Almost At The End

Well, right on time for the TBC Classic v2.0 pre-patch, toons have crossed the finish line.

The listings as of January 22, 2026.

One got there shortly after the pre-patch...

Boom.

And the other two this past week.

(Sorry, no pics of the leveling graphic for the other two; I was busy killing mobs at the time.)

While I don't think the reworking of things in the pre-patch helped with Card --the Frost Mage was relatively unaffected by the pre-patch changes-- it did help a bit with Linna and Joan. Paladins got some extensive talent tree reworks in the pre-patch, and the net result was that Retribution Paladins have a bit more damage output than before. Same survivability, but with more oomph when swinging a sword. Joan's biggest change wasn't with her talents at all, but that her Voidwalker (aka "the Blueberry") could hold more threat, so she was able to deal more damage on mobs. So, for the latter two, they were able to kill more mobs before stopping to recoup mana and health, which to my mind was a good thing.

I look at it this way: even without the pre-patch changes, Card and Linna would have made it to L60 in the past two weeks regardless, but Joan would have been somewhere at either L58 or L59. 

In the end, I'm sure that Hoots will make it in the next week or so, and my goal of getting all four toons to L60 before the Dark Portal opened will have been accomplished. 

So... what now?

I'm not sure, exactly. I could start all over with a Blood Elf Mage or a Draenei Shaman, or I could keep going with these four to L70 before shelving them. I already know that my friends' group is going all in on raiding, and as I've already indicated I don't intend to raid in TBC Classic v2.0* I'm free to go and do my own thing. Luckily, L60 -> L70 doesn't take that long in general, so I'll have plenty of time to just goof around and do things at my own pace. I could even start this version by leveling a new toon from scratch just until I'm sure the insane wave of try-hards rushes through to the end, and THEN I'll switch back to level in Outland. 

I've got a year, right?

*The irony is that I got more whispers on Joan this past week than I did on the other two toons. I realize that Warlocks are more in demand in TBC Classic than Mages, but this was getting ridiculous.

Greetings from the New Year

One of the things that I've found interesting over this past year on the WoW Anniversary servers is that there tends to be two groups of people who play the game: those who are going all-in on getting the full raiding experience, and those who were merely there to reserve a place for the upcoming Burning Crusade re-re-release.*

Listings as of January 9, 2026.

Well, for the latter the Pre-Patch is less than a week away, and for the former the impending release of TBC Classic Anniversary means they have to come to grips with the raiding reduction from 40 people (20 for (Zul'Gurub and AQ20) to 25 people (10 for Karazhan and Zul'Aman). As much as there was a bit of occasional wistfulness about not getting into a Molten Core or Zul'Gurub run this time around, I am so happy I don't have to deal with the drama involved with who stays and who goes in the Great Raid Reshuffle.

And to be fair, there might be raid teams that have already worked this sort of thing out, but for most there's two options: cut the raiders or expand into two raid teams and bring in more raiders. both are fraught with peril.

From Yarn.Co. And the Pythons.

Since Blizz announced on Wednesday that TBC Classic Anniversary will drop on February 5th, guilds are probably feverishly mapping out what they can do and regimenting people's leveling experiences and attunement processes. And fretting over raid teams. 

I should break out the popcorn, but all I can feel is relief that I'm not dealing with any of that crap right now.

I figured there was a t-shirt FOR that, and
I was not disappointed. From Shirtbox.

As for what I'm going to do in a week, probably not much. I've already blocked off the names I want back when the Anniversary servers first launched, so that's not much of an issue there. I also am looking ahead to what to do once I get all four toons to L60, and I might just start over with another toon. After all, I'll have gotten four toons to L60 over the course of ~1.25 years, and I've no qualms starting over with a Blood Elf or a Draenei. 

*People like me, who generally just putz around and go their own way are very much a minority. 

Another Hump I'd Forgotten About

You know how leveling slows down tremendously in Vanilla WoW in the mid 30s and the mid 40s? Well, there's apparently another speed bump in the mid-L50s too.

I have discovered this the past month while I've been leveling the four toons, but especially Joan and Hoots.

