Ooo Shinies!

So Patch 5.0.4 hit the other day and I feel like a n00b when playing my Paladin. It's like I have to relearn Ret once again. Thanks Blizz, you can't just modify our abilities so I can pick it up easily again (which is what my Resto Shaman, Disc Priest and Fire Mage all are like.)

So as we all start readjusting back to normal gameplay, it's time to focus on looking forward to the future of my own gameplay: Namely, where do I want my current characters stories to go and what, if any, new toons do I want to roll?

After doing some research to improve my mage's rotation I can across WoW Roleplay Gear, a site that happens to be a great database for certain looks and transmogification sets. So it got me thinking about my human warrior, rolling an RP Night Elf warrior, finishing out my priest's mog set, redoing my druid's look, how I want my Horde paladin to look at 85, and put me back in the realm of uncertainty on what I want my mage to look like.

Aspiring Sentinel

Druid set

Human Warrior

Priest Blues

Horde Paladin

New Favorite Alt

When is it time for you to move on from a character to another?

This is a question I have been pondering for awhile now. For the most part is in regard to my druid, Ineri, but these days I almost wonder if I shold start asking the same about my paladin, Mirax. The question about benching Ineri comes fro the fact that I feel as though I suck at playing her. Of the three characters I have leveled to 85 in this expansion she has been by far the hardest to gear and run with. Just transitioning from regular dungeons to heroic dungeons was painstaking and I didn't feel comfortable running those with her until she practically outgeared them. I have talked about her restoration and balance specs with the main resto druid in guild. He helped me with my spec and things have become a bit easier, but I still feel that druid healing and I do not belong together. I do love playing bear, but I am a horrible tank with the exception of one boss fight in Violet Hold. For some reason I can kite the kite boss perfectly in there but cannot tank anything else successfully. thus my inepitude at the druid class makes me wonder if I should stop playing a class I once enjoyed so much.

This brings me to the topic on benching Mirax. She is my first character and the main one that I play. I'm not sure I could ever truely bench her for that reason alone. Lately however, I feel as though I am not able to play her to her full potential. Other retribution paladins kick my ass when it comes to dps. Other melee classes that are less geared than I make me efforts look silly. I have been wrestling with making her a holy paladin as her main spec, and while I do well at healing on her I still feel as though I do not play her to her full potential. This combine with the amount of time I have spent leveling my two discipline priests, Elscol and Ayella, I feel as though I am almost more proficient at playing them than Mirax. I'm constantly getting complimented on my healing skill as a disc priest and the insane things I can heal through. Heck, Elscol pulls the same HPS at level 72 that Ineri pulls at level 85. And with my current drive to get Ayella to 85 I'm not sure what I'm going to do in terms of the character I play most when she gets there and gets geared up. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

In-Game Character Relationships and Quasi-RP

I don't play on an RP server and the notion has always appealed to me. Yet, when I tired rolling a toon on a serious RP server once I failed miserably at it. Like a lot of players I do make up backgrounds and personas for my characters as I find it helps me get to know and understand my characters better and I feel it helps me play them better. If you know the character's M.O., then you understand why you play them the way you do. This quasi-RP as I call it had lead to some interesting things as I've gotten to know Mirax and she helps me understand my own motives.

I've struggled to make a background for her, though thankfully Blizzard did that already as she's a Draenei and crash landing in Azuremyst Isle was one of the most profound experiences I had when I first started playing WoW. The land was breathtakingly gorgeous and the environment was so surreal that I was captivated as soon as I got away form the level 6 striders that kept killing me after I had deleted my hearthstone. That experience of running around Azuremyst and later Bloodmyst Isles shaped who Mirax is and why she does the things she does. There have been few in-game experiences that have affected me like this and most of the subsequent ones all had to do with a single player, Mirax's partner in most crimes: Mälik.

Like Mirax, Mälik crash landed on the Exodar and took in everything that Azeroth had to offer. Since sometime during Wrath, after Ulduar was no longer top raiding tier, Mir and Mal have been stomping it up all over Azeroth and Outland. We got out Hero of the Zandalar Tribe together, helped each other finish quests and get dungeon achievements. And we've done a bit of play RP together. I could argue that Mälik is Mirax's in-game soulmate as the nature of our RP does tend to devolve into more adult themes and thankfully I'm female in real life and Mälik is male. Makes for a bit less on the awkward side, except I'm not sure Mal considers Mir his in-game partner the way I do.

The only issue with a relationship like ours is how our situations outside of game affect the in-game one. When we do get into the RP part, we are projecting part of ourselves onto out characters and that's the sticky part. How does one deal with the fact that their in-game mate/date/lover/etc deal with the fact that they have a girlfriend outside of game and how does that affect their gameplay with you? Yes, WoW and everything that happens in the digital world of Azeroth is just a game, but the people and personalities are real. I actually met up with Mälik in real life this year and he is exactly the same person in the real world as he is over the Ventrillo server. So it makes you wonder what's going on in a person's offline life that makes them do the things they do online and how comfortable they are with the actions you take in-game regarding them.

Mälik and Mirax in a secluded room in Stormwind.