The Story behind the Story

Mt Hyjal is awesome!

It’s hard to express my true feelings in words on how much I am enjoying myself in-game right now, especially in this area. Partially, I believe it is because I just finished reading the Stormrage novels (which weren’t’ greatly written) and a lot of the story of the world is written into the story of the game. I think this has given Warcraft part of the huge fan base it has. I know I was enraptured when I originally heard about World of Warcraft being developed back while I was playing Everquest, due to the fact that I got into PC gaming through the RTS versions of Warcraft. Even though I leave time to time, here I am still loving their stories.

As for Mt Hyjal, the point I am currently at is I just freed Goldrinn and killed off the Pyro Elemental to save the day. I am ready move out from this area now and go help some other Ancient get back into the world all alive again. Now about this story-line. I am still waiting to see this played out, but I have a theory, depending on how things play out, that these Ancients coming back now will be a help in knocking off/out Deathwing, but maybe have an even more important role in a future expansion maybe…something about Sargeras since they were all alive/and killed during his last big attempt to enter Azeroth?

It’s all speculation at this point I know but that immediately popped into my mind when I started in on this quest chain. The last thing I did in-game was watch as I finally hit level 81 and notice that I have a new ability to go train. Looks interesting and now I am waiting to get home to train and test it out…on the Gnome Warlock that is now a Dwarf Warlock…finally!

Stupid Things I do and the Warlock in Me

So I had been playing a low level Warlock to see what the changes were, since having everything thrown at me at level 80 with the already huge amount of abilities was far more than I wanted to handle. All in all, it was fun. Having to wait to “learn” to get the ability of a pet bar was new but I guess the Blizzard Warlock developers needed something to do that they could call “change”.

I didn’t last long though, I faltered and turned the guy into a blasphemy of a Shaman, only due to the fact that I want an alt for later for the damn Dungeon Finder on those night where the guild isn’t doing anything and DPS run are far and few. Well, he is 64 and in Outlands but I grew tired of him and longed for the return of the great true one power that can only be a Warlock. So return to him I did.

Now, seeing how I haven’t gotten around to paying for a race change (Dwarf Incoming!) he is still a little Gnome. I took this guy (Poxus for you that needed to know) into Stormwind and took the portal to Mt Hyjal. If you read that or have done that you probably knew right then how to get there. Well, I was half asleep when I did this and after doing a few things I hit the old Hearthstone, and as the loading screen flashed in front of me I then realized that I forgot to re-hearth…and immediately went back to Dalaran.

Well I guess you all know now that there are no more portals in Dalaran, which means you have to hoof it or fly to a harbor to get back to Azeroth, so that you can get around. Well, being tired I decided to log off and do this later. Only to find out later when I did log in that I had completely forgot HOW I got to Hyjal in the first place. Needless to say, now all people in General are morons and I got some helpful replies and got my Warlocky toosh back out there.

So yeah, I am just starting the leveling process almost a month after release, but I know most of the quest mobs should be free and not camped at least. It is good to be back though as I missed all my Warlock power as the Shaman just doesn’t cut it.

Wonder if I can be considered a Healer if I stock up on Bandages and Healthstones?

Cataclysmic Returns

I had left the game some time ago due to boredom, plain and simple. Boredom of no desire to do the raids that were going on. No desire to run Heroics over and over. Really, no in-game desire to do any type of progression. So I just let the game go for some time to take a break.

I kept up with the Cataclysm changes that were coming (well, most of them) and watched and waited. My desire was to come back and move forward with something I was really looking forward too. You can see that come to fruition below:

That’s right, a Dwarf Warlock. Currently only level 10, but I can already feel the power flowing through his stubby little fingers. The changes to the classes and the landscape make leveling a lot of fun actually seeing how everything does feel like a new game. I am looking forward to moving up and seeing how this goes all over again.

The Expansion Lull

It’s that time again that we all love, the mass down time that occurs once the flood of information from the next Warcraft expansion gets loose and everyone decides that it’s not useful to raid or do any instances anymore due to everything being replaced so soon. It’s happened before and it is certainly happening now.

I am hopefully that tonight’s foray into ICC 10 gets us some fun times, and maybe past Saurfang on our initial push like normal. That would be a HUGE improvement on our ability. Some of us have hopes of getting Arthas dead before the Cataclysm release, but with the way things have been going, I do not see that as a dream coming true.