Listings as of December 26, 2025.

Going from L54 to L55 took an absurdly long time from my perspective, but once I got over that hump the leveling from L55 to L56 seemed to go more quickly. 

Of all the four toons, Hoots was actually the slowest in leveling from L54 to L55. Part of that I chalk up to bad luck, where respawning mobs caught me multiple times in various zones --apparently quick respawns can also be observed other places than Felwood's Shadow Hold-- but I also didn't have to grind nearly as much to get some of these quests completed. If the RNG rolls go your way when you're looking for XX items, you don't have to kill that many mobs. Which also means less grinding, resulting in less XP per quest overall. I don't know the ratio of XP garnered by killing mobs versus completing quests in Retail, but I've found that in Vanilla Classic you get a lot more XP if you're grinding a lot of mobs just to complete a quest. Sure, it's not "fun" from the standpoint of wanting to get from Point A to Point B quickly, but it is a low stress way to level. You don't have to engage while level at the same depth in Retail --although Retail fans probably would point out that leveling in Retail is so quick it's not deep either-- but Blizzard designed Retail leveling to progress multiple stories. Outside of a few overarching questlines, there are very few newer-style MMO stories in Classic WoW.*

So I can grind while listening to a podcast, chatting with friends, and not really paying too close attention to what I'm doing in-game. Which is good, since I play a game to have fun and relax, not be hyper-focused.

***

My questing buddy is logging on far less often these days. She completed her Atiesh --oh wait, I didn't mention that she got selected for one, didn't I?-- and I think she only really needs one or two more items and her gear will be good throughout most of TBC Classic leveling. Therefore she's been taking a bit of a break, playing games with her husband, and when she's on she's basically pre-loading stuff for when the Dark Portal opens. 

I'm thinking that once the pre-patch drops in mid-January, she'll be leveling a Draenei Priest (basically the same one she used to help me level my Shaman in 2021's TBC Classic and she mained in Wrath Classic), but we'll see how things go.

*Those long burning questlines that are there, however, do tend to be epic in their own way. Everybody knows the Defias questline, but there's also the Marshal Windsor questline and some of the Class Quests (Paladin and Warlock epic mount quests, for example). The biggest difference between Classic and Retail is that as quest design progressed, every single (non-gray) thing you see out in the game world can be traced back to a quest objective, whereas in Classic WoW there's a metric ton of items and mobs out there that have absolutely nothing to do with anything. (Black Diamonds, anybody?) And that's fine. Not everything has to mean anything at all --in real life that is frequently the case-- and a lot of game designers (and fiction editors) seem to have forgotten that simple fact. 

Oh, Look at the Time!

It's been an interesting couple of weeks since I last posted an update on Operation Spread the Love:

As of December 12, 2025.

Although I haven't been playing that much --especially this week-- I have gotten some leveling done. Just not as much as I'd hoped.

The first thing you'll notice is that Card is now L57, which kind of goes against what I'd been doing the rest of this time: level all four toons a pair of levels at a time. The reason for that is simple: I was asked to come along for a couple of Scholomance runs, which resulted in that extra level. One thing is certain: Card did more damage as an L56 Mage than some of the other DPS who were all higher than her. Go figure.

I got Linna to L56, and when I have played this week I was working on Joan, but I haven't gotten her to L55 yet. While she is able to down some mobs by herself (such as the Drake in the initial quest for the Marshal Windsor questline), she's incredibly ill-suited toward other mobs. Linna has the reverse problem that Joan has, where she can take down other mobs, but that Drake hits way too hard for her to simply stand there and take it at the level she's at, compared to non-elite mobs of the same level.*

What have I been up to when I've not been playing? Holiday stuff, as well as, um, that other hobby I've mentioned a bit here and there. Pallais wants me to continue writing about my adventures there, and so I'm working on a post about that will likely drop in the early part of next week.

I guess I should be happy that Blizz decided to put the TBC pre-patch in January, which as things are going will be when I finally get all four toons to L60.

*At least in the gear she's at. That has quite a bit of impact on her ability to down some of these mobs as well.

