Field Report #30 - I Am That Noob Now

Back in the day when I played WoW, after a year or so of finding my footing, I started to play fairly seriously. Especially when I started to get into raiding in TBC, I was one of those people who pored over logs, read every detail in patch notes and analyzed it all to bits. I wrote posts on how to play classes I didn't even main, because I even put time into analyzing their rotations (can't say whether my guides were good or not though). While I hope I never looked down on the players who spent their time doing other things, I do know occasionally thinking "why wouldn't you want to bring your A-game to every group?".

Now I find myself constantly being that person. I don't know tacs for raids (other than what I barely remember from having done them 10+ years ago). I don't know what I need attunement for nor do I keep track of my rep on any of my characters (it doesn't help that I level everything simultaneously). Just the other week I joined a raid for Mount Hyjal only to find out I can't enter. I was mortified... My guild asked me if I wanted to join for their raids and I was almost embarrassed to say I hadn't signed for anything yet because I have no idea how Discord works. Fortunately they were kind enough to work me through it slowly and it's not that hard after all.

I have no idea what my BiS gear is and I only just downloaded an Addon that allows me to see what loot I could get from bosses (AtlasLoot) so that I can join in on that Reserve Loot thingy in Pugs. When the new patch was released and we suddenly only needed Honored to get into Heroics I had no idea until someone told me. Joining a Pug for Zul'Aman this week I quickly read some notes on raid tacs while I was making my way there so I wouldn't ruin the evening for everyone else (I think I did ok). I used to know these things way ahead and plan ahead, knowing exactly where I was going, what I was doing and what I needed. I used to be the person who explained these details to other people. Maybe it is karma then that I am receiving the same from others now.

Because now I log in and I don't have a clue. I feel like I have to ask about everything. I feel like I am constantly left behind, gear-wise. Everyone is going to fancy raids and have all the fancy gear with the fancy DPS. I am never the best in my groups.

This might sound horrible but it's actually all just pretty amusing. It's how I started out in WoW and somehow I've come full circle. I've seen what it is like on the hardcore side of things, doing the server first runs and discussing every fight with your fellow guildies. While I loved that part of WoW as well, I don't miss it. I enjoy this side of WoW just as much, for completely different reasons. I log in and I don't have a mission. I have nowhere I need to be and nothing special I need to do. It's whatever I have time for or brain power left in my head to do that evening. I don't have a purpose other than what I fancy for the evening and it's exactly the way I want it to be. 

Fortunately I feel like people have patience for my lack of knowledge, and hopefully my cheery demeanor can make up for some lacking gear. I still try to do my best of course. And best of all, I finally got to answer my question - now I know exactly why some people don't bring their A-game. 

Welcome, Tank Shaman!

There was no reason to hesitate and I don't know why I ever did, but now it is here - my very own tank shaman.

If you read my previous post on the subject, I debated whether to reroll an entirely new shaman or just respec the one I had. In the end I opted for the latter, because the prospect of having to redo the totem quests really didn't entice me, also it would've taken a lot longer to get into the real action of tanking with a new character anyway.

Things get trickier if your enemy is resistant to nature damage though.

Respecing my resto shaman into enhancement and gearing her, as much as I could, cost me about 15g. It might sound as little, but it's really not. It's worth every penny though. I wasn't lucky enough to find decent, or decently priced, gear at the Auction House for every gear slot immediately though and had to run with some caster gear. I figured it wasn't too bad since the intellect and stamina on those gear pieces would be handy on a tank as well. Fortunately I ran with few spirit items, for some reason.

My first ever dungeon as a tank shaman was a real trial by fire too - Gnomeregan. Definitely not a good starting dungeon for someone who has never tanked before, but I have, just never as a shaman. How hard can it be, I thought?

Not overly, it turns out. Tank shaman is pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. Really fun! So to elaborate on that thought, how is it going?

As always you need be smart with your totem placements.

Well firstly I really expected there to be a lot more questions, or should I say hesitations, about being tanked by a shaman. But after having tanked 5-6 dungeons I have not heard one peep of doubt as to whether I can pull it off. I guess it helps that I am in my mid-30s, and dungeons still allow you to get away with most things. It probably also helps that tanks are damn scarce, and "tanking" means less of "being the one who takes all the damage" and more of "being the one who takes charge". In fact I always find it interesting when people will ask for a tank for an hour and then still do all the pulling (dps warriors, I am looking at you).

As a tank there are a couple of scenarios you need to handle in an instance, stuff that requires you to keep aggro on one or more targets, interrupt, get ranged threat and of course take a lot of damage. Warrior tanks are usually the prototype around which the other tank-able classes have been designed, or so I like to think, and a tank warrior in Classic has no ranged or aoe threat (I don't really count Demo Shout). What it does have is good single target aggro and damage reduction skills. Tanking 1-3 mobs is usually still not an issue as a warrior as long as you keep retargeting and dishing out your threat fairly evenly. So how does the tank shaman differ?

Well the tank shaman has excellent ranged threat and decent aoe threat. With Chain Lighting you can do a ranged-aoe threat pull which is so handy in low level instances. Earth Shock not only works as a high threat skill, but also as an interrupt with only 6 sec cd. As a shaman you don't have a taunt, but that is very rarely an issue in low level dungeons (I can't say for higher dungeons yet). It only actually becomes problematic if you lose aggro on a boss and that probably only happens if you're unlucky with some resists and misses. 

I can't say for sure if my shaman takes more damage than a "regular" tank.

The tank shaman also lacks any kind of decent damage reduction skills. Improved Stoneskin totem should only really be considered as making up for the lack in armor, but the warrior has both Last Stand (talent) or Shield Wall (skill), which can make a huge difference when shit hits the fan and you overpull. While I've never heard a healer complain, I do find that I miss these skills on my shaman (paladins have things like Lay on Hands. As far as I know druids also lack tanking cooldowns which for some time was considered one of their greatest weaknesses if I recall correctly). 

Totems are also definitely a lot less convenient than shouts or auras. An aura goes along with you, doesn't have to be recast and can't be targeted and destroyed by enemies. On the other hand a paladin/warrior only has the one buff, whereas the shaman can use four different ones at once. As a shaman you have a huge arsenal of really useful totems i.e buffs to drop in very varying situations, things like Tremor Totem, Earthbind Totem or Stoneclaw Totem (which I often use to aid me in multi-pulls). In the end I think the trade-off is pretty balanced, though Stoneskin Totem usually is the only one I use for every fight for mana preserving reasons. And on that note...

