So I’ve found some new fun stuff to do, but you’ll probably think it’s an odd time to do it.
My autophobic banker-DK, Tremble (pictured there before he found himself a decent tailor) has carefully ironed and bagged his fine daywear and picked up his old sword, and is now learning all about threat, tanking in Outland. I haven’t ever made it past 60 on a DK before, so at 62 Tremble is entering rarified air. I’m still not sure about the DK playstyle, either. I’m hoping at some point the management of runes and runic power, and the costs of the various abilities will just *make sense* but at the moment I’m largely clueless.
Which I guess means that I could very well be one of *those* DK tanks who run about sans clue. It’s actually quite hard for me to tell at the moment — the game feels very undertuned at the levels I have access to. I’ve done four or five runs of Ramps and … er … the other easy one and there have been no wipes or major embarrassments.
Now obviously I could chalk that up to being a natural tank, gifted, spacially aware, with armour that howitzer shells bounce off and so much threat it’d take a tactical nuke to remove those mobs, but… I’m not. I’m fumbling around, occasionally regularly hitting the wrong buttons. My favourite least-favourite thing to do is to fumble my rotation so that I accidentally press the button assigned to death grip midway through a fight, dragging a mob an impressive two inches closer to me. That typically happens mere moments before the party mage or warlock crits and attracts the attention an axe-wielding manic. That said, it’s still actually quite hard to tell whether I’m actively bad, or just a bit clumsy. More-or-less everything seems to die in just a couple of GCDs, and given the scarcity of tanks, I suspect most groups will tolerate anyone who isn’t actively working against them. I’ve never been that keen on the “hey guys, how’s my tanking?” conversational gambit in random groups (it feels rather a lot like a passive-aggressive “tell me I’m great”) so I’m a bit stuck — I don’t have any guildies in the level range to inflict my noobosity on.
I do have to feel for poor Tremble, though. Having spent the past six months or so comfortably ensconced in Stormwind, finely dressed and troubled only by his ghoulish minions’ poor dress sense and tendency to leap on unsuspecting passers-by, he’s now quite the most mismatched looking DK around. In the absence of decent plate heirlooms in my cupboards (and because I’m actually rather keen for him to get to 80), he’s been landed with some mail items. Some *caster* mail items. The coat rack-and-chestpiece formerly worn by my little spacegoat shaman Nepo, in fact, who is waiting hopefully for Bryn’s gnome mage to level up a bit so they can quest together. I’m so cheap.
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I’m *also* levelling Grammy, who when last mentioned was a teenage geriatric warlock. She’s now shot through the seasons and is nudging hard at 38 42 (what a difference a day makes).
I know, I know, it makes absolutely NO SENSE to level a lowbie just a few short weeks from the complete revamp of the 1-60 experience. The thing is… well, the thing is, she’s just too much fun to play. Not so much in dungeons, where (unless I’m doing it completely wrong) the ramp-up time on her dots means that every mob is dead before any real damage is done (in fact, the last couple of dungeons I ran, I spent the bulk of my time spamming Rain of Fire and feeling fairly foolish) Now that she’s hit 40, I’ve picked up a destro offspec for her which seems to fare better in dungeons; with most of the groups I’ve run, Rain of Fire is still the go-to spell, but should our tank ever only have two or three mobs, immolate, conflagrate and shadowburn usually do the trick. Even though that *is* good fun, it’s not my main focus. Amazingly enough, I’m having a *blast* questing and grinding as an affliction lock. I watched one of Cynwise‘s videos a little while back, the one on drain tanking, and I thought “that looks like fun”. So I respecced to affliction, and gave it a go.
Oh *boy* is it fun. Particularly post-patch, Grammy makes mincemeat of any “kill 20 <poor unfortunates>” or “collect 8 <organs> from <organ-free mammals>”. She’s currently hanging out in Stranglethorn, doing the Nesingwary quests; the biggest problem is depleting the available creatures too quickly. I’ve opted to stick with Konnie (her voidwalker) as the sacrifical bubble is very handy if things do start looking dicey but for the most part it’s just not necessary. Seriously, if you’ve never ‘locked before, check out that video. I challenge you to not find it appealing.
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Oh yes. With Tremble out in the field, I needed a new banker. Enter Tannin, businessdwarf, bon viveur (he prefers a glass of decent wine to a mug of ale) and hunter. The fabulous thing about hunters in the 4.01+ world is that they *start* with a pet. In the case of dwarven hunters, each is provided a friendly bear, free of charge. How lovely!
But I was weak. Soooo weak. Or perhaps Tannin’s love for bad puns will grow ever more evident. In any case, should you be wandering the cavernous halls of Ironforge, decide the time is right for some commerce and make your way to the auction house, you might encounter a purple-suited dwarf with a fetching hat and a glowing axe. He’ll undoubtedly be friendly, but he’ll almost certainly introduce you to his bear, Behind1.
Try not to be offended, it’s not what you think. That comma *is* important.
--- I know this is terrible. But once I’d thought of it I could think of NO other name. So I gave in [↩]
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