Mend Pet

I think I’ve fallen in love with my Paladin.

Until Ghugh came along, the Paladin class held the long standing record of being the only class I couldn’t bare myself to get past level 9.

But they’ve changed quite a bit about it since I last tried it out (about 3 years ago) and I really appreciate how the class works.

In just 2 days, I’ve gotten Ghugh from 16 to 23 and the only problem I’ve had is that I hate doing the Alliance quests (too much running around and zone-hopping!)

Even got a group together for Deadmines, and while I was hoping to try my hand at tanking, I was the only class with the ability to heal so I got stuck on healer duty.  Which I still enjoyed.

I like not getting one-shotted when I get aggro.

I like being able to take on several mobs at once and being able to keep it all under control and keep myself alive.

I like that most spells (other than healing) are instant cast abilities.

I like Lay On Hands.

What do I not like?  Well, no instant cast HoTs.  Renew plz?  But that’s about the only real issue I’ve come up with!

So Ghugh is patiently waiting for Paid Character Transfers to become stable again so he can go join my mage and boyfriend on my Alliance PvP server.  I’m finally leveling a class that is good at world encounter PvP… might as well level him on a PvP server!

P.S.: There are 29 characters listed on the Armory with the name “Ghugh”.  ALL of them are male Dwarves.  Huh.

Anna from Too Many Annas has prompted for a short “ficlet” about a character.  The limit is 500 words, although mine is nearing 700.  Just couldn’t cut it down anymore!  The prompt was:

Write an event, a situation, or a scene that involves your character as a child/teenager and has some impact on your character later in life.

I previously wrote a story for Brajana.  This story is about Ferguson and Anabelle, my undead priest and warrior.

As the two military officers walked away from the small cottage, Rebecca slowly closed her front door.  Her eyes were wide, her mouth hung open in an expression of confusion and shock.  She just stood there, staring out the window at the front gate.

“Mom?  I think Anabelle needs to be changed again… she smells.”  Her five-year-old son came into the room carrying the newborn, just barely a week old.

“Um, Mom?  Who was that at the door? I thought it was father… when’s he coming back from duty?  You said he would be back yesterday!”  Rebecca continued to stare in disbelief, until she felt a tugging at her apron which brought her spinning back to reality.  She looked down to see Ferguson holding her crying baby girl.

“Here, take her!  She stinks!”  As Rebecca took the girl in her hands, she suddenly felt no connection to it, as if it weren’t her own, as if she hadn’t spent the last nine months carrying her in the womb.

She was never cut out to be a mother.  She fell in love when she was much too young, and only bore her two children because it’s what her husband wanted.  And now he was gone.  Slain in battle, fighting demons… he was her life, all that mattered to her.  And yet here she remained with his two children.

She knew what she had to do.  She couldn’t care for these children.  She could not live if her love did not live.

After placing the baby in her cradle, Rebecca went to the kitchen and soon returned to the children’s room with a basket of fresh bread.

“Ferguson.  I need you to take your sister and this fresh bread to the Abbey.  Give them this note.  Do not read it, just give it to them.  I’m giving them a gift.”

“But… why do I have to bring Anabelle? Can’t I just bring the bread and come back?” Ferguson said as he put his jacket on.  His mother frequently asked him to make deliveries… but the baby hadn’t left home since she was born.

“Just take her and go, Ferguson.  And make sure the priest reads the letter when you get there.”

Ferguson did as his mother asked and walked the half-mile down to the Abbey with his still smelly sister in one arm and the basket of bread in the other.  When he finally arrived, he handed the bread and passed the note to the priest who answered the door.

“My mother says she wants to give you a gift.” Ferguson waited as the priest read the note and sighed.

“Come in, son.  I’ll see if we’ve got another bed for you and your sister.”

“Thank you, father.  But we should be getting back to mother, before it gets dark.”  Ferguson said.

“You’re orphans now.  You’re father is dead.  By now, your mother is probably also dead.  You’ve nothing left to get back to.”

I apologize for being MIA the last couple of days.  Came down with strep throat again this weekend… still trying to get past it!

The good thing about being sick is having to stay at home and play World of Warcraft all the time.  If it wasn’t for the coughing fits, the fever and the achiness, I would have had a quite pleasant couple of days.

I started yet another alt, named Anabelle.  She’s on Cenarion Circle, a roleplaying server!  That’s right, I’m going to make an actual attempt at playing an RP character.  I’ll introduce you to Anabelle and tell you her story soon.  You may have seen her name mentioned here before.  Right now, she’s a level 10 Undead Warrior.