Just as with paladins, tanking shamans have one feature that is both one of the best things and the worst things about it - the mana pool. It is easy to burn through in one fight, requiring you to drink often, but I find that you get a feeling for how many Earth Shocks you need to use on an enemy to have it securely at your side. While you could burn five into its face, it's probably enough with two. And maybe not every group-pull needs to be done with a Chain Lightning, just because it is handy. If there are only two targets, a regular pull will probably work just as well and save you a lot of mana. I almost never use Lightning Shield, because it's too expensive. With some mana management I find I don't have to drink more than between every 4-5 pulls, but that is still a lot of drinking. Whether you prefer to have all your threat skills available up-front or have to work it up like warriors and druids do is probably a matter of taste. I do find though that with a good group I can do one long continuous pull through an instance as a warrior, and that would never be possible as a shaman.

Earth Shock is very handy as a tanking skill.

Throughout the handful of instance I've had time to do so far on my shaman it has been a delight though. I have definitely not struggled more than I have with other tank classes, just with different things. And I think that's a great thing. Shaman tanking and warrior tanking are different enough to be quite their own experience. While the essence of pulling and handling mobs is the same, the way you can go about it differs a lot. Which one is easier? I would definitely have to say shaman. Rage management is not for the faint of hearted, and the fact of having all your threat skills available on pull, with good interruptability and ranged threat just makes a lot of the things I think a newbie tank would struggle with a lot easier. Which is more fun? Right now I am enjoying both equally because they are different enough. I've personally always had a soft heart for warrior tanking though, so I doubt shaman tanking will knock it down, but as a kind of odd alternative it is great.

At level 40 I get Stormstrike and I am really looking forward to see how that is going to change my tanking experience, the same way I feel Shield Slam has improved my tanking experience on my warrior. It will change the way I go about it though, since now I pull with an Earth Shock, but with Stormstrike I will want to get that in first (for the damage bonus), meaning my pulls will presumably become more like on my warrior. Changing gear to mail and getting to some more challenging instances will also be interesting, though I did have a shaman tank me in Sunken Temple the other day without any trouble. I am sure it'll be fine.

The Classic Dungeon Experience

 So far Classic WoW has been pretty much exactly the way I remember it, i.e amazing. There has been one notable difference though, at least to me, and that is the dungeon experience.

While I do recall having fun with dungeoning back in the day, I struggle to remember why or how that was possible, because most of my memories are of it taking way too long and people both playing and behaving very badly. The playing badly part I don't mind so much as long as there is a level of effort put in, and I know for a fact I was far from great myself. And to be fair, it was to be expected. Back then the game was completely new to all of us and even those with previous MMO experience (unlike me) still didn't know anything about tactics, best gear or best talents.

Unrelated picture of a scared priest.

This time around though I rarely find a player who seems to be completely new to the game. Either they have played a lot of retail, Vanilla or both. And in either case they mostly know what needs to be done and I've had a blast going through dungeons so far. I don't need people to play perfectly and I don't need people to be social geniuses, as long as everything is done in good effort and politeness.

So I managed to play a year of Classic and umpteen low and mid-level instances before I ended up having one of those experiences. One of those that took me right back to all the memories I have of everything taking just too long and nothing ever really clicking. Like, I can't even point at any one person and say "this failed because of you" but the group effort failed all together.

Ok, in this particular case there were definitely some warning signs early on. The fact that it takes almost an hour to assemble a group is not one of them though. A lot of instances are literally half an hour of running away and without Dungeon Finder Tool you're left to having to wait for the right person to show up at the right time, that's just the way Classic works and I'm fine with that.

I found a group for SM Graveyard and Library on my alliance priest (whom I have a lot to say about by the way, but that is matters for another post) and had to run myself from Wetlands, through Arathi, Hillsbrad and Tirisfal to get to the instance. I was the last one there and everyone had patiently waited for me without complaining. Off to a good start. 

Unrelated picture of a priest in Darnassus.

Except that when we were going to start our hunter wasn't present. Well, that's fine. He had probably gone afk without telling us while waiting, that's understandable. We cleared the first boss in SM GY before the hunter finally shows back up, at this point we had waited at least 15 minutes for him so that's a pretty long afk, but ok, we had done fine without him.

It was going to turn out there was a reason for that as he was ending up to be more of a hassle than gain for the group. He would stand around just not doing anything for minutes at a time, often not going in to action until prompted by someone asking for his attention in party chat. "Bad lag" he says. With lag that bad it's a wonder you can play this game at all, I think. But then again, he was playing a hunter.

Fortunately SM GY is not a difficult instance and we get through it without trouble. Off to SM Library, and the first half is fine, except for the hunter still being mostly afk. He runs around with Aspect of the Cheetah until I tell him and has full mana after every fight he actually does engage in... but I choose to keep my mouth mostly shut, and so does everyone else. We're still doing fine, after all.

After the first boss problem starts to arise though. The hunter starts "lagging" in to extra mobs, pulling more than the tank can comfortably handle. We have our first wipe. No one is complaining, but we're telling each other to be careful not to pull extras. The warrior turns out to be one of those who doesn't bother corpse running but just waits for someone to res him instead. The mobs in SM Lib are fairly tricky actually, with a mana burn I try to hide from as much as possible and a nasty kick that will silence you if you're not careful.

Unrelated picture of a priest running.

That kick will be the cause of our next wipe, just before the final boss. No one is to blame really, it is one of those breakdowns of team effort I described earlier. Or maybe rather an accumulation of mistakes that breaks the camels back. Even though I use Fade I get aggro from mobs throughout the instance, and getting my spells silenced means the tank dies. The first problem might be that the tank doesn't pull the mobs in to a safe spot, but forces us to fight them where they can more easily aggro more mobs. This also means the hunter often stands in places where he more easily aggros more mobs. The paladin or warrior don't use their cooldowns to save us when shit hits the fan and I forget not to cast a heal when I have aggro from one of the kickers. So we wipe.

We all made mistakes, any one of them miniscule but all together too many to keep the group alive.

The second time we wipe we come back to the instance fully respawned. We had literally been about three mobs away from finishing it, and now we have to clear it all over again. But we decide to do it. And through everything we manage to somehow keep our calm and not start yelling things. I just get mildly annoyed when the tank druid starts needing on cloth caster gear. I mean come on dude, that's just not cool. But I also remind myself that this mid-level gear is a drop in the ocean and it doesn't matter. It really doesn't.

