08/12/2018

Preparing for Classic

What's wrong with you, woman? Classic is still at least six months away, what could there possibly be to prepare for?

Well, you're kind of right, but a) I'm excited and b) with how long it takes to level in a Vanilla environment, finding a class and role that you enjoy are not trivial things, as getting it wrong will result in a lot of lost time and potentially having to re-start from scratch.

Faction

Since I'm a goodie two-shoes at heart, it's only natural that I gravitated towards the Alliance when I first started playing WoW. However, in practical terms I actually spent much more time playing the game as Horde, simply because the social circle which I was a part of initially fell apart only a few months into the experience, at which point I ended up re-rolling to join another friend's established Horde raiding guild.

I'm thinking that Alliance will be my faction of choice if I end up levelling mostly on my own, but I guess if I end up in the company of friends who prefer Horde, it won't be any skin off my back.

Classes

I can group the nine Vanilla classes into three groups: definitely want to play, kind of want to play, and definitely don't want to play.

Definitely want to play:

Priest: It's the class that I most identify with, that I mained through pretty much my entire time in WoW (except for a short time raiding as a resto druid when holy priests were horribly broken at the end of Wrath), and it's the class that gave this blog its name. My only worry is that soloing as a priest kind of sucks and both of the priests that I rolled on private servers didn't get very far before I gave up on them. There's also a bit of a risk that me playing priest again might make the whole thing feel like I'm trying too hard to relive the past, which isn't actually what I'm striving for as it doesn't feel too good.

Druid: Druid has probably been my second favourite class in WoW for a long time, and I was having a pretty good time with the one I rolled on Elysium until my journey was unexpectedly cut short. I love both their versatility (even if things work a bit different in Classic) and the whole theme of the class.

Hunter: Hunter is another class that I have a close affinity with, despite of never taking one beyond alt status. I did love all the micromanagement involved with ammo and pets, and it's obviously a great choice for soloing. If I mostly end up playing on my own, hunter might be the way to go.

Kind of want to play:

Paladin: Like the druid, the classic paladin is a class that appeals to me both in terms of theme as well as in play style, but the thing that's honestly putting me off a bit is that I did go through the process of levelling one from one to sixty on Kronos already. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, but even though it was "only" on a private server, there's a certain feeling of "been there, done that" to it right now that makes me want to prioritise something else in Classic.

Mage: I levelled a mage in early Burning Crusade and quite enjoyed it. I generally like spell-casting, and I appreciate that for a pure dps class, mages bring a lot of utility to groups, what with their buffs, sheep, the ability to conjure food and water, and being able to send the whole party straight home with a portal at the end of a dungeon. I'm thinking that this one might be a good choice if I end up in a position where I'm not sure whether I'll be soloing a lot or doing more grouping, but then druid is even better for that.

Shaman: This is another hybrid class that I remember with a lot of fondness, but I didn't actually level one myself until Wrath of the Lich King, and I think soloing as a shammy was a lot clunkier in Vanilla than it was by the point I played one, so I'm a bit worried about overestimating just how much I'd enjoy the play style.

Definitely don't want to play:

Warrior, rogue or warlock. The first two are really popular and powerful in Vanilla, but I just never enjoyed the play style or their theme very much. Bashing/stabbing things just isn't really my cup of tea. And warlocks are basically evil mages.

Who to play with?

I've already alluded to it in some of the points above, but this question is going to be the real crux of the matter. I'm quite flexible both in terms of faction choice as well as which class/role to play, but it will be very much dependent on who keeps me company, if anyone.

Old friends? Part of me wants to just re-recruit the friends of old with whom I'm still in touch and go on a big nostalgia tour with the lot of them. However, if I'm being honest I don't expect that to succeed. Basically most of them either stopped playing without moving on to any other MMO (which to me indicates that it was probably just a phase in their lives rather than an true interest in the genre) or they are still happily living the (virtual) life in current WoW. I'm sure I could get some of them to roll up a character with me, but in all likelihood they would soon drift back to whatever they were doing before.

Bloggers? There's probably also going to be the option to play with some fellow bloggers. I'm sure there'll be a fair number of them interested in WoW Classic once it launches. And I imagine that it could be fun... for a while. However, without meaning any disrespect to anyone, my general experience with most of the multi-gaming bloggers I follow, the ones who'll be the most interested in Classic, is that they tend to jump into whatever's the new hotness for a week to a month, and then they get bored and move on. There's nothing inherently wrong with that; I'm just saying it's probably not the best option for someone like me who has the intention of sticking around for a while.

Others? My significant other, who actually played WoW in the past as well, is a Wrath baby and has told me that he has no interest in Classic (the early trauma of watching me play my pally on Kronos probably didn't help). There are a couple of people in my SWTOR guild whom I might be able to drag along as well... but do I even want to risk cannibalising my current online "home" just to have some more people to play with in Classic? Tough call.

