Alright, alright. My 2 cents on Cataclysm. Some of it from an RP perspective and some from mechanics. It’s a bit of a rant, so it’s okay if you don’t feel like reading. These are all from my personal views and experiences and you may feel completely different. It’s perfectly valid to have different opinions based on gameplay. I would hate it if we all played the same, so I’m glad you have that different opinion. I just may not agree with it.

A few weeks into beta and Blizzard’s making some bold moves. This isn’t the first time they’ve done something so bold, but needless to say it always worries the community. We have a few more months. If you have worries, then people in the beta probably have the same concerns and are providing feedback already. If you get into beta, then provide constructive criticism once you’ve tried it.

Don’t knock til you try it.

Yeah, I’m worried about missing my Divine Spirit. Having been a Disc priest for so long, it’s going to be weird not having that buff. But, I want to try it before I worry about it. They say we don’t need it. We probably won’t. I am a bit concerned that they kept the Lightwell. Great spell in theory, but I rarely see it used. It requires two things: a group trained to use it and DPS having the opportunity to walk over and use it. In the AOE battles of today… it’s hard. It’s almost useless in some fights. I can’t even imagine using it on Marrowgar. However, I prefer my Disc spec.

I like condensing the talents. Looks like we’re going to still have plenty of room to move about. Locking us into one talent tree until we finish it? I don’t mind that so much. When I’m leveling a character I tend to do that anyway. Just like old days we’re going to have about 10 points to go into other trees. Same flexibility as vanilla in that respect. As long as we don’t have…”trash” talents that no one wants, then I think we’ll see variations in builds. It would be nice to see less “cookie cutter” builds. I’m not really going to comment on Mage or Rogue trees. I don’t raid with either one and I don’t feel I have the grasp of them to say anything.

I will comment on CC though. I love crowd control. I use it. I abuse it. Solo or not, I really, really like it. Leveling, I shackled, sheeped, and have sapped my way up. Maybe you can just beat it down with AOE, but I find the dynamics of crowd control much more fun.

I remember shackling through Scholo, Strat, and Naxx. Heck, I even shackled in ICC 5 mans. Why? It makes things easier. That means though that you have to move you AOE away from my shackle. That means you actually need to coordinate who you’re attacking. It means… OMG… you have to mark your targets. I played back in vanilla when you had to coordinate without AOE awesomesauce or having marks built into the game. I do not feel the current AOE design allows for the building of teamwork. It’s great for PUGs, but that’s about the only allowance I can make on it.

Cataclysm is supposed to bring that back. Blizzard, thank you. The number of times that a well-placed CC has saved my priest’s life is more than I can count. Especially when fade or shadowmeld was on cooldown. Most importantly, you’re giving purpose to these abilities again. I know that I hate having that spell on my bar that I never ever use. Or worse yet… you need it after nearly a year of not using it and you have to find the dang thing. To me, it’s important that the abilities that you give us have a purpose. Especially an entire category like CC, so I hope that you do bring them back. As much as I fussed about trying to heal and CC at the same time… it added an exciting dynamic and challenged me in a new way. We need those types of challenges.

Oh yeah… and fishing. Please, please, please change it! I fall asleep at my keyboard. I can’t believe that was ever your intention for fishing. PLEASE! Thanks! I hope I see changes in the later beta builds. Although I’ll have to rely on others for that information since I’m not in beta. ^_^;

Now, I said that I was going to touch on RP. Yeah, yeah. I know. This is an RP blog and I’ve been spouting mechanics for several paragraphs. Thanks for being patient if you’ve survived thus far. *grins* I think Cataclysm will be opening up tons of RP. After all, the entire world is changing. I’ll try not to be specific as I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone that doesn’t want it, but I can give some general ideas.

Guildhouses. Tons of RP guilds have an area that they hang out. You might want to have a backup plan/story/plot just in case yours isn’t there come Cataclysm. There’s a good chance that even if it’s there changes might have occurred. Be prepared. Where will you go? How will the loss of something affect you? Do you have RP memories associated with it?

Bosses coming back. For me, this is awesome. I love how this will affect one of my characters. Serephim despises one with a passion. It could put her in extreme danger. Will she become his unwilling minion? Will she stay his worst enemy? Are there any bosses that are going to affect your character? What about the new races? What about choices your faction/race is making? How does that make your character feel?

Every change is an RP opportunity. Look for them. Use them to your advantage. Let the world that Blizzard is changing influence your character. It’ll add a fun and new dynamic.

Most of all, realize that Cataclysm is still in beta. What we see now will not be the final product. There’s plenty of time for feedback and change. I know that I’m looking forward to see what Blizzard will do. And like most, I too am hitting refresh on my battle.net account and hoping to see the beta invite. Until then, I will have to rely on all of you for my information. Thank you!