The one thing I know that will change a lot of this will be the release of the new talents system/spells/abilities before Cataclysm goes live. That happened right before the Burning Crusade was pushed out due to the changes and the raid scene went nuts there and all things were dying like crazy. That was a fun time and what I am looking forward too, to get everyone back into raiding some and back into the game and playing for a bit.

Another thing I have noticed is the mass abundance of alts/lower level players now. With nothing to do, most people are doing the alt character thing during all this down time. Myself included, I have run some of the lower level stuff while playing something different while this dead phase sets in. Now the Shaman is nothing compared to the Warlock, but it is a nice change. It helps me to remember why I like playing a Warlock so much since I get to be evil, kill stuff with all my Affliction loving goodies I have to throw at them…and I actually like wearing the dress…>.>

Latest Warlock Patch Build 12644

Per MMO Champion, we get some information on the latest stuff to come forth on Warlocks and their Cataclysm roles and abilities. A lot of things have changed, in terms of Affliction Warlocks and what we have to play with and how our tree looks over all. Let take a look at what has changed per the notes below:

· Affliction

o Life Tap now seems to scale from 100% of Spell Power, up from 50%.

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o Everlasting Affliction now Increases the critical effect chance of your Corruption, Seed of Corruption and Unstable Affliction by 5/10/15%. (Old – Increased bonus spell damage by 1/2/3%). Now gives Drain Life, Drain Soul, and Haunt a 33/66/100% chance to reset the duration of your Corruption spell on the target. (No longer procs from Shadow Bolt, Proc Rate increased from 20/40/60%)

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o Death’s Embrace now affects target below 25% health. (Up from 20%)

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o Shadow Embrace is now a Tier 4 talent. Down from Tier 5. No longer has a cooldown.

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o Eradication now is a Tier 3 talent. Down from Tier 4.

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o Siphon Life is now a Tier 2 talent. Down from tier 4.

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o Nightfall is now a Tier 5 talent. Down from Tier 3.

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o Improved Drain Soul is gone.

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o Improved Bane of Agony is now Doom and Gloom – Increases the damage done by your Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom by 5/10%.

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o Soulburn: Seed of Corruption (Tier 5) *New* – Grants the Soulburn empowerment to your Seed of Corruption spell.
Your Seed of Corruption detonation effect will afflict Corruption on all enemy targets. The Soul Shard will be refunded if the detonation is successful.

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o Siphon Life (Tier 2) is back – When you deal damage with your Corruption spell, you are instantly healed for ( Glyph of Siphon Life : 60/75 )% of the damage done.

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o Demonology

o Demonic Aegis now Increases the effectiveness of your Demon Armor and Fel Armor spells by 15/30%. (Up from 10/20%)

o Empowered Imp now gives your Imp’s Firebolt a 12% chance to cause your next Soulfire spell to be instant cast within 8 sec.

As you can see from above, Affliction got lots of love this build. Life Tap looks to be coming back on par, if not better than what is current with live. The EA change will have to be tested, but getting a chance at crits on 3 of our abilities instead of a spell damage boost is something that number crunchers will be pouring over (if I was in Beat Blizzard I would do it myself !). I am still neutral on this, but just looking at it, I would think it would have to be a 10/15/20% chance, but we will see.

Getting Siphon Life is a welcome surprise (not really as if had to come back). The Soulburn:Seed of Corruption is something else. It’s a nice way to spread Corruption to a mass of adds in a raid environment, increasing our contribution in that factors, and gives our SoC spam another reason to be useful.

Doom and Gloom is what currently makes me the most excited, as even though most Warlocks were talking about Agony being the Affliction choice, I saw Doom being the better as the DPS from it was more and giving the proc, added another aspect to the ability that an Affliction lock could do. Depending on the guardians ability to DPS, it could increase the speed at which a Warlock takes down mobs in mass quantities and something I am looking forward to playing around with.

I’ll have to look into this more and see what I can find and also take a look at the Talent trees since they have been changed around to see what I think of a good Affliction build.

Prologue

The old dwarf stood over the scale, intently gazing into the swirling colors emanating on its skin. The scale was as large as a shield, yet despite its size, the scale was light and easily lifted by the dwarf as he placed it on a black marble pedestal. Closing his eyes, the dwarf prepared for the actions he was about to undertake.

