Tag: WoW

If I had a main in World of Warcraft, this would be her. Ellithia is my discipline priest, off spec flutters between holy and shadow depending on my mood. Discipline is great for single target big heals (ie: 5 man dungeons) and I use holy for raids (AoE heals). Shadow I use just when I’m out questing on my own though I am thinking of giving it up and having two heal specs instead.

Her professions are tailoring and enchanting, which is pretty typical for a priest because they are independent of one another and priests wear cloth. I’ve managed to max out all her other professions, and I have the most achievements on this character.  Even finished archaeology which took forever (but was also a lot of fun). Over 50 mounts, 95 pets, it’s the character I’m most ‘proud’ of and have put the most work into. I also spend a lot of time PvPing on this character, despite what a lot of people think, I do enjoy this aspect of WoW and always have. I’m even good at it.

Ellithia has a pretty boring background story. Both of her parents are hard working citizens of Stormwind City, and Ellithia was able to make the choice to become a priest on her own without any pressure. Her mother and father both love her with all of their hearts, and have never judged her or made her feel like less of a person. In fact they are incredibly proud of their daughter and all she has accomplished. Ellithia had a younger sister who was killed in a very unfortunate accident involving a cauldron of molten lava, but her family doesn’t speak about it. Her picture is kept on the mantle, where the family can see her every day.

Ellithia spends most of her days with her best friend Toargo, who is a dwarven warrior from Ironforge. They’ve been friends for a number of years now, and often fight the evils of Azeroth together, their latest conquests have taken them right before Deathwing where they of course emerged victorious.

Ah yes, my little warlock. The class that was completely over powered in the last expansion (Wrath of the Lich King) and that I have struggled so much with in Cataclysm. My main spec is Affliction (dots), and my off spec is demonology. I have a hard time parsing well on the warlock this expansion, it takes a lot of work unlike my other DPS classes. A lot of it is also related to how many mobs are in an encounter, and how long that encounter lasts. Quick fights are not the best of situations as I don’t exactly have a lot of burst damage, multi targets work well though.

Minxes is a gnome, and her professions include engineering (goblin) and mining. I love playing shorter races, and the gnome is just a handful of fun. In MOP warlocks go through a LOT of changes, it’s like playing an entire new class, so that should be interesting to learn. I played around with it some in the beta, but didn’t want to get too familiar, after all part of the fun of a new expansion is having to explore and learn about all the changes.

Minxes comes from a family of 40 – that is to say she lived and was raised at an orphanage, and she was constantly fighting and bickering with anyone who wouldn’t let her get her way. She pretty much (literally) climbed her way to the top, she would be the one standing on top of the roof waving around your most precious doll in order to get you to do her chores. She’s never mean for the sake of being mean, it’s more like she’s mischievous and being a gnome, that’s never going to end well.

She was always warned against the spells of the warlock, which is exactly why she became one. How dare someone tell her she shouldn’t or can’t do anything! That’s not the way she operates. Her best friend includes all of her minions, and she has very little patience for anyone else. At least they do what she says, even if while talking back on occasion.

Arysh is my Dwarven Shaman, enhancement (melee dps) for the most part, restoration (healer) as her off spec. Playing a melee shaman is a LOT of fun, although you’ll hear it referred to as easy mode quite often because it’s a lot of casting unleash elements. Unlike Velours I’ve never had much luck when it comes to playing Arysh. She does have the two BiS (best in slot) raid finder weapons but it was not exactly luck that I won them. See they’re flagged as shaman / rogue only, and there were no rogues in the raid nor were there any shaman dps besides myself. There were some healers, but I have a role bonus. Aside from the awesome weapons she has two pieces of LFRaid set gear, and the rest is valor / twilight instance stuff that I’ve picked up.

Arysh works on jewel crafting and inscription, which may seem like an odd combination but I have other characters who are able to provide her with the materials required (like the paladin, who provides herbs).

