No April Fools Joke

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve likely heard about a small event happening on December 7,2010. It’s actually a rather large event. One could say it is right down cataclysmic.
Someone reminded me on Twitter that I never blogged about what I was going to make my main toon in Cataclysm. My last blog was about how I decided that the Druid would not be the one to get to 85 first. The next toon that I eliminated was the Hunter. I still plan on taking him to 85 at some point, but not first. Hunters have undergone too many changes in Cataclysm, and I’m not looking for a roller coaster of buffs and nerfs while they rebalance what is in essence a new class. For the same reason, I’m retiring my venerable Paladin. The Paladin has once again undergone a dramatic redesign. While I appreciate the Developers efforts to bring the class closer to their vision, I’m not excited about relearning my class. If I was going to do that, I would really want to take a toon from level 1 on up.
I know I risk getting lumped in with the group of people who abandoned their Paladins once they required  ‘skillz’, but I think anyone who has known me would know that was not a motivation.
There are still issues with the Paladin that have been left unaddressed as we move to the end of the Cataclysm Beta. Prot Paladins are still in need of a short cooldown, off the global, interrupt. But most concerning to me is that even at this late stage, the Developers are still monkeying around with something as basic as the Prot Paladin rotation. I still have concerns based on the previous times the game has expanded. I was around for the launch of Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King. In both cases, Paladins were nerfed heavily because of balance issue in the x.0 (2.0, 3.0) patch. This mainly effected Retribution, but invariably, Protection got caught in the collateral damage. In the past two expansions, Paladins have come into the release somewhere between broken and barely functional, and its only the x.3 patch that finally fixes them. I’ve seen this movie twice, I won’t be going for the trifecta.
So it is the odd choice of my Warrior who will be the first to Level 85. I have really enjoyed playing the DPS Warrior, and I also enjoy getting to Tank from time to time. As burnt out as I got on tanking towards the middle to end of Wrath, I’ve realized I miss it. With the Warrior, I can be our melee DPS (which my Guild Leader tells me we are very light on at the moment), and I can also be our fill in tank. In addition, I’ll have those Tank insta-ques for Randoms which is always nice.
I’ve also decided to make my Goblin a Shaman. I tried the mage, but man, are they squishy. How did you people level up like that?  I like that the Shaman has the ability to take a couple of hits if the mob gets in close, plus a nice melee strike come Cataclysm that all Shamans, even Resto/Elemental get. I still don’t get why the Mage who is all magical, gets a permanent Water ELEMENTAL pet, but Shamans, the MASTERS of the ELEMENTS, don’t get a permanent ELEMENTAL.
I’ve actually debated making the Shaman my main, but I would want more play time before I was comfortable committing to that as a main. I really like the idea of an Enhance/Elemental Shaman and both playstyle look like a lot of fun. But would it be fair to my guild to be a Ele/Enh Shaman. Would there be pressure at some point to break out the Resto? But probably the biggest reason I’m not going to pick the Shaman is that would put me way, way behind the rest of the guild. I probably wouldn’t hit 85 until Tier 12 was out , and I’d miss the first Tier of raids in Cataclysm. I’m going to be one of the slower levelers to begin with, so starting at 1 would just put me that much father behind.
This, in some part, is because I’ve changed the way I approach the game. I have a fairly large life change planned for the first of the year, which will throw my schedule into chaos. But, in addition to that, I’ve changed how I spend my time with the game.
I’ve always maintained that the time I choose to devote to Warcraft would be devoted to something equally unproductive would I not be playing. It might be another video game, like Civ or SWTOR when that comes out. It might be TV like Castle, Mythbusters, or NFL Football (good gravy, do my beloved Panthers stink this year).
But recently, I’ve decided to try to pick up a new skill, and I want to devote some of my gaming time to learning that new skill. There isn’t room in my life for the major life change, the new skill, and everything else I’ve been doing. I’m going to have to break the balance I have now, and establish some new boundaries. I feel really fortunate to be in a guild where we can only raid 3 hours a night, and where we are free to choose to raid only 1 to 2 times per week. Hopefully, the guys won’t mind me leveling a little slower than the rest and I will be able to catch up once I’m 85.
So I’m trading Blue Bars for Red in Cataclysm. I am the Warrior.abir

Comments

gameldar said…
So I'll be making a similar change - although I'm staying with tanking as my main spec. A little different because I'm just returning to my old main since the gear reset and I really only moved to paladin tanking because I picked it up as an offspec to healing and realised how much I prefer tanking and had the gear by then rather than gearing up my naxx geared warrior to current levels. Playing a premade warrior on beta has reminded me how much I love warrior tanking.

