Elitist Jerks

This post is not about the website.  

With the holiday season in WoW in full swing, I have been trying to log onto many of my level 85s and at least do Greench.  After Schubert got the epic dagger in his first bag, I’ve been hungry for more!  Besides some of those toys sell for a decent chunk of change!  As the Greench isn’t really soloable, I’ve just been heading out there and wait for a group to form or at least a bunch of people show up.  A few times I have tried communicating through gestures to the Horde, mostly it’s things like /ready.  I find it amusing when the /point at the Greench…yeah, duh, that’s what we’re all here for.  There’s one thing that really amuses me about the Greench encounter though.  And that’s how people die or take damage from either the tree or snowman.  I get schadenfreude when I see people in Firelands gear die to snowman or tree attacks.  I know I shouldn’t be like that, but I’ve seen too much attitude lately where people think only those “worthy” should have that gear.  It reminds me that it’s just ego sometimes and they aren’t always as awesome as they think they are.

Speaking of awesomeness, I did two LFG last night.  The first was on Elgar because the Call to Arms was up.  I keep my fingers crossed that it’s something quick and simple.  Lost City.  Sweet, we’ll be done in no time.  Oh, they are on their way to the croc.  Right away I pop in and they say “thank god, a healer with gear!”  I actually don’t think Elgar has that awesome of gear, but whatever, they then complimented me on my outfit (priest T5).  The tank was less than geared, I think he was pretty new to tanking.  I suggested we use some CC and away we went.  The first pull was messy.  But we managed to survive, except for the shadow priest, he got that nasty poison on him and I couldn’t stop healing the tank or we would have lost him.  They were all friendly though, the tank always checked if we were ready and the dungeon, though sloppy at times, went okay.  They wanted to skip a few of the trash pulls and attempt to just run past them.  I suggested we kill them anyways, because “I’ve been on too many runs where we ‘go around’ and it ends up with us all dead.”  A few people laughed indicating that I wasn’t the only one that has had this experience.  The tank rejoiced at his satchel of mysterious goods, seemed like a good kid.  I got a Dun Morogh Bear Cub in my satchel, but I have them on like 4 of my toons already, so I sent it off to someone who doesn’t have it yet.  

Rossini did a group then too.  Just an FYI in case you didn’t know…fear does start combat, unlike the other CCs.  Whoops!  I haven’t played Rossini in so long that I was a big rusty.  I apologized profusely, but no one seemed to care.  This tank was also new and not very geared, the priest healer was geared though.  It was pretty obviously shortly into the instance that the tank had never been inside Throne of Tides before.  He said it was only his second heroic.  That was fine, we used CC and it seemed to go pretty well.  ON the first boss, the DK DPS stood in something bad and died like 20 seconds into the fight.  The first adds come.  The tank picks up the big one and I fear the one on the right.  The hunter starts to shoot the one on the left attempting to solo it.  I focus on the big guy, but see what the hunter is up to and decide he’s going to need help.  We manage to finish that phase but the next time the adds come, I fear the right one again, the tank picks up the big one again and the hunter again starts to solo the other one.  This time I help the tank and though he should have gone over to pick up the non CC’d caster add, he doesn’t as he’s new and the one the hunter is attacking kills the priest.  I soulstone rez, the hunter dies; we finish the phase and continue on.  We don’t really have interrupts at the time and now she’s down under 20%, so I don’t think there was threat of going to another add phase.  The tank dies as the healer is low on mana from soulstone rez.  I pop demon form and all demons possible and unleash with everything, it’s brutal, I get some heals from the healer, but weave in drain life when I can.  We kill her it was awesome.  The group cheers, except the hunter who carries on about how much the tank sucks.  

This is one of those hunters that pulls 20k DPS on trash and is all “go go go”.  He doesn’t run back in like the DK and tank did even though the priest resurrected them on their run back in.  Then I notice the priest doesn’t res the hunter.  For the sake of keeping things moving, I mass res him.  All goes well up until the gauntlet.  Again the tank doesn’t know what is going on because he’s never been here, we proceed slowly down the hall, but the hunter runs all the way to the end aggroing all the big surgers…thanks stupid.  We get overwhelmed but all but one surger dies, so at least we’ll make it the next time.  Everyone releases and runs back…except the hunter.  The healer makes a comment to him about being lazy and maybe he could run back like the rest of us.  He starts linking Recount showing how much damage he’s done and that maybe we’re the lazy ones.  I decide I’ve had enough of this guy and his “mightier than thou” attitude.  I click ‘vote to kick’ and for reason I simply type “jerk”. 

