Hope Comes in Many Forms

(This is a rare occasion, where I inserted a jump break to keep this post from overwhelming the main page of the blog. Just wanted to warn you ahead of time.)

 

One of the things on my bucket list for WoW Classic was to experience the class quests as they were originally intended: to provide a unique flavor to each class. I realized that some classes had it better than others, such as the Priest and Hunter class quests being superior to the Rogue class quests*, but I was fine with that. I just wanted to see how things were before Cataclysm destroyed all of the unique little quirks that made the Old World so good.

I realize that the Mage quests don't have the same level of interest of some of these other class quests, but the biggest challenge is trying to do them at level on an underpowered Mage for the zone you're in, heading into the swamps beyond Theramore and Brackenwall Village searching for Tabetha's Hut**. That challenge makes the exploration portion of the game shine, but as in just about every other aspect of pre-Cataclysm WoW addons take out all of the guesswork and fun in a search in the unknown. If you do it as Blizz intended, a lot of these quests are more challenging than they seem in a meta created and addon filled (aka Questie) environment.***

"...says the person who DIDN'T get
struck by lightning..."

Another metagame issue that impacts whether people do the class quests is "Are the class quest rewards any good?"

Yes, even I use seventyupgrades.com (and its predecessor, sixtyupgrades.com) to determine if my rewards are decent or not for the quest I finished. But the difference in my usage versus others' is that I don't plan my questing based on upgrades; I just quest, and if it works out that I can get an upgrade, great. If not, I'm not gonna bitch that I should have done some other quest that yielded a better item.

The class quests I just do, because they're class quests. They represent a big part of why I play WoW Classic and not Retail: I want the flavor of Azeroth without it being beaten into me by a system designed to get me to Endgame as quickly as possible. The class quests are --by their nature-- unique and not a part of a zone story or anything of that sort. I choose to do these quests for the same reasons why I play the way I play, even though it costs me time to do so****, because I'm not doing any Endgame more complex than Kara right now. And probably won't for the conceivable future unless a friend's Saturday Night SSC runs start up.*****

***

Okay, with that as the prologue, you probably know where this is going.

 

A month or so after I boosted her --long before she went to Outland-- Linna had picked up the initial two quests for the Paladin's Charger and they were just kind of sitting there in the quest queue. A large reason for that is because I don't tend to pilfer gold from one non-bank toon to another, with one of the few exceptions being the gold to make sure Briganaa could get basic flying in Outland. And those first Charger quests did have what was for me a substantial gold requirement of 300 gold, not counting the requirements of:

• 40 Runecloth
• 6 Arcanite Bars
• 10 Arthas' Tears
• 5 Stratholme Holy Water

And that was just to get started.

I, uh, have been known to remove this
quest from my bag just so I can pick
it up again. Because Card loves to tease
Linna about the 'noble sister' part.

 

The 40 Runecloth was going to be easy; you just kill L60 mobs and it just simply falls off as loot. Shooting fish in a barrel comes to mind. I also had 40 Arthas' Tears in the bank already because I tried selling them and never could, and I was too cheap to not just vendor them. But the 6 Arcanite Bars were going to cost me. And getting 5 Stratholme Holy Water required a Strat run.

Given that I was hardly ever on Linna at the time, and in June/July of 2021 everybody not leveling a Shaman (or Blood Knight) was sprinting through Outland as quickly as they could, I simply set the quests aside "to do later".

If nothing else, I could probably spend some time once Linna was at max level (okay, a pipe dream at the time) soloing Strat, but I'd still need the gold for the rest.

Fast forward 8 months later, and I took Linna across the Dark Portal. A week or so after that impulsive move, I had barely enough gold for the price of admission to the Charger questline, but then I needed to train to make up for not training for 4 levels. And boy did that gold cost hurt.

In that Friday's Kara run, someone --I think the Bear tank-- mentioned that you gather about 1000 gold going from L60 to L70 in Outland while we were discussing the cost of flight, and so the implication was that you should be able to start flying once you hit L70. That works if the following conditions are already met when you make it to Outland:

• You weren't boosted
• You weren't leveling your first toon on this particular server
  
• You already had Fast Riding
• You had a readily available amount of consumables
  

For Linna, the only condition met was #2, but given that I don't share gold it was effectively as if she were my first toon on the server. 

