Busy Warlocking

I've been distracted from my Priest levelling project in the past couple of weeks due to my main(s) suddenly requiring a lot of attention. I was steadily raiding ICC with my guild, 3 nights per week, and my main ( a druid tank) was well-geared enough that I don't really need to worry about emblems anymore, so outside of raid time I can work on my priest.

However, we had some big changes recently - attendance at raids slowed down to the point where we didn't have a steady 10-man group (we have never really got into 25mans) and our guild leader decided to step down, due to getting a new job and having less time to spend online. I wasn't ready to step into the guild leader shoes myself, as I know how much work it takes and I admire anyone who can do it. So we decided to merge with another guild who are also struggling with raid signs. It was my guild who disappeared, as we all took the other guild's name, and I was sad to see it go. It happened a few days before my 2-year anniversary of joining my guild, so there was a tear in my eye, but it was for the best.

The merge has gone well so far, and our new guildies have been very welcoming. The big advantage is that it doesn't feel like our family has gone, we've just grown. A number of us are excited to be doing 25-man raids again. The downside though is that there wasn't any room for my main in raids - I'm a feral druid tank, and there are more than enough tanks in the guild already.

So...... I've applied, and been accepted, as a raider on my warlock. I do love playing my warlock, but I have very limited experience of raiding with her. I spent some time grinding enough badges for T9 and did some reading up on the 3.3 changes. I got a place in the 25-man group, and I was very pleased when I was doing pretty respectible dps! I'm towards the bottom of the meter, but I'm not too far behind the others. I'm playing affliction spec, as I tried destro before and didn't really enjoy it. I guess I found it a bit repetitive. I love the way that affliction damage builds up, and instead of a repeated rotation, it's a group of debuffs that you need to manage. If you can juggle all your spells and keep them all stacked on your target, then the damage just adds up and up... I also enjoy the challenge of trying to keep a crit-buffed corruption on the target, especially on fights with adds, and I'm starting to improve at this.

However! After a recent discussion with the other locks in the guild, it was noticed that we don't have a regular demonology lock in raids, and it was decided that this is something we should have. There are quite a few warlocks in the guild, and a couple of them have demo offspec, but none of them wants to use it as a main spec. I'm not sure why this is, but I assumed that it was because it's as boring as I found destro to be. I haven't played as demonology since level 70 though, so I wasn't sure. I offered to get a demo offspec, and take my turn being the miserable lock in the corner, giving a buff to everyone else, while the affli locks destroy the target. With my badge level gear however, I pointed out that there wouldn't be much point in me being the Demonic Pact giver until I'd upgraded my gear.

That was until we had a raid this week where we had two warlocks, neither with demo spec, and no elemental shaman. I realised I needed to suck it up and go get demo spec now - my meager offering will be better than nothing. So having only just started to feel like I'm mastering affliction spec, I'm now reading up on demonology spec and spending time with the target dummy again.

The first thing I noticed is that it's more complex than I thought - in fact I had a hard time getting the hang of it. I decided a new addon might be called for to help me monitor Molten Core and Decimation. I've started using Sexycooldowns to help me as affliction, and I really recommend this. However, I need something that notifies me when Molten Core procs (as opposed to when it's about to fall off) so I'm going to give Power Auras a go, as recommended in Optecs great video here. I'm also going to try a new addon for tracking how effective Demonic Pact is - this will be especially useful due to my low gear level as I'm not sure whether I'll really be any more effective than a totem of wrath (when there's on available). The addon is here: DemoPact

So now that I'm raiding each week in 25-man ICC, I have a basic set of emblem gear, and I'm happy with one spec and learning another, my thoughts are turning to potential gear upgrades I might get in ICC. I've browsed wowhead like a child browses a toy catalogue before Christmas, eagerly eyeing the shiny items. There's just one problem though - and that's hit rating.

I'm off for now to try and piece together a suit of armor with just the right amount of hit. More on gearing next time.

Patient Priest: Sinking...

