Stormstrike FTW!

I finally managed to hit level 41 on my shaman yesterday and picked up Stormstrike to top off my new dual-wielding, mail wearing self. This has just added a whole enormous new layer of fun to my shaman that is hard to even describe. I just love watching those maces go flailing around. It's even more satisfying on a giant Tauren, because he seems to be covering entire city blocks while he's waving those maces at whatever enemy he's got on his mind.

Then bang, both maces come down at once, lightning crackles. And shit dies. Big fun! This is clearly going to keep my attention for a while.

I also managed to get my mage to level 39, primarily because I felt bad for her. It's very strange really. Frost mages seem to be incredibly easy to level, do fantastic dps in instances courtesy of blizzard and some huge frostbolt crits. And somehow, still less fun than either the shaman or the rogue. Maybe I've just played a caster too long. Or maybe I just don't give enough of a crap about dps meters anymore that I'd rather play for fun than for trying to top the charts.

Over the weekend, my son and I basically abandoned our priests and began leveling our warlocks over with Single Abstract Noun. The thrill of shadowform only lasted for about two instance runs for us. Long enough to get the priests to level 42, but not long enough to keep us playing them long-term. So we spent a ton of time on the warlocks and managed to get them to level 23.

I'm of course leveling as destro, because you're not supposed to. But hey, guess what. My voidwalker still holds aggro, and fast giant shadow bolt crits make mobs dead really fast. Yeah, the crits will pull the occasional mob of the voidwalker, but they're dead then, so I don't really care.

The more I keep leveling these various toons, the more I realize I'm going to hit my goal of 9 toons from different classes to 80 long before Cataclysm comes out. Even with the distraction of leveling the warlock and the reduction in levels per day that's caused (because that doesn't count toward my goal, since I've already leveled a warlock) I'm still on pace to hit my goal by mid-July.

I'm thinking the answer to this problem is to start an alliance warrior over with Single Abstract Noun. That way, I can see the alliance side content before it all changes post-Cataclysm. I figure, at my normal rate of leveling, even adding a 10th toon to level from scratch, I should get to 10 toons at 80, one from each class, by mid-September. Which still feels like it's going to be before Cataclysm.

So here's where we stand today for the non-80's in the group:

Zinjar - Troll Priest - level 42
Mograwn - Tauren Shaman - level 41
Joara - Blood Elf Mage - level 39
Joarstab - Undead Rogue - level 29

and on the alliance side:

Joar - Gnome Warlock - level 23
Joar?? - Night Elf Warrior maybe? - level 0.

The puts me at 0.93 levels per day if you don't count dabbling with the new warlock or an average of 1.42 levels per day since the beginning of the year and on track for all 9 to 80 by July 13th. If you add in the warlock, I'm at 2.47 levels per day for March and 1.73 on average for the year, but that doesn't really seem right to add my "dabbles". If that rate was sustainable (which it's not) I'd have all 9 toons to 80 by June 21st.