What is this "holy" tree you speak of?

Yes, I know. I’m a priest. I should heal. Right?

Well, no. All edumacated people that have ever played a priest know that a decent shadow priest can be plenty of help to a group. The issue, though, is that my server is a ridiculously low-pop server. I like the guild that I’m in, but I’m the 3^rd highest level in it. The other 2 are a tanking pally, and a hunter. The hunter gives good CC, the pally can tank it if we need it, and then there’s me. I always sorta get grouped in the “heal” spot because it’s much easier to find 2 DPS than a healer. Dime a dozen, I tell ya.

A few levels ago, I ran BF with a like-level PUG and healed it. We didn’t do so hot. It convinced me to re-spec holy. This was around level 62. I threw together a hybrid smite/heal Holy/Disc build. It worked OK. My healing was great, I could still grind without drinking too much (though I still had to after about 6-8 pulls typically). It could have just been because I didn’t have a good casting order, but anyway. I Re-ran BF with another like-level PUG, and TORE IT UP. I had NO trouble whatsoever healing the group. There was ONE wipe on that annoying second boss where you have to fight off 4 groups of mobs, immediately followed by the boss. I was the first one to die, and Improved Death only lasts for 15 seconds. The fight’s quite a bit longer than that.

Anyway, it was nice. I leveled up to about 66 specced holy and ran more instances than I had since Scarlet Monestary. (Man, I LOVED SM. No trouble healing THAT as a shadow spec..) But I missed the Damage! I started Nagrand at level 66 or so, and was killin some orcs. There were a bunch of 2-pulls instead of the single mob pulls that I usually go for. I couldn’t mana burn well, couldn’t silence-pull the casters. I’d throw fear, but then the mobs would run off to God knows where because I couldn’t slow them with Mindflay.

That’s what I missed most of all, really. Mindflay. I love that spell.

So anyway, I specced back to shadow. It cost me 20g, but it was worth it. I’ve actually only been back to shadow for a bout a level now. I ran BF again, but I was 66 at the time, so I didn’t have any trouble healing that. Hell, I renew + Vamp Embrace healed most of it. We lost our tank after the first boss, and never got one back. We made it from the 1^st to the 2^nd boss with no tank at all. We didn’t get past the second boss, but that was more due to a lack of a tank than a lack of decent healing. Even with Pots, Shadowfiend, Vamp. Touch, and Vamp. Embrace, I couldn’t keep mana up long enough to get through the entire fight. I was healing a lock, a 60 rogue, 60 hunter, and a mage. So they were taking heavy damage. It just didn’t work.

So, I’ve been there, done that (for all of 4 levels) in the holy tree. I tend to solo more than instance, and generally enjoy solo-questing. I like grouping too, but it’s not as much my thing. What did I learn? I’m much more of a shadow type of guy. Or night elf chick, as the case may be.

Whippin up on the Evil Mage...

So I was working on leveling my tailoring up the other night and a guildmate that I hang out with a bit was playing his alt – a 22 mage. He was in the Redridge mountains and commented that it was tough to quest because a couple of horde kept killing him. I was in Stormwind, which is a single flightpoint away, so I figured I’d swing by and help him.

Got there and found a 48 pally bugging him. Mana burned the pally down, threw a couple of dots on him, and feared him away. He’d knocked me down to about 85% or so, but I didn’t think anything of it. Threw a mindblast at him and it finished him off.

Right about this time, I get the crap (about 1,700 health worth of it) knocked out of me by a frostbolt from the rear. Remember, I’m level 67, and I’ve got around 6,200h. Definitely not PvP specced at all. So that frostbolt hurt. I turn in time to see a mage casting again, and I did manage to get a silence off on him before he got it off. I tried a Mana Burn on him as well, but it didn’t take out much of his mana at all. He must have a ton. Well. He IS a mage. So I threw a mindblast, SW:P, starshards, and vamp embrace on him. Of course, he’s beatin on me again at this point. I shield and get a couple of flash heals off. But my mana’s about shot by this time. He got a couple more crits on me, I got another mind blast off, but I kicked the bucket. Damn. Pretty close too, he was at about 40%.

Release, run back to my body, and see that his pally buddy has JUST spawned, and they’re both sittin down for a drink. Right next to each other. Mmm, I couldn’t resist. I ressed, feared, and off they go. Mindblast, sw:p, Mindflay, mindflay, Mindblast and the mage is dead. Sweet. I just killed a 70! That’s an ego booster, regardless of how you look at it.

I got a starshards off on his pally buddy, but he shields up as he’s coming out of fear and starts healing. I pop a mana pot and wait it out. Once his shield goes down, he’s up to around 70% health, but just about out of mana. A mindblast and SW:D takes him down.

Sweet! I just killed a 70 mage AND a 48 pally. I sit down to drink and shadowmeld. My mage buddy has ressed by this time and is drinking up. The 70 and the 48 spawn back round about the same time, and the pally instantly goes after my friend, the 22 mage. I hop up and go at him again. Of course this draws the 70’s attention as well, but the 48 drops like a rock. I then immediately face off the 70 again. He’s at around 70/80% health and mana, and I’m pretty much full. Seems like it should be a close fight to me.

