New gear = great fun

My warrior, whom I started just a month prior to WOTLK, have reached Northrend. It is a blast. Now that the main crowd has moved beyond the starting zones it is less crowded and you don't have to stand around waiting for specific spawns.

My warrior was 68 when starting out in the Fjord and after an initial burst of questing I relocated him to the Borean Tundra. A great move. The quests in the Tundra is so much more fun... in the initial quests around the Warsong citadel you can save horde prisoners who will join you temporary while in the quarry. It felt like running around with a five-man party. Heals, fireballs and charging warriors. The quests in the Howling Fjord are not in any way bad - it is just that the Tundra quests are so much better.

Another great thing with my warrior is getting new equipment with almost every quest. It wasn't half that fun with my hunter who was decked out in (pvp) epics.

New equipment = great fun!

I'll try to get a PUG together for Utgarde Keep tomorrow. I am sure it will be an amazing experience.

The Army of One

My hunter, Stormspike, is sitting in the Howling Fjord waiting for the rest of my little army to catch-up. My hunter is my main PVP machine and I've come to realize that when I play him I concentrate much more on taking out innocent leveling gnomes than following quest directions. Stormpike has taken the Howling Fjord route. It is a very beautiful zone with lots of interesting PVP terrain. I especially like the mountainous area above the alliance village in the north.

 

The undead rogue Warspike who has been inactive for almost a year, has been awaken from his slumber. He never got  the gear attention he should have and could get level 68 leather upgrades for several gear slots. A skinner & leatherworker who will have plenty to do in the Fjord. I've moved him over to the Fjord and started doing a few quests with him.

 

 

My  Orc arms-warrior, Gorespike, was destined to be a 70 PVP machine is still 66. I guess I forgot him somewhere on the way to Northrend. I have no desire to wake him so I might just as well dump him somewhere in the Outlands/Azeroth on farming duty.

 

 

The Blood Elf paladin Shieldspike has been waiting for action at the inn in the Badlands. She managed to get to the respectable level of 56 before slowly sinking back into inactivity. Her goal was to get to 59-60 and stay in that PVP bracket.

 

 

 

But my latest love is Urthiel, an undead protection warrior. I started playing him just little over two months ago and he dinged 67 last night somewhere in Terokkar. He will probably be my first character to ... eventually ... get to 80. Playing a protection warrior is amazingly fun. They are so... resilient. Leveling up in the same wave as all the new death knights make his questing very very hostile. There aren't many DKs that can resist a show of strength. So far I've managed to defeat almost all DKs that attack me. There is a little secret to easy Death Knight killing, but I'll leave that for another post.

Speaking of Death Knights, I do have one somewhat dormant. A female Orc who patiently waits for me. However I am only going to play her with together with my wife (she has a blood elf female knight).

Oh and these are not my only somewhat-active characters. I do have plenty more. I am an altoholic after all, but most of them are below 60.

Then there are my alliance chars that hasn't been active for over a year. Hexapuma the rogue, Aela the Hunter, Ripperjack the Warrior and Hexapanther the Paladin. They've transfered off to another server. Phew.. I should probably get into a rehab or something. Starting new characters is so much fun...

Battle of Northrend & Gnome Death Knights

I logged into WOW about 1900 PM yesterday only to find a queue of 1580. It took almost two hours before I could get into the game. Well I did have Metal Gear Solid 4 to complete so it wasn't really that bad.

Well into the game I discovered that on our PVP server the Howling Fjord is now a battleground. Horde and Alliance ride in packs and anyone alone is fair game. At times alliance and horde was questing side by side but real often someone started fire off an arrow (yes it was me) and a huge fight started. Amazingly fun. Although I feel it slightly makes exploring end enjoying the new continent to the fullest.

Last time I checked the bulk of the hardcore raiders are now approaching 75-76 with the odd 77...

I took some time this morning to play my warrior (L62) in Hellfire. I was jumped two times by level 58 death knights. While I won the fights - these guys are nasty. One second I was killing boars and then WHAM I am sucked away into the blood thirsty reach of a gnome death knight. When they level up higher they are going to be a royal pain in the pvp butt. I will have to create one just to learn their abilities... right now I have no idea what they are doing and why.

Northrend ohoy! First impressions.

