The Burning Crusade Classic – Alts

Monday November 15, 2021

“Wasn’t that a Party?” – The Irish Rovers

You cannot be an Altoholic unless you have Alts. Perhaps it’s time I introduced the latest batch of characters that I’ve been working on. TBC Classic has been a treat so far, happily my playstyle is working out quite well with the guild I’ve been with for the past 6 months or so. Most of them have several alts, and we happily run everything in Outlands together.

Gronraed the Human Warlock is my fully Kara geared toon, luckily getting the dagger from Prince, there's an upgrade or two left in Kara, but in terms of open world capability and 5 mans regular or heroic, he's set.I have no inklings to push further than Kara, at least until my guild hits SSC after the nerfs.We’re not lazy, we’ve just done it before and are watching other guilds implode with the jump to 25 from 10’s and none of us are looking forward to the silliness.This past weekend five guildies organized a pug Gruul’s-Magtheridon run, which went quite well, and quick as well.It was my first trip into either instance in TBC Classic, and I happened to score the Tier 4 Chestpiece.Happily so, I remember when I was choosing between the Chest and the Boots for the Shadoweave set, that I had the distinct thought “Meh, it’ll be forever trying to get the chest out of Mag’s… just make it”.Ah, choices.But, it did last for a couple months at least.

Blort is my Dwarven Hunter, who hit 70 first, then sat for a very long time after the warlock hit 70. I spent an entire weekend working on him, getting his Ravager pet Spike to 70 from 63, as I’d been using my favourite skinned pig Zippy from RFK but the poor guy just wasn’t holding aggro anymore. Doing that, I put in a determined effort to collect the long overdue Beast Lord set. Fortunately, I struck it lucky, only needing about 6 runs total to get the four-piece set bonus operational. He’s hit Kara a couple times but hasn’t been lucky with drops in there. I’d really like to get the Sunfury Bow from Prince, but it just won’t drop for him. Soon enough I suppose.

Catamara the Night Elf Druid has been a weird one. Was feral up until 60, but got my ass kicked on the opening quests in Hellfire. Decided “screw that”, went boomkin and levelled to 70 that way. A few Kara runs later, she’s got some decent resto gear, including Nightbane’s Staff, so her future’s in being a Tree. She is my enchanter, and I’ve been working on world drops for the various enchants she’s missing. The list is almost complete, and after she gets her last one or two needed I’ll be going full restoration on her and boogie through Karazahn as a tree.

Hamahead the Draenei Shaman went halfway through the 60-70 range as an interesting pvp-resto spec. First toon in BC that I’ve been able to both heal 5 mans and quest effectively. In the last 3-4 levels she was pure elemental, zapping the crap out of 5 mans and having a blast. Now at 70, with a couple of Kara runs under his belt, she’s got some excellent elemental gear, and a decent resto set as well. Hamahead has been settling into healing quite well for me. I spent a lot of time healing in upper level instances to get her heroic keys, and healing happily all the way.

Latest to 70 is my little Gnome Frost Mage Zavee, who sat for the longest time in the high 40’s after TBC Classic launched. I started working on him and got into a nice groove, as I usually do with each of my alts. The real impetus was watching people advertising for Mage services (portals, food, water, etc). I finally pushed through to 65 to get his Shattrath Portal spell, and from there to 70 was quite enjoyable. That journey was accomplished while having a blast with a couple of paladins tanking and healing 5 mans. Every time we saw each other logged in, we’d gather a couple more dps and hit every instance. It went spectacularly well, that most of his levelling was done in instances. There are PLENTY of quest gold rewards waiting for him out in the wild. Little dude’s going to make me some serious coin. He’s yet to go into Kara, there’s another mage that’s working on her gear and I don’t want to take anything from her. It’s her only toon and since I have many, it’s an easy choice.

This leaves my other 4 toons, that are from 43 to 65 in levels.

Quinnd the Human Priest I switched to holy-disc from shadow in order to slam the instance trail again, was shadow while levelling but looking forward to healing through to 70. I’ve always liked Priest healing, and the memories of dual-priest Kara healing still sticks out quite fondly. He’ll get there, eventually.

Tief the Human Rogue was sitting in Stormwind, running faithfully back and forth from mailbox to AH, and doing some Jewelcrafting and lockpicking on the side.He’s 63 and I’ve started his progression through Hellfire and the lower instances.The push from guildies to level Tief is always present, as they keep sending him lockboxes to pick.I’m enjoying melee dps’ing on Tief, it’s been a while, as most of my alts are ranged.

Slapnutz the Dwarf Paladin is a full fledged protection.Ramp runs have been spectacular, BF is an annoying silencing instance that I am getting a good headway in the pulls.Slave Pens and Underbog have been great.Little variances from other people’s tanking these days, I’m more old school in making LOS pulls.Asking at the top of an instance to just chill till all of the mobs get to me, then you can go apeshit, usually works for the DPS.Those warriors who charge out right on the pull… well, they find that if the healer heals them, that’s cool.If they don’t get heals, their dps numbers drop rapidly upon death.Like I said.Old school.

Then there is my poor Nailer the Human Warrior, who waits patiently in Shattrath for me to have him do something other than mail his stuff away and back, cycling the 30 day returns. He’s 62, and I’ve just had other things on my mind. He’s understanding though, because his life’s been as a tank and he’s not looking forward to fighting for aggro on mobs in 5 mans. Fury or arms, perhaps to get him through. We shall see.

Bringing up the rear, and running mailbox duty is Alakazoo, a Gnome Warlock. Alakazoo is happily boogying between the mailbox, Auction House, and Bank, while holding on to items that just don’t fit well in inventory, but fly about the ether as in-game Mail. It’s a great way to expand your inventory space, as long as you don’t forget to check his mail every so often in case things ‘disappear’ by being returned after 30 days, and deleted after 60. He’s level 43 right now, and if I get the gumption to do more than use him as storage I’ll get on to levelling my 2nd Alliance warlock in TBC Classic.

