I have many characters, but my heart belongs to the craft of holy paladin healing. In an attempt to reclaim my love for it, I have rolled a little paladin and intend to level her as a healer. However, as I am leveling her, I have noticed a bit of a problem. It has nothing to do with quest content or anything like that. No, the content is lovely. What I have noticed, however, is a lack of healing mail and plate in the early leveling range.

Do you have any idea how hard it is for us to find gear that is not leather or cloth with +INT on it in the 10-60 level range? It’s next to impossible, at least until we hit level 40 and elemental/resto shaman are capable of wearing mail, when we can (finally) have access to mail gear with intellect. Right when we receive a bonus for being decked out in plate.

Now, I understand that out of all the plate-wearing classes in all of Azeroth, paladins are the only class that might even so much as look at mail/plate with +INT on it. Even then, it’s only the one spec that truly utilizes it. However, some of us fully intend to level as healing paladins. Most of us intend to do so through the LFD tool you provided us with. We work best when we have the proper gear to do our job with. We can’t take advantage of the bonuses you provide us with if we don’t have access to the gear in the first place.

Some people might argue that it doesn’t matter at lower levels. If you were to ask me my opinion, these individuals are liars who have never had to heal an entire dungeon with the incorrect gear. It’s painful. Yes, a lot of people at lower levels are decked out in heirlooms anyway and it hardly matters, but what about the people who are fairly new to the game who don’t have a higher level character to get the heirlooms in the first place? Besides, the whole point of leveling through the dungeon tool is to get us used to our toolboxes so we can learn what works and what doesn’t in various situations. Everyone else has the benefit of the proper gear for their class and spec type. We do not, and it makes me sad.

I know you don’t have anything against us personally, Blizzard, but it almost seems like you do.

Sincerely,
Me

Warning! Warning! Spoilers exist below the following cut. For those of you who have managed to remain spoiler free, and for those of you who want to keep it that way until you guys manage to take Garrosh down yourself, do not click the cut. This will be your only warning!

Still with me? Okay, then.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for this patch. After all, the trailer for the patch itself was the very thing that brought me back to this game. I was excited for this patch in a way that I’ve only felt once before, and that was during the Wrath of the Lich King when Blizzard announced the Icecrown Citadel raid. So when we finally had tangible evidence that it would be possible for us to curbstomp Garrosh, I knew I had to get involved.

Being the Horde player that I am, I can honestly say that Garrosh has kind of been on my shit list ever since Mists of Pandaria came out. I have not been happy to have him as a Warchief. He went and divided up Orgrimmar into districts, pretty much segregated everyone who wasn’t an orc, and was generally being a dick to everyone. We’re not even going to get into him manabombing Theramore (which I still don’t understand the reasoning for) or the initial clusterfuck that the Horde invading Pandaria was. The latter was just bad on both sides of the fence. Regardless, as I’ve been saying since Garrosh took the reins with the Cataclysm, Garrosh has never been my warchief.

But then, like a beacon of hope, Vol’jin emerged, uniting the Horde to raise up an army against him. Alliance and Horde alike banded together once again to take down our common enemy: Garrosh. And it was glorious.

When cries of the first Alliance kill of Garrosh went out across the internet, I was beyond excited. Part of me knew there would be a cinematic after the kill, and, as it turned out, we actually got two: one for the Alliance and another for the Horde. Thanks to the magic of the internet, we get to see both, and I shamelessly admit that I sat in on a livestream of the first Hordeside kill, happily cheering on a guild I didn’t know as I watched Garrosh’s HP get lower and lower. What we got in those cinematics, though, was glorious.

Garrosh, to my initial surprise, did not get to die. Well, at least not yet. Taran Zhu claimed him as a prisoner instead, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was okay with it. For one thing, I wasn’t quite ready for Garrosh to die. Besides which, Garrosh has a lot to answer for. He completely messed up Pandaria, and, as Taran Zhu pointed out, the pandaren have suffered the most (or, at the very least, more immediately) than the others. Given that, it wouldn’t really be right if the Horde or the Alliance executed Garrosh. After all, he did throw the heart of an Old God into the pools of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The pandaren deserve the right to make Garrosh answer for the crimes he’s committed.