But in the end everything took way longer than it needed to and some have been very much carried by the efforts of others. While it didn't leave me angry, sad or even particularly frustrated it definitely left me extremely mentally drained. And I don't know, was it even fun? In the end I probably feel like I could've been without that experience and that is probably a first in Wow Classic for me.

WoW Classic - One Year On

It's now been almost a year since I first logged on to WoW Classic. Back then I was immediately in love - again! 

Though some things were exactly as tedious as I lovingly remembered them, like the endless travel times between quest objects and never being able to afford anything even remotely useful, some things weren't anything like I remembered them, like instancing. My memories of instances are just full of waiting, waiting, waiting, dying and running and probably not getting to the end anyway. It's almost a miracle I even enjoyed doing them at all, if my memories are anything to go by.

Good thing then that for some reason that hasn't turned out to be a problem at all. While instances can still take a lot of time (I spent about 2 hours doing a Deadmines the other day) they usually run very smoothly. I rarely have anyone leave mid instance, ninjaing loot they can't even equip and just standing around like they're pretending to be a tree. This time around it seems clear that the vast majority of players have at least some experience of playing WoW. That could also be because I haven't actually even gotten to the really tricky end-game content yet.

Yup, it's true. I have been playing for a year now and my highest level character isn't even level 50 yet (in fact, he's 49). The explanation really just comes down to one thing: even though I still enjoy the game immensely, I just don't put nowhere near the time in to it like I used to. This means I am actually playing the game like I always wanted to - being able to combine it with all my other interests rather than letting it steamroll all over them.

WoW Classic is just one of many things I can choose to do in an evening, and my evenings are very short anyway. At best I have some good three hours to put in to it on a Friday or Saturday evening and if I am lucky I can get an instance done.

Old school blood elf.

I don't need to though, I am really enjoying the questing. Not all of it mind you, I am reminded of why I used to have a set course through the map back in the day and steered clear of certain areas. Giving them another chance in WoW Classic I just realize that I still don't find them fun. Stonetalon Mountains is such an area, Arathi Highlands is another. 

The vast majority of areas I still love though, Tirisfal Glades, Duskwood, Stranglethorn Vale, Hillsbrad Foothills, Tanaris and so on. I have so much nostalgia connected to almost every inch of this game I can't go anywhere without thinking "oh yeah this is where I spoke to that person" or "this is where we did this quest", "this is where I found that thing".

There is no denying that Blizzard improved on a lot of things in later expansions however and that some classes fare better in Classic than others. Warlock and Hunter are what you would call faceroll, especially compared to a class like Warrior who I find struggles immensely at pretty much everything. 

Other than a bit of class balance though (which of course Blizzard never gets perfect because it is probably impossible) I find few things to improve. There are quality of life things, like the long Hearthstone cd (which doesn't bother me really). The fact that you can't see what an object is worth until you vendor it and find out you've been carrying around a 5c item for an hour. I miss having any sort of decent timers for my spells. The summon stone would be quite handy of course. The list can be made long, but none of them are game breakingly necessary in my opinion.

For some of these there are addons to ease your pain (the vendor problem being one I needed to fix for instance). For others it's just suck it up and deal with it (like it literally taking more than 30 minutes to get everyone to an instance).

That I only have very limited time to put in to the game seems to also have caused another behavior in me. It's a fact that the game is the most rewarding, in the sense that you actually get stuff done, the lower level you are. Quests are shorter and levels are quicker. The higher the level, the more time you need to put in to a session to find that you've actually achieved something, I find.

This means I seem to get into a bit of a hump around level 35ish (might also be content that's a bit dry there but I haven't reflected on that) where I often roll an alt instead of moving on with the character I am currently playing. This means I have about 3-4 characters between 30-40. The warlock made it all the way to 49 simply because everything is so easy on him.

But I don't care. My only goal with the game is to enjoy playing it, however that may be. If it means playing characters from 1-20 hundred times over, so be it. I don't need to see any raid content and frankly I probably won't (though yet again it seems very much more accessible than it was in the original). While I am looking forward to experiencing some end game content again I am definitely in no hurry. 

I am still so damn happy that WoW Classic is a thing and I enjoy every second with it. But I also don't feel the need to play it all the time. I am glad I've been able to find a good balance between it and all the other things I want to do. I've managed to fit WoW Classic perfectly into the little niche I wanted it to be in.

I also have a lot of thoughts about Burning Crusade, but that is probably best saved for another post.

Classic WoW - I Just Want It To Be There For Me

I'm sure most people are just like me in that there are certain pieces of entertainment, be it movies, games or books (most likely all of them), that you just want lying around. Either you have them on display or not, you want them close by. Even if you know you won't get around to reading/playing/watching it even once this year, there is something that makes you want it nice and handy, just in case you feel the urge. To me it can be a book like The Count of Monte Cristo, a game like Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or a movie like Seven Samuari. These are items I get back to every know and then and there is something... calming... about knowing that I can do that whenever I feel like it. Even if I never feel like it again, I want to have that option.

This is what I want to do and can't do with Classic WoW.

After having played it since (re)launch last year I have been having a swell time. Most things about it are so nostalgic I love them exactly because they're tedious or not entirely well-designed. Many things I find are actually a lot better than I remember them, dungeoning being one of those things. I have been going at it very slowly too, my highest character at the moment still being only level 40.

In many ways I am so conflicted when it comes to Classic WoW and in some ways I am not at all. I love it, to bits. It has such a huge part of my life (along with the first couple of expansions) I can not state enough what an important game this has been to me, and still is because of that. Every time I log on, every time I do something I've done a thousand times before I get that nostalgic twang in my heart of pure happiness.

But I have done these things a thousand times before. There is pretty much nothing in Classic WoW that I do not know inside and out already (I didn't do a whole lot of raiding in current Classic so that would be the one exception). Whenever I log on it is solely for the nostalgic feeling and pretty much nothing else. I don't feel like there is any wonder of learning or discovery left for me in this game.

And in many ways that is absolutely ok. When I re-read the Count of Monte Cristo for the umpteenth time I obviously know exactly what is going to happen. Rewatching Seven Samuari I am not entertained by the elements of surprise anymore. Now instead I am entertained by the fine craftmanship and the memory of the first time I experienced it and how blown away I was at that point.

But even though I find the Count of Monte Cristo and Seven Samurai to be absolute masterpieces I don't want to re-visit them too often. I want them close and handy in case I do want to experience them again, but often there are a few years in-between each time nowadays. Often it is just enough to look at them to get a good feeling, and it isn't until a few years have passed before you need to refill that nostalgia-well.

