Level 20 and Other Players
Level 20
We got both of our characters to Level 20, and flew to Stormwind and our respective class trainers to get our updated skills. Not cheap - I wanted to make sure I got everything, on the basis that you never know what you're going to need, and it cost me everything I had and more (I had to sell a couple of things to cover the last item on the list).
At level 20 my Mage does indeed get teleportation ability, in the form of the 'Blink' spell that flings you forward 20 yards. This promises to be very useful - Mages don't do well in melee combat, so anything that keeps some distance between you and an enemy is a good thing. Blink should let me jump away if something gets too close.
Another useful new spell is Fire Ward, which absorbs a good chunk of fire damage. This has already been useful against Dragon Whelps and Gnoll Mystics, which both attack with Fireballs.
Another new spell is Evocation. This restores 60% of your mana, and that's literally a lifesaver - if your mana runs out in the middle of a brawl you're suddenly reduced to hitting your enemy with a stick or even your fists, or running away. You can't drink water to restore mana while in combat, so the best you can do is hope you have a mana potion and the time to drink it. As a general rule a Mage with no mana probably has about ten seconds to live. Evocation changes that - I'm thinking if I get into a low-mana situation I can immobilize the bad guys with Frost Nova or maybe Polymorph, Blink away then hit Evocation. Evocation sounds great but it has two major drawbacks: for one, it takes four seconds to get the full 60% restore and you can't move or fire off any other spells during that time; if you do, or if something hits you, it cuts the spell short. The other problem is that it has an eight minute cooldown, which pretty much limits you to one use in any normal fight.
As far as Kate's character goes, she should have got the Poisoning skill, but we're not sure that she picked it up when we were in Stormwind so we have to go back very soon to be sure. It turns out that the skill involves creating a potion of some kind then applying it to your bladed weapon of choice. When you hit an enemy with the poisoned blade they suffer nature damage on top of the normal strike damage.
We still didn't get to the two boss fights that I mentioned in the Lakeshire area, but I think our next quest may very well be to take on Bellygrub (again) - he's a level-24 boar living just west of Lakeshire, and so far he's killed us both two or three times. You'd think he wouldn't be too much trouble - he doesn't have any ranged or magic attacks - but he takes a lot of damage, he's fast and imparts lots of hurt close-up. The strategy we've been using just isn't working, but our new skills and spells should help a good bit.
Other Players
Yes, I know WoW is a huge multiplayer community, and yes, I know that it can be useful to form groups to take down some of the tougher monsters. But that doesn't mean I'm about to group with someone I don't know. Kate and I play as a two-person group when it suits us, and just close together but ungrouped at other times, and that's fine with me.
We try not to get in other players' way. If it's plain that other players are in some area trying to take down boars or gnolls or whatever, we generally leave them alone. This is especially true when whatever it is we're there for is in short supply (there's only one Hogger at any given time, for example, so it's a bit daft when four or six other players all try to get him at the same time - better to come back when things aren't so busy).
So I don't appreciate it when other players try to muscle in when we are doing the same thing. It's annoying when we find a promising area to grab a few items for a quest, then two minutes later a bunch of other characters show up (and don't have the decency to go and find something else to do and come back later), force us to stay three or four times longer than we would otherwise, just to get what we came for - and then have the nerve to complain about us taking 'their' kills. I don't like it when someone invites us to join their group when we were there first and doing just fine without their 'help'. And I don't like it when someone starts a little impromptu group by hanging around our characters without saying anything, and joining in uninvited every time a fight starts up.
I don't know if things are any different on other Realms - the one we're in is 'Normal' and I'm really not that fussed about going onto a PvP realm (to me that sounds too much like a kind of Warcraft Deathmatch) but I'm curious to know whether the people on the Role Playing realms are perhaps a little more sensible and courteous.
We got both of our characters to Level 20, and flew to Stormwind and our respective class trainers to get our updated skills. Not cheap - I wanted to make sure I got everything, on the basis that you never know what you're going to need, and it cost me everything I had and more (I had to sell a couple of things to cover the last item on the list).
At level 20 my Mage does indeed get teleportation ability, in the form of the 'Blink' spell that flings you forward 20 yards. This promises to be very useful - Mages don't do well in melee combat, so anything that keeps some distance between you and an enemy is a good thing. Blink should let me jump away if something gets too close.
Another useful new spell is Fire Ward, which absorbs a good chunk of fire damage. This has already been useful against Dragon Whelps and Gnoll Mystics, which both attack with Fireballs.
Another new spell is Evocation. This restores 60% of your mana, and that's literally a lifesaver - if your mana runs out in the middle of a brawl you're suddenly reduced to hitting your enemy with a stick or even your fists, or running away. You can't drink water to restore mana while in combat, so the best you can do is hope you have a mana potion and the time to drink it. As a general rule a Mage with no mana probably has about ten seconds to live. Evocation changes that - I'm thinking if I get into a low-mana situation I can immobilize the bad guys with Frost Nova or maybe Polymorph, Blink away then hit Evocation. Evocation sounds great but it has two major drawbacks: for one, it takes four seconds to get the full 60% restore and you can't move or fire off any other spells during that time; if you do, or if something hits you, it cuts the spell short. The other problem is that it has an eight minute cooldown, which pretty much limits you to one use in any normal fight.
As far as Kate's character goes, she should have got the Poisoning skill, but we're not sure that she picked it up when we were in Stormwind so we have to go back very soon to be sure. It turns out that the skill involves creating a potion of some kind then applying it to your bladed weapon of choice. When you hit an enemy with the poisoned blade they suffer nature damage on top of the normal strike damage.
We still didn't get to the two boss fights that I mentioned in the Lakeshire area, but I think our next quest may very well be to take on Bellygrub (again) - he's a level-24 boar living just west of Lakeshire, and so far he's killed us both two or three times. You'd think he wouldn't be too much trouble - he doesn't have any ranged or magic attacks - but he takes a lot of damage, he's fast and imparts lots of hurt close-up. The strategy we've been using just isn't working, but our new skills and spells should help a good bit.
Other Players
Yes, I know WoW is a huge multiplayer community, and yes, I know that it can be useful to form groups to take down some of the tougher monsters. But that doesn't mean I'm about to group with someone I don't know. Kate and I play as a two-person group when it suits us, and just close together but ungrouped at other times, and that's fine with me.
We try not to get in other players' way. If it's plain that other players are in some area trying to take down boars or gnolls or whatever, we generally leave them alone. This is especially true when whatever it is we're there for is in short supply (there's only one Hogger at any given time, for example, so it's a bit daft when four or six other players all try to get him at the same time - better to come back when things aren't so busy).
So I don't appreciate it when other players try to muscle in when we are doing the same thing. It's annoying when we find a promising area to grab a few items for a quest, then two minutes later a bunch of other characters show up (and don't have the decency to go and find something else to do and come back later), force us to stay three or four times longer than we would otherwise, just to get what we came for - and then have the nerve to complain about us taking 'their' kills. I don't like it when someone invites us to join their group when we were there first and doing just fine without their 'help'. And I don't like it when someone starts a little impromptu group by hanging around our characters without saying anything, and joining in uninvited every time a fight starts up.
I don't know if things are any different on other Realms - the one we're in is 'Normal' and I'm really not that fussed about going onto a PvP realm (to me that sounds too much like a kind of Warcraft Deathmatch) but I'm curious to know whether the people on the Role Playing realms are perhaps a little more sensible and courteous.
Labels: Games, Human Mage, WoW
posted by Pete Ford at
1:52 PM
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