Yep, you read that right. After hours and hours of reading Ego’s blog, I became inspired to bring a Priest of my own out of semi-retirement. Say hello to Aliarlynn (Ali for short).

After reading her post on Shadow vs. Holy builds, I decided to re-spec Ali to Shadow. In particular, I’m using this build, with all my points in Shadow until I learn Shadow Form, then moving to the Holy tree for a few levels, and finally finishing up the Shadow tree. I wanted to get Shadow Form as quickly as I could, which is why I chose to move to the Holy tree only after I learned it.

And damn. I’m impressed. I can do some serious damage. After a few battles, I developed my own rhythm.

1. Shadow Form
2. PWS
3. SWP
4. Vampiric Embrace
5. Mind Blast
6. Mind Flay x2
7. Mind Blast

Dead! Call it my Seven Steps of Slaughter or something trendy like that. Don’t forget PWF or Shadow Protection, especially around the Trolls in the Hinterlands and the ghouls in Azshara. The PWS protects you and allows you to cast Mind Blast and channel Mind Flay without interruption.

So Shadow for grinding/PvE works very well for me. Plus, I think I look pretty badass in Shadow Form on my black stallion.

WoW Insider has a section called Build Shop, where they explore various builds for the various classes. I’ve been browsing through the various Build Shop archives and found some good builds for Hunters. Though I play a BM Hunter most of the time (with points in MM, too), I have been curious as to try out the Survival tree as well. How will I fair? Will I be able to solo or will I fair better in a group?

Lo and behold, this leads me to our next project.
I promised my Husband that we would try to level our Druid/Priest duo (our original characters) to level 70. When we got that high (or when Cappy decides we are high enough), we are going to start a new pair of characters on an RP-PvP realm, the Emerald Dream. Both of us were curious to find out what a PvP realm was all about and though we’re scared shitless, we are rolling Horde. We like the idea of still being able to RP if need be.

We’re starting Orcs — I am rolling a Hunter, as usual, and Cappy’s rolling a Warlock. We want a 4-person team. We’ll be questing together and attempting to keep our wits about us. I wanted to start an Orc as it was, but wanted to put that on hold for awhile. Playing as a Troll and having done all the Barrens quests so recently, I don’t want things to get too deja vu-y. But I am looking forward to playing the only race I haven’t played yet.

I’m taking this opportunity to spec in Survival. I really like this build because it still allows for those precious, important points in Improved Aspect of the Hawk. I think it will be a bit difficult since DoTs break the Freezing Traps (as it says in the comments) and Warlocks are nothing but DoTs. I’m sure Cappy and I can work out a good system, however; we’ve made it work before with our Druid/Priest combo, so why not Hunter/Warlock?

Let me first thank both Faeldray and Pike for sending me lovely emails. Both inquired about commenting difficulty on my blog — my apologies! I had tried to implement a new commenting policy that requires commenters to login before they leave a comment, but I screwed something up and now NO ONE could comment! *slaps forehead* From now on, comments are now open to everyone but do go into moderation due to HORRIBLE SPAM ATTACKS.

Again, I apologize to my email pals publicly for my goof. Whoops!

Let me go ahead and post Pike’s email, since it was in comment to my post about rushing to level 70:
Read the rest of this entry »

I’d like to point you in the direction of this post at Petoholics Anonymous. Faeldray hits it right on the head why I (and hopefully other people) aren’t in any insane race to get to level 70.

I’ve been playing WoW for almost three years now and I don’t have a single character that’s level 70. The closest is a Druid — my first character — who is at level 65 and isn’t going anywhere these days. I’ve started before and around the same time as other people and they’ve gotten character to 70 long ago.

Does it bother me? No.
Part of me wants to dangle the “ha ha I have a real life and you don’t” card over their heads, but that’s just mean. *wink* Truth is, Cappy and I enjoy playing WoW for the same reasons Faeldray enjoys playing WoW. We like to take our time and get to experience the game. I, myself, eschew dungeon runs for the solo life. Others may look at me in horror for not getting the EPIXX and the WOW GOLDS, but I just laugh at that. They’re just pixels, people! Don’t obsess over pixels!

My dad (who also plays WoW) plays ONE character and never plays anything BUT that character. For him, that’s fine. But I would die of boredom and never play the game again if I was only allowed to play with ONE character the entire time. My interests lie in getting new quests, getting done with those quests, and moving on to new quests. Grinding can be boring, but if you get bored, stop and move on to something else. When I play the game, I play to have fun. When I get bored, I turn it off or play another character.

In the end, it comes down to this: it’s a GAME so HAVE FUN. Don’t make it a JOB!

Uber Huntress Mania has written a post about level 10 pets to get around Durotar — including the Corrupted Mottled Boar!