Alt Alert: Draenei Shaman

I now have one of each class, except a Warrior, because that would just be mind-numbing.

I rolled a Female Draenei Shaman the other night and leveled her to 13 before logging. I must admit that Shaman seem to fit my play style perfectly. I like to do a lot of damage, preferably some healing, and lots of versatility.

Shaman get all the *cool* abilities from other classes. They can walk on water like Priest, resurrect themselves like Warlocks, run 40% faster like Druids, and see into the distance like Hunters. With all these interesting abilities, it makes the Shaman a fun class to play.

I'll probably be leveling my Shaman up to 70, but I'll be sure to take it slow and enjoy the quest. I'll post a picture of my new Shaman tonight when I get home.

I just wanted to give everyone an update, I'll try and throw up a post this weekend, but if not then have a good weekend and I'll see you all Monday!

The Underbog and a New Guild! (cont'd)

There were (2) level 62 Blood Elf Hunters and (1) level 63 Undead Rogue; there was a guild message stating that (2) of our level 60 members were being camped by this trivial trio. I never turn down a fight, so I teleported to Shatterah, then hopped on the griffin headed towards Zangarmarsh.

I arrived in Zangarmarsh right behind (2) level 70's from the guild that had shown up to help defend the camped guild members. At first we strung in there one at a time (they had flying mounts, I was on the ground) and took deaths before calling for a regroup. I myself ran up on the three of them and took out a Hunter, and 1/2 the health of the other two before I died. I checked the combat log and they had some serious crits.

Finally our group members finished their quest and I moved on to the Arenas where I had a 2 v 2 that ended with a 20 minute battle against a rogue...

It was myself (Mage) and a Paladin fighting against a level 69 Undead Warrior & Rogue combo. I tried to sheep the Warrior since the Paladin was hitting the Rogue, but he kept knocking him out of sheep, so I just unleashed the DPS on the Warrior since he was low, and the Paladin looked like he was ok, but the Paladin and Warrior died at the same time, then the rogue vanished and it was on...

So it's now a level 69 Undead Rogue vs.. a level 66 Human Mage, I figured the fight would go quick since Frost Mages make mince meat out of Rogues, but this guy was sneaky. He would start to lose the battle, stun me, then run off to stealth. It was frustrating, and my dead teammate kept telling me to just take the loss since I couldn't beat him.

I wasn't about to take a loss just to speed things up, I was enjoying the challenge. After about 20 minutes I finally was able to take the Rogue down, and it probably would have been longer if not for the Stealth Detection Buff that pops up about 5 minutes into the arena...

I'll add screenshots later...

~Keystone

The Underbog and a New Guild!

I was playing Keystone (and the Auction House) this weekend when I realized that I was almost level 67 and I've only done TWO of all these new 5-man instances added with the expansion. I decided to try for a group for Coilfang Reservoir since I was in Zangarmarsh anyways running quest.

I found a group pretty quickly and proceeded my way to the instance. Upon my arrival, I noticed our level 68 Human Paladin was dancing nude in front of a group of level 70 Horde. She claimed she was buying us time to get into the instance, but you never know with those Paladins...

I was impressed by the design of the Underbog and it's linear, yet open terrain. I like how it's a path from one end to the other, but it's an open enough environment to not seem like you're walking down a corridor the whole instance (Sunken Temple is a nightmare!)

I also like that Herbalist can make a killing from all the herbs inside, especially when you're the only herbalist in the group! I don't know about other servers, but Anchent Lichen is selling for 2g a piece on Sargeras!

Aside from the new instance run, I joined a new guild this weekend. I was in the 2nd largest guild on the server, but they had no organization, no purpose, nothing...
It seemed like a sespool for anyone to join and hangout, but that brought plenty of bad apples, and guildmates that didn't know eachother well enough.

I joined a smaller guild with very friendly members that like to help eachother. The momement I joined there was a couple of members being camped by some horde, so I ran to the aid of my new brethen.

I'll end this post here, since if I start to discuss the PvP that ensued, we'll all be here way too long =)

~Keystone

Level 66 and a Dead Hunter

I will start off by saying I stayed up till 3:00am last night to hit level 66 on Keystone; I was tired of putting him off for other characters. Since I hit level 66, trained Ice Lance, and then passed out, I don't have any feedback on Ice Lance... yet (check back).

I was doing my level grind in Zangramarsh since I had a few unfinished quest to wrap up. My location was north around Coilfang Reserve when I notcied a level 70 Troll Hunter that was out of mana from killing mobs. The Troll Hunter targets me, but then sits down to drink, so I just type /wave and start to cast on a mob, but I kept an eye on the Hunter (silly me for trying to be nice).

I see his pet running towards me from the corner of my eye and I switch targets to the Hunter to see an Aimed Shot cooking in my direction.

*BOOM* The arrow is flying towards my head, the pet is charging, and I have to think fast, so I did the first thing that came to mind... my handy-dandy Ice Block!

So now the fight is on, and no one got the benefit of surprise. While in my Ice Block I had to plan my next move, so I decided to cancel the Ice Block and blink towards the Hunter and used Frost Nova -> Fireblast / CoC, then I summoned my Water Ele, Recasted Ice Barrier, hit Cold Snap, then Ice Blocked again!