It passes.  In two seconds we have another hunter.  We finish up, the final boss goes flawlessly as the DPS focus on the right targets and tank picked up the correct adds.  Everyone thanked each other and the priest comments about how that hunter was probably pissed for wasting 20 minutes and not getting his valor points.  I winked and thought about how being nice and patient really does go a long way.  I think that as WoW has aged some the player base has changed, it’s no longer a game of grinding and elite content; it’s a game for the common casual gamer.  And with that change, respect and patience will play a bigger role than epeen and epics.  So be forewarned elitist jerks, we are not afraid to boot you from our groups if you’re a tool, even if you do 50% of the damage.

Alt Time!

As the patch breathed new life into the game, Elgar saw more play time this last week than he ever has.  A result of the new Darkmoon Faire and the new dungeons as only he and Sousa were capable of queuing up for them. 

But Saturday my friend came over and he played on his hunter of level 36 and me on my warrior of level 39.  After he did his Faire things, I ran him through all the Scarlet Monastery instances to get him to level 38 and hopefully some new gear.  I was hoping we’d get some of the Darkmoon artifacts as well, but no dice.  We did a few more dungeons, but for him, I think he enjoys questing better as it’s more dependant on his pace rather than the pace of an heirloom geared tank who is all “go go go!” 

We did some quests in Western Plaguelands and then headed over to Eastern as we both dinged 40 and got our fast mounts.  The mobs there were more appropriate level and leveling went much quicker.  We stopped for herbs and ore along the way.  There are so many since Cataclysm that I had a full 28 slot bag of herbs before I knew it! 

I also did a few archaeology dig sites on the warrior and after his first completed artifact (fossil) my next one is the fossilized raptor pet, awesome.  So it looks like at least one other toon will do some archaeology.  It is amazing how much faster it goes now.  One dig site now can provide as many parts as 3 did before! 

While end game is fun, I’ve always enjoyed leveling up alts, doing the dungeons again, getting new gear and talent points.  Trying out new classes and new quests. 

The nice thing about having that second account up and running is that I have the ability to play more alts over there on the same server and get the perks of the guild.  Since I have 10 toons already on Winterhoof and apparently 10 is not enough.  I mean the GM should make up 10% of the total population of his whole guild, right?

Anyways, on that account there’s a druid and mage (71), hunters (63 and 41), priests (36 and 21), warlock (14) and a couple of level 1 alts that were used mostly for holiday achievements.  Many of these toons haven’t been logged in on in a very long time so last night I decided to see if they still needed any respecs or whatever.  I decided to log in as Linus, the level 35 priest last night, assuming he’d need to respec talent points or something.  But as it turned out he was ready to go, already in shadowform.  I never leveled a priest shadowform so he was my experiment.  I queued up for a dungeon and in about 1 minute it popped up, awesome.  I did two dungeons and leveled up to almost level 37.  Good times. 

The character names on this second account are more hap-hazard that the ones on my account which are almost exclusively named after composers (save Troutwort and Floy–though I’ve been tempted to change Floy).  While playing Linus a guild member pointed out… “so now you have a toon named after someone who obsesses over a dead composer?”  It never dawned on me.  But yes, yes I do.  It couldn’t have been more fitting.

Probably more alts in the future, like I said, you can never have enough!

FINALLY!

Patch 4.3 has revived my interested in Cataclysm.  For a couple reasons:

1) Transmogrification means I don’t have to have Elgar running around in hobo’s pajamas anymore!  This feature, while strictly aesthetic, is very fun.

2) Finally there is a dungeon that I am excited about!!  One of my complaints that I’ve mentioned before is that Cataclysm really lacked any dungeons that I thought were “fun”.  There are dungeons that I don’t complain about when I get them, like Throne of Tides, but Halls of Origination…ugh.  End Time, however, is my new favorite instance and not just because Jaina Proudmore is in it.  This instance was SO much fun!  We got Tyrande and Sylvanas in our instance.  Tyrande didn’t seem to hit too hard, but SO much movement!  I had to dodge a million things on the ground and flying at me that it was worse than frogger in Naxx.  It was fun though and I was able to manage. 

