More Than 2 or 3?

One of the things that I'm finding, now that I've reached my goal on leveling my alts, is that it is very difficult to play more than a few of my level 80 characters in a meaningful way. Right now, my druid is generally the toon that I will raid with when the opportunity arises. I use the warlock for PvP and am in the process of amassing a nice wrathful set for him.

For all of my other toons, I've been debating what to do. When I finish completing my Wrathful set on the warlock, it probably makes sense to go ahead and do that on another toon. I've frankly been debating between the Paladin and the Death Knight (I know - very Season 6 of me, right?)

I enjoy playing both characters in battlegrounds a great deal, so we'll have to see how the mood strikes me.

So that leaves me with a whole stable of other toons without much to do with them - Rogue, nah, for some reason, no interest there, Mage - sort of, but if I already have a warlock, do I really need another caster? Priest - I was actually seriously thinking about gearing this toon up next, but then the new talent specs came out, and I just don't get the whole Smite / Evangelism / Archangel thing. Bubble everyone and spam Penance - that I understood, but Smite? Shaman - I've tried resto on this guy as I've mentioned here before and for some reason it just doesn't click with me. Elemental seems good, but again - already have a caster. So maybe I'll try Enhancement. Hunter - I still can't figure out what happened to all my mana and ammunition, so that's out. Honestly, I do really enjoy both PvP and PvE on the hunter, so that might be one that I pick up next. Hard to tell.

I've also toyed with the idea of starting some alts on the alliance side. My gnome death knight is at level 61 and working through Hellfire Peninsula, so I've thought quite a bit about taking him all the way to 80 before Cataclysm. After all, the blog is called Wow Alt Addiction.

Warlocks In Battlegrounds

So, I've been spending the last several days primarily playing in Battlegrounds. I've been mostly playing on my warlock, although I've been toying with the specs a bit. I've traditionally played battlegrounds on Joar as affliction, but I've quickly discovered that relative to the other specs, the nerf bat seems to have hit affliction pretty hard. All the various dots seems to be much more easily dispelled by enemy healers and they seem to be ticking for a lot less than the used to. Drain Soul was working pretty well for a little while, but Blizzard fixed that but cutting its damage in half.

I then tried demonology, and that was a lot of fun. Having a felguard out running around brought back feeling of the good ole days. Of course, it wasn't MY felguard. It was some imposter that I pulled out of the twisted nether, but supposedly my guy was taking a brief vacation to Jamaica and should be back later today. So, I've been rolling with replacement demons for a week, while my normal guys got a bit of a rest. Hand of Guldan is pretty fun to pull a ball of fire out of the sky, but I've found that when I need some burst to get someone the rest of the way down, it's not quite there with demo. So, I've been rocking destruction most of the rest of the time. Good old light them on fire and blow them up destruction.

I've also done a little bit of healing. Both the druid and the paladin continue to be very strong in battlegrounds. With a lot more weapons in his arsenal, if anything, the paladin seems stronger than before. I seem to be running into a lot of battlegrounds that either involve people that don't know what's going on just fighting in the middle, or people that are just interested in farming kills that way. That's the only frustrating part about doing battlegrounds as a healer, is the outcome of the actual battleground is somewhat outside of your control. If you have a good group that is focused on the appropriate goals, you can really help turn the tide. If you're group is completely clueless...well....you're stuck healing the clueless.

In any case, I'm likely going to work on getting a good set of Wrathful gear on the warlock, druid and paladin, and then if I still have time, might work on getting some PvP gear for the hunter.

Battleground Healers - Druids and Paladins

So, I've always found myself to be a big fan of battleground healing. So I'm looking forward with interest to the changes that the incoming patch are going to bring. With my shaman and my priest both being recent level 80's, they have the fewest HK's and the least PvP gear of any of my level 80 healers at this point, so I have a lot more experience when it comes to druid or paladin healing.

On my battlegroup at least, Horde-side, healers are in very short supply, so having one or two good healers in a group seem to be able to turn the tide of the battleground overall. For some reason, I find that a lot more satisfying than whatever HK's I can accumulate on my warlock.