The Patient Priest has been playing in Sunken Temple, which proved a frustrating experience. I think I'd just like to move on and put it behind me - especially the incident where I unwittingly persuaded my party to commit suicide..... I still wince when I think about that one.

My priest is now approaching level 50 and Outlands is on the horizon. However, as eager as I am to progress to BC content, with it's better gear and xp, I'm still interested in running as many of Azeroth's dungeons as I can. I don't have much experience of the level 50-60 dungeons as I started playing WoW during BC, so with my first chars I just pushed on to join my guildies in Outlands.

Having now tried to run them on my priest I can say that it was unfortunately the worst part of the dungeon levelling so far, and would even recommend that players do plenty of quests in the level 50's and get to the Outlands dungeons as these are more suitable for the levelling player. I do like the high level Azeroth dungeons - I think they're interesting and fun, and certainly have an "epic" feel to them - but they are long, very long, difficult and complicated, and if you're just there for the xp then you might not have the patience for them.

I remember when I did Sunken Temple with my first ever character (a warlock), and it seemed like a really tough, high level instance. I was nervous going in there. However, on my priest at level 47, it wasn't very tough to heal. The mobs went down pretty easily, but the dungeon is still long and labyrithine, and it requires a dedicated group to complete it. The worst thing about this instance is the run back from the graveyard. It's long and underwater and most people don't know the way. In the five runs that I did, not a single person made it back from the graveyard - they either waited for a rez or quit. Even if you do make it inside, it's a maze in there. On one attempt, the group was in progress when I arrived. I was running up and down staircases trying to find them, but there seemed to be mobs in every direction. In this situation, the only thing you can do is get the others to teleport out and re-enter, then start from the beginning. If the group splits up, you will quickly lose each other, as it's hard to tell from the mini-map just which level you're on. Thankfully Blizzard now improved things by making new group members zone in where the party leader is standing - great idea.

Here's how I recommend you approach Sunken Temple:

Tanks aren't irreplaceable

I was in a heroic the other day on my warlock. Things were going pretty predictably - the group was fairly well-geared, and we were just burning everything down in silence. Then, someone made a mistake we had too many mobs on us, the healer got distracted and the tank went down. The rest of the group mopped the mess up, and the tank started complaining, pretty rudely. "FFS what are you doing, you morons" etc... I tried to calm him down, saying it's no big deal and there's no need to be insulting. He reponded that he was the tank and he could be as insulting as he wanted.

Now that really, really, offends me. I hate the idea that we need to suck up to tanks, that we should be afraid of offending them. My main is a tank, and I've done hundreds of heroics without being so insulting, and I told this guy so. He tried to make out that he'd just been kidding (and maybe he was) but as I didn't understand (and kiss ass like I was supposed to) he left the group, saying "good luck finding another tank".

I then felt really guilty - the rest of the group were faced with a 15 minute wait, all because I couldn't keep my big mouth shut and take abuse from the tank like a good dps. But before I could say anything, a new tank arrived - we were waiting less than a minute. We finished the instance quickly with no fuss. And I imagine the tank that left us was still hanging around waiting for his desserter debuff to wear off. You may think this is rare to get a tank so fast, but I had another tank leave a heroic without saying anything on the same day, and he too was replaced within a minute. I guess groups in progress get priority for new tanks who sign up.

I love tanking. I like the responability and control that it brings. In heroics, tanks are usually looked upon to lead the group and a good tank can carry a group more so than a good dps or even healer can. I'm sure there are a lot of tanks out there who've had to put up with abuse - I know I have sometimes. It's sad though that the shortage of tanks has led to some of them turning into primadonnas, and making many people too afraid to say anything incase they offend. That's just so sad - but of course the solution is more and more people levelling tank alts, learning just how difficult (or easy) it is to tank themselves, and taking the tanks on when they think they're irreplaceable.

Patient Priest: Zombie Trolls

In the mid-level 40's I've been getting either Maraudon:Inner or Zul'Farrak as a random dungeon. I think ZF is slightly lower level, but it has the potential to be more difficult because of the large numbers of mobs and more complex boss encounters.

