That Was Surprising...

Well my Death Knight finally hit 80 over the weekend, and with a little bit of pre-crafting of gear was Defense Capped for Heroics within 2 seconds of hitting 80. Her unbuffed health was already about 20k before equiping the two iLevel 245 epics I had lined up (the chest and wrists from Trial of the Crusade), so I was expecting horror and complaining upon entering my first heroic afterwards, with much need to defend my poor little tank against the accusations of my fellow group mates...

Unfortunately, or fortunately I suppose, that didn't happen.

At all.

I've done several heroics since, gotten about half a dozen or so epics now, ranging from iLevel 200 stuff from the last boss to iLevel 245 and iLevel 232 pieces from badge vendors and it's actually been a much more enjoyable experience than a lot of the tanking I've been doing on my Paladin lately. Crazy talk considering all the stories about how "Death Knight tanks are kicked all the time" and "New tanks are hounded until they leave the instance" that are floating around the WoW related forums. But then I really shouldn't expect much from what someone says on a WoW forum, or rather remember that it's still a one-in-a-million kind of thing that's going on in these stories. My DK's spec is a hybrid between a straight Frost Dual Wield tanking spec with some extra things thrown in to make Heroics easier since that's pretty much as "far" as I'll be taking her, and so far it's been pretty decent. I really need a high end one-hand to up my threat for high-geared DPS, but even then I'm decently holding against anyone who gives me half a second to gain some agro on the mobs.

My Paladin's been able to pick up another two pieces of Teir 10, netting me the 4 piece bonus. Now the only piece left is the legs, which I may just be able to pick up from a Vault of Archavon run if I ever even see the pants drop in there, otherwise it'll be a short 95 more Emblems of Frost to "finish" my Paladin's Retribution set until 85. I'm still getting in the odd raid time here and there, but I still don't have the time or incling to do much more than the Weekly and maybe one or two short raids in a week.

Other characters are mostly chilling doing what they've been doing, the Auction House schemes are still scheming, making money at a respectable pace, and generally my activities in game are "stable".

-LaFollet

Change of View

Sorry about the slow update, been busy on the RL front.

I've broken 75k, mostly doing what I've been doing all along and not really expanding things.

Post-sprees two to three times a day where I always do stocked Glyphs and Rare Gems (still not even close to all the patterns, not going to try for that) and whatever Epic Gems I have on hand (one of each cut, things that I know will be useful for me if they don't end up selling well) and whatever Enchanting Scrolls I have lying around from the last batch I made up. I really haven't done a lot of Saronite Prospecting, just a moderate batch last night (about 2k Ore), mostly my time has been spent leveling characters.

First and foremost my Paladin is still doing alright, getting close to being able to purchase 2 more pieces of T10, which I've been holding off getting the piece I can now for who knows what reason. I've also noticed that I have some really old epics still hanging around, like some iLevel 200-226 stuff that I can probably upgrade with some Triumphs or in the new Heroics, I just really haven't been looking all that deeply at that kind of stuff since my attention hasn't had to be on min/maxing my Paladin. I've been seriously giving thought to taking my Paladin's Tank spec to Holy, for no other reason than a change of pace. I've always enjoyed healing in general, and since my next highest (possible) healing character is only 73 (Druid, Priest is 72) I've really been missing keeping people alive.

Now Paladin Healing 5 Mans wasn't ever really my healing nirvana, but with the lack of other options I'm giving some serious though to dropping some surplus Triumph badges on the gear and starting to play around with it. It would even give me a little more flexibility with my guild's ICC runs since they're never short on Tanks.

My Death Knight is my biggest point of progress this week coming to within half a level of 80. I quested most of the way through the mid-70s and purposely stopped once I hit 79 to gather some some dungeon tanking gear before I hit 80. I'm also planning on using some stores of crafting mats to make some 245 epics to help ease the transition in to Heroics, but with 502 Defense with 17.5k health at 79 with clearly sub-standard gear I'm feeling quite confident about things. My main point of worry is threat in the guise of weapons. I'm using a couple of slow greens right now, but they're quite old (8 to 10 levels old) and will probably show some serious issues holding against DPSers in Heroics. I may just hold off entering Heroics until I can replace at least my main-hand with something a little heavier.

