Level 20 - To Kitty Or Not to Kitty?

Darkshore

Darkshore stays as awesome as it started.

Errol with her new hair outside of Lor'danel.

After helping out the survivors on the beach you're sent to deal with a troll problem in Northern Auberdine. Yes, the dancing troll village from vanilla is an actual place now and they've allied with the Horde. Most of your efforts in this part of the zone involve stopping the Horde from progressing any further and rescuing any prisoners. It was a very interesting micro-dungeon for me because I tend to level more on the Horde side and I'm not used to seeing the war crimes they commit.

I was a bit lost after completing this part of the zone. You take out the troll leader, but don't get any breadcrumbs to continue. I wandered around the zone until I found a quest hub I had missed. This hub is made up entirely of Auberdine refugees and they send you to the ruins to finish what you started when you arrived. You destroy some of the elementals that have been wreaking havoc, you out a few souls to rest and you rescue and loud-mouthed and fiesty Dwarf. Like the opening quests, these quests triggered a very strong emotional response in me. I wanted to put these people's souls to rest, I wanted to save the Dwarf and I wanted to absolutely DESTROY the elementals.

Waterfalls in Darkshore.

The leader of the camp of refugees isn't really a refugee at all. He's a Night Elf druid that was sent to help Malfurion Stormrage save Darkshore. He's got his hands full, so he sends you instead. As a young Night Elf druid (and fan of Malfurion/Tyranda/Illidan) I was absolutely ecstatic. Shan'do's quests send you to ally with the moonkin, furbolg and ancients population in Darkshore. After you do that you break into the Emerald Nightmare and rescue a green dragon that the Twilight's Hammer had captured. You shoot some stuff out of the sky and then you're sent back to Malfurion.

That's as far as I got in the zone and I don't that I'll be able to finish it before the quests go grey. I'll do as much as I can, but I might have to move to Ashenvale prematurely.

"Yeah, mon, I jus' gotta sit down a sec."

Northern Barrens


The Northern Barrens began in a lackluster way and it keeps it's mediocrity for awhile.

The turning point for me is when you're turning in a quest (the name of the quest escapes me, otherwise I'd link it). The quest involves Undead apothecaries and you turn it into an Forsaken woman in Ratchet. I didn't expect anything interesting to come of it, so when I turned it in and a Orc soldier confiscated the research, yelled at the woman and reminded me of the Wrathgate, I was surprised and very happy. It's the little things like this that make the the New Old-World all that much better.

I do love it when this happens.

While in Ratchet you get a fuckton of quests that send you to a pirate/Alliance themed micro-dungeon called the Merchant Coast. These quests are fun in a muted way - they aren't "epic" on par with Darkshore, but they definitely offer adventure: you help lead a mutiny, let a pirate free and give the Alliance some hell. Also, you get a really good chunk of XP.

Wailing Caverns

It's beauty masks the frustration.

Wailing Caverns used to be the bane of my existence, but it's much better now. In 4.1 "the maze section of the Wailing Caverns" was removed and I was one of the players that said "Isn't that the whole thing?". The Wailing Caverns is still a maze, but it's much shorter and easier to navigate now. If only we could get people to stop leaving before the dungeon's over.



Druidism


There weren't a lot of new spells, but a lot of other things happened.

While in a dungeon on Errol I noticed that my DPS was very low (discussed here). I was perplexed - I was doing everything right, what gives? I ran a dungeon on Hypo and compared numbers. Hypo DPS, with heirlooms, was MUCH higher than Errol's. I know that low-level DPS doesn't matter, but it made me feel like a shit druid who was under performing.

Everything's blue in Moonglade.

I had a fair amount of cat leather in my bags, so I respecced on Errol and now she's a kitty. Even though my "leveling two balance druids" deal is kind of off now, I can always switch back and it'll be cool to compare the leveling difference between to members of the same class with different specs.

MOUNTS!

No more running around on foot (well, in travel form, but still!).

Errol now has a Striped Dawnsaber, one of the least used Night Elf mounts. I've only seen it once or twice and the others are so overused. I'm quite fond of the saber mounts, but they absolutely need a graphics upradge. I feel the same way about wolves.

Everything's orange in Durotar.

Hypocritic has a Turquoise Raptor. I couldn't decide which raptor to buy, but the turquoise color is so vibrant I couldn't resist!


Looking Ahead

I'd like to get to level 25, or maybe even 30 next week!