Slain by Elf

Delving deeper in to the corridors and rooms of the Keep on the Shadowfell we find some engravings on a wall. 'Can anyone read Draconic?', asks the DM. It turns out that our warlock is versed in the language of the dragons. 'There is some indecipherable Draconic written on the wall in front of you.'

'What does it read?', asks the warlock.

'You don't know. It is indecipherable.' With that resolved we press onwards.

It is not long before we stray upon a crypt full of sarcophagi. Whilst not threatening in itself, one cannot be too careful when investigating a Keep that is purportedly being used to open a gate to the Underworld. We tread carefully when entering the crypt, hoping not to wake the dead.

Kawakami, our warlord, leads us in to the crypt. As he gets to a central part of the crypt there is a sudden sound of scraping stone as the lids of several of the sarcophagi start to open. Brave Sir Adran, our elven ranger of the ornamental swords, becomes worried at this turn of events. 'I want my mummy!', he whimpers.

I have to say, that really isn't the best plea to make when facing the undead.

Waiting for the boat to Howling Fjord, we are given a stern warning.

[Derky] says: None of you are prepared.
[Tiger] says: I feel prepared.
[Kadrim] says: Did you cancel the papers?
[Tiger] says: The papers! Dammit.
[Tiger] says: I am not prepared.
[Derky] says: I forgot to cancel the milk!

Following our instincts we push through a door that has 'STAY OUT' scrawled in the moss covering it, only to be surprised by a blue slime monster surfacing in a pool of rancid water. Who knew? Our warlock gets attacked and hit by the monster, which provokes an incredulous response from the spellcaster.

'My turn. I call out "YOU DARE HURT ME?!"

'I then take 5 points of ongoing acid damage from its attack.'

It is gloomy in the Keep on Shadowfel and with a gate to hell being opened somewhere inside it is also not a place one wants to be stumbling around in the dark. 'What can we use for light in here?', asks Adran, our ranger.

'We can break out our sunrods, as they provide a good source of light', replies Kawakami.

'Do we have any?'

'Oh, plenty', comes the reply from Kawakami, followed by a positive response from each party member in turn. 'They are supplied as part of the standard adventurer's kit, so it's safe to assume we all have a couple.'

'I don't have one', replies Adran, protesting that 'I couldn't afford it.'

'You could have afforded it if you hadn't bought the two ornamental longswords strapped to your hips.'

Adran notices the slight and snaps back, 'They aren't ornamental!', but with his famed reluctance to step in to melee range it is easy to see why we'd be confused about that.

After what seems like the longest overnight stay in an inn in history we arise and head back to the Keep on Shadowfel to investigate the goblin threat within, prevent the opening of a gate to hell and, perhaps most importantly, to map the keep for a curious intellectual. We get paid for the mapping, which is why it is important.

It is also perhaps a little demoralising that we are meant to be making a detailed map of the keep because when we finally get back underground and look at the single floor that we have partially mapped so far an argument breaks out. 'We should go down this passage, as that is where the monster ran away last time.'

'No, he ran down there. That's where we should head to find his lair.'

'No. He definitely made his escape down this way.' This doesn't bode well for receiving payment for an accurate map.

'I'm telling you he didn't! He fled down there!'

'...we're talking about different creatures, aren't we?'

'Hmm. Yes. Okay, let's go this way.' It was the best of all decisions, if only because it sent us off the edge of our scribe's map, requiring the use of another sheet of paper to continue. We've clearly lost none of our skills during the intermission.

'Hey, Sapphire, this guy is Gorefiend, isn't he?'

'Why do you think that?'

'Just a feeling. We gave him the items he asked for, and now he's wearing them.'

'Wow, I never noticed that. I've done the quest three times, I really should pay more attention.'

The scourge invasion heralding the arrival of the Lich King has called many to arms, to join the Argent Dawn in trying to repel the undead threat. Large, floating necropoles have appeared throughout Azeroth, spawning beneath them crystals of necrotic power and small armies of undead. Most of the undead are the rank and file of the Lich King, but the occasional leader crops up. These leaders, rare mobs, drop epic-quality items when killed.

I have been pushing back the undead as Sapphire, even though I am only 67th level and the mobs are all 69th to 70th, with the rare mobs being 71st level and almost conning red to me. With the new and buffed powers available to me as a protection warrior I have found myself quite capable in defeating these undead, although some care needs to be taken. The rares often pull adds from close by and it is too much for me to take on so many at once. Even so, with good use of my abilities and taking advantage of the time difference of playing on a US server, I have been able to kill quite a few rare undead mobs in the past week. Each time they drop some epic trousers, and each time they have been mail or leather, not the plate that I wear as a warrior.