Sylvanas was a little harder as the DPS had to break us out of the zombie ring, but after we understood it better we didn’t have a problem.

The best fight though and possibly the best fight IN THE ENTIRE GAME is the final boss, Muzumu.  Okay, I don’t remember his name, but he’s AWESOME.  You’re fighting in the bronze dragonshrine and since bronze = time, there’s some really cool time effects that happen during the fight!  5 times through the fight Nordzumu (seriously, I’m bad with names) helps you by sending you back in time to where you were and how healed and full of mana you were when you started the fight.  The screen goes all black and white and your toon runs backwards to where you started and all your cooldowns reset!  It’s AMAZING!!!   I had so much fun on this fight.  And the concept is genius.  Though next time I’ll pay more attention to where I was when the fight starts because I was out of range from the tank so I had to run back to him every time that time reset.

But honestly, thank you Blizzard for coming up with creative ideas and continuing to make this game fun!  The End Time instance is one that I look forward to doing over and over (plus, I want Jaina’s staff–PG-13!!!!) 

End Time – Best Instance in WoW.

A Raven Good Time!

As I previously had mentioned, I have been sorta bored and not sure what to do with my time in game lately.  One thing that I did note is that due to me being unexplainably busy outside the game, I had stopped planning Classic Raid Nights.  These have been and usually are a success especially with the coming of patch 4.3 and transmogrification!  

So last night we were planning a Naxx-10.  Sign-ups were low, but I blame that on me not putting it up until late.  But even so we only had a few people online.  ICC-10 for next week has more people planning on coming.  So Bocat and I started to think of other things we could do.  We joked about an arena team, as something totally new.  Kelli offered to join us and had the most resilience of any of us…182.  Nice.  We thought maybe that wasn’t the best idea.  So I browsed through guild achievements to see if there was anything we could do.

After glancing about, we decided to run either low dungeons or heroic Outland dungeons.  We went with heroic Outland dungeons because it wouldn’t be so much travel from instance to instance.  So there three of us went off and started to take out Hellfire instances, then Coilfang, and then Auch.  It was a great time.  It was almost a joke when it would say “Your kill took 2 seconds, a new record!”  We were breezing through things, collecting reputation and netherweave by the buckets!  I even got honored with a few of the factions as a result.  Good times. 

Of course, I was on Sousa, so all the leather gear that I wanted for the transmogrification set for Sibelius was dropping all over.  Nice.  But my anger soon faded.  Grom joined us for the Auch dungeons and we did Mana Tomb and Sethekk Halls first because those both have exits near the end.  On the Raven Lord, we joked that if the mount drops, roll need.  And holy crap, it dropped!  Bocat already has one, so she passed and the three of us rolled.  Sousa won it!!  I couldn’t believe it, didn’t even see the roll number, I just heard the sound of something dropping into the bag and knew!!  Of course it was awesome.  We quickly finished (Sousa earning the Sethekk Halls and Heroic Sethekk Halls achievements) and moved on to the other two instances there…I rode my new mount between them.  Good times. 

All in all, we did 10 dungeons earning many achievements for ourselves as well as earning 6 achievements for the guild.  Just a few left for the guild, so I might set up another night to see if anyone is interested.  Though Naxx was a bust, it was a very fun night!

Elgar Gets Some Love/Hate

I decided to give Elgar a little play time.  Upon logging in, I realized that I had 3 pending rare items for archaeology and should maybe spend some time on that since I really haven’t in months.  As I flew around I kept a close eye on the Dungeon Finder waiting for the CtA:healer.  It usually pops at least once a night. 

As it was, CtA:healer popped up 4 times and I took advantage all 4 times, giving me a nice little break from the archaeology. 

Stonecore:  One wipe on Ozruk, the mage kept spellstealing the reflective debuff and I was paralyzed all 4 times before finally the tank went down from LOS.  We communicated the need to leave up the buff so I could reflect.  Next time, flawless.

