Ovinia puts down roots in the Nexus

Ovinia is now 72 and shaking her leaves like nobody's business! While it will take some time for me to put down roots into the resto tree, I'm happy to have branched out this way! Healing as a tree is fun beyond beleaf!

Okay, okay, I'll stop, really.

It's a very different experience from healing as a disc priest (SO MANY BUTTONS OMG) or a resto shammy (everyone stand together in a pile! now chain heal! chain heal like nobody's business!). I haven't actually specced my paladin holy in LK, so I can't speak to that, although I can't help but think it is also very different from tree-healing. ^_^ It's a combination of constantly being on the edge of your seat and getting to relax and think "wow, my HoTs will just keep everyone alive with no problem!" the whole time. I think I was more intent on Grid than I've been in ages, though hopefully I didn't stand in much.

I also got a nice new belt and a quest-reward cloak out of the deal, which was great, too. And I got to flip Grand Magus Telestra the bird, because HAHAHA OVITREE COULD HEAL THROUGH THAT. (Being flung all over the place just isn't a shaman's favorite fight mechanic ever...)

Now that I've inflicted myself on friends (thanks, guys!), I'm tempted to wander through more random dungeons, trying my hand at this tree-healing business. I wish Ovinia had more of an RP backstory, but she is more or less a blank slate. I have a vague idea that her favorite shapeshift form is actually her aquatic form, because she loves the water, and that when not adventuring, she actually lives on (or owns?) a boat near Darkshore (and has been a part of a few different boats' crews over the last several decades), but I have no further ideas yet. Kaldorei RP has a lot of potential, but it's just never been as close to my heart as, er, certain other races. Still, it's time to get over the ancient dwarvish fear of trees, I think! It'll be fun seeing what tree-healing is like in a little more detail. (It may also make me a little less trigger-happy in my raids, so I can stop sniping so many heals out from under our excellent druid healers. Ahem.)

When Lich King was on its way, I was really determined not to play my alts. I wanted One True Character, and I'd decided that, because I liked the shaman class so much, it was going to be Teuthida. I was tired of gearing up alts, I was tired of chasing down rep for multiple classes -- I was really very, very ready to just have one character I played and not have to worry about the leveling, the gearing, the instancing, the rep grinding, and so on.

It hadn't occurred to me, really, because rep grinding is still such a pain, but the major objections I had to alting are now gone. If I want to be exalted with all the factions, it doesn't take instancing -- it just takes doing dailies, so all it really takes is time. I'm not terribly interested in raiding with anybody but Teu and, you know, Ovi, because I just want to be playing Ovi, period. I just want Nancie geared up well enough to handle heroics, and crafting handles the bulk of that. I really don't care about gear for most of the rest of my alts -- Agness and Lyja and Lil' Teu are more there to enjoy the leveling experience and do some crafting work for me than anything else. (Lyja is 71 and a 450 elixir master alchemist; Lil' Teu is 68 and a 405 transmute master alchemist. Agness is my scribe. I spend a lot of time on my alts herbing!)

So while I do have a list of things I'd like to do for each character, none of them have much urgency or require a big time commitment -- something that really felt different back in BC.

As for RP, due to both time commitment issues and my skittishness doing major RP in-game, the RP is usually either off-the-cuff, mainly with Valinar's alts, or written -- which means there's time for everybody, and certainly time for everyone to have an active life in my head. ^_^ Some alts will always get more RP time than others, but I'm amused to note that an alt who probably won't see much play time at 80 (Agness) is turning out to be one of my more active RP muses. I suspect it's the interaction between Agness and Vaelen, which amuses me to no end. (I think I also like having a drama-free couple to play with. They don't fight, they don't have angst, they aren't going to split up, and Vaelen will probably never figure out what's going on with that imp.) But beyond that, there's a bit of a parallel going on between Agness and Ovi that I had completely failed to notice before: they're both former Light-users who are both going through an uncomfortable time as they adjust to living without the Light.

I need to make more time for writing!

Back to the beginning, Agness thought, and so she knelt next to Anetta in the hills of Northshire, eyes closed, hands turned palms-up.

And nothing. Still.

"It should be there," Agness said, head falling forward slightly. She sighed and tucked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. "It's always been there, even if--"

"Even if you were called to the other side of it?" Anetta put a gentle hand on Agness's shoulder. "Try again. Find your center, and draw strength through it."

