Attack of the Killer Hybrids.

So last night I did some group quests with Ulushnar and a couple of friends Iome (a Druid) and Hanumen (a Shaman). Between us we had all three of WoW's main Hybrid classes and we were each specialised in a given role, Ulu was specialised in Tanking, Iome in healing and the Hanumen in damage dealing.

The Shaman/Paladin combination is something that wasn't available before The Burning Crusade, but I find the pairing to be excellent. The Shaman is naturally geared towards an aggressive playstyle, whilst the Paladin excels in defense. Throw in some great healing from the Druid and there was no challenge we couldn't take with ease. That said, we were all able to add something outside of our speciality; Ulu's damage output was not insignificant and I was able to offer emergency heals, Hanu could keep an extra mob busy if he got aggro and Iome cast more than her fair share of damaging spells. Hopefully we'll manage a few more runs together whilst levelling, since it really breaks up the monotony of solo grinding.

Last night was the first real test of my tanking ability, and I think I did ok. Not brilliant, but that'll come with practise. With his new Plate armor and Holy Shield spell, Ulu has no problem dealing with multiple physical damage-dealing mobs. His main weakness is dealing with spellcasters who ignore his impressive physical defenses and strike at him from outside his limited range. I'm also finding it difficult sustaining his mana over longer fights, since he needs to use his spells to keep mob aggro. I'm keeping my eye out for more Plate with Intellect bonuses to mitigate this problem somewhat.

Still, he hit level 41 last night, and if I can keep up this rate of levelling, I'll be happy. My current, post-40 goal is to get a level per night and two per day at weekends up to 60.

Y'know what really grinds my gears?

There is one downside to playing a Paladin, and that is the amount of people who whisper you asking if you want to be a healer in instances.

I have no problem with healing, in fact I used to love healing with my Druid. That said, the sad fact is that whilst I can cast healing spells, they're not that powerful, and I don't have the mana pool to cast that many. Plate itemisation before level 60 seems to be focussed around the physical stats and therefore Protection and Retribution seem to be the most viable talent trees for a Paladin. I wouldn't mind going to an instance as an off-tank or emergency healer, but there's no way Ulushnar can main heal.

If anyone out there actually levelled as Holy spec, you have my undying admiration as the most masochistic bastard I've ever met!

"I see cow and chicken and ride little horsie..."

So I started Friday night about halfway through level 33 with Ulushnar. By the time I finally logged out on Sunday night, I'd hit my goal of level 40. Jame's levelling guide provided a useful framework, but I found myself diverging from it in parts in order to do quests I found more interesting.

I've started to find my feet with the Paladin. Protection's a difficult talent tree for levelling, since you're more focussed on survival than doing damage, so each kill can take a while. A lot of Ulushnar's activate only when he's hit, so I've found the best strategy is to try and fight multiple mobs at the same time. More mobs hitting you = more chance of your abilities activating = better damage output. If the mobs are tough, then there's some downtime whilst you recover health and mana afterwards, but this is something I've found with almost all classes except maybe Beastmastery Hunters.

Anyway, this is Ulushnar just after he hit 40, in his new Plate armor and riding his new magical Warhorse:



Whilst I spent most of the weekend levelling Ulushnar, I did log Wulf on for Saturday Night's Karazhan run. I had a headache and didn't really enjoy it, and I'm questioning if I really wanna continue raiding. We were using Ventrilo to attempt better co-ordination, but our Raid Leader couldn't get his microphone working, so we had half-a-dozen "backseat tacticians" on Vent arguing about the best way to deal with each fight in a manner that was most famously parodied in the Leeroy Jenkins video. This situation only got worse with each subsequent wipe until I had to ask them all to shut up and for someone to just decide what we were doing. I left the group shortly after that and decided to spend the rest of the evening watching a film. I find Vent a useful tool, but one that encourages lengthy planning sessions before most of the fights that really don't feel necessary or useful.

I'm not sure if it's Wulf, raiding or the people on Vent that ire me so, but raids just don't feel as fun as five-mans, which just feels wrong to me. Given it's gonna be at least a month before Ulushnar's available for raiding, I'm gonna avoid raids with Wulf until that time, see if I can find some enthusiasm by entering in a new role.

More Holy Downtime.

So I got Ulushnar, my new Draenei Paladin up to lvl 32 last night and I'm going to continue grinding levels with him as much as I can atm. I am well aware of my own propensity to become bored with levelling, so I've employed a couple of tricks to keep moving.

