Views from a Casual Player - Guild Recruitment

Let me preface this by saying that I have nothing against Guilds or raiding. It is just not something that I am interested in or have the time to invest. The problem is that as a level 70 unguilded player, when I walk into a City like Ironforge, I am accosted with invitations to join a Guild. It gets annoying after a while. I'll be at the auction house or bank doing my thing and I'll see the Guild invite message just pop up out of nowhere! This is something I'll never understand. Why would you invite someone you don't know and have never even grouped with into your Guild? I would think you would want to make sure the person would fit in with the rest of your guild mates before you sent an invitation? It's not so bad when someone sends me a tell and when I politely decline, they leave me alone. However, I have had some people that just won't take no for an answer. One person even offered me gold to join!!!

I think an easy fix for this dilemma is to lower the requirements for forming a guild. If Jim and I could just make our own guild, it would probably eliminate all unsolicited guild invites. Maybe there is some database or other server related reason for not reducing the requirements to start a Guild, but it would be really nice if Blizzard would do so.

Character Profile: Caeden & Iltria - The Blood Elves hit 40!

Caeden & Iltria mark my second foray into 2 boxing in WoW. The Burning Crusade had just come out and Jim & I wanted to try out the new content. Instead of working on one of our level 60 characters, we decided to roll new Blood Elf characters. I was having so much fun 2 boxing Jaos & Annariel that I decided to give it another try. This time I decided to try a Paladin/Mage combo. From grouping with Jim's Paladin, Thutar, I really came to appreciate the versatility and power of the class. I figured that my Blood Elf Paladin could tank, heal and provide some really nice buffs. I chose a mage for its dps and crowd control abilities. Jim created another mage to join my characters. So far this trio has really worked out well.


I have specced my Paladin in the protection tree & my mage in the Fire tree. I chose protection due to the fact that Caeden is always tanking for the group. However, I do have 10 point in holy for spiritual focus, which is essential for healing in the middle of battle. I chose fire for Iltria because it seems to provide the highest damage of all the mage trees. 2 boxing these characters is much more intensive than with Jaos & Annariel. Caeden is my primary focus as maintaining aggro with a Paladin is much different than with a warrior. Iltria basically sits back and spams scorch, fireball & fire blast when available. The only instance we have done with this trio thus far is Ragefire Chasm. However, we do intend to try the Scarlet Monastery and Uldaman to get the mage quests done. Jim has a level 43 warrior that will be joining us soon, which I am very excited about! We will essentially have a ready made group with each of us controlling 2 characters. I've been thinking about what would be the best configuration for the group as far as the warrior and paladin talent specs. Basically, I think there are two options: (1) Protection Paladin (for tank) & Fury Warrior (for dps); or (1) Protection Warrior (for tank) & (2) Holy Paladin (for healing). I'm leaning towards option 2. I think with 2 mages, we have more than enough dps. In my opinion, it would be very difficult for my paladin to tank & be the only healer. If Jim's warrior tanked, I could focus on healing with Caeden and off tank when necessary. I think that configuration would create a really well rounded group.

The Blood Elf trio hit 40 this week! I always get this great sense of accomplishment when one of my characters reaches 40. It is just one of those landmark points in any character's career. You can get your first mount & you usually get a very important class ability. For the Paladin it was the ability to use plate armor & for the mage it was the ability to create portals! Here are some various screens of the Blood Elf Trio:

Character Profile: Jaos & Annariel - The Great 2 Box Experiment

2 Boxing (playing two separate accounts at the same time) was something I was introduced to way back in my EQ days. My friend Tommy was a master at it! In fact, he got so good, he was able to 3 & 4 box. As someone who solos a lot, 2 boxing was a very tempting idea. It gives you the ability to attempt things in a MMO that you just could not do with one character. If you can convince a friend to 2 box as well, you can have 4 characters going and your own ready made group! 2 boxing in EQ wasn't that hard, there weren't that many skills you had to worry about. However, when I started playing WoW, I just couldn't see how you could effectively 2 box. There seemed to be too many skills for each class to make it work. Not to mention reactive abilities like overpower, that require you to focus you attention on one character. However, after I had gotten both Devarien & Aeyla up to level 60, I started getting the itch to try 2 boxing again.

