prior to Mists, though.
Now, I've got one of each of the others. I actually have a crapload of level 5ish mages, mostly gnomes, mostly with the same name. I finally made myself get one further, so I have a draenei fire mage in the mid-20s. She has portals! And I know crap about fire. My husband plays a mage at level cap, so I theoretically have someone around I could ask for help, except he plays the two other specs: arcane for PVE and frost for PVP. Let's face it; I like to burn stuff. This is why my warlock is destro. I'm looking forward to Hot Streak, when I can cut out Arcane Missiles and spend more time with Pyroblast. But really - I have no idea what I'm doing. I push buttons, fire happens, and maybe I'm doing okay? It's hard to gauge if I'm doing okay DPS at my level when I don't have heirlooms on the server she's on, and most of the other DPS I random into groups with do. I'm having fun with her, which is the important part, but I don't want to be a burden on a group (or kicked) if I'm not pulling my weight and just don't realize it.
I tried playing a death knight back when they first came out, and it wasn't too bad; I just got bored with it. I made a new one a couple months ago to try to see if it's any better now in terms of "got bored with it" - and I'm not sure, because the specs and rotations don't really readily present themselves. I have a bunch of buttons, and they do stuff, but I don't know which strikes to use in which spec. She's unholy mostly because I find the ghoul names amusing. She's also already acting as a bank, at 58.
I have a different but similar problem with my druid. She's 15, currently feral, and which abilities she's supposed to use are obvious. I just can't seem to get into playing her. Maybe it's the zone - I started her as a worgen, so at this point she's been dumped into Darkshore, and really, after hearthing to Auberdine for the entirety of my Vanilla Alliance career, Darkshore is painful for me. I spent a lot of time there, and the places and NPCs that I was familiar with are dead and destroyed. Maybe if I take her over to Westfall the environment won't be so discouraging to getting to know her.
I've got two paladins. One is my original Vanilla paladin, still in her 40s, who was shuffled around servers when transfers were free from overcrowding. The other is my relatively new Tauren paladin, who is about 72. I've been playing them as retribution, because ret is relatively easy, the buttons you push are pretty straightforward, and stuff dies. I've gotten to the point that I'm not sure I'm doing ret right in groups, though; I'm pretty sure I should be doing better DPS, but I'm not sure how. So I got them both some intellect plate (a challenge in both level brackets, surprisingly - and intellect plate heirlooms, at least from Justice Points, seem to be... lacking) and gave them holy off-specs, and... Oh, my God, I have no idea what any of these buttons or procs in holy mean. I heal on three priests, right? I push buttons, heals and bubbles happen, and I'm pretty good at keeping my mana bar at least half full for most of a dungeon, unless the tank or DPS are crazy and pull all the things. But on the paladin? I haven't really figured out her mana management. I looked at some forum posts, and it seems to be a matter of picking efficient spells, using spells I don't have yet at that level, and judging with Insight. But just reading spell tooltips and talents, I'm really not sure.
So yeah, there's four classes that I haven't played much, and at this point I think I've figured out why: they're not intuitive for me. Whether this is a deficiency of me or of the class or spec in question, I'm not sure. My guild's death knight contingent, which had been pretty strong in Wrath even after the novelty wore off, has been more or less decimated in Cataclysm. We don't have any death knights raiding regularly with us, and the ones that sometimes do are alts. If I'm going to play her at all, I think I'm going to have to look up what each spec uses just so I can figure out how to get started with her. We still have some dedicated druids; I think in the case of druids, it's really just me. For some reason they don't click. Paladins the guild still has in spades, and I think in this case it's a learning curve thing. I'm going to have to actually sit down and read something to do 5's as a holy paladin, which seems kind of weird after how intuitively I got into discipline healing. I think for the mage it may just be I picked a bad leveling spec, at least for groups; I'm kind of a slow caster on her still, so stuff tends to die in heirloomed groups before I can get a fireball off on it.