Sightseeing and Travelling

In WoW Classic Anniversary land, things are progressing:

Snapshot as of November 27, 2025.

It's been a year (or so) since the Anniversary servers launched, and I have yet to reach L60 on any of my toons. So I guess you could say that my plan of not going all-in on rushing to the end (and getting burned out) has worked. After all, I'm still regularly logging in and progressing. This time, that's mainly in Un'goro Crater these days...

Or Felwood...

Or maybe even the Dire Maul area...

I'm at that point in the leveling process where you can begin to separate some classes from others. Card, for example, is able to defeat individual elites, whereas Linna struggles with those same elites. (I'd have inserted a "Dead Linna" screencap if I had one, but I don't. I was too busy corpse running back to her body.) At times like that, wearing plate armor doesn't exactly help much.

But I do occasionally poke my nose into Retail. Mainly just to observe people on Moon Guard...

I think that thing on the left is a mount. I'd just
like to know where you stable these things, because
when I'm writing you have to consider things such
as that. I mean, can you imagine having that thing stabled
at a farm? And what would it eat? How would you care for it?

That Pally is a bit of a flashback, with the 
Sulfuras Mace and the recolored Judgement armor.
Were it not for the post-Cataclysm Auction House
(and that it's a Draenei), she would fit right in on the
Anniversary servers.

I do get lost with the post-Cataclysm changes to the Old World from time to time, but consulting a map is always the smartest option...

Nevertheless, there are things I see that still do make me stop and ponder for a moment...

Something tells me that the device on the left
is related to the Dragonflight expansion.
Why? Oh, no reason...

I can't decide if that's a trinket effect or if
those are merely images of people. If I were
a betting man, I'd figure it came from the cash shop.

Okay, I inserted this screencap here because I
was fascinated with the eye patch. That 'pirate' look
isn't something you'd expect on your average Draenei.

But if one thing is certain, it's that Trade Chat never changes (profanity warning below):

Well Well Well...

I go and work at the car dealer's repair shop for the day, and I come back to find this in my mailbox:

On November 18, 2025.

I clicked on the link, and discovered that yes, the pre-patch is going to drop in January:

Found here on Blizzard's website.
November 18, 2025.

So, they're not going to hit the anniversary date of the TBC launch, but close enough for government work.

The Classic Era team will be allowing transfers to Classic Era realms from November 25th 2025 through January 12 2026. At present, no paid boosts are observed, but we'll see. 

I guess that means I've got until mid-January to finish getting my four toons to L60.

Highs in the 50s Today

Given that the past couple of weeks have been pretty eventful (see my previous posts this week), I'm kind of happy keeping the pace I have been:

As Linna gets more powerful chestpieces, her
protective area continues to shrink. Hence I put
on a blue shirt to at least make her look like a Knight
in blue and silver. The status as of November 13, 2025.

I'm finally getting some gear on Linna replaced that she's been wearing since The Deadmines. Yes, that's right. The freaking Deadmines. 

Or, as I like to call it, my dice rolls SUCK.

That notwithstanding, I've been keeping up steady progress given that I've only been on for an average of an hour a night. Two levels per week ain't that bad. I kind of expect to be hitting L60 on these toons around Christmas, which is perfect. Why? because I won't have to worry about doing any gearing up or anything, because I expect the prepatch for TBC on the Anniversary realms to hit in January, and TBC Classic to arrive in February. 

Not too shabby, really.

A Day to Brood About Stuff

It's been an interesting couple of weeks since I last checked in with my Operation Spread the Love on the WoW Anniversary servers.

By that, I mean very busy, and not playing very much either. 

Card's getting to the point where she'll have
some of her pre-raid gear on her, such as the Frostweave
gear (the purple tunic) that provide a pretty good bonus
to Frost spells. Although the screencap was taken today
this was the status as of Thursday, October 30th.

First there was the weekend trip up to visit my oldest and her partner, which included a stop at a coffee shop built in the building that once housed a pumping station for the Milwaukee River...

It was a chilly morning or we'd have sat outside.

