I've decided to take another break from WoW. Might just be a couple weeks, might be a month or two. I came to the end of another subscription cycle and, besides being broke, I decided that I don't really have any reason to keep on playing right now.

I still have fun levelling my alts, but I don't have any reason to keep working on Baluki. It's hard finding groups (and the time) for dungeons, which is my favorite part of the game. I don't really like to PvP, and to top it all off, my guild is basically defunct and I don't feel like starting with a new one right now. I also don't feel like grinding; this is a game, and I shouldn't have to do tedious, boring stuff.

Maybe in a few months, Blizz will have some improvements in place.

• Shamans (and off-specs in general) still need a lot of work. Blizz really needs to open their eyes and realize that hybrids aren't really hybrids when they've specced 41 points into a tree.
• Jewelcrafting needs improvement. I can only pop out 5g gems for so long, and I don't feel like spending 400g on new designs. And where the hell are more fist weapon designs?
• The end-game needs to be more accessible. They need to make Normal modes for the raid dungeons, because I want to see all the cool stuff end-game has to offer, but I've quit hardcore raiding for good.

My most interesting characters now are my Mage and my Paladin (and maybe my Priest). I just got my Hunter into Outland and realized that I have no interest in continuing with him; every single fight is the same: Hunter Mark -> Pet Attack -> Sting -> Arcane -> Auto-attack. Yawn.

I really hope that Blizz is able to breathe new life into the game sometime soon. I don't want to have to wait for the next expansion.

And is it just me, or does it seem like a whole lot of long-time players are quitting?

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Yes, I'm working on the site again. Bear with me.

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Finally got my Hunter, Inebrius, to 58, and I immediately sent him to Outland. I picked up a couple quests, saw the rewards that would be replacing the junk I've been wearing since 35, and wept openly.

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It's come to this. I'm posting pictures here to win an argument on a message board.

In a discussion on WoW Insider (posted here) I mentioned that it was weird seeing Draenei wearing Ten Storms (and the BC recolored pieces, which are listed in the above post) since TS is covered in Horde logos. Admittedly, I was referring to the Horde logo from Warcraft 3 (seen here) and not the updated one for WoW (seen here), but it's clearly nearly the same logo.

However, the symbol may be a shamanism symbol that the Horde adopted for their use. Note the wolves on the WC3 crest.

Either way, it still says "Horde" to me.

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So, I finally bit the bullet and started a Paladin. Well, that's not strictly accurate; I started her a couple months ago, got her to lvl. 9, got bored, and went back to levelling my other alts. But this week, I decided to dedicate myself to getting her levelled up, because there's a lack of tanks on our server. Yea, I intend to make her Prot eventually, but right now I'm taking some select Retrib talents for levelling.

I don't know what to think so far. I was initially turned off by the fact that their combat system is basically just "hit it with a sword" with a few embellishments, but naturally I keep picking up more spells and talents, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. There's a lot of stuff that they can do that I wasn't aware that they could do. Right now though, my biggest issue is my melee hit rate, so I guess I'll have to craft some JC items on Baluki to help her out until I can get into the Prot tree. (EDIT: I thought for sure there were some low-level +hit items that JCers could make, but I was wrong. The first one I could possibly get drops in Maraudon.)

How are my other alts? Let's see...

My mage is up to about lvl. 26 I think. I like being a caster (which is why Baluki is Elemental) but actually having crowd control options up the ass is a new thing for me. I can keep something sheeped forever, I can freeze everything around me, I can slow them to a crawl...it's almost unfair. Levelling is a much more active affair than it ever was on Baluki; I just cast Lightning Bolt until my target dies, and if they close to melee range, I just have to deal with the spell pushback. But on my mage, I can sheep to avoid pulling too many things at once, I slow my target WITH my primary nuke, and as soon as they get in melee range, I freeze them in place, blink away, and do it all again.

I've actually been having a lot of fun with my priest too. She's shadow (though she's only lvl. 22 or so) and I just grabbed Mind Flay, which is an unusual spell. I haven't quite figured out the best way to use it yet, but it's probably much more useful once I've got a couple other shadow spells.

I respecced my 44 warlock to full Affliction after being full Demonology since I started her. Man, what a trip. I've gotten pretty good at fear juggling, and with the increased range of my DoTs, I can just sit back and watch stuff fall over dead. Having my pet out is kinda a liability, actually.

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