I decided to try 2 boxing in WoW partly because I love trying out new classes and also because I wanted to see if Jim & I could experience some of the game's dungeons. I thought about what two classes might work together the best for a long time and finally decided that Warrior and Priest would be perfect. Between those two classes you have a tank and healer, probably the two most important roles of any group. Also, it was my belief that having a priest on the second account, who would just be healing, would make it much easier to do. Jim decided to make a paladin, Thutar, to join my characters and we called ourselves the Trio. Overall, it worked out well.

Here are some of my observations on 2 boxing. First, you really have to consider one of your characters as the main and the other as support. In my case, Jaos was my main. I found warrior to require most of my attention. Dealing with rage, aggro and reactive abilites like overpower and revenge requires a lot of focus. Annariel would just sit there and heal when necessary & maybe use her wand if I got the chance. The problem with this is that I really felt like I was missing out on learning all the aspects of priest. Having a paladin as the 3rd member of the group worked out pretty well. Paladin is kinda like Druid in that it is a very versatile and powerful class. It has nice buffs, can heal and can tank as well. In retrospect, maybe a mage might have made a better 3rd member for dps/crowd control, but paladin worked out just fine. We leveled the Trio up to 53 and then the Burning Crusade came out and we decided to shelve them as we explored the new content. During our time with the Trio, we were able to try out a few instances (the Deadmines, Uldaman & the Stockades). You get a pretty great sense of accomplishment when you are able to finish an instance with just you and your friend =)

Now that Faerolin is just about finished with questing in the Outlands, I'm thinking about picking up with Jaos & Annariel again. However, I'm not sure if I'm going to 2 box them again. I think I would like to try a shadow spec with Annariel & I'm not sure whether that would lend itself to 2 boxing. Maybe I'll just level them up to 60 or so separately and see how I feel after that. Anyway, here are some screens of Trio:

Views from a Casual Player - Armor Sets

As I have mentioned before, I consider myself to be a casual player...well maybe more towards the hard core end of the spectrum, but a casual player nonetheless. I generally only get to play 3 to 4 nights a week including the weekend and usually play with either my friend Jim or by myself. From time to time, I plan on posting my views, thoughts and suggestions about WoW from the casual gamer perspective. My first topic is armor and armor sets.

One of my only complaints about WoW is the way armor looks on my characters. As a solo or duo player most of your level 70 armor comes from quest rewards (at least for me it did). As a result, you get this hodgepodge look. Your chest piece is one color and your pants are another. Your boots look silly compared to the rest of your gear. Your shoulder item is too small compared to the size of your character & your helmet just isn't cool. Well....you get the idea. This issue is exacerbated for me when I see other players wearing their cool looking instance sets. My suggestion is to have a level 70 quest chain that rewards a set of class specific armor of blue quality. The quest chain should be very challenging, but not so difficult that a player could not complete them solo or with another friend. There should be set bonuses. The quality of armor stat wise should be better than the greens you get from Shadowmoon Valley. Maybe something on par with the dungeon set 3 armor. It might have to be slightly less quality than dungeon set 3 so that instance players can't complain. The most important thing is that all pieces of the set match and look cool!

Character Profile: Faerolin - Forsaken & Formidable

Faerolin Mithain is my level 70 Undead Warlock. She was my 3rd WoW character to reach level 70! She is also my first Horde character. She was created pre-burning crusade. I had finished leveling Devarien and was looking for a new class to try. I loved the pet aspect of Hunter so much, that I wanted to try WoW's other pet class, the Warlock. I also wanted to try WoW from the perspective of a Horde character...so the combination of Undead & Warlock just seemed like the perfect fit!