And here you go, proof that there is a coffee
shop inside. (I had green tea as I'd already had coffee.)
At the Collectivo Coffee Lakefront in Milwaukee.

And an additional visit to the Milwaukee Public Museum...

Including a rebuilt saloon/taproom. Not sure
if the topless statues were added for effect or not,
but I did make a few snarky comments to my wife.

And you can't visit a museum gift shop
without seeing rocks for sale.

And a small restaurant next to an old train depot. Which of course brought out the train fanatic in me...

It's not a depot any longer, although the train
tracks are nearby.

Next to the depot was a statue of Czech
immigrants coming to this part of Milwaukee.
The irony of seeing this in our current political
climate wasn't lost on me.

On Tuesday, I spent some time over at my mom's house because her hot water heater has begun leaking, which is a good sign that the 20 year old heater has finally rusted through and needs replacement. I've had to argue with her about the immediate need to call a plumber to get this replaced ASAP, because you don't want a catastrophic failure and have 40 gallons of water on your floor.

Then, yesterday I attended the funeral of one of my brother's in-laws.* It rather understandably got me thinking quite a bit about mortality afterward.

It also brought up the very real question about what happens to our games and our characters when we die. I have a few boardgames that are difficult to find these days, such as Avalon Hill's old Civilization (and Advanced Civilization) game, and I've taken care of the game to make sure it doesn't fall apart. But what happens to it when I die? Will it end up in a landfill somewhere, like what happened to my grandfather's stamp collection?**

Or in terms of video games, who gains access to them when I'm gone? More than likely they'll vanish as well, given that someone else would have to take ownership of my Steam account (and other accounts, such as my Battle.net account). 

Orcish Army Knife may be gone, but Rades' old
toons are still present in Puggers Anonymous as
of October 31, 2025.

As you can see above, I logged into OG Balthan just to check to make sure Rades' old toons are present. I guess they'll remain until Microsoft purges accounts from Battle.net for inactivity, but I'm certainly not removing them.

Another reason for thinking about mortality and what happens to things after you die is all of those books that came out decades ago but are no longer published. The most obvious example I can think of David Eddings' Belgariad, which I never see anymore, but there's also other authors who published books in the 70s, 80s, and 90s that are now hard to find. I'm thinking of works by Barbara Hambly, Janny Wurts, Katherine Kerr, and Katherine Kurtz. Even older classics such as Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books are long out of print. I suppose you could go the ebook route, but you don't actually own those books and ebook publishers have shown an inclination to simply yank books away from you whenever they feel like it. 

Oh well. Just another thing to brood on, I guess.

*He died of a brain tumor at the relatively young age of 44.

**My mom and her siblings thought it would be worth something, but after consulting with a couple of experts on the collection the result was that the collection wasn't worth much of anything. It was merely my grandfather's obsession, and that was all it was really worth.

Say Hello to Sunken Temple for Me

When a toon reaches L50 in the Vanilla portion of WoW Classic, you get a quest for your class. (Okay, most classes; I haven't gotten all classes to L50, so there might be an outlier.) That quest chain inevitably sends you to the Sunken Temple dungeon, where you go get a McGuffin to bring back and get a (relatively) decent item as a reward. Sure, it's not world beating or anything, but I'll take it.

Hey, Joan. Don't worry, your turn is coming soon.
Just try not to think about farming Felcloth too much.
The listings are as October 16, 2025.

Typically there's a bit of a wait to find a group for a Sunken Temple run; nothing too terribly bad, but waiting on a Tank is pretty much a time-honored tradition these days. 

Except that this past week has been really bad for groups for ST.

At first I couldn't figure out why, since Sunken Temple does have enough people interested in running it, but then I remembered two things:

• Naxxramas opened up on the Anniversary Servers
• Legion Remix opened on October 7th

Yeah, those two things will do it.

In the meantime, I've been kind of doing other things than leveling my toons. Such as Linna spending time leveling Blacksmithing instead, which led me down the gold sink of working on Blacksmithing quests. (Yes, this was a thing in Vanilla Classic.)

I won't tell you how many times I farmed Mithril Ore
for this. Let's just say that I got to know all of the mobs
around Tanaris. ALL OF THEM.