I'm getting quite good at tanking on my Druid if I do say so myself! Glyphs really help out with threat, espeically the Maul Glyph, and while Swipe isn't Super-AoE-Aggro-Fun-Time, if I can charge in and get a few off fast enough I seem to be able to hold alright. ^_^
I'm not sure if I really want to Bear Tank at 80 in Heroics, but for now since I only have one set of Leather/Cloth Heirloom Caster stuff, I'm either stuck tanking, or mailing that back and forth a lot. That'll be an issue if I end up leveling my Mage and Warlock in Cataclysm, but that's something to worry about then not now. What I'll probably end up doing is doing Tank/Healing on my Druid at 80, since I enjoy Druid Healing, but like the prospect of instant Qs rather than even 5 minute Qs.

I'm getting more comfortable with the prospect of spending the gold I've earned, in the last few weeks I've spent probably over 2k on vanity stuff, and 4k on a Greatness Deck for my Paladin, as well as starting up a Snatch list for things I use in crafting, all things I wouldn't have done even back at 50K for fear of "using up" all my "hard earned" gold, which was really just a mindset from my farming days when 14k was a huge amount of gold that took forever to get (was still thinking of getting a Chopper though, might get one at the 100k mark, maybe...) so spending on things like Ruby Shades or Argent Tournament Pets (that can just be farmed for) was unthinkable!

Which really just makes me think of how my time spent has changed from then to now. I used to log on my "main" and do dailies for gold, then log on alts to do alt things, which included doing dailies for gold/rep. Now I log on to a few characters to post auctions, then log around my characters to do dailies for badges, gold is more just something that's there, and it's a nice feeling. ^_^

-LaFollet

Milestones and Directions

Well, I suppose my biggest news is that I've broken 50k!

And when I say broken I don't just mean eked by just by the barest margin, but with enough wiggle room to continue buying raw mats and stay above 50k. ^_^ Feels really nice and somewhat annoying at the same time in a weird sort of way.

I can't really describe why it feels annoying, the really nice is obvious, but it does. It's almost like, well, I don't know. It's indescribable, but I suppose it really comes down to the progression, or lack there of really, along other lines. I've been trying to keep up with all my gold making schemes, get the daily dungeon done on all my 70+ characters (four right now, my Paladin, Death Knight, Priest, and Druid), keep all my profession cooldowns cooling (even been ignoring the cloth ones since they're going away soon and the price is falling flat, or so I tell myself so I don't have more things to juggle), do the weekly raid, and maybe even, if I have the time, raid with my guild a bit. But what it really comes down to is that I'm getting some of this done, mostly the gold/profession stuff and things on my Paladin. It does mean that my three other 70-80 characters are progressing just about in step, but none of them are doing it at any appreciable rate.

So I'm thinking I'm going to push more on one character to 80 while keeping my Paladin doing the 80 stuff cause I really want the Tier 10 Ret Set since it's so sexy. ^_^ First up for this plan is my Death Knight since she's closer than the rest, so it'll be questing/one dungeon with the "spare time" that gold making/professions leaves me with, with some mixing in the Priest/Druid when I want to do something else for a change.

We'll see how that goes...

And while that may seem like the Milestones and Directions thoughts of the title, the Directions part really refers to what my old guild is doing and the reason I moved on after the break I had taken. I'm not keen on what they're doing, or sort of how they're going about it, or I suppose who they're going about it with.

It's none of my business, which is why I'm not going to say anything about it to them, and I'm pretty sure none of them know of this blog, but it's a more hardcore direction than I'd ever want to take again. I've been there a few times briefly in my past and never liked it, in fact, quite a while ago, I came to the conclusion that if I ever end up raiding in earnest again it'll be very casual in a 10 man guild since it's so much more tight-knit than a 25 man guild. Of course me being me I'd want to be doing that with skill and focus, with equally skilled and focused individuals, but I don't think I'll get around to that again.

So anyways, the direction they're going, or at least a sub-set of the guild membership seem to want to go, is one that I'll never want to be a part of again, which is sad, since I really do enjoy their company, and if they were just as focused, but as a 10 man guild, I'd be VERY hard pressed to stay away, which would involve another faction/server change of at least one character to get back on my original server.

But I don't foresee them ever heading in that direction, it was never the direction that the guild had originally been founded under even, but it's the direction that I'd love in a raiding guild.

And I suppose that's really the melancholy behind my current mood. The complete and total understanding that there's now another group of people who I very much enjoyed hanging out with that I'll never really be a part of again...

-LaFollet