Read it, the movies are not worth your time. There is an interesting anime though - "Gankutsuo".

The same thing goes with WoW Classic, but unlike pretty much everything else I can't really own my own copy of Classic WoW to put in my shelf knowing that if I ever, like 40 years from now, want to play that game it is just to pop it into my computer and go (ok, this is an issue facing a lot of computer games, but mmo's have an even shorter expiration date).

MMO's are experiences you only get to borrow for a short time. Once you start playing it you never know how long you're going to be allowed to stick around and World of Warcraft has proven to be one of the longest runners in the genre. In fact we should probably consider us damn lucky we even got a remake the way we have.

And I am. I am so grateful. I don't take it for granted at all. That is why I am afraid that if I don't keep it around it will go away again. It will only stick around for as long as people pay obviously, but can I really justify paying the monthly fee just to have it sticking around because I don't want it to ever go away? It is going to go away eventually anyway.

There are so many things they got right with Classic WoW. While I haven't played retail since a short foray in Warlords of Draenor or whatever expansion it might have been, I personally feel like Classic really entices you into playing with other people in a way that has been removed in many ways from later expansions. You could say Classic even forces you to, because there are so many situations, even early on in the game, where you will find yourself struggling even with a regular quest if you don't find someone to back you up, this is definitely a lot more true for some classes than others.

It's so good you don't even notice how long it is.

And overall people have been so damn nice. Maybe it's because I'm not on a pvp server like I used to be back in the day, so of course there is a lot less opportunity for people to be asshats, but in instances and during questing I find that generally people are generous and friendly to each other.
But I mentioned the quality of different classes and I find this is where WoW probably has done a lot of improvements, though my personal point of view is that they've taken it a bit far in the more recent expansions (this based solely on what I've read since I haven't actually played it myself).

When I play Classic WoW now, and I have rolled pretty much every class so far except druid, I find that each class is very differently equipped for how well it handles itself in different situations but a lot of the fun comes down to something as simple as agency. When shit hits the fan, it is so much more fun to play a class where you feel like you have three more tricks up your sleeve to solve the situation than one where you feel all you can do is throw your hands up in the air and hope for some lucky crits.

This is true for solo-questing and grouping alike as the more useful you feel like you are, the more fun you are going to have. Some classes are more useful to themselves, some more useful to a group. Either way, in the end you want to feel like you have choices even when things go bad. A class like warlock has the usefulness of Healthstones, Summons, Soulstones, pet buffs, cc and self-healing abilities. A class like warrior has the usefulness of barely being able to tank and yeah that is pretty much it... Druids can jump between tanking, healing and dpsing when necessary, which becomes fairly obsolete at end game unfortunately but is actually really cool in mid-game. A resto shaman is pretty much just a glorified totem-mover… I could probably write a whole post on this and might even do that.

Blizzard get so much better later on at giving all the classes different tools for feeling like they have agency and something to bring to the board. I feel like if I had one complaint about woW Classic right now it wouldn't be about the difficulties in getting money or how much running around there is but that some classes get extremely repetative very quickly.

And right now it's like I get to around 35 ish with a class and I sort of don't feel like going further. Which isn't true, because I definitely want to see instances like Sunken Temple and Zul Farrak, and areas like Western Plaguelands and Hinterlands before I feel like I am done with this game this time around.

So now I am stuck in this limbo of wanting the game to be around for me to play, but without actually wanting to put very much game time into it. I just need it for a quick refill of nostalgia every now and then, and I am not sure the game can be played that way...

Images from Barnesandnoble.com, bbc.com.

Let's Talk About Addons [WoW Classic]

Let's talk a bit about addons shall we?

Oftentimes when I have thought about going back to playing WoW (before Classic was announced), one of the main things that held me back was thinking about all the addons that I would need to install and get into shape before being able to play. The mere thought of going "naked" into retail barely even crossed my mind and that's even knowing that Blizzard had implemented a great deal of the addons I used to use into their own UI.

Fast forward a bit and Classic was announced and suddenly my brain goes all puritan - now I want to experience the game with as few addons as possible!

But that doesn't mean I don't need a couple though… Technically you don't need any addon to play the game of course, and I did play it completely addon free for several weeks before I caved in.

Unrelated picture of me playing.

There will always be some addons that I will never* install. A quest addon is one such addon. While I do occasionally google a quest here and there, having help with every one of them feels like it robs a bit of the fun out of the game. I enjoy reading the quest text and having to think for a bit for myself, at least for the most part. Some times the quest text is so damn vague I wonder if the whole idea was to actually go have me run all over Barrens to find that one dude hiding in a hovel somewhere. Probably. There are points to that as well - more experience as you fight your way through areas and a good way to discover places you maybe wouldn't go to otherwise.

It didn't take long before I realized that just as there are addons I really wouldn't want to use, there are addons I really wouldn't want to play without this time around as well. And it all comes down to one of three things. Either it's an addon that gives me information about something that I really think the game should already provide me with. Or it speeds up a process I often use. Or it's just for fun. And considering I used to use somewhere around 30-40 addons back in the day, the four I've settled on so far feel like nothing.

Let's get the "for fun" addon out of the way - Recount. Yeah, I like to see how much damage people do. It's not just about peen-measuring, I actually use it to test the efficiency of skills and rotations that I use. If I see someone doing good damage I like to pore over their stats to see if I can learn something from it. I try not to be that person who links damage meters in chat every two seconds and I think I've succeeded pretty well.

Recount

Now for the information ones - VendorPrice and ClassicAuras.

VendorPrice: Classic has a combination of facts that in themselves aren't a problem, but combined become quite the issue. At least for me. Firstly, you don't really have much bag space. And secondly, everything seems to drop a ton of crap. Every murloc has the possibility to drop Murloc Eye, Murloc Fin, Shiny Scales, Shells and other stuff. Kill a couple and your bag will very quickly be filled with loads of things that is everything from grey to green (and even blue if you're lucky!). You will have to prioritize, ie throw things out, unless you want to run back to some vendor and unload every fifteen minutes. But how do you know what to throw? Is a 5 stack of Murloc Eyes worth more than a 10 stack of Sharp Claws? I don't know! And after having played a couple of weeks not knowing I decided money was hard enough to come by as it is without me literally throwing it away. So I got an addon that does nothing but show me the vendor value of items. That also allows me to see if it's even worth putting that stack of Linen Cloth on the Auction House, when the going price is just coppers above what the vendor gives me for it anyway...

