Like I knew what I was doing

Every couple of days I’m trying to devote a few minutes, a quest or two, an auction house scan, something to my little night elf warrior.

If you don’t remember, he’s a copy of my first WoW character – sort of an apology for how much of a noob I was and an attempt to set things right.

It’s amazing that I remember as much as I do from the night elf starting area, I haven’t leveled anyone through it in something like a year or more…

He’s level 13 now – and has 13 gold, all from scratch.

According to the statistics page, I haven’t died yet and I can’t recall being a wisp in a very, very long time so I think it might be correct.

It’s pretty funny that my first time rolling a warrior I understood synergy between talents. It never dawned on me that there were people that would just pour all their talents into 1 tree and be done with it. Each tree generally has some tasty, low-hanging fruit that is desirable to many builds. On my first warrior I even managed to come up with a spec that was only a point or two off of the recommended leveling spec for warriors. And I did it without even knowing about sites like Thottbot, WoWWiki, or the others.

So I understood talents, but I couldn’t translate that knowledge into abilities. The basics were there, I would open with charge, get a rend in there, and then heroic strike like mad. I didn’t really get the “next swing” part of the mechanic for a while. I was always having difficulty maneuvering around mobs, always pulling more than I could handle, had huge downtime in between pulls.

This time around, I know what hamstring is. I use shield bash! Multiple mobs? Thunderclap and no problem! Overpower is awesome. These are all abilities that took me a long time (if ever) to work into my arsenal on the first warrior.

But I am doing this all on my own this time.

Last time, a friend loaned me 5 gold and some bags to get me started. I was really lucky and got an engineering pattern drop that I sold for a few gold and never needed to dip into the loan, pretty cushy start for a first character.

I hope when Blizzard redesigns old world they give some thought to getting more fucking bags! In the draenei and blood elf starting areas they are practically throwing bags at you. I almost ran my warrior over to the Exodar right off the bat just to get bags from quests.

So I’m spending a lot less on repair bills, but I’m getting my skills and professions leveled up as I go. (I understand buff food this time! Nummy nummy spider kabobs.)

At level 12, I couldn’t afford all my training! I was short by a couple copper. Couple spiders dead and some broken legs sold to a vendor and I was in good shape.

Got a real nice (relative to the level) bow as a quest reward – and no bow skill to go with it. No two handed weapon skills either. Guess I’ll pick that up in Darnassus.

Running to Darnassus allowed me to hear the jingle of my mail armor, such a contrast from the near-silence of my mage’s robes. I remember being fascinated by the changing sounds my armor made the first time around. You start off very quiet in cloth and leather, then a mail piece drops here, a quest reward there and soon enough you’re jingling. I know at 40 I’ll starting replacing those mail pieces with plate and the jingle will slowly become the clanking and clinking of a full set of real armor.

Entering Darnassus for the “second” time didn’t quite have the same impact as it did the first time.

For one, the Brewfest activities were still running so that boisterous atmosphere right at the entrance sort of spoiled the solemnity of entering Darnassus.

Secondly, my nemesis – the lamp post – isn’t as menacing as it was the first visit. What a difference knowing how to move the camera makes.

Yes, that is the post that I got hung up on my very first time entering the city. It’s smaller than it appears in that picture, but it’s still a sizable doodad to get caught on. Unfortunately I didn’t really have a grasp on camera manipulation nor did I know how to back up so I was snagged on that post with no clue about what was happening for quite some time. It was rather frustrating.

Getting to Darnassus the first time was also overwhelming since I had no clue where anything was. Guards are few and far between there compared to the other cities. We should totally be able to ask the wisps for directions and then they guide you there.

This time around I knew where everything but the herbalism trainer was. Silly me thought she would be over with the alchemy instructor, like it’s set up in Silvermoon.

But I soon found myself running the same paths I used to, jumping on the same railings, cutting through the same buildings, noting with surprise all the new mail boxes.

And now the anvil!

That might come in handy later when I pick up blacksmithing.

Some things haven’t quite lost their magic – the first hippogryph ride to Auberdine is still mesmerizing for me.

Darnassus is a ghost town, at least at the times I’m logged on. I know it’s never exactly a bustling center of commerce, but there were 3 people there including me.

One was a gnome sitting afk in the auction house.

My brain practically blew a fuse fighting off the urge to run over and jump up and down on him or attempting a /punt emote.

I find myself not looking at the other characters around me. I’m ok with the night elves and the draenei. They’re cool.

But anything else still has this stamp of “enemy” on it, the character shapes/voices/animations trigger a kill response even though the name is green.

I’ve noticed when I’m on my Horde characters (at least my blood elves) I am much more likely to allow night elves and draenei, particularly females, to pass by without bothering them. Other races, especially male characters, have an increased chance of seeing some world PvP action from me. Side effect of playing male characters? Some sort of twisted chivalry?

I found the training dummies. They really need to add a low-level dummy. I wanted to toy with some keybindings, but was too rage starved to get anything other than “Not enough rage.” I think I got them worked out though.

It’s really sort of amusing to see the Horde banner on a training dummy. Rawr! Big, bad Horde training dummy!

Pull up to the weapon trainer, I needz me some bow skillz plz.

9 silver.

9 silver!

At this point I was still broke from getting my level 12 training.

I’m already eying the mounts at level 20 and I can’t even afford to get a new weapon skill.

No need to fear!

Thanks to a little planning and a little work in the AH, I now have all the weapon skills that can be learned in Darnassus and the Exodar and will easily have enough for a mount at 20.

Maybe next time I’ll share my low-level gold tips.