Zul'Farrak is a temple complex located in the Tanaris desert. It's full of trolls, witch doctors and zombies, and also lots of scarabs. The trolls are mainly in groups of 3 or 4, with some casters which need to be pulled back. This is because the trolls run when they get low on health and have a chance to pull other groups or wandering patrols. The trolls drop healing totems, which I could easily take out with a single hit from my wand, and they also cast hex, even on the tank, which should be dispelled fast.

The basilisk boss, hidden in a cave in the hills, can be a little difficult, as he spawns mobs behind you, does stuns and drops a rooting totem. My favourite encounter though is the pyramid escape, where you kill the executioner, loot his key then free the prisioners in cages awaiting sacrifice. You then need to survive wave after wave of zombie trolls, keeping the prisioners alive, and finally make it to the bottom of the pyramid and face a priest boss. You can then talk to the prisoners, who instead of thanking you will turn on you and you need to fight them. The hardest part of this whole encounter is for the tank to pick up all the mobs. Its helps to have a paladin of course. However, with higher level groups I found that we could just aoe everything down faster than it could kill us. Also, holy nova is really good here, allowing me to add a little damage and keep the whole party topped up without worrying about pulling aggro. The other bosses in this instance are pretty much tank and spank.

I've had some good fun in this place - it gives lots of exp and you can skip some bosses if you want a fast run. I've also met some very good groups...

Patient Priest: Maraudon and on

I'm now level 43 and continuing to push my way through Maraudon. After five runs in a row in Maraudon:Orange I signed up for Purple as I didn't want to level past it (and was seriously bored of Orange).

Purple is definitely easier than Orange. It's a twisty cavern full of satyrs, demons and a few elementals. The don't do much damage and you can dispel a lot of the debuffs. We survived a massive pull in the beginning when someone cast some aoe and a horde of imps and other demons came running at us from the lower level. It's a fairly short instance. In fact I didn't realise we'd finished the first time and I though our tank was just quitting. You only need to kill one boss to get your lucky dip bag, which means that there's one boss in the middle of Maraudon who isn't covered by any of the LFG sections.

I signed up for a random and got another Maraudon:Orange run. I've realised by this time that I've had enough of this instance. I think I'm starting to lose patience too because I found the group really annoying and I'm sick of having to ask for buffs. I unfortunately had a couple of really unpleasant guys in this group. There was a warrior tank and a rogue who were RL buddies. The tank went afk for a few minutes and when the hunter asked the rogue what was happening he just gave some cocky answer that shut the hunter up. Tanks can do as they please you know. For the rest of the dungeon the warrior and rogue made fun of the hunter, criticising his dps, calling him bender and telling him he was doing stuff wrong. I eventually told them to shut up and stop being assholes and that seemed to help a bit. When we'd downed the last boss the hunter called them idiots and left. The rogue wanted to continue deeper into the harder sections of the instance but I said no thanks and teleported out of there. They were the worst people I've grouped with so far.

Continues...

Patient Priest: Maraudon bingo

I've finally levelled up to 41, out of the range for Uldaman and into the range of the Maraudon instances. Maraudon is a big instance, so it's been split into three parts; Orange, Purple and Pristine Waters (known by most of the the wow community as "Inner"). Orange is the first one on the list to try. I checked out Maraudon on Wowhead, to see how the 3 areas link together and to look for any quests I should pick up. I see there's a lot of people commenting on there that the LFG tool is problematic at level 41-42 because Scarlet Monastery is too easy, and Maraudon:Orange is too hard (it's level 42 to 46), so you're kinda stuck in the middle. This made me a bit nervous about signing up for randoms as I anticipated a wipefest as a group of 41's got overrun by level 46 mobs.

So I tried Maraudon:Orange a few times and I found the following;
The mobs are indeed a high level and it takes a long time to kill them (I helped to dps the mobs when the healing allowed)
The lashers do a nasty interrupt, so the healers should stay at max range
The first boss is very hard, casting lots of poisons and spawning adds which need to be killed fast
The lava spewer keeps spewing lava worms! They follow you for the first half of the instance, so watch out for them hitting you in the back.
The mobs root a lot, but this can be dispelled
If you die, it's a long and confusing trip back to the entrance, but stick to the right wall and you'll be fine.

