Before we get started, a riddle.  What do you get when you combine the Cubs’ curse, toilet humor, and a Thundercats reference?

The answer?  My interview on Twisted Nether!  Go listen now!

Anyhow, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Part Time Druid is largely a Wrath-free zone.  I’m not in the beta, and there are other, better sites to get your dose of news and analysis about the beta.  Now, if someone were kind enough to drop a beta key in my lap, that might change.

But I digress.  One of the things that has everyone in a tizzy is the introduction of the first new class since the inception of WoW, the Death Knight.  No, I’m not going to get into the role of the DK, or how OP they are going to be, or what tradeskills will work best with the new class.  No.  I only really want to talk about one thing.

Death Knights start at level 55.  At first, it was suggested that you would need a level 55 ON the server you intend to make the DK, and you could only have one per server.  Now I hear that you just need a 55 anywhere, and you can make a DK at 55.  (I wonder, though, does this include PvP?  Being a carebear, could I roll a 55 DK on Warsong if I so chose?)

Anyhow, I am very excited by Blizzard’s decision, and I think it was the right one.  If they had decided that new DKs would start at level 1 like everyone else, that would have favored the more “hard core” amongst us in a big way.  I still remember how after just a few days of BC I saw level 50-60 Draenei Shammys running around.  At first I was jealous, then I started to wonder how they relieved themselves.  Anyway…  The point is it would take a LONG TIME, without the 55 boost, to get a DK to the end game.  Especially since the level cap will be raised to 80.

So my question is, why are only DKs getting such a leg up?  Why couldn’t an established player make ANY character and start them at 55?

One argument that I’ve heard relating to this is that such a change would literally kill the old world content, and be detrimental to new people to the game as they try to level up.  Honestly, though, isn’t that already the case?  When someone who has one or more 70s levels an alt, do they spend their time helping out new players, and teaching them how to survive in Azeroth?  Or do they blow through the lower levels as quickly as they possibly can, either alone, multi-boxed, or with guildmates?

I think we all know the answer to that question.  They try to set leveling records, and get their new toons up to speed as quickly as possible.  So I don’t accept that it would “kill the old content” and hinder new players.

So are there other reasons they wouldn’t do this?  I suppose you could argue that it would be too easy to make strong farming or tradeskill toons.  I can buy that, but I also have an answer.  Limit it.  Limit it just like they are with Death Knights.  I’d be happy if they only allowed me ONE level 55 alt.  Hell, I’d be thrilled with one free level 55, as I always seem to hit a roadblock around 40!

I’ve even dreamt up an interesting way to implement it.  Make it a quest.

“Recovering Lost Allies”

It would be a quest in the Caverns of Time.  The quest involves saving a hero from ages past, maybe someone who died at the Battle of Mount Hyjal.  This someone just happens to be level 55.  Maybe it’s part of a long chain, you have to gather this, kill this boss, blah blah blah.  In the end, though, you pull a hero from the past into the present.  This would activate a special slot on the character creation screen, with a shadowy, unrecognizable character.  You fill in the relevant details, and boom!  Level 55 Paladin or Druid or whatever.

I would figure this would require you to have a level 70 character.  Maybe some Keepers of Time rep, too…Honored or Revered.  I would also limit this as either a ONE TIME quest, or perhaps make it so it was repeatable every 3 months.

Honestly though, think about how hard it is now to get a character from 1-70 if you decide you want to finally get a Pally to end game?  Sure, maybe not all that tough for some of you, but the part-time players out there know it takes a LONG time.  Now imagine trying to get from 1-80.  Ugh, it makes me cringe!  Blizz is already boosting leveling from 60-70 to go along with the boost from 20-60 from 2.3.  Why not just cut some corners, and let me start at 55!

Oh, and Blizzard, if you want to implement this, I’m more than willing to be a guinea pig.  And, as long as I have your attention, where’s my beta key?

My apologies to Fimlys of Asleep at the WoW, and to his guild.  Many thanks for being so welcoming, and I enjoyed my time with you.

But…

It just wasn’t meant to be.  If you remember, dear readers, I contemplated moving to Fim’s server full-time for a number of reasons.  Draenor is a West Coast server, so it would be more compatible with my play times, for one.  There are also more than a couple bloggers that are playing over there as well, including Lady Jess and Awlbiste. So in early June I moved my highest level alt, a level 52 Shadow Priest over there.

I had some good times over there, sure, and Fim’s guild was more than welcoming.  They are also progressing nicely, running Kara quite a bit and even stepping into ZA and some 25 man content.

It just wasn’t meant to be, though.

I’m a part-time player, hence the blog title, and splitting my part-time play-time in two was just not going well.  I only play about half as much as most people, and then try to split that half into quarters spread across two servers and 3 characters…well…you get the picture.  I found myself mostly ignoring my priest over there, and my priest also happened to be my highest level alt.  Aside from that, the priest is a high level enchanter and tailor, and I don’t have a replacement back on my “home” server.  I’m already tired of vendoring high level greens.

