Plex - Level 40

Did you miss me? I know you did. It did take me longer to level 30-40 than the previous levels, even when taking into account that you need more exp to do so. It is partially because I've taken active counter measures, to actually level slower, so that I can do the quests in each area while they are still current. I try to never log out in rested areas to get as little rested as possible, for example. I still only do each instance once, and just when I dinged 40 my guild dinged level 2, which means I gain 5% more experience from quests and killings. Maybe I will have to go guildless to not level too fast. Yes, leveling is going way too fast - eventhough I really try not to get any "unecessary" exp and have no BoA at all. Therefor it really cracked me up when a guildie asked for help with leveling faster, although he had full boa and played a tank-class. Some people are just never satisifed, they'd probably roll a fully leveled character if they could. I wonder if I'd ever do that if that option was given to me? I don't think so. Well maybe. I don't know.

So I'm actually in a new guild now, both with Zinn and Plex interestingly enough - I left my old one in a furious nerd rage after I had been killed by Yetimus the tenth time around (on Plex, not Zinn). I had to punish someone, might as well be the empty guild that had abandoned me! Why I joined another? I don't know actually - there are some perks that are useful, but I think maybe I should avoid the exp bonus one, like mentioned.

Another reason it has taken me long to level Plex is because I realized why I've never leveled another priest to max level before. Why I always abandon them very early on. It's because I already spend so much time playing a priest, and suddenly I play this stumped version of my main. And I don't like being handicapped in my healing - not when I know exactly what I could've done but I can't now because this isn't my main. I miss my Prayer of Mending. I miss my haste. I miss my Shadowfiend. I miss a thousand other things. And I miss them so very much. Worst of all was probably when I had Atonement on Zinn, had fun with it in raids and then returned to Plex to quest with it. So slow Smites, it was horrible. Fortunately I removed Atonement from Zinn so now I've only got Plex if I want to play around with it, but this is definitely my main issue with my little priest right now. How hard she ever would try, she'd never become my main. Poor thing.

The discipline tree is similar to the arcane mage tree or survival hunter tree in that many talents don't become especially useful until later on. This removes the feeling of getting talents that actually make a difference, and somewhat stagnates the progress feeling of a discipline priest. For instance, many talents rely on heavy shield usage, while the shield isn't very useful on low levels, or at least it hasn't been for me all the way up to 40. This means that talents like Imp PW:S, Sould Warding, Renewed Hope and Rapture are weak because I just don't have much use for the shield. I haven't even specced into Soul Warding because I shield like twice every instance, and Imp PW:S is actually preventing my Rapture from proccing even on a low leveled tank who has 6 mobs hitting on him. The shield is still way too good. Can't believe I am complaining about that, but I am. Pain Suppression will also be pretty moot, unless I decide to pvp more. Same goes for Strength of Soul. Why would I want to recast a new shield when the old one isn't even absorbed yet? And so on.

This guy ate me! Never seen that before.

Questing goes very easy however. Atonement rocks ass, even with my slow casting. I never go low on health and now that I've slain Yetimus I have yet to come across anything that has been a challenge. The fact that I outlevel the quest areas by a handful of levels (although I really try not to) plays a big part of course. Atonement works really well for lowbie healing instances as well, probably better than it does later on. Atonement is among your best heals when you get it, and it also adds a good portion of dps to the group. Mana doesn't have to be an issue if I use it sensibly, which often means I can dps "normally" on most trash packs and don't have to think much of healing the tank. I even seem to dps more efficiently than most other casters, who constantly go oom while I still have plenty of mana left. Unfortunately, without the extra level of difficulty that some planning takes, which you have when you use it for raid healing, smiting your way through all quests and instances does become boring quickly and I am considering not using Atonement for instance healing just to give myself some variation. Oh, and I had some logs over my healing, but I accidentally deleted them when I was enthusiastically cleaning out my blog picture folder.