That I haven't yet got the plate trouser drop is not too much of a worry. I am not 70th level yet, which is required to wear them, and in fighting the undead I have picked up enough necrotic shards to satisfy the Argent Dawn to give me the shoulder and glove pieces of the set from their quartermaster. I am doing quite well from the invasion. I am still on the hunt for the rare mobs in the hopes of getting a third piece to drop for me.

So it is that I am hunting the undead in the Blasted Lands, beneath one of the necropoles, early one morning. An almost-fully powered crystal is waiting in one area and as I scan the undead lingering around the shard I spy a rare armoured skeleton on the other side of the crystal to me. I ride around to start clearing the undead to get a path to it when I notice also that a second warrior is in the area, and she has the same plans as me. Having got there first and being in the process of getting to the rare mob I accept that the mob is effectively hers, having no intention of stealing it opportunistically no matter what personal gain there may be. Instead, I linger behind her and wait until she pulls the rare mob and has clearly tagged it, at which point I pull the add off her to give her an easier kill before helping with the kill itself.

We both fight our way out of the mobs and get back to safety. I mount up and start riding back to investigate other crystals in the area, but as I ride around the shard I see another rare mob has spawned close to me! I dismount and pull the closest undead to clear a small path, killing it fairly easily. I cast the Draenei heal-over-time racial ability Gift of the Naaru on myself and would like to heal a bit more but I see the other warrior has decided not to show the same chivalry to me as I did to her, as she is running through the undead mobs to get to the rare before me. I think I at least deserve an honest shot at the rare and charge in to action. Sadly, the other warrior seems spiteful and instead of helping trains all the undead she has on to me. There is little I can do and I am overwhelmed. When I make the run as a ghost and recover my body I see that the warrior is busy killing the rare herself.

I'm not quite sure why some people are so selfish, but I am also not going to get riled by her actions. Pausing briefly to add her name to my list of ignored people I mount up and ride off, heading back to Nethergarde Keep to fly to a different zone threatened by the scourge invasion. As I ride back I notice another necrotic crystal and, lo, another rare mob! Not only is there no one around but this rare mob is right on the edge of the camp, with no additional fighting required to get to it. I charge in and kill both it and an add relatively easily. By an act of karma, the Blessed Legplates of Undead Slaying drop and I have the third piece of my undead slaying set, ready for when I am 70th level.

Experience can be gained by killing mobs, completing quests, and exploring the world. There is only so much of the world to see, and quests generally require some spilling of blood, so experience points are most regularly gained by killing mobs. That is, when the mob dies. Because of this, I was taken quite by surprise when I gained 66th level by charging in to battle, the fireworks surrounding me before I even hit the mob.

I was only a few thousand XP away from 66th level and flying up to Light's Hope Chapel to hand in a world-event quest from the Argent Dawn, thinking that the XP gain would push me over the boundary to the next level. To my disappointment there was no XP gain for the mission, so I remained a few thousand XP shy. Hoping to defeat the Headless Horseman—optimistically, it turned out—and thus needing to be in the general area I was loath to head back to the Outlands merely to stomp on a few critters. Being in an Azerothian level-cap zone I instead wandered around looking for something still considered dangerous enough to offer me XP on its death. Luckily, the high-level undead that infest some of the hills still conned green to me and I started killing them for sport.

What I had forgotten was that I had not quested in the Eastern Plaguelands at all, and I think I only got the flight point because a quest from Winterspring brought me here, so my map was almost entirely unexplored. I was killing my way up the hill when, in a wonderful coincidence, my charge in to the next mob crossed me over the boundary to discover a new area on the zone map. I earned another discovery ding! It was a little odd to level up entering battle, though.

The world has changed again and I woke up with a pain of respeccing, even though I thankfully hadn't paid for the headache. Not only do I have to choose all my talents again but many are changed and some are new. It is not too much of a chore as I only really know how to be a protection warrior, so I really only need to pay attention to the protection tree. Starting with the simple talents I pick what I think is useful until the next level becomes available, and continue down until I have both got to the bottom of the tree and learnt all the talents that I desire. Being newly in to my 62nd level lets me achieve both aims, with an extra talent point to spend.

So much is new it is almost like being a different class. One of the biggest changes comes in the form of the Warbringer talent. This lets me use the Charge ability in all stances and also whilst in combat, whereas without the talent it is only available in if you are out of combat and in Battle Stance. There are many reasons why I am enjoying this talent. For a start, Charge now acts as a secondary Intervene ability, letting me intercept a mob that is targeting someone other than myself. This is great, as I don't yet have the experience to learn Intervene, and it also generates rage instead of using it.