This is just a short thought on the fact that I dusted off a mostly unused character that I leveled. Up until now Serephim, my mage, hadn’t really seen an of level instance. She’s 80 and my enchanter/tailor, so I’ve been working solely on those. But… for once I was needed as DPS. Lannia is not and will never be Shadow. I don’t play her like that.

Serephim, however, is pure fiery DPS. I loved leveling her, but I knew that any group I normally went with would need Lannia, not Serephim. I kept Serephim in the background in case I really wanted to do something else. Yet, since she reached 80 several months ago, I haven’t instanced or raided with her.

Honestly, as my first DPS, I think I was afraid that I would suck as her. Then, I realized that of course I suck with her. Her measly ~1500 DPS. I hadn’t learned her fire rotations. I didn’t have great gear… let’s rephrase that… most of her gear was crud. I had a few items above 170 and that was it.

But… it was fun. A lot of fun. I didn’t have easy little click bar for the monsters. Heck, I barely knew what I was supposed to do beyond Mage Table, Buff, and hit the pretty buttons, but I can learn. However, I know that Serephim will probably be booted out of pugs if I were to try and upgrade her gear through that. So, I find myself at a dilemma.

To Pug or Not To Pug? On Lannia, I’m fairly safe as long as I’m doing a decent job. So many things affect healing including bad pulls, squishies, but I know how to handle that. I know what can go wrong. Serephim is a new side of the game. One that I’m excited to learn about, but I also don’t want random people suffering while I learn and get gear.

It’s a hard call. I really don’t know what I’ll do. And while it’s not my first priority in the game… I do want to learn to play my mage and gear her up appropriately.

Here’s to dusting off old alts. *toasts*

No matter how many alts I roll, I will always be Lannia. Lannia is my baby, my priestess, my first character. She is everything about WoW that I like. There is nothing like the thrill of knowing that group survived directly because of my skill, and nothing more disappointing than not being able to keep up.

There have been times that I’ve been frustrated and even tired of healing, but I know why I do it. I want to help move my group forward. I don’t just play for myself. I play for my friends and with my friends and all the people I meet. Lannia, the warpriestess, is the epitome of that role. I have attempted to DPS with her even, but to me… nothing felt more wrong than going shadow. That definitely isn’t to say that there is anything wrong with shadow, but it’s not for Lannia or for me, her player.

Last night in Naxx 10, I was pleased when we only wiped once and that was on Heigan (a pain in the butt). We made it through even the Military wing without a wing. I was proud… not only of myself, but of our entire group. I feel as if we were growing up as a raid. Now, I’m not a hard core raider by any stretch. Only Naxx 10 so far and only once a week. However, I love learning about my party members, their play styles, and progressing with them. No deadline. No stress. Just us, once a week.

Recently, I’ve been looking at Lannia in a new light. Seeing how far she’s come and how precious she is to me as a character, I wondered why I’d been neglecting her for alts. She doesn’t even have Epic flying. She doesn’t have the rep to get head or shoulder enchants. The only thing I grinded rep for… a penguin. That’s it. That doesn’t do the Warpriestess of the Netherbane justice.

It is time to wake up and look at her once more. Why did I step away from her? Was the RP boring? As a friend of mine told me, sometimes if everything’s all too good and happy to have a story… then break something. I plan on it. Lannia’s waking up and I can hear her muse once more. She says that she’s ready to come back and kick some ass. Was I truly tired of healing? Well, I decided to mix things up and get healbot. That has helped me so much. I’m going to work on Power Auras and a few other addons to really scale up my healing. There’s no reason for me to just sit back and say… meh, it works. Why can’t I push that extra little bit? There isn’t one, so that’s my goal.

Perhaps, I just feel better today, but I can tell a difference already. I’m spending hours doing dailies and quests (I had to open up the Hodir dailies). I’m working towards dual spec and that epic mount. If I want something in game… I’m going to reach for it.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to neglect my alts. In fact, this will help them. If I can get and epic mount on Lannia, then she can earn gold to help Serephim get her epic mount. Then between Lannia and Serephim I can fund my other alts more. If I raid more then I can get BOA gear for my alts. My alts will not be forgotten, and will still play roles when I need a break from playing a character. They will still have RP and I will still love learning about the class. All of my characters are enjoyable.

I just realized that I didn’t want to leave Lannia behind, just to be logged onto when I absolutely had to. I felt that her presence was fading and honestly, I had no idea what to do. So, I’m going to ‘wake’ her up. RP-wise and playing-wise. She deserves it. She’s the character that began everything I do on WoW. My figure-head. And I’m going to make her worth being the center of this webpage.

I am Lannia, Warpriestess of the Netherbane, and I will protect the Netherbane til my last breath. Hunt me, threaten me, torture me and I will fight, but touch my family and I will bring the wrath of Elune down upon you… and I will make sure there is nothing to resurrect.