Weekend Plus (4 Nov) - Say Goodbye to Cata? Say Hello to Pandaria?

Weekend Plus (4 Nov) - Say Goodbye to Cata? Say Hello to Pandaria?

Note: This post covers Thursday through Sunday.

Thursday Night - Fist pressed forward in Mount Hyjal, completing another round of questing and eventually running out of quests. She will shift her attention to Deepholm next.

Fist is now level 83.

Friday - The grind is really starting to become a true grind. The experience bar barely moves now when Fist completes a quest. Even with rested xp, heirlooms, guild buffs, and the Monk buff, a quest with over 90,000 xp still registers as barely 1% progress. Fist did not get her usual full evening of questing, and was a little disappointed that the night ended with her only 59% of the way to level 84. Fist did get a set of fist weapons, The Perforator, from Philly. The set is i333, replacing her i317 set. The new weapons not only have increased damage and stats, they each have a socket for an additional +40agi gem. In addition to those gems, Fist used some of her gold to have the fist weapons enchanted with +26 agi each. She should be fine with those weapons the rest of the way to level 85.

Saturday - Well, Fist hit Deepholm hard Saturday, clawing her way through quests to reach level 84. On the way she cajoled Happy to fork over the gold for a "cheap" i442 one-hand mace. One of Fist's matching pair of Perforator Fist weapons went bye-bye after less than one full level. The difference in +agi between the two? Perforator had 161; the new Porter's Tooth-Marked Mace delivered 333. Fist's eyes got really big when she saw all the Pandaria sized weapons and gear available on the AH even at level 84. Wild cautioned her to choose wisely. Happy wouldn't foot the bill for a minor upgrade to a level 85 if she's already snatched up like gear at level 84. All Fist wants to know is - Why can't she get to Pandaria NOW?! Fist is stuck deciding on whether to go to Uldum, or go directly to Cata's highest level zone, Twilight Highlands. Both are now open to her.

Saturday Night - As much as Fist loved the stories Wild told her about Uldum and it's Raiders of the Lost Ark theme, it was the Twilight Highlands Fist headed for. The steady diet of quests kept Fist busy non-stop. Many of the quests were those that became dailies, quests which Wild has done a hundred times and so were intimately familiar to Fist. One of those quests involves an elusive elite that it very difficult to defeat. Fist stumbled over that elite while working on another quest, and didn't even realize it was an elite at first. She was battling two other hostiles at the time and didn't catch the elite name until she wondered who was biting big chunks out of her health. Realizing she had tangled with the elite, Fist bore down hard. Fist took down the elite, and that was no nerfed fight. A little later she picked up the quest to kill the elite, but Fist did not see it appear again.

Around 11pm Saturday night a simple kill in the Twilight Highlands rolled the numbers over and Fist reached level 85.

At level 85, Fist could no longer continue leveling until she completed a couple of quests that got her to the flying ship that will ultimately crash, with the survivors washed up on the shores of Pandaria. Fist went right to work without a break.

Wild was there for the initial launch of Mists of Pandaria. He went through the air battle with a crowd - a large crowd - of other crazies who stayed awake for the midnight launch. We all charged en masse into the huge battle that was ongoing between the alliance (who had arrived in Pandaria before the horde) and the Pandaren defenders. The large concourse had two levels and an interior building, and every nook and cranny were packed with hostile mobs. Despite elevated gear and a literal army of friends around him, Wild died at least twice during that chaotic series of battles.

Fist's arrival at that same battleground was quite a bit different in one important way - she was not surrounded by an army of friends. She was not surrounded by anyone. She was on her own. It was tough. Plain and simple. Every step seemed to aggro something. She fought her way step by step, yard by yard sometimes. She aggroed a whole tent of five mobs on one occasion. She really thought she was dead, but came out of it alive. And then died when a pair of patrolling mobs caught her while she was bandaging herself.

Fist has been so single minded at getting to level 85 (matching Wild, JB, and Philly) that now that she is here she has had to take a step back and assess. Yes, she jumped right into Pandaria, but is she really ready?

In Pandaria Fist cannot use a flying mount. Not until she reaches level 90, I guess. That alone will greatly extend the leveling time. She will have to give up all of her heirlooms - Pandaria is far too dangerous to be wearing heirloom gear, which is another slow down. She has healing potions that are so outdated she couldn't even see the health bar increase when she drank one. So, there are some things that need to get done. But Fist won't wait very long to get back to that panda island.

Fist is 3% of the way to level 86.

By the way, a quick note - The PC crashed last night. Not just a lock, like before, an actual crash. It's up and running again, and I reduced some of the WoW settings on the video to see if that helps. These locks and this crash only happens in WoW. I've never liked this computer, and it's really starting to get on my nerves.

Sunday - Fist Exposes Herself - So What Else is New

On Sunday morning Fist did it. The guild leader for the MM2 guild, Bd, and a good friend of Wild's, was in game. JB was on, and as usual he said Hi, and JB waved back at him. He was getting ready for work, and was wrapping up a few things in Org.

Fist was also in game. JB talked Fist into introducing herself. "Hey Bd, JB would like to introduce you to Wild's new toon. Thought it was time for Fist to go public."

Fist got an immediate reply. "Wild! you sneak! You have a level 85 Monk?!!" Bd proceeded to tell another friend, Lady Hunter, and she was like, "And you never let on! Or told me!"

Fist is staying with Happy's guild for the moment. She'll certainly get an invite to MM2 when she's ready and asks. Bd is patient. She's visible, now, and happy to come out of the closet.

Fist spent part of the morning spending some of Happy's gold to improve her melee gear. She started with a gear score of i302 and finished with i381. Note that despite the large improvement, it doesn't come close to what Wild (i422), Philly (i418) and JB (i412) was able to buy. There just wasn't a lot available, and what was there had increased in price from those heady early moments of the expansion. Fist is still wearing one heirloom, shoulders, because there wasn't anything better available. More than half of her gear is still greens, although they are Pandaren greens, which is much better than the Cata blues they replaced. On the positive side Fist might still get gear upgrades through questing, which is always fun.

On the mistweaver/healing side, Fist was luckier (or unlucky, if you are Happy having to foot the bill). Fist bought 14 pieces of gear (there are only 16 gear slots!). Still, she paid for it out of the gold Happy had already given her, so ... Her new gear score is i401 as a healer. Despite what Bd says about healing in melee gear, Fist wanted to be ready for dungeon healing, in case this melee healing thing didn't work for her.

On further review: I did some reading on "melee healing" and it makes more sense, now. I was under the impression that it meant using melee gear in healing spec or healing gear in melee spec. It's neither. The monk should be in healing spec (mistweaver) and in healing gear. Monk healing is mostly done at melee range. Several melee abilities also have a healing element when in mistweaver spec. Apparently, the ambient healing that occurs while DPSing is enough to heal light to moderate damage without having to stop DPSing and use more powerful healing spells. That's melee healing, I believe. If things get rough then the monk can stop DPSing and go to the rest of her healing arsenal.

Bd didn't have enough time to go into details, but he promised to help Fist out with her healing. He did say that for normal Pandaren dungeons (he has a level 90 monk) melee healing is usually enough to keep a group alive most of the time. I want to see how he does that! Fist does not have access to the Pandaria dungeon finder yet. Not sure what gear level is the minimum required, but it's for sure still a ways away. Some guild dungeon runs with MM2 might be in the cards, though. Looking forward to that.

On a last guild note, MM2 has started raiding. Hmmm.