Tuesday Morning Post: Altoholics Anonymous edition
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Nov 30th 2010 at 11:00AM
You know, I was just going to take it easy until Cataclysm, even with The Shattering upon us, even with the new race/class combos. I figured I'd grab a few of the new pets on my death knight and just coast until it was time to start leveling. Then I figured, what the heck, let's roll a gnome priest and check out the new gnome starting zone. You can see from the picture above where that ended up. She's level 39 now and still going strong! I'm not the only one who's rolled a new character, either. I've seen a lot of human hunters and night elf mages around, and I'm hearing horror stories of Orgrimmar drowning in a tide of technicolored troll druids as well.
That's right, The Shattering is upon us, and apparently all it's really shattered for most of us is any boredom with the game. There's a lot of good stuff going on right now -- and we, of course, have it all here. With today's extended maintenance of 3-11 a.m. Pacific time, you should have time to catch up, right? Read on for a roundup of all the latest happenings.
That's right, The Shattering is upon us, and apparently all it's really shattered for most of us is any boredom with the game. There's a lot of good stuff going on right now -- and we, of course, have it all here. With today's extended maintenance of 3-11 a.m. Pacific time, you should have time to catch up, right? Read on for a roundup of all the latest happenings.
Hot news and features
- Nostalgic for the old, old world already? We have a huge picture gallery full of screenshots of the way things were.
- If you're more interested in checking out the new shape of things, check out this annotated video map.
- Check out the official patch notes for patch 4.0.3a, also known as The Shattering.
- There've also been a few hotfixes since the patch dropped.
- Frustrated by the meta gem requirements in patch 4.0.3a? They're being reverted.
- WoW Rookie explores the Cataclysm troll starting area.
- Scattered Shots looks at hunter changes for patch 4.0.3a.
- Totem Talk discusses bringing your restoration shaman back for Cataclysm.
- Lichborne offers a guide to the new spell alert system for death knights.
- Blood Pact looks at staying mobile as a demonology warlock.
- The Light And How To Swing It looks at retribution paladin glyphs and leveling your new tauren paladin.
- Spiritual Guidance discusses the latest shadow priest addons.
- The Care And Feeding of Warriors looks back at the six-year rollercoaster ride.
- Raid Rx discusses the differences between healing a level 80 dungeon and healing a level 85 dungeon.
- Encrypted Text takes a last look back at the old pre-Shattering rogue.
- Shifting Perspectives looks at why you should or shouldn't play a troll druid and deals with balance problems old and new.
- Arcane Brilliance is thankful for things.
- Patch 4.0.3a bought back some missing glyphs but put the ink trader out of commission for a few weeks.
- Enchanting Vellum is now vendor-purchased.
- Insider Trader takes a look at the state of inscription as we head into Cataclysm.
- Blood Sport looks at awesome arena addons.
- The new battlegrounds are now on the in-game calendar.
- Addon spotlight looks at the latest iteration of Atlasloot.
- Check out the latest installment of Safe Passage, WoW Insider's weekly webcomic.
- Know Your Lore looks at the history of the Dragonmaw clan.
- 15 Minutes of Fame talks to a group of players who've bought WoW to the iPad.
- The Lawbringer discusses the legalities of using fronts in your addons and the problem with suing Deathwing.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.Filed under: Realm Status, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
patrick Nov 30th 2010 11:15AM
I tried to quest in Durotar but every single mob is dead. Always. Even the critters.
Troll druids are a plague.
Rihahn Nov 30th 2010 11:35AM
Yep. On my server there are at least two troll druids in *every* random LFD instance, an average of 3 in *every* random BG, and they are sweeping across Azeroth like some sort of LSD-inspired locust plague.
Never knew there was so much interest in playing a druid that wasn't an elf/cow. :)
Mike Nov 30th 2010 11:32AM
If you think Troll Druids are bad, wait until Goblins become the next plague.
Tirrimas Nov 30th 2010 12:14PM
@Mike:
My new Tauren pally should be high-enough level by then to stomp every single money-grubbing one of the into the ground.
Truly, they are the Horde's gnomes.
duskhawk Nov 30th 2010 11:12AM
Technicolor? You're generous. I generally describe them as "colored by toddlers."
I went with an undead hunter, and despite my arachnophobia (and a week of spider nightmares) haven't replaced her pet yet.
How's the dwarf shaman population? It's a combination that interests me from an RP perspective (I would totally go dual classed Elem/Enh because female dwarfs seem like they could pull off either lobbing lightning at you or pounding your face in), but realistically the odds of me playing anything out of communication with my guild is pretty low.
Kunikenwad! Nov 30th 2010 11:23AM
Dwarven shaman are completely and utterly awesome. I've got my dwarf to 56 right now and the leveling experience has been a blast. My quest progression took me these places:
Dun Morogh -> Loch Modan -> Wetlands -> Arathi Highlands -> Hinterlands -> WPL -> EPL -> Badlands -> Searing Gorge -> Blasted Lands
Nothing but absolute fun so far. Highly recommend EPL and WPL.
