Whoops.

Yeah... so. Hello! I kind of spaced I had a blog. Awesome.

The (on time) release of WotLK has come and gone. Dusk hit level 80 pretty quickly (I think I was the third in our guild). I had been leveling my hunter after her, but she stalled at 77. Quite to my surprise, I blasted my paladin to 80 and have been doing 10 mans with him. So. Much. Fun.

I found myself rather disenchanted with the changes being made to feral tanking (and with 25 mans we seem to have an abundance of tanks), so, with that in mind, I changed Dusk's primary spec to restoration.

Yeah, yeah, I know. She's dual spec-ed though, so her second spec is still tank when/if it's needed. Disenchanted, but not abandoned! It's great for soloing.

That being said, I am having a blast healing. I don't know how good I am at it--I have a hard time parsing my crap from WWS logs, since last time I checked it has problems properly attributing Lifebloom stacks/blooms to the right healer--but I guess I'm not horrible. I'm still re-learning the instincts for healing. Grid is freaking invaluable, as the way I have my raid bars set up is pretty terrible for healing (but great for everything else). I need to remember to use Swiftmend more, especially since I have the glyph for it. I also need to recreate my "oh shit" macro for Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch + Swiftmend.

I absolutely adore the changes to Tree for WotLK. I had been saying for a long time that they need to buff tree form, give it some kind of armor buff (because it is a FREAKING TREE) or something. Well, ask and ye shall recieve. I also love being able to cast Thorns in tree form, and Abolish Poison, and Remove Curse. And obviously, Healing Touch. Oh man. And Wild Growth is a pretty fun spell, even with the six second cooldown (which, honestly, is not a big deal). Those changes make healing fun for me, again. So, yes, having a jolly good time.

When 3.1 hit, I purchased dual spec for the paladin as well. I figured I could spec him for retribution as primary (because I am all about whacking the shit out of things with a giant weapon) and secondary, healing.

Oh, my god. I am terrible at paladin healing. It literally frightens me.

To be honest, I think part of my problem may have been some of the gear Mal has, but I believe the majority of my problem is that it's such a turn-around from druid healing. There is an incredible lack of mobility--I never really realized how difficult it is to try to move and heal until I tried it--and I have no HoTs to toss up while I'm running to change positions. I now have much greater respect for those paladins that choose to be holy.

Alright, I think that's enough ranty pants from me. More later, including an update of my avatar (I hope).

Respec.

I just respecced Maldiriel, my level 42 Blood Elf Paladin. No big changes--he started off protection, and is still protection, but the first time I specced prot, I did it messily. Now it's a tighter build. See it here.

After he finishes off the prot tree, I'll probably spec the remaining points in retribution. But maybe not. I don't know. It's not like he's leveling real fast anyway--the boyfriend and I only really play our palis together, so one will not get ahead (they're probably within a bubble or two of xp from each other). I've got a while to think about it.

Meanwhile, I've taken to playing a Draenei Warrior on a different server. My boyfriend also has an almost identical character and we're doing the level together thing with them. I do somewhat miss playing Alliance. Levels 10-30 are a piece of piss on that side. Not so much for Horde. Though if you make it through to 30 on Hordeside, you're pretty much golden for the rest of the grind to 70.

Let it just be said--warriors are hella fun for a while, but sometimes the button mashing gets to be annoying (says the person who loves playing rogues). I guess it's almost too repettive--charge, heroic strike, maybe a rend, heroic strike, rinse, repeat. And I know a lot of that is due to the low level of the character (12, I think). But I think that is the reason I end up never having a warrior higher than 19 or 20. I get bored. I am hoping that the Draenei keeps my interest though. Racial healing ability ftw.