From the standpoint of druid and paladin, there are aspects to both that I've always enjoyed in battlegrounds. For the druid, particularly in those large scale battlegrounds like Wintergrasp or Alterac Valley, the ability to heal large numbers of people at once and keep Rejuv's up on a ton of different people can make an enormous difference. The other advantage to the druid is with a few more instant cast heals, their healing mobility can often make a big difference. If you think about a pocket healer for a flag carrier in Warsong Gulch, Eye of the Storm or the capture the flag style battleground coming in Catalcysm, being able to heal while on the run with a flag carrier can make a huge difference.

As I look to the talent changes coming for druids in Patch 4.0.1, there is quite a mix in there from a PvP healing standpoint. First, the talent tree seems to have shifted a bit towards main tank healing, with more things, like Replenishment, proc'ing off of Lifebloom. Nourish will also refresh the duration of Lifebloom. On the other hand, not being stuck in tree form and having the flexibility to cast Wrath, Starfire, Entangling Roots or Cyclone without having to switch in and out of form will provide us with some interesting variety.

I'd be interested in pairing myself with a couple of warriors, death knights or ret paladins and seeing how many folks I could keep stacks of Lifebloom going on while refreshing them regularly with Nourish. Could be a complete wrecking ball to run into.

From a paladin standpoint, the huge attraction for me on battlegrounds has always been the big heal. Being able to bring someone that is almost dead almost completely back with the press of one button has to be a huge demoralizer for any enemies in the area. Paired with beacon of light, so that you're doing that twice, it's really a huge difference maker.

Where the paladin has sometimes fallen short in battlegrounds has been on AoE heals and on mobility. From a mobility standpoint, we've always been reliant on Holy Shock, and hoping that sometimes generates an instance Flash of Light. Now, our Holy Shock, in addition to being a big, cheap, instant heal, will also generate holy power for us. At three stacks of holy power, we can kick off Word of Glory, another big cheap instant heal. And, as a bonus, Holy Shock also has the chance to generate a free instant exorcism.

Later this week, I'll talk a little bit about Shaman and Priests.

OMG! Joar is Gearing?

Well, with a complete lack of anything left to do, I've actually been running heroics on my toons and working on gearing them up. Everyone in my guild is shocked. Joar - gearing his toons? Along with the Kansas City Chiefs being the only undefeated team in the NFL, I believe Joar gearing is also one of the signs of impending apocalypse (or Cataclysm?).

After a quick poll on my guild website, I originally started working gearing the shammy. The original thought was that it would be pretty similar to my druid in terms of play style in 5 mans, and so would be pretty natural for me. Boy was I wrong. I quickly abandoned the shammy, getting frustrated by what appeared to me to be the lovely combination of either weak or slow main tank heals paired with an uninspiring AoE heal.

Now, I could certainly go out and buy a whole bunch of better gear for this guy to make it easier, but that seems pretty pointless with Cataclysm so close now.

So, I switched to the pally. I've always enjoyed the paladin and the healing style that goes along with it, so gearing him up has really been fun. I also managed to get the shield out of regular Pit of Saron on my first try which helped immensely. I'm also really looking forward to the changes coming with Cataclysm for the paladin, particularly having more AoE healing options.

I was debating working on the disc priest for a bit, but this whole Smite thing scared me off a bit.

I also started working on the mage a little bit. Looks like fire is going to be a pretty excellent spec once the next patch drops, but for now, I'm sticking with Arcane. I still might switch just to start getting the feel for Fire beforehand, but I can't seem to give up the joys of Missile Barrage right away.

I've also been running good old Coren Direbrew on just about everyone just for the 2-a-day frost emblems and the nice trinkets for my undergeared toons.

Ding! Level 80 #9! Mission Accomplished!

Well, I finally managed to hit 80 on my rogue today. As is typical for my leveling path these days, I did it on the Sons of Hodir chain. This one wasn't nearly as efficient as some of my others, coming in at 6 days, 15 hours. That being said, he is a maxed engineer at this point, which takes a little extra time.

