Update

So with my newfound free time I've been steadily leveling my triumvirate of alts. Unfortunately I haven't been leveling them evenly. I worked on Solinari for a while, got her up to Outland, got bored of that, then leveled up Nuiitari. Lunitari is languishing at level 12 merely because I can't have that many characters in the guild. I'm thinking of replacing Caaz with Lunitari, so that I can finally level her. But the guild is short on tanks right now so it may pay to keep Caaz in instead. I haven't decided.

Solinari Level 73 Priest

Soli has gotten up to Borean Tundra. Outland was uneventful, if boring. I've done the 58-68 grind so many times, I do it on auto pilot. It truely is a big letdown after the revamped quests from 1-60.

Before starting outland I had to go back to train up her herbalism. Actually, I leveled to 60 first in outland, then went back. Having a flying mount made training up the herbalism sooo much faster. I even bought her Epic 280% flying, since I was getting tired of how slow the mount was.

Mana has become less of an issue as shadow. With the combination of Shadowfiend and Dispersion, I can usually handle being chained pulled DPSing a dungeon. My DPS is actually pretty respectable, but only on boss fights. The only AOE I have access to, even at this level is Holy Nova, which I forget if it knocks me out of shadowform. Either way it uses a lot of mana for not much damage. I tend to just single target nuke everything.

For healing, mana isn't too bad. I'm trying out the new "smiting" way of healing. Which keeps you constantly casting. Its ok I guess, but I think I prefer the shield+renew way of healing. That might not be too viable once I get into the upper Wrath/Cata instances, so we'll see how that goes.

I've leveled Soli's Enchanting to about 320 or so. Arcane dust is crazy expensive now so I was hoping to bank on DE'ing greens made by Nuii leveling her Tailoring. To do that Nuii has to be at least level 50, so I started leveling her.

Nuiitari Level 50 Warlock

I leveled Nuii to 50 in order to further train her tailoring. Unfortunately the price of Netherweave Cloth is high, probably because of the inflated prices of Netherweave Bags. This makes leveling tailoring in the 300's expensive. The last time I did this on Bob, I had a huge stockpile of cloth, so that helped soften the blow of gold.

At first I was trying to level Nuii as demonlogy. It was the one spec I didn't have much experience with and it seemed to make sense. Having a felguard at such a low level was a boon. I rarely had to stop to drink, and I was plowing through mobs quickly. But as she got higher in level, having the felguard wasn't as imbalanced. Towards the 30's the send-in-the-pet-and-dot style was getting tiresome. I already have to dot the target on my shadow priest, I wanted more burst. I then switched to destruction, which gave me conflagrate. This made quite a bit of difference. Now I send in the voidwalker to tank, hit immolate, conflag and then either a shadowbolt or drain life if running low. The shadowbolt is a long cast, but some talents and procs do bring the cast time down. Its unfortunate you don't get incinerate(fast cast) or even soulfire(instant with soulburn) until much later.

Switching to destruction has really opened the class back up again. With the shoulder, chest and now cloak heirlooms ( +25% XP total), the mana regen BoA trinket, and the guild's +10% XP bonus, you can fly through the levels very quickly.

Unfortunately Lunitari is still at level 12. The main reason being that because she's not in the guild, she loses out on that 10% of xp, which is enough of a psychological reason for me to avoid leveling her.

[WoW IC] Lunitari out on her own

Lunitari, Apprentice Mage, - Sunstrider Isle

Taking a break today from working. Thats right, I'm working. I decided that I'm not going to let Nuii or Soli have all the fun. I'm gonna strike out on my own. Of course I haven't TOLD them this, but they're both away for work for at least a week so I can do what I want. I decided to start out slow, so I made my way back towards the Mage School, on Sunstrider Isle. This time I took the Windrunner service, got there in fraction of the time.

Currently I'm doing odd jobs, tending to whatever needs tending. The scourge are still everywhere so there's plenty to do. I've also done some training from Magi Sunstriker. My power has steadily improved, and yesterday I decided to focus on the Frost aspect of magecraft. The first spell I trained for was to summon my own Water Elemental. Unlike the Earth and Fire Elementals that Shaman's are able to conjure, mage summoned Water Elementals are allowed to stay on our plane for much longer. Whether this is an inherent ability of Water Elementals or because of the Mage summoning, I don't know.

Communicating with the Water Elemental seems almost harder than learning to summon. As far as I can tell, its the same Elemental every time. He ( or she? ) seems to be able to pick up strong emotions from me, but direct communication is more difficult. Mistress Garidel says that eventually I will be able to speak with the Elemental intuitively, but for now its mostly just him protecting me when I run into trouble.

Work is going pretty well. I've been helping out Starbreeze Village mostly. They're closer to the remaining scourge than other towns, so the fighting there is a bit more common. Its not terrible, there aren't overwhelming hordes of scourge set to pounce on the town. The local militia tends to keep the numbers low enough that travelers aren't in too much danger. Still, sometimes I have to go at it alone and I'm glad I have my elemental with me.

[WoW IC] Lunitari

Excerpt from the log of Lunitari, Apprentice Blood Mage...

Day 2, Apprentice Mage Log

I left Sunstrider Isle mid-morning yesterday. Currently staying in an inn on the west side of the Ruins of Silvermoon. They've blocked off the East side of the city, no access from this side to the next. Some of the guards mentioned that in order to gain access to the city, adventurers have to cross the dead scar farther down south. They are able to provide protection up to the dead scar, and from the dead scar into Silvermoon proper, but not inside the dead scar.

It took me longer to get here than it should because I stopped to help a few folks out on the road. With the state of the land and everything, we need to really stick together. Also, they were paying some good coin, and my purse is very light. I've saved about 10 silver up to this point. Not a lot, but certainly more than I've ever had at one time. There was no real need for coin at the Mage school, most of our needs were provided for by the school.

Spellcasting has gotten easier with time, I think I'm getting more and more used to the arcane energies. Casting a fireball has become almost second nature now, though i'm embarrased to admit that I occasionally still singe my robes in the attempt. Magister Erona mentioned that as my proficiency with spells increases, I will need to train with more experienced Blood Mages.

I'm told that in the near future I'll have to pick a school of magic to specialization into. I heard about this specialization in mage school as well, but I haven't decided which specializatoin to pick.

From my understanding Fire is the most popular, because of the sheer power of the spells. Unfortunately I've also heard its the most taxing, exacting a heavy toll on the bodies and minds of its practitioners. But for those interested in sheer destructive power, its an attractive school.

Frost is another popular spec, almost being the polar opposite of the Fire specialization. This seems a more controlled specialization, using elemental ice. One of the Magisters at the school gave a demonstration where they could incase both their enemy and themselves in solid blocks of ice!

There's also the third specialization, Arcane. This is a dangerous specialization, especially for Blood Mages. With the Sunwell restored its less of an issue, but you still have to be careful. Delving too much into the Arcane puts us dangerously close to letting the addiction take control. Personally I've never considered this specialization, but I know some who have. Including some that have taken an almost too keen interest in it.