So a decision had to be made.  For this to work, all my characters must be together.  It was time for me either to go whole hog or go back home.  Sure, we their play-times aren’t 100% compatible with mine, but I love my guild.  It’s a great group of people, and in case you haven’t noticed I even got to raid the Black Temple recently.  The decision seemed all too easy.

So it was that I tucked my shadow priestly tail between my legs and went back home.  I completed the transfer back to Whisperwind with my priest this morning.  I do have a couple low level alts still on Draenor, though.  And one of them has a fantastic name for a Gnome Warrior (Halftime) and a fully tricked out, enchanted to the hilt set of white gear.  He’s one bad-ass level 10 warrior.   Maybe I’ll just play him from time to time to still hang out with Fim’s awesome guild and the other bloggers.

Anyhow, sorry I couldn’t stay, but thanks for being so kind.  Just don’t ignore me if I ask for a run through the Deadmines sometime soon! 

It’s been a little quiet around here lately, sorry about that.  I’m a key player in a HUUUUGE project at work, and our launch is this weekend.  It’s been one of those weeks.  I’m sur a lot of you out there can sympathize.  Anyhow, here’s a little bit about the latest goings on with PTD.

The Shammy Ditches the Elekk

As a lot of you know, I’ve been working my Stormwind rep so I can dump the hated Elekk with my Shammy.  I’m so sick of getting STUCK everywhere, I can’t take it anymore.  Well, the deed is done.  I conveniently saved the last couple of turnins that would push me to exalted for the mini quest hub in Elwynn where horses are sold.  The first thing I did was destroy that stupid Elekk mount.  Poor guy, don’t tell PETA.

Do I want to delete? HELL YEAH! I hopped on the cheapest horse on the lot, a beat up Pinto.

Wow, I sure look big on that thing.  I actually feel kinda sorry for that horse.  I hope he has a warranty!

So there it is.  Exalted Stormwind rep with my Shammy.  As an added bonus, I know where I’ll be vendoring and repairing from here on out!

Hunter Gears Up in Karazhan

I also put together a Kara run last night.  It seemed like it might not go off, and I actually half-cancelled it, when suddenly two of our best tanks threw their hats in the ring.  We had 2 priests, a Warrior and Pally for tanks, and a mix of DPS that included my Hunter, 2 Mages, an Enhance Shammy, Kitty Druid and a Fury Warrior.  Interesting mix, to be sure.  Luckily we had the Shammy along who made the melee DPS very strong.

We blasted through pretty much everything.  We had one wipe after the ramp leading to opera, where we accidentally pulled the whole room.  Other than that, we one shot everything, skipping only Illhoof and Netherspite.  We would have gone back, but a couple people had to bail so we called it a night.

Loot-wise, it was both good and bad for me.  I actually got one of the best cloaks a Hunter can have in the Drape of the Dark Reavers.  Nice. I also happened to pick up TWO pairs of gaunts. I got the Gloves of Quickening from Maiden and my T4 gloves, the Demon Stalker Gauntlets from Curator. I already have the Crystalhide Handwraps, so I have some thinking to do there. Anyone have any thoughts on those three? None have enchants as of yet, the Crystalhide are gemmed but with easily replaceable stuff, no epics.

Anyhow, what I REALLY wanted though was a new ranged weapon.  No dice.  No Crossbow from Attumen, no Gun from the BBW (which I REALLY want…I am a dwarf!) and no bow from the Prince.  Bah, humbug.  Someday I will upgrade from my old, blue Valanos’.  I just don’t know when.

Well, that’s about all for now.  I do have some more in depth posts brewing, I just haven’t had the time.  Next week things should start to clear up, right about the time all the adulation and cash starts rolling in at work for the great job I did on the site.  We’ll see.  Thanks for reading!

AH Insanity is killing me.  Honestly.  I had fun leveling my warrior for awhile, got him to 40, and said “yay, time for plate!”  Then I saw the AH.

You have GOT to be kidding me.  10g for a pair of level 40 plate bracers of the Wolf?  25g and up for anything of the Bear or Tiger?  SERIOUSLY??

I mean, aren’t I going to be using this for, like, 5 levels or so?  Which at the present rate of progression amounts to about a week of playing?  /scoff  I guess I’ll be rocking the mail for awhile longer, until I can get some good quest rewards or something.

What I’ve found is that the insanity is all over the place.  Yes, I realize Blizz dumped a crap load of cash into the economy with the SSO dailies, but this is getting ridiculous.  My shammy, now level 45, is still wearing bracers and gloves from level 30.   I refuse to bow to ridiculous prices, and farm with my 70 to outfit an alt.

Now, in some ways I understand the ridiculous prices for, say, level 29 BOE blues.  I know the twinkers fall all over themselves for those.  But this craziness about other sub 70 stuff must end.  How long do we spend in those midlevels anyway?

