Guest Post: First Impressions

Somaric: "Does this helmet make my ears look big?"

[Merinna's Note: Today, I'm happy to bring a guest post from longtime WoW friend, Somaric. He and I both play on the Oceanic realms, so our times represent Australian standard times instead of Blizzards American PST. Please enjoy!]

As a long-time questing sidekick of Merinna, Somaric thought it might be interesting for a first impression posting about the new release, Cataclysm

I seem to be levelling very fast.  I made level 81, yesterday, in about 4 ½ hours.  Most of this was done in Mt Hyjal.   

The realm I play on was locked up on the 7^th, so I didn’t get to do anything except gain my Azeroth riding skill. Consequently, I got up early the next day.  

The Raiders' Guide to Leveling in Cataclysm

The future is just over that horizon. No, the other one... to the right.

Here is some advice about the progression to level 85 that I think will be good for raiders to keep in mind for the way we play.

1. Run Dungeons
Raiders do this anyway, but the dungeon paradigm has changed so much from what it was in Wrath of the Lich King, and we have had no real opportunity to test ourselves in five-man content for some time. Learn all these fights on normal for when we come back on heroic. Besides, you want the drops. You can also accrue Justice Points for lvl 85 gear. The 4000 JP cap in place now will let you buy about a piece and a half of gear, so I seriously hope it will be removed or raised when leveling starts.

2. Hit your cooking/fishing/JC dailies from the start.
You'll need special currencies to advance your skills here, so try to get started collecting that stuff as soon as possible. All three of these quest givers lurk out on the canals in Stormwind. Admittedly, I don't think you'll get raid buff goodies out of fishing, however, I'm not sure I have found a recipe for anything other than fish. And you'll get skill points for completing that daily, at least.

Seahorse!

Actually, I'll write more posts as soon as
I stop having fun riding my new sea horsey
all over Vashj'ir.

I couldn't take it anymore and sent Merinna into new territory and have brought her to level 82. There has been so much forum discussion about how much the healing mechanics are changing that I had to go see for myself. So, expect some up-coming posts about the new content after all.

My first impressions of the undersea realm of Vashj'ir: The zone is pretty honking huge. And it is layered and very vertical. This makes it a little tricky to find things since what you are looking for might be on the sea bottom, or it might be sitting on one of the four ledges that jut out over your head. So a little patience is required.  You do get some help in navigating, however: Merinna's sea horse there is a full blown new mount (that only works in Vashj'ir) but you can jump on him and move about at epic-flying like speeds. And you get that sea horse in the first 10 quests or so.

You also have the fairly well documented "Sea Legs" spell which allows you to skip across the sea floor at a semi-normal speed.

The first few areas that you go through don't look terribly exciting really. There is sea bottom, and a fair number of shipwrecks. But as you go deeper into the realm, much more incredible things rise up out of the murk to surprise you. So, the whole place is well worth exploring!