I’ll be honest.  I generally don’t cover "news" or events in game.  There are plenty of blogs that do that, and they do it far better than I ever would.  Suffice it to say that I have been having a blast with the Halloween events, including the ultra-cool zombie/undead invasion.  Sure, I ended up zombified in a couple of bad situations, and it did make things a little tricky here and there, but I’m not here to cry about anything.  I think Blizzard once again showed just why their game is so much better than the others.

How is that you say? 

The zombie event is all people would talk about.  That right there is a success, in my mind.  No matter what percentage of those people were complaining. 

Anyhow, so what has old PTD been up to? 

Well, I’ve been back on an alt kick, as I am wont to do from time to time.  Specifically I have finally gotten serious about leveling my warrior.  Shortly after the arrival of the Burning Crusade, I rolled a Draenei warrior.  I just thought a Draenei would look particularly cool in full plate armor with giant, nasty weapons.  Anyhow, he’s been languishing at level 42 for a long, long time. 

The thing about warriors, for me, was that though they were VERY tough to kill, they also took a lot longer to kill anything.  In my limited playtime, I’m more likely to level classes that just blow mobs out of the water, hence my Druid (who leveled kitty) and Hunter.  Both those classes just flat out mowed mobs down.

The Warrior, once he reached his 40s, played like he was fighting through molasses.  Steady, to be sure, but awfully slow.  I think the big, slow 2-handers I was using contributed to this, this feeling, but dual wielding never seemed much better.

So he was forgotten for a long time.  Joining my host of low to mid-40s characters, like my Rogue, Shaman and Priest.  I didn’t know if I’d ever go back to him, and he sat around gathering dust.

Then, the patch hit, and a few things conspired to make me decide to pick an alt to focus on for awhile.  The fact is that when 3.0 hit I was a little less interested in spending time on either of my 70s.  Here is why:

• 25 Man Nerfs – I really have no desire to continue doing 25 mans now that they are on easy mode.  I don’t begrudge those of you who are enjoying your time in them, seeing things you never thought you’d see.  I certainly can respect that.  But for me they are a shadow of their former selves, and are no longer a priority for me.
• The coming race to 80 – I am no longer all that focused on gear for my two 70s.  Both have MORE than adequate equipment to last them quite some time in Wrath leveling, and because I’m not interested in "progressing" in raids, I have no real need to upgrade.
• Talent tree changes – There are a lot of interesting new tricks to try for every class.  I toyed a bit with the new resto talents for my Tree, but again, I don’t plan to do much with him right now.  Ditto for the hunter, who is still in search of the elusive Nuramoc.

Once I realized these things, I took an inventory of my non 70 alts.  I have a 65 Shadow Priest, but I lost interest  in him a bit with what I heard of the changes in Wrath.  Their overall DPS was bumped, but some of their uniqueness was gone.  My next highest alt is my Enhancement Shammy, who sits at 49.  I LOVED him in his 30s, but started to grow tired of him as I got higher.  I couldn’t invest in the uber weapons to keep him killing fast with no downtime, and found that I spent a LOT of time on my behind.  So he was out. 

It was down to my 43 combat swords Rogue, my very first WoW character, and a 42 arms Warrior.  I loved how fast the Rogue could take things down, but there was one thing that always bugged me:  all those dang misses when dual wielding.  Yes, I know they still kill darn fast, and the misses will slowly go away when I get +hit gear in the outlands, but I just couldn’t handle seeing "Miss Miss Miss" in my scrolling combat text. 

Besides, I’ve ALWAYS wanted a high level warrior, and here is why:

• Plate Envy – Man, I see some of those numbers and drool.  After spending most of my time with a leather/cloth healer, that plate armor with its huge numbers looks awesome.  I also like the way a fully decked out warrior looks.
• Big, Nasty Weapon Envy – You can see the massive Axe in the screenshot above.  That’s what I’m talking about.  I like the idea of having a weapon I actually USE instead of just carry around for show (think druid, hunter).
• Tank Envy – I’ve always wanted to REALLY try my hand at tanking.  I’ve done it a bit with my Druid, but frankly I’m not into the whole respec thing.  I know it’s cake for you guys that run dailies every day, but for me that’s just too much cash to sling around.  I prefer to pick a spec and stick with it.  And when I think tank, I think Warrior.

And that’s how I’ve found myself doing nothing but leveling my warrior.  He’s up to 58 now, and I hope I can get him to at least 68 before Wrath hits.  I think I should be able to do it, thanks in large part to Jame’s Leveling Guide (if you’re leveling an alt, there is NO BETTER WAY than Jame’s guide).  The exp curve change from 3.0should help as well.  The idea is to get him high enough to join the "Who Will PTD Level First" competition for Wrath.  I figure I’ll throw up another post soon with my leveling spec, which is presently 43/5/0, and what I like about it.  For now, I think I’ve droned on long enough.   Thanks for reading, and don’t be surprised to hear a lot about Warriors in the near future!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 9:14 pm and is filed under Warrior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.