I suspect things might become a bit clearer closer to the actual launch date, but I have to admit that a part of me worries that they won't.

11 comments:

  1. I plan on leveling a warlock because I want to do the warlock epic mount quest chain. I did the paladin one and now would like to see the other chain.

    I'll probably level a shaman, too, since that would tick off two boxes at the same time. I did an Alliance shaman when they were introduced in BC and saw all of their totem quests, but I've never seen the Horde ones, plus it lets me do all of the Horde side quests I never bothered with. This includes the infamous Onyxia attunement chain for the Horde. ^_^

    Longer terms goals are a dwarf priest (Fear Ward!) if I want to raid Molten Core. I never did the Benediction/Anathema quests (assuming I was given the drop in MC) so that would be the motivation here.

    For maximum nostalgia, a Night Elf hunter as that's my oldest still played character on retail. I made her back in Vanilla and would be perfect for soloing/casual PvP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember helping a warlock friend with his epic mount quest in Dire Maul, though my memory of it is very fuzzy.

      The main thing I recall about the Horde side totem quests it that I struggled to find my objective for the very first one (Strength of Earth), had to look it up, and then learned that it required you to climb up a teeny tiny path in the rock from the Valley of Trials. I distinctly remember thinking: "How could I make so many Horde characters without ever learning this was here?!"

      Fear Ward is actually a complication for me as it makes me conflicted about my race choice if I go Alliance priest. I don't mind lady dwarves, but I'd much rather be a human or nelf. And do I even want to raid? Tough call to make.

      I did the Benediction/Anathema quests pre-Cata before they got rid of them. Obviously they were super easy by that point, but it does mean I got to see the basic storyline at least.

      I'm considering a nelf hunter as well to be honest. The thing I worry about the most with that one is how it used to be perceived as the ultimate noob race/class combo and could make people very biased against you!

      Delete
    2. Well, I haven't seen people as biased against hunters in the pservers i have played. But I was more focused at pvp, and people know by now that hunter pvp takes some real skills in classic. But in pve, they are really the easiest class imo

      Delete
    3. Fear Ward is vastly overrated, imo. In PVE in the first 3 raids Fear is casted by Onyxia, Magmadar and Nefarian, but the ability has a long CD and can be dealt with stance dancing. AQ40 has only one boss with Fear effect, as does Naxx. ZG also has no Fear effects.

      As for PvP, the key ability for a priest is Desperate Prayer, imo. Stoneform is also good though :)

      Delete
  2. Hey nice writing.

    If you do end up playing a priest-
    1) Buy a 'Lesser Magic Wand' from the auction house. It
    has a level requirement of 'Level 5'.
    2) Start wanding instead of smiting in those lower
    levels. Put Shadow Word Pain on the mobs and wand.
    Do some occasional Mind Blast if the mobs are tough.
    You kill things easily, with less downtime
    as you don't have to drink often.
    3) Put points 5/5 on Wand Specialization. Replace your
    wand when you get the chance as you level.

    Do this upto 40. Most people at this time respec to shadow, as you get Shadowform. Just get +healing gear if you want to heal dungeons.

    Or, if you don't want to respec, just go wanding upto 60. It's perfectly fine. It'll just be boring. But as you have leveled a pala from 1-60 and liked it, you may like this priest leveling too.

    Do this from 1-20 on a private server. You will see the difference. It's incredibly fast.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey hey, thanks for the well-intentioned advice! :) It is however the very same advice that was already given to me by a friend when I created my very first priest back in Vanilla, so I was already aware of and doing all this. As you say yourself, it's pretty boring though.

      Delete
    2. Haha no problem. Are you playing in any pserver currently or waiting for classic?

      Delete
    3. Waiting for Classic and playing other MMOs. Really, the only reason I went on a private server to begin with was that there was no legit way of experiencing the old Vanilla gameplay anymore. As soon as Blizzard officially announced Classic, that was it for me.

      Delete
  3. I'm torn between Alliance Druid and Horde Warlock. Maybe I'll try to level both simultaneously, hehe.

    Have you decided what type of server are you going to play on? Personally I'm inclined towards RP-PvE; I hope the population will be good enough for dungeoning and raiding.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Probably just plain old PvE, depending on whether any of my friends have any particular preference. I did play on both regular and RP-PvE servers on live. Just definitely no PvP server. :P

      Delete
    2. I too played on Kronos in 2016 and left because of PvP (I forgot how awful WoW PvP was when I was playing on a PvP server more than 8 years ago). Fortunately Nost PvE launched in a half of a year (or maybe it wasn't so fortunate conserning future events :) ).

      Delete