Only Two More Levels to Go!!!

Annariel hit level 68 today! She is almost finished with all the quests in Blade's Edge Mountains and then it is off to Netherstorm. I've been grouping her with Devairen a lot lately so he can work on leveling his new raptor. So, I decided to switch her spec back to holy to make her a better healer. We'll see how it works out =)

Meet Devarien's new pet, Razor!

Well, so much for my new wind serpent...lol. Devarien was helping Annariel out with some of the quests in Blade's Edge Mountains. Specifically, the ones that take place in Forge Camp Anger, which end with you summoning a named elite demon. I decided I would use this as an opportunity to start working on my wind serpent's level and loyalty. Right away I could tell that I didn't like fighting with the wind serpent. He kind of flutters around, like a big bug or butterfly. This got annoying after a while. In addition, he would engage a mob with his ranged attack much sooner than I expected and as a result, the mob would always be in that in-between zone where I could not engage it either in melee or range. I would have to keep on backing up so I could use my ranged attacks.

After I finished up the Forge Camp Anger quests, I was running Devarien & Annariel to the Circle of Blood & spotted this really cool looking black raptor. I have always wanted a raptor and it just seemed the perfect time to get one now that they can use the Dash ability. However, the raptor I saw was only level 66. Four levels to grind...ugh! Fortunately, I found level 67 elite raptors in Gruul's Lair and was able to tame one! Hopefully, I can stick with it & get my raptor to level 70!

Jarec finally becomes Devarien's Best Friend!!!

After what has felt like several months, Devarien has finally gotten Jarec's loyalty level to Best Friend. Man that was a horrible grind! Now, I must admit that I haven't focused my playing on getting Jarec's loyalty up, so maybe it could have gone faster. However, one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that your pet does not gain any loyalty by just being out and about with you. Loyalty is only gained when you fight experience yielding mobs. I learned this the hard way. I decided I would work on Jarec's loyalty while leveling Annariel. I thought that by Devarien helping out Annariel, Jarec would get at least a couple of loyalty levels. On and off, Devarien helped Annariel from level 53 to 62 and Jarec did not gain one level of loyalty! It wasn't until we started fighting level 63 mobs, which were green to Devarien, that Jarec gained his first loyalty level. I want to thank Mania for her great work on loyalty in her blog. It really helped me figure out what I was doing wrong =)

Now that I have finished with Jarec, I decided to go out and tame my 3rd pet. I picked a wind serpent from netherstorm. I've never had a wind serpent before and the idea of a pet that has a ranged attack was intriguing to me. Also, the fact that it was level 69 was a big selling point since I hate to grind...lol. Plus, it looks very cool too! I only played with it for a little while last night, but it seemed to go through focus extremely fast. I guess I might have to micro manage lightning breath and not leave it on auto-cast. Anyway, here is a pic of my new wind serpent!

Another Level Down, 3 More to Go!!!

Annariel hit level 67 today! She is now in Blade's Edge Mountains. I really like this zone. Mainly because the zone looks so cool. The jagged rocky terrain gives it a truly unique feel. I hope Annariel can squeeze out level 68 here and then it is on to Netherstorm!

Level 66 and Counting!!!

Well, only 4 more levels to 70! Annariel hit level 66 yesterday and the obligatory trip to Ironforge was made for new spells. Aside from the usual upgrades, Annariel got a brand new spell called Shadowfiend. This spell creates a pet that lasts for 15 seconds and the priest will gain mana back from the fiend's attacks. It has a 5 minute cooldown. I'm not sure of the utility of this spell for a solo player. I guess it can be used in situations where you have adds and need a distraction, although I have read that it does not have a lot of hit points. I guess it could provide extra dps for a particularly hard encounter. I'll have to try it out over the next couple of levels to see if it will be useful. On the subject of spells obtained in the Burning Crusade expansion, I have found the priest abilities to be just ok.

At level 62, you get Shadow Word: Death. It is similar to Shadow Word: Pain, but it an instant cast spell. The trade off is that if you don't kill the target with SW: Death, you receive the same amount of damage you inflicted on the target. Since I usually finish off a mob using my wand to conserve mana, I only use this spell in two situations. First, when I am dealing with multiple targets and I need to finish them off fast. Second, if I am facing a really tough mob and I can't recast PW: Shield because the debuff hasn't worn off. At level 64, a priest gets Binding Heal, which is a fast casting heal spell that heals about 1000 - 1300 hit points. Since I have been playing with a Shadow Spec, I haven't been able to determine the usefulness of this spell.

It may be my personal bias towards Hunters, but I think their Burning Crusade abilities have been the best! At level 62, you get steady shot. I love this skill! If you want to do mega dps, you can just spam this and weave in Arcane Shot whenever its cool down is up! Of course, this can be very mana expensive =) At 64, you get Aspect of the Viper. Another great ability and amazing for grinding mobs. If you're conservative with your specials, it feels like you can fight forever with this on and not run out of mana! At 66, you get Kill Command! As a beast mastery specced Hunter, this does sick damage! Now, at level 68, you get Snake Trap. I have to admit that when I solo, I don't use traps that much, but this trap provides excellent additional damage when your facing a tough mob. Finally, at level 70 you get misdirection. As I don't do instances or raids at all, I really cannot comment on the usefulness of this ability, although from all the forum posts I've read, it seems that it works quite well.

Annariel hits Level 65!

Sorry I haven't posted in the last couple of weeks. Work has been busy lately and my wife and I are having some work done to the house so its been hard to find time to play and post as well. During this time I also built my first computer! I have always wanted to do this and finally decided to give it a try. I have a friend I met through my wife's work who is a computer guru and he helped me through the whole process. It was really fun! The best part for me was picking out all the components. The actual building part took a whole day! I found that having patience and good troubleshooting skills are essential for the whole process. We ran into a couple of stumbling blocks along the way. First, the bios was not recognizing all of the ram we had installed. Initially, we though that one of the memory modules was bad, but after using a process of elimination, we finally figured out that the bios drivers needed to be updated. Second, after we had installed all of the components, we couldn't power up the system. So we slowly had to retrace our steps and found out that the USB connectors were not properly seated on the motherboard. The system works beautifully now and WoW looks absolutely amazing!

Anyway, back to WoW stuff. Annariel is half way through her 60's and still going strong! She just finished all the quests in Terokkar Forest and is now questing in Nagrand. Here are some of my observations of shadow priest so far: (1) As I have mentioned many times before, it is probably the most mana intensive class I have played. I find myself drinking more often than with any other class. Hunter's have aspect of the viper. Warlock's have the life tap, drain life combo. A shadow priest has spirit tap and vampiric embrace, but it doesn't seem to be enough when leveling solo; (2) Unless I am missing something, a shadow priest has no effective AOE damage. If I have a bad pull and get more than 2 mobs, I usually have to use Psychic Scream and pray that I can get away before dying. (3) A shadow priest can do some serious damage against single targets!