So That’s Pandas…

Now that pandamonium has officially begun, Kalil has already hit level 90, and I have the daunting task of rep grinding and trying to get geared and ready for raiding while at the same time level a new monk.

I’m pretty slow when it comes to leveling, but Kianlor has a good chance of becoming the new main.  I’ve been playing Kalil for the better part of four years and something new and fun (but still a healer because we need healers right now – and I still like healing) is definitely appealing.

I’d like to get Kian to 90 as soon as humanly possible, but until I do – and until I gear him up – Kalil will have to be filling the traditional “main” role so I don’t hold up the guild when we start raiding.  Given that I have four days off coming up, that should let me get a good chunk of the way there even if I’m getting dailies done before hopping over.  Once he hits 30 (probably tomorrow) I’ll duelspec dps and quest in addition to the dungeons.  Leveling in dungeons will let me figure out the healer toolkit, but I’m in a rush here.  I’ve got a couple dps heirlooms and with the new Enlightenment buff, this shouldn’t be too painful.

I hope.

Anyway, looking back over the bucket list from pre-MoP, I’m pretty proud of myself.  While I didn’t get ALL the things done, I did I get most of it.

• Level that EXPLICATIVEDELETED shaman to 85.  Done.  I haven’t logged into him yet (I should do that to build up some rest xp) but he’ll be a panda after payday.  He’s on the backburner right now though.
• Once Dorky Orcy hits 85, get him some gears.  Eh, he’s got a couple BoE purples on him.  I didn’t really go into dungeons after he dinged.
• Level leatherworking on said shaman.  Whoops.  To be fair, 475 isn’t too bad.
• Rebuild the nest egg. Done…ish.  I didn’t have a definite goal in mind, but I’ve got more gold than I’ve ever had before to my name now.  I’ll call it a win.
• Replace all of Kalil’s 22 slot bags with 26 slot bags. Done!
• Replace all of Kalil’s 18 and 22 slot bank bags with 26 slot bags.  Yeah… Hell didn’t freeze over.
• Clean out the gear in Kalil’s bank and void storage. Done!  …And now I need to do it again.
• Finish gearing up Verandin and Kellidan. Verandin kinda made it.  Kellidan… not so much.
• Elliaesin needs a new bow and polearm.  Nope.
• Level an Alliance toon.  Kierien hit 81 before pandas dropped.  He’s now collecting rest xp.
• Pets and mounts.  I have a sparkledragon.  Therefore, I am happy.

So that leaves me with an entirely new list.  Ugh.  One of the things that I both love and hate about WoW is the constant grinding.  I hate, loathe, despise – and other synonymous that describe dislike of something – daily quests.  Leveling in Pandaria was amazing.  I don’t think I’ve been quite this engaged in a storyline since Wrath – and even moreso now than I was in Wrath.  That is enjoyable.

Dailies, amazingly fun story aside, are still dailies.  Getting rep in order to get gear is still a grind.  The best part is that while I’m doing this on Kalil to get him ready while I level up Kianlor, I’m going to have to do it all over again on the monk if I do decide that main swapping is a thing I’m going to do.  On the one hand: boo.  On the other, if I want to raid – and I do – I’m going to have to do this.  Ergo:  Suck it up, buttercup.

And all this while trying to not be distracted by pet battles (which are way more fun and addicting than I anticipated), or various alts.  I have… a lot of alts sitting at 85 ready to run into the Jade Forest and I have professions to level (and in order to get patterns I have to have rep and AHHHHH).

But… babysteps.

Step one: Level Kalil is done.  I even let myself spend a couple hours flying around Pandaria getting achieves for the Lorewalkers rep – turns out this is a FUN rep grind, because it involves NO dailies!  I also have a flying cloud, so I win.  There are several guides on the internet but I used this one and a map I found via google.  This rep will also make the Archeology grind much less painful, which is definitely a plus!

On the days I have to work my playtime is limited, so I focus on the Tiller’s quests because a steady supply of mats will come in handy.  I also poked around the Anglers, but I haven’t started anything beyond a couple of the quests and I haven’t seen any of the special fish or whatever that raise your rep with Nat Pagle.  Really, the Anglers will probably be last.

Once I’m off work again, I plan to finish off the Dread Wastes (and work on the Klaxxi dailies) and dive into the Golden Lotus chain so I can get that done and get the Shado-Pan rep grind started.

Apparently all these dailies only take about an hour to do, but this is me we’re talking about, so double that time – at least.

And there’s Kianlor.  Once he hits 90 and starts on the grinds, things might be less spastic in game and I can slow down again.  One of the better parts of the end of Cata was the fact that I didn’t feel at all rushed – didn’t have to do dailies – and I could take my time and just level alts and hunt for achieves and transmog gear.  *sigh*

Oh.

Annnnd November is NaNoWriMo, which I usually try and do.  I’ve “won” the past two years I’ve done it but this year is going to be more difficult.  Not only is MoP a huge distraction but I’ve got… nuffin.

Oh well.  I’ve got a month to come up with something.

I R Riter. I R Profesnal Heelr.

