Alas, Gnomeregan

 

For my Holy Priest, her first TWO wipes in a dungeon.  Gnomeregan. Last Boss! So sad!

Wrath Dreaming

 

Ha. As I finally have a character (Hunter) within a level of entering the Dark Portal, and questing and getting loads of gold, I find myself dreamily thinking of Wrath of the Lich King.

So many quality of life changes.  The only ones I don't see that are on my perennial list of "I wish they were here in TBC" are more mailboxes and flight paths.

I also really find the Horde domination of Kalimdor to be sooo annoying.  That horde camp for instance that stretches (or seems to) most of the way through the center of Feralas. Even worse, I had a level 37 character trying to make the ride through Feralas to Thousand Needles, and avoiding the camp left my character at the mercy of a wolf several levels higher.  Insult to injury, when you die you're in the freakish middle of the Horde Camp, so you have no choice but to go back to your body.  Grrr. Grr!

So, it is revealed that the Horde used to "own" Kalimdor, and it was given back to them in Battle For Azeroth.  See, I was so used to all of the Alliance quests and outposts from "the future" that it has been a shock seeing hardly anything there in these old world areas.   It's empty space for the Alliance with the added pain in the (someplace) of Horde outposts every two blasted feet.

Thanks for listening.

Here I found a delightful list of all of the things to do in game when Wrath comes out, whenever.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Patch_3.0.2

My First Holy Priest Deadmines Run, TBC

 My family has not worked together at all, so my desire to run through the Deadmines with them has been thwarted.

Girding my virtual loins, I saw a group forming while in Westfall with another character, and asked if my level 20 Holy Priest could join.  Yes, indeed.

I'm so proud. I've never played a Holy Priest spec at all, only Discipline and Shadow.  I had her prepped with the best armor and potions I could send her in with. 

No wipes. No deaths.  It was smooth!  Onwards.

Screenshot Saturday August 7, 2021

 I'm only playing TBC these days, so don't hope for any shots of my characters finally dropping into the Maw to finish Maldraxxus.  Not for a long while is my guess.

The Burning Crusade Classic is a freaking TREASURE CHEST.  There is treasure everywhere.  From the chests you find, to getting cool armor or weapon drops, or just sauntering along the coastline near Auberdine and finding crates of food or barrels of milk.

Fishing!  All of the fish themselves are fun, plus, when used in a recipe, their useful stats seem to double.  I love fishing in game.  There are those floating debris with goodies.

I'm moving my rogue forward and am working on Lockpicking.  I managed to get her to Lockpicking 90 at Alther's Mill. Then no more xp for it.  You can see she got bored.

While working on cooking for another character, I had to go to Silverwind Refuge near Astranaar for the Expert Cooking Book.  Bonus round!  The Water Elementals there drop Bubbling Water which gives 874 mana.  In stacks of 20, if you can believe it, instead of the torturous stacks of 5 everything else comes in.  Useable for Level 15. Perfect for Dungeon Runs, right? I've got four stacks :)

  Also as you see, there were Alchemy recipes, of the type that only appear sometimes.  I lurked and got them all.  Now I'm going to find all the juicy recipe locations and send my Feral Cat (Level 30, Not Atheren) around to get them.

 

The same cat came across a wandering Ghoul in Westfall, and he had a nice two handed sword  called Ghoulfang.

Spot the cat in travel form among the golden grasses of Westfall.

Only my spouse will know the reference as I tag this next picture "up pops the devil, hardy hi"!

Speaking of...we've been working in Stranglethorn.  We use open mic and while it's a good communication device for coordinating in game, if someone (not me) is crabby, shall we say, well things go awry.  That's him in the grass.

This has led us to work solo for a bit, and while I can take a level 38 Tigress with my level 34 Retribution Paladin, it's not workable.  I'll have to gain levels somewhere else.

I also found you can't outrun piles of crocs and panthers, nope, you're going down.

In any case, I'm pleased with my main Druid, and leave her to sleep somewhere nice whenever I can.

Baby's First Dungeon: Wailing Caverns

 

We're really enjoying The Burning Crusade, Classic.

It's more challenging and immersive than the current day game, which I haven't been playing at all.  I don't think any of us have.

We're kind of gliding along.  Leveling.  La la la.

Just need my son to level his tank and we can start dungeons.

However.  Who knew you can do a Who search by level on your server to see what classes are online that could fill your dungeon group?  (My son says he saw a streamer do it.)

That would explain how my Resto Druid in the making got a tell while finishing up her day to TANK the Wailing Caverns! I said no, she's Resto.  Actually offered my level 21 Warrior, but no taunt.  In retrospect should have offered my level 30 Ret Paladin.  Didn't occur to me.

Somehow, poor Atheren ended up tanking the Wailing Caverns for four hours.  We did finish.  Lots of deaths. All red armor.

The key was a super patient and super nice group of people with the Paladin who led us and healed us being an awesome leader.

Tanking As a Bear

I've ended up in pugs tanking with every class that could tank, over the years.  Can't hold aggro worth sheet.

In this case, holding aggro was, I felt, the only thing I could do well.  Except, there's a ten second cooldown between hitting mobs with your taunt, which means you have to wait it out while a group attacks.

Swipe is the only skill that looked like it did any damage.  She's level 19 going in, remember.  Swipe hardly ever pops up so there's Maul...

No skills, no prep to tank, in any way.  How did we make it through?

Even worse, I'm not the only unprepared one, I gave all my mana milk to the Paladin who had none.  So mana issues for him, quite a bit.  Wish I had Innervate!

Wish I'd been level 20 and had Rebirth!  Agh!

I've been working with my husband's Mage quite a bit lately, and the mana users love love love his endless supply of mana and foods.   I can see now why everyone wants a Mage in their group. 

The Hunter's Gun broke then he ran out of ammo.  Lesson: bring a spare weapon and an extra load of ammo.

Load up on potions and mana drinks!

I keep going over the whole thing in my head.  Obviously one of the things I'm doing is assessing what I could have done differently.  Start with saying no to Tanking with a character you haven't built as a tank!!!

Stuff happens, however, so just in case, have a go bag with all the things noted above, plus those Maple Seeds needed for Rebirth.

Beware of Druids of the Fang who are stuck in the ground.

 

In summation: No more tanking for Bear Atheren, soon to be Feral Cat Atheren, anyway.  Unless its a family group.  Our family, that is.

I'm thinking more requests could come for my unsuspecting characters just because most people are in the Outlands, except people with alts, or those returning to The Burning Crusade era that they really enjoyed.  Unless word gets around, lol lol lol.

I do feel bad for people trying to get groups together for the Classic dungeons.  Still.  Four hours in a Wailing Caverns that has little resemblance to the Wailing Caverns I've been through dozens of times.

Won't be getting over this soon.  Thanks for listening.