Explaining Yourself
stargrace 
Dril made a really good point in his comments yesterday – I am using a warlock build that is optimized for AoE damage, and it’s affliction / demonology based 38/33/0 which is for most an ‘odd’ build. Typically people will either put at least 51 in affliction, or go the other way and put at least 51 in destruction. The important part is that this spec works for me, and it works really well. No, I don’t compare to raid geared people but they also don’t completely blow me away either. I’ve already had to justify my play style once and I find it really amusing. Someone in an instance asked me why I was bothering to use my mana drain spell because it ‘does nothing’ to the mob. Well, I was at 0 mana, and the healer was almost out of power, so instead of siphoning my health away and creating more of an issue I slapped some dots on the mob and mana drained. They laughed at me for it.
Last I checked, I’m the one who pays for my account, and thus I’ll play however I want. There’s nothing people seem to want to do more in WoW then tell you how to play your class because of COURSE they can play it better then you. One person told me in a random regular dungeon (before level 80) that I was a fool for rolling on an item with mana regen on it (even though they, the healer, already had said item. I rolled with a mage and if myself or the mage had not rolled on it the item would have went for greed). Their comment stuck with me so much that I stopped rolling on everything all together, even if it was an upgrade. You can NOT let other people tell you how to play the game.
I did a lot of instances yesterday. I completed Heroic Nexus, Gundrak, The Violet Hold, Halls of Stone, Trial of the Champion, and Halls of Lightning. I obtained enough shards to purchase a really nice wand, as well as a piece of set gear – Gul’dan’s Gloves of Conquest. I have almost 300 stone keeper’s shards, and I’m working towards my second piece of gear which will either be a robe or pants. I’m thinking pants since mine are quite abysmal. It’s 50 shards for the pants, and the robe. 30 for the shoulders I want which will give me my four set bonus which is not too bad. The helm I’ll be getting from another merchant, for 75 shards (it has a meta slot, but no set bonus). Instances are finally not stressful for me as a warlock instead of a priest. I feel like I’ve found a great class that suits my play style, and I’m really enjoying myself.
I managed to work on my engineering some yesterday as well, and it’s sitting at a comfortable 281. My mining still has quite a ways to go, 101 and I haven’t bothered to work on it. It’s nice to be out of the level grind, and work on things at a slower pace, and goofy achievements.
I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend! Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.