state of the (horde) toons report

On the eve of the Lich King's re-emergence (and due to my self-resurrection as a poor blogger), I thought I'd give a summary of where my toons are and what they're doing. Yay!

Waradwen - Doin' dailies, makin' money, light raiding. A few months back my Horde guild asploded and, faced with a number of suboptimal options, Wara stepped through a strange portal and found himself on a new server. Same world, just slightly shifted. He's found a really awesome guild and I'm having as much fun with him (and in WoW in general) as I ever have. Wara's primary goals right now are feeding his achievement addiction (Salty Chef Waradwen Jenkins the Hallowed, ftw) and pwning Kara for badges. Moar badges! My guild got together for an rp-inspired tear through Gruul's lair and impromptu Magtheridon raid this weekend which was really fun. I'd seen Gruul's before -- once or twice -- and it was fun to get back. My rolls sucked, or I might have been decked out in complete tier 4 this morning. And Magtheridon was awesome, too. Nerfed to hell, apparently, but a lot of fun to down regardless.

As I'm on a new server, I decided to make new alts rather than spend the money to move below-level-30 dudes. Not worth it, right? So, a new horde of my own. Maybe I can be Thrall when I grow up!

Alt the first: the hunter. My first alt on that brave, new world was a belf hunter. Female, naturally. So hawt! Hahaha. I got her to level 30 this weekend and picked up a purple hawkstrider, which still feels weird. Mounts at 30? Well, I'm not going to walk... She's a miner/engineer, mostly for the fun toys. Right now I'm having an awesome time as a beastmaster, running around with a raptor pet, rocking the crap out of mobs that are much higher than me. This weekend she took down Frostmaw, a level 37 yeti, having just reached 30, to earn a lovely new headdress. Nerf hunters!

Alt number two: a troll mage. Magey is a special toon (no, not that sort of special), running in a static group approximately once a week. He can bring some awesome dps to the instances we're running, although I'm still trying to figure out mana and threat management. He started out as an herbalist/alchemist, but I found I really wasn't spending time farming with him and he dropped herbalism for inscription with the last patch. Very fun. He hit level 21 last week and loves the crap out of blink and teleport. So awesome.

Alt number three: a Tauren shaman. Goddamn I love the Tauren and love adventuring in Mulgore. I'm still getting the hang of playing a shaman. He's specced enhancement at the moment, which feels a lot like leveling a pre-boomkin druid. Pull with lightning bolt, dot with flame shock, then pound to death with a big staff. I really like having a spell interrupt for fighting casters and the totems are useful for emergency situations or for fighting big mobs. By and large, I'm moving around too much to spend the mana setting up the totems on a regular basis. I haven't had a chance to run any instances, yet, but I think that's where the totems will really shine. As of this weekend, he's up to level 18. He's my primary farmer at the moment, an herbalist/miner, gathering herbs for the mage's potions and inks and ore for the engineer and the jewelcrafter and the future blacksmith and... A brief note about herbalism. I *love* the new HoT spell. It has already saved his steak-y butt a few times from the fire.

Alt number four: a Forsaken priest. This guy is probably my worst fit so far, but it's still early. Actually, let me qualify that a little. Soloing with this guy is the worst fit. I ran around with a friend leveling a warrior a few weeks ago and had a serious blast. Since then I've downloaded HealBot, which is pretty groovy. No instances, yet, but about ready to push into the WC range. He's still low enough that fights are generally smite-smite-shadow word:pain-wand to death. Hopefully groups and getting further into the talent trees will help. As for professions, he's a tailor/(dis)enchanter.

Alt number five: a paladin. Another hawt belf chica, with a big sword. Pretty fun. Looking forward to consecrate. She's a miner/jewelcrafter. The mining is fine, helping to feed engineering and provide mats for jewelcrafting, but I'm not overwhelmed with JC. Any gem I want for Wara I can either get on the AH or cut by a friend... The self-healing statues are nice (and easy skill points!) and it is nice to provide low-level rings and necklaces for the new family of alts.

Alt number six (coming soon!): a Tauren death knight. I've got the name I want reserved with an unplayed alt and am just waiting until November. My plan is for him to be a miner/blacksmith, probably making cool swords and axes for himself. I'm trying to bank a bunch of copper and tin ore prior to the expansion so I can ease his mining leveling through smelting. Exploration will be fun, but I don't really want to do have to spend a lot of time mining copper in Durotar as an uberl33t death knight. Hehe.

Alt number seven: the former Poxic warlock. Waradwenne is still hanging around on Anvilmar, but at some point soon I'd like to consolidate her with the rest of the army. I've played her for maybe half an hour since the Purples broke up (/cry) so there hasn't been much progress on that front. She's still a tailor, but she dropped engineering and isn't sure what to pick up. Herbalism, probably, so she can funnel higher-level herbs to the mage. In general, she's on hold until I have a little more disposable income.

So there you go. Lots of little alts who will, someday, be fearsome fighters. By endgame, I'll have a couple of tanks, a couple healers, and a bunch of fearsome DPS to make with the pew pew! Pew! Pew! /cast Starfall