After I'd already done Maraudon:Orange a few times I happened to see a news post stating that Blizzard mixed up the levels of the first two parts of Maruadon, and Purple is easier than Orange. This will be corrected shortly. They'll also stop the spewer from spawning lava continously.

It took me three tries to finally complete Maraudon:Orange. I think it's so challenging at level 41 that you need a group of committed people who have a bit of skill. It's certainly not something you can rush through and aoe down. Read further on for details of the groups, and a link on how to play PUG bingo!

Patient Priest: Level 40 & Neverdied

I'd like to give my congratulations to Neverdied the mage, who made it to level 80 with no deaths! He also did no quests, used no mounts and some other restrictions too. I think a frost mage was a good choice of character for this challange, as they seem to be able to get themselves out of sticky situations. I also think that the "no quests" restriction made this slightly easier in some way - sure it would take longer because he isn't getting the xp from quests, but I think you're less likely to die if you're not risking your neck to escort an npc somewhere or pick up quest items that are swarming with mobs. You can take things steady and at your own pace.

He says he did it because he wanted to add a new dimension to the game because he was taking a break from raiding. I'm reminded of Shaiya, where they have an "ultimate mode" setting which gives your character extra stats but also means that the charcter is deleted if it ever dies (unless you get someone to rezz you within 2 minutes). I can see why some people want this kind of challenge but I don't think I would be so dedicated as to do this - when my priest first died at level 20 I wasn't tempted to delete her and start again.

You can see Neverdied's youtube video here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeNaWYvKzb8

And so onto more dungeons! And dinging level 40...

Patient Priest: Fun with pigs and trogs

This week I have been mostly killing pigs..... and skeletons.

I've found myself in Razorfen Downs groups recently. A giant mass of brambles inhabited by the quilboar and a lich who likes to create skeletal minions. I never did this instance while levelling any of my horde characters, but I've now completed it three times! It's a tough instance; it's quite long, with things occaisionally spawning on top of you, and some nasty poisons and curses that I can't get rid of. There's also a gong which spawns giant spiders when you hit it, and you can always guarantee that when you're in the middle of killing a rampaging gang of pig-people, someone will say "what does this do?" and hit the gong before you can say "NOooooooooo!!!!". However, it gives a great load of experience for a full run, some nice loot and there's some nice herbs in there.

I also had some tough groups to deal with, but I'm pleased to say I've had no wipes or deaths in here so far. We had one druid who was ninja'ing gear, and so I voted to kick him after he stole the second item cause he was just taking it too far. We tried to explain looting to him, but he didn't respond to any questions, and said he supposedly couldn't speak English. I felt a bit bad for kicking a tank, but a paladin dps stepped up to the plate and tanked the rest of the instance, and we had no real problems despite him not having a sheild.

The fun gets better after the break...

Patient Priest: Clothadin

My steady ascent towards level 80 continues and I feel I'm starting to enjoy playing a priest more and more. I don't use many of my abilities - mainly my shield spell, my flash heal and the occasional renew to top people off - but I've found that's all I need in dungeons so far. I've been dispelling a lot, which is good as it means I've been learning to pay close attention to what's happening to the group. However, I've found that on some fights it uses up a lot of mana if I try to dispel everything, so I'm going to have to be a bit more selective about what I dispel. My mana regeneration is very good, but it was set back recently when I upgraded to my new level spells which cost more.

I feel like I'm levelling pretty quickly, and I'm mostly enjoying doing dungeons. It can be a little boring if you're put in the same dungeon three times in a row, but every group is different and the challenge of healing keeps it interesting. I'm not levelling quickly as some though - I don't have any heirlooms on this character, as my main is on a different server. I've chosen to level on a PvE server as I wanted the challenge of staying alive as much as possible. And there's no real challenge to stay alive when a lvl 80 enemy rogue is one-shotting you out of nowhere - that's just pointless so I'm staying away from that to concentrate on my levelling.