We can cross this off our list:

He’s still got some gearing to do.  I ran a couple dungeons this morning.  One went just fine.  The second landed me with a pair who thought their raid finder gear meant that they could pull entire hallways, let aggro go everywhere and then yell at me for going OOM trying to keep everyone up.  When I said something about having to spam my largest, most expensive heals to try and keep everyone alive, the genius gave me the following advice:

“Lawl, don’t roll a healer then.”

This might be just me but new healers don’t ding 85 and instantly become geared in DS heroic epic gear.  We have to work for it, same as everyone else.  (And had I gone with my elemental dps offspec, I can bet they would have been yelling about my poor dps… Mind you, he would have been right, because I use it for questing between dungeons, and haven’t actually focused on figuring out what the rotation is supposed to be.)

This isn’t my first rodeo, kiddo.  This is healer #4 who has spent a good 85-90% (figure may have been made up, but it’s still a lot) of his leveling time in dungeons.  I think I know what I’m doing.

It goes without saying that, in my fantastic blues and greens, not everyone stayed up.  This was a normal dungeon by the way, not even a heroic – even though Ertek’s ilvl says he can hit heroics.  I generally avoid them until I can hit the HoT dungeons.

So the two numbnuts dropped after I refused to drop (they could have kicked me, but apparently they tried and it didn’t work, or they were just really that dumb – there was no way I should have had a timer since the last time I got kicked was several months ago, after refusing to drop and take a debuff to appease the ego of a tank who couldn’t hold aggro… hmmmm).  We got a new tank and his guildie and – surprise!  Even though the tank was in starter gear, he was a much better tank than the previous.  The rest of the run went smoothly for the most part.  One over pull that would have been fine had I been on any other healing toon.  But the tank had just barely there gear.  I had just barely there gear.  You can guess what happened.  It was a DPS who pulled, then apologized.  And because things like that happen, nobody screamed or yelled and the dungeon was done ten minutes later.  No sweat.

Patience: It’s a good idea.

But anyway, I now have every class that can heal at level 85.  I R Professional Heelr!  In MoP, that means I’ll only have to worry about leveling a Mistweaver.  Yay!  The ‘looms are in the bank and waiting!

Anyway, moving on…

Every once in a blue moon (by the way, there’s a blue moon happening this month – neat huh?) I’ll sit back and take inventory.  I like to pretend I’m a writer in a caped crusader sort of way.  I have my computer set up in the cat-cave where I pen mighty – nay, legendary – epics.

…Yeah, that’ll work.

I really like character building and while I’m getting better at this plot thing (my muse is plot – what plot wants, plot gets), I’m still pretty good at creating the victims to toss into the hungry maw of the plot monster.  Sometimes it’s for RP purposes and sometimes it’s for this story thing because if I call it a novel I have to take it seriously and I just can’t take anything I do seriously.

(I should really be working on that story thing now but oh no, here I am waxing poetic about… stuff.)

So I thought I’d give my brain a little exercise and see if I couldn’t go through the list of toons and characters that inhabit my brainmeat.  The challenge?  You have two sentences, describe the characters.

I can’t help it. I love this freaking thing.

*cough*

Anyway.

Name: Kalil Sunsong: Blood Elf Paladin Source: World of Warcraft Description: Recovering alcoholic, recovering thistle-head, healer, and life’s punching bag. He’s been fucked over from day one.

Name: Esrah Tolaran: Blood Elf Priest Source: World of Warcraft Description: Lecherous holy priest with an ego the size of Northrend. Also a devoted and loyal lover, father, and extreme kinemortophobic.

Name: Zachary “Zeikren” Bartholomew, Illuminati Agent Source: The Secret World Description: Recovering addict (substance is classified) who suffers from minor delusions of grandeur with an unsubstantiated belief in his own immortality.  Also father to a three year old boy who is in the custody of his sister due to Zeikren’s, ah, issues.  His wife is currently missing and presumed dead (no, he didn’t have anything to do with that, but it might have set off a chain reaction that led to his current situation).

Okay so technically that’s three sentences. Sue me.  Moving on…

Name: Ixtael (last name unknown): Blood Elf rogue Source: World of Warcraft Description: Reformed thief and street-rat with a bit of a memory problem… in that he has no memory.  Also probably not an assassin, but that may be just a cover.

Trying to find good smallish pictures of my other toons (the ones I actively RP) is turning out to be a lesson in futility, so we’ll leave it there for now.  Also: I’m lazy.

Lastly I had a friend geek out at me over facebook.  I immediately logged in and went looking for what she was geeking out over because I was geeking out over it too and had to see it for myself omg.  If you can tell me what the following screenshots mean, you win the imaginary cookie award (you also love the 80s):

Outrageous!

I Haz A Conundrum

I have changed my main once – and only once – in my WoW career.  It was sort of a huge leap too.  Not only did I go from tank to healer, but I went from Blue to Red.

It’s not a move I’ve ever regretted.  Especially since the former main in question is now level 85, sporting horns and hooves, and rocking the raid finder as a healer alt.  Sure, I had to faction, race, and gender change the character to make myself play him(her) again, but it’s been worth it.

