Final To-Do List

9 Days remaining, wow only 9 days. I wish I had all 9 to get ready. In truth I only have 4 of those days without any committments (I'm sure my wife will change that). 4 days to get everything in order. Probably not gonna happen. Here's what's left to do.

1) Final decision on a DK name / race. Name choices are: Chickenpox (maybe a little too serious, most of my names are more erratic), Roobarb (Continuity with my pally, almost named my young dog this name, possibly feel too much like Ferth) or Wâffles (leaning more towards this but I'm hesitant about the non-standard character). Race will be either Nelf, Dranei or Human. I love the Dranei, can't make a wrong choice here; Human's have easily the best racials, they just jump like retards; Nelfs have good tanking racials, but I don't plan on main tanking, but they flip when they jump !!!.

2) UI. What a pickle. I did a rework on my UI in the summer and ended up hating it, I should never trust my first instincts. I've been playtesting some compilations trying to figure out what I like and dislike and now I have to put this all together. Also, I would like to find a rune addon for the DK, however since the beta is going offline tonite, I have to find one tonite that I like.

3) Professions. Still with the professions, no choice has been made. I had decided Engineering but I am leaning away from that. I am leaning toward JC and Inscription I have basically no mats ready for either. Yeah !!!! Lots of prep work to be done. I have most of the mats I need for Cooking but I need to see where I am lacking.

4) Plan for staying awake for 4 days without dying. I have booked the 13th and 14th off from work and the wife knows I will barely acknowledge her thru the weekend. Perhaps a mainline for coffee and red Bull as well as a catheter will be necessary. We'll see.

Anyway, the big thing is it is only 9 days. I am very excited. Very.

Chickenpox / Wâffles / Roobarb has been killed by Anticipation / Preparation.

So it seems I'm a Whore

To put it simply, Achievements are Da - Bomb !!!

As I expected, following 3.0.2 going live, I have become an Achievement whore (and so have many members of Heroes Inc I may add). Fishing, Cooking(soon), PVP, Exploring, Quests, Instances, etc, etc, etc. I love them all. Hands down, the best addition to WoW ever.

Surprisingly, I expected Achievements to tip the scales in Rhubarb's favor but it has actually been the opposite. I am looking forward to starting from scratch on Chickenpox and getting all those beautiful little Achievements again. I have eaten all the Waffles, they are no more. (Unless I get some really cool pet/mount drops.)

Now, the expansion is just over 3 weeks away. *Cringe* I am so not prepared. I still have to pick my professions for the DK. Hey, I found some more waffles. I am currently thinking about Mining, JC'ing, Inscription, Engg, Alchemy, and in my darker moments BS'ing.

I love Engineering, it is relatively easy to level, has fun cool stuff (in theory) but it is lacking again so far in Wrath. In TBC, Engg turned into a gathering skill with cool Goggles and a Roflcopter. Engg has some interesting stuff for Wrath but nothing that can compete with other professions. That being said I am not, nor have I ever been much of a min/maxer; I play what I find fun so I will likely be taking Engineering again on my 3rd character. Maybe Goblin this time though. Hmmmm.

Mining seems like a logical addition to Engg if I go that way, but Rhubarb is a Miner and will be my 2nd character to 80, I will also possibly be dropping Engg from Rhub in favor of Herbing if I decide to take Inscription.

So many waffles. Only 3 weeks to eat them all. Gonna get a belly ache.

Chickenpox has been crit by Waffles.

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.

Two Birds, One Stone, and 6 Weeks

Ok, 1 month since my last post, what has changed ?

We have a release date, Nov 13, this is of course news to absolutely noone that will ever read this but whatever.

I have a beta key !! Again, probably news to noone, but maybe not. I have been testing various aspects, mostly DeathKnights. I have been reluctant to start into Nothrend very far, I don't want to preview much of the new levelling content so it will be fresh for launch.

Recently there was a discussion amongst Heroes Inc about whether the guild or some members would reroll Horde before WOTLK goes live. I was a proponent of this idea because I was/am bored of the live servers and rarely if ever log on. For myself I wanted to see the quests and stories from the Horde side as from level 45 through TBC they are a complete mystery to me. The beta invite has afforded me a rare opportunity, I created a Belf DK on the Beta PVE server so I could get a feel for the new class, see the Horde TBC questlines and to some extent not get burnt out doing quests that I would be redoing come launch day. Win, win, win.

Now to actual DK data:

The DK starting area is really well done, you get introduced to the class gradually and you are not so overwhelmed by the available options starting as a level 55 character since you acquire talent points as quest rewards. The gear you start with is very good and will last you quite a while in outlands, it also looks really cool. I wont go into any details so as not to spoil the experience for anyone.

The levelling is pretty quick, you exit the starting area at 58 or just shy of it. You can definitely go straight to Hellfire since the starting gear is good enough that you wont have the difficulties that the other classes do going to Hellfire before 60. The levelling curve is currently accelerated from 60-70 by about 30-40%, I think Blizzard is still tuning this but I will try and keep tabs on it. I am currently 62 and about 20% toward 63 and I still have lots of quests to do in Hellfire and I have not ran any instances. I suspect I will leave Hellfire at 63. Of the gear I started receiving at 55, I have replaced the gloves and the chestpiece, oh and my weapon although that was more of a sidegrade. I have tried all three specs to some extent, I have not tried Dual Wielding yet due to a lack of decent 1-handed weapons.

Blood:
This is the Energizer bunny tree, no downtime. All the self healing in this tree along with good damage equals non-stop killing. This is currently how I am specced and I am enjoying it a lot. I also think of it as DK-light, not because it is less powerful but because it the least complicated of all 3 trees. Dancing rune weapon is really cool, but pretty much useless while levelling.