I don't want an addon that tells me how much things are going for on the Auction House though, which might seem odd. For some reason I don't mind having to find that out for myself, and besides, the prices can fluctuate so much there that in the end that's probably what I would have to do anyway.

Spiders also drop a lot of crap.

ClassicAuras: Classic also has a big problem in that it doesn't show you the time left on your debuffs on your target. The fact that it doesn't actually absolutely baffles me and feels like straight up bad design. You might think, as I am guessing the designers did, that there isn't more to it than just looking at your target and seeing when the debuff runs out. That quickly becomes completely impractical when you've got more than one target, or even worse, another class using the same debuffs as you. Partying with another warlock is a nightmare when I no longer can tell if that is my Immolate on the target or not! I shudder to think how this works in raids...

Then the one that speed up some things - Clique

Back in the day I used to pair Clique with Vuhdo for some easy healing, because the in-game raid frames are frankly just... not good. At least they weren't back then. Since I only do lowbie dungeons now I have settled with Clique, at least for now. It allows me to bind my spells to clicks with my mouse, so that shift-right click does a certain heal on my target for instance. The default way is to click a target and then choose one of your heals in your bar. Clique not only saves me time since I choose spell and target at the same time, but it also saves slots on the action bar since I don't need to have my spells on there (I usually do anyway though, just in case). It just makes healing so much more practical, which doesn't matter much when you do lowbie dungeons but it makes a ton of difference when you're raiding difficult bosses. So now I'm so used to it I really don't like doing it the original way. (Clique has an issue in Classic though in that it can't distinguish between different ranks of spells).

I have a big wish for an addon to add... on... to this list here though. That is AutoBar. It's an action bar that auto-updates with contents from my bag. For instance it would automatically update with a Healthstone if I have one in my bag, or automatically put up any food in my bag. What I have to do now is locate any food in my bag every time I want to eat, or swap it out on my action bars as I get new types. It's just a little handy thing that doesn't make you a better player or anything, just saves a lot of hassle.

And that's it. For now. I know for sure I will get more addons because that is just how these things go. You tell yourself that one addon won't hurt. Then there is another. And another. And suddenly you're sitting there with 40 addons and wondering how the heck that happened and still you couldn't get yourself to turn off a single one. But I think I am still some ways off that yet.

What addons are crucial to your gameplay?

*never say never though.

I Just Got My First Ignore [WoW Classic]

After harping on about how nice everything is in WoW Classic I guess it is only fair that I share an encounter I had with someone that clearly wasn't having a very good day.

My bf tricked me into going to Loch Modan with my level 18 paladin, when I realized I was too low level for most quests in Redridge and didn't really know where else to go. I say "tricked" because I don't like Loch Modan and I also outleveled a lot of the quests there.

After I had a successful group to kill Chok'sul, which is almost a story worthy telling in itself seeing that we pulled four elites on a group of three and still got out of it alive (well I wasn't but the other two were), I ended up running around and passed a Peacebloom.

I've decided to go for gathering professions on my paladin because I suck at collecting money otherwise and so I stopped to get the Peacebloom. I also really fancied some cake. I had been thinking about it for a while but didn't want to run off mid-elite-killing. So I started picking the flower and went to get cake thinking I'd auto-loot as usual. I was gone less than a minute. Apparently I had full bags, so when I came back my character was still in the loot window. No biggie I thought.

But oh no, there was a biggie.

I noticed someone had apparently run past me while I was kneeling there next to the Peacebloom and said "Either loot it or don't".

I could've just left it at that. Maybe I should've. But I like talking and for some reason I thought it could start a fun conversation, since people are generally nice and easy to talk to.

"Sorry, I went afk while looting and apparently had full bags" I told the person through whisper.

"Who goes afk while looting" they answer.

"Someone who really wants cake" I wanted to answer.

But they had ignored me.

Ignored me! Over a Peacebloom!

But it gets better. When I shift-clicked them to see their level I noticed their guild name - "No Offense Taken". Fighting over a Peacebloom. Some times, comedy just writes itself.

So I've just gotten my first (that I know of) ignore in WoW Classic, but I'll definitely try to step up and loot my herbs a lot faster from now on.

Field Report #26 - The Shamanistic Ordeal

I got the closest I've ever been to a dungeon run that was not great the other night. After having done some tanking and dpsing I also got the urge to do some healing. I pondered the different classes and decided on a shaman. I pondered levelling as a dps and healing in dungeons, similarly to what I am doing with my tank, but felt like I wanted to try actually being resto. So then I decided against questing because questing as a resto shaman just seemed too horrible.

So there we have set the stage for my run in Wailing Caverns. I had turned 18 and done several very successful runs in RFC. I thought I would be able to heal a group through WC without too much trouble. I was only partially correct.

Happy Halloween by the way.

We got there and I immediately notice that the (level 20 warrior) tank didn't pull back with the raptors. Anyone who has done a run in WC knows that it is usually a bad idea not to, but I didn't really have time to react to before we suddenly had several more mobs on us. And when I say "us" I really mean "me".

I don't blame the tank for anything but failing to pull the mobs back, and maybe he was new to the instance, so that's fine.  In the end it didn't matter because we made it through the overpull anyway.
Then the rogue speaks up. "Ey healer. Stop pulling all those extra mobs".

Eh, I'm sorry?

Ok, so we have another person who has never been to Wailing Caverns before apparently. It was true that I was low level (though not even the lowest level in the group). And because the mobs come running from afar they run to me first since I get aggro through my healing. I can see how the rogue put two and two together and assumed I was the problem. No biggie, let's just set the record straight.

I pointed out the emote in the chat and explained the mechanic. But the rogue refused to believe me. He claimed he had already done several runs without any issue. I didn't want to throw blame on the tank so I just said "fine, I'll stay all the way back here and we'll see what happens".

To no surprise, the raptors still came running. And they didn't just attack me. What was a surprise though, after I pointed it out the rogue actually responded with "I might have been wrong". Someone admitting they were wrong on the interwebs? That's as rare as a unicorn. But that is now the closest I have been to what could've turned into an angry run, and it wasn't very close at all. Classic is still showing itself at its best side, and the players playing it as well.

Speaking of shaman healing though...

Before level 20 when I get Lesser Healing Wave it is a whole lot of spamming Healing Wave! And unless you count throwing out the occasional Stoneskin/Strength of Earth totem that is literally the only thing I am doing (I interrupt some times too I guess). And since someone (yeah, me) decided levelling solely through instances was a good idea it's just been Healing Waves all over this place for the last four levels. Level 14-18 doesn't sound like it should take that long, but when all you do is press one button over and over it's unsurprisingly quite dull.