So far, I’ve stayed on the Alliance side of things, with some Horde Classic toons that were abandoned on a PVP server when my irl friends decided to stop playing Classic.

Heroics, the Name Says it All.

Monday November 15, 2021

“If you have to use mechanics, you’re not DPSing enough” – a guildie

Ever since they announced TBC Classic was coming down the pipe, my memories of the difficulty and teamwork required to get through Heroics was right at the forefront of both my memories and anticipation.

This was the return to the WoW that I’d hoped for. Vanilla was decent enough, but quickly became the aoe fest that retail has been for many years. The occasional sheep or shackle, sure, but nothing like it used to be. You can’t go back…I thought.

But reading and hearing of early heroics in TBC Classic pretty much everything I remember about BC Heroics… damn straight baby. Dare I hope that dps returns to being more than numbers on the damage meters, that people finally understand that it’s not always a race, but a requirement of doing your job, using your abilities, let alone your brainpower, to get through.

Tanks for the Memories

I was chatting with some guildmates just the other night about tanks, and one of my guildies was complaining about bear tanks not being able to hold threat, and he won’t even pug if it’s a bear. Everyone chimed in that it was the same experience for me. I asked said guildy if he does pretty much what I watched him do in the few 5 mans I’ve been in on with him, i.e. stomping on aoe very quickly on the pull. ‘Well, paladins and good warrior tanks can handle that speed” was the reply. He knew, as others in discord did, that their whining was bullshit. They’re the cause, not the bear tank. Let him get in the mangle or maul, a swipe, and perhaps another mangle/maul, and he’s got them locked up. Nope, not their problem, as dps, it’s the tank’s fault. Idiocy that has been in retail for ages. I just laughed and said ‘Good luck in Heroics, when the mobs who hit dps do it with extreme prejudice”.

At the moment, I’ve got 5 level 70 toons, as usual it’s the Hunter and Warlock (the 2 best soloists) leading the way. The other 4 are mid to low 60’s, but chomping at the bit for attention. Most of my 70s have at least a couple Heroic keys, but I’m in no rush. Meta be damned.

I do have a bit of concern regarding missing the boat, but as every expansion has taught me, even if I’m not on the leading edge with regards to raiding, I still enjoy the hell out of the game as a soloist, picking up 5 man runs on the fly and enjoying them as I always have. It really helps to have almost zero interest in the great hamster wheel of gear progression. If I can kill it, and I live to go on to kill something else without stopping to eat or drink, that’s good enough. Anything beyond that out in the world is just pure ego.

Wylset

A Little Kindness

Saturday November 6, 2021

“And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change…”

There’s a certain level of kindness in every social interaction. It can vary from being a complete prick (lowest level) to exceptionally helpful (highest level). Sure, you can be low, and that pretty much leaves both parties worse off than before the interaction. You can be high, which usually leaves both parties better off. It’s not a zero sum game. I’ve met people who play the zero sum game, we all have, but it never sits right with me.

A Day of Kindness

The other day there were 3 newer guildies running something with 1 of the older veterans in the guild and myself. The veteran is one of the most easy going people I’ve ever met in WoW. He never seems to get phased by anything, which makes him an excellent tank. Situations like dps being aggravating never bothers him, it’s like water off of a duck’s back. Me, on the other hand, tend to get grouchy when dps make my job harder as a tank. We all know how they do it, jumping the gun on the pull, not helping with an interrupt when you’re trying to gather mobs, charging into mobs when you’re trying to do a line of sight pull. Those things, they happen, and it’s a cumulative effect for me. The more it happens, the more I struggle, the more I get aggravated. By the end of an instance those things make me not want to tank another run.

They wanted to run Normal Slave Pens, and my paladin is 62, good enough to run it. 2 of the newer guildies, a husband and wife team, are returning to WoW after about a 10 year layoff. They ran BC original, so they’re familiar with the game as it was. The 3rd newer guildie has been playing constantly, and is working on multiple alts, My kind of player. He was healing the group. The veteran was on his shaman, and enjoying not tanking for a change.

The run went very smoothly, no deaths, no craziness. I finished the run feeling calm and relaxed, the perfect wow experience. The wife, playing a 70 mage, got a little jumpy on the pulls, but I calmly explained that if she waited until the mobs started hitting me, they wouldn’t go ape and run at her. A couple pulls later she commented that she didn’t know that and what a difference it made. Awesome!

The Second Run

At the end of the run the healer asked if he could switch to his mage and could we run Underbog, to finish his quests in there. Absolutely not a problem. I suggested I heal, and the husband said he’d like to try tanking it on his Feral druid. He asked for help with the pulls as it had been a while.

The run started off well, we were on discord so I was able to talk him through each of the pulls, and showed him where to make line of sight (los) pulls to. The veteran threw marks up to help him as well. The run went smoothly throughout, the tank got into the groove of pulling. He had a very good run and even when mobs got away from him, he would recover. The veteran, who has a top tier Bear tank, pointed out the mechanics behind growl. The tank was using it on mobs he had aggro on. Once that was clarified, he mentioned how much easier it was now that saving the taunt for needing it was fanastic! A simple explanation was all it took. A little kindness.

Near the end of the run, one of the newer members said they could listen to my explanations all day long, my way of speaking was like listening to an audible book. The tank said he had a lot more confidence because of the way I was talking to him while explaining. Kindness all around. A happy group leaving an instance better than when they began.

It’s all a person can ask for.

Wylset