But then that leaves the question of who becomes warchief in his absence? Part of me almost expected Thrall to step back up, as Vol’jin did, but then I realized that wouldn’t be right, either. After all, where has Thrall been all this time?

No, I’m perfectly serious. Where the hell has he been? I mean, I understand that he probably felt he deserved a break after trying to keep the world together and dealing with Deathwing. I know he has a son now, and I understand that at as a new father, he’d want to spend time with his kid, but unless you’ve read the Tides of War tie-in, you’d legitimately have no idea how he’s been involved in any of the current plot at least until the the Escalation plotline when we magically see him again with Vol’jin and Chen, giving us no real explanation as to where he’s been this entire time. Even a line or two would have been nice! But, no, we don’t really get anything.

Regardless, Thrall hasn’t shown much in the way of leadership at all this expansion. At all. The only one who has has been Vol’jin. It’s Vol’jin who unites the Horde together against Garrosh. It’s Vol’jin who goes out of his way to get everyone together, and it’s Vol’jin who is determined to uphold the values of the Horde that Thrall founded. Thus, when it came time to declare a new Warchief, I wasn’t all that surprised when Thrall took a knee before Vol’jin himself, a decision I’m completely happy with. Vol’jin is one of my favorite racial leaders and I’m perfectly content to serve him as Warchief.

As for Jaina, I’ve seen a lot of people complain about her and how she’s been handled so far with the new content. I haven’t been playing Alliance for very long, and, as a result, I really don’t have much of a frame of reference for what’s been done to her character. All I know is that it seemed like they were trying a bit too hard to turn her in a proper manipulator only to have it fail miserably in the Alliance cinematic. Past that… I’m not entirely sure what to else to say about Jaina. Other people could express their feelings on the matter far better than I could.

That said, though… where do things go from here? Well, truthfully, I’m not entirely sure, but I’m okay with that. I’m liking where things are going, and now that I’m back, I’m eager to see how things play out.

It’s been over a month since I had to cancel my subscription to you. However, in the past few days, I’ve come to an interesting revelation. Do you want to know what it is?

I can’t do it.

I tried. I genuinely tried. And it worked for a little while, but the longer I tried, the more I realized it wasn’t the same. Of course, then Blizzard put out the 5.4 trailer, and it hit me just how much I really missed the game.

It isn’t that I didn’t have other games to play. The problem, though, is that they aren’t you. They don’t capture my attention quite the same way. You are the one I love, totally and completely, and despite the amount of free-to-play games out there on the market, they don’t really compare to you.

So I’m coming back, Azeroth. Are you ready for me?

Love,
Me

P.S.: Let’s try getting this blog back the way it should be, shall we?

For those of us in the United States, it’s our Independence Day! In WoW, it marks the beginning of the end of the Midsummer festival (as a reminder to all, it ends tomorrow), so I hope you guys bashed Ahune to death while you had the chance and got everything you were hoping to get from him!

I don’t have a lot of time today, due to various 4th of July traditions and a barbeque later, but I wanted to wish those who celebrate a happy Independence Day and leave you guys with this (still very amusing) bit of machinima created four years ago by Oxhorn. Enjoy!

And don’t forget to catch the fireworks in-game tonight, guys! They’re always spectacular.

I’m not saying it’s an official death sentence for my home server of almost four years now, of course, but I have the feeling it’s coming close. I took a hiatus for about a month in an attempt to try to straighten things out for myself and explore a few other games. When I came back, I was saddened to discover that the usual chat channels, once full of life and happy conversation, were dead. In fact, most of the time, it seemed like I was the only person in them. To say it broke my heart was an understatement. I love Thorium Brotherhood. It’s where I met a wonderful group of people, people I’m proud to call my friends to this day. Unfortunately, it seems as though most of my friends have moved on to other games. The majority of my friends list haven’t logged on in months, and while I still love my characters, I’m slowly realizing that I don’t think Thorium Brotherhood might ever be server that I knew again.

