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!

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?

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.

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…>.>

· 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.

“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…

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.

Sure, Shadowflame getting a fear effect added to it is nice…but when do you ever fear something in a raid? This actually cuts out a quick DPS spell from some runs on trash as now I can’t afford to be fearing adds into other groups unless I am sure they will all die from the damage. For PvP’ers, I am sure they are loving this.

Affliction I think so far has the worst talent tree out there. No more Dark Pact. The need for Improved Fear, Instant Howl of Terror are needed to move to 31 points in the tree. Soul Swap was added to replace the Dark Pact talent, but I have yet to really find a situation outside of a PVP stand point that provides a great reason to use this spell and its position so far down the talent tree. Before anyone posts this response, No, I would never use this on a Boss fight to swap the dots OFF a Boss onto an ADD and stop DPS’ing the Boss. Melee and every other class have far better burst DPS than we do to handle that and I can work with keeping Dots on a Boss and Dots on Adds at the same time.

Demonology is looking nice though. Hand of Guldan brings the whole Meteor effect from summoning an Infernal and makes it an AOE spell for damage. The Bane of Doom now lets you do DPS with Doom AND has a 25% chance to summon a “guardian” to help DPS on the target affected by the Bane. Having the Infernal and Doomguard being summonable for 45 seconds and have a reason will be nice as well and the whole tree is actually forming into the “Pet” tree like it should be.

Destruction I haven’t had much time to pour over as I would like. I never cared much for Destruction, as I felt it was the poor Warlocks Mage equivalent, but looking at the talents, there are some nice changes that definitely make me think that Destruction Warlock fans might be seeing their time in the sun for a while. I’ll have to go over their spells and such some more to see what I can come up with.

So yes, all of this on my part is conjecture at this point (would be easier to decide if I had a Beta Tester account!) but it doesn’t take much to see what has potential and what doesn’t. I am still waiting for more builds to come out, but I don’t see them changing much to what we have gotten so far in the Beta.

First, coming back into the game from the small break I had back then to where I was at was staggering. The differences in gear was strange and help a new obstacle that I hadn’t faced sine vanilla WoW going from UBRS runs to Molten Core runs. Having been in the position that I didn’t have the badges to gear up properly, it took me some time to finally get up to snuff.

One thing that helped me were friends and co-workers that I guilded with and got into more Dungeon Finder runs for those Frost and Triumph badges. Having a collection of mats for the guild enchanters to keep everyone enchanted with and then the Jewelers to make the gems made that aspect of the game a lot more accessible for me, as I am always broke and could barely afford 1 gem for any of my gear.

So now I sit pretty running ICC 10 2 times a week minimum with the guild. We aren’t hardcore bandits but we do good. We finally made our way up to Festergut, and had him down to 700k health before the last 2 died on the first attempt. Next try was cake. We log on, we have fun, we enjoy doing group runs and helping each other out.

Now, comes the other news of the Cataclysm.

First, while the NDA was still there, I had my ears to the vine and the 1 thing that I found out that excited me the most was being able to make a Dwarf Warlock. It excites me to no end as I have no desire to make a Twilight loving Worgen, or stay as this Gnome past the point that I can change. I have always wanted the Dark Iron Dwarf option and this is what it represents…my patience has finally paid off.

Second, the first NDA dropped information to come from MMO-Champion on Warlocks saddened me a lot. I saw no real improvement in our game play, even with some Curse now becoming Banes and even the Green Fire held no great joy in me. I still have questions of the route we are being taken. I do like the new options for the Infernal and Doomguard being used. I do like the Bane system (although Bane of Doom I like the most). I don’t like that Hunters just got tons of ways to use all of their pets and have more variety…while we are still stuck with the same version we have had since vanilla.

Even Druids got their forms changed but we are still the same in regards to demons. I am hoping that Warlocks get more changes coming in the beta..and that possibly I get a beta invite to try to push out that information. Besides Fel Fire and Warlocks Den…Warlocks get the short shaft on blogs and fan sites.

This time around I came in to play with co-workers and some friends. I have to say, this time the game is actually fun for a change. Our little group doesn’t try to take on too much or force massive amounts of raiding down our throats. We stick to 10 mans and usually 2 or 3 times a week only. Raids start around 9pm CST so I can actually make these and not feel like I am abandoning the family either.

We are tackling ICC10 at the moment and got to Saurfang easily enough but can only get him down to 6% before we lose it. It’s all good though as we try again tonight and I think we should get passed him finally.

As for other things I have found, Fel Fire is an amazing Warlock blog that I come to admire. I wish I had the talents used over here as they have some great stuff, like the new artwork on my header above. You really should check them out for some very nice Warlock information.

I am also trying to get on the PTR and try out the new dungeon, Ruby Sanctum, to see what is in store for Warlocks there but the server has been extremely lag infested for me and made that difficult. Once that clears up I’ll try again to see what’s going on there.

ICC10 awaits me…