Jocelyn the Tank?

Jocelyn the Tank?

Well, not exactly. Jocy began her early life as a Holy spec paladin. She didn't know any better. So, when she was able, Jocy chose the Retribution spec as her secondary to improve her abilities and speed her advance. Jocy has been "Ret spec" since her boost to level 90. She's worked hard to get to level 91, but she still lagged behind Wild and Fist.

Skinnemuva, a long time friend with some expertise in being a paladin, suggested that leveling in Protection spec would speed her advance even further. Well, Jocy was not planning on using her Holy spec during leveling, so there was an opportunity to replace that spec with Protection to see how that worked. It took some maneuvering with the Paladin Trainer, but Jocy was able to shuffle her specs around and now has Protection as her primary spec with Retribution still her secondary. Jocy is losing a bit of time by making this switch, time which includes learning another spec, but now is the time to experiment. Jocy was 50% of the way to level 92 when she made the switch. Her average DPS in Ret spec was 2656 DPS.

After spending a couple of hours leveling with Jocy in Prot spec I have to agree that Jocy has become incredibly hard to even nick much less do any real damage against her. She crushes everything around her. She raised her DPS by a nice margin (3381 DPS), but its her ability to protect herself that is so impressive. Jocy reached level 92 and gained an i529 gear score.

Jocy has also outpaced Wild and Fist in one area. She is getting a lot more out of her Garrison and followers. She has four followers now she's keeping them all busy.


The maintenance was a real pain. I say that, knowing that it's actually pretty unusual for there to be any serious issues logging after maintenance. Not this time. For the past 45 minutes I've been trying to get to the Silvermoon realm with no success. Oddly, I did get to the Scryer's realm, where I still have three characters languishing in my short, now long abandoned effort on a role playing realm. Makeda is my top toon there, a mage at level 6. I also have a rogue with a name I'm holding on to - Ribsticker.Later in the evening I was finally able to log in. It was still not working at 100%, however, so around midnight I called it quits.

The Natives are Restless

The Natives are Restless

Leveling three characters at the same time is proving to be a bigger challenge than I thought. The idea was that by giving leveling time to all three in sequence it would result in faster leveling overall, since the second and third time I did the quests the faster I should be able to complete them. That isn't working out so well.

The reason may be related to the changes in the game that eliminated a lot of the chain quests - ie, as each quest is finished a new quest is offered. Many players didn't like that and so there are fewer of such. I've been all over the map and still have scattered quests laying around and I still haven't gotten out of the starting zone. I hate leaving open quests in a zone - they should all be completed before I move on! The Blizzard gods also find it amusing to place the starting quest at one level of the terrain and then force me to climb mountains or into dark dungeons to complete them. Having coordinates don't mean much when you don't know if I should look up, down, or sidewise. Maybe I'm still kicking off the rust of not doing any leveling since Fist.

Anyway, Both Wild and Fist have made it to level 92, leaving Jocy still to get there. If I were leveling one toon, that toon would be at level 94 by now, or at least close to it, given that the later levels tend to get harder. I'm not giving up, though. I know from past experience that if I level one toon before starting another, those left behind probably won't be leveled any time soon. I'm going to stick to my plan.

Stat-wise (Level, gear, weapon):
Fist (Level 92, i526, with an i522/i532 pair of one-handers)
Wild (Level 92, i534,i630 staff)
Jocy (Level 91, i522, i630 one-hand sword, i494 shield)

I'm still learning the whole Garrison thing. I did learn more about the hostile Frostwall Goren camped outside Jocy's garrison. Apparently that's where the local mine is. Periodically one of my men will go over there and the Goren kills him. Periodically I go out and kill the Goren (sometimes there are more than one). I can't actually use the mine, and there's no mine outside either of the other Garrisons, so I'm still not quite sure what its all about.

Wild's Outpost has been upgraded to a Fort and has been completely redesigned.It's very disconcerting having everything moved around like that. The Frostwall Goren is here, too, and there is a quest available - if  Wild decides to go kill the Goren and see what it is. Wild did decide to take the Goren on. Wild won that fight and now has a working mine he can use. Have to let Jocy know about that, but she needs to get to level 92 first.

Jocy is going to get some extra time to get to level 92 and will get first crack at level 93.