Recently, I decided to do something with all those Emblems of Heroism/Valor that were clogging up my currency tag, and so bought myself the heirloom shoulders and Bloodied Arcanite Reaper. I soon found myself in possession of a level 80 death knight (messing about with Frost and Blood specs, waiting for 3.2 to see if Dual Wielding becomes viable again) and thus, had a dilemma. There's only three classes that can wear the Polished Spaulders of Valor and I have two of them at 80 now. So what to do?

Rather than bank them in the hopes that they'll work in the expansion (I don't think they will, because it's not like Blizzard to put out an expansion and then let you cheat your way through it the first time) I decided I'd try another paladin. The last one was horde side, and my burning vitriolic hatred of blood elves made him very, very hard to level. I mean, they twirl around when you jump! I hate that!


So here I am, three days into my new Draenei Paladin, and man, it's a surreal experience. I can't tell if it's the class, the heirloom shoulders and their 10% XP bonus, or the two hander that upgrades itself every level, but I'm waltzing through the zones. I blew through the Draenei starting zones, made short work of Westfall and now I'm making my merry way through Redridge and Duskwood. Elites fall to my might with, frankly, ridiculous ease. It sure wasn't this way coming through on a warrior way back in the day.

Is it the class, the faster leveling, or the weapon that's always as good as the best blue weapon you could possibly equip? And is it a problem if I'm having absolutely no problem blasting through the content when that's why I got the shoulders and weapon in the first place? I mean, it's kind of boring, but that again could be the class: low level paladins basically use a seal on themselves once every 30 minutes, judge every time the cooldown's up, and pop Consecration and Exorcism in-between autoattacks. You could sleepwalk your way through it with cooldowns as long as 8 and 15 seconds on those attacks.

And so I ask you, gentle (and not so gentle) readers: have you found yourself saying 'this is too easy' and found the fun lacking? Was it a class, a level range, a gear situation, or anything else that just seemed to take all the effort out of the game, and did you feel like it was a hindrance? Or were you totally on board with it, the way I was on my DK in Outland? Because frankly, the faster I leveled through that place the better I liked it.

Tags: alt, breakfasttopic, leveling, lowbie

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics, Classes, Alts