So why not just go quest? Good question. I've levelled my orc warrior and undead warlock pretty simultaneously, meaning I've done a quest on the one character and then gone and done the same quest on the other character (for the most part, the warlock did Stonetalon Mountains which the warrior has not). The thought of doing all those quests again on my troll shaman really didn't appeal to me. And especially not since I was going to go all resto.

For a short moment I thought about doing the quests in Tirisfal and Silverpine because I love those areas so much, but then I remembered that there is no shaman trainer over there so then the prospect of going back and forth every two levels to train didn't sound particularly fun either.

I am level 19 now. Next up is the horrendous Water Totem Quest at level 20 (if I remember correctly) and I'll get both Lesser Healing Wave and Healing Stream Totem. That's not bad. It'll give me a few more tools to work with.

Interestingly enough though, my ordeal with my resto shaman has made me come through whatever blockage I had regarding playing a healing priest (Heal! Shields! Renews! Lesser Heals! So many fun things!). So yeah, I am also leveling one of those now - a dwarf, because for now I've had enough of the horde areas for a while.

Field Report #25 - Who Needs Tanks and Priests?

No Tank
Interestingly enough I find there seems to be as much lack of healers as there is tanks when I am trying to group up in WoW Classic. This might be a bit skewed by the fact that I often play a tank and thus I spend more time looking for a healer than a tank. But as I've mentioned before, my experience of grouping for dungeons has so far been a positive one. This didn't change when I tried to get a group for Shadowfang Keep on my level 23 warlock the other night.

We did in fact find a healer but could not find a tank. I was worried the group would dissolve, but instead the healer asked the high-leveled rogue (27) if he'd be interested in tanking, saying that he himself was up to the task of healing him in that case. At first I was at least mildly concerned at the prospect of having a rogue tank, but when I remembered I could use my voidwalker as a back-up tank I thought it could, if nothing else, turn out to be an interesting experiment. The last time I tried to tank an instance without an actual tank was something like Botanica in Burning Crusade (we used a voidwalker back then too, as Demonology warlocks were pretty broken for a while).

SFK always makes me think of Tom Jones. It's a long story...

I pride myself in being pretty flexible with group setups and especially with group progress, as long as whatever is happening isn't due to anyone trying to ruin things. We decided to go along with our plan and recruited another dps for the final slot instead. It turned out to be another warlock, so equipped with one high-level character (the rest of us were around level 23-24) and soul stones/healthstones/pets worth of two warlocks we took on Shadowfang Keep.

And really had no issue getting through it. While the voidwalker isn't the best tank (especially not at keeping threat), the healer and the fact that we managed to generally spread out damage pretty evenly across the group, made sure we got through it fairly smoothly. We did one silly overpull where us two locks and the priest died, but because of soul stones we were quickly back on our feet without much slowdown.

Everyone was having a blast, we were joking around and I ended up on friends list and in their guild (it turned out the other four in the group were already guildies, I hadn't even noticed until the end!). Everyone was doing what they could to move forward, no one called anyone out for the few mistakes that were made. We genuinely congratulated each other when someone else got a gear drop and there even was a blue BoE drop that no one tried to ninja.

It tries its best though.

To me it was the essence of what makes WoW Classic so damn good. It was one of those times when you regain faith in humanity and remember that the vast majority of online players out there are not toxic a-holes, but nice people who are just looking to have a good time. While I know asshats reside in WoW Classic as well, it's just the way some people are and they'll turn up in any population, I've always found WoW in general has been fairly void of the worst kind. Maybe I've just been lucky, but the way some communities in other games have been described to me I just don't see that happening in WoW.

No Priest
For the 8 years during which I played a lot of WoW I mained a healing priest for almost all of that and I never stopped loving it. I started playing it about 9 months after I first started playing (early 2006) and enjoyed it through thick and thin. I also played a lot of alts, of which tanks and especially warrior tanks became another favorite of mine. Rogues were probably the class I enjoyed and played the least (actually, feral dps druid I probably played less, but I tanked a lot as a druid). Now that I've started playing WoW Classic I am currently enjoying my warlock the most but I'm interested in playing most of the other classes too.

Weirdly enough, I really have no desire to play a priest though, whether healing or dpsing (not that shadow priest is viable for much else than questing in Classic). I played other priest healers than my main before and enjoyed it just as much, but this time around… it just feels wrong. I'm not sure if it's fatigue, the fact that priest healer is the class I know by far the best even from Vanilla WoW or simply the fact that it just wouldn't be the same somehow.

It's a bit of a dilemma because I actually would really like to heal. But the thought of priest healing doesn't appeal to me. I never enjoyed druid healing much for whatever reason. That leaves paladin and shaman. Shaman is the one I've enjoyed the most out of those two, but the thought of a) levelling a resto shaman and b) some of the totems quests that you have to do are really putting me off.

Not even the totem likes the totem class quest.

I am nurturing this idea that I'll level only through instances, saving me having to quest as resto, only doing the bare minimum of quests (like abovementioned totem quests) but I am worried that I'll quickly be bored with doing the same instances over and over. We'll see what I end up doing, I am in no rush either way.

I also realize that if this is the biggest dilemma in my life right now I can consider myself quite lucky.

Jaded
Meanwhile I am actually trying to not fall into the same trap as last time I played WoW, namely ignoring every other game out there. I really do want to play other games simultaneously, because if there is one thing that gives me existential angst it's the size of my backlog that I need to get through.

I am currently playing Resident Evil 2 remake Claire A (after completing Leon A) with the bf and also Jade Empire.

Jade Empire is one of those games I find quite meh but it's got flow enough to keep me playing at least. There are so many things about this game that are frustratingly close to being almost good that half the time I think I want to complete it just so I have a legitimate reason to write up a review of it, complaining about all these things. It's my intention to make that happen because I definitely have a lot to say about it. WoW Classic is not helping because it's difficult to motivate myself to play a barely engrossing game when the other option is one I thoroughly enjoy. Why do it then you might ask? Well because I want to check it off my list, simply! And write that review, like I said.

Images from classic.wowhead.com.

Some Things in WoW Classic are Better Than Vanilla

Ok, it's been 14 years since I started playing Vanilla so I'll admit it's possible that my memory of it could've been a bit corrupted over the years. Yet it is immensely fun to compare what I remember Vanilla being to how I experience Classic right here and now. There are actually a few things that are quite different from my memories, and one of them is the dungeoning experience.

