Classic WoW & Me in 2022

I love that this end-of-year summary post has become a tradition, because every year I look back at the previous ones and every year so far my situation has been totally different 365 days later, in ways I never would've been able to predict.

Last year I was - after some struggles - quite happily playing Burning Crusade Classic, and hopeful for the near future, though I said even then: "Blizzard seems to want to push us through all the phases pretty quickly, so I reckon we'll either be in Sunwell or might even already be looking at a Classic Wrath of the Lich King by the end of the year. And what I'll do when that happens, I genuinely don't know."

What ended up happening in practice was that my guild fell apart in early spring, and Blizzard announced that there weren't going to be any BC era servers, which killed any and all motivation I had left to play BC Classic. I bummed around in retail for a bit until I made the decision to give Classic one last try by investing into Classic era, and I've been playing that ever since.

Giving an overview of my era characters is going to feel a bit weird when looking back at previous year-in-review posts, since their stats will be based on where they were at when era split off from BC one and a half years ago plus whatever time I've invested in them now, which means that Alliance characters in particular might look like they've effectively regressed since I last played them... but it is what it is.

Horde

So, thanks to the fact that I found myself invited to a friendly Horde guild soon after I started playing on era, my focus shifted back to Horde side for the first time since 2019.

Shika - Pyrewood Village

• Level 60 Hunter
  
• 25 days, 11 hours played
• 300 Mining, 300 (Gnomish) Engineering, 300 Cooking, 300 Fishing, 300 First Aid

The tauren hunter I originally created because all my friends abandoned me about a month into Classic has returned to being my main, and she's also the character that made the most progress this year, going from the hodgepodge mix of greens and blues pictured in my 2019 year-in-review post to a mix of tier 2 and 3.

I'm not sure she'll stay my main in the long run, but for now she's not going anywhere.

Shilu - PV

• Level 60 Druid
  
• 9 days, 20 hours played
• 315 Herbalism, 300 Alchemy, 300 Cooking, 246 Fishing, 300 First Aid

Not much to say about this one, considering that I just wrote a whole post about getting her to 60! She's a feral/resto hybrid since I like being able to tank dungeons and heal in raids without respeccing. I expect to have some fun next year gearing her up a bit.

Shintau - PV

• Level 41 Shaman
  
• 5 days, 2 hours played
• 275 Skinning, 232 Leatherworking, 263 Cooking, 282 Fishing, 260 First Aid

My original Classic main, the resto shaman. Being part of a guild now, she might actually have a future, but levelling as resto is very meh when you're mostly playing solo and there are no dungeon pugs to speak of. Still, I continue to make progress in baby steps - levelling her leatherworking in particular has been fun. And at least she reached 40 and got a mount (which was graciously financed by my hunter).

Shinny - PV

• Level 36 Mage
  
• 3 days, 1 hour played
• 254 Tailoring, 121 Enchanting, 235 Cooking, 172 Fishing, 255 First Aid

My troll mage is back to having the same job she had in 2019: disenchanting stuff and making bags. I level her a bit every now and then when it feels like her bags are too full and I really need to make some sort of progress. Sometimes I wonder whether it would be good to get her to max level solely because there are very few mages in the guild for some reason - it's not unusual to have a 40-man raid with only a single one.

Gemba - Mirage Raceway

• Level 19 Warlock
  
• 16 hours played
• 65 Herbalism, 94 Skinning, 2 Cooking, 34 Fishing, 98 First Aid

This is the orc warlock I made to store gems and other valuables - it's in the name! However, I've also levelled her a bit just for fun. I'm actually kind of excited to do the incubus quest line soon, one of the few pieces of content in era to completely deviate from #nochanges.

Fooba - MR

• Level 16 Warrior
  
• 14 hours played
• 84 Mining, 75 Skinning, 20 Cooking, 1 Fishing, 81 First Aid

My bank alt for food and consumables - again, it's in the name! Also done a bit of levelling but not much.

Tir - Nethergarde Keep

• Level 9 Rogue
  
• 3 hours played
• 30 Herbalism, 25 Skinning, no secondary professions yet
  

So I moved/renamed my Alliance characters before Blizzard had finished purging the old clones, which meant that Tir had to become Tirr and Fali became Faly - but then they actually did free up the old names eventually and I had this sudden anxiety about someone else getting "my" name. So I created new characters with names like Tir and Shintar just to hold on to the names. This is the only one I've levelled a bit, because I thought that having a rogue on Horde side as well would be neat.