Even after farming for ore for what seemed like forever, I still decided to buy some extra ore off of the Auction House because I was constantly fighting with other Paladins out there for those Mithril and Truesilver ores.* The net result was not only that I completed those Mithril Order quests, but I now have to go fish a bit to get my gold supply back up. 

Ah well. Not like I'm going to have to worry about an fast mount anytime soon. Or even in TBC, where I didn't get an fast ground mount on Briganaa at all until she hit max level L70.** And throughout all of my playing WoW Classic I never had enough gold to get an Epic flying mount because constantly farming gold and "playing the gold game" didn't interest me.

Remember, kids, when you talk about rushing out and getting your epic flying mounts and whatnot that there are people who didn't want to (or couldn't) spend tons of time min/maxing their gold farming to get their own epic mount. (And didn't want to buy gold illicitly or from Blizzard.)

If you say his name three times really fast,
@madseasonshow will appear and say "Told you so."

Given that I've been slowed down by external factors, I'm actually quite surprised that I've gotten to L52 on two toons by mid-October. With some luck I'll get all four to L52 by Halloween, and just continue onward. I'm expecting TBC Prepatch to hit in January 2026, but we'll see how it goes.

*Before you ask, yes, I'm aware that in Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien used Truesilver and Mithril interchangeably. The first time I saw a Truesilver Ore out in the field in 2009 my brain went "Wait, didn't they know that they're the same damn thing?"

**A little side effect of that Bataan Death March of speed leveling. Another side effect of that experience was that I had to go back and level Leatherworking and Skinning after I leveled to L70, and by then there was almost no reason to do it because by the time I'd have gotten Leatherworking high enough my gear would have been better coming from raid and dungeon drops (theoretically speaking) than anything I could make. 

This Just in: Toons Have Leveled Up. Film At Eleven.

The L50 boundary has been crossed.

Of course the Songshine sisters would be first
to L50. Because competition between siblings.
This is as of Thursday, October 2nd, 2025.

You may now return to normal programming.

Seriously, though, it's nice to have gotten not only one but two of the four toons to L50 by the first week of October. I've not been playing as much as well, but I'll be mentioning the reason for that in about a month in another post. 

My friends have been saying they're going to get me running BRD once I have a toon that hits L50, but --surprise surprise-- The Scourge Invasion event prior to Naxxramas began yesterday, so I'm sure they'll be busy doing that. Not exactly as I planned it, but it's working out in my favor, I suppose.

I never really noticed it before, but that crystal
off the bottom of the Scourge floating fortress looks
a lot like those floating bases from Independence Day.

Before you ask, being in the upper L40s meant that I was running Maraudon a bit on the toons. Usually a run would take up most of an evening's worth of gaming, so I didn't do that too much. I kind of preferred having places like Feralas to myself, as most people don't tend to hang out there unless they're running Dire Maul instances. 

Sometimes the setting sun hits you just right...

That doesn't mean I shun human contact, because I do like it when people are around. It's just that I've been in a mood where when I'm not in an instance I prefer to just focus on questing and zone out, like how I used to approach Tetris as a zen-like exercise in meditation. And really, grouping up can generate some of the most oddball conversations if the group is up for it.

Now I've got that old song "Me and You and
a Dog Named Boo" stuck in my head.

See you in a bit!

Visit Sandy Tanaris! See the Rolling Hills of Arathor!

Well, I'm pretty much where I expected to be at this point of the month.

As of September 18, 2025.

My reality is that I still need to work on fishing, because I need to make gold in order to keep training my abilities, and the price of water and food (for every toon not named Cardwyn) can be pretty expensive if you're constantly drinking and/or eating after every couple of pulls. 

That's the real struggle of a Paladin: having to replenish mana more often than a Mage or Warlock.

Nothing says "fun" quite like quenching your thirst
in the middle of an ogre cave. Lens flares are a perk.