To be fair, my highest level right now is 25 so I haven't done any of the crazy stuff at endgame or even mid-game (hello Maraudon). But I have some memories of even Wailing Caverns that aren't too positive.

People returning to Classic, like me, had a pretty good idea of what was waiting for them and most of these things have come true and have been pretty much as I expected/remembered. The scrounging for money, the endless running, the endless dying to everything. Some things are easier now just because I have so much experience - I rarely get lost in quests simply because I still know most of them by heart. But reading the quest texts I can appreciate that some of them are extremely vague. I had to go find some dude "east of the Crossroads". No he was up a hill east of the Crossroads. That information could've been very useful, because just "east of the Crossroads" is a pretty big area.

But then we've got the instancing. My memory of instancing is spending a lot of time finding a group, spending a lot of time getting everyone to the instance, spending a lot of time inside the instance. Then if there ever was a wipe, and there always was, invariably someone got lost or left the group. In case of the latter, one in the party had to run out of the instance, maybe and probably even hearth to a city to find another group member. This could take another amount of "a lot of time" if you needed to find a healer or a tank. Then these two needed to head back to the instance again where the rest of the group had been idling, hopefully (and then you needed to help them get to the instance as most instances has elites waiting outside). That's assuming someone else didn't give up halfway through waiting and left. Rinse and repeat.

In short, my memory of doing instances in Vanilla was that it would take a lot of time and patience. Because of this I was prepared that dungeons wasn't something I was going to be able to do much, since I have such little time to play (and some of it I spend writing stuff like this instead).

I decided to give Ragefire Chasm a go because it doesn't have elites at the entrance and it is already inside a city. It removed a lot of the time-consuming obstacles that other dungeons suffer from. It went so smoothly that I decided to do a couple more and then I even had the guts to give Wailing Caverns a go. That went smoothly too. In fact, the elites outside the instance weren't half as difficult as I remember them being. The instances weren't anywhere near as difficult as I remember them being.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like you can just dance your way through the instances. They require some careful pulling and cooperation from the group, which I absolutely love about them. But through the ~8 runs I've done in different instances so far, only once have I wiped (stray pet of course) and never have I've had a group that's been a lot of hassle. People have done what they're supposed to and have been good team mates. People have rolled for chests. People have been cutting eachother a slack when something has gone wrong. People have been chatting about this and that and throwing jokes around (unlike the complete silence I mostly experienced in the later expansions I played). Some people (hunters) have been taking my loot, but oh well. That is part of the Vanilla experience.

I've got this pet theory that because the vast majority (I am guessing) of people who are playing Classic either have experience of playing it before or at least have experience of playing WoW, there is just so much more pooled up experience in doing anything in the game than it was back then, and it shows. Finding information on how to play your class or what gear is good and where to find it is so easy now compared to back then. It seems to me that people are more patient and a lot more skillful than what I remember from back then. I know for sure I am.

WoW Classic Broke Me

My protection warrior is no more...

I don't remember why or when exactly I decided to play a warrior, but my very first one - a tauren male named Vorax - I levelled as dps. It wasn't until max level (70) and half way through Burning Crusade that I decided to try some tanking, initially very reluctantly and extremely nervous. I had my mishaps, my favorite one was trying to tank a heroic with all my skills in rank 1. I had forgotten to train them after a respec (yeah that was a thing!). If my memory serves though it went well enough for me not to entirely give up on it, rather the opposite, I developed an extreme fondness for warrior tanking.

So much so that I decided to level another warrior from scratch, this time protection all the way. I've always held that the best way to learn a new class is to play it from level 1 and for me at least it's definitely worked well. My enjoyment of warrior tanking subsisted throughout my years of playing WoW and I created many new protection warriors simply because I enjoyed tanking dungeons so very much.

While I loved healing in raids, I absolutely loved tanking for everything else in WoW. That's why I knew right from the start that I wanted to play a protection warrior first and foremost when WoW Classic came. Said and done, I rolled myself an orc warrior and started playing.

So I've played protection warrior a lot, especially for the levels between starting out and endgame and lowbie tanking was what I enjoyed best. But looking back at all those memories of tanking I quickly realized that I never actually tanked anything in Vanilla WoW. My knowledge of the original experience of tanking was limited to the rumours of rage starvation that I heard while bumbling about as a newbie priest. Rolling a protection warrior in Classic WoW would thus be a completely new experience to me.

Completely new though? Could it really be that different?

Well... in many ways yes. It is clear to me, having gotten myself to level 20 and looking back at my, so far, four experiences of tanking dungeons, that a lot had changed between Vanilla and Burning Crusade when I took up my shield and sword for the first time. Even back in Burning Crusade I remember thinking that warriors lacked some tools that other tanking classes had for a long time, a ranged silence (like paladins had) for instance (we eventually got that though). But boy do they lack tools in Vanilla WoW!

It's almost like I can see the Blizzard thought process - let's make warriors the tank for endgame and every other tank class can be for up until then (heck, even throw shamans into that mix). Because the harsh reality is that protection warriors are just not very well suited for dungeon tanking. Their shtick is to take one really big bad guy and tank that mofo hard. If you've got one giant dragon swiping at your face (hello Onyxia), being a tank warrior is probably what you want to be. If you've got three mobs out of which two are casters and one can pull other mobs from around you (hello Wailing Caverns), a warrior tank is the last thing you want to be.

It is one thing that the tool set is limited - as a protection warrior I literally have no aoe threat except Demoralizing Shout, Taunt is melee range only and as an orc (and maybe any warrior race) I can't even use ranged weapons without learning them first (how do you pull you ask? Well with your face of course).

Ok, so I just got Cleave at level 20 and I can actually use that in Defensive Stance (yay). But what does that cost? 20 rage!? Hahaha I never have that much rage... That takes me to my main issue with warrior tanking - rage starvation.

See I remember it being mentioned back in the day, and my guess is it was probably so bad it was something every protection warrior I came across mentioned. Or they just talked about it randomly in General Chat. Probably both. And holy macaroley is rage starvation a thing. As a protection warrior I will so easily end up in a cycle of just not being able to do anything. Unless I have Bloodrage ready (which has 1 minute cooldown) I will run into a pack with 0 rage, being able to use exactly one of my skills - Taunt. It takes me 2-3 auto attacks to get enough rage for 1 Sunder Armor. That is 1 Sunder Armor on 1 enemy. If there are more enemies in that pack? Well they've probably run off to the healer by now. Or any dps that can't follow target markers (a lot more common than you'd hope). So I run after a mob trying to Taunt it with my melee range Taunt and while I do that I do exactly zero threat to all the other enemies around us. Because I just. don't. have. aoe. threat. And even if I did I don't have enough rage to use it.

