The Race Card is the Credit Card…

Race Change is available and that’s cool.  It’s a teensy bit cheaper than Faction Change and the cool down is an incredibly reasonable three days.

Neat.

Oh…what’s this?  They dropped the faction change cool down to three days as well…

Three days.

I’d expected Rainchaser to give up her night elf trappings once the original 60 day cool down was complete – wrapping her cross faction adventures up with a relieved sigh and quick trip to Thunderbluff to sit and stare across the grand mesas that have been her home for so long.

Yet here I sit – credit card in hand and my heart torn by indecision.

I Hate that I Love This Death Knight Toon…

Like a lot of folks I’ve been feeling a little beat up in WoW lately.  I don’t get to raid much and my PvP outings (since the faction change) have been less than stellar.  A combination of crappy teammates and an overall dissatisfaction with seeing my lovely Tauren huntress wrapped up in Night Elf skin has just exacerbated everything to the point that I can’t stand entering Arathi Basin without AFKing out after 5 minutes or so.

It’s obvious that burn out is starting to set in.  It was likely burnout that lead me to faction change in the first place.  So with no raids on the schedule for a bit and Marrowstrike still refusing to drop for me in h-ToC ,I took some time out from Rainchaser and contemplated how to spend the evening without disengages and explosive shots to fill the quiet.

On a whim – I rolled an Alliance Death Knight over on Twisting Nether – my old RP-PvP server.  Now, I’ve never managed to do much with a DK – never could finish the starting area quests – they were just – distasteful to me.  When I play the game – I play to be a “good guy” – I want to help people – save people – not slaughter the innocent.  You can laugh – but that’s how I play the game.   Anyway – that all said, I didn’t expect much when I rolled him up.  I figured I’d lose an hour or less and be back to the fishing daily on Rainchaser.

It didn’t work out quite like that though.

First off – I made a dwarven DK – mainly because I’ve never seen a dwarven DK before.  Human, Tauren, Belf and Night Elf aplenty – but never a dwarf.  There’s probably some min-maxer reason for this that I don’t care about – but there you go.

Anyway – so dwarf – black skin, bald head, blood red beard.  Cool.  I worked my way through the starting area quests trying to pay attention to how the class played.  After some trial and error I figured out the rune system (mostly) and have a basic handle on runic power.  Pissed off and burnt out as a hunter it was a novel experience to run around killing Scarlet Crusade folk as the weird hybrid melee / caster that is the Death Knight class.

It wasn’t bad.  I enjoyed the play and after figuring out the rotations and getting into the story line I burnt through the quests and found myself in the big mash up battle between the death knights and Lights Hope Chapel.

Once it was all said and done I entered Stormwind with a completely different kind of respect for fellow DK’s like Koltira Deathweaver and Thassarian.  They weren’t just adhoc death knight NPC’s anymore but allies with a story and some serious resonance.

But what to do next?  Well, what does any brand new level 58 DK with a load of best in slot gear and no real desire to hit Outlands do?  He hits the battlegrounds.

What came next was probably the most satisfying PvP experience I’ve had in a really long time.  Now granted – the 50-59 PvP bracket is just a tad…silly…it tends to be full of first time death knights and a mix of players trying to BG level.  While DK’s aren’t the face roller class they started out as – they’re still extremely powerful.  Higher level characters with good gear and enchants can go toe to toe with a fresh DK – but unless they’re rogues or ret-Pallies it can be a hard fight.

It’s amazing what a perfect storm of abilities death knights bring to the table. Snares, an incredible gap closer, dots, last stand like abilities, pets.  It’s as if Blizzard decided to take every good idea they had in mind for *other* core classes and packed them all inside the death knight.

After 10 games of Warsong Gulch (all wins I might add) I finally logged off (smiling) with that same glutted, satisfied feeling that my blood worms must have after feasting on a level 52 rogue.

Without realizing it I had already written some simple in game backstory for my dark little face melter and thought about keeping him around for PvP leveling and maybe some rep and trade skill farming.

That surprised me.

I didn’t expect this guy to make it out of the starting area – and now I’m entertaining the thought of having him level in the battlegrounds while completing all the low level quests in Eastern Kingdom so that he can level his mining and work toward the Loremaster achievements?

Really?

While I doubt this will gain any long term traction for me I have to say that I can see why many players simply shelved their long time mains.  Death Knights are fun.  Serious fun.  I wish like hell that my hunter was still this fun.

And that’s probably what bugs me the most.