Continued....

Patient Priest: Want hat!

I signed up for another Gnomeregan run. It's not my favourite instance; it's got lots of mobs close together which means lots of difficult pulls. I had a few quests left to finish though, and I still needed a hat, so I went back. We had a problem getting a tank - the first tank left, the second got stuck in a tunnel and quit, our dps warrior then put a shield on and started tanking, then another paladin tank arrived and started tanking too. So I had two tanks to try and heal, which just made things complicated. Things went fairly smoothly though until the last long tunnel, when we decided to take the middle path, which was a mistake - we twice managed to accidentally pull stuff on both sides of us, resulting in us getting overwhealmed and killed pretty quickly, twice - two more wipes to add to the total!

After the second wipe, everyone quit, despite agreeing that we should have taken the left path in the first place, and I had to admit defeat - this is the first dungeon that I haven't completed. And I still don't have any hat....

So remember guys - in Gnomer, always take the left path at the end.

More Monastery after the break...

Patient Priest: Need a tank?

I've been having a lot of fun in the Wetlands in my level 20's. It's all new to me as I'm usually a Hordie. I've found this to be a great place to find herbs to level my professions, gather crocodile meat to improve my cooking skill, and kill a few murlocs and dead sailors along the way to get some quest experience and rewards.

I like my draenei. I think she looks pretty cool. I've noticed that her casting animations are all very similar though, which is a shame. I think her racial abilities are useful - the increased hit chance is very good at low levels, as there's not much +hit gear around. The extra healing spell has saved my life a couple of times too - usually when I'm out of mana.

Continued...

Patient Priest: Kamikaze hunter

Before dinging level 30 I decided to finish off the quests I have left in the dungeons at my level before I level up and I'm forced to move on.

I join a group for the Stockade. For the first time, I find myself in a group with a good druid tank! Everything goes well, despite some trigger happy dps, and the tank gets very confident towards the end, pushing on fast enough for me to get worried. At one point I'm surprised by the tank taking a ton of damage and getting close to death, despite me giving him lots of heals, only to realise that I don't have the tank selected as my target and I'm actually spamming heals onto myself. However, I manage to keep everyone up and it all ends happily with me completing all my quests and getting to level 30!

My record at level 30 is 7 dungeons complete, 5 deaths but only 1 wipe.

I decide that I should try to get people chatting more to try and make it more sociable. Too many people seem intent on rushing through and reaching maximum level. If I start chatting though, people might just continue on without waiting for me, and I'll end up behind and making mistakes.

More after the break...

Patient Priest meets annoying priest

My dear, patient priest has now made it to level 30 and got some nice spell and armor upgrades!

Unfortunately, the last couple of levels didn't go so well. At level 28 I signed up for some more random dungeons to get more of the extra loot rewards. The first group I found myself in was in Gnomeregan. I had a lot of quests to complete in here, so I was happy to be in for a full run. This was a fairly silent but efficient group. We had a good level 29 tank who was in protection spec! The best spec for tanking yes, but very slow for levelling with, so I assume he's planning to level mainly through dungeons like myself.

We have a couple of gnomes in the group who chat about their hairstyles and one of them asks where to find the barber. We advise him to ask a guard in one of the cities. He remarks how nice it is of us to be helpful instead of just calling him a noob.

Patient Priest: Radiating gnomes

This time I've decided to sign up for a random dungeon, mainly because I want to know what's in that sack of helpful goods that you get for completing the random dungeon that Blizzard throws you into. I've done some running around and picked up the quests for Gnomeregan and The Stockade so I can get some extra experience and money from those. I'm really enjoying levelling through dungeons, but I'm earning less gold this way and finding it harder to level my professions (currently herbing and alchemy).

So, I sign up for a random group while grinding lean wolf flanks north of Darkshire (levelling cooking is so boring this way - it was much easier on my druid when I just seemed to pick up recipes and materials naturally from the area that I was questing in). I'm put into a group for Gnomeregan, and immediately things look bad...

