Thursday (9 Dec) - Evening Stall

Thursday (9 Dec) - Evening Stall

Wild abandoned Vashj'ir because of the broken quest chain and headed to the other new zone, Mount Hyjal. As interesting as the underwater zone of vashj'ir is, Wild was glad to be back on dry land. Wild also located another new zone, higher level that the first two, called Deepholm. Wild didn't stay, but will likely be back to quest there after he finishes with Mount Hyjal. Wild plowed through the quests during the day, grabbing every quest he encountered and blasting through them without a whole lot of thought. Even the multiple spawning mobs didn't much bother him anymore. Wild just kept killing them until they stopped spawning. There was one quest that really frustrated Wild for awhile. It was a simple "kill four of these mobs" quest, but those mobs were nearly impossible to find. Well, it pays to read ALL of the quest notes. Picking berries was part of that quest. Wild had the berries, but failed to note that he had to feed the berries to the faerie dragons in the area in order to spawn the mobs he had to kill. Doh.

Wild finally came up on a quest that bested him. Baron Geddon is a mighty boss from vanilla WoW days that has returned in Cata. Wild was dispatched to help out the npc priests that were trying to contain the Baron. Wild was given a special weapon to use. Wild found the Baron surrounded by the priests using their own weapons to cast a channeled spell against the Baron. Wild activated his weapon, but he was too far away. Hey, I'm standing right next to a priest, and he's in range! Oh well, Wild moved closer. And then closer. And then scarily closer. Finally Wild was close enough to activate his weapon. Wild blasted away. The Baron then started a pulsing AoE that was doing some pretty serious damage to Wild. No worries, Wild started healing himself. The damage kept spiking. Wild was losing health despite the healing. By the time Wild realized that this particular quest was not conforming to the "blast it till it dies" strategy, it was too late. Wild was the one who died - For the first time in Cata (outside of a dungeon).

Wild rezzed and came back for a second attempt. He died again, but used that attempt to figure out what was going on. Wild could only use his weapon in between AoE pulses from the Baron. Wild moved back and forth to avoid the AoE. Other players were also attempting the quest. It took awhile, but Wild eventually realized that while he was successfully keeping himself alive, the Baron was not losing any health. None. Wild also noticed at that moment that the quest showed Complete. Apparently Wild only had to hang in there a certain amount of time to get the quest completion. No way was Wild going to be allowed to actually kill Baron Geddon. So Wild wasted some time. But did get the quest done.

Wild took a break, with every intention of coming back that evening to grind out level 83. We had visitors come by, though, including a little girl who made it her mission to dominate all of my time. She also likes to play WoW. In her own way. She was fascinated by the underwater world of Vashj'ir and took over Wild to run him around the zone. Discovering that she could "DONK" level 1 critters on the head, and that they would die in funny ways, that is what she set out to do. Wild entertained her the whole evening and was happy to do so, but he didn't get any questing done. Wild is 53% of the way to level 83.

During Wild's "break," I had a chance to refresh my memory of how stats have changed in Cata. I'm far from expert at it, but I picked up a few pointers that will at least get me going in the right direction.

Wild was interested in moonkin and healer stats, so this focuses on those two forms, not cat or bear. The most important stat by a wide margin is intelligence (+int). Next is +haste, which has priority until reaching the haste cap. After that it gets pretty squirrily. Spirit (+spi) provides mana regeneration. If Wild were running out of mana too soon, then I'd want to increase my +spi stat. However, if mana regen is not an issue, then the new stat Mastery would be better. Well, better for healing. It's still not clear if mastery is better than critical hits (+crit) for moonkin.

Wild focused first on his healing gear set. Wild had packed away 16 pieces of gear he'd won from questing, dungeons, and random drops. Wild had equipped none of them. Based on what he had learned, I compared each new piece to what Wild was already wearing. Out of those 16 pieces, Wild found two he thought "might" be an upgrade. That might not sound like a lot, but two upgrades would be a nice bonus. The rest would still be useful to disenchant for the enchanting mats.

The two upgrades were:

[Willowy Crown], a blue ilevel 308 helm (BRC drop)
[Swamplight Scepter of the Fireflash], a random drop green i278 main hand mace

Both pieces have more +int than Wild's current gear. Both improved on Wild's +haste as well. Both added significant Mastery points, too. With weapons you also have to consider spell power (SP) - the Scepter had more SP than Wild's current weapon.

So what's not to like about them? Well, what that gear gives up is +spi. Wild's in combat mana regen goes down from 769 to 720, which is a pretty considerable drop. Will that hurt Wild in dungeons? I honestly don't know. So Wild intends to use the new gear as his primary gear. If I start having trouble with mana I can always revert back to the old gear.

Poor Philly is not going to get that mace after all.