Sometimes You Just Want to do Something Stupid

Really.

As in, let's go visit a high level area as a low level toon and try to sneak into an endgame instance zone.

Such as sneaking through the Feralas wilderness and arriving at the entrance to Dire Maul.

Dare I go in?

It doesn't always go so well...

Just one of many deaths. But I persisted.

The thing is, the more times I died at the hands of max level ogres, the more it pushed me to get into the entrance area...

"What, you again?"

And I persisted...

There were a lot of people running the various wings
of Dire Maul. Enough so that I saw a lot of dead people
running back to the instances.

And I finally made it through.

Really, the stealth was just for show. If I got even
vaguely close to an Ogre they were going to attack me.

I think I'd need another 10-15 levels before I could stealth into the area without aggroing any of the baddies, but that's just a guess on my part. Still, it was a fun little excursion just to see how it would work out.

It's a Brave New World, and I'm Just Living in It

The other day I did something that I hadn't done in, well, ages.

I logged into Azshandra and went herb farming.

Hel-loooo, Plaguebloom...

 

This whole thing began with Spring Cleaning.

I have two bank alts, and in both cases their entire bank slots are taken up with, well, junk from Classic: Old mats, some spell scrolls, some green gear I never sold on the AH (or disenchanted), stuff like that. What that included were a ton of old herbs I'd farmed in preparation for making potions for Naxxramas, and those herbs had been languishing since around last May. So, I figured, I might as well toss them up on the Auction House and see how it goes.

Much to my surprise, those herbs did sell, especially the 'big three' out of the Plaguelands: Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom, and Dreamfoil. And not for a discount price, either.

Oh sure, they weren't selling at their high point in early/mid Naxxramas, but 20 or so gold per stack is nothing to sneeze at. 

Therefore, I thought that it might be worth it to spend about 1/2 hour back in the Plaguelands just to see if that was just a one off or whether there's still a market for some of these herbs.

***

The first thing I discovered is that I've spent entirely too much time going through the Old World as a max level toon, because I forgot two things:

• Az is no longer max level
• An L60 in the Plaguelands can't steamroll over the mobs there.

Uh, oops.

My fingers were trying to remember
Az' old rotation. Eventually they did.

I at least had the decency to remember to repopulate my talent trees, unlike the last time I logged onto Az*, but there were still a few fights that I had to remember how to Vanish and run so that any DoTs wouldn't have me instantly reappear in front of the mobs again.

But still, once I got used to giving a wide berth to mobs I wasn't interested in fighting, the time spent picking herbs was rather pleasant. And I even found a Black Lotus early on, just lying out there without anybody else around.

That made me suspicious, because the previous King of the Herbs was so rarely found out in the wild like this, so I checked in /who to see who else was around and....

o_O

Oh. 

Oh wow.

This never happened in Classic. There was always --always-- someone else around in Eastern Plaguelands.

Okay, so it truly is a brave new world.

I went ahead and finished my circuit, forwarded along the herbs to a bank alt, and put them up on the AH again just to see what'd happen. Wonder of wonders, they sold.

Well, almost all did. Can you guess which one didn't sell?

Yep, the Black Lotus.

In a way, that makes sense: not only are the flasks you make out of Black Lotus not worth as much in a TBC world, but the hassle of going into Scholomance or Blackwing Lair to make the flasks isn't worth it either. 

So, I kept the Black Lotus in my bank for posterity's sake and made a mental note that I could make about 60 gold in 1/2 hour's worth of 'work' just cruising through an empty hellscape for a while.

You know, I bet that if I take Azshandra across the Dark Portal and get her trained in Master Herbalism, she could come back to the Plaguelands and likely get about 2/3 of the way to max skillset in Herbalism before all of the herbs stopped giving her skill ups. After all, Plaguebloom alone only just became pickable before she hit max skill level in Classic...

 

*I crept into Zul'Gurub with my questing buddy to do some "farming" there. She brought her L70 Druid, so she was able to zip around mobs that Az couldn't.

Know When to Hold 'Em

One of the major reasons why I like to play a Rogue* is the thrill of outsmarting the enemy. Not tactically, mind you, but being so clever that you can sneak around and bypass enemies to get where you need to go. It's that rush you get when you sneak through Timbermaw Hold and none of the Firbolg find you, or when you're sneaking around Orr in Guild Wars 2, trying to avoid having to fight your way through every five feet (or so it seems).

Being able to get all the way to Frostwolf Hold in Alterac Valley and drive the Horde nuts by moving back and forth and assaulting the two Frostwolf Towers --all without being seen-- is a huge rush.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered just how much of a gambler you have to be when you play a Fire Mage. 

You knew this was coming, didn't you?

One of the major reasons why I specced Frost all those years with Neve was because Frost is not only a great PvP spec but that it is the best spec for questing out in the field. All of the damage mitigation and defensive skills that Frost has means that a Frost Mage will typically not suffer much damage at all, or if she does she can quickly escape without much issue. And while speccing Frost is highly sought after for raiding in Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, for the rest of WoW Classic it is not seen as a "raider's spec" per se.

That's Fire's domain.

When you see a max level Fire Mage out and about in Azeroth, odds are good that Mage is raiding AQ20 or AQ40. A lone Fire Mage out in Blackwing Lair or Molten Core is at a disadvantage, because the reason why Fire Mages are so powerful is that their buffs stack based on the number of Fire Mages in a raid. Put that same lonely Fire Mage in AQ40 with 4-5 other Fire Mages, they can wreak havoc on enemies. 

Scratch one Anubisath.

A lone Fire Mage in a 5-man instance? Not a problem; only Blackrock Depths has bosses that resist fire spells. 

A lone Fire Mage questing in the field? Well... That's a completely different kettle of fish.

The reason why I say a Fire Mage is a Gambler's Spec is because a Fire Mage has no damage mitigation outside of the Fire Ward, Frost Ward, and Mana Shield spells. And let's be honest: the Mana Shield isn't used much because it sucks your Mage's mana dry to shield them, so it's typically looked on as a spell of last resort.

Add to that, a Fire Mage doesn't get the slowdown or freezes that a Frost Mage gets when utilizing Frost Spells, so dumping Blizzard or a Frostbolt on an enemy doesn't give you the slow debuff that a Frost Mage gets, which is a huge advantage when you want to escape from (or DPS down) an enemy.

No, the Fire Mage says "I bet I can throw more damage at you before you kill me" every single pull. 

I believe a Fire Mage's mantra is "Go Big or Go Home".

Bring it, you blowhard!

Am I comfortable with Card rolling the dice like this? After a month of speccing Fire, I'm still not really comfortable yet. Oh, I understand the rotation, and I don't die if I space out my pulls in the wild, but Card's survivability pulling a pack of 3 or more at level enemies has taken a bit of a hit. 

I guess I have to embrace my inner gambler a bit more.

*Or a class similar to one, such as a Shadowblade in Elder Scrolls Online. Guild Wars 2 has a Thief profession, and if you guessed I play that class in GW2 you'd be right. In Star Wars: The Old Republic my favorite class --and class story-- is the Smuggler; I've played both the Scoundrel (Healer) and Gunslinger (DPS) subclasses, and I've found both of them to be a blast. (Literally, at times.) Hmm... I've never played a Burglar in LOTRO, because I can't get into playing a Hobbit, but maybe I should try one out.

Friday Funny

From the Facebook page
Confessions of a Female Rogue

Okay, I laughed.