The Players

Here you’ll find information about my characters in the game, where they are at, and what they are up to.  Also a little bit of brief history on how they came about and why they are the way they are.

The Key Players

Troutwort (level 85 NE marksmanship/beast mastery hunter) – The standard noob night elf hunter.  The name Troutwort was an accident actually.  I was trying to think of something “natural” and thought of some local plants…however, my memory failed me and I combined Toothwort and Trout Lily and ended up with Troutwort, which I believed to be an actual plant, it is not.  Sad.  And though it was an accident, I really liked it.  He tamed the standard level 10 cat in Teldrassil, but when he finally made it to Ashenvale he saw the bears there and tamed one.  Grizzlethorn the bear has been by his side ever since.  There was a short period where I also had a cat again, but I didn’t like it like I did Grizzle.  Trout has been marksman spec his entire life.  I also picked up skinning and leatherworking because it seemed like something a hunter should do. 

I was horrible (and arguably still am horrible) at playing the hunter.  I didn’t know how to train my pet, I didn’t learn feign death – what good is pretending to be dead?  I vendored my greens and bought the armor from them thinking it was better.  Wow, seriously, just wow.  I was horrible.  I think probably having a tank pet is the only thing that managed to keep me alive!  Around level 40 I got wiser, finally traveled off Kalimdor and my eyes were opened.  Trout is still not the best, and I use him as my exploring toon and soloing toon.

Though he’s always had his trusty bear with him, some patches ago pet changes removed the bear family swipe ability (eek!) and gave them demoralizing roar…which I was too excited about.  Since he was the first pet, he still sees the most play time outside of instances, even though there may be better pet choices for tanking pets. 

Elgar (level 85 human discipline/shadow priest) – Elgar was the second.  The priest was born dual purposely, we had a severe lack of healers in the guild Troutwort was in, and to accompany my two good friends, Theanna and Kittykat (a Paladin and Warlock, respectively), through the game.  The three of us played together for a long time.  We did so many dungeons and used to take great pride in Princess Runs (Maraudon).  Elgar specced holy and the crossed with disc later for the hybrid DS blend of 23/38/0 before the LK expansion.  He healed his way through his levels.  Sure killing things was a pain in the butt, but I figured the experience I was gaining learning how 5-mans worked and how the roles played out was totally worth it.

Elgar saw just about every heroic and outland dungeon and a few raids.  He did quite well at healing and soon became a favorite toon of mine.  To this day he’s still seen more Northrend material than Troutwort.  Elgar has been #2 to 70 and to 80 after Troutwort.  He’s primarily disc for now and I love the bubbles!  The disc spec really fits my play style as it is very flexible.  It might be safe to call Elgar my main toon as he’s always been the best geared of the bunch and the one I probably favor.  The priest is the class for me.  Elgar’s fancy 1970s style mustache is misleading, he’s not creepy, just misunderstood.  And Elgar is /scared of most of the bosses, because he’s been victim to too many “random” vampiric saps, horn gouging, polymorphs, etc. through his dungeon experiences.  He no longer believes in random, but believes “random party member” is equal to “Elgar”.

Through archeology, Elgar leveled completely from 80 to 85.  I geared up slowly and eventually tried healing again after being scared and scared away from it doing Cata normals.  I am still challenged with enjoying priest healing as discipline since the release of Cataclysm, smite healing seems awesome in theory, but is much harder in practice.  I eventually abandoned smite healing and went back to a non-atonement spec.  This has been working better, but sadly, Priest healing is no longer my favorite, we will see how it changes with Mists of Pandaria.

Schubert (level 85 gnome frost/fire mage) – I can’t remember exactly when Schubert came about, I think it was because I wanted to make a mage and since gnomes had the racial intellect buff it only seemed appropriate to make a gnome mage.  He died a lot.  Like, a real lot.  At one point I thought I’d never make it with a mage.  How do they stay alive?!?!  He specced frost and finally got ice barrier and all was well.  The control that frost offered was awesome.  Between freezing mobs in place and polymorph he soon became able to handle just about anything and was my go to toon when I wanted to play a caster that could actually do damage, no offense Elgar.  I love the animations of the gnomes and their quirkiness.  The new 4.0 frost talents have been so fun that I haven’t even tried out fire in combat yet.  He’ll probably always have a frosty, instead of fiery, touch.  Third to level 85 and only one with Mr. Pinchy.