Now, people -  the only way this will change is if YOU change it!  You must agree to not bow to ridiculously priced green stuff on the AH!  If we work together, we can move mountains, you and I.  We shall overcome!

I’m the Part Time Druid, and I approve this message.

And how sweet it is.  I dinged 60 with my shadow priest over the weekend, and I had forgotten just how much better the itemization gets when you hit the outlands.  Not just in terms of the various green drops I could find on the AH to wear, but also in the quest rewards.

After a few of the starting quests in Honor Hold, I made some huge upgrades by way of quest rewards.  I got the [Shadowbrim Travel Hat], which is both dapper and has some great stats.  Then I picked up a new pair of pants, the [Wanderer's Stitched Trousers] along with a very nice and fancy-looking, animated weapon in [The Staff of the Twin Worlds].  The capper though, was the [Goldweave Tunic], which will probably last me into the mid 60’s.  Wow, just wow.  It’s amazing how quickly you can acquire great upgrades in the Outlands.

To celebrate my newfound power, I decided it was time to give my first Outlands instance a try.  So I went about putting together a group for Hellfire Ramparts.  Awlbiste of Awlbiste’s Thicket offered to come out with her freshly 60 Druid to heal, and bring along her freshly 60 Hunter better half.  We picked up a guild tank, and put out the clarion call for a fifth, which was answered by the guild leader in the form of his 66 holy pally.  So, healer heavy isn’t the first thing you want to hear, but that’s what we were.  Also, the warrior we brought along was very new to the game, the warrior being his first character, and didn’t have much experience tanking.

So we had a group, and it was an interesting one.  Gahrie, the tank, had to use a two hander as his one handed weapon skills were quite low, since he had mostly soloed his way to 63.  He was also unable to fill the role the tank often takes, of marking targets and generally leading.  So, I asked if anyone felt up to taking that task, and noone spoke up.  So I found myself marking and leading the run.

Weird.  I never, and I mean NEVER have to mark targets or lead a run.  My main is a healer, and they hang back and do the same thing no matter what:  keep the party alive.  There was a time, long long ago, when I was feral spec’d.  Even then, though, I think I tanked a grand total of 2 Outlands instances.  So though I HAD marked before, it was only a couple times.  This should be interesting.

As I mentioned before, our tank Gahrie is a very green player, and doesn’t have much tanking experience.  As the leader I had to kind of give him advice and walk him through some basics, though my tanking knowledge is limited.  Gahrie was VERY open to my suggestions, and was eager to learn.  That’s a huge plus in my book, and it made the run easier than it could have been.

Anyhow, it becomes obvious to me fairly early on that Gahrie isn’t great at generating threats on multiple targets.  Of course it doesn’t help that he has to tank with a slow 2 hander, either.  My remedy was to use as much CC as we could, whenever we could.  So I often set up trap targets for the hunter where I often might skip them, and also spent a lot of the instance doing some CC myself — Mind Control.

Ok, though I’ve messed with MC a bit through my leveling process, I rarely used it.  But in Ramparts I had a HELL of a lot of fun MCing targets at any opportunity.  It was great for us because it both took one mob out of play and used said mob to bash on the others.  Of course this killed my DPS numbers on the meters, but frankly I didn’t care.  It was just too damn much fun to MC guys left and right.

Sometimes I threw MC on a caster, and blasted away at his buddies, or I MC’d an archer and launch some arrows.  By far my favorite target, though, was the Bonechewer Destroyer.

They hit quite hard for this mostly level appropriate group, so that was a good mob to choose.  They also had a couple nice abilities for me to use, and, to top it all off, they look badass.  Nothing like using the enemy’s best weapon against them, eh?

Now, the only real problem with using MC is the aggro when it breaks.  I very nearly died quite a few times, as it was very difficult to get a mob off me that I had MC’d.  Still, it was a ton of fun.

So in general the run went alright.  It was a little slow, it was a little messy, but we managed fine with that makeup all the way to the last boss, the Dragon and Rider.  After a couple of wipes, the GL hopped on his 70 hunter just so we could get it done and get out of there.  Without the GL on that run, we would not have fared as well.  He was multi-tasking like crazy as his Pally for most of the instance, and then saved our butts with his hunter in the end.

All in all it was a lot of fun for me, we made it all the way through, and I grabbed the [Witching Band] at the end. Nice, very nice. Our tank learned a lot of the basics of tanking, like pulling with a ranged weapon, and trying to LOS pull casters. The hunter got to practice trapping, a LOT. I got to play around with MC, and the GL, surely, got to laugh a little. It was great to group with a fellow blogger for the first time, and I was glad that we were successful. Then, to end my night on another nice loot note, I also picked up the [Mantle of Magical Might] from the Ramparts main quest.

Needless to say, I’m quite happy to be back in the Outlands, and I’m also VERY happy with the shadow priest at this point. It really is a VERY different playstyle from both my Druid and my Hunter, and a lot of fun. Now to tackle the Blood Furnace! Thanks for reading!