Transmogrification added a whole new aspect to the game, because now you can sport the old school armor while doing the new stuff.  My Death Knight is rocking a mix of T8 and DK starting zone gear, with iLevel 264 PvP axes.  Working on getting some swords and they will be transmogged to old PvP weapons as well.  Sites like WoW Role Play Gear are great for transmog ideas.

XP required from 71 to 80 are reduced considerably – this will definitely help me to level the Hunter (my very first character from 2004) and my Shadow Priest faster.

Looking For Raid / Raid Finder – best feature ever.  Now I can raid without any guild/loot drama!  I have already downed the first 4 bosses of the Deathwing Raid on my Death Knight and they were a breeze.  Of course there will be l337 players that make fun of noobs and just being asshats in general, but the fact that I can raid and see the content on my own terms trumps all.  Gone are the days of “must get home by 8 to make raid”.

On the other hand I’ve seen some arguments where people miss the experience of working through (read: WIPE THROUGH) raids with the same group/guild, and it makes the boss kills that much better – I do have to agree with this to a certain extent, remembering my own experience with my first raiding guild.  The Kel’Thuzad kills from 3.0 and Ulduar Watchers kills from 3.1 (this group never managed to get past Vezax) were great, because we were such a tight-knit group and had really good synergy.  But then all that dissipated when the guild imploded, and now I am willing to trade that sort of camaraderie for convenience/hassle-free raiding.

The LFR tool also reduces the importance of loot, which could be both good and bad.  The new 5-man heroics provide enough loot for all specs, through drops and quest rewards, to reach the minimum item level needed to raid Deathwing (372).  The encounters are tuned (or dumbed down, as some might prefer) to the point where you could one-shot most of them even if it’s your first time stepping into the raid after hitting the required item level 10 minutes prior to queuing.  If the group is good, you could conceivably go through the entire raid in one sitting on your first try.  And really, if I can kill Deathwing with level 372 equipment, why do I need higher level gear, apart from looking cool?

To-Do List Before 4.4 Drops:

- kill Deathwing on DK and Shaman

- complete DK DW transmog set (tabard, shoulder, swords)

- complete a transmog set for Shaman (maybe PvP season 3 or 5)

- possibly pick up tank spec on DK

- farm Justice Points for PvP sets and Heirlooms

- get Hunter and SPriest to 85

Parts that I am really happy to see:

a) Northrend XP requirement reduced by 1/3

b) Transmogrification

c) Void Storage

d) New 5-mans and Deathwing raid

There are also some very interesting changes to the Shaman class:

a) Flametongue changed to 5% magic damage increase (previously increased spellpower by X) – this is implemented mainly to discourage Enhancement Shamans from using spellpower-based weapons.  I don’t know the formula for damage but this is probably going to make scaling even better for Ele Shamans.  I still remember when they first changed it so that my SP scaled with the buffs – that was a huge buff!

b) Chain Lightning now has no cooldown if you’re Ele – more AoE pew pew!

c) Five Nova no longer refreshes Flame Shock on targets – it was difficult to get Flame Shock on all the targets anyway, they usually die too soon for the DoT to last through the entire duration.

d) Earthquake damage buffed – again, more AoE pew pew!

e) Wind Shear cooldown significantly increased to 25 secs unless the Reverberation talent is taken – this makes Ele the only effective interrupter because Resto and Enh don’t spec into Reverberation.  However this is an interesting post from Pewter about possibly not speccing into Reverberation even if you’re Ele.

f) New animation for Lightning Bolt – WIN.

But I’ve been stuck in Northrend since.  Having gone through the content twice, there are some quests lines / areas that I just don’t want to see again because either the quests were poorly designed, the areas require too much travel time between quest objectives and turn-in locations, or I just hate the zone altogether – like Zul’Drak.  I really just want to get Northrend over with, so I can move on and start the Cataclysm content, which, thankfully, I have only gone through once (though I really hate Vashj’ir with a passion).

At least they are reducing XP required from 71 to 80, so that is some good news on the horizon.  I just wish it would come soon before I lose interest in my rogue.  I also wish they would update Outland and Northrend lore – that would make the game “whole” again.  Right now it feels like I am going back in time when I go to Outland or Northrend because they’re still so caught up in the past.  It also really sucks that Battle of Undercity was taken out when Cataclysm dropped – now there are no follow-up quests after the Wrathgate event, and you’re left staring at Bolvar’s shield on the ground

Having read all of the Warcraft novels certainly helped – there are heroes/villains from all the possible class/race combinations, and the books really focused on how different characters looked at things differently because of their class (of course there is no real classification of this in the book, but you know what I mean).  Shamans like Thrall, Rehgar Earthfury and Farseer Nobundo are very spiritual beings; Druids like Hamuul Runetotem and Broll Bearmantle, on the other hand, are more in tune with nature and can communicate with all the living things in the world.