After the first 20 levels of Warlock, I wasn't so sure I liked it. I guess I kept trying to compare it to Hunter, which really isn't fair. Hunter pets are much more customizable from appearance to stats. As a result, when you are stuck with just one viable pet to solo with for the first 20 or so levels (the voidwalker), it can get a bit boring. However, I stuck with it and sometime in my mid to late 20's I was able to start drain tanking. This is where my view on Warlock changed. Drain tanking is awesome!!! It just amazes me that a cloth wearer can stand toe to toe with a mob like she is a warrior! My pet of choice during my drain tanking days was the Succubus. I would turn all her abilities off autocast except for seduce and just use her for extra dps and to get back mana using dark pact. It really is an amazing build & one I used until level 60. It is especially good when fighting humanoids as your succubus can deal with adds with her seduce ability! She is pretty smart about it too!


When Faerolin was high enough level to start questing in the Outlands, I switched to a Felguard build. Since I am a pet fanatic, when the 41 point talent abilities were introduced just prior to the expansion, I was really intrigued by the Felguard. It seemed to me to be the perfect balance between the Voidwalker and Succubus. At that time, Faerolin was only in her 40's, so I had to wait. Also, I was just having too much fun with my drain tanking build that I was hesitant to switch. However, as I continued to level Faerolin, I would see more and more Warlocks with their Felguard. I started to become envious...lol. I mean seeing intercept & cleave in action...how could I not? So, I finally gave in....my thinking was that after 35 levels of drain tanking, it was time to try something new. A quick trip to my local Warlock Trainer to pay for my respec & it was done!!! Let me tell you, I've never looked back. The Felguard build is absolutely amazing!!!

The Felguard in my opinion is the best warlock minion. He might not have the same amount of armor as a voidwalker, but his high damage output and cleave/intercept abilities more than make up for it. He is also the best minion for AOE tanking. His cleave ability not only does great damage, but keeps the attention of multiple mobs, even if you have some DOT's ticking away on them! Two talents I found to be important for the Felguard are Fel Stamina and Mana Feed. Fel Stamina really helps your Felguard be a better tank & mana feed keeps him pumped up with mana so that he can cleave to his heart's content! I really have to recommend putting your final 20 points into the affliction tree. Improved Corruption, Soul Siphon & Improved Life Tap are a must. The combination of Soul Siphon and Improved Life Tap gives you almost an unlimited amount of mana. When low on mana, life tap & then use drain life on the mob you are fighting to get your health back. If you are able to keep your pulls to one or two at a time, you almost never run out of mana & never have to rest between kills! Improved Health Funnel is also an extremely important talent. It allows you to heal your pet without having to sacrifice too much of your own health. Worried about your personal dps with this build? Don't be...I find I do more than enough damage by dropping my 3 dot's (immolate, curse of agony & corruption) and by using drain life. Also, when you get Fel Armor at level 62, your dps goes through the roof! Fel Armor also bolsters your health funnel!

As far as playing a Horde character for the first time, I really had a great time. There are a lot of cool lore aspects of playing as a Forsaken. In addition, the quests in Nagrand dealing with Thrall's return to the Orc homeland are fantastic! I haven't been able to complete them myself, but I was lucky enough to see someone else complete the Thrall quest chain & I watched the whole "cinematic" of Thrall arriving in Garadar. One of the coolest things I've seen in the game. One final observation of playing a Horde is that it seems like there are many more quests to take along the way. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I never had the "slow" period of questing in the mid to late 40's like I did on the Alliance side. There just seem to be so many more Horde quests available in places like the Swamp of Sorrow, the Badlands, Dustwallow Marsh & the Hinterlands to name a few. Here are some screens of Faerolin:

My Third Character Hits Level 70!!!