I'm a bit sad, and I do keep trying out paladin tanking on the beta - because I want it to work - but it is such a vast change at present, and I think without appropriate addons (I've just set up Theck's powerauras setup which looks like it'll do the job for me) it isn't an intuitive rotation either.

Interestingly I've been considering all the same classes (bar shaman - like you I'd be starting mine from scratch). I will say that I've enjoyed the new hunter from the little I've done on beta. And the return of CC makes it an interesting class choice for me again (playing Survival). I like the change to focus, and it actually makes steady shot feel useful. But I can see what you mean about the potential roller-coaster!

The other option I was consider is switching to a druid for three reasons:
1. It a new class for me to learn and play
2. The (tank) play style is very similar to warriors (even more so with the lacerate/beserk changes)
3. I think it'd do much better as a ranged dps offspec rather than melee dps

However I've decided on my warrior - it is my namesake and my original tank...
Argon said…
I don't really mind the lack of interrupt, but I mostly raid in 25 mans, so it is probably less important there.

I do share your concerns about the paladin rotation. They are still doing some fairly heavy tweaking to the rotation. Hopefully with 2 months to go they'll get it smoothed out by launch.

Also keep in mind that they've done some fairly heavy futzing with warriors (though less than paladins), so don't think that you're going to escape the rebalancing roller coaster. ;)
Shawn said…
I'll be leveling both of my pallys first. My holy pally(my first toon) will be my first 85 then I'll be bringing my prot pally up. After that, maybe my shammy then my lock.
Might be a rough ride but I'm sticking with it. I love my pallys too much to bench them at this point. Good luck with your warrior.
Ellevis said…
Hey Honors, it is definitely tough to decide upon a "main" atm especially with so many changes to all classes and 2 drastically revamped ones. For myself I was waffling between DK / Warrior but thankfully Blizzard listened and fixed my DK tanking issues.

I think the warrior is a good choice and it does give you the flexibility of getting your tanking fix :) As for the Shaman, yes you would be behind but you know know I have never stopped anyone from playing what they want. So if there comes a point where you are thinking about switching to a shaman just let me know and we can figure it out then :)
Anonymous said…
you may enjoy leveling as a prot warrior after watching this...

http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=162951


Wankster of Magtheridon
Mite said…
It's not every mage than can keep or even summon a permanent water elemental; it's a frost savant.
If shammys could have a spec that lore-wise would be more inclined into one of the elements, no doubt you would also get that sort of ability.
Slightly more ontopic now, let's just all hope that your prediction is terribly terribly wrong.
Honors Code said…
Few things would make me happier than being wrong about the Cataclysm Paladin.

And I'm really torn on the whole Shaman thing, but man, I'd miss heroics and Tier 11 with my guild. Plus I got the Druid to 80, and found I didn't dig him as much.

Tough call.
Ryan said…
I'm having some of the same issues as you with my pally. I have some of the same classes as you to play as well and I do enjoy tanking as well, so my warrior might be the way Im going to go as well. Good Luck.
Ardent Defender said…
Best thing about Cataclysm is that at this point I have no idea what or how classes have been redesigned on any classes. Probably because i haven't read anything on any of the classes and still avoid reading anything on the class changes since my long break.

Everything at the point i look at it at somepoint will be a fresh look at the classes vs having any clue from reading all the months of beta info of which I haven't read any.

I have no clue what of the new horde class i will play at this point. Haven't decided or given it enough thought. Besides my Paladin of which i have no idea what to expect the other class i did enjoy in Wrath was my Shaman. And yes its is really odd that the mage got a permanent pet over the shaman who is master of elements. You can't do any of the shaman quests and not have to get the blessing of each elemental to weave the totems of each elemental. But mage got the pet vs the shaman go figure.

However i did like my shaman in play style and did spec him both Enhance/Elemental and found both play style quite fun though played more enhance. Shamans are fun in my opinion and just underplayed allot. Who knows I make make the change and play my shaman more. But who knows haven't decided because well have no idea what to expect on the classes. I'm staying away and keeping my expectations fresh.
Anonymous said…
Its kind of sad to read your newer posts compared to your current ones. What happened to the Honorshammer that played a pally cause he liked it, regardless of how raid effective they were? The Honors that used to play for the lore and story of the pallies and dwarves, not just going for the "best" faction and races?
Honors Code said…
Most of that went away when I went Horde. The lore and stuff is great, but I really like the guys and gals in my guild.

I'm just burned out on being a Paladin. I like the IDEA of the Paladin class, and I love the lore, but I don't like the way that it is EXECUTED in game.

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