The overall deficiency with these classes probably isn't the classes, really; the problem is that I tend to pick specs that I like conceptually. I was into Robin Hood and William Tell when I was in... about 4th grade; accuracy and trick shot kind of stuff appealed to me; I went Marksman in Vanilla, and other than occasional stints to tame pretty things, I've never left it. I like discipline priesting because I like indirect healing, and I like utility, which discipline used to have a bit more of way back when. I love atonement healing, and it's made leveling as discipline, which I've always done with my priest, so overpowered. I can handle stuff up to about six or seven levels higher (singly; I've done groups of about six mobs three and four levels higher (accidentally) without dying) before the hit rating glyph for Smite and Holy Fire becomes insufficient. I rolled my first warrior with the intention of tanking - before I rolled my first Horde hunter, actually. I didn't actually level her for another two or three years, but smacking stuff in the face with a shield is my favorite part of being a warrior. I've always loved subtlety's survivability, and getting around without being noticed is my favorite part of being a rogue: cat burgling, in a way, even though it's just an herb or something. My lock is a pyro (and my void walker always got me killed). And, well, I mentioned my shaman and chain lightning.
I like the idea of a pyro mage. I have a chimenea in the back yard, and I like to have fires. I also picked up grilling recently, because, well, fire. (First time lighting a charcoal grill: one match. /flex) Arcane appeals to me for similar reasons that discipline originally did, but the novelty of setting the world on fire with my draenei probably has to wear off first. Holy was my first spec as a paladin, and I went ret when I picked the class up again... five? years later for the expediency of leveling. The last time I really played holy, consecration was a talent. It's changed so drastically since then. Death knights and druids, though? I don't really conceptually favor any of their specs - this is probably part of my problem getting into them.
So for now the death knight and druid will probably stay on the bench; since I kind of get the mage, and at least sort of get ret paladins, even if I haven't figured out how to make holy work, I'll probably focus on those two of my un-level-capped classes.
Like with hunters, my foray into other classes tends to be specialization specific: I play priests almost exclusively as discipline, for example. I think my 85 priest has two 5-man runs as shadow... ever. I've never specialized into Holy. My warlock (who will likely get bumped up the alt chain due to the 'lock changes in Mists) is exclusively destruction. My rogue was exclusively subtlety until dual-spec and the simplification of okay assassination damage rotations in Wrath made it possible for me to do more than solo or PVP on her. My warrior was my most frequent foray into active dual-specializing; I leveled her as fury, but also kept up with her prot spec (which I love to pieces). My shaman has an offspec (right now it's enhancement, though for a period in Burning Crusade it was resto), but she hasn't actually queued as anything but elemental in probably three years.
For the most part I do okay with these alts. My priest has done 6/8 of Dragon Soul 10, somehow missing a random boss in each half, but having killed Deathwing. I healed extensively with her at 70, gearing her out as well as Duskhawk through both Karazhan and whatever we were calling Justice/Valor points back then. My warrior (whom y'all have seen in her shiny new transmogrification recently) can tank the new five-mans okay when I get up the nerve to queue into them, and my baby warrior is being leveled prot and doing random dungeons exclusively as a tank - I haven't even given her a DPS offspec. (Prot AOE with Blood & Thunder, Cleave, and Victory Rush is a surprisingly satisfying way to level if you can find areas dense enough to pull enough mobs at the same time.) I haven't done as much with my rogue recently, but I very much enjoyed 2v2 with my brother's rogue way back in the day, as well as Extreme Herb Farming (AKA getting exalted with Sporeggar via solo herbing trips in Underbog). My warlock is... complicated as destro right now, but I think I'm getting a feel for it again. She's got my transmutation alchemy, and I like her more as a goblin than when she was a blood elf. My shaman I've taken through raid finder and gotten geared about equally to my priest - spammable chain lightning is awesome.
Those are the alts I'm at least marginally good at. Combined with my hunters, that's six of ten classes. The remainders (death knight, druid, mage, and paladin) I haven't gotten to level cap. Even with all my baby alts, the ones I play the most are the priests (discipline, one of each faction, both in Northrend) and my warrior, who's in the upper 40s right now. I like priest healing, and the queues for both the priests and the baby prot warrior are generally fast and painless. That doesn't help with the "expand my horizons" kind of stuff I figured I would do prior to Mists, though.
Now, I've got one of each of the others. I actually have a crapload of level 5ish mages, mostly gnomes, mostly with the same name. I finally made myself get one further, so I have a draenei fire mage in the mid-20s. She has portals! And I know crap about fire. My husband plays a mage at level cap, so I theoretically have someone around I could ask for help, except he plays the two other specs: arcane for PVE and frost for PVP. Let's face it; I like to burn stuff. This is why my warlock is destro. I'm looking forward to Hot Streak, when I can cut out Arcane Missiles and spend more time with Pyroblast. But really - I have no idea what I'm doing. I push buttons, fire happens, and maybe I'm doing okay? It's hard to gauge if I'm doing okay DPS at my level when I don't have heirlooms on the server she's on, and most of the other DPS I random into groups with do. I'm having fun with her, which is the important part, but I don't want to be a burden on a group (or kicked) if I'm not pulling my weight and just don't realize it.
