It’s all Northrend, now.

The last days have been a tough blogging-ride. There wasn’t much to talk about on the one hand, on the other hand the stuff to talk about has been told many a time on whatever wow-related website or blog you tend to stick to as your primary source of killing (or inventing) some downtime at work. Now, the first big news-rush is done. So what’s the deal, for us warriors, really?

Reminder

With every ding you should have a quick look at your character window, hover over your defense rating and make sure it still says “reduces the chance for critical hits by 5.6+%”. If you feel like you’ll soon be struggling on that matter, you might wanna check out my Pre WotLK patch defense rating gear guide – the “easiest to get +def gear” list and hop on the DK-instance-grinding for the one or other easy drop – /4 should be full of lfm-requests. Or consult your trusted blacksmith friends, for they will be more than happy to craft solid armor for fellow tanks and save some farming as you’ll happily provide those materials required.

I’ll sandwich this post for you into a good-bad-good meaty snack, because with new things there comes both, and nothing should be left alone. But first things first: What is my view on all that stuff? I’m close to turning 72. I’ve done some 30 or so quests in the Tundra and got the flightpath for Azjol’Nerub. Most of my leveling comes from dungeons, so that’ll be a big part in this lenghty post and I’ll cover everything you need or want to know about them.

The Good …

It’s been late in the evening hours on saturday when I finally installed Wrath from the Blizzard-Downloader (Amazon messed up this time) and I wasn’t really excited to get to Northrend, because I don’t usually like questing that much. It’s much the same every single time. So my plan was to take a look around and then log off, to have a smooth start on sunday.

As I wanted to start exploring the surroundings of the very base I saw it in /1: lfm Tank for the Nexus. I jumped in, and let me tell you one thing: Be prepared for awesome dungeons. May I say that the Nexus blames all of BC dungeons combined in terms of atmosphere, design and, simply put, beauty? You enter it and you just know you’re not expected to be here. The different sections and bosses make for some great variety, everything seems to have gotten that attention to detail from back in the days, and even more. Best of all: Huge rooms. High ceilings. No zooming in and not seeing anything. There’s space, and this huge space makes for a big part of the dungeon-feeling.

Another safe bet for what you want to do is exploring the surroundings, doing the first quests. What you are going to realize soon is that everything makes sense around here, somehow. The quests are geopgraphical close, and almost all of them seem to have at least one “non-standard” element – be it to blow up holes, to free fellow adventurers that fight with you for some time, or to rescue kodos through riding them back home. Plus, everything is deeply woven into the lore of Northrend. How shallow ever you are approaching the quests, you’ll inevitably get why you’re doing what you’re doing, and you soon get the hang of what’s going on here. It’s great. You’ll love it.

As any tanking class, you are gonna level real fast. I ran the Nexus three times that evening, then added two Utgarde Keep clears to the mix. Ding, 71. All of those runs were only in reaction to what I’d like to invent as “lft” (looking for tank). The Nexus grants about 120-200k exp, depending on your rested bonus. That’s just 8-10 clears to 71, while one clear with a solid group can be done in about 25 minutes. Put in the extra effort to do some pre-questing and pick up the dungeon quests, each granting 40k exp and a solid piece of gear, and you’ll ding sooner than you thought.

Plus, the bosses are interesting and feel like monster-slaying. Each boss kind of has it’s “throne room”, protected by guards or guarding something important by themselves, which by definition makes them feel more “bossy” than just a named mob standing around in a hallway, patroulling a bridge or whatever else non-spectacular boss-surroundings we’ve lived with in BC. Additionally, the slaying of bosses makes sense in a way that either you have to do so in order to clear the way up to the next guy or to do a quest there, or get access to another area. It’s not like Tempest Keep, where you would face a closed door as a very phoney reason to kill those guys standing around randomly … it’s not like there’d be a credible reason that door doesn’t open, is there?

Even the bosses do have a serious link to the lore, do the questlines around the Nexus and you’ll see the end fight in a whole different light, and really understand the instance. I haven’t done any questing in the Fjord or Dragonblight, so Utgarde & Azjol’Nerub lore are yet to be explored for me, but I’m certain you will find similar deep connections to everything going on around those instances as for the Nexus.

More goodness for the warrior tank: Threat

Yep, the threat minigame still exists. While you can AoE tank pretty much everything, those mobs do have solid health-pools way beyond the 40k, so your DPS will take some time to kill them off. I got back to the good old tab-targeting early when I had one or two runners. The good news: Tanking isn’t stupid running, it’s just so much easier. And you can, actually, give your DPS a run for their money. The more mobs you pull the higher your DPS get. Thunderclap hits hard these days, don’t be surprised finding it at the very top of your damage-output in 5+Mob situations.