A lot of the joy and frustration of doing lowbie dungeons, or elsewhere meeting new players in WoW, is having to learn them about all the things I take for granted. No, strength is not good for you mr Mage. Not to mention all the tank mistakes I did a post about and that people take with them all the way up to endgame. I've asked myself, where should new players find good information about how to play the game? Some say that looking at the character sheet and drawing conclusions from that should be enough. But that too requires some sort of pre-existing knowledge. Who says that attack power is a bad stat for a holy paladin? It might sound dead obvious, but is it really? Or how do you know that spirit isn't very useful for a mage? Or that agility is less good than strength for a warrior? I remember back when my brother started playing WoW, in early Vanilla. He played a rogue, and did exactly what people say you should do as a new player - check the character sheet and see what stats will benefit you the most. He quickly learned that agility would give him ap, dodge, armor and crit. Why would he need any of the other stats when Agi gave him all of that? He stacked only agi and was constantly owned in pvp due to not having enough of a balance. But knowing you need a balance (and that some classes don't!) takes trial and error. You could argue that people should read up on their class online, but should they really have to do that or should Blizzard provide new players with this kind of information in game? I don't know.

Gammerita has put on some weight.

Speaking of pvp, I did give it another shot. And it worked a lot better than my first try, this time around I actually managed to make a difference (or so I think anyway) and survive more than two hits, at least most of the time. Unfortunately, the opposing team (I was in WSG) had no less than 8 stealthers. Seven rogues and one feral druid. So we couldn't see most of their team until they had all stacked up around one or two of us and all opened with their hardest attack. For some reason it made me wish that there was a cap on how many of the same class, or spec when hybrids, that could join the same fight. It's no fun when you meet a team with a balanced setup of healers and dpsers and your team has one or no healers. Would it be worth the extra queue time? I think it might, depending on how much extra time we're talking about of course. It's the same really as commenter Christopher noted about old heroics. Maybe there should be more restrictions between what geared people end up together? It would mean longer queue times, but maybe also more fun runs.

Oh most of my bg raid is dead, that's nice.

Now that I am finished with the early questing areas I've ventured into some that haven't gotten the major overhaul that Silverpine Forest and Hillsbrad did. Arathi Highlands wasn't that interesting, I was also very disappointed to see Valorcall riding around alone, non-elite. A complete mockery to my skill after having fought Yetimus if you ask me. And I've always loved Hinterlands, but Jintha'alor has pretty much turned into the pain in the ass it was in Vanilla and BC, but for other reasons. Back then I really liked the area, the problem was that all the mobs were elite. It was an outdoor instance if you like, and you nearly always needed a couple of players to be able to do the quests. Trouble was finding said people. Then they remade it into a regular questing area, and I liked it even more (except the Hexxer lady at the top had an extremely annoying Hex spell). The area has gotten completely new quests in Cata, and unfortunately not for the better. Oh they might be interesting, but they force me to run up and down that hill some six or seven times. If they want me to kill trolls, why can't they just ask me to kill all the trolls at once? And after they've made most chain-quests (quests that rp-wise can't all be given at once) into pop-up quests, so that you wouldn't have to run all the way back every time, why have they left out this entire area? First I run up to kill 15 of X troll, and back again. Up to kill 15 of Y troll, who were exactly where X troll are! And back. Up to get some cauldrons, and back. Up to test some blight or whatever, and back. Up to collect some spiderlings, and back. And so on several times. It's not fun.

Shadra used to be badass, but I had some help this time.

Another thing that wasn't fun was that I found an Iridescent Pearl lying around in my bags when I logged on the other day. What's wrong with that you might ask? Well, I have been searching high and low for such a pearl to skill Enchanting on Zinn. They cost 150g each on that server, and I refuse to pay such ridiculous prices. I sold it for 35g on Plex, only to remember I need it on her too, because she has Enchanting as well /facedesk.

Mocking me...

I have no idea how long it will take to level 50. Actually, my leveling isn't that slow, I dinged 40 and wrote this already in early september. It's just getting posted now because there has been so many other fun stuff to post about inbetween. But, until next time!