At some point last night we got the Burning Crusade Classic patch on WoW Classic… I think. The downtime was supposed to be done at 3pm, then 7pm, and then 10pm and… well… some of us have to get up and go to work in the morning.
I suspect that database operations took much longer than expected, which is frequently a thing in my experience.
Anyway, when it it does go live it will be the day of the dividing of worlds and new specs and events and what not. I’m sure I will have a post about that tomorrow. This post was actually supposed to go yesterday, but then EVE Online blew up in three directions and that was the focus of Tuesday. So maybe it is better that the patch is delayed as I can slip this post in now.
As we have run up to the last days of the pure WoW Classic, I have been reflecting on the last 20 months or so of this experiment in nostalgia. Don’t worry, I’ll have a post about that too. But one item I was considering this past weekend was my paladin.
He has made it to level 59, so I can move him on to Outland whenever I choose… once it becomes available.
Wilhelm the Paladin in Silithus
But getting him there has been a grind at times, both due to the nature of the class, the nature of leveling in the old system past level 40, and due to my reading too much into various bits of advice.
For example, I spent a stretch trying to level up based on a retribution spec from Icy Veins that was really for raiding. I eventually found a spec better suited for leveling, which did make things more manageable.
Another bit of information I took to heart was the stated fact that paladins cannot tank in classic. I read that a number of places and, based on that, I went with Viniki, my gnome warrior, to be the group tank when the group settled down to the four of us.
That was a good decision and it has worked out. We have been able to manage most instances as a foursome without having to out-level them. But every time we run into a multi-mob scrum and Viniki is trying to keep aggro on half a dozen non-elites I always think about how that wouldn’t be an issue if I had consecrate. The pally comes with a lot of beneficial skills, though does lack that single target taunt. And the tanking thing, like my first spec, was really meant for end game raiding.
So, this past weekend I decided to tinker with my paladin and the protection spec. I went to the pally trainer and paid to reset my talent points… which was 10 gold because I’ve done that a few times now… and spec’d up the recommended protection talents, which were fairly obvious. I probably would have gotten them right just doing them myself, starting with the need to spec into consecrate on the holy tree first.
That done, I went to the auction house to buy a sword and maybe a better shield. The spec pretty much requires a one hander and shield.
As I wandered into the empty auction house… odd and prime time on a Saturday… I realized that this was the weekend when the auction house had been shut down to clear it our for the WoW Classic / Burning Crusade split.
Of course, I had already done the spec change, so I was kind of stuck. I had a shield in the bank, but not a 1h weapon to call my own. I had been sending green drops and such to Moronae to use for enchanting.
Trade chat, being trade chat, wasn’t helpful on this front. At least not with my budget. So I ended up with the best vendor sword that WoW Head could find me, the Falchion.
A common sword will have to do
With that in hand I went to go train up the sword skill. I figured I could do at least that much as I was starting out with a skill of 22. I hit some lower level mobs for a bit, but then went over to Felwood to pick on some mobs in the low 50s, just to see how I would do.
Of course, with a low weapon skill, even when I was hitting I wasn’t doing much damage. But as the skill built up past 200 I started killing mobs. Meanwhile, I wasn’t taking much damage. Skill ups slowed down around 230, but I kept on killing. I moved over to Winterspring to get some higher level mobs and seemed to be doing okay.
A lot of the pally’s damage is in his holy seals and judgements and I had beefed him up with plenty of +str gear to boost damage as well. I was doing well enough with that common level sword that I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have just gone with protection for leveling up anyway. The kills came a little slower, but I took so little damage that downtime shrank to more than make up for the lower damage. I wasn’t setting any records, but I was doing pretty well considering the weapon.
When Sunday rolled around we tried to get something going, but Moronae was not available. Skronk and Ula were on, so I asked if they could help my pally finish up a quest in the Eastern Plaguelands. Hameya’s Plea was probably something I could manage solo. I did it with my hunter. But it can get out of hand if you’re not careful. So they flew out and we grouped up. The quest was even shareable, so we could all get the reward.