The characters are further enhanced by revamped class designs for Cataclysm – each tree now has a signature ability that defines it, and I think it makes playing that particular spec more satisfying.  Shadowstep for Subtlety Rogues is a great example – “step through the shadows and appear behind an enemy target” – you just can’t get more “rogue-y” than that!  Another one of my favorites is the Fire tree for Mages because you get Pyroblast, which “hurls an immense fiery boulder” towards the hostile target.

Occasionally I also scour the RP forums to see what other people are doing, and while there are some pretty extreme (t0 me anyway) ideas, like not taking quests that offend the character’s beliefs or allegiances, some small touches are nice – like giving a full name to the characters: my Shaman is Thorstag Emberfury (due to the various fire spells Elemental Shamans use in their arsenal as well as the Flametongue imbue on the weapon); the Death Knight is Vodan Glacierstrike (he is specced Frost); and my rogue is Zane Atherton, who now calls himself Ghostrat after he was inflicted with the Worgen curse.  Still not sure if my Paladin will have a last name because most Draeneis actually don’t have one (true story, go check out the NPCs in Exodar or the Draenei starting zone).

I am not really into the full RP thing, where players stay “in character” in game (even in guild chat) most of the time – I just like to imagine that my characters are actually part of Azeroth and not just another main/alt.

Side project 1 – rolled a rogue and I’m actually enjoying it!  The revamped Subtlety tree is amazing.  Shadowstep + Ambush usually takes out a massive chunk of health and turn mobs into easy pickings.  With Prep and Premeditation, mobs just drop like flies.  The new Assassination tree is just as good – combo point generation is super fast.  Ambush+Mutilate and already at 5 points most of the time.

Side project 2 – I want to play a healer, so I revived my Paladin and now I’m leveling him to 60.  Healing gear is hard to come by, so I’m leveling as Ret and will start collecting healing gear once he gets to Hellfire.  I really would’ve preferred to start from scratch so I can learn each spell as they become available – but since I had just leveled my rogue from 1 to 61, not sure if I want to do another one so soon.

My group (the GMT+8 “late night” group in our guild) finally started raiding – I am thrilled because all that rep-grinding was starting to wear me out.  I still have not done a single daily Therazane quest, and I’m only at honored with Wildhammer.  But at least now I have other things to do besides grinding faction reps.  On the other hand, I dropped Jewelcrafting and power-leveled Engineering to 525.  The epic helm and cogwheels are really nice – I hope they put more stuff with cogwheels into the game.

Patch 4.0.6 hit and Elemental got some buffs – we did Baradin Hold and my dps was around 16k, which was very nice.  Looks like we’ll be able to down Magmaw this weekend.  I hope more people get the designs for the new metas, because 1500g for +54 int is really ridiculous.

I also reactivated my City of Heroes/Villains acocunt and got the Going Rogue expansion.  I forgot how fun that game was despite the speed at which a character leveled.  They have added quite a few things since I last played (2006), and the new Vigilante/Rogue alignment is nice too.  CoH is refreshing because you’re truly free to make a character that you can identify with, and not be limited to things like race/class combos.  I also like all of the different power sets that you can choose from – my current favorites are Dual Pistols / Trick Arrow (Bullet Overture), Ice / Energy (Vodan Northwind), and Fire / Dark Miasma (Netherflame 151).  I think of these two games as complements and play both on most nights.

There is also Rift – which is gathering some serious steam.  I was invited to closed beta, but lost interest after seeing some initial videos and reviews.  I do think it is the most impressive WoW competitor so far, but I am not sure if it will really make people not want to go back to WoW.  Open beta starts on Feb 15th.

Overall, I like how the quests were designed to take you from one sub-zone to the next sub-zone.  Some say it’s too linear, but I think it is better for the lore – you can really see how the story is developed coherently.  As mentioned in a previous post, the extensive use of phasing really made me feel that I was directly involved in the story and made a difference.