He did get a silencing shot on me before the Ice Block, too bad for him Ice Block can be casted through ANYTHING! (I don't think I could spec without at least 21 in Frost)

So now I'm blocked and my Water Ele is beating on him, and I've used ALL my Frost Spells before hitting Cold Snap, so when I come out of block I repeat by blinking towards him and casting Frost Nova -> Fireblast / CoC.

I get a crit and it knocks him out of the Frost Nova, but I immediately refreeze him using my Water Ele's ranged Frost Nova, and I started to cast Frostbolt, which lands and crits for over 2k.

So in the end, I won the fight at the cost of ALL my cooldowns, but he has 5 levels on me, and he's a Hunter. (BRK would be upset with this guy, lol!)

To finish this post I would like to point out the bug that Blizzard has yet to fix with the Water Ele pet bar overlaying the chat box. It's not that big of a deal, but this bug has been around awhile, it's due for fixing!

~Keystone

Class Specific Quest...

I've tinkered with all the classes in the game, but this recent ordeal with my level 37 Human Warlock has reminded me how much I love the Mage class.

I'm not much of a quest guy to begin with; I've always been the type to grind XP from killing mobs, but I enjoy a good quest from time to time. I like that Blizzard added class specific quest for class defining abilities, such as Bear Form and Tame Pet; however, those quest pale in comparison to the travel involved in a Warlock's quest for their Felhunter.

It's roughly a 6-part chain quest that takes you through multiple zones across both continents. I don't mind a difficult quest, but traveling to BFE and back is not difficult, just time consuming.

Then there's quest like the Paladin & Warlock epic mount that involve multiple parts, expensive materials, and a dungeon crawl. I found those quest to be less time consuming, and more entertaining than the level 30 Warlock quest to receive their Felhunter pet.

This all brings me back to my original statement about the Mage being my favorite class; this is partly due to the only Mage quest I've done to receive an ability / spell is the Polymorph: Pig quest. This quest is completely optional, and does not change the mechanics behind the spell, but turning a person into a pig is more demoralizing than a sheep (unless you're on a farm, ouch).

All-in-all, I would like to see more class specific quest, but please for the love of no-mount-pre-40-blues, could they involve less travel!?

/rant off

~Keystone

Death Penalty

I recently read a post over at www.WoWInsider.com about the Death Penalty in WoW & Vanguard, and since I've played both of those games, and 19 other MMO's I figured I would comment on the touchy subject.

I started my MMO life with Ultima Online in 1997, and upon my first death I was just happy that I didn't loose my character, which is what one would think with only real life as a knowledge base for 'death'.

In Ultima Online, when you died you would fall off your horse and your body was completely lootable (sorry, no soulbound here), and most of the time the player that killed you would also kill your horse. You would not get teleported to a graveyard, but instead you were a ghost on the spot of you corpse and had to run to find a healer, and then run back to your corpse (if there was a chance you weren't completely looted).

I grew accustomed to this harsh style of death in an MMO, and I'm sad that new players to the genre are being introduced to such a cake-walk style of death. I can understand why people get upset at the thought of a prehistoric death penalty when they started with something so light, but to never experience it is a shame, since it provides a serious "watch over your shoulder" type of gameplay.

I am at a crossroads in this issue, since I've experienced both sides of the fence. I would like to see a game that has enough of a penalty to make me not just type "/sit" when I'm ganked by a higher level; however, I don't want any more holes in my walls from the nights I was dry-looted by an arch nemisis.

All-in-all, I think since WoW has set the standard with their high subscription count, many developers will steer clear of anything harsher than a one-way corpse run w/ an opt out feature such as resurrection sickness.

The days of dry-looting, corpse dismemberment, horse killing (and eating, heh), and 30 min. corpse runs are over!

I still play UO, but on a free "player-run" server. If you can snag the UO client from a friend with the disc, or a bit-torrent, then feel free to check out www.UOgateway.com
Once you install the client, and download and open UOgateway, just click on the "Public Servers" tab and pick a server, but I recommend "UO:Gamers Hybrid" (www.UOGamers.com)

~Keystone

Interesting Frost Mage Duels...

..........The Night Elf Rogue challenged me to a duel, and I figured why not, so I did my normal combos and used Ice Block to counter his Cloak of Shadows. Frost Mages have an easy time against melee classes.

The Human (Shadow) Priest challenged me to a duel after I beat the Rouge, and I figured I would surely loose to a level 70 Shadow Priest. I gave it my best shot, and used all my cooldowns, but I ended up the victor. He challenged me again, probably wanted a duel without cooldowns; I lost that duel, but even without cooldowns it was pretty close.

The Rogue was pretty good, but the class is just underhanded against Mages; however, the Priest has no excuse, since Shadow Priest are one of the best 1 v 1 classes in the game. Who knows... maybe he was lagging or playing someone elses character, you never know!

On a side note, you can tell that I'm still level 65, but this is because I've been helping friends level instead. I'm also about to respec my Paladin to a 40 / 0 / 11 build; I'll let you know how that turns out. The rest of the characters are about the same as the last update.

~Keystone

April Fools: Blizzard Style...

When the news of Armory broke, I knew there would be people throwing hissy fits about privacy and what-have-you, but I knew deep down blizzard would stick to their guns and keep a "hidden" feature out of the Armory (a feature to hide your profile from others).

Blizzards "April Fools" joke for this year is hilarious, and reinforces my thought that they would not add a "hide" feature. Good job Blizzard, well played!