all dressed up

all righty then. you thought i was dead, or not gaming! well, HA! you were wrong on both counts.

i've been giving wow another go since about november, and have levelled up a female rogue to 66 so far. i've done it without questing much. i spent most of my time in instances, getting to know the ways and wherefores of team gaming. why? because i wanted better gear on this rogue than my warrior was able to wear.

and did i get it?

well, no. not really. only in my last few levels did i find a dagger worth crying about. see that funky two-pronged thing? that's my pride and joy since beginning the game. the glowy one is ok, too. but certainly not as fun as the two-pronged dagger of much-stabby goodness.

the thing i've learnt is wow is not a game for levelling. it's a game for endgame only. for the 70s.

pre-70s, it's just a constant disregard for fun in an effort to get up to 70 - and that's just the biggest tragedy ever. especially from 60.

when i turned 60, i was so thrilled. i made it into outland, the new areas of the map, and all those big dungeons such as scholomance and stratholme are open. molten core is looming, and blackrock spire - as is zul'gurub and the one dungeon of i've wanted to see - naxxramas. such joys! i've fought hard and tried to learn as much as i can about instancing just for this. i was ready.

and then i found out no one really does them. there's no point, you see. everyone just spends a lot of their time doing pvp to get their pvp gear. they completely ignore the pve gear. and they're not interested in raiding until they hit 70. ask around to see if anyone wants to do naxxramas, or molten core or something FUN, and you get greeted with a round of "what for? it's pointless. level to 70 and do kara."

ahn'qiraj has called me. there's daggers in there i want. naxx's lovely bonescythe armour seems to have some bonuses to my lovely backstab skill and critical strike bonuses i think i'd enjoy. sure, it's not pvp gear, but then so what? the pvp bonuses don't excite me, and the long hard crawl through pvp battles certainly doesn't excite me. but the dungeon crawls finding loot not many seem to wear, does excite me. seeing some of these dungeons that it seems no one is looking at. well. that's just the bees knees to me.

i joined a guild, too. but they're focussed on kara, too. mention other pre-70 raids and no one is interested. "what for?"

for the fun? the excitement? the thrills and spills?

unfortunately, blizzard has piled so much goodness on endgame stuff and the pressure to get epic mounts and pvp gear BEFORE doing anything is great, that it's got to the point that there's not many out there eager to enjoy the game as they level. they prefer to think of the levelling as a necessary evil until they CAN enjoy the game.

my only glimmer of hope was reading that for the next expansion, blizzard is redoing naxx. that's good news for me because it means maybe, in a year, people will actually want to see it.

in the meantime, i have been trying to perfect my skills as a burst damage rogue. i seem to dish a lot of pain when i have a good tank - something which is increasingly rare (although everyone says at 70 there's plenty of real tanks). i've begun to enjoy the slow creep behind an enemy, positioning and then letting loose with a barage of assaults which seem to just suck the life right out of it. sure, the wow rogue isn't as much fun to play as other rogues (lockpicking and trap disarm being simply added-on extras hardly worth mentioning and certainly rarely used), but the simple concept of sneak assassination just appeals to me. backstab is my favourite skill. i find if i use it exclusively, i just rip up the damage meters. i've been using damage meters to keep an eye on my skill, and get very depressed if i don't make top of the chart - usually because of a mage in an area where aoe rules, or because someone's drafted in a dps some levels above me (getting rarer as i approach 70, thankyou very much).

i have yet to do my first raid, though. i'm wondering what's involved in that. it sounds terribly spooky and i'm kind of looking forward to it. i just wish we could all be raiding from 60, rather than 70. raiding in some of the other levels might have given some decent experience in raiding pre-70. i'd have liked that. and the opportunity to kill a dragon would have been just plain brilliant.

basically, what i'm trying to say is, i've developed a taste for these instance things. especially the long ones which keep you under pressure as you slowly run out of potions and bandages and everything's on cooldown. and when you die, that long run back to get things set again. crawl onward. find that last boss and stand around gawking at his corpse and thinking "yeah, that was worth it. but why's it over?"

i've enjoyed the intuitive monitoring of aggro (i refuse to use an addon for that), and like to think i have a good feel for things. i always say "if i'm getting hit here, i'm doing something wrong or maybe we should get a tank who can tank." i've begun to groan when i see a fury or arms spec warrior. especially when they maintain they're dps and they do less than a third of what i do. i used to play an arms warrior. i used to think i had the right to say i was dps. it's only since playing a rogue that i realise the futility of that argument. pve, it's nonsense. i don't care what they say. i've yet to have a "dps" warrior come close to half my damage without having been at least three levels above me. mages and warlocks generally spill around my area, at least in my ballpark (slightly above if they have a lot of aoe they can dish), but warriors calling themselves dps as an attempt to excuse themselves for not being able to hold aggro have really begun to make me cry.

my worst game recently was involved with having two warriors and a hunter in the group. the hunter was some three levels above the warriors, and his pet seemed quite growly. one warrior was arms spec, and the other fury. as a result, the creature in the middle of this trio just turned in circles from one to the other to the point poor me was never able to hit them in the back. even with shadowstep. i'd appear "behind" the creature, and it'd turn toward someone else making my next stab deliver the warning that i needed to be behind the target.

pointing this out to them seemed to yield only a shocked silence and accusations that i was accusing them of not being able to tank and that i should be understanding because it wasn't what they were specced for. a nice argument. i used to use it myself. but i guess i do too many instances now and not enough questing, because i see such excuses as a burden to my play. i've never wanted to be a strict "play your role" person, and i certainly wouldn't demand they be geared in a certain way. i certainly wouldn't complain if the fury warrior could actually keep the aggro (one or two have, to be fair - and for those who can't, i will just slow my attacks). however, i do think that by the time you've made level 60, you should have a little consideration yourself as to the part you should play.

and this brings me back to the fact that no one plays the pre-70 raids.

you see, everyone is so determined to get to 70, that you have my server awash with 70s or people in a deadfire hurry to get to 70, that there's no chance anyone's getting any experience with their role on the way up. i had people i would tour in a dungeon with who i would add to my friends list because of an enjoyable experience, only to log on two days later and find they were ten levels above me and i couldn't tour with them again until i made 70. nice they can get there quick. i'm not jealous of that at all. i've spaced my time out so i can enjoy the experience. some days i just explore areas.

i certainly don't think anyone should play my way, either. i just think it's a shame you can level so quickly. i had one warrior yesterday who, at level 64, didn't know what the raid icons were, or what good sunder was or why he should hold aggro at all. he honestly didn't know. he said he'd basically soloed all the way up to 62 and only done a few instances. well and good. been there myself. well. i made it to 49. i did the instances with a guild i knew at the time. but i just felt that, by 62, you really should realise what aggro was. i figured it out. it's why i stopped. i got sick of being told to put a shield on. i had wanted to play a two-handed axe weilding psycho warrior. but you can't. that's for pvp, not pve. perhaps in 20 or 40 man raids it's also valid. but in a 5 man dungeon? it's possible. but just plain irritating for me, and has caused more wipes than anything else i've known when the warrior doesn't hold the aggro, the creature kills the nearest dpser (usually me or the mage), then destroys the healer. then the "tank" - who is crying that the priest hasn't done his job...

anyway.

that's enough of a rant for today. i'm hungry.