Her story is quite simple. She was found left in a room at the local Inn of Ironforge. She has no idea who her parents were or why they left her but to be honest she never spends any time thinking about that. She’s constantly energetic and upbeat, and doesn’t regret a single moment in her life. She was raised by the Innkeeper and his wife who had 6 children, and her upbringing was filled with love, laughter, and a whole lot of noise. She spent a lot of time in the Mystic Ward of Ironforge, and when she was in her late teens she began developing her skills as a shaman. She’s one of the most loyal people you’ll ever meet, and one of the first people who will rush out to battle swinging her axes to defend a scored friend.

I love my characters in every game that I play, and I have a LOT of characters. They all come with their own story and history, along with ‘memories’ of when I’ve played them. I decided I’d go through and introduce a few of them (my ‘mains’) starting backwards from creation. First up, Velours, who is a human paladin, and the last ‘main’ I created. I say main but I don’t really have any one character I play more than the others, I gave up settling on one ages ago.

Velours is a retribution paladin most of the time (that’s a DPS spec) and her off spec is holy (healer). I actually leveled her up as protection, thinking I wanted to learn how to tank. See when I play a game I pride myself on learning as much about it as I can, and the only thing I’ve never been comfortable with in WoW is tanking. It’s just not in my nature to be a leader that way. So after months of trying to convince myself that tanking was what I wanted to do, I gave in and went back to what I’m comfortable doing.

Alchemy is her craft, and it’s come in handy. I’ve enjoyed making trinkets for her to use that don’t cost me an arm and a leg, and in fact tonight took her on her first two Cataclysm raids via the LFRaid finder. I happily walked away with a new pair of pants and gloves, which is already more raid gear than my warlock and shaman have acquired. While gear is NOT everything, obtaining new pretties IS a lot of fun, and it made me giggle and excited that my brand new 85 had managed to win. I won’t lie, her DPS is abysmal, but with MOP just around the corner I was hoping no one would grief me too badly over it. So far, so good.

As far as a back story, Velours grew up in a house just outside the gates of Stormwind. Her father always wanted a son, but Velours’ mother was unable to grant him that one wish. No matter how many times they tried (or how many years) she just wasn’t able to provide him with any more children after Velours. When she came of age and her parents started discussing her future (which involved her being married off and a lot of little babies thumping around) Velours decided to move to Stormwind proper, and enlist in with the Knights. There she found the home she had been looking for almost all of her life, though it certainly didn’t come easily and she was teased mercilessly. She ignored the comments she would get while walking to the temple and instead focused on her training. After years of practice it paid off.

P.S. I don’t think her sword is nearly big enough.

The next WoW expansion is sneaking up on us, and preparations have already been taking place. With the pre-panda-patch that is going live on the 28th also comes the transition of currency, all of your valor will be downgraded to justice, and conquest to honor. The gear that used to be sold for valor will be sold for justice (and same with conquest). There will be no new tier of gear introduced until September when MOP goes live, so it’s going to be a bit of a waiting game. The pvp season will also end and I have to admit I did very poorly this run. I still managed to snag myself a few pieces at least but I missed a lot of AV weekends (my favorite).

In the mean time I’ve been working on achievements. I finally hit exalted with Tol Barad and the Baradin Wardens, which allowed me to purchase their companion, a cute little sea gull. I’m a few tokens short from picking up the mount, but when I have dailies available I’ll be working on getting more.

I’ve also been working on my Netherwing faction, eventually I can get some pretty neat dragon looking mounts. So far I’m only honored, and I defeated Captain Skyshatter which was a lot of fun but also VERY frustrating. It’s a race you participate in (a number of them) and the NPC flies around the sky dropping bombs or skulls or rocks at you that stun you (or damage you, or kill you etc). It took me a few tries but eventually I got there.

The guild is still moving along, we’re all basically waiting for MOP to come out and working on alts and old achievements in the mean time. I’m at 505 archaeology and am hoping to get it to 525 later on today. That will be the last profession I need to cap before the expansion goes live. Next I’ll start tracking down tradeskill recipes for tailoring and enchanting, I own most of them but there are still a few I would like to collect.

Still no mounts from the two Burning Crusade instances I run daily, but with a 4% and 1.8% chance at dropping, I don’t expect to see either of them for quite some time.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!