I absolutely love this view, it’s the inscription trainer in Dalaran, and the rows upon rows of books just appeals to me on so many levels. Of course in the center is my little (not so little) tauren shaman, who inched her way to level 59 yesterday! One level away from owning her first flying mount, and exploring Outlands in full. I’m pretty excited. Of course this is all part of my ‘I need level 65 so I can craft’ expedition, but it certainly helps that the shaman is fun to play.
Some differences I have noticed. I’ve got a dual spec on her, but tend to stick with the restoration (healer) side of things for convenience. At her level I don’t find the heals very handy. She has three heals, one is a chain heal and two are direct heals. The shaman works a lot like a support class via totems, and another huge issue I have is agro control. When the priest gets agro she has fade, and she’s also got her instant cast shield that she can put up to duck out of instantly being smushed. The shaman on the other hand has no instant cast heals, and no instant cast de-agros (or any at all for that matter) and if she’s got agro the best I can hope for is to heal myself and use my one ‘lose threat’ skill that has a long recast and is only single target. Now, maybe I’m missing something but from forum posts I’ve read this seems to be an issue that a lot of shaman have, not just myself.
I’m not sure if the restoration spec is worth it – when I already have a priest, who can heal “better”. Thoughts? If I’m running an instance and am playing a full blown healer, I’m expecting the priest to do better (although I’ve heard a lot of people using paladins to heal so of course I created one of those too).
I also discovered the most ANNOYING quest ever. No doubt a few of you have run into this one before. It’s the one where you require to be .. milked. I know, doesn’t that sound delightful? As if the traumatic experience of being milked were not enough, in order to get to that stage you have to be poisoned by a giant spider inside of an instance, and NOT cure yourself (or anyone else doing the quest). Then you have to walk back to the npc and turn the quest in while poisoned. Sounds easy? Well. This particular poison causes you to fling spider webs at anyone infected in close range, and root them to the floor. Of course since both Manos and I were doing the quest we spent almost an hour flinging spider webs at one another and sticking the the floor. Taking three steps only to be rooted to the floor again.
Thankfully once you’re outside the dungeon and mounted, the spiderwebs no longer affect you (you get a “you’re mounted!” message) and you can proceed to the npc for milking. *shudders* I’m going to have nightmares about that one for a long time.
I also managed to take the shaman to Dalaran (thank you mage who ported) and bind her to the inn there. I love Dalaran, and I’m sure Shattrah would have been a sight to see too when Burning Crusade was “end game”. There are so many people all over the place both horde and alliance. Channels are bustling and the game just feels so alive. I miss having central locations where people can get together, much like PoK in EQ1. EQ2 lacks this with guild halls taking everyone out of the world and into their own little caves.
I know a lot of people are upset about the newest round of Cataclysm announcements, and the fact that a lot of ‘features’ have been chopped, but I’m going to wait until it actually comes out (such a long wait) before making any judgment calls. There’s still so much time before it goes live that there’s no reason for me to get up in arms quite yet. I was reading over the shaman talent changes and felt my anger rising, only to realize that there’s no reason to get upset because chances are things will go through numerous changes. After playing MMOs for so long it’s something I’ve now come to expect.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!