I am not sure exactly what it is about World of Warcraft that causes me to constantly return to it. It could be the fact that I know the expansion is impending, or the fact that my friend Grace is back and leveling again, or it could just be that I find the rhythm of this game comforting in this time of uncertainty. Whatever the case I am largely focused on trying to get this elemental boy to 120 before the impending pre-patch. It is starting to look more and more like said patch is landing next Tuesday the 22nd, and with that disappears the Winds of Wisdom buff that I have been abusing to level all the things. I will truly miss you nonsense leveling speed because it was super fun to run up an army of alts horde side.
I still am not sure what bit flipped in my brain that suddenly allows for playing a caster to be enjoyable. I have long chided the “finger wigglers” of the world, claiming that it was not a thing that Bel’s do. However I am finding the pace and flow of leveling a caster to be terribly enjoyable of late. I don’t think it is enough that I will probably swap to one as a main, but it is still an interesting diversion. Right now I can legitimately say that I enjoy both the Elemental Shaman and various specs of the Warlock. I think Mage may still be a bit too squishy for my tastes, but the fact that I can heal myself up mid fight I think is what adds to the love of this Shaman.
With the pre-patch comes a slew of activities and a return of the scourge trying to invade Azeroth. Unfortunately gone are the really cool Judgement reskin armor sets from the Wrath of the Lich King event, and in its place are a bunch of reskins of the existing Warfront gear. The Alliance are getting brand new colors, and it appears that the horde are getting the same damned set we have had previously which sucks a little bit. Mostly for me I am looking at this as a way of gearing out characters prior to the patch since I have a feeling even with the squish this is ultimately going to be better gear than my alts are currently wearing.
WowHead has a guide to everything that has changed with the pre-patch and more importantly a guide to all of the Scourge Invasion events that I have been snipping images from. I have to admit the part that interests me the most is hanging around in Icecrown and farming the various World Bosses that are available. The base armor available for the event is item level 100 which is supposedly the “squished” version of 430 gear that comes from Normal mode Ny’alotha. I’ve heard that some items can be obtained at a 110 level, but I am not seeing this in the Wowhead Guide. The item that is probably going to be of the most interest is that Bronjahm is dropping an updated version of his bag that is 34 slots.
I am a sucker for pre-patches. I ground the hell out of the one that came with Legion and loved doing those Burning Crusade invasions. In that cause they also served as a really damned fast way to level a bunch of alts, and I remember doing this to catch up all of my Alliance characters at the time to level 100. It does not sound like the Undead Invasions are going to have this fringe benefit, but I do want to spend a little bit of time on my Alliance characters if for no reason other than to try and collect some of the unique armor appearances. As it stands my goals this week are to finish the shaman and prepare myself for a bunch of event nonsense starting next week. The launch of an expansion always brings out a sudden mania, but I will do my best to keep my cool.