Nope. 15 seconds or so. He’s dead, I’m at 70% health and 30% mana or so. He was a terrible mage. I got off a couple more flash heals during the fight. Couldn’t he counterspell me or something?

Basically, I didn’t corpse camp them, but they spawned back and went after my 22 bud again about 3 more times. I killed them both 3 more times. A couple of those times, it was from full health. Both of them. It was awesome. Totally made my night. And I guess my next couple of days too, because I’m still thinking about it. Haha. Eventually, a 70 human rogue happened by too, and that scared scared them away. Neither my guildmate nor I heard anything else from them.

So yeah. Spriest PvP FTW! I’m pretty sure now I’m going to PvP more at 70. And not some heavy Disc, “I’m going to sit here and stay alive while you beat on me for 3 minutes” PvP, but some hardcore, “I’m gonna melt your face, please don’t hurt me” PvP.

Or, at least, that’s the goal. For now.

Tailoring

I probably shouldn’t have, but I dropped alchemy the other day and picked up tailoring. I had my alchemy up to around 350 and was just recently able to start transmuting primals. But that doesn’t really help ME out much, other than the money situation. Which is nice, but I’ve never really had that much money anyway. I typically barely scrape by when time comes to buy my mount. In fact, I was level 62 before I got my epic mount. I felt left behind. I’ve only got around 550g now, and I believe that’s about half enough to afford my flyer in 3 more levels.

All this leads to the fact that I’ve always found it easier to make my own armor than it is to buy it. At least if you’re going for decent gear. I am on a PvP server, but I don’t PvP much. And having the schedule that I do, I doubt I’ll ever do a raid. Maybe something small like Kara, but that’s probably about the extent of it. The longest time I get to play (at a time) is typically about 2 hours – 3 if I push my luck. So I’ll probably end up PvPing more in the end, but I don’t think I could really start level 70 PvP with outland greens and blues. That’d make me little more than a small distraction. A gnat to be swatted away.

So anyway, I ran through Stockades and Deadmines with my 60 Rogue and got all the Linen / Wool that I needed to level up to 125. I’m following a guide online to minimize the cost / mats that I need to level up my tailoring. It’s going to be a nightmare once I get to runecloth and Netherweave though because I don’t really have any good runecloth farming characters. I think the rogue can run SM to get some silk, and maybe find a good place to farm the Mageweave. The runecloth farming may even level him up a little.

Or I could spend my last 500g buying mats, and forget about the mount. I don’t wanna do that though. I want to fly! J So I’m at about 125 now, running SM later today if I can to get some silk, and we’ll see how much higher we can get it then. Soon, I should be able to at least start making some stuff that’ll be helpful to the guildies.

Introduction

I’m almost there. I can feel it. The smell of it is in the air. It’s the elusive level 70. I started on this server (Jaedenar) back when the server was new. I created a gnome rogue, having never leveled any character over 23 or so. I thought it would be fun. And it was.

Round about 45 or so, I decided I was getting bored roguing things and figured I’d try something else. I started a priest. I had a level 20 Monk in Guild Wars (20 was as high as you could go in that one) and I’d enjoyed it, so I figured I’d give a priest a try.

The priest passed the rogue round about level 55. The rogue’s still sitting at 60, and my priest is now a level 67 toon. I’m specced almost completely shadow with some Mana talents in the Disc tree. And I can smell the end. Only 3 more levels to go, and I’m half way through one of them. It’s taken me AGES to get this far. Some people think “Why? It’s so easy to level a char from 1-70 in a few weeks.”

Hell, a friend of mine that I got started playing this game when I was about 40 or so on the rogue now has about 4 of his own level 70 characters.

But I don’t play as much as a lot of people. I work 9-5 every day, I’m married, and the wife refuses to play the game. So I’m stuck huddled down infront of the PC at night after she’s gone to sleep or playing an hour or two here and there after work. It doesn’t lend itself to doing the higher level quests. Or, at least that’s what I tell myself.

That also leads to the fact that I’m a terrible Altaholic. I have created and deleted a vast number of characters. I’ve just recently convinced myself to stop deleting them and keeping them for when I wish I still had them. That way, I don’t have to re-create them and level 1-20 again. That seems to be the “stopping point” for me. I love the level 1-20ish areas.

But not my Shadow Priest. Once I hit 20 on him and got mindflay, and got my casting sequence down and “set in stone”, even grinding was fun. I put out the same damage (or at least it seems like it) as I did with my rogue at a similar level, I don’t take NEARLY as much damage, and I can heal myself if I do. Hell, at 40 I’d picked up Vamp. Embrace and Shadowform – I take LESS damage, and heal myself just by DOING damage. What more can you ask for?

Add spirit tap to that, and it’s almost more non-stop than it was with a rogue. I rarely drink. Specially now that I got shadowfiend. I played for about 2 hours last night, I think I used 2 waters. It’s great.

So that’s me, where I am, what I’m doing. I hope to keep this updated pretty regularly because it’s always fun to go back and read what was going on in the life of a wow character at any given time. Also I’ve had more time to play lately (read: been neglecting the wife more lately) and I’ve blown through the 50’s and 60’s so far. So it won’t be long now.