“Vom Krom’kar Lotan” spoke the dwarf and as he did, the swirls of colors started spinning faster and faster. With speed they churned until images started appearing in the colors. A vast cavern unlike anything ever witnessed on Azeroth displayed in the image. Plumes of fire rose from great cuts in the earth littered along the cavern. The light from the fires played shadows across the great cavern giving the effect of dark demons throughout the enormous place.

The dwarf brought forth from a pouch at his waist a small white bone fragment. Looking to be a claw of some beast, he touched the bone to the image on the scale and the image shifted. Now, instead of a great cavern the scene was replaced by an ocean of fire and molten lava. In the middle was a giant dark shape resting on what appeared to be bones in the middle of the fiery lair.

The dwarf started to sweat as he peered closer to the scale, waiting for the image to come closer to the dark shape. Suddenly, the darkness expanded into giant wings whose enormity held no boundaries. A long, black spiked tail flashed back and forth from the great bulk of the body it was attached to. What appeared to be heated metal glowed with magical brightness along the body of this huge beast.

“The prophecy is true!” spoke the dwarf to a shadowy robed figure standing close by. This figure betrayed no emotion as the dwarf spoke yet watched the scene develop before them on the scale with intent concentration. Suddenly a head turned from the body in the image and looked straight at the two figures through the scale. Eyes that burned hotter than the fire the beast was surrounded by looked through the scale, seemingly aware that it was being watched.

“Your interference is too late, Dark Summoner. Even now I prepare to return to finish what I had started so long ago.” Spoke the beast in its metallic, ancient voice. “There is nothing and no one that can stop the plans I have prepared. Your time is over and my time is now!”

With this, the great beast roared a terrifying bellow and belched out flame towards the dwarf and his companion. The image darkened and went out. The scale started to glow and rise off the pedestal only to fly across the room and smash into the wall. It fell to the floor, cracked along the middle, but held together by a ring of metal around its edges that glowed with the same magical fire the beast had on its body.

The robed figure spoke softly, “Borek, what you have said is true. The Great Destroyer returns”. The voice was rough in the dwarfish tone but with a female quality to it. “There is no time to waste if what it says is true! I must return to the council and inform them on this dire news. My plans to reunite our Dwarven cousins must be pushed forward and now! My father knows not what is coming and I dare delay what must be done any further”.

“Aye, my lady,” said Borek,” and I fear that the time we have left may already be too little to do much.”Borek picked up the broken scale and placed it back into the adamantium chest he had kept it locked inside. Although he could use the scale no more to view the beast, the scale itself could prove a great boon after some lengthy study by the dark council. The robed dwarf moved to the door and left as silently as she had been in the room during the entire event. Looking around the small room, Borek pushed his hand inside his robe and pulled out a small purple stone.

“Belpad, come!” commanded Borek. Dark runes glowed brightly from the stone before vanishing completely. Left was a small demonic Imp that looked greedily around the room with malicious eyes.“What do you want from me this time you stone headed old fool!?” cried the Imp. Borek waved his hand and the Imp quickly became silent. “Hold your tongue demon less others in the shadows outside hears you!” demanded Borek.

Hastily writing a note on a parchment, Borek rolled it up and gave it to the Imp. “Take this note to the Dark Council. Inform them that a meeting is called and the time is now!” spoke Borek. The imp bowed and leapt towards a shadowy corner of the room disappearing into the dark wall. In his mind Borek, knew that things were moving faster than had been planned, but the plans would still move forward. In the coming days his brethren would finally move from this mountain fortress and into the belly of Ironforge once again. No longer would the Dark Irons be cast out from the great city that was once their home, and with this thought, Borek smiled.

At this exact moment, the world started to break…

Quick Post

So the whole concept of finally getting to be a Dwarf Warlock in Cataclysm has me excited. Besides Undead, it’s the only race I can honestly play and be happy. With that being said, I have never been a huge Role Player, but I do like to get into my character when I play him. I have fun little jaunts of being all evil and doing bad things or just being a Warlock at heart and I guess you could call it that.

So with the expansion coming, I thought I would get into the spirit of things by telling a story. This is just me getting into my character as I get ready to head off into that unknown that will be Cataclysm. Hope you enjoy it.