I did consider the possibility of just paying for Fast Riding, thinking that it wouldn't cost that much, but even if I paid ongoing Auction House prices for Arcanite it was still cheaper (gold wise) to simply go and do the Paladin Charger Quest to gain access to Fast Riding alone. 

Thankfully, I didn't mind not having Fast Riding while questing in Outland. I mean, I was leveling a Ret Pally in TBC Classic: the speed of my riding was not the major limiting factor. 

If you've ever leveled a Ret Paladin in Vanilla Classic or TBC Classic, you know what I mean...

And I got Quintalan (the original one) up to roughly the L60s as a Holy Pally while questing out in the world, so I can appreciate this video all the more.

Eventually, however, I realized I was going to have to address the Charger Questline because I had some sort of mental block that said "you're going to at have a Charger before L70", and it would not let me be. 

So I began haunting the Auction House, watching the price of Arcanite Bars, and grabbing them when they were both available and not too expensive. I suspect that people wanting their Chargers is most of the Arcanite market these days, but I don't have any direct proof. 

Next came the Stratholme Holy Water, and it was there that Linna, in her L66-ish quest green gear, ran into a wall made of Undead. 

I made several attempts to solo just enough of Strat to get those 5 vials, but no success. It would take me about 1-2 of my own deaths per pack to get them down, and some took 3 or 4 deaths, and for what? Trapped chests that yielded nothing.

After breaking my gear, I threw in the towel and asked for help from my questing buddy a day or so later, once I reached L67.

She brought her partially T4 geared Priest healer, and we survived just long enough to pull off getting those damn vials without having to leave the Stratholme Live section. That finally finished the initial couple of quests, so I could proceed with getting ready for the next phase: getting to Friendly with the Argent Dawn.

Oh yes, it is very much a thing if you haven't spent time up in the Plaguelands. 

That's because the next phase of the questline involves blessing the Barding that you'd spent all this time getting crafted, and it's not a matter of walking up to the High Priestess of the Light and having that done. Your job is to eventually redeem the soul of a Death Knight's charger, and for that you need the blessing of an equine spirit. And if you've ever spent time in Dire Maul, you know exactly what equine spirit we're talking about.

This ol' horse was held captive by
Tendris Warpwood in Dire Maul: West.

 

The way to that equine spirit's good graces, like all horses, runs through its stomach. You can't give a spirit horse sugar cubes, but a special food that uses the Enriched Mana Biscuits that the Argent Dawn sell to their members.#

Oh, and you hand over 50 gold to soothe the righteous anger of the Horse Breeder in Southshore who was called a nutjob for her experiments with making horse feed out of mana enriched biscuits.

I'm not calling you a nutjob, Merideth.
Nope nope nope nope....

Somewhere along the way, to power up the device you're going to use to fight the Death Knight you head on back to the Plaguelands --to Terrordale-- to get some practice defeating the Undead in the area.

Hey, extra reputation for the Argent Dawn is always good when the chips are down.

***

I was ready to go and pay a visit to Dire Maul, but I was going to need an another assist from my questing buddy. Neither of our toons in question had the Crescent Key, so we first had to visit the East Wing of Dire Maul and defeat that taunting Imp first, then once you get the key you head to the West Wing --sans Martin Sheen##-- and defeat the treants and their leader, Tendris Warpwood. 

Well, that's what's supposed to happen, but my questing buddy and I weren't able to get together to do this for several days. There was the Monday progression raid night###, and then there were other things to be taken care of, so it was finally on Wednesday that we were able to get together and go pay Dire Maul a visit. 

Dire Maul is one of those places that simply ooze atmosphere. I know that a lot of people in game don't like it very much, and people mainly wouldn't run it in Classic unless they were 

• Getting buffs from the Ogres in the North Wing via a Tribute Run
  
• Getting the Mage water quest done
• Getting the Paladin and/or Warlock mount quest done
  

I enjoy visiting Dire Maul a lot, so when I get the chance to drop by I'm always happy.

