On The Runway

The comments began almost as soon as Cardwyn set foot in Alterac Valley.

I figured that I might as well stick my nose in there, since my other two L70s that I intend to play in Wrath Classic were already fairly well geared, and Cardwyn 2.0 wasn't quite to L70 yet. After all, I discovered that OG Cardwyn's Tier 3 set had far more spellpower than a Mage in Outland quest gear reaching max level, so why not use it in Alterac Valley? 

I made sure I had all of her T3
gear on for this screencap. Check
out the 631 SP...

...compared to Neve's. Alas that
this isn't a perfect match, as I'd
apparently deleted her bracers already.

If nothing else, the biggest drawback is that Resilience, the thing that keeps Mages from being ultra squishy in Battlegrounds, is only found on PvP gear, so I'd have to deal with that no matter what gear I chose to take into Alterac Valley.

TL/DR; I was gonna die a lot.

Here's the proof that yes, OG Cardwyn
was in Alterac Valley. This screencap was
originally for some of the guild names, but...

What I wasn't prepared for, however, were the comments.

That first Alterac Valley match I followed the crowd and then piled into one of the first towers with a group to try to capture it.* I'd restored my mana, put up my shield again, and was watching just outside the tower for the counterattack that I knew the Horde had to be getting ready for, when I saw someone /say out loud:

"HOLY SHITBALLS, A FULL NAXX SET!"

I was kind of shocked and surprised by that; so much so that I forgot to take a screencap. After all, quite a few progression raiding teams did make it to the end to kill Kel'Thuzad in WoW Classic; far more than ever did in Vanilla. 

"Oh," I replied, remembering my manners, "thanks! This was my old main, hence the set."

"Yeah, but that's awesome!"

It was then that I realized that I had a skewed viewpoint of how WoW Classic ended. Because I was on a progression raiding team that did complete Naxx, I was still in elite company despite appearances --and YouTube videos-- because a lot of people never got to the end of Naxxramas even in Classic. 

"Well," I added, "it was surprisingly good all the way through to L70, much better than quest greens."

"Makes sense."

I figured that was just a one-off comment by a person who'd never had a chance to get into Naxx, until the next Alterac Valley match.

"Wow, nice gear!" a Warrior said.

And the next.

"Nice set," a Priest told me.

And so on and so forth.

A few people were curious as to what my main in TBC Classic was, and once they found out it was an Enhancement Shaman they just wanted to "talk shop" about all things Shamans. That was fine with me, since it meant they weren't drooling over my T3 set.

I told him I didn't know, but probably so.
The big thing for Shamans in Wrath is
one-click four totem throwdown.

Still, I should have known that this would probably happen, but I guess it was going to happen no matter where I took OG Cardwyn, since she was going to need gear regardless.

"What about your... Oh.
Well, you are an adult, so if you
like it, I guess that's fine..."

::sigh:: "You make a very valid point.
Having watched my own children become
adults, however, I have to acknowledge that
they have their own choices of clothing
that are frequently sexier than I am used to.
So it would only make sense that you, Card,
would have similar opinions."

As well as Deuce.

Oh. Crap.

*If you're not used to Alterac Valley, the ultimate goal is to win by either a) killing the enemy General or b) wearing the other side down by eliminating upwards of 600 reinforcements (player kills). You can essentially kill two birds with one stone by capturing a tower or bunker: each tower has an elite mini-boss associated with it in the end room where the enemy general is, and each tower/bunker is worth about 60-80 reinforcements. So if you capture a tower, you kill off the mini-boss AND you eliminate a bunch of reinforcements. Since there are four towers/bunkers to a side, there's plenty of ground to cover in a 40 v 40 match if you want to capture and/or defend the fortifications.