I almost finished my [Hail to the Chef] achievement on Monday.  I figured since I missed out on getting [Fool for Love], I might as well get another title!  So I farmed to try to get my cooking up to 450 so I can finally make a Fish Feast… but apparently I didn’t quite farm enough, and ended up with 448 when my mats ran out!  So I’ll have to swing around and try again another time.

Tuesday, I had time to run a couple of Heroics.  First, as is always my first choice, we ran Utgarde Keep.  No crossbow.  Darn it.

I had a really fun time running these heroics.  We had one of our main Paladin healers spec’d prot to try his hand at tanking… and so I got to actually CC! It was nice to practice using my Freezing Arrow and Freezing Trap and pulling skills.  I miss those.

I still had The Nexus heroic daily quest in my log, and so I took my group there.  And this one little heroic Nexus run solved so many of my problems.  First, it gave me exactly 40 Emblems of Heroism, which meant I could purchase Ferguson the shoulders he’s been dying to get.  And then, the [Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood] dropped!  With the 55 hit on that baby, I am exactly 1 above the hit cap.

Which meant I don’t need to spend 60 Emblems of Valor on the [Armguards of the Tower Archer], and instead spent 25 on the [Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak].

I love it when everything just falls into place!

Now all I need is a new ranged weapon, because my [Zombie Sweeper Shotgun] is just not cutting it anymore.

Unfortunately, the chronic disconnections in Naxxramas seem to have returned for a select few people.  After the first boss of the night, I was no longer able to stay connected during combat.  I would get booted every time there was a pull, and couldn’t log back in until everyone was out of combat.  After missing all of spider and plague wings, I asked that they replace me so I could stop torturing myself.

The good thing about this was I was able to hop on Cenarion Circle and witness the battle between Platezilla and Arrens, and observe some enjoyable RPing.

Hopefully things will be cleared up by tonight and even more will fall into place… [Arrowsong] or [Envoy of Mortality], perhaps?

Chocolate-Vanilla Swirl, to be precise!

If you don’t get the title of this post, then you need to start following me on Twitter.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post…

I know I usually only talk about my Hunter… but there are other characters I’ve been playing that I thought I’d introduce you to, or at least give you an update on.

Whenever I’ve got some free time between raids, I tend to spend that time on another character.  Not because I don’t like my Hunter, but it always takes me so long to pull a group together for anything, I usually spend more time jumping around Dalaran waiting than actually playing the game.  So I just do some leveling instead.

Click the banner to check each character out on Armoury Lite!

Brajana – 80 Beast Master (temporarily Survival) Hunter

We all know Brajana.  She is, and likely always will be my main.  And yes I still call her a Beast Master, even if she’s trying out a 2/18/51 spec right now.  At her heart, she’ll always be BM!

Right now, I’ve gone back to my moth, Ambrose, as a pet.  I was using a Stranglethorn Tiger (Rajah) for a while, but after realizing I was a noob for not adding Serenity Dust to my macro… I decided it was time for a little change.

Ferguson – 70 Undead Holy Priest

How I miss you, Ferg!  He’s that undead priest I stole from my brother at level 51.  That’s right, I skipped the first 51 painful levels as a priest!  But I promise I know what I’m doing now!  I’m trying to get him to 80… but I’d really like to pick up those nice EXP heirloom shoulders before I put in too much time.  So whenever I feel like playing him I go on Brajana and try to grab up some tokens instead.  Think I’m going to have to trade some of my Valor tokens, since I rarely have time for heroics.

Alouette – 67 Gnome Fire Mage

Formerly known as Brajana. Also formerly known as Pixxel.  She’s a mage of many names!  I think I’ve settled on this one… although whenever I see it I get the song stuck in my head for hours on end.

Alouette/Pixxel/Brajana has been Fire from her first talent point, and has yet to put a single point anywhere else.  I like making things blow up before they can even get to me!  I’ve contemplated switching to Frost, but from what I understand, that’s good for AoE grinding, and I’m just not into that.  Plus she has red hair.

Alouette is now leveling with the boyfriend’s Prot Warrior.  He’s a Night Elf.  It took some convincing to let him come along with me, seeing as my hatred for all things Elf runs deep even if I’m playing an alliance character… but it sure is nice to use one as a meat shield   I’m not sure whether Alouette or Ferguson will make it to be my second level 80, it’ll be close.

Ghugh – 16 Dwarf Retribution Paladin

Whhaaaa?  RET PALY?!  Noo!