It now feels weird to see the Classic version
of Queldorei/Sindorei on statues in places
like Dire Maul or Silvermoon.

After running around and killing off the treants, we cornered and defeated Tendris Warpwood. And said "Hello, Spirit Horsey!"

Every time I see this horse I think of
the movie Krull. Riding Clydesdales FTW!

With the barding properly blessed, we headed back to Stormwind.

"Are you up for entering Scholo?" I asked.

"It's getting pretty late, are you sure you're okay?" she replied.

"Yeah, let's give it one try and we'll see after that."

So I swung by the Cathedral of Light and...

I had a sudden urge to slug Lord
Shadowbreaker. He had the power to tell
me this a while back, but noooo......

I cursed. "I need an Azerothian Diamond and a Pristine Black Diamond," I wrote.

"Lemme check my bank."

"I know I don't have an Azerothian one, but maybe a Pristine Black one. Let me check the AH first."

A quick perusal of the Auction House and...

"Oh thank god. It's only 6 gold for both."

I grabbed the diamonds and then headed up north. Once I landed and headed to Scholo, I realized I'd forgotten to stop by and complete the quest with Lord Shadowbreaker. A few more curses later, I hopped back on a bird and returned to Stormwind, and from there I completed the quest and headed back up north.

Getting through Scholo proved to be harder (at first) because we realized that trying to just clear to the correct room was going to take forever, so we tried jumping down from the overhang in the first pull area and seeing what we could clear there. That initial pull didn't end well, with a wipe after killing a few baddies.

"I almost never use Holy Wrath," I sheepishly admitted during the runback, "because I almost never fight undead or demons. So I wasn't aware just how large the AOE damage radius was."

"It's okay, we've got this."

After judiciously avoiding use of Holy Wrath, we fought and cleared our way to where we needed to go. It felt weird bypassing some mobs, because I expected them to just gang up behind us, but that wasn't the case.

The Death Knight resides in the same room as Rattlegore, and as I'd assisted a few people in getting their own Chargers I knew the basics already. You clear the room --including Rattlegore-- then you set the device in the center of the room and you stay in a corner, letting the mobs come to you. This allows you the opportunity to drink and recover health and mana. However, during each wave you have to cast Judgement (yes, the spell) on the different mobs with a different type of Seal. Banal Spirits get Judged with a Seal of Wisdom, and Malicious Spirits with the Seal of Justice, like so:

• Banal Spirit: Seal of Wisdom
• Malicious Spirit: Seal of Justice
• Corrupted Spirit: Seal of Righteousness
• Shadowed Spirit: Seal of Light

I knew a couple of these combinations, but not all of them. So once we cleared everything, I hopped on Wowhead and read up, so I could remember them for the right time. The cost of not getting the Seals right was lost mana and a longer fight, and a potential wipe. Oh, and having to reset the entire instance. (Don't ask me how I know that one.)

Rattlegore was a bit rough, and I had to blow Lay on Hands during that fight even though I wanted to save it for the Death Knight, but we made it through and proceeded to clear the room.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Ready," she replied.

She came over to the center of the room and began jumping where she wanted me to place the device --once a tank always a tank-- while I made sure to memorize the various Seals.

"Okay, I think I've got them memorized."

"Let's do this!"

I placed the censor on the ground, sprinted to the corner, and watched as all hell broke loose.

I will freely admit that I forgot a Seal and slipped into my "normal" rotation at times, but each time I was able to recover the lost mana before the next wave.

By the time we hit the third wave, when the difficulty typically ramps up, I was starting to feel much better about this. The chaos of the first two waves eased, and I had gotten better at casting the correct Seal. Because the two of us were significantly higher in level than the mobs, the extra difficulty in Waves 3 and 4 eased a bit. Given that neither of us had a really good, reliable AoE, that was very much a relief.

Then came the Death Knight Darkreaver, atop his fallen Charger:

It looks less impressive than it felt.
Trust me on this.

