Progressing onward at lvl 82

So far have made it to lvl 82 questing and maybe 1/8 of the way to lvl 83 questing in Vashj'ir zone. Getting used to using my paladin abilities/skills again though keep getting better don't feel all that normal as yet though it keeps getting better the more I work at it and reawaken old skill tactics.

For Cataclysm I'm playing on a fairly new Mac Pro Laptop and have elected to just use the default UI. I have no pleasure of having again to deal with using the world of addons and more addons installed for WoW and more especially to download them to my new PC for all the trouble they can be. So its also a bit just getting used to using the default UI playing as well.

I'm just barely at around 58K HP so far and slowly have replaced about 4 or 5 pieces of gear. Its quite shocking to see other players in zone with over 100K HP and having seem others with over 150K HP already in city. With my old WotLK epic progression gear it don't seem to last all that long into the next expansion. Makes me wonder somewhere deep down in my mind about the rat race at the level cap for gear progression and the effort and headache that can be. However I'm also glad as well to get rid of the gear as I pick up better Cataclysm pieces leveling up to 85. At least the answer that I was looking for to clean out my personal bank of the old epic gear and gears is clear that I can junk vendor it all.

Since I was questing in Vashj'ir I had flew to Undercity to bank/AH some stuff and out of curiosity I picked up a quest that ask me to head to Mount Hyjal by way of Orgrimmar to Moonglade. Just did the initial quests to get to the zone, picked up the new Flight Path's and complete the first real quest. Zoning into Mount Hyjal for the first time was very cool seeing Deathwing which was cool. Place looks really pretty, reminds me a bit of Night Elfs land so far.

Thought about questing there a bit in Mount Hyjal. However already had more time already invested and having done most of all the initial zone quests and didn't feel like starting over. So headed back to Vashj'ir zone to progress on questing there. I get the feel that Mount Hyjal may be more about Elementals invasion and Vashj'ir about the Nagas.

One the more difficult thing so far is figuring out a combat rotation on spells once combat starts that seem to work smoothly without clashing global cooldowns compared to how i remembered It used to be in WotLK with a smooth rotation. And so far I haven't figured out one as yet that works well. Often seem more like just button mashing most the time when cooldowns are up for the spells I primarily want to hit. At most I can figure having maximizing having more Holy Power charges seems good to be able to slam big with Shield of the Righteous, hitting harder with Inquisition with more charges or a good self heal with Word of Glory. Still getting used to using that too.

I guess it could be easier to get the answer with more knowledgeable understanding behind actual mechanic of talents and skills if I dropped by the Maintankadin forums and read through the a Cataclysm tankadin threads and figure things out.

Getting out the Cataclysm starting block

Wasn't quite that easy trying to clean up all my character bags and bank before the starting bell to at least start doing some things in Cataclysm. It took quite many hours to clean things up a bit on all 5 of my lvl 80 characters. And as well having to clean up and clean out the guild bank for my guild which as a job as well. It was like cleaning out a garage on and then trying to liquidate things by selling them all on the auction fairly cheap. Took quite a very long time where dumping it all to a vendor could of being easier, less time and less gold as well.

Most of the stuff I wanted sold got sold in 24hrs. Some I had to put back up on the AH to resell in 24hrs again and got sold. Wasn't much that didn't get sold, but some didn't and i just vendor the rest of everything that didn't. The hardest thing was trying to figure out what to do with a bag full of epic gear and gear sets for Galo. In the end after cleaning out personal bank I couldn't figure what to do with all my lvl 8o epic gear so I threw it all back into the bank till I could decide sometime later.

Made a few thousands selling all the stuff on each character on the AH where everything suddenly seem so expensive. Was happy at least got something vs straight junking everything to a vendor.

Next thing had to do as figure out how to spec my characters since everyone of then has no spec and all untalented points. That was too hard a task to do for each character since barely have any idea of class changes with everything being so new. I hadn't really decided which character I was going to play. However which character to play was a easy choice of which character I can remember how to play the easiest at lvl 80 first straight off the top of my mind. That was my paladin! It was easier to at least try to spec my paladin. So sat in the Inn in Org for a few hours trying to figure out a spec as well as trying to work at configuring the default UI.

Took a while and finally realize how much my paladin had changed as well as spells and skills. Didn't realize how much less points as well now have to talent a lvl 80 character. All this stuff was now new to me remembering how things used to be. I was amazed at how much talents had been moved around and shifted trees. As well as gone was the bloated talents. I was surprised only had 36 points, I was wondering where the rest of the points went.

Anyway was at least not so hard to figure out a Protect Spec for Galo. Figuring out where to put talent points in protection didn't seem that hard after doing a dry run of talents the first time. Seems like almost everything but a few places. Hardest part of making a decision talent points wise having no clue of how things had changed and not having no clue how new spells work with each other came down to deciding where to spend 3 extra points. After really reading the talents and again looking over the spec it was easy to put 3/3 in Crusade in the retribution tree. Was easy as well considering had Crusade in the old spec and re-reading the new talent description. So went ended up 0/33/3 at lvl 80.