Alliance

Aside from the little night elf rogue I created to re-familiarise myself with era, my Alliance characters have seen very little play, but I'm still glad that they're there, so I'll at least list them all this one time to note down where they're at. Who knows what the future will bring?

Tirrona - MR 

• Level 34 Rogue
  
• 2 days, 21 hours played
• 208 Herbalism, 154 Mining, 175 Cooking, 197 Fishing, 144 First Aid

My night elf rogue turned into a rarely-played side project once I moved to Horde side, but I still love her for being the character that helped me get back into era. Starting over really helped with familiarising myself with the culture and environment of era from the ground up instead of (unsuccessfully) trying to jump straight in with a cloned character at max level.

She's also in a super-casual guild led by an older guy who actually used to play on Hydraxian Waterlords too. I didn't really know him there, but just having that little tie to my past still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Tirr - NK

• Level 60 Hunter
  
• 36 days, 6 hours played
• 300 Skinning, 300 (Dragonscale) Leatherworking, 300 Cooking, 300 Fishing, 300 First Aid

I actually joined a guild called <The Old Raiders> on Tirr (my old Classic main), when I still had this idea that I could maybe casually join for the occasional Naxx run or something, but while guilds are clearing Naxx on era, it's not an easy thing to do and understandably they don't want to take any old random who might jeopardise their chances of success. So I thought about how I'd first have to attend x number of other raids to build up a reputation, on top of mainly playing on Horde side and doing other things, and... I just gave up because it sounded like too much effort. I just log into her every now and then to check her mail (I got some arrows crafted "just in case" which I keep sending back and forth between Tirr and Sarelle because I never end up using them) and to use her salt shaker.

Sarelle - NK

• Level 60 Paladin
  
• 20 days, 13 hours played
• 300 Mining, 300 Weaponsmithing, 300 Cooking, 284 Fishing, 300 First Aid

As my other Naxx-raiding character, Sarelle was subject to similar considerations as Tirr, especially since she had several T3 pieces in her bank that she never got to trade in back in the day due to a perpetual shortage of plate scraps. However, ultimately she's in the same boat as Tirr. I healed a ZG on her and went and won the fishing contest, but that's about it.

Jehna - NK

• Level 60 Mage
  
• 7 days, 13 hours played
• 295 Tailoring, 250 Enchanting, 281 Cooking, 122 Fishing, 300 First Aid

My mage was that character that hit level 60 just before the expansion pre-patch who never really did anything at max level, and she's still that. About the only thing I did on era was buy her an epic mount, since I realised I had enough gold between my other characters to afford it. Oh, and one time I went and randomly farmed satyrs in Felwood for an hour.

Faly - NK

• Level 57 Druid
  
• 8 days, 21 hours played
• 300 Herbalism, 300 Alchemy, 292 Cooking, 225 Fishing, 300 First Aid

My night elf druid became one of my favourite alts in Classic BC, but on era she's not even 60. Sadness. I did a few quests and a bit of flower-picking in the Plaguelands at some point, but not enough to make her level.

Shintar - PV

• Level 30 Priest
  
• 1 day, 17 hours played
• 121 Mining, 141 Engineering, 146 Cooking, 114 Fishing, 142 First Aid

I cloned this one but basically did nothing with her. The memory of how much fun I was having playing priest in Classic BC just before everything fell apart still lingers.

Razorr - PV

• Level 30 Warrior
  
• 1 day, 20 hours played
• 130 Mining, 178 Skinning, 150 Cooking, 61 Fishing, 150 First Aid

I did do a bit of questing on this one, and played the tank in a three-person Stockades run. Her biggest "achievement" however was being handed 500 gold by a random level 60 in Stormwind who said that he didn't really need it because he wasn't playing anyway. 😅

Tirutak - PV

• Level 20 Warlock
  
• 23 hours played
• 132 Herbalism, 150 Skinning, 32 Cooking, 27 Fishing, 78 First Aid

This was my little summon alt back in Classic, and also a bit of a silly RP idea as I levelled her purely by farming mobs in the Barrens. I originally left her behind on Hydraxian Waterlords "just in case" anything ever happened over there but eventually decided to just move her as well, because what's the point of a summon alt who's got nobody to summon?

As for what'll happen next year? I do think we'll get a full year of Classic Wrath of the Lich King, but after that: who knows? Either way this hopefully shouldn't affect me too much as I hope that Classic era can continue to just chug along in peace. It would be nice if for once, I won't find myself in a situation a year later where everything's changed completely yet again.