Just finished up the couple of quests that lead me to Stormwind for the breadcrumb to Uldum.

Changing gear to Cataclysm greens and blues is looking like a necessity now that mob damage has shot up. Old Wrath gear does not have enough stam methinks come level 83.

On to Uldum VIA Stormwind, will report back on the new zone soon.

We look forward to our 10 man raiding for more than just achievements and downing difficult content but because of the fun we have playing together.

Hopefully we can shake the rust off quickly but we have not done anything as our complete 10 man since sometime in early June… Woof.

Let me start by saying all your ArP gems will convert to Crit gems, so one might want to stock up on agility gems before the xpac… however, I plan on just leveling in the Crit gems with the knowledge that greens and blues before or by level 83 will be replacing my Wrath gear.

Let me tell you why you will be replacing gear rather early.

1. Mastery – Old Wrath gear has none, most of the quest rewards has lots. Look below for the Mastery tooltip in the character screen for an idea of what this means to DPS.
2. Stamina – All the new gear has a lot of added stamina. If you plan on tanking new 5 man content early in the xpac you will be harder to heal with your old gear.
3. Agility – The new gear rewards come level 83 content starts surpassing old gear stats on more than just stamina and mastery.
4. Leveling not Raiding – For leveling, pure stats not set bonus or procs tend to be more beneficial. Fights are short and usually trinket procs are wasted as you run between mobs.

This being said I am at level 83 and I still have not seen a weapon worth switching out my Heroic Wrath weapon for (though I hear a blue polearm at the end of deepholm questing fits the bill). I think there was a weapon or 2 with tons of mastery but I wasn’t sold on the stats over my current staff.

Note also that Idol’s are becoming uninteresting in the xpac and are expected to no longer be limited to certain classes. For example I was surprised when I headed to the bank hoping my old idol would be better for leveling….

Note the new gems sockets. Notice the lack of interesting procs. Meh.

So, level 83 and here is my new look…

Sexy huh?

I geared myself in greens and blues to max stats like Hit and Mastery… see below…

Notice you can now get a quick answer to your hit chances in your current gear, this is the new Hit Tooltip.

With all old Wrath Epic gear Mastery was at a base of 20%.

Here are my melee stats in old Wrath Epics. It doesn’t tell the whole story as you don’t readily see procs but as I said, leveling wastes them more than not and the lack of stamina will hurt when running instances especially as bear.

I wish I could do some test dummy parses but with no recount and the chance that some things are not working (not sure Mastery is functioning) I can’t do much. Notice I lose about 7% Crit. Not sure yet if that loss is worth the added damage from higher AP or the mastery bonus, but as I start leveling again I will report back on my findings.

I am in a holding pattern atm in beta since I am at the level cap, as soon as they break that open I will start leveling Jacemora again. My plans are to start leveling my hunter in beta… I need to find the new foxes.

I saw this blue quote on MMO Champ…

In terms of gameplay, our goal was to take advantage of the changes to the environment and use them to help address previous issues with quest flow. It was an opportunity to streamline progression within Darkshore so that the overall experience for players would be much smoother and require less running back and forth.

Leveling in Cataclysm will go faster as they are changing the questing design quite a bit and limiting the need to fly back and forth from quest giver and quest area. Some quest givers now actually allow you to complete quests at that location through a spiritual link instead of flying back.

How many night elves can look at that blue quote and remember all the running back and forth in Darkshore to level… it was horrible and really drug out questing in the zone. Low and High level characters alike will most likely benefit from the new questing linearity of moving through zones and it should speed up leveling. My guess is leveling in Outland will be the worst it will be as Northrend was a lot better than BC or Pre BC.

So not only do I have no clue what I am doing but I can’t imagine if I did I would be having any less fun.

Downloading the new beta, failing at RTS game with pretty graphics.

• There is now a flight path in Darnassus!
• Flying to Darkshore…
• Big treetops still don’t look right to me. Blizzard hire a tree artist to fix up Azeroth trees before release please.
• Rutheran Village looks different.
• Darkshore is very different, basically California after the big one.
• Off to Ashenvale…
• Did I mention the need for a tree artist?
• Wow, Felwood is a little different… unexpected.
• Did I mention a tree artist… I take it back, there are too many trees.
• Ok… an Apprentice Hippogryph Master… kooky
• OMG, A level 24 Worgen Druid… some testers are hard core… you go Lanford!
• Astranaar looks…um, interesting.
• Off to Ratchet…
• Flying over the Barrens I see few if any changes.
• Ratchet looks the same… next.
• Is that island new?
• Theramore looks the same…assuming Mudsproket does too.
• Whoa, ok right away I can see Tanaris has some new beach front real estate… The Inn in Gadgetzan just went to 400G a night. I am guessing the old ghost quest is gone as the cemetary might be underwater from what I remember.
• OMG a sea gull
• Flying to Waterworld… I mean Thousand Needles…
• Whole lotta water and a boat… that is a lot of sunk ore.
• Headed to Desolace
• Desolace is greener in some parts.
• FYI, Flying in Ahn’Qiraj in not recommended…. however…
• Mounting your flying mount here will let you spacebar and get some cool animation on a Bloodbathed Frostbrood.

I continue to move along questing in Hyjal. Blizzard has done a nice job at an entertaining story line and using phasing. I have yet to step foot in an instance (I hear they take forever.)

I still have not dropped a profession in order to pick up bear form… prob need to do it.

I found a hole in the world… that was fun… it was covered by an invisible wall… less fun, as I was stuck and stomped by a BIG creature.

Note that I am not very detailed in my posts, I don’t want to spoil the expansion for anyone. If I find anything really useful for our class I will chime in. Nothing yet.

More notes…

• No upgrades yet.
• Some side grades maybe if mastery is working as there are a couple quest blues with lots of mastery.
• All my arp gems are now crit gems, my DPS shows it. Might want to consider having agility or strength gems ready for the xpac. 61% crit is just too much and I am hitting like a pansy.
• Talented FFF is a must. I started using it and now hit less like a pansy.
• Consider leveling as boom in cata if you have T10 level casting gear. Ranged and AoE attacks will most likely speed things up… I am considering it.

A parting note before bed…

Jacemoradamus!

Supposedly leveling in Beta is faster… we shall see.

Tonight’s notes…

• Found another FP at the Shrine of Aviana
• Things die faster when you equip your Deathbringer’s Will instead of your Piccolo of the Flaming Fire.
• World Server is down…

Bah…

My hunter is in Dal…. Logging… Speccing BM…. Flying to Amberpine…

No spirit bear… /sigh

Logging Jacemora… World back up!

• Some Harpy wardrobe leaves little to the imagination.

Questing, Questing, and more Questing… time for bed. 81 and 7 bars… that is 81.33%

Nice, found the starting point for Level 80′s in Cataclysm. Right in the middle of the trade district.

Whoa, let me highly recommend going to SW, accepting the quest to Hyjal, and taking the port to Moonglade instead of porting yourself to Moonglade and flying yourself to Hyjal. That is all I am going to say… if for no other reason some easy XP.

Ok, I see the FP now at Nordrassil… son’t know how I missed that early excpt that the green ! are no longer on the mini map for some reason… could be me… I now have connecting Flight Paths in Hyjal.

More observations…

• Still getting Wrath dust for DEing
• I hit Honored with Guardians of Hyjal

Dinner Time, more later.