The fight was an endurance fight, and I really wished I'd kept my Lay on Hands for this. But I did have a couple of Mana pots, and boy did they come in handy. The fight was long enough that I had a chance to blow both Mana pots to keep from running out, and the end result was a (re-) dead Death Knight.

Just how many Death Knights does
Arthas have, anyway? No, wait, never
mind. Forget that I asked that one.

So I clicked to finish the quest and...

Uh oh.

I panicked.

For a brief moment I thought I'd forgotten to bring something with me, and that if I fumbled around long enough everything would despawn and I'd have to do this all AGAIN.

How could I explain THAT ONE to my questing buddy?

Then I rummaged through my bags and found the "other half" of what was in the bag that Lord Shadowbreaker had handed to me, which allowed me to Judge and Redeem the Charger's soul.

Okay, unclench. Just unclench.

Cue Redemption, the Theme from Rocky II.

I was so relieved.

***

As I read the quest text, my writer's brain kicked in and this is what I jotted down before I went to sleep that night:

Linna reached out, hesitated a moment, and touched the horse's nose with the incandescent orb. The orb blazed white hot and then faded away as the light rippled down the horse's neck and across its back before illuminating his eyes.

I blinked. The horse became solid, leaving the spirit world behind. He then huffed, nudging Linna's hand.

"Oh Light, Zarlie," she whispered in awe. "He's... He's talking to me!"

I couldn't hear a thing.

"Yes," Linna replied, her eyes filled with tears, "yes, you're back home again. No, it wasn't your fault, which is why I judged you so."

The horse nudged at the barding on the ground next to Linna.

"Oh yes, hold on." She quickly placed the barding on the horse with the practiced ease of someone who grew up around horses. "There you go, as it should be."

A soft glow encompassed the horse and it huffed once more.

"Oh yes! Yes, of course we can ride together!" Linna blubbered, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Will you have me as your rider?"

The horse nuzzled her, nearly impaling my friend with the metal horn in front.

Linna wrapped her arms around the horse. "Zarlie, he's so real! And alive! You can just feel the power in him as he speaks to me! I'd heard stories about the Knights and their Chargers, but I never thought it would be anything at all like this! Thank you so much!"

"I wouldn't have it any other way," I replied, patting the horse's back. "The lost has been found."

***

This called for a few celebratory laps around Shattrath City before calling it a night.

 

Stories such as these are what WoW excels at. It's a small story compared to the rest of the WoW-verse, but it can have such a huge impact. It's sad that Blizz has gotten away from personal stories such as this, but I'm glad that I got a chance to experience it here in TBC Classic.

*Or at least less epic, for certain.

**In original Vanilla, her hut wasn't even marked on a map, so that made the challenge even more difficult. I get that addons such as Questie neutered the exploration feature of WoW, but it still sucks for people such as myself who refuse to use Questie. Additionally, I realize that they added people there for the sake of making more quests in the swamp in TBC/TBC Classic, but come on. They didn't need to neuter the Mage quests in the process by giving people a freaking road to follow.

***My rule of thumb is that if I'm questing on my own and I can't find where I need to go or what to do (via what is presented in the quest text) within 2 hours of searching, I'll go use Wowhead. That being said, there's only been a few quests where I looked up how to do it ahead of time. Yes, one of these is in this post.

****Believe me, I see people blow past me while leveling all the freaking time. Like how someone I know decided to start playing an alt of theirs who was roughly L61 while Linna was L66, and they passed me before I could reach L68 even though I was on a LOT more than they were. Because the meta.

*****She is going to do it --eventually-- but right now she's been playing Elden Ring during most of her non-progression raid free time.

#You'd figure that once you're a member of the Argent Dawn it'd be a perk of getting those biscuits for free, but noooo....

## Sorry for The West Wing television show joke.

###My questing buddy and I had a discussion about that. Not because something is wrong with the raid, but rather with me. I admitted that I'd been having trouble getting to sleep on Monday nights, and I think that there's some complex problems there.

EtA: Corrected a poorly worded sentence about blessing and whatnot.

EtA(2): Apparently I haz issuez speeling 'metagame.' Fixed.