I tried playing a death knight back when they first came out, and it wasn't too bad; I just got bored with it. I made a new one a couple months ago to try to see if it's any better now in terms of "got bored with it" - and I'm not sure, because the specs and rotations don't really readily present themselves. I have a bunch of buttons, and they do stuff, but I don't know which strikes to use in which spec. She's unholy mostly because I find the ghoul names amusing. She's also already acting as a bank, at 58.
I have a different but similar problem with my druid. She's 15, currently feral, and which abilities she's supposed to use are obvious. I just can't seem to get into playing her. Maybe it's the zone - I started her as a worgen, so at this point she's been dumped into Darkshore, and really, after hearthing to Auberdine for the entirety of my Vanilla Alliance career, Darkshore is painful for me. I spent a lot of time there, and the places and NPCs that I was familiar with are dead and destroyed. Maybe if I take her over to Westfall the environment won't be so discouraging to getting to know her.
I've got two paladins. One is my original Vanilla paladin, still in her 40s, who was shuffled around servers when transfers were free from overcrowding. The other is my relatively new Tauren paladin, who is about 72. I've been playing them as retribution, because ret is relatively easy, the buttons you push are pretty straightforward, and stuff dies. I've gotten to the point that I'm not sure I'm doing ret right in groups, though; I'm pretty sure I should be doing better DPS, but I'm not sure how. So I got them both some intellect plate (a challenge in both level brackets, surprisingly - and intellect plate heirlooms, at least from Justice Points, seem to be... lacking) and gave them holy off-specs, and... Oh, my God, I have no idea what any of these buttons or procs in holy mean. I heal on three priests, right? I push buttons, heals and bubbles happen, and I'm pretty good at keeping my mana bar at least half full for most of a dungeon, unless the tank or DPS are crazy and pull all the things. But on the paladin? I haven't really figured out her mana management. I looked at some forum posts, and it seems to be a matter of picking efficient spells, using spells I don't have yet at that level, and judging with Insight. But just reading spell tooltips and talents, I'm really not sure.
So yeah, there's four classes that I haven't played much, and at this point I think I've figured out why: they're not intuitive for me. Whether this is a deficiency of me or of the class or spec in question, I'm not sure. My guild's death knight contingent, which had been pretty strong in Wrath even after the novelty wore off, has been more or less decimated in Cataclysm. We don't have any death knights raiding regularly with us, and the ones that sometimes do are alts. If I'm going to play her at all, I think I'm going to have to look up what each spec uses just so I can figure out how to get started with her. We still have some dedicated druids; I think in the case of druids, it's really just me. For some reason they don't click. Paladins the guild still has in spades, and I think in this case it's a learning curve thing. I'm going to have to actually sit down and read something to do 5's as a holy paladin, which seems kind of weird after how intuitively I got into discipline healing. I think for the mage it may just be I picked a bad leveling spec, at least for groups; I'm kind of a slow caster on her still, so stuff tends to die in heirloomed groups before I can get a fireball off on it.
The overall deficiency with these classes probably isn't the classes, really; the problem is that I tend to pick specs that I like conceptually. I was into Robin Hood and William Tell when I was in... about 4th grade; accuracy and trick shot kind of stuff appealed to me; I went Marksman in Vanilla, and other than occasional stints to tame pretty things, I've never left it. I like discipline priesting because I like indirect healing, and I like utility, which discipline used to have a bit more of way back when. I love atonement healing, and it's made leveling as discipline, which I've always done with my priest, so overpowered. I can handle stuff up to about six or seven levels higher (singly; I've done groups of about six mobs three and four levels higher (accidentally) without dying) before the hit rating glyph for Smite and Holy Fire becomes insufficient. I rolled my first warrior with the intention of tanking - before I rolled my first Horde hunter, actually. I didn't actually level her for another two or three years, but smacking stuff in the face with a shield is my favorite part of being a warrior. I've always loved subtlety's survivability, and getting around without being noticed is my favorite part of being a rogue: cat burgling, in a way, even though it's just an herb or something. My lock is a pyro (and my void walker always got me killed). And, well, I mentioned my shaman and chain lightning.
