Free Candy For Everyone

I fear it’s happened again. I hit 70 with my Shaman and my interest in playing her has dropped off. I’ve always been a huge fan of leveling characters. Getting to the next level, seeing what new skills I get, knowing there’s an area I couldn’t get to yesterday that will be open to me tomorrow, these are all aspects of progression I enjoy. But now that Myrendra is 70 all that’s left is getting better gear.

At this point we grind reputation, we grind honor, we farm instances all as methods to the same goal of better gear. This new gear let’s us enter new raid instances, and that’s about the only thing I find at all interesting about this whole process. Sure I’d love to be geared out in fantastic purple epics and riding a super l33t flying dragon but I don’t really want to grind hours every day to get the gold and such required. Grinding doesn’t equal fun.

I’ve started another alt. Of course I have. Heh. I’m still playing my Shaman, but only to run instances with people. The social group aspect is always fun. Running through a dungeon and trying to down things that are a challenge keeps me thinking and on my toes! That’s fun. But running around on my (super slow) flying mount and gathering herbs for hours? Nah, I can’t do too much of that. That’s not playing, that’s some sort of job and the one I have is more than enough of that. There are still dungeons I haven’t been into at all and I’d really like to get around to those, but not if the entry fee is hours of repetition. In the meantime, you’ll find me leveling another druid. Or maybe a warlock. Or maybe…

I’ve been playing a bit of WoW and been busy leveling my Shaman. My Mage hasn’t been getting much play time. I still play most Sunday’s with the group I originally started with, the former Crazy Cattle. But the more they change the game, the less I like the Mage.

She’s not quite dead yet, but she is just not nearly as much fun as some of the other classes. It’s funny, I tried all sorts of different classes and kept coming back to the Mage. She’s the first character I took to 70 (and for now the only one, but that won’t be true for long) and I just couldn’t get enough of lobbing giant fireballs around. But it feels like the other classes are all getting more and more buffs and mages are just getting more and more fragile. It’s just not so fun anymore.

I keep up on my Druid and abandoned her in the low 60s for my Mage. But now she’s looking better and better. With all the great loot and buffs to feral druids she’ll be viable as DPS or a tank. It just seems like she has more options than my Mage. Plus, if need be I can re-spec her as a healer and everyone loves a healer. So why would I play my squishy Mage anymore?

We’ll see what happens. I’m closing in on 70 on my Shaman and still having a good time. But for grouping with my old school group I need something on that server and I just may have to revive my Druid for something a little more viable.

(And I really don’t know why all my character’s names end in A, that is totally weird.)