As a result, I’m server shopping once again. I haven’t done this in years, and it’s a little scary. As a roleplayer, I’m really only looking at RP server, maybe even RP-PvP. I know the “standards”, of course. Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord are certainly viable options, and the servers I see lots of people recommending, but at the same time, I’m a little worried about this. For one thing, I left Moon Guard to escape some particularly bizarre drama after I left my old guild. For another, Wyrmrest is where a couple of the dramamongers went to. If I went to WrA, would I run into them again? Would they even remember me? Also, I’m in Eastern Standard Time. Would going to a Pacific-based server throw me off too much? WrA does have a few points in it’s favor, however, as a few of my friends have gone there.

If not either of them, though, where do I go? What do I do? Do I just abandon the thought of RP entirely? The thought of that kills me, to be perfectly honest.

So, fellow Warcraft players, help me out. Any recommendations?

Are you planning on rolling a pandaren? Or a monk? (Or a pandaren monk?) Are you going to set forth and explore Pandaria? Try to get a server-first level 90 character? Craft like a fiend? Roleplay your heart out?

Leave a comment below and let the world know!

*****

Theramore’s Fall was, quite honestly, the one scenario I was not looking forward to. I knew what had to happen (the Horde destroying it, naturally), but I didn’t know how. I didn’t want to know how. I had been to Theramore only once or twice as a little Alliance character. I had seen Jaina high in her tower, and I remembered thinking how amazing it was that the Alliance maintained a city so close to Horde territory. I know what it meant to other Alliance members, and I knew what it meant to me. Knowing that I had to help destroy it was ridiculously painful for me. Little did I know how that would actually come about.

Before I continue, I would just like to start off by saying that when it comes to Theramore’s Fall, I am painfully lore-ignorant. I have not read Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War, although I know I should. It’s on my “To Be Read” list and will be read once I’m done with the book I’m currently reading. However, it’s important that I say this now because, when I loaded into Theramore, I legitimately had no idea what was going on, nor would anybody else who hasn’t read the appropriate tie-in. The Horde version, at least, has no intro video, so you come into it going “wait, why are we we here? What’s the purpose of this?”

So how does the Horde version of this go, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

The Horde version begins on a ship, and brief dialogue (that most people don’t bother to pay attention to; I can’t help but feel like this is a flaw in the design) reveals a summary of what is going on:

This is seriously all the Horde gets as an explanation as to why you’re there.

I really have to confess that this bugs me. I mean, I know our scenario takes place before the Alliance version, but that’s legitimately all we get as an explanation. I mean, this doesn’t explain a damn thing. Why are we trying to lay siege to Theramore? What does Garrosh honestly hope to accomplish by laying siege to it in the first place? It isn’t as though Theramore is in the middle of an area loaded up with resources the Horde can use. It’s out in Dustwallow Marsh, for crying out loud. The only resource I can think of is food, and the Horde has plenty of that given the surplus of boars out in Durotar. So, really, what is the point? For that matter, who is this spy? Why is this the first we’re hearing of him?

….as we can see, I like explanations.

Anyhow, from the Horde ship, you and your two other party members advance onto the docks, rigging barrels of powder to explode on Theramore’s own ships and happily slaughtering the Alliance crew as you go. The captains are the toughest crew members on each of these ships. A couple are easily bypassed, but others are not and may aggro if you get too close to the stairs. Once you visit all six ships and rig their powder barrels, Blastmaster Sparkfuse lights them up, the ships are on fire, and the Alliance, well, knows you’re still there.