I like the idea of a pyro mage. I have a chimenea in the back yard, and I like to have fires. I also picked up grilling recently, because, well, fire. (First time lighting a charcoal grill: one match. /flex) Arcane appeals to me for similar reasons that discipline originally did, but the novelty of setting the world on fire with my draenei probably has to wear off first. Holy was my first spec as a paladin, and I went ret when I picked the class up again... five? years later for the expediency of leveling. The last time I really played holy, consecration was a talent. It's changed so drastically since then. Death knights and druids, though? I don't really conceptually favor any of their specs - this is probably part of my problem getting into them.
So for now the death knight and druid will probably stay on the bench; since I kind of get the mage, and at least sort of get ret paladins, even if I haven't figured out how to make holy work, I'll probably focus on those two of my un-level-capped classes.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
A New (for me) Warrior Transmog
Several weeks ago, after going through a cash-rebuilding spree following my splurge on Poseidus, I found myself awash in thorium and old world gems. I was flipping through my various crafting books, looking for something that might make me more cash than the raw ore and gems themselves, when I (re)discovered the Enchanted Thorium Plate. I was something of a completionist on my blacksmith for recipes 300 skill level or lower, so I did a lot of the blacksmithing quests and went through becoming a swordsmith on her.
So a couple weeks pass with me trying to unload the breastplate and pants on the auction house, but unfortunately my blacksmith is on Bronzebeard and not a fashion-conscious RP server. What did this mean? My warrior got a new look:
Boots, for a troll, are of course the hardest part, so I'm still using the Shinkicker boots I put on her as soon as transmogrification was put in. A lot of the rest of the pieces changed, though.
So a couple weeks pass with me trying to unload the breastplate and pants on the auction house, but unfortunately my blacksmith is on Bronzebeard and not a fashion-conscious RP server. What did this mean? My warrior got a new look:
Boots, for a troll, are of course the hardest part, so I'm still using the Shinkicker boots I put on her as soon as transmogrification was put in. A lot of the rest of the pieces changed, though.
- Helm: I keep it hidden, so I haven't bothered.
- Cloak: Similarly, I like the clean, no-cloak look on my warrior.
- Chest: Enchanted Thorium Breastplate. There are some "same model as" options, but none of them have the attacked choker. I really like the black/gold/steel coloring and the arm detail.
- Legs: Enchanted Thorium Leggings. I like the color contrast between the leggings and the breastplate; same color scheme, but the black leggings give the set a better look than if the steel were dominate here. These pants are decidedly low-riders if you forgo a belt.
- Shoulders: Stormforged Shoulders. These are a great color match for the Enchanted Thorium look, although they do sharply highlight the improvement in graphics detail between Vanilla WoW and Cataclysm.
- Feet: My beloved Shinkicker Boots. A few other boots still available in the game (Gothic Sabatons, Heavy Lamellar Boots) have the same clean lines, but the color doesn't go quite as well.
- Hands: Ymirjar Lord's Handguards. I was having trouble finding gloves I liked to go with the set, but flipping through my banked items, I found my tier 10 gloves. The color isn't a perfect match, but the overall look (dark, metallic, with yellow/gold scrollwork) works overall.
- Wrists: Since they're hidden by the gloves, I didn't bother transmogrifying the wrists.
- Waist: The old-school Belt of Might. I am loving this belt and finding that it goes with damned near anything I want to dress up my troll in.
- Shield: FOR THE HORDE! Ahem, still the Tyrant's Shield. (If you follow the link over to WoWhead, I have the pants... if you can call them pants... in that first screenshot in the bank, but opted against having my troll's cheeks free to the wind. I'm curious now what they'd look like on a tauren.)
- Sword: Blazing Rapier. The sword, like the gloves, was something I was having trouble finding something I liked that worked through the set. But, as I mentioned, my blacksmith is a swordsmith, and lo and behold, the Blazing Rapier. It doesn't show up in the screen-grab from the armory, but if you look at the WoWhead link, you can see that it has its own fire aura. This was especially awesome because I hate how (the admittedly cheap) Mending glow looked. (If I can get a weapon of a higher ilvl than 346, I'll put something better on it.)