Lost City:  Squisky tank, but manageable.  First boss, DK and melee shaman stand in the bad.  I am struggling to keep squishy tank up and get tossed into the pillar 4 times…yes, 4.  So the DK wasn’t getting much in the way of heals as there wasn’t really time to spare.  Sorry.  But after the fight he says “healer, you need to keep up with heals.”  I say, “Really?”  “Yes, really.”  I then say, “DK, you need to not stand in the bad.  Yes, really.”  The tank went on to defend me and there was probably a vote to kick me, but it didn’t pass.  I stuck it out for the goodie bag. 

BRC:  Corla, has anyone not done this?  All three DPS, “me!”  F—-  We wipe once, but they seem to get it.  Second time, lock goofs up his, but we’re able to hold it together, but the interrupts didn’t happen and we lose it.  Lock drops group, warrior DPS comes in, I take locks beam, we execute it perfectly.  Props to the rogue and hunter for never having seen it and figuring it out pretty quick.

What was the last instance???  Hmm, maybe I only did three.

Anyways, after archaeology and satchels, Elgar, Troutwort, and Rossini all ended up with a new mini-pet!  Elgar got the clockwork gnome, but also had a Captured Firefly and a Tourney Bear Cub in his bags!  Whee!  Trout got the firefly because he has a wasp pet that is the same model, and Rossini got the bear cub because so many of the others already had it.  So a good night for all!  Just a few more and Elgar will have enough JP to buy his T11 robes…yes, I’m behind the times!!  Still sporting that green wand though…

Maiev Shadowsong

WordPress does a good job at keeping site statistics, and occasionally I like to check them out for my blog.  And one of my favorite things to look at is the search terms that lead people to my blog.  The biggest hitter is “northrend archaeology” and then “archaeology northrend” and “archaeology in northrend”.  But up near the top, and actually in the last quarter my top hitter is “maiev shadowsong”. 

Okay, first off, I vaguely remember even mentioning her in a post, I’m guessing as part of one of our Black Temple classic raid nights.  But apparently, if you’re all apparently searching for her, I’ll give you something to search for.  And so, this post is dedicated to Maiev Shadowsong, the slightly OCD night elf.

I would give you the background on Maiev, but after I did a little researching, I realized there are others that offer far more information on this Night Elf.  So I’ll give you my short version…which isn’t probably 100% accurate, but is basically how I understand it all going down.

Malfurion the druid and Tyrande the high priestess are in love.  Illidan, Malfuions brother, is all “I like Tyrande, and I will show her I am better”.  Uh oh, trouble with some demons or arcane magic or something really bad!  Illidan saves the day, but uses some arcane magics or something and things go bad.  Ruh roh!  They are like, “you did bad, go directly to jail, do NOT pass go, do NOT collect 200 gold.”  They lock him into the prison.  Then Malfurion is all “okay everyone, sleepy times.”  And Maiev is trusted to guard Illidan.  Then something like 10,000 years goes by (and you thought your job sucked).  Then there’s some more trouble with some demons.  Tyrande is like, “wake up you lazy husband” but it doesn’t seem to work.  So she’s like, Illidan can help!  But he’s in jail, she’s like, “let’s go in, and get him”.  So they do, and Illidan is all ”Tyrande, you must love me to beat down the jailers and free me.”  But she’s just thinking, “bitch, I just need your help.”  Blah blah blah, he helps out and Maiev is all pissed that her captive has been freed and some wardens hurt and killed.  So they defeat some demons again and Tyrande is all “kthxbye”.  And Illidan is like “wut?  I luv u.”  But too bad.  Then he’s fleeing because he’s free and I think he eats a skull or something and grows all demony.  It’s sad days.  And Maiev is like, “get back in jail!”  So she starts chasing him all over, and he flees and gets nagas to help him, and she’s chasing and chasing, and she gets some of her own people killed and she asks for back-up, but Malfurion is like, “what-evs.”  So then they go to eastern kingdom and Kael’Thas sorta helps out for a bit, and I think that Malfurion and Tyrande show up.  And then Tyrande falls into a river (seriously, levitate much?).  And Maiev tells everyone she is dead because she hates her.  Then it’s like, ”omg battlerez??”  Crap, and now Malfurion is now seriously pissed at Maiev for lying and no one helps her except a few wardens.  Then Illidan is escaping to Outlands while they are all talking about if Tyrande is really dead.  So then Maiev who’s foaming at the mouth and is all still like “must get Illidan, nothing else matters,” chases him through the portal and through Outlands but then it’s like whoa, people like Illidan here?  Eek.  So then she gets captured and is put in jail in shadowmoon valley, outside the Black Temple.  But then it turns out that some of Illidans ”allies” are like, we don’t like him either, and she works with them and basically helps them retake the temple, kinda.  But then when you’re about to kill Illidan, after you’ve done all the hard work, she’s like “oh, hey, I’m gonna pull a Tirion on the Lich King” and basically kill steal though she was useless the whole time…frozen in a block of ice?  Seriously, Tirion?  Anyways.  So then she’s like, nice, I got him!  But then is like, “oh snap, now that Illidan is gone, I have no purpose in life.”  So as far as I know, she just goes to hang out in her jail again.