Looking back, I've gained a total of 274 levels to date in 2010 and 427 since I started writing this blog more than a year ago. With those kind of numbers up, it hardly makes the 45 levels that I'll have to take on post-Catalcysm seem all that intimidating, or even if you make it 130 to include my Goblin Warrior plans!

So, I'm going to work on leveling my gathering professions so that I've got an adequate source of supply for my crafters come Cataclysm, finish lockpicking on my rogue, and maybe work a little bit more towards Loremaster on Joar. Not sure if anyone has noticed, but the new Zalazane quests all count toward Loremaster of Kalimdor, which is a huge help!

And, when I have the time, will likely start working on acquiring a little bit of gear for my toons that aren't already geared. I'm sort of leaning towards PvP gear since it looks like the extra stamina will really help come Cataclysm.

Ding! Level 80 #9! Mission Accomplished!

Well - it's been really busy at work lately, so it took much longer than I planned, but I finally managed to get this

Almost Done

My playing time is going to be somewhat limited this week for various reasons, but I did manage to power through and get my rogue to level 78 over the course of the weekend. So only two more levels to go. And I can put on my bomber jacket, fly onto an aircraft carrier somewhere and stand there and look all happy under a big "Mission Complete" banner.

So the question then arises of what to do next. I do have some very short-term projects that I'm planning to work on - first is finishing leveling lockpicking on my rogue. He's currently sitting at a paltry 135, but has 7 bank tabs full of various lockboxes and junkboxes that I've accumulated. Should be fun. The main piece of work is going to be getting from 135 to 175, and then I think I can power mostly through on boxes from there.

Then, it's off to the land of gatherer, where I have several different gathering professions that I want to level up. Mining on the paladin and rogue, skinning and herbalism on the mage. On the priest, I'm currently debating - I'm thinking about setting him up as another alchemist to have a second transmute cooldown available. That's just been too good of a money maker for me in Wrath. Of course, there's no guarantee that will continue to be the case in Catalcysm. Seems like I need to do some quick research on how alchemy currently looks on the beta.

After that, I will likely alternate between gearing up various toons and finishing work on Loremaster on Joar. Loremaster seems less pressing now that it's more clear that it is still going to be out there come Cataclysm, but will likely still get some attention anyway.

I'm leaning towards focusing on gearing the mage and disc priest next. I was debating the hunter, but I've tried playing it on the beta, and the new focus mechanic just doesn't feel quite right to me. Will likely also finish the holy pally as well.

Then, I have an alliance death knight working his way through Hellfire. I've never seen the Alliance side of Outland or Northrend, so if I completely run out of things to mess around with, I might drive him the rest of the way to 80, just to see things from the Alliance side.

PvP Fun

So, as is clearly typical of someone with too many alts, I can't decide....

I've been working on the rogue a little bit lately, although given that I've got at least 6 more weeks until Cataclysm, there doesn't seem to be much of a rush. I have managed to get him to level 73, leveraging the Call to Arms battleground weekends a lot for the extra xp.

Part of it too is that I've now done the Northrend quests so many times, I just can't seem to get motivated to do them once again.

So, I've turned to PvP for entertainment and have been having a blast. Just running battlegrounds, but having a great time nonetheless. I've dusted off my hunter, who is glad to be doing something other than sitting in Dalaran transmuting gems for me. I even flew him up to Icecrown to get him a big scary spider pet!

Strangely enough, I still really enjoy healing in PvP - perhaps because there are so few healers Horde-side in my battlegroup - you really do feel like you have the ability to influence the overall tide of battle. My druid is currently the best geared for PvP and does quite well, and I'm working on gearing up the Paladin and the Disc Priest as well.

My warlock basically has all of the PvP gear that you can get without stepping into arena's, so while he is still a lot of fun to play, I tend to be more focused on the toons that I can still gear up. I'm thinking the order from here on out will be druid, then paladin then disc priest then maybe either finish up the hunter or work on the mage.