Being able to use Charge in any stance means I don't need to switch stances, and potentially lose some rage, if I want to charge a mob. Being able to use Charge in combat also lets me use a ranged pull on a group of mobs, either because of patrols or risk of body-pulling additional nearby mobs, and still charge in to them after the pull, as they are running towards me. This is really neat! It also means that when I accidentally pull a mob, or get an add, I can still charge towards them and generate rage. It is like I cannot be ambushed any more. Not only that, but Warbringer also makes Charge shake off any movement impairing effects. If a mob rudely snares me and backs off to attack from range I no longer have to accept the punishment until the snare wears off, now I just charge back in to melee, gratefully accepting the rage generated and the mob being stunned.

The Damage Shield talent means I no longer need shield spikes, as I now inflict damage whenever I take damage from or block a melee attack, which is quite often. The damage also scales with the block value of my shield, which will increase with level. I am free to enchant my shield however I fancy.

I still get Devastate, which is a wonderful replacement for Sunder Armour that does exactly the same effect as well as inflicting damage. On top of that, a new talent gives a chance for my Devastate and Revenge abilities to renew the cooldown on Shield Slam and proc its use without a rage cost for a few seconds. With all three abilities causing high amounts of threat, and all heavily used in my tanking rotation, this is a huge boost. Shield Slam not only causes high threat but also adds some decent DPS and can debuff the target mob. With Revenge causing some decent damage and, with a talent, giving a chance of stunning the mob for a few seconds I have three high-threat, decent DPS abilities that work stunningly well together.

As a tank in Battle Stance, running solo in the world, I feel encouraged to use my high damage abilities, which I consider to be Devastate and Shield Slam. Even though they cause high amounts of threat I still think they work out to be my best source of DPS. With the chance of proccing the Shield Slam for free I now shy away from using anything but Devastate to take advantage of the rageless Shield Slam whenever it occurs, which is regularly. This leaves me with huge amounts of rage, particularly as I am charging all over the place and generating even more rage. But it also is a little boring, using only two abilities out of the many that I used to take advantage of. I then have a bold idea. With Charge available in all stances and Revenge also proccing the Shield Slam ability I could simply remain in Defensive Stance.

I might be doing less damage and causing more threat, but I am also taking advantage of other talents that work in Defensive Stance only and am increasing my options during combat, if only with Shield Block and Revenge. Even with the decreased damage from being in the stance the Improved Defensive Stance talent enrages me with each blocked, parried or dodged strike against me, increasing my damage for twelve seconds. This is great! I quite enjoyed the advantage of Shield Block and Revenge in PvE for sticky situations, and now I am definitely useful in Defensive Stance whatever I am doing. I can't think what I am missing being a permanent tank.

A mob running away in fear reminds me that I am missing Hamstring, but there are two solutions. I can aim to get Howling Pierce again, a neat ability that dazes and thus slows all mobs close to me, although it is a reactive ability. Or I could back off a little and charge the fleeing mob. Although the latter approach will put Charge back on a cooldown I have a glyph that reduces that cooldown by 20%, which is nifty. I also retain Concussion Blow, which stuns a mob for several seconds.

There is so much that has changed that it is quite a lot to get used to. I am performing the same task with many of the same abilities, but the synergies are different and there are more effective methods to seek out and find. I feel more powerful with my enemies dropping more quickly before me, my level of rage remaining high enough to power my abilities most of the time. Just as I get Victory Rush and enjoy being able to dash from mob to mob wreaking havoc I get all these new changes and feel more comfortable than ever in Defensive Stance. I am surprised to report that I don't miss Victory Rush, an ability that Tiger would never have gone without.

If all this were not enough adventuring in Outlands has now been made as rapid as that in Azeroth. The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been much reduced. It seems like I only just reach 62nd level when a few quests and a run through the Blood Furnace welcome me to 63rd level. Just as I rode through Hellfire Peninsula on my way to Zangarmarsh I now leave the marsh for Terokkar Forest. My Outlands map is barely half-filled as I race from zone to zone, which is disappointing only in that there is so much to see and accomplish, but it also promotes a strong sense of progression and promises a journey to Northrend before too long.

Change will always take a little while to get used to, but the changes seem to have had a remarkably positive effect so far. Maybe the challenges ahead will require my extra power, and if that is the case those will be mighty challenges indeed, but for now I will greatly enjoy being the devastating warrior tank.

I wonder how Knifey is getting on.

We were attacked by eighteen zombies!

'A-Team zombies?'

Yes. They were shut inside a crypt with only discarded spears, broken scythes and mismatched bones with which they created a working arbalest, but it was okay. We took quite a pounding, thrown all over the place by the arbalest, but got up only feeling a bit dizzy with a headache and are alright now.