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Updated Transmogrification
Well, I still haven't found the gloves I want for Dusk (and I haven't found a set for my shaman), but here's updated pictures of my transmogrified toons:
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| Duskhawk, Marksman Hunter: Blood Knight, Battleforged, Talhide, Felscale, Malefactor's Eyepatch |
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| Elsabeth, Disc Priest: Primal Mooncloth, Boots of the Long Road, Vicious Fireweave Gloves |
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| Throop, Prot Warrior: Flintlocke's Piloting Pants, Shinkicker Boots, Tyrant's Shield, Oath-bound Gauntlets, Coldrock Pauldrons |
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| Noski, Subtlety/Assassination Rogue: Vengeful & Merciless Gladiator, Skystalker's Leggings |
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| Katrine, Destro Lock: Dark Coven Shoulderpads, Ebonweave Robe & Gloves |
Monday, March 2, 2009
Of baby trolls
I have a baby troll.
She's a fury warrior. (rar!)
Back when I first started playing Horde, I made a bunch of toons, one of each race. I had a Night Elf hunter main at the time, so I made an undead rogue (my Horde main for a long time), a Tauren druid, a troll warrior, and an orc warlock. The warlock was deleted early on, and the account was eventually pared down to two Alliance toons and grew a complement of eight Horde. The druid lasted until the most recent expansion, when I deleted her to make a death knight. (It now stands: Night Elf hunter and priest; undead rogue and priest; Tauren hunter and death knight; blood elf rogue and hunter; troll warrior; orc shaman.)
The baby troll, though, is older than my main, the Tauren hunter. She was sidelined for a long time - I didn't understand warriors at first; stances were confusing. I died too much, so I leveled as protection in defensive stance until I got dual-wield at level twenty. At a later point, after I had switched factions, shelved my undead rogue at level 50 (for nine months!) to make a Tauren hunter, and raided in Molten Core for a while, I finally started to get an idea of how warriors worked. Not through doing - I didn't touch my warrior for a long time, and for a while she spent time as storage space for snowballs and low-level engineering items. No, from hearing the Vent chatter during raids, about how the warriors tanked - stance-dancing for Magmadar, grouping up dog packs, off-tanking Golemagg's dogs.
After the undead priest had been leveled (she was supposed to be a place-holder for a blood elf priest of that name, but I started playing her and liked it too much to wait), I thought, hey, maybe I could level that warrior and fill in for 5-mans as a tank sometimes! So the warrior made it into the 40s.
I had transferred a human paladin off the server when it was free, since I had sunk time and money into her alchemy, and didn't want to 'lose' the investment. (Arcanite transmute! 5g!) And then... I made an orc shaman with the same name. (The irony! Human paladin to orc shaman! Old school battleground rivals!) Anyway, the orc elemental shaman is sitting at 68 now, having taken up what could have been the warrior's turn at leveling.
And now we're in a new expansion. I have a death knight - at 65. But of my 3 Horde 70s, only the hunter has made it to 80. The rogue is 71, the priest 72. The shaman is still 68, and the death knight is only up to 65. But... The rogue's alchemy is at 450. The priest's tailoring is at 415, and her enchanting is at 423. The shaman's leatherworking is at 437. The death knight's inscription is at 410, and of course the hunter's engineering is at 450.
I'm a profession junkie.
The jewelcrafter is a level 34 hunter; the blacksmith? My baby troll. In order to get blacksmithing above 375, the toon has to be at least level 65.
The troll is level 62 now. She's dual-wielding the Warsong Howling Axe from the Blood Furnace, and a white two-handed sword from a vendor at Falcon Watch. (At level 63, I have a pretty "of the beast" green two handed sword.) And her blacksmithing is at 303.
She's a fury warrior. (rar!)
Back when I first started playing Horde, I made a bunch of toons, one of each race. I had a Night Elf hunter main at the time, so I made an undead rogue (my Horde main for a long time), a Tauren druid, a troll warrior, and an orc warlock. The warlock was deleted early on, and the account was eventually pared down to two Alliance toons and grew a complement of eight Horde. The druid lasted until the most recent expansion, when I deleted her to make a death knight. (It now stands: Night Elf hunter and priest; undead rogue and priest; Tauren hunter and death knight; blood elf rogue and hunter; troll warrior; orc shaman.)