Okay, so that’s not really all that accurate, but it’s close enough.  You can find real websites with information.  Also, she’s in some of the books too, like Well of Eternity.  So check those out.  She does have some pretty sweet clothes though.

Oh Crap, Raiding

As some of you know, I spend most my weekends in the summer at the lake, fishing, IRL.  So this usually limits the days I can play WoW to 4 days a week, sometimes only 3 as I am usually volunteering one of those 4 nights.  But this weekend, despite it being the 4th of July, I’ll actually be staying local, because I hate holiday traffic so much. 

Apparently Crits and Giggles Friday/Saturday raid will be down a few people this weekend.  And as a result, I have been asked to come along on Rossini.  I used to run with this group on Rossini way back when.  It was really a great time.  Ross downed the Lich King and surpassed Elgar in raiding experiences.  The warlock isn’t my favorite class to play, but if there is one thing Crits is short on, it’s warlocks, god knows why?!?  In fact, for the Classy achievements, we’re missing warlock the most for the races we have yet to earn the achievement on.  Warlocks, where are you?!?!  Maybe we need a Call to Arms: Warlock? 

Anyways, so I’ll be running with them on the lock, because they would like one.  While I am confident I can follow directions and hopefully make minimal errors, my gear isn’t optimal and I’m not sure I can pull the DPS that will be needed.  I do run about 11 or 12k DPS on BH boss, so hopefully it will be similar if not better and that will be sufficient.  I’ll do some reading to see if I’m making any critical mistakes in rotations or whatever–go-go demonology lock! 

I have been informed we’ll be attempting Nefarian.  Okay, so my first raid and I’m going for the hardest boss out there?  I have to be insane, right?  I think I might be.  Should I even mention that if you asked me to go find Nefarian right now I have no idea where to look?  I’d probably go to BWL 20-man raid.  I’m a raiding embarrassment.

But, at the same time, I’m ready for it.  Bring it on.  I’ll do my best to DPS and stay alive.  I have been known to toss death coil to heal myself, even a quick Drain Life to boost myself back up a little to relieve healers now and then, if we’re not bumping enrage timers, it seems worth it.  I also try to use Life Tap sparingly, I don’t want to tax the healers anymore than needed. 

It has been a long time since I’ve stepped foot in a raid, except for BH, which I don’t really count.  On one level, I can’t believe I’ve agreed to this, but on the other, I am ready for it, ready to give it my all, ready to help the raid accomplish what they have been trying to do for so long.  I’m not really ready for Firelands raid…but I’ll go there if the raid decides to try some.  I mean warlocks should like fire anyways, right?  Too bad it’s not green fire.

Sousa, The Blunderer

Oh goodness.  So last night I played a little bit on Alfalfa the Tauren Priest over with the Hordies.  It was good times doing naked pole dances for holiday buffs.  I still have trouble figuring out where things are on the Horde side. 

After that though, I logged over to Sousa.  Holiday boss, some dailies, some recruiting and then his first heroic.  We had picked up a new tank for the guild form Guild Finder.  Seems like a good kid, really excitable, sometimes you need people who still get excited over downing heroic bosses.  Ha!  But he needed a few tips on tanking, but we got it done.  It was sloppy though.  But not because of him.  I was making mistakes all over the place.