Well, it’s true.  Until Ghugh (btw, 5 letter name with only one syllable – pronounced kinda like ‘Guh’) I’d never managed to get a paladin above level 9.  I didn’t like how the seals would expire after Judging and you’d always have to be refreshing them… I just didn’t get it.

But after much poking from a friend, I gave in and decided to give it a try again.  The original reason for this guy was to help me pick up the Alliance-only pets for my [Shop Smart, Shop Pet... Smart] achievement.  It was only after I spent much time getting to and subsequently dying at level 11 trying to get to Booty Bay’s AH that I realized it would have made a lot more sense to use a Death Knight… but ah well.

I am actually enjoying this character – and while this may jinx it, I think I might actually follow through with this guy.

It also took me a while to decide on which tree to take him down.  Now, I hate Ret Paladins almost as much as Night Elves (cuz of how they kill my mage aaallll the time)… I wanted to try Prot.  But with the help of the Twitterati, I learned that just isn’t the way to go for leveling!  So right now my points are a bit all over the place, but I’m focusing on Ret from here out.  If I manage to get this guy high enough to buy him a mount, I’ll probably transfer him over to Dark Iron, which has officially become my Alliance/PvP server.

Omaigosh – 10 Draenei Shaman

The name of this shaman is derived from my reaction upon seeing his character design.  It was late one night, and I just did not want to go to bed.  And when I don’t really feel like playing anything in particular, I often muss around on the Character Creation screen and do a few starter quests.

So I decided it’s been too long since I’ve tried a Shaman.  My second character ever was a Tauren Shaman, but I don’t think I’ve played one since.  So I hopped over to the Draenei screen, and the first randomization I was greeted with was perfect.  I’ve never seen such a goofy looking space goat!

Omaigosh has been put on hold while I work on Ghugh, but I swear he has not been deligated to the realm of abandoned alts!

Edit to add: Aliora – 56 Draenei Death Knight

How could I forget my Death Knight?  Okay, she’s only 56, and she’s not nearly out of the starting zone, and I don’t really know how to play her… but she exists for the soul purpose of me being able to play on my co-worker’s realm.  Everyone’s gotta have a Death Knight, right?

This past weekend, I was feeling in a very unproductive mood.  I didn’t want to do work, I wanted to do weekend stuff, like sit on my bum and play World of Warcraft all afternoon and evening.

So that’s what I did.

The only problem was, I didn’t know what I wanted to play.  I didn’t feel like working on achievements or grinding on my hunter.  Ferguson hasn’t healed since the patch, and I am sure I’m out of practise.  I don’t want to group for anything anyway, I just want to play on my own for a while.  My mage was sitting at level 55 waiting for someone to take her through Sunken Temple before all the quests turn grey.

Yup, I was in a ‘start a new character’ mood again.

I’m enjoying the achievement system, but I bet it’s a whole different experience when going through from level 1.  All the statistics would be accurate, you’d start off with 0 points instead of 1000.  I want to experience that.

So, I head to the character creation screen.  I’ve run out of room on Hydraxis, so I head to Dark Iron – my Alliance server, home to my little mage.

But what to play, what to play…  I don’t know what class I want to play, so I’ll pick my race first.  That will help me pick a class!  So…

Night Elf? Uh, no.

Gnome?  Got one of those.

Human?  Boooring.

Dwarf?  Dwarves are cool – but female dwarves are ugly!

Male Dwarf it is!

What class to play?

My options are:  Priest (got one), Hunter (got one), Warrior (started an alt warrior recently, got bored at level 13), Rogue (same as warrior) and Paladin (I hate paladins almost as much as Night Elves).

Well, I have to pick something.  Something fun to play, that I’m likely to get over that level 13 hump with.

I know that I like priests and hunters….  But I hated leveling as a priest.

And thus, I have a new Male Dwarf Hunter, Drostan! (it’s Gaelic!)

And right after I finished picking out his grey hair and pale skin and started logging in, I knew I’d made the right choice.  It’s been so long since I leveled as a hunter, but it was so enjoyable to me.  And now that I know so much more about the class, it will be great to try to do it all over again, play without Steady Shot or a warrior tank to level from 1-60 with.  It will also be neat to see how the pet changes work at lower levels.

I got from level 1-11 on my first day, and picked up a bear named Righneas (Gaelic for tenacity.. hehe!)

As I venture through, I’ll likely post little pointers or things I’ve noticed going back through the class.  It’s going to be a fun ride, I think!

Right now, i’ve gotten him to… 13.  That’s the level the majority of my alts stay at, but I am determined to make some more progress with this little guy.