The baby troll, though, is older than my main, the Tauren hunter. She was sidelined for a long time - I didn't understand warriors at first; stances were confusing. I died too much, so I leveled as protection in defensive stance until I got dual-wield at level twenty. At a later point, after I had switched factions, shelved my undead rogue at level 50 (for nine months!) to make a Tauren hunter, and raided in Molten Core for a while, I finally started to get an idea of how warriors worked. Not through doing - I didn't touch my warrior for a long time, and for a while she spent time as storage space for snowballs and low-level engineering items. No, from hearing the Vent chatter during raids, about how the warriors tanked - stance-dancing for Magmadar, grouping up dog packs, off-tanking Golemagg's dogs.
After the undead priest had been leveled (she was supposed to be a place-holder for a blood elf priest of that name, but I started playing her and liked it too much to wait), I thought, hey, maybe I could level that warrior and fill in for 5-mans as a tank sometimes! So the warrior made it into the 40s.
I had transferred a human paladin off the server when it was free, since I had sunk time and money into her alchemy, and didn't want to 'lose' the investment. (Arcanite transmute! 5g!) And then... I made an orc shaman with the same name. (The irony! Human paladin to orc shaman! Old school battleground rivals!) Anyway, the orc elemental shaman is sitting at 68 now, having taken up what could have been the warrior's turn at leveling.
And now we're in a new expansion. I have a death knight - at 65. But of my 3 Horde 70s, only the hunter has made it to 80. The rogue is 71, the priest 72. The shaman is still 68, and the death knight is only up to 65. But... The rogue's alchemy is at 450. The priest's tailoring is at 415, and her enchanting is at 423. The shaman's leatherworking is at 437. The death knight's inscription is at 410, and of course the hunter's engineering is at 450.
I'm a profession junkie.
The jewelcrafter is a level 34 hunter; the blacksmith? My baby troll. In order to get blacksmithing above 375, the toon has to be at least level 65.
The troll is level 62 now. She's dual-wielding the Warsong Howling Axe from the Blood Furnace, and a white two-handed sword from a vendor at Falcon Watch. (At level 63, I have a pretty "of the beast" green two handed sword.) And her blacksmithing is at 303.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
So, my toons...
So, I have two level 70 marksman hunters on Bronzebeard: Duskhawk, a Tauren rolled in February 2006 when I went Horde full-time, and Mabs, my original Night Elf created on Easter 2005. Duskhawk is a goblin engineer (another of my... obsessions), and Mabs is my original dragonscale leatherworker, who paid 220g for the black dragonscale leggings pattern on the auction house, and accidentally deleted the 76g from auctioning the third pair she made. These aren't my only hunters, however. The others:
I do play other classes! I have (all on Bronzebeard)...
Right, no mages, no warlocks, no druids. The mage made it to level 11, the warlock to level 8, the druid to level 20; I just couldn't get into any of them.
- Duskmoon, a level 34 Blood Elf, rolled to be my jewelcrafter on Bronzebeard. You can see how far that's gotten in a year and a half. :P Duskmoon is theoretically going Beast Mastery, but we'll see how long that lasts. (Last time I was leveling her a bit, I mentioned how I needed people to remind me I didn't need three marksman hunters on one server, and one of the other officers put it in the GMotD for several days. >.>)
- Kayera, a level 13 Troll on an RP server, rolled to try out RP. I haven't played her much since achievements kicked in.
- Duskhawk the level 16 Draenei, rolled to try out the Draenei starting area and because Bronzebeard was down at the time.
- Mabs the younger, a level 11 Night Elf rolled on a server where I had relatives playing (who subsequently transfered off, and as such, this toon is basically abandoned).
I do play other classes! I have (all on Bronzebeard)...
- Level 70 Undead priest, Disc/Holy hybrid, emphasis on Disc. She'll probably be 40/31/0 at 80. Mooncloth tailor.
- Level 70 Undead rogue, Subtlety. Pretty, pretty Subtlety. I'm as die-hard about the tree as I am about Marksman. Potion Alchemist.
- Level 66 Orc shaman, Elemental. The 3-foot braid is awesome with the caster animations. Dragonscale leatherworker.
- Level 52 Troll warrior, mostly Fury. She has the matched swords from Zul'Farrak, and will not be combining them. Swordsmith.
Right, no mages, no warlocks, no druids. The mage made it to level 11, the warlock to level 8, the druid to level 20; I just couldn't get into any of them.
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