What I couldn't figure out reading the Crusade spell was why it said Crusader Strike and had no idea what Templer's Verdict was. I had no idea that Crusader Strike was now a skill usable in the protection tree even though I clearly saw it in the spell book. I had just overlooked it since I knew it was always a retribution talent. So much so I leveled to lvl 81 without it. It wasn't till hit lvl 81 that went back to trainer and picked up the new Inquisition spell that looked again back through spell book and kept looking at the Crusader Strike skill. Moved it to see if it went on UI bar. And it did, I was surprised at that point.

Then had to spend a little bit of time trying to configure using the default WoW UI as well as look for them old macro's I had and minor update a few.

It was interesting seeing the new Glyph tree and the changes to how many and the types of glyph category. Had some empty slots to fill in for glyphs so after deciding a bit had my DK Alithas make me a few extra glyphs and was at least now set to go see the world.

At least best I can figure that's what I went with so far. In the end worked out a protection paladin spec and also spec my secondary retribution spec as well for 3/2/31 best I could figure things out.

Hearted to Dalaran since that's where my heartstone was set at and met a ghost city. Funny the place was packed the last time I was there, but that was months ago at last log in. There was no one to be found in Dalaran but maybe one or two players but a ghost city to say the least. Dropped by the trainers and updated training for all of Galo's professions to be able to train for the new skills. Stopped by the flight master and picked up the new flight training for Azeroth whatever it called can't remember.

Then was heading back to Orgrimmar. Umm where did all the portals go? Didn't realize all the portals in Dalaran are now gone. So took the flight master and flew to Borean Tundra and took the boat back to Orgrimmar.

Decided to do the first quest I had picked earlier up and actually did the first quest for "The Eye of the Storm" which i didn't realize is right there at the quest giver. Which eventually sent me off to Vashj'ir though at the time I had no idea that's where I was going. Being away from the game for so long everything was just so new that had no idea that's where I was going. I did know the other new lvl 80 starter zone was to Mount Hyjal but I had no clue where to find that so Vashj'ir at the time was just fine.

By the time did the first quest in Vashj'ir zone was about 0150 am. The zones looked quite impressive and had fun doing the new quests. Loosing track of time I played several hours and eventually hit lvl 81 that was now about 0800 or so. was too sleepy at that point to stay awake.

First Day of Cataclysm

Finally got the installation done of Cataclysm and logged into few my character accounts. I could barely recognize the world. I'm playing with plain default UI.

Since the last time I logged into WoW was quite a while ago for the most part when I logged in I was actually outside or Orgrimmar and had to hop on into the city. Hell I could barely recognize the place and had no idea where anything was. Could barely find the Auction House and the Inn of all places. Everything just seem so new, and could easily get lost just running around Orgrimmar at this point.

First order of things. Look into my characters bags at all that gear and junk and try to make sense of it all and getting rid of most of it. Tough task that seem and all my character bags was just full of stuff I barely remember what they do. Stuff that used to be worth quite a bit of money now almost seem to be close to junk.

Anyway tried to sell most of it on the AH to see what I could get for most of it. Basically spend several on various characters trying to clean out their bags which all seem to be full for why I can't remember and try to clean out their banks a bit of all the crap that was there. Seem like a tough job when haven't played in months to decide what to get rid of.

Would almost be easier to just sell every single thing in bag and bank to the vendor including all the epic gear sitting in bag and bank to get rid of it all and no longer have to fuss with it anymore.

Installing WoW & Cataclysm..

Just finally decided to go ahead and buy Cataclysm and log into my Blizzard Battle.net account that took quite many attempts to remember the password.

Bought the digital download version as well as went ahead and reactivated my subscription account.

So now have a new and full clean installation to do of WoW to do on my fairly new Mac Pro Laptop. That will be a whole lot of gigabyte's to install for a complete installation of WoW all the way up to the very latest patch of Cataclysm.

Now sure how long this will take. But will see.

12/08/10 - 0630 Started a full and complete Installation of WoW.

12/08/10 - Log into server and still downloading patches.

Wish you all a fun time leveling with Cataclysm

I guess its now D-Day in Cataclysm. And you all have hit the ground running mad leveling in Cataclysm. Some starting with new characters and some moving on from being at lvl 80 for what seem like been there forever. Somewhere deep down I wish I was out there with you all hitting the ground like times past.

However I can at least stop by and wish you all well and allot of fun times on the new journey in Cataclysm. And I know some of you stuck at work and can't play and some of you probably called in sick just so you can stay at home and play. I probably should be playing Cataclysm myself since well i got so much free time right now being recently unemployed.

However I still haven't quite decided to install WoW on my newer Mac Laptop and re-sub as yet. Maybe later today i'll make a decision. I'm probably leaning towards one :)

I'm sure the servers are and have been crazy for the new launch. Wish you all a damn good time on the journey and at least don't forget to smell the roses in the new world and have fun.