Of course, crafting your own gear in Vanilla is often the best way to get a steady influx of better gear, and I've rediscovered the joys of how lousy it can be leveling Blacksmithing and Leatherworking. To be honest, I never used Blacksmithing or Leatherworking in 2019 Classic and 2021 TBC Classic to get gear for leveling*, and by the time TBC Classic came along you didn't really need to craft any Outland gear until you hit L70. At that point crafting became a grinding/daily slog to get the materials needed for crafting your gear for the first few raids. 

On the bright side, you can mine for ore outside.
Even on a somewhat gloomy evening in the Arathi Highlands.

I can see that the Anniversary servers will be more of what we saw in 2021. I'm now convinced it's unavoidable. I also think that Blizz will enable a paid boost just like in 2021, but it's really Blizz's call to make. 

We'll see, I suppose.

*I never leveled Linnawyn high enough in 2019 to make it worth my while to level Blacksmithing to get gear, and I had to speed level Briganaa at such a rate that I only leveled Leatherworking after she got to L70.

Dead Things in Stormwind

Oh, look at the time!

It's September, and I presume that Naxxramas is coming quickly to the WoW Classic Anniversary servers. People have been raiding AQ40 and AQ20, doing goofy things such as pulling Teremus the Devourer to Stormwind, and in general causing a bit of a ruckus.

One of many little visits to Stormwind by Teremus.

Meanwhile, I'm still plugging along in my own little way.

The listings are as of September 4, 2025.

Getting a chance to melt enemies in Zul'Farrak is good for the soul. My soul, to be clear, not the souls of the trolls we've been fighting in there.

Speaking of pour souls, there's been a dead Tauren floating over the mailbox by the Stormwind bank for several weeks now. Every Patch Tuesday I think that a reboot will fix what has to be a perpetual amount of embarrassment visited upon this Tauren's clan, but he's not vanished yet.

Your eyes do not deceive you. There are two Tauren there.

For a while there were actually TWO dead Tauren there, but the last I checked we're back to one. Things like that demonstrate two things: that the denizens of the Anniversary Servers have a sense of humor, and Blizzard doesn't really devote much in the way of resources to the Classic Era-esque side of the house. If they did devote resources, this dead body would have been cleaned up by now.

I've also been experiencing class quests that I've never seen before, such as the quest chain for the Warlock's robe and offhand weapon.

This is part of the reason why I want to go back eventually and work my way through the other classes I've left behind during this leveling process: I've never seen a lot of these class quests, and it'll be interesting to go through them when you never can experience them in Retail (or Mists Classic) at all.

Well, onward and into Autumn.

EtA: Corrected grammar and reinstated the comment over the third graphic.

It's Not Exactly Being Unshackled, But...

...four of the toons in Operation Spread the Love are at L42 or above.

These are the levels as of August 20, 2025.

Oh, I still like to play Azshandra, but when I play a Rogue I tend to spend more time sneaking around and getting into places than actually questing. Plus there's the additional issue of Rogue-hate out there, because some members of the Rogue Brotherhood simply have to behave like asses.

"A lot of Rogues suck, but you're okay," I was told in a Scarlet Monastery run the other week.

I should just take the compliment as it is, but it does get me down a bit knowing that some people simply take delight in torturing others just for shits and giggles. I was whispered out of the blue in Arathi (or Southshore, not exactly sure which) by a player if I wanted to go to SM: Cathedral. I was wracking my brain, trying to remember if I'd run an instance before with the person whispering me, but I didn't look a gift horse in the mouth and said "Sure!"

During the long run up to the Scarlet Monastery I found out that the group was partially through the run and originally had another Rogue in the group, but said Rogue stealthed up to the front of the altar inside the Cathedral and attacked the end boss, causing all of the mobs inside the Cathedral to attack at once. The Rogue then dropped group, their mischief complete. 

I had a few choice words for such behavior.

So, when I behaved like a normal person and didn't act like an asshole, the rest of the group was appreciative enough that they were fine with another Cathedral run since I came in halfway through.