Brett Porter Nov 30th 2010 11:39AM
My dwarf shaman (Riggy on Icecrown-US) is awesome!! He's already 44 after just over a day /played, making him my fastest leveler yet. I don't see too many others out and about buy meet a few in instances. He is a proud member of the Wildhammer clan and officially my favorite alt at the moment.
Brett Porter Nov 30th 2010 11:47AM
OK so totally didn't mean to double post there. The site is acting a little funny saying it's sending an email to confirm and a password to use, but I already have one. :-/
Apologies!
Sorithal Nov 30th 2010 11:48AM
There are quite a few Dwarf Shamans out there, but it's not a ridiculously huge amount on my server at least.
For some reason Dwarf Shamans are insanely fun to me, and that's after trying an Orc, Troll, and Draenei Shaman over the years.
Noyou Nov 30th 2010 12:00PM
Agreed. Put off making a shaman until last week when I could roll a Dwarf shammy. My patience was rewarded with a very cool class and totally new quests to level in. The new zones so far are such a breath of fresh air. I had to go "Kill" hogger of course and do some Elwynn quests. I made sure to do all the quests in Loch Modan before moving on to Duskwood. I might go back and complete westfall. It's really almost overwhelming. Blizzard really did a nice job as far as grouping quests together. It seems to me the leveling flow is much neater. I also actually want to not move on and miss anything questwise and that is a good problem to have right now :) I might try and stay to Eastern Kingdoms and resist going to Tanaris like I usually do at lvl 40. I am also thinking that this toon might be my new main replacing my Paladin and jumping ahead of the soon to be delayed worgen druid :)
Pat Nov 30th 2010 12:16PM
Race changed asap to Female Dwarf Shaman, Casting animations are superb and I've seen a few running around as Enh, WTB Tri spec!
Dea ex Machina Nov 30th 2010 12:35PM
Arachnophobia? (wince) Oooogh. Um, I hope you recover from the nervous breakdown you probably had/will have in Hillsbrad.
Wrynna Nov 30th 2010 2:45PM
I rolled a female dwarf shaman and LOVE IT- she is pretty intimidating. The leveling is engaging and streamlined, great story telling, and... Dwarfs make awesome shamans. Only one thing I would ask for... WTB tattoos....
Adremelek Nov 30th 2010 1:48PM
I totally know what you mean about the spider pet. Although I wouldn't consider myself arachnophobic, spiders do creep me out quite a bit (I had to kill the Terokkarantula with my eyes closed, ha), the little creep has grown on me, except for the swim animation...
Megs Nov 30th 2010 4:21PM
Oh lordy, do they swim? /shudder. I didn't realise an 'Appendaged One', as they're known in my house, would be the undead pet. I automatically ran away from it, then renamed it 'Shoo', then got so freaked out by a screen seemingly filled with legs that I logged out and deleted the character all together. We don't say the s-word in my world.
styopa Nov 30th 2010 11:16AM
The only issue I'm having is being badly torn.
I have 'teh sweet h31rl00ms' for at least a 40% xp buff, and as a tank, PUG queues are around 30 seconds or less....but I'm leveling past all the new content I wanted to see!
I rocketed from 20 to 30 in a few hours of PUGs, and realized I'd pretty much missed Ashenvale, and a good chunk of Stonetalon. :(
Not sure what I want to do. I will say that they've definitely cleaned up some of the lowbie dungeons (stockades and deadmines hugely, BFD sorta, RFC, WC and Gnomer not at all?), so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they did to BRD, UBRS, etc.
Tip: when the quest givers are at the start of a long dungeon like BFD, and you're at the very end, zoning out and back in puts you back at the start right away.
Saeadame Nov 30th 2010 11:20AM
You can always level multiple alts haha, you seem to have experienced the dungeon side of things, so next alt you can forgo the heirlooms and quest through the new zones =D.
matt Nov 30th 2010 11:31AM
I kind of lost interest in my gnome priest with full heirlooms because quests were going green and even gray before I finished a zone. I dinged twice in WC which only exacerbated the problem.
I am having more fun on my new server fresh re-roll dwarf shaman that has no help at all. He gets to see the sights and run dungeons without passing the awesome new zones. finished westfall last night and planning on doing the much talked about redridge this evening.
Heirlooms were really great to get from 1-58 before because of the poor design of classic quest areas, now that those zones are fun (and new) I just don't see the point of skipping them in heirlooms. once I get to 58 though, all bets are off, I'm going to LFD rush through Outland and Norhtrend, might even x-fer some heirlooms over to my new realm.
Huarmy Nov 30th 2010 11:33AM
I've found the same problem (leveling past the quest content using dungeons) on my gnome disc priest. For Catacylsm, where I plan to level a worgen bear tank, I will probably turn off XP gain from time to time while I tank low-level dungeons.
styopa Nov 30th 2010 11:33AM
@Saeadame: argh, please don't remind me.
I already have 6 80's that I'm going to have to slog from 80-85, regear, and I've mentally already reserved a spot for the goblin shammy.
Sigh. Yes, I'm an altoholic.