Agness nodded and closed her eyes again, face tilting up toward the sun, palms up, hands open as if to reach for the Light. It was there, just out of reach, the smoky trails of shadow just the other side of the coin, and deep inside her core, her center, the innermost depths of her being, she could feel it--the spell that would channel her truest self...

There was an acrid smell of--of brimstone?--and a soft chuckle. "Couldn't resist, could you?"

Agness opened one eye, wincing already, and Anetta made a garbled choking noise. "Agness," she hissed, "there's a--"

"I know," Agness said, covering her face in one hand and waving the succubus away with the other. "I know. I know. I know."

Anetta sighed, and after a while, Agness looked up at her, wincing as she did. Anetta did not look amused.

"You've got more problems than I can help you with out here," Anetta said. "I think you're going to need to ask for help at the Cathedral."

Dinging 80 comes with such a high price tag. 300g got dropped at the priest trainer! I'm also in the process of picking up materials for Jeeves and my Wormhole Generator. (Mining. So much mining. So very, very much mining.) And Ovi would love an epic gyrocopter of her very own. At least she already has dual-spec; Nancie's still waiting on that.

I think I'm going to bite the bullet and race-change Trisia (my previous mage, L63, herbalist/alchemist-in-training) to be the new Li'l Teu. Not only will I pick up five levels, I'll get free 150 riding (well, that used to be more meaningful than it is now...) and access to my hoard of caster heirlooms. At that point, it'll be time to say goodbye to the second account. I never actually upgraded that account to LK, either, so frankly, a race change is cheaper than doing that -- at least at this point.

I have been secretly playing Ovi up the last few levels as, um, shadow. It turns out shadow is ridiculously fun; I won't mind having a shadow-oriented Ovistine around a bit in the upcoming months. In fact, it's kinda nice to have realized that, because it means instead of having a character that makes me think "but... I've got an endgame healer", instead I end up thinking, "Well, hey! A shadow priest! You don't see many of those around nowadays." Whether that'll end up being useful in the long run or not, I'm honestly not sure, but I'd love to get her some playtime soon. I find myself terribly tempted to try PvPing with her, too.

Hey, speaking of dwarf shamans! Were we speaking of dwarf shamans? Oh, who am I kidding; I'm always speaking of dwarf shamans these days. Did anyone else notice that the Earthen in Loken's Lackeys and The Earthen Oath are, kinda, dwarf shamans? Well, they're Earthen, but they have shaman-esque abilities: Lava Burst, Earth Shield, Earth Shock. Maybe another way of discovering a dwarf's innate shamanism has to do with exploring their ties to earth (the element, rather), and not just "well, Wildhammer dwarves are closer to nature, so it just makes sense". (Not that there's anything wrong with Wildhammer dwarves, mind you!)

Teuthida (L80, raiding main): 62 days, 20 at L80.
Ovistine (L75, RP main, main up until late in BC): 67 days
Nancie (L80, current favorite for soloing): 19 days, 1 day at L80.

(A small note: I was deeply relieved to see that Ovistine's /played still outnumbers Teu's. I can still hang onto the idea that Ovi is my main if her /played total is higher, right? Right?)

This doesn't take into account my original main, my other half-dozen alts, or any other characters I've played up to 20-ish and deleted. All told, that's more than 3552 hours, and a little under half a year spent doing nothing but playing World of Warcraft since December 26, 2004. And if anything, I'm more interested in playing than ever -- lately I've been really interested in crafting, getting some of my alts up to 450 in their respective professions and mining a ton of Saronite for Valinar's blacksmith, Vaelen. I have also been doing some crazy things, mostly involving RP gear ("Today's project: soloing the Slave Pens for a drop off Quagmirran."). Nancie's treks into Scholo and Strat are over for now (exalted with the Dawn!), so it looks like I'm back to leveling and dailies.

Having something a little different to do can really energize me, and I think that's important to keeping the game fresh for me. I don't mind the bank space I'm using for Nancie's RP gear, or the time I spent in Scholo and Strat trying to grind rep (omgwow SO MUCH RUNECLOTH). I am not quite prepared to go hunting Alliance rep with her, but I know when I'm bored of leveling and dailies again, I have other goals. Ovistine needs to go tromping across the world so I can pick up her Explorer achievements. Nancie will probably want to pick up the rest of her Lightforge set and finish converting it into Soulforge. Someday Agness will finish leveling up her Inscription. Having become a heck of a lot more interested in the Scarlet Crusade and the Argent Dawn of late, I want to go replay those starting DK levels (and I have just the DK character in mind with which to do it).

