Long Boomkin Weekend Recap and a Gank Story.

I love long weekends. A big heartfelt 'Thank you!" goes out to all of the various activists, rabblerousers and notable individuals who have given us the chance to sleep in for an extra day. It's greatly appreciated. God knows I could always use more sleep.

For a while now, my Priest has been essentially at a gear impasse. everything is 'good enough' and really all that we're lacking is Arena practice and experience. In my approach to the game , gear is secondary to the experience. I do like having some nice gear because of the ePeen factor, but as long as I'm able to be competitive, I'm having fun. I'm not obsessive compulsive with gear as some people are, and as such, I save myself alot of headaches in the realm of PvE. Amusingly, I've been incredibly lucky with my PuG loot dice, winning various 'best in slot' items that work in line with my personal gearing strategy.

Getting back to PvP, however, I desperately need the experience. I feel, that as a new player to this class, I'm behind in my understanding of the class and that I need a few hundred games under my belt to really being to fully understand all of the little nuances. I'm not worried about the ratings, but in my case, the best solution to this issue is to take the Asian way out, and just grind Arenas. The root of the problem, however, is scheduling. It's tough, with work and life, to make sure we get in games, and lately, I've been finding a lot of dead time. While I could go PvE or grind BG's during that time, I'd rather just log.

Enter the Druid.

This past weekend, when I wasn't doing Arenas with the Priest, I was levelling my Druid. Readers who have read my first posts will know that I had, in TBC, successfully piloted a Druid to reasonably high ratings, but that due to gameplay homogenization for Restoration spec'd Druids post 3.0, I had decided to swap mains to a Priest. Do I regret the swap? Not at all. But, being bored leads me to do crazy things and when I asked people how long they thought I would take to get to 80, a friend guesstimated that it would take me 2 weeks to get form 71 to 80.

Of course, this guesstimation amounted to a serious affront against me and my heritage, so I popped my Asian Leveling Racial Ability (6 month cool down) and less than a week later, I'm 11 bars from 80, with 7 BoE epics lined up and ready to roll. If I had chosen to stay in all weekend and not go out to dinner with a friend and not sleep in, I would have hit 80 before the server resets, but, even with my racial active, that would have been quite extreme. I plan on PvPing as Feral, but it will be a side project to the Priest, so expect a few posts here and there about our experiences as a downsy looking kitty.

Anyways, I promised a Gank Story, so let me draw y'all story of a level 78 Boomkin stepping foot into Icecrown.

Those of you who have done the initial quest chains in Icecrown know that Icecrown is one of those zones that utilizes the new phasing tech, implemented with Lich King. What this means, is that depending on your progress on the main quest chain in that particular section of the zone, that particular section will look different to you than it does to others at different points on that quest chain. This also means that players on different parts of the chain will not be able to see each other. You can only see people, in those phased areas, that are at the same point in the quest chain. This is important later.

Well, as it was, I was level 78 at that point and spec'd deep into the Balance tree, and even with my full Brutal/Guardian's PvP gear, I could pump out some pretty crazy damage, especially with some Eclipse procs. 7k Starfire crits at that level with that old gear wasn't out of the question. Several Alliance, who tried to gank me while leveling, quickly found out that a Boomkin with full resilience gear is generally a bad target to pick on. This group of unfortunate individuals (who clearly need a hug), includes a level 80 Warlock, who decided to gank me while I started on the very first quest at the Argent camp in Icecrown.

I knew something was up when this level 80 Human Female Warlock stood nearby waiting for something as I engaged a mob 2 levels higher than me. A Deathcoil and a Fear later, with a full row of dots, the mob and a Felguard on me, I was at half health, vainly trying to apply dots to her while spamming my glyphed Holy Touch (love it!). A second fear sealed the deal and I found myself flying back in ghost form. Extremely. Pissed. Off.

Seldom known Druid fact #1: The thing about Druid dots that most people don't realize is that they're just as strong as Warlock dots. I just don't have as many. But, on their own, they can chew someone up if given enough time.

Well, this particular Warlock decided that he was safe in the Argent Crusade camp. Unfortunately, when you start off with any faction, you start off at Neutral. AND, if you're doing the very first quest in that zone, indicated by the fact that I can see you in this phased section of Icecrown, you too, are Neutral. No protection from the guards, hunnybuns.

Rezzing quickly, I managed to catch this lock at half health (from my dots) and while I ate a couple of fears, she went down like the ganking trash that she was. Equipping my PvP trinket turned out to be a good decision because this one was a Fear spammer. Judging from the strength of her dots, she had shit gear, too. I don't have a clue why she tried to summon a Felhunter mid fight, but that cost her. Cyclone into Starfire sealed the deal.

The next kill was quite a bit faster as I was able to Pounce her into a Wrath, which crit, proccing Eclipse, Nature's Grace and the Brutal 4p set bonus (1.5 seconds off your next Starfire), leading to a massive 6k 1 second Starfire to her ugly face. Having the stars align for such ridiculousness is always fun.

Seldom known Druid fact #2: Typhoon dismounts.

Kill number 3 came as she was able to mount up on her gryphon and flit about as I chased her in Swift Flight Form. This little cat and mouse chasing bullshit went on for quite some time, until I got a clear shot at her, catching her in a Typhoon, thus knocking her off her mount and down to the ground, where she took a little bit of falling damage. I chased her with dots and Moonfire spam for a while longer, eventually scoring some honor from her broken and lifeless body.

