Noorunnisa (Blood Elf Rogue): The Alt Equivalent of Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club

The Name:
One could say that naming this character was the only well-researched competent thing I've managed to do on this alt. This one's another historical reference. Yay, edutainment! Anyway, rogues are like spies, what with their being all sneaky and crafty and shit, right? So, I thought I should name her after a famous lady spy. Mata Hari was taken, so I named her after Noor-un-nisa, a British spy, who was (paradoxically enough) also a prominent pacifist.

Why I keep playing this alt:
Honestly? I keep playing this one because I completely suck at it. I am really terrible at playing rogues, apparently. I tend to forget to go into stealth until it's too late (I blame fade), I am so used to avoiding melee combat that I tend to get just close enough to a mob to pull it but not quite close enough that I can actually hit it with things, and I totally panic when my health starts dropping because I don't have the comfort and safety of a healing spell to fall back on.

Ok, that sounds awful, right? Like, who would really stick with a class that is so clearly wrong for them? I would. Noor provides a really nice break from the healbots - she's novel and there are no consequences for sucking. With my other alts, I'm playing classes i'm somewhat familiar with, in ways that fit my style well (like ranged combat or mana-based spells), which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I like it and I'm good at it. On the other hand, this means I get really frustrated whenever I can't figure something out, since I should be able to fairly easily, and I also always feel like I'm on call to heal things. And sometimes I just want to bash the living daylights out of giant spiders or pig dudes or what have you. It's also nice to just totally suck at something and have that be completely fine. It's restorative. Try it, you'll see.

Other semi-relevant shit:
About the Breakfast Club reference: Ally Sheedy in that movie is totally the weird/possibly 'special' one. I already covered the retarded aspects of this alt, and I think it's clear that she belongs in special ed classes whenever possible.

Now for the bizarre part. I don't know if you've picked this up, but Noor is a blood elf rogue. Which means she is not one of my preferred races and she can't heal a damn thing. She is very much the odd one out.

PS - Dani, the workers are starting to grumble again...

OMGBARBERSHOPS

Yeah, so, the thing I was most looking forward to in the truly massive Echoes of Doom patch? Barbershops. Hand down. Check this out: I have yet to spend any talent points on my priest, but I have already given some makeovers. So not even kidding about that.

Sinead before:


Sinead after:

Wholahay before:


Wholahay after:

I think Melisende and Matesha are staying as is for the moment, as they have undeniably awesome 'dos already. Or maybe I just don't play them as much and thus aren't yet bored.

Matesha (Night Elf Druid): Resident Pimp, Yo

The Name:
'Matesha' is Arabic for tomato. Tomatoes are awesome! Plus it sounds cool. That's really it.

Why I keep playing this alt:
The biggest reason (and I'm totally becoming a broken record here) is the healing. And this one's shaping up to be a pretty good healbot, I must say. Druids seem to get a wider sampling of healing spells a bit earlier than shaman or paladins do, which is nice, and they're of the instant cast HoT variety to boot. While I'm playing him with a feral build, I think I've been doing more healing on him than on Wholahay or Melisende (although Wholahay did heal the shit out of some Gnomer and Ulda runs back on Mok).

The other thing that keeps me coming back to his tomato-ness? Druid forms - gotta catch 'em all! Yeah, just got cat form, woot. But the whole "hey! at this level I get to shapeshift into something else!" thing is pretty addictive. Can't way to respec for tree.

One night only! Private bear form dance party in the Wetlands, featuring your very own blogmistresses.

Other semi-relevant shit:
So you may have noticed that Matesha's a dude. I hear around the interwebs that a chick playing a dude, and not the other way around, is a bit odd. Here's the deal: I can't stand playing night elf chicks. Their little girl run, terrible selection of haircuts (which is only marginally better with the possibility of barbershops), and usually clashing skin and hair colors drive me crazy. But you can't make a draenei druid, right?

I have to say though, it wasn't hard settling for a night elf dude. The facial hair is awesome, all waxed mustache style, and the ear bouncing is a nice touch. Besides, he's more fun to pimp out in a ridiculous purple leather outfit than a chick would've have been. Now I only need to get him that purple pimp hat from Dustwallow to complete his outfit and he can whip these Smolderthorn bitches in line.

Matesha and his almost-twin Sveren dance in celebration upon acquiring the complete Embrace of the Viper set

Melisende (Draenei Paladin): Rank and File Healbot in Training

The Name:
This name is historical, referencing the queen of Jerusalem during the Crusades. Clever, right? I felt it fitting, what with her being a paladin, off fighting for the Light and what have you. Her story is actually pretty interesting - she was joint ruler, but denied power, beloved by the church, and embroiled in an adulterous affair.

Why I keep playing this alt:
I'm not going to lie, I play this one basically for a full stable of alliance healers. So far, I'm not finding paladins to be all that compelling in terms of gameplay - but as you'll hear later, I'm not the quickest when it comes to melee combat, either.