Okay, so it’s BRC.  We wipe on the first boss because we pulled an extra group of trash with the boss, not sure how, but we did.  No biggie, cleaned it up, worked it out.  Then on to Corla.  Not pretty.  The first time the healer says “I am laggy so I can’t stand in a beam” so that leaves me.  So I’m out in the beam.  Well, I didn’t watch correctly and re-entered too soon.  I evolved and killed everyone.  The second time, someone else got in the beam again too soon.  It wasn’t our night.  I re-incarnate and mass rez everyone.  But I forget my totems, she respawns and aggros.  Wipe.  Stupid Sousa, stupid!  The last time I tell the healer he needs to stand in the beam because my DPS is like 4k while casting.  He does it, it goes flawlessly, done.

Steelbreaker was simply learning by the tank, but after him we’re clearing trash and I tab target and toss an instant cast lightning bolt at another group before I realize it.  I bind one of the elementals, drop earth totem and stay alive for quite a while but not before the tank can realize I pulled extras and rounds them all up.  I had already blown wolves and shamanistic rage recently, so I was SOL.  Whoops. 

Beauty goes just fine, one shot, easy.  And the final boss goes really well too.  I had to kite the adds, but I didn’t really know the best way to do it.  I put on my taunting weapon enhancements, earth-bind totems, and instant wolf and think I did “okay” it wasn’t perfect, but it could have been worse.  One shot that too.

Then I went back to TB dailies while waiting in queue.  I forgot I had my rockbiter weapon enhancement on for the whole time.  Ugh.  Just not my night.

I did another one later, it was Lost City.  I redeemed myself a bit on that one.  Though I still don’t understand the phoenix on the next to last boss.  I really should read about that.  I mean do I kill it, just forget it?  What?!  We went through there pretty smoothly, no mistakes this time.  It felt better.  Elgar then did the holiday boss, it was sloppy, I find that I can do just fine if people don’t take lots of damage except the tank.  The last time we did it, Elgar only took 15k in damage.  Also, his Divine Aegis really accounts for more absorbs than I thought!  The bonus crit heals will be nice in patch 4.2.  But that was sloppy too, took us 3 tries, so I was ready for something awesome.  I hopped on Rossini and did the holiday boss.  Blew through it, his demon form combined with hellfire and whirlwind makes those tiny elementals a joke.  It was a good way to end the night.

Better

While I’m still mostly all F— June (except for the fishing), I am doing better.  Once I got home from work I got some nice mail.  Wut?!  My statement that my car has been paid in full came, which though I knew I had written the check, was still surprising and pleasant because I wasn’t expecting it, and I got a nice note from a friend about the dog. 

Then I dinked around on the internet before finally logging into WoW after my brother kept calling with questions…he hasn’t played WoW since just after LK release and was leveling up his Rogue, which I think is now 75, but he was asking silly questions…”how do I make poisons?”  “how do I level my lock-picking?”  “what is leather specialization?  I am not a leatherworker?”  ”what is cold-weather flying?”  All these changes that happened since then that he didn’t capture because lets face it, two expansions worth of patch notes would be overwhelming.  So he missed that you don’t have lockpicking skill anymore and you don’t have to make your own poisons, nor are their different ranks of poisons.  I logged on so he’d stop calling.

But then I hopped over to Sousa and ran two normal dungeons (not quite geared enough for heroics).  I did them as DPS hoping to maybe pick up a few pieces of healing gear if people didn’t want them.  I got HoO where we killed all the bosses, I had a quest to do so, so that was awesome and then Lost City.  I had quests there too.  I was rocking the DPS coming in first for damage I did 40% of damage and 20% of the heals.  It was awesome.  And then the unexpected happened.  En epic cloak dropped.  Random BoE.  I think it was called Dorcy’s Embrace.  Now, typically the loot rule is since it’s BoE, everyone rolls greed so that everyone gets a chance to sell it.  There was a feral druid and me the enhancement shaman, and both of us could have made really good use of it, I mean, we’re running non-heroics after all and still in quest greens.  But to be fair we all rolled greed.  It made me sick.  The mage won the cloak.  I told him grats regardless.  I would have let those that could use it immediately roll need on it, even if I couldn’t use it.  Because someone using an item is better than the gold you could get from selling it.  In my opinion anyways.