Kill number 4 came as she once again mounted up and flew to a ledge away from the camp, presumably to eat/drink. Why she dismounted I would never know, but I Typhooned her Fear (saw it coming) and as she ran, she ran clear off the cliff and cratered into the snow below. I guess my presence just has that effect on some people.

I followed this particular Warlock after she rezzed again, and while I didn't get a clear shot at her with Typhoon to send her cratering, I did /laugh and /spit on her while she ate and drank at the Krasus' Landing.

Yep.

I chased an 80 Warlock all the way back to Dalaran.

Our Warlock friend begged us to stop camping that ganking trash on grounds that it might reduce the Warlock population because Warlocks are so weak in PvP right now, but unlike him, I like to teach lessons to would be 'look at me I'm so cool' gankers.

Just 'cause I can.

How to be an A-Hole

Mind Control someone off of the turtle ferrys when you're in deep water.

Bonus points if you put a snare on them.

Working the Dalaran Street Corner and a Gank Win

Ding!

ty, ty.

We hit 80 last week prior to our week long vacation to the land of Schnitzel and Bratwurst and haven't set foot in Azeroth until last night. After jumping around in Dalaran looking for something to do, I finally bit the bullet and specced deep holy to get my Heroics grind on. Unsurprisingly, its much easier to get groups as a healer than as a Shadow Priest. We've already healed our first Heroic (Violet Hold), using our silly crafted gear and didn't have much trouble. Of course, since we've been playing as Shadow and been away from the game for so long, remembering what we had hotkeyed to various powers was definitely a trip. It was definitely different from rolling Lifeblooms as a Druid to trying to get out of the 5SR with Greater heals.

As for right now, we intend on whoring ourselves out for rep, gear and class/binding familiarity for PvP purposes, which are really the important things to consider as I see some fun times ahead trying to learn how to heal as a Priest. Yeah, we said it. Whoring. Use me and abuse me, but as long as I get my badges and rep as fast as possible so I don't have to do it again, I'm ok with it.

I'd like to share some experiences with Lake Wintergrasp, but sadly, I've only participated in one so far and it was quite... confusing, to say the least. I'll tackle that in a bit when I get a few LWG's under our (now buckled!) belt.

However, for today, I'd like to share a Gank Win while I was feverishly working on my last half bubble of xp to hit 80.

Triple Threat becomes Triple Death.

We were on our last half bubble of xp, trying to do anything that would give us xp in Icecrown. One of those dailies is very frustrating as a clothy single target dps machine (I was leveling as Shadow): That's Abominable. It's the one where you kill Abominations to get some chilled body part (appendix, goiter, whatever) so that you can make your own explodable Abomination pet to kill a bunch of Undead. Well, I had already died once because I had overaggro'd and the Abomination pet not only didn't kill everything, but exploded next to me, sending me flying into a new pack of Undead. Which. Can't. Be. Feared.

splat

At this point, I'm ready for level 80, sick and tired of grinding quests and what should happen, but a trio of Alliance lands near me and starts killing stuff for their quests. Warrior, Ret Pally and Enhancement Shaman. None of them are favorable matchups.

No biggie, I'll just kill a few abomina... oh... the Warrior is running over to me.

I lay into him with a couple of dots after his murderous intent becomes clear, but, without a trinket and without any Resilience, I'm pretty much mincemeat. I did try to get back as fast as possible since my dots and omgfutileswd took him to 30%, but he had gotten healed to full from either the Pally or the Shaman buddy he was teamed with.

I manage to rez, fly away and heal/mana up, and am about to leave the area to find some other quest hub to get our elusive half bubble when we see a Horde Ret Pally hovering over them. A quick whisper and an /invite has the Blood Elf laying the smack down into the Enhancement Shaman while I'm dotting up the Warrior.

Warrior goes down (yay!) but the two hybrids rip my impromptu teammate apart, even with my heals. I notice that the Space Goat Paladin has used Divine Shield and seeing them heal each other makes me turn tail, mount and get away.

whew!

Teammate and I lament about the burst dps people can output these days and while we're chatting and hovering on flying mounts, I notice that the Alliance Trio has moved over to an elevated plateau area and are ranged pulling Frost Wyrms. Melee hybrids ranged pulling means that their tiny manapools are running low and with the amount of damage they've taken (each at around half life with no mana) they're prime targets for a vengeance gank. Oh, and (only now do I notice) the Grand Marshal Warrior is also at half health, presumably because he rezzed and flew over as soon as possible.

No mana means no heals and I charged in and quickly laid waste to the Enhancement Shaman who had a couple of Wyrms on him. I turned to the Ret Pally and while I interrupted his Holy Light with a Psychic Scream and Deathed him for the kill, saw the Warrior trying to run away.

Except we were on an elevated ledge without anywhere to go, unless he wanted to crater.

He got the charge off (sigh) and as my dots were eating him up, he was able to get an Intercept off to bring me into Execute range.

eek!

Dispersion saved the day and as I sat there, a purple ball of glowing vengeance, the dots got him close enough that a Shadow Word: Death (button was being frantically mashed so that it would go off immediately after Dispersion wore off) finished him off.

And that's how a clothy ganks 3 melee.