Your next task is to slaughter even more Alliance troops, and kill Baldruc (the Theramore flightmaster) and his gryphons, effectively preventing further departure from Theramore. Be mindful of the Arcanist mobs from this point on as they will polymorph you and you’ll frolic about as a sheep for a few minutes. It isn’t fun. You have to fight through a couple of groups of them and various other soldiers before you get to your goal: Baldruc. Baldruc drops totems occasionally that you need to either stay away from or destroy, otherwise they will eat you.

Once he’s dead, you need to find their tanks, specifically one named Big Bessa, and then rig the others to explode. Then, it’s off to Foothold Citadel to rescue the spy! Depending on which way you go, if you pass near the entrance to the tower on your way to the keep, you can see Jaina, Kalecgos, and Rhonin inside on the first floor. They will probably attack you if they know you’re there, as their nameplates are all red, but we never got close enough to them to find out. Once you’re inside the citadel, you must kill even more Alliance soldiers, and find Hedric Evancane, as he has the key to your spy’s chains. He dies fairly easily, but he does periodically emote that he’s switching weapons which will effect how much damage he does, I believe.

With the keys in hand, you must head to the basement and kill the two soldiers guarding your spy: Thalen Songweaver. There’s little about this blood elf that I legitimately don’t like. I love his voice actor (it’s so appropriately stuck-up and blood elfy that it’s hard not to like him), and he even blows you a kiss when you release him (hilarious to my guildies and I at the time as the one he blew a kiss to was an ICly married blood elf shadow priest).

However, as he summons a portal for us to escape through, he reveals that the failed Theramore siege was just a ruse. Apparently, Garrosh wanted them to think they had failed! But why?

It wasn’t until we stepped through the portal to Orgrimmar that we see exactly why. Garrosh has a ship loaded with a mana bomb hovering nearby even as we escaped. Perhaps they learned we were clear before they dropped it. I don’t know. All I know is that the bomb was released, Theramore exploded in a burst of purple light, and I sat there staring at the screen in shock for several minutes as I loaded back into Orgrimmar. The one thing I hadn’t wanted to see, the one thing I hoped Garrosh would never do, had actually come to pass. Theramore was destroyed, innocent people were now dead, and Jaina would be forever changed by the event.

And we were responsible.

What does this mean for Jaina now? I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t bring myself to look at Garrosh right now and Thyanel will be paying her respects to the dead at the newly destroyed Theramore.

Since I last posted, things have taken a much different turn than I expected. Race changes went on sale (GASP!), and Adaret, whose story has been done for quite some time, got changed into a blood elf as opposed to a pandaren like I had originally planned. The short version of the story is that Thyanel, my old main, lives again, though as a priest and not a paladin as she was originally. I missed her so much, and I’ve slowly been getting back into the swing of playing her.

On the roleplaying front, chaos has occurred amongst the Harbingers of War (my beloved RP guild). ICly, we’ve been stationed in Hillsbrad Foothills, supposedly helping the Forsaken as punishment for something that happened long before any of my characters joined up. None of us have been particularly happy about it (the majority of the unit consists of trolls; what did we honestly expect here?). However, finally, we were supposed to move to Hammerfall out in the Arathi Highlands last night so we could help slaughter the Alliance out there. While the trek went without incident, we were greeted at the little Horde outpost by a trio who promptly arrested our guild leader. While it was planned OOCly (I can only assume), I completely didn’t see it coming at all, and felt just as outraged as Jinaki, my druid, did. Currently, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on, and one of our officers has temporarily been appointed guild leader, so we’ll see what happens there. Needless to say, however, I’m excited. RP again!

The trek, however, made me realize that I never actually obtained the raptor Jinaki rides ICly in the course of me rerolling her multiple times. Thyanel has, once again, been running the Argent Tournament dailies to fund it, since mounts are account-wide now and she’s been exalted with the Crusade for ages.

Speaking of account-wide mounts, however, patch 5.0.4 dropped when I wasn’t looking! It’s taken me awhile to figure out what talents work best for my playstyle, and while I still haven’t quite solidified them, I’ve found a workable set for shadow priest PvP. Thyanel has been participating in a lot of that lately, mostly to fund obtaining a Swift Warstrider and a set of armor for transmogrification purposes.