Rossini (level 85 human demonology warlock) – When we first started the game, my friend decided she wanted to make a character.  She got to the creation screen and decided all the races were ugly, except humans.  She made a fiery red-head and then picked warlock class because it came with a red dress.  We tried to explain the classes so she could make a good choice, but it didn’t matter.  Red dress.  Done.  Her name was Kittykat and was exactly as she sounds, a flirty, damsel in distress, who’ll burn your face off if you piss her off.  The first levels she did consisted of crying for help and oddly these low level paladins and warriors would come and help her kill her quest mobs.  What the crap?!  She made it to about level 10 and then I played her until about level 30.  She then played quite a bit with me and her paladin roommate (Theanna).  We made a great team.  She loved demonology and affectionately called her voidwalker, “V-baby”. 

She was our enchantress too.  I think she just liked the name “enchantress”, but didn’t know really what it meant.  Remember when the artisan trainer was inside Uldaman?  Well we went in, specifically so that she could get training, we told her to empty her bags to make sure she had room for her enchanting supplies, etc.  We get all the way in, and “What does it mean, requires enchanting rod?”  She took it out when clearing her bags and left it in her bank.  We laughed hysterically.  How could you not?!? 

Mostly she was in WoW for the lighting people on fire and socializing.  We’d have to ask if she even was fighting because we’d hear the keyboard typing away!  But it kept it interesting.  About level 62 she didn’t have the time to play and I worked on getting her up to 70.  In October of 2009, Kittykat had a huge transformation and she became…Rossini.  Since I was suspending the account with Kitty on it, I transferred her to my main account and did the whole gender/name change.  Rossini is much more fitting.  He kept the red hair in her honor–once a ginger…always a ginger.

Sousa (level 85 draenei enhancement/resto shaman) – Some friends and I rerolled draenei when we all got the BC expansion several months after it’s release.  I had a priest, hunter and mage already, leaving me with warrior, paladin, and shaman as my remaining options without repeating a class.  Having already tried a paladin and warrior previously without success, I created Serf the shaman.  I was hesitant, as I did try a Tauren shaman way back in the day and I didn’t care for it, but thought to give it a try again.  It went well.  The draenei starting area had great quest rewards and soon I was tossing lightning and smacking crap with a mace, it seemed pretty good.  After witnessing a shaman who dual wielded and basically owned everything in ZF when I was healing with Elgar, I decided Serf was going to be enhancement.  After dual wield windfury, I never looked back.  Finally a melee DPS class that I enjoyed!  He was once a miner and jewelcrafter, but I switched to inscription with LK expansion as I was having trouble with the mid-level JC stuff. 

He is about as capable as healer as DPS.  And still is the melee DPS of choice for me, it just feels nice.

When we transferred servers in Jan 2009 to Winterhoof, Serf was my only character that needed a name change (I was actually more scared it was going to be Elgar) because it was already in use on that server.  I had a hard time thinking of a new name for him but a baby name webpage lead me to Borka, which means “fighter” in Slavic.  In April 2011, I changed his name to Bizet because he was the only one (aside from Troutwort) who wasn’t named after a composer…of course, I almost immediately kicked myself for not checking if Sousa was available.  It was, in May 2011, I renamed him again.  Sousa has become my favorite healer in Cataclysm.