I think I'll be playing her more often in the coming weeks. First, I'm finally getting cool spells like Consecration and now have more than one healing spell (not counting Gift of the Naaru). So that's exciting. I also forced Jon (the boyfriend, player of Sveren) to run me all over the damn place to get all the pieces to Verigan's fist. Consecrating with that thing swinging around will be even more fun.

Woot! Go giant mace, go!

Second, there are big changes in the works for paladins. So, since the playstyles is not terribly intuitive for me anyway, I've been backing off playing this character since I heard things were being shaken up in the Wrath beta. Better to start fresh than get comfortable with things right as they were about to change, I thought. As soon as the looming Wrath patch drops, I'll be all over this paladin, because learning is exciting to dorks.

Other semi-relevant shit:
Ok, first, I think she bears a striking resemblance to Clara Bow. Think Clara Bow sporting Sally Bowles' haircut. For some reason I think this is awesome.

The other thing I should mention is that I really should've have done more research on paladins before I rolled on. Not really the mechanics, just the leveling process. I didn't realize you had to do a quest at 12 to get the rez spell. Now that wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't decided to forsake Bloodmyst for Westfall to level through the teens.

There I was, running around at 18, bemoaning the fact that I still couldn't rez people as I went to the human trainer in Stormwind. And saw he had a grayed-out exclamation point over his head. So I checked wowwiki, and lo and behold, paladins have a quest for it at 12 that can only be picked up from a trainer of the same race. So, yeah. Got that kind of stupidly late.

I have a hunter and I beat Keri in a slap fight.

At which I am craptacular.

Though, it does make me understand the allure of twinking.  Every time I'm at the AH I check for better gear than the gear I have and then like a stupid celebrity or rich person I spend way too much money on something that'll be outgrown within the week.

Brilliance.

Though, it than makes leveling way more difficult.  Why?  Because all I want to do is get to the level where I can use my fancy shamncy bow.  Yeah, I got one.  Also?  Trying to do anything without a mount is awful.

Oh!  Today me and Keri's player had a real life slapfight.  Sadly?  No one videoed it.  So unless someone can prove otherwise?  I won.  For reals.  

I'm out of anything interesting or useful.  But I will say that Sveren or however it's spelt(Cpt. Smash), is the only person who is more flightly than I am while playing WoW.

More when my brain works more, I shall give you more insight.

Wholahay (Draenei Shaman): The Heir Apparent Returns

The Name:
In Cycle 8 of America's Next Top Model, Crazy Tyra demanded that the skinny bitches (and a less skinny but not actually plus size bitch) give themselves "model-y nicknames." One absolutely priceless wannabe model decided to go with Wholahay. Then Tyra rejected that and declared she would be called Brown because "that's what color her skin is." You seriously cannot make this shit up. Wholahay Brown has kind of a nice ring to it, though. Like a blaxploitation heroine who's on a mission to cut some bitches down.

Why I keep playing this alt:
To abandon Wholahay would be sacriligeous. She was the very first character I created! In many ways, she's like the Eve scientists have speculated about through the tracing of mitochondrial DNA - much of what I know and how I play other characters can be traced back to her.

But aside from that, I really like shamans. I had no idea at all what I was getting into when I decided to make one and picked it literally because using elemental powers sounded cool and I could heal myself without being a wussy priests ("ewwww," I thought to myself, "who would want to play a priest? SO LAME!" We all know how that turned out.). The totems were unexpected and I'll admit it took me a long while to figure out how to use them.

She's also the only alt I have that has a mount, which puts her in the best position to be the next character at 70 (and then at 80). I transferred her over from Mok'Nathal as soon as I heard that Blizzard had relaxed the rules, set her up with some netherweave bags, and then promptly started playing her regularly again.

Other semi-relevant shit:
Because she's been my guinea pig, Wholahay's been through a lot of changes. When I started her on Smolderthorn, I was dead set on speccing elemental, but grudgingly respecced enhancement when a certain someone told me to (with little in the way of explanation or rationale, I might add).

Then I got repeatedly ganked, said fuck it, and plunked down the $25 to move her to a PVE realm, where I promptly specced back into elemental. But not for long, because soon after I started running dungeons with friends and ended up discovering that I gravitated and had a sort of raw knack at healing. So I respecced again as an elemental/restoration hybrid.

After moving back to Smolderthorn, I bit the bullet and went enhancement to level faster, fully prepared to hate it. But I don't. Stormstrike + windfury + dual wield is just ridiculously satisfying to play with. I feel godly and have been known to mock and laugh maniacally at the poor creatures Wholahay wails on out loud. I think I'll have the same relationship to enhancement with Wholahay as I do shadow for Sinead: tons of fun while it lasts, but given the chance, I'd still rather be healing.

see? see all the exploding goodness?

Last thing - there's blood on Wholahay's blue hands (cue ominous music). When she returned to her home server, as it were, I deleted the shaman leg of the army o' healbots. I didn't feel compelled to level two shamans and gave her the axe. Who knows? Maybe she insulted Wholahay and found out the hard way that Wholahay Brown is nobody's fool.