State of the WoW Address

It occurred to me that I haven't recently talked about what I am actually up to in-game these days. So in case anybody is curious...

Overall: I'm spending less time on WoW than I used to. This is due to a couple factors: firstly, my work schedule, and secondly, other real-life things. Also, as much as it sort of pains me to say it, I have realized that for the time being I essentially have to "retire" from active raiding and even Heroics-running, at least for a little while. See, I work in retail, where the schedules are random and I don't have any guaranteed days off (except Sunday, because I talked them into that), and the time of day that I work is very much subject to change. When I first started working here, I was working almost exclusively mornings and days, which left me the late afternoon/evening to do WoW stuff. These days, I am working almost exclusively afternoons/evenings. This means my time off is in the morning, and nobody raids in the morning.

I am sort of hoping this issue will rectify itself after a few months, which is when I'm planning to implement some fairly large life changes including a new job, but we'll have to see. I do enjoy raiding and instancing and I'd love to be able to write about more raiding misadventures but at the moment, it's simply not feasible.

So I am not on WoW quite as much as I used to be. When I am on WoW, my time is split between my Alliance characters on Silver Hand and my Horde characters on The Venture Co. See, when you can basically only play WoW when nobody else is on, you play less of your more "social" characters (which my Alliance ones largely are), and more of your alt/solo characters (my Hordies), so I've really been alt'ing it up.

Tawyn, 70 night elf hunter, longtime "main", has really not been getting a whole lot of playtime although I hop onto her sometimes to zip around and do the Outlands dailies (I really haven't felt inspired to go to the actual island since getting the epic flyer). I still <3 her dearly even if she's on semi-vacation.

Tamaryn, 39 night elf druid, is my other Silver-Handie that I've been playing. Yes, she's 39. Halfway through 39 in fact. That would make her my highest-leveled non-hunter, and my third highest level character overall. I've really become quite welcoming of the druid playstyle as something I can switch over to when I'm feeling "different". Tamaryn has leveled pure Resto and I have a hard time imagining her as something else; I like the thought of feeling invincible and feeling very defense-oriented as opposed to offense-oriented. I also really like healing in battlegrounds and in instances. I like the whole HoTs playstyle. (And have I mentioned recently that I'm madly in love with Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch?) That said, I am considering respec'ing to Boomkin in another level... but... I dunno yet. I really like Resto.

And now the Hordies...

Lunapike, level 63 Tauren Hunter, is over halfway to 64. In all honesty I could be leveling her a lot faster than I am, but I've had a bit of a hard time making the Outlands transition this time around-- leveling feels soooo sloooow and it's so hard to bring myself to do it this time. I am working on it, though, slowly but surely chipping away at that XP bar.

I have two different "futures" planned for her and which one comes to pass will depend on a few different factors I think. Option one is to make her a very PvP based toon, an idea which I find appealing-- it would let me experiment with various PvP specs and gear without spending tons of gold with Tawyn. Option two is to get her into a raiding guild (a server transfer wouldn't be out of the question for this). It will all depend, I think, on what happens when I can hammer out a more stabilized schedule and I can figure out exactly what is going on with Tawyn's future. Aaaaaaanyways...

Althalor, level 24 blood elf hunter... my highest-leveled male character. I lovelovelove his backstory and personality and I love playing a male blood elf because, well, to put it bluntly... helloooooo nurse.

His only current pet is The Rake but I'm camping out for Humar and once I'm 70 with him I'm gonna get Sian'Rotam and he'll have the three lions as his pets. ...did I just say "once I'm 70 with him"? Three level seventy hunters? Am I crazy yet? And should I be saying "80" instead? ...probably.

More people need to roleplay with poor Althalor though. I think his belf-ness scares the good RPers away. Guys! I promise I don't spend my days walking slowly and dramatically around Silvermoon talking about vampires! I haven't even been to Eastern Kingdoms since level 2! And look, I don't have a chibi-baka-kawaii-anime name* either! I am credible! /flails around

* The number of people I've seen, mostly belfadins, who fall into this category is staggering.

Songlark, level 18 tauren druid: this is actually the first "real" druid I made, but she was quickly surpassed by my alliance one because I wanted to play with my guildies. Now though, I kind of like the thought of having a secondary druid for when I'm feeling druidy but also hordey, so I've been slowly working on her. She had stints as Balance and as Feral but I have this strange terrible disease where I have to play Resto if there is a Resto tree available, so... yeah. /casts HoTs on you

Rounding out the active characters is Crazyhorns, a level 9 male tauren shaman. His creation was inspired by a buffalo plushie I have who was given to me specifically because "he looks like a tauren", my very favorite race in WoW. So I, of course, had to create his virtual doppelgänger. I keep planning to make him enhancement because that's what you're supposed to do with leveling shammies, but I dunno, I have this horrible history of spec'ing Resto if given the option. I do enjoy being able to cast, heal, and whack something's face in, all within seconds of each other. Hybrid classes are kinda fun.

Oh, I also have a female dwarf hunter I am sort of working on, but the details on her are classified, at least for the time being!

Well, that'll do it... now ya know what I'm up to these days. Cookie if you actually read through that post! I'm off to work now, but WoW seems to be downloading a new patch, so go get your mounts, young level 30s!

P.S. "Hunters: Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot." WOOHOO! I can't count the number of times my Kill Command has locked up my Auto Shot. And I even hand-weave my shots manually! So glad it's fixed now.