Patient Priest in the creepy castle

Today I decided to queue for Shadowfang Keep! It's a dungeon I've done a few times with my horde characters so I know it fairly well, and I know there's some nice caster drops in there. I think it's a nice instance; a creepy castle full of wizards and werewolves - the place is fun to explore.

I accept the group invite to find myself at the start with a paladin, mage, hunter and warrior. An argument starts over who's the tank, despite the paladin having the tank sign on his head. We convince the warrior he's dps, but the other group members get annoyed when they realise he's only come with a sword and shield and has no big 2-hand sword. I vote against the attempt to kick him from the group, thinking it's too soon and we should give him a chance. But after the vote goes around again I give in and let him be removed. He's replaced by another hunter. The mage then tries to trade me to enchant my weapon, but I realise I can't give him my weapon to enchant as we're on different servers and that's not allowed. After asking many times, the mage finally figures out how to trade me some water, but in all this confusion it seems the paladin tank got sick of his healer standing around trying to get water out of a mage, and he quits.

Patient Priest: The Pugging begins...

And so onto my first pug with my priest. I'm level 25, so I'm just within range to do Deadmines. I've never done this dungeon before, and as I'm the max level allowed to join a pug for it I figured it should be interesting to do something new but not too difficult.

I joined the LFG (looking for group) queue for Deadmines while questing in the Wetlands, and I was impressed that I got a group in just a few minutes (I guess being a healer helps). I'm teleported to Deadmines (DM) to find a mage, a warlock, a paladin and a druid in my group, all below level 20. The druid is tank.

So we buff up and the druid starts pulling before we even have a chance to check everyone's ready. Then strangely, after the first pull the druid just leaves without warning. The mage quits immediately, probably fearing a long wait for another tank.... The remaining three of us are confused and moan about the quitters, but we're shortly joined by another druid tank and a rogue.

Patient Priest, Introduction

The Patient Priest is my new project - levelling a priest through Pugs! (pick-up groups for those who don't know, which means doing dungeons with random strangers, with potentially terrible or wonderful results). I'm looking forward to meeting all sorts of new people and trying to create a organised and fun dungeon group with them - should be easy!

When Patch 3.3 hit, it brought with it the new Looking for Group system. I must admit, I wasn't that interested in it initially, as I always group with guildies. Also, I've had bad experiences in pugs, as I'm sure most people have, so I generally avoid them.

However, everyone seems to be very positive about he new system, and I've used it a few times to pick up an extra dps for the daily random dungeon when my guildies were all busy. I'm very impressed with it - waiting times are short and the ability to teleport to a dungeon is great. I really think Blizzard have addressed the problems that made people reluctant to run dungeons, especially the low level ones.

Anyway, I was looking for something a bit different to do, as I'd been heavily involved in setting up and leading the new 25 man raid group in my guild. I wanted a bit of a break from the pressure and organisation involved. I also felt like doing some levelling on an alt, as it's a long time since I've levelled any low level characters.

My main is a druid tank, and my first alt is a warlock, specced affliction, for arena and the occaisional dungeon. I've only healed a couple of times on my druid, and I liked it, possibly because it's nice to have a change. One of my alts is a priest, who I created as I didn't have a healing character, and a guildy recommended it as the most interesting healer to play. I've chosen a draenei, as I'd like to experience and explore the alliance quests and towns.

I first created this character a while ago, as I wanted a challenge, and I thought I'd see how far I could get a character without dying. I decided priest would be the most difficult to try this with. I managed to reach level 20 when I started on the escort quest at the end of the draenei starting area. The npc I was escorting decided to pull two groups at once, killing us both. I was not pleased.

Anyway, now that my undying-record is broken, I don't feel such a need to be so cautious with my priest, and I've decided to level her in dungeons as a healer. I'll be starting out as discipline, as this offers a bit more versatility (and I'm sure it'll be hard, but not as boring as levelling holy).

As my priest is the opposite faction to my guild, I'll be all alone, without my friends and guildies to help. I'll be levelling on my own, with only the new friends I make along the way to keep my company. I'm prepared for some difficult experiences with pugs, but I'm looking forward to a new challenge.