From 15 to 16 I ran Ragefire Chasm 3 times because that's how the Dungeon Finder rolled the dice. The first time I queued up I ended in a group instantly. The second time it took exactly a minute. Being a tank sure has its perks!
As reward for the daily I got a nice blue belt (of the Soldier). I also had a blue cloak drop from a boss, Subterranean Cape. In all, a very satisfying intro to my tanking career.
Now here's a question for y'all. What do you do when the healer rolls Need on everything? I kinda wanted to confront her but I decided it wasn't worth it. She was doing her job as a healer very well. I decided to watch the rolls closely and also Need when she's Needing. On the other hand I felt like a jerk towards the other players for doing so.
Level 16
New skills:
Hand of Reckoning - this skill is awesome. Another taunt that in addition does some damage provided the mob isn't hitting you.. It also comes in handy for pulling mobs. Man, did I say I love it? It's the new instant Exorcism. The awesome thing is that it scales with your Attack Power so the damage it does is 50% of your AP.
Righteous Fury - this is the signature skills that makes a paladin tank. Keep it up at all time.
Retribution Aura rank 1 - not very useful for me as prot but I was considering using it for AoE threat generation. On the other hand I think the armor aura is more effective at lower levels.
New rotation: Hand of Reckoning, Judge, auto-attack.
From 16 to 17 I kinda cheated by doing some quests around Ghostlands. In my defense, I had to kill some time but I didn't have enough time to get into another instance so I decided to quest a little.
At level 17 I landed another Ragefire Chasm and I got a really nice blue sword called Cursed Felblade. On this occasion I also met my first melee hunter who also liked to tank. Luckily he died fairly quick and then remained in Orgrimmar until we finished the dungeon.
From 17 to 18 I struggled for over an hour in that damn Wailing Caverns. We wiped twice and finally gave up. Oh how I hate this dungeon! At least I got myself a nice shield called Kresh's Back.
Level 18
New skills:
Hand of Freedom - This spell will come in handy when rooted or snared. It has a low cooldown.
At level 18 I landed a couple of Shadowfang Keep runs but only one of them was successful. I didn't get the achievement for that one though because the final boss, Archmage Arugal, managed to kill me but the rest of the group killed him while I was a ghost so I received credit for finishing the dungeon. The good part is that I won 2 new blues: a nice shield called Commander's Crest and a cloak called Wolfmaster Cape. Unfortunately I have to wait until 20 to equip these but I'm particularly excited about the shield.
At level 18 I now have 60+ gold, no wait, 14 gold but that's because I bought another 3 Netherweave Bags for 16 gold each.
Level 20
The first big milestone in any character's development. The first mount becomes available and a host of new skills.
New skills:
Consecration rank 1 - finally, the paladin's signature AoE spell. Now it becomes a lot easier to hold aggro on multiple mobs. Unfortunately this spell likes to suck your mana dry if used indiscriminately.
Exorcism rank 1 - as prot I won't be using this much.
Flash of Light rank 1 - meh, weak-ass healing spell but at least I have another healing spell in my inventory in case I need it.
Sense Undead
Blessing of Kings - I've started using this instead of Might. It drops my DPS by a little but I believe it helps me in other ways.
New skill ranks:
Devotion Aura rank 3
Talent distribution at level 20: 0/11/0
Armory link
Now I'm off to run some dungeons with my new skills!
9 comments:
I would talk to the needer; send a whisper, not call them out in party chat. Just make sure they understand what they are doing. There are a surprising amount of people who are still new to the game, many of whom do not read any of the news sites or blogs and have no idea what is cool or not. And, as my grandpa always said, "common sense ain't so common."
Wailing Caverns is HUGE, and honestly if you're going to do it you need to read the whole article on wowwiki that explains how it all works. Honestly all the old-world instances are enormous compared to BC and WotLK, the original idea was that you would spend your entire evening in the instance. The early instances - Ragefire, Deadmines, Shadowfang - are somewhat of an exception to this. Wait till you get to Mauradon, it's just as big and non-linear as Wailing Caverns.
Oh I was tempted to roll a gnome death knight and come looking for you, but I see you rolled on a PvE server. ;)
Keep up the great work, the blog is better than ever.
Oh I know about the old world instances. I've been playing since early 2006 and back in the day it would even take 2-3 hours to finish, say, Deadmines on a bad day.
What's wrong with PvE servers? I wouldn't be able to play on a PvP one. Too much stress is bad for me :)
Nice job on the blog. I've been following along and you might actually inspire me to dust off my Draenei prot paladin and tank again. But given how many alts I have, that's not likely...
Anyway, I'm on Korialstraz and noticed Yesno pop up, but was gone before I could say hello. Good luck on your mission and the visual transformations you showed are pretty stunning. It shows how you can go from plain to powerful looking in a few levels.
Thanks Jerry! I log in pretty often so I'll be glad to say hi to you when you see me.
That's the beauty of leveling by running these dungeons: you cat gear yourself up pretty quickly with quality stuff.
Maybe you should try your pally again. Personally I think paladin tanks are the best :)
Hey Darth,
Me and my bro are just leveling our alts, Moogie and Moggie, twin tauren shamans. Hope while leveling we'll get to party with you. I've been reading your blog since my DK, (using your leveling blood spec as an example), and since then have rolled a pally, priest, druid and now shaman.
Moooooo.....
"I wouldn't be able to play on a PvP one. Too much stress is bad for me :)"
The 3 PvP servers I play on aren't stressful at all. I rarely see any of the other faction while I'm leveling. It's just nice to have the option to kill a fool if he's taking your ore. :)
Another thing I'd point out about Need vs. Greed is that you can read it wrong. The first couple of instance runs I did with friends I kept rolling Need because I thought that Greed was the "you really really want it" selection.
As far as that Commander's Crest is concerned, I loved that shield. That was the first blue I used.
@Moogie I'd be happy to group with you. You'd have instant queues with a tank in your group :)
@Bloodshrike umm... if you say so. I steered away from PvP servers from the first time I stepped in WoW even though I had no idea what open-world PvP was like.
@Redbeard you're right. I think that's how I interpreted it at the beginning too.
Nice blogging on the various levels of the world of warcraft game which I like most. I use to review the Leveling Guides to move across the various levels.
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