***

That whole whisper out of the blue to run a dungeon is by far the exception rather than the rule for my experience in the Anniversary servers. Typically, if I want to run a specific dungeon, I'll begin making my way there before I'll even make myself available by either LFG chat or the in-game tool. This is especially important if I get into a run as either as a Warlock or a Mage: the Warlock for the summons, and the Mage to make food and water for the group. I can't tell you the number of times I've gotten into a group on a Mage where I've been making food and water for people throughout the first third of the dungeon. My response to that is to either make all the food and water prior to making myself available, or make food and water while going to the dungeon entrance.  

I also just figure that it's the polite thing to keep people from waiting. I'm personally fine with not having instant summons to dungeons like in later versions of WoW, but I also know I'm in the minority. Dungeons that are hard to get to, such as Maraudon, Scarlet Monastery (for Alliance), Gnomeregan (for Horde), or Shadowfang Keep (for Alliance) are ones I make a conscious effort to be at least well on my way there before I make myself available for a pug run.

***

Overall, the past couple of weeks in-game have gone pretty well. The pace of leveling has picked up again, as you can see by the results, and I weathered the cost of all of the mounts at L40 and all of their training costs upon reaching L42. 

Yikes, L42 had a nasty amount of training cost for some of these toons.

While my original plan was to get people to L50 by August, I think it more likely that late September-early October is a reasonable goal. So we'll see how it progresses.

EtA: Apparently I can't count. There are four toons at L42 or above, not five.

#Blaugust2025

A Few Changes

Well, I can say that I'm getting closer to getting a mount on a few accounts.

Yes, Hoots is holding a two-handed sword.
Standings as of July 23, 2025.

Another thing I can say is that of the eight toons I've been leveling, the slowest two have been the Feral Druid and the Holy Priest. It's not that I had issues with playing them, it's that it takes a while for them to kill anything. And let's be honest, it's a bit difficult to level a healer if you don't go into group content, and I really had no intention of taking Shaluna into instances from the get go. I have gotten better at healing since my original days leveling Quintalan back in 2009/2010, but I've seen enough bad behavior by tanks and DPS in the pugs I've been in that I just look at healing random groups and give it a hard pass. 

Did somebody say bad behavior? How about a Mage who didn't buff casters or Hunters* or provide water or food to the same? I was on Hoots at the time, so I could understand the Hunter part, because if you only played Retail before coming to the Anniversary servers you might not realize that Hunters use Mana in Vanilla Classic, but not even buffing the healer until they repeatedly asked for it? Or even asking if people need water or food? 

"That's borderline criminal," a Paladin tank in a later instance commented after I mentioned that Mage's behavior.

"I was offended, because I main a Mage," I replied. 

Before you suggest the obvious that perhaps that Mage didn't understand English, he commented several times in chat in the instance run, so yes, he knew English well enough. He just wasn't interested.

But yeah, after watching behavior like that, or a tank just continuously rushing forward while I and the healer were sitting back, drinking, I think I much prefer being DPS and not dealing with stress-inducing behavior as a healer. (Or a tank, for that matter.) Whenever my Questing Buddy bitches about pugs when she's a tank or healer, I totally understand. It doesn't stop me from needling her, since we first met in a pug, but I understand where she's coming from.

***

Okay, I'm sure that somebody out there might be wondering why I just don't group up with my friends to run a few instances or so.

There's one big problem there: nobody seems to be at the levels my toons are at. And if they are, because they're leveling an alt, they shoot right on past me very quickly because they're using one of their max level toons to boost each other. For example, my Questing Buddy borrows her husband's Mage --whom she also leveled by boosting him with her own Mage alt-- and then levels those alts by boosting.

The other thing is that I'm leveling 8 toons at once, so even if they were just leveling by questing they'd naturally pull ahead, even though they're raiding and doing other things on their mains on a regular basis. 

I've been told that once I reach L50, my friends intend to nab me and chain run instances until I get to max level. And no, I'm not happy about that, so I'm starting to think that I might slow down my logging in when I reach L49 or so on toons. I hate carries.

***

In other news, AQ40 is already done and open, and the 12 hour war has passed us on the Anniversary server. This caught me by surprise, because I figured that at least a few more guilds would have worked to get Scarab Lord for toons, but it could also have been that one guild was being an asshole about it and rushing ahead to get Scarab Lord solely for themselves.