1. I give myself deadlines and goals. This can be as simple as "I will get to level 32 before I sleep tonight" or a vague as "I want to be questing in Outland by the middle of April" or "I want to tank Karazhan by the end of May". Most of these goals aren't make or break, but they do keep me aware of the bigger picture whilst I'm working up the enthusiasm to kill another Turtle.

2. I used a Levelling Guide. This has been something of a revelation. It tells you what quests to do and where to get the best XP/hour whilst playing, cutting down on wasted time running back and forth. For example, I had to kill Turtles for a quest last night. It reminded me to save the meat from them since I can use it for a later quest in a different zone, which prevents me having to grind the turtles there. I wouldn't reccomend the guide to a first timer though, since it really doesn't leave you much chance to immerse yourself in the lore of the world, or really "smell the roses" as it were. However, as someone

Talent spec has proven to be interesting. Most people reccomend Paladins focus on the Retribution talent tree whilst levelling, since that gives them the best damage. After playing around a bit, I've decided to instead focus my talents in the Protection tree, which as the name suggests, is more defensively-focussed. So instead of running around with a large 2-handed weapon, I'm instead running around with a sword and shield. Whilst my damage output is often a fair bit less, I'm able to reduce a lot of the incoming damage quite considerably. I've often seen myself ending a fight with 3-4 opponents with a nearly-full health bar.

The single-worst thing about levelling a Paladin is the lack of decent gear for them before about level 60. Whilst we can (and often do) use similar gear to warriors (lots of Strength, Stamina and Armor), we use Mana to power our abilities, which often do some magical damage. As a result we also need Intellect (to give us some mana to play with) and Spell Damage/Healing (to boost our heals and our ability to hurt things). Luckily, when I get Ulushnar to Outland, this problem will be sorted to some extent, since there's a lot of quest items and instance drops that mitigate this problem successfully.

And I've only got another 28 levels until I go there! :)

Holy Downtime.

I've been kinda quiet of late. To be honest, I've put Wulf in semi-retirement to focus on my new Paladin (more on him in a bit). With Wulf, I've hit the stage that none of the instances offer a substantial upgrade in gear over what he currently uses, and having beat them all comfortably they don't offer too much challenge.

Raiding might be an alternative, but at this time, the only raid instance we go near is Karazhan, which is a 10-man instance. Given that we currently have about 27 people attuned to Kara and four of those are Hunters, I really can't be bothered fighting for spots. We're not short of Damage Dealers in CD, but we kind of lack decent tanks and Healers.

Which is where Ulushnar, my new Draenei Paladin comes in. I started him during the opening week of The Burning Crusade, but I didn't get far with him at that time due to the Draenei starting zone being swarming with folks who had similar ideas. After playing Wulf intensively for two months, I felt like it was time for a change in style. Coupled with the fact that we really lack tanks atm, I thought I'd give one a go.

I'm enjoying the change in style. Paladins are pure Melee, unlike the primarily-ranged Hunters. Whilst a Hunter can peel one or two mobs away from a group at leisure, and reset the encounter if he gets overwhelmed, the Paladin has no choice but to get stuck in. Luckily in this respect, Paladins have a variety of healing and protective spells, tough armor and strong melee abilities with which to wear down their foes. I've quite often managed to handle 2-3 opponents who were 2 levels above Ulushnar with careful management of his abilities.

Currently I'm at lvl 29 with him, and with a bit of perseverance, I'm hoping to get him all the way to lvl 70. Ultimately I'm hoping to use him as a Tank in CD, but that's going to require a lot of work to get him there and then get him geared.

This... Is my BOOMSTICK!!!

Apologies for the caps gentle reader, but last night, I had a peice of uncommonly good luck. On a run to The Mechanar with some folks from CD, an exceptionally nice gun dropped. I've seen asking prices for it in the AH of around 2000G, and it's basically the best pre-raid ranged weapon in the game (and arguably the equal of many of the ranged weapons that drop in Kharazan). As the only Hunter in the run, I was allowed to take it!



Ain't it beautiful? :)

Last night was nice. Whilst CD still hasn't started raids to Kharazhan yet, we've arranged for Wednesdays and Fridays to be days where we make a concerted effort to work together and get help for everyone who needs stuff done. We aim to have one lot ready to go at 18:30 game time (17:30 in the UK) and another lot at 20:00 (19:00). In practise, because I have no life and live within walking distance of work, I was able to help at both times. It's kinda cool to be able to do this stuff, helping keep the core of CD together even when we don't have raids.

In other news, it seems that Blizzard have bowed to the popularity of profiling sites like Allakhazam, RPG Profiler and CT Profiles, and started their own profiling site, the Armory. More disturbing, it seems I have a Horde namesake. I wonder if he's a fan? :)