… the Bad …

It felt great running those instances, but it was too easy. Too easy meaning that we one-shot everything without any death at all in both Utgarde Keep and The Nexus, rushed through in about 30-40 minutes and never felt any danger and/or challenge whatsoever. Without reading any guide. I pulled whole rooms, hallways and rushed around like crazy – no big deal there. Azjol’Nerub, which is 42-44, was just as easy with a group of 70 and 71 chars. (20minutes, there’s only 4 trashpacks there. However, the Boss encounters are just plain awesome, they have a raid-boss feeling to them and if that’s the trend boss fights are heading, hell I want it all and more of it).

But let’s look at that again. I, of course, complained about all of this not being a challenge. It needed my insightuful brother’s hint to realize that those instances are designed towards leveling people, fresh 68s to 70s who are nowhere near badge/zul’aman gear with full gems and enchants. They are designed around tanks with roughly 10k health, about 12k armor and 20% avoidance. And that’s only if you did your tanking thingy in all those BC instances to have at least some gear.

I was assured that it’s not an easy walkthrough with a tank like that, and if it wouldn’t have been for a ~T5 equipped healer, that above mentioned tank’s group wouldn’t have had anything like a successful run. So don’t moan all too much, we’re heavily overgeared right now. The challenges will come in 4-5 levels, and when dinging 80 we’ll all start to run Naxx and the heroics which I’m sure will provide the wipes we so desperately seek.

One more little bummer: Skills. Yes, there are new skills. But when I headed back to the trainer at 71, it was really disappointing to only be able to pick up a new rank of rend. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want many more skills, my action bars are as full as it gets already and the new tanking requires me to be a lot faster and more versatile in terms of using the right ability at the right time. But there could’ve been something more. I don’t know what that could’ve been, but I’ll for sure check out what skills to learn when and make a good plan on what levels I’ll waste some time to get to that trainer.

Actually, that’s about that with the downsides.

… and the awesome

Have you had a look at the new blacksmithing recipes yet? Enchanting? Whatever profession it is you’re hooked into? There’s some seriously useful stuff coming up. We well be able to craft gear for leveling, for every spec and every class, as well as for (early) endgame-raiding. The professions have been revised and rethought, now every single one seeming to offer some good tools everyone seeks. Finally, armor blacksmithing not only matches a warrior tank’s character, but it also grants useful tanking gear out of the pocket. It was about time.

Also, the drops and dungeon quest rewards are tuned in perfectly. It’s the real deal there: If you’re geared anything around Karazhan or above, you’ll stick to most of your gear for some more time. It’s not like back with BC, where you were better off disenchanting T1 and replacing all that gear you worked really hard for with AH-greens immediately. The new Wrath greens are about late-BC blues, Wrath blues are at Kara-epic level, many of them rather offering solid alternatives to your current gear instead of obvious upgrades. It’s not like you feel everything you worked for the last months is useless right away. It’s not. And with the new gems, which did have a huge boost (+18sta from a green, for example), the old gear with it’s sockets still is superior to much of new loot with only base stats.

Gold is flowing in already. Gray weapons and armor sell for 2-4g at vendors. The quests don’t reward a huge chunk of cash with around 4-6g each, but mind the immense XP and take into account how fast you can level up. I guess I’ve done about 1/3 of the Borean Tundra quests by now and am already almost 72. I’d estimate that if you clear the Tundra, then do the same for the Fjord, while running as many instances as possible for gearing up and massive extra XP, you can hit 80 with only about three zones quested out.

All the remaining tasks Northrend offers will then net you an immense budget to spend on money-dumps. Go pick up bad weather flying. Then, if you haven’t yet (in my case, for example), finally get that epic flying skill. Maxing out your professions aren’t gonna be cheap tasks either, at least they definitely weren’t in BC.

Last but not least: You get to run around wearing the most hilarious costume ever spotted in an MMORPG, which happens to be no less than a Murloc one. I’ll add some screenshots in the evening when I get home from work, but prepare for awesomeness at it’s best!

Rejoice, fellow adventurers, for the next weeks and months are gonna be the best time we ever spent in our beloved World of Warcraft!

Recommended Reading:

• Northrend Week 1 @ Tank like a Girl
• Level 72, In Pictures @ Mirror Shield
• WoTLK – Day 1 @ Tankette’s Rambles
• Gnomeregan Redux @ The view from down here

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