When I heard that there was some Qiraji fighting going on at Gadgetzan, I hopped on a flight down there and promptly discovered that it wasn't exactly the safest place for an underleveled Hunter:

Shortly after I took that screenshot, a respawn happened with me too far away from the flightpoint...

so I rushed back to try to escape with predictable results:

My friends group did what they usually do, and gave me some crap about it, but I gave as much as I got:

For the record, the ones giving me the most crap
were all women.

I guess that means that by early October people will be ready to move on to Naxx.

***

Oh, and I guess I ought to mention one more thing: given how slow the Holy Priest and Feral Druid are progressing, I'm going to start leaving them behind a bit. I might also do that to the Shadow Priest, but we'll see. I'm not giving up on them completely, but I have tried to keep all 8 toons together, and I think I'm ready to keep 5-6 of them in the same range instead of my current modus operandi. Given that two of them weren't going into instances, and the Druid was mainly going to be used as an Herbalist and Skinner, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I'll just keep plugging away and see how things progress.

*Since I've never played Hunters until now, I never knew that Hunters had their bar changed from Mana to Focus --akin to a Rogue's Energy-- in Retail. It took the impending (and now current) Mists Classic release for me to realize that.

EtA: Fixed some grammatical issues.

I Sure Could Use Some Lemonade

With the Summer Doldrums in full swing, I've been busy taking care of some yardwork as well as other small projects. That doesn't mean I've been neglecting Operation Spread the Love, mind you, but I've had my mind on a lot of other things than just leveling toons on the Anniversary servers.

I may have to move Azshandra's hearthstone location
away from Darkshore, although it does provide me
a quick way of reaching Darnassus. The levels are
current as of July 9, 2025.

When the weather reaches 95F/35C with the heat index soaring to 102F/39C, being outside isn't that pleasant. I can't have honest-to-goodness real lemonade (sugar, you know), but I've made do with the "zero sugar" variety.

You know what also makes this weather miserable? Bugs. Lots of gnats and mosquitos and other bugs that annoy and sting and bite at you while you're trying to get rid of weedy shrubs that are choking out the shrubs and trees you'd planted years ago. I'd not really had a chance to maintain that part of the yard very much over the last few years*, so it had gotten into such a mess that I could put it off no longer. 

Hacking through the weeds with a reciprocating saw and a generic cutting blade** made my job a bit easier, but with the miserable heat on the July 4th holiday I was pretty much spent by around 11:30 AM. And I still was stubborn enough to want to finish cutting part of the grass as well before I called it a day, so I retreated inside and drank some fluids to recharge a bit. 

There it was, World of Warcraft, tempting me to "just go and play for a little while" inside the air conditioned house.

Because of course it was.

I'm still not sure how I fended off that urge to just play for a couple of hours away from the heat and humidity, but I finished my drink and went out and got the grass cut before mid-afternoon rolled around. 

***

The leveling process in Operation Spread the Love can feel like that yardwork at times. You know it's a grind, but it's part of the process. Once you get through, you'll feel better and more confident in understanding how to play your class. None of the quests in the L30s or L40s are earth-shaking by any stretch of the imagination, and to my mind that's a good thing. The world doesn't have to be in the balance to have an enjoyable time, and even if the grind can feel oppressive at times, once you get through you'll be able to look back at how the effort was worth it.

But that grind can get annoying. There's no sugarcoating that. It's also not helped by Mages and Warlocks rounding up mobs in the area and wiping them off the map while you're unable to finish the quests you're on. On days like that --and there have been a lot of them-- it's good to have another place to go to in the meantime. 

Such as Gnomeregan.

I'd originally thought I might hit L50 on toons by August, but that might be optimistic. Maybe October at this rate.

 

*Gee, I wonder why...

**Like an idiot I didn't go out to the hardware store and get a wood cutting blade until Monday, which then made the trimming process go much faster with a lot less effort. I still had to haul away the brush to one side of the yard, where it'll stay until I can break it down for removal. It'll likely take 3-4 weeks' worth of trash removal to get that stuff all cleared out.