Faerolin, my undead warlock, hit level 70 today!!! /cheer! She is my third character to do so! She dinged in Netherstorm while doing the Kirin'Var Village quests. Her total time played was 9 days, 9 hours & 47 minutes. Stay tuned for a full character profile on Faerolin in the next couple of days. Until then....congrats Fae =)

Character Profile: Aeyla - The Combat Specialist

Aeyla is my night elf rogue & Devarien's little sister. He is very proud of her =) I created Aeyla when my friend Jim decided to play WoW and make a Druid. I had already been playing Devarien for a few weeks at the time, so I decided that I would make a new character to play with Jim's Druid instead of waiting for him to catch up to Devarien's level. Jim's Druid is named Saif. Saif & Aeyla played together all the way up to level 60!

Let me tell you, Druid & Rogue make an incredibly powerful duo! Between the two classes you have a tank, dps, healing, crowd control & stealth. During my time playing with Saif, I really learned to respect the versatility and power of the Druid class. Saif could tank for me in bear form. If we needed an emergency heal....no problem. If we wanted to sneak into & out of an area for a stealth kill, he could just switch to cat. It was great fun playing with Saif! Aeyla has missed Saif lately as Jim decided he wanted to group his warrior, Kizzy, with Aeyla in the Burning Crusade on our way up to level 70. I found the Warrior & Rogue duo to be good, however, I still think the Druid & Rogue duo is more versatile and powerful!

During most of Aeyla's career (up until about level 60), she was a dagger rogue. She ran a Cold Blood/Preparation Build. I decided to go with daggers, because it is the way I envisioned a rogue (Sneaky....coming up from behind with a huge ambush!). It was also always nice to have that cold blood eviscerate! A guaranteed crit on a 5 point eviscerate....yummy!!!! However, once Saif & Aeyla reached 60, we had a brief foray into guild life and raiding. As I have mentioned before, I am not really a guild oriented player. I have nothing against them, but I just don't have the 4 or more hour stretch to commit to a high level instance or raid. I also find the 20 or more person raids to be confusing and stressful....lol. However, the one good thing that did come out of my brief guild experience was my switch to a combat swords build.

I found that using a dagger build in raids was much too difficult. I just had too much trouble trying to position myself behind the mob that the tank had targeted when there were multiple mobs surrounding him. Also, many times when I did eventually position myself correctly, the mob would already be dead....lol. So, after doing some research, I decided a sword combat build would be best. Not only did it work well in raids, but it was great for normal PVE as well! I found the damage to be more consistent and my off-hand dps went up considerably. It is also a very easy build to play....spam sinister strike until you can pull off a 5 point eviscerate. Of course there is more to it than that, but the sinister strike/eviscerate combo is the bulk of your damage dealing. My favorite thing about the combat build is blade flurry and adrenaline rush! Combine those abilities with evasion and you pretty much have an "I win" button! I've lost count of the times when Kizzy & Aeyla pulled more mobs than we could handle & I used that combo and watched our worries go away =)

Overall, I have really enjoyed rogue. A good analogy for rogue is that it is like the Jedi of World of Warcraft. You can sneak wherever you want, do insane amounts of damage & if it gets a bit out of hand, just vanish and try again later! Here are a few screens of Aeyla at various stages of her career:

Character Profile: Devarien - The First

Devarien or Devarien Kail (if Blizzard ever allows surnames in the game) was my first WoW character. If fact, Devarien was my first MMO character ever. He made his first appearance as a half-elf Ranger in EQ and has always been the first character I create when I start playing a new game. He was my first WoW character to hit level 60 & 70 as well. He is also always a marksman/woodsman/ranger type class. He is always my favorite character. He is pretty much my alter ego. I have always loved the woods and camping. In fact, I was an Eagle Scout when I was a kid. If I were to live in a fantasy realm, I would definitely be a woodsman/hunter/ranger living off the earth, using a bow and I would definitely have an animal companion....a wolf!!!