Sibelius (level 85 NE balance/resto druid) – So in late 2008 my friend from work started up in WoW.  So we activated the recruit a friend and I leveled up with her on a NE priest until she reached level 20 which is where I had a druid waiting in the wings, Sibelius.  He was one of those “I’m bored” rerolls that didn’t make it too far–in my opinion the first 20 levels of druid are horrible.  I ditched the priest when he lost Starshards in a patch (QQ) and leveled up Sibelius with her rogue.  We used recruit a friend and flew through the levels and before we knew it they were in the Outlands.  At level 56 I respecced from feral cat to restoration and leveled up almost exclusively in instances up to the mid 60s.  Around level 70 though I decided I really didn’t like druid healing anymore though.  It was way too different from healing with the priest.  So I switched to boomkin and that’s his final destination.  Since I didn’t have a JC I had Sibelius drop skinning to pick it up.  Leveling that cost me literally thousands of gold, but it also cleaned out my bank.  Which is good!  He’s pretty much a support toon at this time providing gems and enchanting materials for my other characters.

Kalinnikov (level 80 dwarf protection/retribution paladin) – The tiny.  Some friends and I decided to reroll “tiny” alts.  Two gnomes and this dwarf.  Kalinnikov was rolled paladin as I didn’t have one yet and thought he’d be a tank one day.  He made it to about level 28 and there he sat, I respecced him ret and the levels just seemed to fly by!  The heirlooms helped too.  Around level 74 I got him dual-spec and he learned to tank, which was different from tanking last time I tried with a Pally back in BC days.  It’s very fun, and the random LFG system had him up to 80 in no time at all.  He’s the toon that has gotten the most out of his dual-spec at this point.  I mostly use him for helping out others when they need a tank.  Though now that he’s prot most the time and I never get ret gear, he’s pretty much a full on tank.  He likes it.  This was the first toon I tried engineering with because I thought I could use the bombs and dynamite to pull things.  It worked out really well and flying around in a gyrocopter as a dwarf with crazy goggles is just pure win. 

Floy (level 80+ gnome unholy DK) – Complete with pink pigtails, this gnome was created by the kid I do volunteer work with.  After doing the starting zone quests for him, he headed to Outlands with her and let loose.  It was then that I realized how over-powered the starting DKs are.  The kid I volunteer with is not that great at WoW.  He had a feral druid, but would always cast hurricane and moonfire, then go OOM and cry for me to help him.  He tried a human fire mage (which whom I mostly leveled) but she’d only really attack things lower than her as he couldn’t keep her alive.  Mostly she stood in Stormwind asking people if they needed portals for money.  Oy vey!  So when playing with Floy, he was a wrecking ball!  She was specced blood so she almost never died.  It was perfect.  I worked on her blacksmithing and mining as I’d never done it before and found it to be not all that bad.  But he lost interest in her so there she sits.  Again, not being much of a fan of the melee classes though I keep trying.  She made it to 70 and worked on the blacksmithing so that she could craft things for the paladin, but still needs some love before Cataclysm.  With the patch 4.0 changes she has switched to unholy DPS–I’m not really a fan, there may be tanking in her future.

Haydn (level 70+ dwarf subtlety rogue) – Originally the guild bank toon named Giggle, I would play him during holidays and such and eventually ran around on him and did some quests getting him to level 10.  At that point the guild bank toon was pretty much no-longer needed as they implemented the guild bank system and he just sat there.  I worked on him eventually after having too many badges so I bought him shoulders.  I actually started to really enjoy killing things!  Stealth was FUN!!  So I worked on him a bit and he’s sitting in the mid 30s now awaiting Cataclysm so he can see more of the new world.  He was renamed to Haydn (classical composer pronounced like hide-in’) because it fit the theme of classical composer names and seemed fitting of a rogue.  Specced for subtlety since patch 4.0 he’s loving the shadowstep, especially in PvP. 

Mouret (level 60+ worgen arms warrior) - Mouret is played primarily questing with a hunter friend.  They made great strides toward the end of 2011.  Though I am looking forward to seeing what sort of trouble he can get into as he gains new abilities.  I may even try tanking!  Melee is something I always have to take time to get used to, I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing yet, but I seem to smash lots of stuff up pretty good just by clicking whatever button lights up!