I sorta miss the floppy arms and the bouncy ears/pony tail, but since Tauren ladies have a cute swishy tail, it all balances out.

The female Tauren also have a better casting animation.  I just want to point that out, since they took away our ability to be trees 24/7.  I’m still a little bitter about that.

I mean, I’m getting it back in Mists, but they still took it away for an entire expansion! /grump

I haven’t touched bear tanking since dabbling a bit during Wrath, so I have no idea if it’s as good as it seems to be.  I have no desire whatsoever to find out, either.  Avery’s mainspec according to the armory is now boomkin and the offspec is resto and I like it that way.

I’ll tell you what I have been doing though.

With a paladin.

The Prot Paladin Tanking Rotation: Present Keyboard, Apply Face

Kalil’s been tanking on and off over the course of the past couple weeks.  I’ve been braving the early morning NORMAL dungeon queue in my (fairly decent all things considered) tank gear to get some practice.  So far, the groups haven’t been the nightmare I feared, but there are some…

Oh.  There are some.

But my tanking spine is starting to grow again.  I let people who pull for me tank their own mobs, and I cackle if the healer is awesome enough to let them die.  I drop groups that are full of asshats and my ignore list is active.  I don’t troll LFG and I don’t put up with trolls.  I pull at a decent pace – which is a FAR cry from how I used to take five minutes between pulls as a bear because the thought of losing aggro terrified me.  I know what to tank and where to pull the bosses.  Heck, I’ve even tanked a couple guild DS and Firelands runs.

I will not tank LFR, but that’s because it’s LFR.

And this?  This is all new to me, really.

Checking Kalil’s history, it’s been almost four years (okay, three and a half) since I swapped sides and joined my current guild.

The wings are also sexier.

(Yes, it really has been that long.)

That means that for the majority of my WoW career now, I’ve been a healer.  I started playing sometime mid-BC and at the tail end of BC, I ran screaming from my druid and tanking and the Alliance into the warm embrace of early Wrath Era Holy Light Spam.  I weathered Wrath and at the end came up with mostly good, fuzzy feelings.  I adore my guild, and the people in it, and I’m proud of what we’ve managed to accomplish.

Cata hit and with it came a whole new holy paladin dynamic.  I weathered that too, even when numbers make my head hurt and I’m a theorycrafter in the same way a lady bug is a surgeon.  When I heal I hit the button to make the bar go back to being full and I try to do it without wasting mana and overhealing all over the place, but I can’t do math that fast so I just hit a button and hope it’s the right one.

And now you know the secret: I’m not a very good healer, I can just flail about really convincingly.  It’s become second nature to me.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve been healing for a very, very long time.  I’ve got three toons at max level that heal and all three are pretty well geared at this point.  The shaman isn’t far behind.  I’m a Professional Healer.  And it’s gotten to the point where I’m looking around and going, “Well… maybe I dun wanna be anymore.”

Since the announcement of Mists and the introduction of monks I’ve been toying with the idea that maybe – just maybe – Kalil might retire.  The only problem with that was that Kalil has 3+ years of work, mounts, pets, achievements and titles put into him.  That is a lot of work to just toss away.

Then Blizzard went and told us that achievements, pets, mounts and (I think) titles would be account wide and now my decision just got a whole lot easier.  I think.

See… The thing is… Just between you and me?

…

I kinda like tanking now.

No, seriously.  The very thing I despised in BC.  The thing that made me hate and loathe the first toon I ever rolled?  Yeah.  Yeah, I’m doing that and enjoying it.

I don’t even know either.

And that’s not the worst (best?) part.  Going into Mists I have too many choices now.  I like playing my characters.  I can’t think of one right now that isn’t fun.  And playing the monk on the beta is also amazingly fun.  I have a whole stable full of max level characters and by the time Mists rolls out, I should have between eight and nine level 85 toons on my main server – eight of which could be the new main.  I say eight because the ninth is my Alliance toon – either the paladin on WrA or the priest on SC – and that would require leaving the guild that has been so good to me for the past three and a half years and just… no.  Not happening.

So now what?  Do I continue healing with Kalil because – let’s face it – holy paladins are getting some pretty fun toys in Mists?  Do I start tanking on him?  We could use another tank, after all.  DPS?  I’ve got a lot of DPS toons that I don’t entirely suck at playing.  Warriors are kinda fun.  Beta ret?  KALIL SMASH!  I’m digging the monk on beta.  And then, once Mists comes out, there will be five – 5! – healing classes to chose from if it turns out we have a drought of healers.  Mistweavers are turning out to be bad ass.  I haven’t tried monk tanking yet, and if/when I do that might change things even more.

MAKE STOP WITH THE STUFF AND THE CHOICES.

This is actually a good thing.  And I’m looking forward to making that decision.  It’s too early to make it now, but I’ll have to do it eventually.  Nothing’s been narrowed down, but I think once the release date gets announced that’ll help.

The only thing I do know for sure is that Kalil will be the first toon to 90 because he is the one I know best.  Whether he remains the main is yet to be seen, but he’ll cling to that position for a little while longer.  Either as a healer, or…

Maybe a tank.

Changing up what you do keeps things interesting, after all.  And I kind of love it.