Before I started playing WoW, I did a lot of research on the different classes, but Hunter was the easy choice for Devarien. The marksman aspect of Hunter was of course the main reason I chose Hunter, however, the pet aspect was an interesting twist to the classic Ranger type. I had never played a pet class before, so I was very excited to give it a try. As soon as I hit level 10, I went out and tamed my first pet a feral nightsaber! From that time forward, having a pet was my favorite thing about being a hunter!!! As a result, Devarien is a heavy beast mastery specced Hunter (46/12/3). I would say my first real pet was Jarec, a moonstalker I tamed from Darkshore. At the time, I picked him for his fast attack speed of 1.3 (this was before the attack speed normalization). However, I was never much of a cat person....what I really wanted was a wolf!!! My first wolf pet was Kamots, a Ghostpaw Runner from Ashenvale. He was cool looking, but I didn't like his attack speed. That's when I found out about Slavering Worgs! I had to wait until I was about 30 I think before I could solo tame one, but I finally got him. Actually, Jim brought his level 18 Dwarf Hunter with me and we both got Slavering Worgs at the same time! Motomo was my worg's name and he served me well all the way to 60. However, once the Burning Crusade came out, I kept reading that the animals available to tame in the expansion were much more powerful than the animals in Azeroth. So...with much reluctance, I decided that I would have to tame a new pet and say good bye to my trusted companion Motomo =(

At the time, I was really interested in taming a pet that had the screech ability. I got to see how powerful screech was for AOE tanking when I tamed a Winterspring Owl as a trash pet to use in my successful attempt to solo tame a Bloodaxe Worg in Blackrock Spire for Bite 8 (one of the most challenging things I have ever done in WoW!). I decided on an owl for my new pet, specifically the Kaliri Swooper from Hellfire Peninsula. My thinking on choosing an owl over a carrion bird was that the owl had much better dps. I figured that its lack of armor would be more than made up from the fact that I had 46 points into Beast Mastery, including thick hide & catlike reflexes, and I could pump the owl up with natural armor. Also, I loved the way a black owl looks! So as soon as possible upon arriving in Hellfire, I tamed my Swooper. His name is Talon and he has served me well ever since. He can easily AOE tank 3 regular mobs at a time. As long as I don't use multi-shot too soon or often, he keeps aggro no problem. The only thing he is a little weak on is hit points, but I use sporeling snacks to boost up his stamina. Overall, I am extremely happy with Talon =)

I love taming different beasts, but hate leveling them up....lol. So once me & Talon hit level 70, I started to look at what other pets I might like. I decided to tame a level 70 Blackwind Sabercat from Terokar Forest because he looks exactly like my original Moonstalker. In fact, I named him Jarec as well. I'm training him to be my pvp cat, but gaining loyalty is going so slow!!!! Any way....here are some screens of Devarien & the various pets he has tamed over his career!

My First Blog Post

This is my first attempt at writing a blog. I am a really big fan of World of Warcraft and have been enjoying the blogs of Big Red Kitty, Mania's Arcania and WoW Insider. So I decided I would give it a shot and what better subject then my favorite game, World of Warcraft! I thought I'd start by giving a little bit of a background of how I got into WoW and MMO's in general.

I was first introduced to MMORPGs back in 2000 by my friend from Law School, Tommy. He had been playing a little game called Everquest and finally convinced me to give it a try. I had always been a big fan of RPG computer games (e.g., Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Bard's Tale) and the thought of playing an RPG online with my friend sounded like a no brainer. The only problem was at the time, there was no DSL or Cable Modem available where I lived, so I had to play over the telephone line. Anyway, I was instantly hooked! My first character was a half-elf ranger. What I loved most about the game was character development. Gaining levels and new abilities became very addictive. I played with my friend whenever I could, but I found that I enjoyed playing solo as well. Unfortunately, Everquest was a game that became very difficult to advance at higher levels as a solo player. I do not miss the horrible experience grinds that took place after level 50, death penalties or heinous corpse runs that became common place in EQ. I was able to get my Ranger to level 58 and then my friend stopped playing due to real life issues. After he left the game, it became extremely difficult to level my Ranger. I would classify myself as a casual gamer. I am able to play maybe 3 or 4 nights a week and for only a few hours each night. As a result, I have never felt comfortable with Guilds, raids, dungeons, etc., as I just don't have the time to make the commitment. As I mentioned earlier, once you hit your late 50's in Everquest, you really need to group to advance. As a result, I pretty much stopped playing my Ranger and started new characters with different classes. It gave the game new life for me! It was fun to experience the strengths and weaknesses of each class. Some of my favorites in EQ were Ranger, Shadowknight, Monk and Rogue. I played Everquest on and off until about 2003, when Star Wars Galaxies came out.

