Plex - Level 20

 Plex the disc priest is leveling on!

Interestingly enough, I thought 10-20 went by a lot faster than 1-10. I think it's because of the instances, and eventhough I actually try to keep them to a minimum to avoid outleveling my questing zones too fast, you really get loads of exp from them. Not as much as the couple of friends I met in Ragefire Chasm, who got four levels thanks to RAF, from one single run. And that was without BoA. If you want to, you could really level rocket fast, but I've never minded taking it in a moderate pace. Or maybe that is what I tell myself since I don't have access to BoA or RAF anyway.

The first instance I did, a Deadmines, was extremely easy to heal. Already at level 15 you've got a decent setup of tools to help you out, not to mention the completely overpowered Penance. I did talk a little already about how the Shield was a little too good. It just wasn't worth the mana, because unless you took shit loads of damage you'd never get to use it all. That is still true, but it means I've got a really handy oh shit button. But Penance - now there's an overpowered spell. My heal has about 5 hpm, Penance has more than 8. Each tick heals for around 100 hp at level 15, when the tanks usually run around with about 500-600. To be able to use it properly, I have to let the tank drop fairly low, which doesn't feel very comfortable, but on the other hand I have another good oh shit tool. The "problem" of my heals being way oversized compared to both average mob damage and the health pool of most tanks is what makes healing so easy. 95% of the time I just keep Renew up, which also ticks for one tenth of the tanks health pool (like having 20k renew ticks at level 85). For someone like me who already know most about healing, it might turn a little dull, but overall I like that they've made the intro on healing so very easy. Because priests (especially disc) start out with so many tools (Heal, Penance, Flash Heal, PW: Shield and Renew) already for their first run, I could see how a newbie priest gets scared away. This way you're allowed to carefully try each spell out and see when to use which spell. Although admittedly, most lowbie priests seem to just spam Flash Heal and be happy.

So my initial impression of instance healing below level 20 was that it was extremely easy, but I quickly found out - it depends a lot on the tank. Bear tanks at level 15 don't have any aoe skill for instance, which usually means everyone in the group has some sort of aggro, since people never learn to take the same target as the tank. Some tanks just randomly run into stuff, and when you're geared in mostly whites even lowbie mobs hurt a lot. These tanks made me very happy I found out that Cannibalize now also returns mana (I am sure it has done that for a long time, but I haven't had to use it for years).

I'm usually ok with people being bad players in lowbie dungeons. Most of the time it really doesn't matter how people play, you'll probably manage anyway. I only demand that they're contributing as best as they can, and don't try to actively ruin the fun for everyone else. Unfortunately, the vote to kick function has a 15 minute cooldown at the start of an instance before you can kick anyone. I can see why Blizzard thought this was a good idea, so that people don't do too hasty judgements. You might need at least 15 minutes to really be able to judge whether someone deserves to be kicked or not. But for some behaviors you don't have to think long to realize you're dealing with an asshat. Someone who just follows while being afk, stealing exp, or someone who needs on everything for example. I know some new players just don't know they're not supposed to need on everything, so I always give people the benefit of getting that explained before I try to get rid of them. But the 15 min cooldown is about the time it takes to do nearly a full run of those lowbie instances, or at least get really far, which allows for people to be asshats without the rest of the party being able to do anything about it. Unless you decide to wait for 15 minutes, in which time you could've finished the instance.

I mentioned last time that it really bothered me that Smite, for no good reason at all, only has 30 yard range when standard range for dps skills nowadays is 40 yards. Of course, it wasn't limited to smite. All holy dps skills have this shortened range, Holy Fire and Penance too (except when healing fortunately) and it doesn't make me any happier about having to smite way through every mob. But I've decided to try out Atonement, both for healing and questing, and I'm going to stick with it.

Speaking of questing, I did a post a couple of weeks ago about how we need something in game that allow us to be nostalgic about all the fun stuff we do, prompted by the removal of the key chain. Therefor, I'm really happy that they've put so much time and effort into the new quest chains and especially into the names of the quest rewards. Most of the quest rewards, usually greens you'd normally just vendor as soon as possible, are named in a clever way that reminds you exactly when, where and how you got that item. Unfortunately there is no good way to store them except having them take loads of space in your bags or bank, so you've probably got to select a couple of special ones to keep as keep sakes.

The guild I am in is very small and silent, but when I do catch someone online they're nice and usually chatty. It's an rp guild, as I mentioned in my previous post, and I haven't decided yet whether to go for it (rping that is) or not yet. The GM said she'd mainly wanted an rp guild to have a reason to do guild events and meetups, but I usually attend to those kind of events regardless if it's for rping or not. I've always liked gatherings, and I remember back in late Vanilla when I was part of the biggest guilds on the server - Aventian Exiles - we used to have loads of events together. Races, duelling competitions, quizes, find-the-hidden-guy and a whole lot of other stuff with nice rewards too. I'm not sure I'd do it on my main, but I'd definitely do it on my scrub alt. Don't ask me why there's a difference, but somehow there is.