Also, the Glyph of Shadow Ravens is best glyph ever.

I think I’ve waited my whole life for this glyph to exist.

Guild Wars 2 also came out, but I’ll be touching on that in a separate post entirely. Today, this is all about World of Warcraft.

How about you, my dear readers? What have all of you been up to lately? Any game… anything at all! I want to hear all about it!

Today was going to be a different post. However, today Blizzard unleashed the Mists of Pandaria cinematic and I was so thrilled by it that I had to share it with all of you. It would have been nice, at least, to see the monk be a female pandaren, but I still enjoyed it.

Other people have said that the cinematic is missing the epicness from previous cinematics, and while that’s technically true, it fits into what seems to be the general theme of Mists of Pandaria. For once, there’s no major villain we have to worry about here (that I know of, anyway, though I will maim people if Blizzard throws one in at the last minute). It’s just the game getting back to it’s roots, with the Alliance and the Horde fighting each other, and something new getting a starring role (in this case the pandaren). The cinematic itself also emphasizes the pandaren and their initial neutrality by having the monk fight both the Alliance and the Horde, which, I have to admit, is pretty cool to see.

It might not be as epic as seeing Deathwing break through Azeroth, or watching Arthas raise an undead army, or even seeing what we could be depending on the classes we choose. However, I really don’t think the cinematic needs to be. It is what it is, no more, no less. That in and of itself seems to be what the pandaren are all about. They aren’t flashy. They are practical, in my experience, and this cinematic captures that from the minute the pandaren enters the picture.

Also, would you just look at the backgrounds in this one? They’re gorgeous!

So quite a few of you, dear readers, follow me on Twitter. As such, most of you have been subjected to my ongoing tweets about messing around with Alliance-side RP. See, the majority of the people I know on my home server of Thorium Brotherhood have been taking a bit of a break due to various reasons. While I hope that things pick up come Mists of Pandaria next month, I did miss RPing with people, and with my druid almost at 85 and my other characters on standby until Mists drops, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try something new. After all, none of my Alliance characters have ever lasted very long. When I mentioned this on Twitter, Bricu of WTT: [RP] naturally suggested Feathermoon. I do follow a good number of Feathermoon people on twitter, and they all seemed ridiculously awesome. I figured that if I was going to try this anywhere, it should be on a server that I knew had awesome people. I was even told there was RP happening Tuesday night!

I had a bit of personal drama regarding what character I was going to roll (the race remained consistent, but the class changed several times), and, unfortunately, twitter got the brunt of it. (I do apologize for that, guys.) Ultimately, I went back to a dwarf priest, one I spent all of Tuesday leveling like mad so she could at least look decent for when she made her appearance. Finally, six p.m. server time rolled around, and I made my way to the Pig and Whistle in Old Town of Stormwind. I was all excited on the way there, and a little bit nervous, but it wasn’t until I got to the door of the inn that I realized something.

I was completely and utterly terrified.

I could see Tarquin and Threnn and even Aelflaed (whose blog, Too Many Annas, I also follow) already inside, and these are people I’ve spent at least two years reading about through various blog posts. And then I saw Bricu himself walk in, and I panicked. I couldn’t even get my little dwarf through the door! Yeah, suffice to say that I was incredibly starstruck already.

Eventually, I decided I just had to get in there, similar to ripping off a bandaid, so I just ran inside and hid upstairs for a few minutes before sneaking downstairs and hiding at the table under one of the staircases. Bricu, however, saw me, and he was nice enough to provide me with a way into the conversation. Everyone was wonderful, and even though I may have botched the dwarf accent horribly, I really did have a lot of fun. I didn’t say much, no, and I spent a good chunk of the time thinking it would probably be easier if the character was a hunter or some other class (and I did have to admit that a priest drinking seemed a little odd to me), but I still had a great time. So much fun, in fact, that I’ll probably be back next week, if the Feathermoon crew will have me.