I am a huge Star Wars fan. So when SWG came out, I had to give it a try. The game was amazing in the beginning! Just playing in the Star Wars universe had me hooked. Again, the favorite part of SWG for me was character development. SWG was especially cool in this regard due to the fact that you could customize your character's template any way you wanted. You could also try any profession you wanted! Experience and money was never a problem because you could do delivery and destroy missions on all the different planets. PvP had a very cool twist since you could be part of either the Rebel Alliance or the Imperial Forces. I tried a number of professions during my time with SWG: Bounty Hunter, Commando, Teras Kasi Artist, Rifleman & Swordsman. Then SOE started messing with the game. The first major change, the Combat Upgrade, wasn't so bad. My final template during that time was Teras Kasi Master/Master Swordsman. However, SOE decided to make another huge change and switch to a class based character system, instead of the customized one that existed. That pretty much ended it for me. It was disappointing to see what SOE did to the game, but the best part of playing SWG was meeting my good friend and gaming buddy Jim. We have been playing MMO's together ever since!

Jim & I tried Everquest 2 when it came out. It was ok, but it just didn't keep our interest. We kept on getting sucked back into SWG with the Jump to Light Speed & Rage of the Wookies expansions. I have also played Guild Wars on and off since the original game was released. Guild Wars is an awesome game, but it plays like a classic RPG in that the original game and each expansion has a definite story arc. You can actually finish the game. In addition, the level cap of 20 really puts a damper on character development, which is my favorite part of MMO's. As a result, I tend to loose interest with GW. When a new expansion comes out, I play it and love it, but once I finish it, I pretty much stop playing GW until the next expansion comes out.

It was around September of 2005 that I started my adventures in WoW. Jim and I were still playing SWG, but I knew that the huge class change upgrade was coming and I just had the urge to play a fantasy based MMORPG again. I had been reading all the great reviews for WoW and decided to finally give it a try. The only reason I had hesitated up until that point was that I wan't too happy with the graphics of the game. Not that the graphics were bad, just style wise, I thought they were a bit too cartoonish. However, from the moment I created my Night Elf Hunter, I was hooked. WoW is the best MMO I have ever played and I have played quite a few (EQ, EQ2, SWG, GW, Matrix Online, LOTR Online & Vanguard). My favorites aspects of the game are the awesome character classes, quest based leveling, detailed, but manageable professions and the fact that it is extremely approachable for the solo or small group player. I also love the lore of WoW. I think I have read all books and really enjoy reading the quest descriptions. By the time I hit Darkshore with my Hunter, I was convinced that this was the game Jim and I should be playing. I was able to convince Jim to give WoW a try and we havn't looked back since!

I am now on the verge of getting my 3rd Character to level 70! I pretty much only play with Jim or solo when he isn't on. I really don't do any instances and none of my characters belong to a guild. I have nothing against high-end content or raiding, its just as I mentioned before, I don't have the time to commit to it. I just love leveling my characters to 70 and experiencing what each class has to offer. My ultimate goal is to have a character of each class reach level 70! It's almost 3 down and 6 to go! The primary purpose of this blog will be to monitor the progress of this epic undertaking. The name of this blog comes from the fact that I still consider my main and favorite character to be my Hunter and all of my alts are his pack. Over my next several posts, I will begin to introduce my characters and my thoughts on their particular class. I also plan to provide updates on each character's progress and from time to time just post general thoughts that I have about WoW and gaming in general. Let the adventure begin!