As it turned out we did get a little sloppy and ended up with a mass of undead trolls around us, but a pally tank loves some undead to slay.
Hameya is on the left there
We were able to get in and out without me managing to mess up too much as tank. Running back to turn the quest in, it got them an item to vendor for some gold and me a sword upgrade.
An improvement
Confusingly, they both have the same inventory icon, but I got the right one equipped.
That done, the next item on the list was the mooncloth robe recipe, which comes from a vendor in the library of Dire Maul. So we headed to Feralas and into Dire Maul North.
We had issues doing Dire Maul North as a group of four previously, so going in hard with just the three of us, and with me trying to tank a with a new spec, seemed like a bad idea. But you can get to the library with minimal mobs to kill. We took down one ogre guard and then got onto the stairway that goes down to the center pit of the first big area. Going down far enough that we could jump up on the banister (and waiting until the wandering pack of dogs passed) we were able to avoid the group of ogres in the center.
The stairs behind us
From where we are in the screen shot it is a straight run into the very long tunnel, which fortunately lacks and mobs, that eventually gets you to the library.
Welcome to the Dire Maul library
There Ula was able to able to buy the recipe. She also picked up the Arcane Refreshment quest, which gets her the final drink spell for mages. In order to complete it you need to slay Hydrospawn in Dire Maul East. Since we were already in the neighborhood we thought we might give it a try. We’ve done DME a couple of times already, right?
Getting out of DMN meant running back up the tunnel to the center area again, waiting for the dog pack to pass, then running up the stairs, which meant getting within aggro radius of the ogres in the center. Ula and I made it, running for the door. Skronk got caught and smacked down. But we just met him over in DME since, as a ghost, you get revived in any of the Dire Maul instances.
There we cleared a couple of mobs then considered our options. The plan was to avoid fighting our way all the way in to Hydrospawn, being a tough job for a group of three. Instead, we wanted to drop into the middle area in the main room, the conservatory, which is where Ironbark stands. From there it is possible to track back to Hydrospawn pretty easily… or so we hoped.
Considering the drop
It took us a few tries to get it right. There are a couple groups of non-elites down there, but also some solo elites and the usual groups of treants that run back and forth across the area. By the fourth drop we managed to get in and have a clear LZ from which to work.
There were issues on the first three tries
We then very carefully grabbed any stationary mobs that were in our way, timing our progress to avoid the mobile mobs.
Taking some refreshment while mobs run past
From where I am sitting in the shot above were were able to time it to run past the treants to the fallen column, then to the wall, and then through the archway towards the next area.
Safely through the conservatory
I will say that the draw distance issue, about which I have complained in the past, did not make that run any easier. The treant groups would appear and disappear and what felt like very close ranges to us.
From there we had to slay a couple of Satyrs, but otherwise were setup with our eyes on Hydrospawn. There we were able to pull him… and we almost managed it. We had forgotten that Hydrospawn resists frost attacks, which is a really bad bit of news to recall mid fight when your DPS is a frost mage. You’d think a water elemental would resist fire and be frozen by frost, but what are you going to do.
We made it through the part where he summons two helpers, but I ran out of heals, pots, and any other pally tricks very shortly thereafter and was down. There wasn’t enough oomph left to finish him off.
Dead on the rock and Hydrospawn back in his pool
Still, it was a fun run. We decided that was enough for the day, but we’ll be back again to get Ula her quest reward. I wouldn’t mind another run into DME. My pally has the quest the gets him a serious shield upgrade from the last boss and there are some decent drops.
But by the time we try that the Burning Crusade Classic pre-patch should be in place and I will have to roll with the new spec. Having tinkered with it in beta, I know that at least I won’t have to go up the holy tree to get consecrate. I can give him a trial run next time to see if I stick with my warrior, Viniki, or swap to my paladin, Wilhelm.
