Waffles

Some days I hate my brain.

So there I was, testing the DK, having a grand ole time and then BAM I start considering my Pally. I have tested Rhubarb in Beta, although only very briefly, and I have found the combat changes much more engaging than before. It is now more than simple auto-swing with a seal on and Crusader Striking every 6 seconds. I now have 2 instant attacks one of which is an AOE, I can cast Judgement every cooldown without running out of mana in 2 fights, and I can actually cast a heal or two that heal for more than a pittance and don't run me out of mana. In summation, the Pally, Ret specifically, has become what I had originally hoped for from the DK. This is not to say that I am dissappointed with DeathKnights, quite the opposite in fact, they are very entertaining and hold a lot of appeal. I am going to try and do a comparison in the next few paragraphs, hopefully people will comment and help me choose.

First I'll set the stage, this is how WOTLK will begin for me. I will be creating Chickenpox (female Dranei DK with a sexy tail wag) and levelling like a banshee with (insert Wichita's DK's name) to 68 at which time we will head for Northrend. This will be the choosing point, I will either continue levelling Chickenpox to 80 or I will switch to Rhubarb and level her to 80. Now for the considerations:

PVE DPS: This will be my primary consideration since that is my main goal with the expansion raiding 10 mans with Heroes. Both classes are melee DPS, both have some buffing utility, and both classes/specs have another player in Heroes (Wichita/DK, Jag/Ret pally). Blizzard has stated that all DPS specs should be roughly equal and that is good enough for me.

Tanking: Although this is not my primary objective, I always prefer to at least be prepared, to the best of my ability, to use my character to its utmost potential. This means I will have a tanking set for whichever character I choose. I flirted with Prot tanking, but I remained undergeared and found it difficult since I was always running with people that overgeared me by a large margin and would pull aggro from me (Wichita, Lakini, Origami come to mind.) DK tanking seems very cooldown based with threat generated by DPS which I would be familiar with being a DPSer I would hope. Pallies have been given some interesting new toys as well which look very interesting to me. Heroes will have a dedicated main tanks including a Pally tank so the most I would be doing would be offtanking occasionally, which is fine, but I will be prepared to pitch in and tank for some 5-mans or heroics.

Healing: Obviously the Pally wins this category, the question becomes how much does healing matter. I healed for a while with my Pally and I enjoyed the experience. I don't want to be a main healer but same as with the Tanking aspect I will not neglect a large function of my class, therefore I will put together a healing set. It would be nice to not call off a scheduled run because we were 1 healer short of going.

PVP: Those who know me know that this is not a huge concern for me. I am primarily a PVE person and that is not likely to change with Wrath. However, I would like to have the option available to me should I decide to engage in some PVP. This is a difficult area currently since Ret pallies are destroying everyone in Beta and on the PTR, but I suspect they will be corrected somewhat this week. I will than be concerned that they have been nerfed and cannot compete in PVE. The pally class seems very well designed for PVP and if they have been made viable I would probably lean to the Pally in PVP, but than again PVP is not my main goal. Also, I have not tried the DK in PVP at all, they could be more fun and effective than I realize.

Professions: The DK has no professions, Rhubarb has mining and Engineering at 375. I am having trouble choosing professions for Chickenpox, and I have come to question Engineering in Wrath. I think that Mining is going to be necessary for any of the professions I would probably choose; Engg, JC'ing or BS'ing. Therefore Rhubarb probably only has the edge in mining but it is large. Ideally, I would level Mining to 300 on Chickenpox before heading to Hellfire so I could level Mining with my character, but this would require spending time in Azeroth before heading to Outland and slowing down my levelling.

Achievements: When Wichita and I played City of heroes they came out with things called Badges. They were very similiara to Achievements but harder to get since there was no feedback on how to get them, this was later solved by the interwebz. Overnight Wich and I became badge whores, we had to find them all. I am salivating over the Achievement system in Wrath and will probably be spending the 4 weeks between 3.0.2 and Wrath collecting Badges like a mother. Chickenpox will have no reputations, no areas explored, no early quests done, no history. I will have to spend a considerable amount of time rectifying this matter, and some things will not be able to be done, such as TBC rep that can only be gained in 5-mans, unless of course they can be soloed.

I think that a lot of the reason I am waffling is due to the Achievements, which in all honesty are fluff, but fluff that I know I will enjoy collecting. I may also be finding the idea of starting over with a new character a little daunting and I am just getting cold feet, not sure.

I have 5 weeks to decide, bloody hell.

Chickenpox has been stunned by Rhubarb.