Frost:
Has a lot of utility and emergency buttons, unfortunately does the least damage and does not the self healing of blood, currently underpowered compared to the other 2 trees although the last patch (8982) brought it closer. This was the tree I was most looking forward to and still am from a tanking perspective (although I am not looking for a main tanking job), but it is playing a little lackluster currently. Hopefully this is just due to the damage being a little lower and when this balanced (hopefully) the tree will prove to be more fun.

Unholy:
Unholy has a lot of very cool toys, does the most damage and is the probably the fastest way to level since AOE'ing is rediculous. With access to 4 diseases at 60, a permenant ghoul, Bone Shield, and Wandering Plague being very broken with a large amount of mobs this spec chews through enemies, especially when you can AOE. There is more buttons to push, is more complicated, especially when AOE'ing so I would recommend going Blood for a few levels to get used to the basics before switching back to try this tree. I will respec to this tree the next time I log onto the Beta in order to test out the AOE before Wandering Plague is nerfed. I love having a controllable, permanent ghoul. Very handy.

I am enjoying the DK quite a bit, and I am looking forward to making Chickenpox my main. I will try and keep posting my experience in Beta up until launch day.

Chickenpox has been killed by Chickenpox.

Biding Time

Man does the waiting game suck !! Without a beta key I have nothing to write about. However, in the interest of keeping my reader happy, I will attempt to ramble on about something.

First, the Deathknight. They are looking fantastic, without a beta key I can only watch videos and read postings but I am still very excited and looking forward to racing Chickenpox through to 80. I am completely torn however, I can't decide which spec to take. To make it worse I can't even eliminate one !! All three trees are looking fantastic, fun and different from each other. I dont intend to respec for a bit after I get going, probably not till Northrend at least, although with the DK teleport spell I can probably do it quite quick so as not to lose any down time. I will probably start off Blood or Unholy, Blood for zero downtime with self-healing or Unholy for great AOE, although Frost is looking like it has good AOE as well. See, very confusing.

Also, there is the matter of professions. I have gone on record saying that I will be taking Engineering and Inscription. Well, I'm not so sure anymore. Blacksmithing is looking great but very scary to level. We have a lot of people in Heroes interested in levelling Inscription and they will be at 375 before WOTLK hits due to the preview patch so I think I will pass on that. I have been thinking about taking Mining to supplement BSmithing if I take it, but I would want to be at 300 when I hit Outland to make levelling it less of a pain, but I also want ~zero downtime (I don't want to spend a day or two in Azeroth mining low ores.) What's a guy to do ?? I could level JCing but I have one at 375 already and its not like a JCer needs to go out and farm much. I guess I just need to wait and see what some of the BOP recipes provide before deciding which I should take but that leaves me less time to farm up mats. Oh, well. I should have a month or two regardless. Which brings me to my next point, how to retain my interest for 2 more months.

Fynn: I finally levelled my rogue to 70 and have been BGing like crazy to get PVP gear. I have noticed I have more fun in BG's with the rogue than I ever have before but I definitely notice the gear gap. I am far too squishy and I hit like a wet noodle most of the time, although getting the Merciless fist weapon helped a lot. My brief intro to the arena did not go well, I found I had a lot of trouble with my UI and there is far too many buttons to push as a rogue for my pseudo bind/click style to keep up with. I also sucked, but I have no love for 2v2 maybe 5v5 will feel more fun to me.

Hunter (no name yet): Although I have a 25 hunter, I hate the name she has so I will be starting a new one in hopes of reaching 60 quickly. I am going to hop on the bandwagon and tame a Devilsaur and someday in the far future a Rhino. I will probably start this next week and hopefully hit 60 before the patch 3.0.2 goes live.

Sonar (level 60 Druid): Have no plans for this character but remains an option to level if I get bored.

When patch 3.0.2 goes live everyone will be able to test out the new talents on their mains and somewhat decide on specs and stuff. I, however, will not be able to do this since my main does not exist yet. I could start a character with the same name that will ultimately become deleted but that would be only for RP purposes and thats not my style. I will have to pick a character or two and try out some of the new talents in the unlikely event that the DK does not appeal to me. I can only hope that if that is the case, I find out via a beta key and not after levelling to 80.

Chickenpox has been killed by Impatience.

Choice Made

So even though ret pallies are the bullies and gankers of the WOTLK beta right now, I have decided that my main will be a deathknight. Chickenpox will live !!!

Theres been some discussion on the Heroes Inc boards about the DK in PVP which has led me to really consider how I would go about playing a DK in BG's and arenas. All 3 specs have things that look appealing for PVP, Frost and unholy in arenas, blood would be hella fun in a bg, and any of them would be a blast for world PVP. My goal was to play a character that I wouldn't mind PVPing with so I could include myself in all of Heroes' activities; but now I find myself excited about the prospect. How bizarre. So even if by some miracle ret pallies remain the gods they currently are, I will be switching my main to Chickenpox and trying to level like a freight train.

You have been pwned by Chickenpox.

Pets & Mounts Huzzah

Probably the best change I've seen in a long time. Pets (non-combat) and mounts are being changed into spells that you learn and a special tab will be put into your spellbook. Finally, collector's such as myself will no longer have to find space for the multitude of pets or mounts that we have collected. I usually roll with about 6-10 small pets in my bag at any time, this will be an enormous space savings. Woot.

Chickenpox has cast Mechanical Squirrel.
Mechanical Squirrel has crit.
Chickenpox has been killed by Mechanical Squirrel.