Hyjal – the scenery is beautiful and the storyline of bringing back the ancient deities is really exciting, especially since I’ve read the War of the Ancients trilogy.  However the whole “you’re a hero” thing got pretty old after a while.  The final battle of the zone is not as excited as I thought, though.  I would’ve liked to fight him in a raid setting (which I am sure we will), and I thought it was a bit early to bring him out.

Vashj’ir – the underwater gimmick got old really fast.  I was already sick of it after finishing up Kelp’thar Forest.  I am glad that I left this zone untouched until I hit 85, so I could breeze through it.  The RP on the submarine was too much and took way too long to play out.

Deepholm – Therazane is one ugly elemental!  But I really liked the texture/feel of the zone and again, the main conflict of the zone was written very well.  Each pillar fragment had its own story and the final confrontation was rather fun.

Uldum – my favorite zone.  The two distinct storylines were well-written.  The entire Harrison Jones chain was basically a 5th Indiana Jones movie and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Could have used a little less cut-scenes though, because there were lots of them and they add up to quite a bit of time.  I really liked the Ramkahen/Tol’vir building designs, they add a nice touch to an otherwise monochromatic zone.

Twilight Highlands – this zone I didn’t really like that much, but it wasn’t as bad as Vashj’ir.  I think mostly it was because I really wanted to hit 85 and that kept me from enjoying the story.  The respawn rate in the Thundermar ruins was way too fast and some mob packs were too tight – it was difficult to pull only one and that caused quite a few deaths.  I also felt that this zone had too many quest branches and the story was not as coherent as the other zones.

Spirit/Hit until cap > Int > Haste > Mastery >> Crit

At 85, 1% hit = 102.45 hit rating…so 17% = 1741.65 -> 1742.

Reforging priorities taken from EJ’s Elemental thread

If you’re hit capped, and/or you have excess hit or spirit, do the following:
1. If an item has hit/spirit and crit, reforge hit/spirit to Haste if you have excess hit rating, otherwise reforge crit to Haste
2. If an item has hit/spirit and haste, reforge hit/spirit to Mastery if you have excess hit rating, otherwise leave it alone
3. If an item has hit/spirit and mastery, reforge hit/spirit to Haste if you have excess hit rating, otherwise leave it alone
4. If an item has crit and haste, reforge crit to Mastery
5. If an item has crit and mastery, reforge crit to Haste
6. If an item has haste and mastery, leave it alone!

First things first – my Shaman got a race change AND a realm transfer back to Aman’thul.  Pricey yes, but I ended up in the guild where I know a lot of raiders on the “late-night” team, since I used to raid with them when we were kicked out collectively from our original guild.

Shaman started in Hyjal and DK started in Vashj’ir – I have to say, both zones are absolutely stunning.  The World Tree is everything I thought it would be, having read War of the Ancients Trilogy.  Bringing back the Ancients is very exciting, since these are the very same Deities that perished during the war.  Also, Ragnaros is back, and I am looking forward to that raid when I finally hit 85.  On the other hand, Vashj’ir is probably the most colorful zone I’ve encountered in WoW.  The underwater movement is a bit annoying and takes time to adjust, but once you get the seahorse mount it becomes a breeze.  For some reason it reminds me of Zangarmarsh, just a submerged version.  The Earthern Ring is pretty badass – I like them better than Guardians of Hyjal.

I almost wished I had started out the other way around – feels like a lot of the early quest rewards in Vashj’ir are for casters, and a lot of the quest rewards in Hyjal are for physical DPS.

There is so much new stuff that I am struggling to keep up – archaeology, profession leveling, reputation grinding, and so on.  There are also tons of really cool crafted gear, provided that I eventually reach 525 Blacksmithing on my DK (114 right now).

The overall story is pretty good, with lots of phasing and cinematics to enhance the experience.  I have been a huge fan of phasing since they tried it out with the Death Knight starting zone – it really makes the “storytelling” part stand out, because the environment and people are changing as you finish more quests, and you feel like you are contributing something to it.

Some things still need a bit of tweaking though – the spawn rate of some mobs was way too fast, and sometimes I found myself fighing 4-5 mobs because they just kept spawning at the same spot.  The “jump” from fighting in the Cathedral alongside Darius Crowley to waking up in a guillotine was a bit forced, though, and could use a bit more storytelling.  Say, maybe take away the control from player little by little as the Worgen “curse” becomes more serious.

Not quite sure if I want to keep playing that character for now though – I have just gone through most of Darkshore on my Druid and not really sure if I want to do that all over again so soon.