Wintergrasp on my server continues to be an exercise in masochism. It seems like the Horde wins only about 25% of the time, and then it tends to be in the middle of the night. My son keeps suggesting that I server transfer to a realm where it is more of a faceroll for Horde (or faction change on my own server I guess) but honestly, the overwhelming odds make it that much more fulfilling those few times that we actually do win. Plus, if the new balancing schemes for World PvP in Cataclysm actually work, the constant losses due to being massively outnumbered should go away.

So, that is the plan. Finish the rogue, gear up through PvP, and finish those last few gathering professions before Cataclysm.

That's a Lot of Quests

So my son asked me this weekend how my quests I thought I had completed across all of my toons. I knew the number was likely quite large. I have almost 3,000 just on Joar, and I typically see the 1,000 quests achievement flash up on most of my toons before hitting 80. So I decided to do some armory work this morning with the servers down and see where I stood on quests and honorable kills.

So here is where we stand - 11,001 quests. That's just such an awesome number I'm tempted to never do another quest again just to keep it there. Or maybe just do 110 more so I leave it at 11,111. Either way, that's basically Seeker almost 4 times. Yikes.

Joar is the most with 2,633 with my druid second at 1,387 and my paladin in 3rd at 1,233.

On Honorable Kills, I have a total of 31,203 across my various toons. Again, Joar has the most at 14,137 with the druid again being second at 6,895 and the Death Knight actually comes in third on this one at 5,570.

Crazy.

Ding! Level 80 #8

OK - this post is actually a bit late as I managed to hit 80 on my shadow priest on Friday night. I actually did a lot of the Call to Arms battlegrounds on Friday evening in order to push him over the finish line. I have dual spec on the priest and have found that discipline is extremely powerful for PvP healing.

I now just have 9 levels of the rogue left to go, and probably two months to do it in. So I may slow down a bit and focus on gearing some of the toons from my existing 8 80's that aren't already geared. Basically, only 2 of my existing 80's are geared enough to be able to run ICC - my warlock and my druid.

The results of my guild poll were very heavily in favor of working on my shaman next, so I started that process and am also working on gearing the pally as holy a bit. There can be a lot out there on the auction house that would let you gear a lot of these toons very quickly - so I'm trying to avoid that temptation wherever possible. Seems like a bad idea to spend a lot of gold on gear that is likely going to be replaced by quest greens in a few months.

So - that is where things stand at the moment. I'll still work on the rogue a bit when my play situation doesn't allow me to run instances, and other than that, will probably be fairly randomly focused on gearing.

Ding! Level 80 #7 and July Leveling Update

So, I managed to get the Shaman to level 80 last night just in time for the end of the month. After making the switch to elemental at level 72, I never looked back. I will say, I do somewhat wish that I had make the switch a little bit earlier as things seemed to move much faster as Elemental. Mana was not much of an issue as higher mana pools and clearcasting kept things manageable. (I bought two stacks of Honeymint tea once I hit level 75, and never ended up using all of it). So I didn't notice any major different in downtime from enhancement. The one thing that I did notice versus enhancement was that things died A LOT faster as elemental. Generally getting three-shotted, and typically two-shotted once I got Lava Burst at 75.

I will caveat this by saying that part of the difference may have been that I was using a BoA caster staff (although not a particularly good one - Staff of Jordan from Wintergrasp) versus no BoA weapon at all for enhancement. So having dual wield BoA's may have made an enormous difference in how fast I was taking things down as enhancement.

Interestingly enough, my levels per day for the month of August were identical to July. I managed to gain a total of 27 levels in 31 days, for an average of 0.87. This brings my year-to-date average to 1.08, and I'll definitely get these last two to 80 sometime in September.

I'll be switching to the shadow priest next since he only has 3 levels to go and then will be finishing up with the rogue. So my plan after getting this last toon to 80 is to spend some time leveling a handful of gathering professions and then working on gearing a few toons up. So the question that I'd like to pose for everyone is which toon should I gear up next, and should it be PvE or PvP?

- Hunter?
- Mage?
- Discipline Priest?
- Resto Shammy?
- Rogue

(notice I'm leaving gearing the prot pally off the last as I'm assuming everyone would pick that if I put it on the list - and I will working on gearing him as well, so never fear!)

Let me know what you guys think!