I should really make a list.

Teuthida: Unchanged, IC and OOC.

Agness: IC, still struggling with what to say about her shadow powers, and still avoiding thinking about the fact that she isn't as strong in the holy arts as she used to be. OOC, 76 and momentarily on hold as the Boomstick RP picks up.

Nancie: IC, still in flux as I work on the Wrathgate story. OOC, dinged 80, has an epic flappy, maxed out her mining and jewelcrafting, working on her Argent Dawn/Crusade rep (well over halfway through revered with both), and is collecting RP gear like crazy. She's got a set of "Wrynnforge" (it's Lightforge recolored in blue and gold), and I've got an eye out for a set of Moutaineer's Garb (you have to assemble it in pieces, mostly from AH drops), as well as giving a look around for the kind of armor she wears in her nightmares. Working on it! I really like the idea of being able to have visuals for the Nancie biography. (Yes, I'm working on that. No, I'm not on schedule. No, I don't care.)

Ovistine: IC and OOC: SHE'S BACK! \o/ The main of my heart has returned (and made me wish I'd registered twirlybraids.com instead, or in addition). IC, Ovistine has gotten her arse out of the library and taken on a role in the search for her good friend Homrend, recently killed by a mysterious group of Dark Irons and unable to resurrect because his spirit's been trapped by Hakkar (who always did bear a grudge). She knows there's a bargain that's going to have to be made to save him, and she knows what she's going to have to give up, but it's not going to stop her.

OOC, Ovistine is out of her rut, having pushed past 73 as well as getting one of those nice Cold Weather Flying Tomes. She's now 75 and I'm able to be very choosy with her quests, avoiding awful things with pitiful drop rates in favor of quests that are of more interest, both to me and to her.

I had actually been pondering the things brought up by this post on WTT:RP: what quests would Ovi do for real, and which am I doing because she's 75 and Disc/Holy and boy howdy I do not want to have to kill 93 bears for their asses, I'd rather just take a necklace to the dudes on the hill?

Ovistine is actually the first character in a while who's had an opinion about quests, and I think that's got a lot to do with how she got where she is. The short version: because Teu was my raiding main, she got pushed to 80 first, and that left Ovi constantly having to explain her absences. Eventually, I decided she'd taken up a research position at the Cathedral of Light and has been working on the Scourge problem as well as looking into these Ebon Blade death knights Varian Wrynn seems so determined to support. That left me with a much more thoughtful, much more curious dwarf than I'd started with -- so thoughtful and curious that she's beginning to think more seriously about archaeology and where the dwarves came from. The Explorers' League holds a lot more appeal for her now than it ever used to, and she's been distracted from her main goal (find Homrend. find him now) a couple of times by information about the Titans and an old battered journal of Brann Bronzebeard's that she found in Thor Modan. Where Nancie spent the last couple of levels in Icecrown fighting Scourge, Ovistine is likely to level up in Storm Peaks looking for evidence of the Titans.

(And at some point I really need to start writing and posting Wrathgate, and begging my RP crew's forgiveness for what will probably be an abrupt "WTF" moment for Ovistine; the main reason I'm not doing it right now is because the Search for Homrend/Dark Iron Chaos storyline is moving so fast that I'd really rather not put something else into the mix. Also I'm procrastinating. Again. >_>)

I'm really enjoying having a chance to solo instead of dual-boxing; while I can't deny it's useful, and I'll probably dual-box Teu and Ovinia [mage and druid], it's a pain.

I love the Outlands. Oh, sure, it's the same old zone I've done with Ovistine, Teuthida, Agnes the First (up to L69), Lyja, Nancie, Trisia (up to L63), and now I've got three more characters to level through there, but consider: I am cheap when it comes to gearing up alts, and even the crafted gear pre-BC is pretty awful. In my first session in the Outlands, I replaced:

Cookie's Stirring Rod with Desolation Rod
Earth Warder's Vest with Goldweave Tunic
Cassandra's Grace with Shadowbrim Travel Hat
Swashbuckler Sash with Foreman's Sash
Chestnut Mare with Swift Brown Steed

Beginning of session: L58, 2644 health, 3831 mana, 156 spellpower
End of session: L60, 3559 health, 4558 mana, 226 spellpower, 9.3% crit

I'll keep posting my replacements as I go. I think it's hilarious, and am only moderately embarrassed at the crap poor Agness has been saddled with for the last... um... in some cases, 60 levels.