About 10:00 PM the European servers allowed players into Northrend. There was a massive gathering of taurens and blood elves around the zeppelin towers. Initially people boarded the zepps' and when it flew away they all ended up at the GY of Brill. Apparently people had to restart their clients for the game to register that you had an upgraded account.

So last night my hunter caught the zeppelin from Brill and arrived in the Howling Fjord. Of all the taurens, undead and blood elves I was one of 4 that successfully arrived at the Howling Fjord.

I played for about 2 hours - and it was huge success! I haven't had this much fun in a long time. It was fun just shooting the new wolves and exploring the new zone.

Experience trickles in fast. Even in a highly competitive environment I gathered about 300k of the 1500k exp in 2 hours needed for level 71.

Oh, and it is expensive. New rank of first aid goes for 50 gold and the other profession skills ends up at around 35 gold each.

Lich King Tactics

Tonight the Wrath of the Lich King is released in Europe. I already have secured my box from a good contact, however I still have to wait for the servers to "open".

I now have serious problems choosing what to play next. I've even become interested in picking up a Death Knight.

My tactics when it comes to consuming the Lich King expansion is to ... chill. I am going to take it really slow and be sure to read all lore and really explore the lands. Most of the people on my guild are going to race to 80 as quick as possible. I am going to figure out how to make gold while leveling (since I hate farming sessions) and just enjoy. I don't expect to turn 80 this year. What is your approach?

 

Last night I participated in a few skirmishes against the Lich King's invasion. It felt rather lackluster so I took my little warrior & priest duo to their first excursion into the Outlands. Every time I've gone into the outlands for the first time with a character it has been more or less a pain. Not this time. My protection warrior backed up by a disc priest was able to tear through the mobs in Azerothian blues.

I've now replaced most of their gear. The priest did have gear from Shadowfang Keep... *blush*. My biggest problem is that there are so many tanks on our server that they keep yelling for DPS in the LFG channel. How about that. I've leveled 3 DPS characters before this and they had trouble getting into PUGS because everyone was screaming for tanks.. go figure.

My hunter is now sitting happily in his Argent Dawn gear (although a bit pissed about having to wear a sissy skirt). I managed to secure all pieces except the breastplate in little more than an hour of relaxed grinding (I was practically alone).

Where are you hiding?

I realized that it was quite a while since I updated the blog... well I haven't given up on WOW. On the contrary I've been so busy at work and in Azeroth that I haven't had the time to write anything. Patch 3.0 did really renew my interest in WOW - to the point where I don't even long for the Lich King expansion. I am having fun right here, right now.

New talents

After the 3.0 patch I've been a mess trying to figure out what specs to use and what works best for me. The interesting thing is that most classes that I play (Hunter, Warrior, Rogue and Paladin) have had some dramatic changes. Experiencing the classes again has been tremendously fun.

My hunter is deep in the beast master spec. 52/9/0 with an army of three new exotic pets I am leveling up. I currently have a worm from silithius that I am doing amazing tanking tricks with...

My warrior is not only enjoying but loving the new take on protection. A tree that I never used before even as a tank.

Achievements

Completing achievements had an initial boom that has now subsided - with the large number of characters I play it is untenable to try to complete all achievements. I will have to select one char to really focus on - and that has proven very hard for me. It looks like my dear hunter will be the achievement ho...

Hallow's End

A very fun event that I've squeezed the most out of. It bothers me a bit that I never got the plate helmet for my warrior (but I got the AP ring). I've used the event to level up chars and with my hunter really tried to complete as much as possible. I never got all the masks and the cloth helmet. Better luck next year I suppose.

Multiboxing

A new joy... I've taken a priest and a warrior from 1 to 54 in very short time. Going into instances with two characters have proven to be quite challenging! Just questing and killing in the normal world is simply fast and very easy. I find PVP pretty hard though and it usually leaves my priest dead while my warrior tries to finish off any gankers. However with so many 70 running around right now insta-gibbing lowbies it isn't really that fun...

My latest achievement was completing all of Maraudon with my two chars at level 52... great success and lots of fun. The little green blobs with AOE were the most lethal mobs.

Wrath of the Lich King

Ten days to go... and it looks like I might be on a business trip during the launch. Oh well... I guess it is going to be slightly less crowded in the new starting areas when I get back. With potential 80's running around griefing and ganking. My biggest concern is which character to level to 80 first. I am leaning toward taking my hunter...