Because Saurfang is Awesome…

For those of you that weren’t there…

High Overlord Saurfang yells: I am Saurfang. Brother of Broxigar. You know me to be the Supreme Commander of the Might of Kalimdor. An orc – a true orc warrior – wishes for one thing: To die in the glory of battle against a hated enemy. Some of you have fought in battles. Peace has been with us for many years. Many years we sat idle but many years we battled. In those years – where strife, the land and Legion and Scourge, sacked our homes, killed our families — these insects dwelled beneath us. Beneath our homes — waiting. Waiting to crush the life from our little ones. To slay all in their path. This they do for their god. And for our gods? We defend. We stand. We show that as one. United. We destroy. Their god will fall. To die today, on this field of battle, is to die an orcish death. To die today is to die for our little ones. Our old ones. Our… loved ones. Would any of you deny yourselves such a death? Such an honor?

Saw this in a thread on the forums and remembered hearing it for the first time a long time ago on a server far, far away…(not long before it fell over…..)  Thought I’d share.

Icecrown Idiocy….

Okay – Blizzard released some info on the Icecrown Raid.  It sounds *awesome* – everything that is – but this:

As they continue their ascent, the Alliance and Horde heroes ultimately end up outside of the citadel where their hatred for one another erupts into a battle for dominance over the Rampart of Skulls. Players will join in battle alongside High Overlord Saurfang on the Orgrim’s Hammer gunship or Muradin Bronzebeard on The Skybreaker in a unique encounter. Each faction will protect its gunship and try to destroy the other one in a back-and-forth battle to see who is truly worthy of facing the Lich King.

Really?

While I’m sure the fight will be epic and I’ll enjoy it when I get to do it – from a story point of view I can’t think of anything stupider than two factions that have aligned in the past to try and tear one another apart when they’re at the Lich King’s doorstep.

Seriously – any leader that allows this to happen deserves to die in a fire and *not* be mourned.  Piss – poor – pathetic – pandering bullshit.

Muradin and Saurfang aren’t idiots – why would they let something like this happen?  What value does it provide?  Personally I figure someone just wanted an excuse to do an airship battle (which is cool!) – but not like this.

Maybe there’s a reason buried deeper in the instance but at the moment it just smells bad.

WTS Jaina Proudmoore – Traitor to the Alliance

Catchy title huh?

Over in the official forums there’s a really good thread full of lore and trolls that are picking apart the fact that Jaina Proudmoore will lead the Alliance forces into the Icecrown 5-man.

The resounding feeling from many is that they would rather follow a [basic campfire] into battle than trust their lives to Jaina.

For many, Jaina is a security risk.  To them – she doesn’t have the Alliance’s best interests at heart.  The fact that she has effectively worked with the Horde for so many years and formed a trusting relationship with Thrall is proof enough that she’s not fit to lead.

Others take a more moderate road.  That she was willing to turn her back on her own father when he ignored an existing treaty and put forces ashore in Kalimdor was a devastating personal choice.  She had to put the welfare of the world (really) before the her own desires.  Her decision saved the Alliance (and the Horde) from another brutal and unnecessary war but came at the cost of her fathers life and the lives of the marines and soldiers he took into battle.  They also remind readers of the fact that it was in great part due to her actions that Archimonde was defeated at Mount Hyjal.

Yet despite what had to be agonizing personal choices to step away from friends and allies when she feels the greater good is being served elsewhere, Jaina is getting painted as a wishy-washy whiner that doesn’t know where to stand.  There were even a few forum goers that claimed to support Arthas’ decision to purge Stratholme and gave her the business for walking away from the prince.  Hell, to some in the thread, the fact that she teleported King Varian and his troops out of the Undercity before the furious Alliance king could start a fight with the battle weary Thrall was proof positive that she didn’t have the Alliance’s best interest at heart.  After all – as powerful as she is – if she’d come to Varian’s aide at that crucial moment, even Saurfang’s godzilla like cleave attacks couldn’t have saved the Horde leader.

And now – at the end of things – just as the Horde and Alliance are trying to pull down the walls of Icecrown to get to the crispy Lich Kingey center – Jaina shows back up – ready to lead the Alliance into that heart of ice and death to (and I quote) “find a flicker of Arthas’s soul locked somewhere within the Lich King”.

Yeah – it’s that flicker that has folks worried.  If Arthas flickers somewhere in that dungeon – if she stays her hand in the battles to come – what will it mean for the Alliance?

What does it mean to you?