Shamans and Paladins

Sometimes it feels like I'm the only person excited about the additions of Paladins (or Blood Knights) to the Horde and Shamans to the Alliance.

To everyone who is complaining, I'd ask -- Are these changes really going to affect how you personally will play WoW for the worse?

The two arguments I'm most sympathetic to are the Lore Guys and people currently raiding with a Shaman.

It does seem that the backstory for the Blood Elves is getting weird, and I don't know if I like that they captured some demi-god and forced it to make Paladins. Seems kind of vampiric and a perversion of the light.

Shamans are worried that there won't be as much of a place for them after the Horde get Paladins. That may be true to an extent, but I know just as many Shamans who wish they could use a non-healing spec and who might just get their wish as a result of Blizzard moving some of the responsibility for buffing and healing over to Pallies.

I want the Brood of Nozdormu to like me....

I logged on too late to join the guild's raid of Blackwing Lair last night (they cleared up to Chromaggus), so I just did a little bit of grinding in Silithus. I started out soloing the bugs for their carapaces, but it took forever just to get to 100 of them, and I need 200 for each turn-in.

Fortunately, a PUG passed in my area and invited me. I helped them kill the Lv62 NPC elf in the hive, and managed to collect enough carapaces for a turn-in on the way.

I've got another 31,000 rep to get out of hated... then 3,000 for hostile, and another 3,000 for unfriendly... that's 37,000 rep to grind, or 740 turnins of 200 carapaces apiece.

Ouch.

LFM anyone?

Monday and Tuesday

Monday we made our final attempt for this cycle on Nef. It was pretty much just a wipe-fest, but we experimented with a couple of different approaches and got our kill count up. We didn't make it to phase 2, but this week we'll be fully buffed with flasks and such before we try it again. Everyone is pretty optimistic that we'll manage to beat BWL before the end of the week.

Afterwards I made another UD Strat run to gather more Crypt Fiend Parts and Bone Fragments for the Talisman of Ascendence. I'm more than a third of the way there, which is good progress all things considered. I'm thinking of changing my approach to gaining tokens completely though -- the best use of my time may be to just FISH. If I can find a spot where I can get Stonescale Eel for the guild and spare cash, and pick up either Lightning Eels or Plated Armorfish for quest turnins, I'll probably progress a lot quicker while also making more gold and contributing to raid progress.

Tuesday the instances reset, so we started anew on Blackwing Lair. We killed Razorgore without any trouble. We wiped twice on Vael before killing him -- I managed to pull aggro both times, but I'm hoping that the wipes weren't my fault, per se; I was healing the low fire resistance group so my aggro was high. First wipe the main tank died immediately, so that was bad healing. Second wipe the secondary tank didn't have enough aggro to handle his transition because he wasn't using his aggro generating abilities soon enough. The third try I was moved to a slightly more hardy group and the tanks built tons of aggro, so it was clear sailing.

Even though we were moving slow and it was late we managed to run through the Suppression Rooms and one-shot Broodlord. I picked up the Head of the Broodlord for the Only One May Rise quest chain and turned it in, so now I've got another reputation grind in front of me -- the bugs of Silithus!

This development may actually turn out pretty well for me... I can grind the bugs in Silithus (which drop pieces for Brood of Nozdormu rep) while doing the Combat and Tactical Quests (Cenarion Circle Rep) and slowly accumulating gold (to buy pieces for Argent Dawn rewards). It's a little known secret that the Silithid Hives have pools of water in them, so you can actually fish in the desert wasteland of Silithus!

Lovin' the Long Weekend -- Sunday

Sunday the guild raided Molten Core. I missed the first part because I had to go entertain a guest from out of town for a little while, but afterwards I joined near the end. Right before Domo it was pretty late, but we kept on after losing only 2 or 3 people. It was a good night for priests as one of our alt-shadow priests got the Eye for Bene, and then we took down Rag giving me the Leggings of Transcendence!

So now I've got two pieces towards the all-important three piece Transcendence bonus (+15% mana regeneration while casting, stacks with meditation) and with any luck I should be able to pick up the third when we raid Blackwing Lair again next week.

Afterwards I was still ready for more WoWing since I don't have to be back at work until Wednesday. I joined a UD Strat pug that was nice enough to let me have all the Crypt Fiend parts that dropped. It was rough going in the beginning, wiping like 3 times due to the challenges of not using Ventrilo, but we did the last 4 bosses without a problem and killed the Baron without any deaths -- actually a respectable accomplishment given that we had no mage and our Warlock was facing the Baron for the first time, props to him!

Getting about 60 crypt fiend parts puts me about 3% closer to getting the Talisman of Ascendence -- I want to farm some gold so I can buy more quest turnins from the AH, but barring a lucky epic drop or a good market for the alchemy patterns I like to farm it'll be a long grind.

Friday and Saturday

Friday we downed everything up to Nef, which was a good run. I don't think we got much Elementium at all, but we finally got enough Arcanite to get our guild's second Thunderfury that evening.

Saturday I was too burnt out to raid AQ20 with everyone, but they managed to down Ossi for the first time, so woot for the guild!

I spent a little time grinding, then went into Scholo where I was able to pick up enough Corruptor's Scourgestones to finally get my Chromatic Mantle of the Dawn -- +5 to all resistances enchant to my shoulders. It's not a big boost, but coupled with the Polychromatic Visionwrap chest (+20 to all resistances) might be useful down the road.

Unless I get pulled into a raid, I'll probably spend the day grinding gold and/or drops for the new Argent Dawn items. Prices on everything but the Savage Fronds continue to fall, so hopefully soon I'll be in a position to get the Talisman of Ascendence that I've been coveting.