So my main issue is definitely that of rage. I am actually perfectly fine with not having a good aoe tanking tool, I mean I do have Demo Shout after all and that definitely works well enough. But not getting the rage I need to do any of the skills I need is just... not fun. At the moment I run in and just stare at the mobs angrily enough, hoping my ugly face will make them stay around to hit me. The only light in my tanking tunnel is that whatever hits I do get in generate so very much more threat that most players around me (at least if they're my level) that even melee hits can be enough to hold general aggro most of the time. But auto attack swing tanking is not a very fun way of tanking. I feel like a glorified target dummy.

My issue isn't even that tanking is hard. It was hard all the way until Cataclysm, warrior tanking was probably the most difficult for a long time and that is part of what I enjoyed about it. It's not much more difficult now, it's just... a lot more tedious.

I realize it might just be that tanking is this way for any tanking class in Classic. I haven't tried any other so I don't know. But I do know it's not very much fun for warriors at least, and anyone who has tried any other tanking thus far would be very welcome to tell me about that experience.

Things might look up in a couple of more levels, I am only level 20 after all. Looking at the protection talent tree there isn't really much in there that tells me that's the case though. So I am going to use some of my extremely hard earned money to respec into Arms and see if that can work better for tanking (and it's definitely going to work better for questing methinks). I guess it is fitting that WoW Classic would be the first place where I find that protection warrior isn't worth or fun playing. (Disclaimer though, I am absolutely loving WoW Classic and am having so much fun with it overall).

WoW Classic Is Exactly What I Hoped For

This is my 800th post on this blog, pretty crazy when I think about it. The vast majority of those posts are about WoW so it feels fitting that the 800th one would be on me returning to that game.

Now that I've got the opportunity to play some WoW Classic I can actually say it's pretty much what I hoped for. Heck I can't think of any way it's not what I hoped for so I'm going to say it's exactly what I thought it would be and wanted. Anyone remember the comparison I made to going to back to playing Pokémon Red a couple of posts back? I had just tried to play Pokémon Moon and not enjoyed it (the first in the main series I didn't absolutely love) and decided to go back to the roots. Doing so I was still wary that years of QoL changes within the Pokémon series would make the original experience more tedious than fun. That was definitely not the case, it was exactly as much fun as I remembered it and I loved every second of it.

So far, WoW Classic has been exactly like that. It might help that I stopped playing WoW in MoP and haven't played it for years (a month maybe in Legion but had no fun there). The original WoW was a masterpiece of a game for so many reasons. And while WoW eventually evolved for me to be more about the community than the actual game, that is not how I played it back in Vanilla. It wasn't until BC that I got into raiding, having done only very little of Vanilla end-game. My Vanilla experience, I realize now, was about enjoying the actual game and the randomness of random people. There was a social aspect for sure, in the sense that I needed other people to get things done, but other people weren't the reason I logged in to play.

I realize now, playing the game again, that atmosphere is why I play this game. The reason I love games like Thief, Deus Ex and System Shock 2 is atmosphere (and great game play design). No one does world building like Blizzard - when you run from one end to the other (and you'll be doing a lot of running) doing quests about anything and everything you'll feel connected and immersed. Even killing Shambling Horrors on a field or Quilboars in the outback feels like it has a purpose and fills in another piece of the puzzle that is the lore and world around you.

WoW Classic nails the sense of wonder and exploration. Going into a cave full of spiders or camp full of Kolkars I never feel indifferent or like I just want to get it over with. I am always curious about what is hiding behind the next hill, always interested in finding out more. And that is even though I have done these quests and run these areas tens of times in the past!

Is it flawless? Well in the sense that nothing has dulled my fun even the slightest, yes. Funnily enough, some things that I knew were a bit of a challenge in Classic and that could potentially drain the fun turned out to not be a problem at all.

Getting money is not easy, but I feel like I am always at the point of where I have just enough. Not enough to indulge myself in blues or even greens, but enough to get my skills when I need them and even buy some food for myself. And what else do I really need?

Enemies are tough, but again I feel like they are just tough enough. Not so difficult that every mob feels like a chore and progression is a slog, but not so easy that I can just pull a camp without some careful planning (or at all).

Like mentioned there is a lot of running, and some quests are quite far away from the quest giver but yet again - this gives me an opportunity to explore the world. The objective isn't right next to me, meaning I might find things I wouldn't otherwise have just by having to go around looking for things. It sets a pace that I find contemplative and almost meditative.

Quest mobs drop rate is horrendous compared to later expansions, but it just means I need to kill more which gives me an excuse to spend more time in each area and also gain more experience doing the quest. To me it's a lot like when I get lost in any of the Metroidvania games, I don't mind it since the experience gained always means there is progression.

Playing with other players means you're taking a chance. You might find someone who is nice or someone who isn't. So far I haven't come across any douchebags. People can run up and snag mobs or herbs/veins but it doesn't even bother me because with that many people questing in the same area it's just going to happen. I've been in several groups for small quests and for dungeons and everyone I've spoken to has been at the very least polite. The dungeon I tanked on my warrior was pretty much the epitome of a great run. Even the few mishaps we had, no one lost their temper or started blaming anyone. I can only hope that it's a sign of how things are, and not just me being lucky for my first few levels.

But there are a few things that have given me pause. You can't use Thunder Clap in Defensive Stance?! WHAT?! Ok, that one actually annoys me a bit. But tanking still went fine for my first (and so far only) try since everyone respected the target markers.

Also I know I am going to want a more efficient way to deal with my bags before long. Something that sorts my stuff and also maybe something that displays what is in my bags without me having to drag it to my bars.

A better way to display dots is probably something I am going to get as well. Right now all I can see is that my target has a debuff, no duration or anything.

So far I've gotten a warlock to 11 and a warrior to 15, both on the horde side. But thinking about all the awesome alliance questing areas like Elwynn Forest, Westfall and Duskwood that I haven't even checked out yet makes me all giddy. I want to take it endlessly slow, I almost wish I could level slower than I already am. Each area I am leaving behind I almost immediately want to return to to run around in some more. I can't describe how happy I am that WoW Classic is a thing but yeah, it's really great.