Okay, so she didn't get the Wraith Blade, which was BiS if you weren't in line to get the Atiesh legendary staff, but that's not a big deal. I think our raid team had more Atiesh staves created (2) at the end of Vanilla Classic than Wraith Blade drops (1), and that's saying a lot about the quality of our raid drops.
The traditional World of Warcraft reason why someone would want to play a toon, to get gear and/or complete a raid, is not really there. And if I were the sort to stand around and show off my stuff, I'd not be hanging out in Darnassus, the least active Alliance city, like I traditionally do.
But I do spend a decent amount of my time in Classic Era logged in to her.
***
OG Cardwyn, the Evil Twin, does have her uses. Okay, 90% of the time those uses involve her being used as a DPS mule...
 |
| The Good Twin could have handled this fight too, but due to the punier damage and smaller mana pool would it have been more of a challenge. |
...but I don't mind. While it's nice to see enemies melt a lot faster than on the Good Twin, the main reason to bring OG Cardwyn to a fight is because her mana pool is large enough that I don't have to drink to recover mana nearly as much.
***
Honestly, I prefer to simply do things on the Good Twin simply because I like Frost Mages better than Fire Mages. I could change the Evil Twin to being a Frost Mage, but... Eh, I don't mind having two mages with two separate specializations. If I ever wanted to join an AQ40 or Naxxramas raid, the Evil Twin is available for use. And given that I figure the best geared I can get the Good Twin while still remaining as a Frost Mage is the gear out of AQ40***, I'm kind of fine with how things are as-is.
Is there anything I might want, or want to do in Classic Era, Mage-wise? Trying for Atiesh, maybe?
Eh, no thanks.
There are three four reasons for that lack of interest in the original caster legendary staff:
- To get in line for Atiesh, I would have to join a raid team actively raiding Naxxramas and likely raid twice a week at minimum to get in line for Atiesh. I really don't have the time I can presently dedicate to raiding at that level, hardcore or not, so it'd be silly to sign up and then have to constantly put myself on the bench.
- If I want to get Atiesh, I have to prove myself to any prospective raid team. Just because I have the gear doesn't mean that I'm "good enough" to get to the front of the line for Atiesh. After all, I was Fourth out of Six Mages, DPS-wise, and of the three Atiesh staves that our raid team eventually built our top Mage was actually the last of the three people to receive their Atiesh, that coming after the Dark Portal opened.**** If I wanted to justify receiving an Atiesh, I would have to do more than just show up and do my job; I'd have to get sweaty, and I'm not doing that.
- This is admittedly personal, but I think that Atiesh looks as ugly as hell; until I examined it more closely I thought it was a walking stick with a sulfur ball stuck on the end of it.
Kind of like this, but without James Burke.
A screencap from Connections Episode 2,
"Death in the Morning", at roughly 28:03.
I now know that's it's a carving of a raven on top, but it still looks ugly to me. - I really just don't want it and everything it represents. I'm one of those people who zig when everybody zags, and I look at Atiesh and instead of looking at the staff as an achievement I think of all of the politics that have to be played to actually get one. For my money, I'd rather keep my hands clean and pass on all of that crap.*****
***
So, I've got a toon that doesn't really "need" anything. But I do login as her and just hang out; watching the chat channels, buffing baby Night Elf characters as they run by, and helping out my friends as-needed. And that's fine; I don't have to be doing anything when I login, and I've found that I derive a lot of joy from merely being present in the game.
*Just how many times had he died canonically? Three? Four? I'm thinking three, unless he makes a reappearance in WoW after the Mists of Pandaria expansion.
**For reference, the full Tier 3 sets for Vanilla Classic are different than that in subsequent raid tiers in that the full set is nine pieces, including the ring that you can get as a drop. The so-called 'full set bonus' is for eight pieces; while OG Cardwyn does have all nine pieces, she isn't wearing the belt as the belt that came out of AQ40 is better for Fire Mages.
***For the most part, the three piece Bloodvine set are the best Chest, Legs, and Boots until a Mage reaches AQ40 and gains access to the (so-called) Tier 2.5 gear, the Enigma Set. Typically, that's also when a Mage will switch from Frost specialization to Fire due to the inherent bonuses with stacking several Fire Mages together. That being said, I know of some guild raid teams who let people bring their Frost Mages into AQ40 and Naxxramas. That latter one does puzzle me quite a bit, given that Frost is definitely at a disadvantage there in the same way that a Fire Mage has real damage problems in Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. But hey, those guilds are sticking to their "bring the class/spec you want" credo.
**** Yes, a Warlock and a Resto Druid were ahead of all of the Mages. Typically a person tagged to receive Atiesh is not merely the highest DPS or healer, but performs services to the guild above and beyond the average raider. In the case of the first two Atiesh staves, they went to a co-Guild Leader and the Guild Officer who ran all of the non-progression raids for the guild.
*****You are talking to someone who had an Onyxia Head in OG Card's bank that I'd completely forgotten about. I rediscovered it in Era while I was moving items around to free up some bank space, and when I mentioned the head to my Questing Buddy, she told me "I'm not surprised."
EtA: Corrected a few sentences.
#Blaugust2024
"Connections"!!! My AP Euro teacher would show us episodes of that about once per unit, and I loved it. I have an assignment in my GE Chem course in which I talk about watching Connections in AP Euro, then send my students to read a chapter out of one of a selection of "popular science chemistry" books (put on Reserve in the college library) that do the same sort of thing for chemistry history.
ReplyDeleteI ought to make a post on the influence some of those old shows had on my life; the first season of Connections and it's 1986 successor series, The Day The Universe Changed, both had an outsized influence on me.
DeleteThat being said, I love that you fondly remember Connections! It's also nice to not be the only one who looks at that show and says "what the hell is THAT?!"
It is actually quite hard to obtain DVDs of Connections these days that play in the US, as almost all of the ones I've found for sale are for the British market. However, I did find some copies on the Internet Archive; they aren't the greatest, given that the original Connections was filmed with (I believe) 16 mm film stock, but short of finding an AI upgraded version those will have to do. (And yes, not quite trusting the Internet Archive to remain active indefinitely, I made local copies. At least our local library has DVDs I periodically rent.)