Current affairs

I've returned to WoW for two weeks now and even though I haven't been doing anything out of my usual routine, I believe I have accomplished plenty.


Gold

I made 20K more gold but mostly by getting rid of my stock of mats. I'm trying to sell all my Frozen Orbs because I have no need of them anymore and I don't anticipate they'll have much value in Cataclysm. Same thing goes for blue and epic gems.

One thing that sells like hotcakes is Eternal Belt Buckles. I buy eternals when I find them cheap on the AH and since I already have tons of saronite I can turn a handsome profit. I estimate a profit of 10-20 gold apiece and I've sold dozens of them.


Hunter

I've been running the daily Argent Tournament dailies so I can get as many Champion's Seals as possible. I decided that I need them so I can buy heirlooms for my future alts. I also ran at least one daily heroic for Emblems which I would once again use to buy heirlooms.

One thing that's weird is that my DPS in groups seems to vary wildly. Depending on the instance, it ranges from 3K to almost 5K.

I also completed Halls of Reflection which is the hardest heroic I've ever done so far. It's true that we wiped once because we didn't have enough firepower to burn down the zombies while Jaina was melting the ice but after the wipe the weakest dps decided to leave and was replaced by someone more powerful and we pulled through. In all, this dungeon has some interesting mechanics, although I loathe the unending waves during the first phase.


Shaman

I have an orc shaman on another server and he's level 67. I decided to use the Dungeon Finder to see how a shaman plays in an instance so I ran a few Burning Crusade dungeons as Enhancement. The impressions are good but melee DPS isn't as easy as ranged. On one particular run we wiped repeatedly due to the tank pulling too many mobs at a time.


Priest

I did some more healing on my 67 priest who reached 69 in the process, all in Burning Crusade dungeons. At 68 I took him to Northrend and quested there a little, obtaining some new items which are more powerful than the ones I got in BC dungeons. I'm a bit loathe to heal before 70 due such instances as Mechanar which I assume is pretty tough.

I enjoy healing but it depends on the group. If they know what they're doing, it's a pleasure. Still, healing is stressful and I would like to expand on that in a future post.

An interesting new spell at level 80 is Prayer of Mending but it's a bit tricky to use. I apply it to the tank but then it jumps randomly to another member who might not even take damage until it expires. I've also been using Binding Heal more since I consider it a good mana conservation tool whenever I need to heal both myself and someone else. Circle of Healing continues to rock but it seems to me its range is a bit limiting and I need to talent it in order to increase the radius. For this reason I'm always standing between the tank and the rest of the group so that everyone can benefit from it.


Paladin

Ah, where to start? I haven't played as Retribution ever since they "nerfed" Exorcism and gave it a cast time. I leveled from 77 to 80 as Protection but I never dared set foot in an instance. Yeah, I'm a woos sometimes. Since I'd never run a dungeon with my paladin since vanilla WoW, I decided to give it a try as Ret and in the process get myself some new gear from heroics.

After the required interminable queues, I managed to run a few dungeons and rather enjoyed playing as Ret, except for the fact that my DPS was pretty much at the lowest rung. I also got a few upgrades but nothing outstanding.

The it hit me: instead of running dailies with my hunter and suffering those very long waits, why not start tanking heroics and thus earn emblems which I could use to buy more heirlooms? So I decided to run a non-heroic dungeon with the Dungeon Finder tool just to see if I have it in me.

I had accumulated some average tanking gear made up of mostly blues but also a few epics a long time ago. I adjusted my spec, re-arranged the skills on my bar and queued up. Needless to say, the queue was instant. Advantages of being a tank, doh! As luck would have it, I landed the "worst" dungeon possible for a rookie, namely Forge of Souls.

To cut a long story short, the rest of the group seemed to have been made up of well-geared 80's so we finished the run quickly, in about 15 minutes or so. I even did a speed run, go figure! The last boss (Devourer of Souls) gave me a bit of trouble and I almost died even though the healer was good. Paladins have another trick up their sleeve though, and it's called Lay on Hands. I had to use it to save myself and the group but afterwards the boss dropped quickly.

The next night I decided I was gonna give this tanking thing a try so I spent almost 20K gold gearing myself up with the best BoE gear gold can buy. I enchanted and gemmed it. I ended up with a passable prot paladin. Now the next step is to actually run a heroic or ten but I'm still running the regular dungeons to get my tanking technique in order.


So that's about it for the time being. Things have been hectic but now the main focus is on learning to tank on my paladin and running as many heroics as I can. I would also like to continue leveling my priest because I plan to make him my alchemist. Alchemy is the only profession I'm missing. Even with running dungeons, it's still slow going though.