With my troll mage character (now 15th level), I’ve started questing in The Barrens again. It struck me last night: night in The Barrens is a very peaceful feeling place. I really like that zone at night. It might be my favorite zone in all of WoW.

And I discovered something new to me in that place that I thought I knew completely. I had a quest to go up on Darkmist Mountain and destroy an altar. I had never been up there before, and it’s pretty cool how the atmosphere changes (sky is dark red and hazy). While up there fighting cultists, I made sure to know where an exit was so I could escape from a bad pull. My mage has Slow Fall, so I figured jumping right off the mountain would be the easiest way. Well, when I got a bad pull, right up on the peak of the mountain, I took the down exit. I leaped off the side, activated Slow Fall, and gracefully floated down. It was great right up until I came to the ground – right in the middle of a pride of lions. It was like Wile E. Coyote luck.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

My level 60 orc hunter and my friend’s level 60 undead priest had the quests to go to Southshore and stink bomb the town (3 times) and put rotten eggs in their new beer brew. The NPC guards are level 55, and most of the PCs were level 30-40, but there were a couple 40-somethings, and, at one time, a 60 mage.

We tried to be sneaky the first time, but the guards are all over the place and you can aggro them from just about anywhere. We got split up pretty early, and died individually. The 60 mage totally kicked my ass. He sheeped my pet and fireballed me to death (in like 3 hits!). Fortunately, this guy left town after a few minutes.

We both stayed dead for a while looking around the area to see where everything was. Many PCs were camping our bodies waiting for us to rez. When we released our spirits, we knew what building to get into to ruin the brew. And you have to be pretty near the main street of the town to throw the stink bombs.

We tried several more times, approaching separately, and kept dying. I did well with one or two guards, but there were many times when I aggroed three or more at a time. Several PCs were looking for us, but most wouldn’t turn on their PvP. At one point, I was standing on one side of the river exchanging waves, cheers, and dances with two Alliance PCs on the other side. Any PC who had their PvP on died (60 vs. ~35 isn’t hard), but some were game for the fight.

My friend had the great idea of sending my pet across the town to aggro and drag guards away so I could run into the building to ruin the brew. That was a great idea, and it worked. I had to feign death inside the building to get the 3 guards that saw and followed me in to go away. Then I stood up and egged the keg.

Then a PC came in the inn. (None of the NPCs inside the inn were PvP.) I had a short fight with the PC and then some guards came running back in. I ran upstairs, through the rooms, past all the trainer NPCs, to a dead end, back out, down the stairs and back out the front door, drinking a health potion. Was hilarious. Should have had Benny Hill music playing.

I ran down to the dock with maybe a half dozen enemies trailing me (PC and NPC). I had about 200 health left when a shield popped up on me — thank you, my friend, where ever you were.

I made it into the water and actually managed to swim a long ways out when finally the shield dropped and the night elf hunter killed me with his gun from long range.

We then managed to work together to stink bomb successfully. The whole thing was actually quite fun — a completely different experience. Sneaking both against NPCs and PCs. If my other friends could have been online at the time, we would have owned that town.

Ironically, as soon as we were riding away from Southshore, someone came on the chat and asked to form a group to go to Southshore. <sigh>

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I created a troll mage last night and played up to level 6-7. Wow! He deals damage like crazy. I can often kill a target enemy before they get up to me for a melee attack. I can kill two enemies in quick time, but then have to drink for mana. Very cool.

Again, this is a very different style to play in WoW. Although the starting area for trolls is the same as for orcs, the method of play is not the same. I did many of the same starting quests that I did with my orc hunter, lo these many months ago, but everything felt different. I could also be that my specific memories of the quests have faded in the time since first doing them. I mean, there’s a lot of water under the bridge between level 6 and level 60.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I played my human priest for a couple hours last night, and made level 23. I
teamed up a couple times to fight undead in Duskwood. Some interesting
things happened.

I teamed up with a dwarf priest 24. We talked a lot while doing our quests, and it turns out we both have hunter 60s (his is an elf), and we’re both currently playing a priest for a complete change of experience. We both played our hunters primarily solo, and are now playing our priests with a mind to join groups for instances.

At one point he said I need some twinkage. I thought he meant I wasn’t effective enough in our fights. But he said he inspected my gear, and I didn’t have as good as I could. I found that hilarious, because I’ve been working the Auction House (AH) very studiously, and I thought I had the best gear for my level (as offered in the AH).

After that team up, I met a pair of characters out killing the skeletons I needed for a quest, so I asked to join them. Oddly, though, when I whispered, it was directed to someone back in the town. I have no idea how that happened. But when he told me where he was, I apologized and explained that I thought I had clicked on someone right next to me out in the wild.

He said, “no problem,” and then asked me if I’d like a ring he just got — +7 INT. I said I sure could use it. He said he’d drop it in the mail for me, for free. I thanked him, and sure enough, about an hour later, the ring showed up in my mail.

I eventually did contact and join that pair killing skeletons. One was an elf rogue, the other a human priest. Their pattern of fighting was interesting — the rogue engaged the mob in melee, and the priest just stood back keeping a shield on him. The priest did nothing else unless we got in a bad spot with adds, and then she just ran away. I was hitting the mobs with spells, my wand, and keeping myself (and sometimes the other priest, when we were surrounded) shielded.

I don’t even think the priest ever cast a heal. I healed that priest more than once, myself. The rogue knew his business, and worked hard. The priest just stayed alive and made sure the rogue always had a shield up.

But we did well, and we had fun. My experience with pick-up groups (PUGs) has been quite good playing my priest. (My PUG experiences with my hunter were very limited, and none really bad.) I’m not seeing the terrible stuff that some people complain about.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com