So sad times on that, but overall it made my night.  I did well as DPS and felt good about it.  So it turned that shittastic Monday around.  I’m secretly hoping I don’t have to volunteer tonight so I can do some more work on him.

Cata Dungeons Are Meh…

Quick, what’s your favorite dungeon in Cataclysm?

Got it?

Now, why?

For me this is not an easy question, and I feel this is why I just haven’t been into Cataclysm all that much.  We’re 5 months in now and I have 3 level 85 toons.  Considering how quickly you can level up there really is no excuse why I still have so many hanging at 80 or 81.  Even my 85s don’t have all exalted reps.  I just really have not been into this expansion as a whole.  I was thinking about why, and one of the things I really spent lots of time on at max level in past expansions was dungeons.  I never got into raiding too much, sure I’ve had a few stretches, but they usually last less than a few months.  Or I’d just fill in as I could.

Okay, quick, what was your favorite BC dungeon?  Now, what was your favorite LK dungeon?

For me those questions are much easier to answer.  I can quickly come up with my favorite dungeons and on which characters and why.  I’ll share that with you now and try to explain that while things are fresh and new in Cataclysm, I’m really just not finding what made it exciting in the past.

If I had to pick a favorite dungeon in Cataclysm, I pretty much come up empty.  There really isn’t a single dungeon that I am “excited” to see the login screen for.  I think Throne of Tides is the closest one because I like the way it looks.  Under the sea adventure at least makes the dungeon entertaining to look at.  The fights are pretty straight forward, and if needed, my Warlock has proven he can solo the 3rd phase of the final boss.    Though I wouldn’t say I love Throne of Tides, it’s more so the one I dislike the least.

In LK there were several that I really liked.  ToC was the first that comes to mind.  I don’t know why, it was really fun though, and “Look up in the rafters…” never gets old.  There was just something really fun about that place.  It was short, the fights changed based on the champions you got and jousting.  Violet Hold was also another favorite, I think because the pace was kept for you and again the variable bosses kept a little bit of excitement in the dungeon.  This is also why I liked CoS too.  Besides seeing draenei turn into nasty looking balding humans, this instance also provided a little bit of variability with spawn points and having a timer was fun too–and I like the drama of the CoT instances, those have always been cool because they go back in time.  I keep hoping we see Dornaa in one of them though–there has to be a reason they attack her during Children’s week…  Lastly, I was probably one of the few, but I liked Old Kingdom.  The final fight in there was very fun and kinda felt a little like PvP for me.  I always enjoyed it and don’t think I ever died during the insanity phase.

In BC, my favorite dungeons were actually some of the more challenging ones at times.  I REALLY liked Botanica and I don’t know why–I think the extra herbs and the fact that on Elgar I got to use MC to give the casters that 120 spell power buff.  That was awesome.  I also liked Steamvaults though that one wasn’t always pretty, and of course Magister’s Terrace.  I also liked Shadow Labs for the same reason I liked Old Kingdom, fighting your fellow party members is hilarious and everyone is all “I’m so sorry!!” during that second boss in Shadow Labs.  That made for some really good times. 

I can’t exactly say why it is I don’t find the new Cataclysm dungeons exciting…perhaps it’s a matter of why they are where they are.  Just why do I care about the Tolvir again?  At least I knew why I was fighting the Hellfire orcs, the naga in Underbog, and the nerubian in Azjul-Nerub.  I guess I just don’t know why I’m fighting anyone in the Cata dungeons except maybe the naga again and the guys in Grim Batol/BRC.  The rest are just… there?  Of course I could be missing lore since I never did finish up Uldum. 

Okay, long post is getting really long.  But I thought about this today and why I really have been neglecting my level 85s and current content for things like running Shadow Labs again or the hundreds of other “Oh Shiny!” things that I come across.  Cataclysm looked awesome and I was really excited about the world changes and what not.  Perhaps that’s it too, perhaps I feel I have so much to see that I don’t want to miss anything and therefore would much rather look at what I know and how it changed compared to the new things that aren’t really keeping me entertained.  I just can’t figure it out, but after this post, I can confirm that Cata dungeons just don’t excite me like dungeons did in LK and BC.