That’s a big Nelf with a big Fish.

There’s one thing that can be said for the Looking For Dungeon tool – you certainly get to see how the other half lives.

Case in point.  I’ve recently started a character on the Alliance – a Night Elf Fury Warrior named Afuryan.  He’s been my focus for awhile now.  My condolences to the Warlock experiment, which once again never made it to level 20.  He did make it as far as an Instance or two before I found my interest drifting.  Maybe it’s a caster thing.  It’s hard to say.  I had my baby druid specced Balanced for all of three Instances before I switched him back to Feral.  I think it boils down to the fact that I like getting my hands dirty.  Afuryan gets in there with his stylish haircut (why more Night Elves don’t run with a mohawk, I’ll never know) and kills things up close and personal.  Say what you want about Night Elves, but when you find one with a crazy haircut and a maniacal look in his eye, your life expectancy can be measured in seconds rather than years.

It has nothing to do with dudes wearing dresses.

This isn’t a scary look.  It’s just sad.

As you might have caught earlier (and the more clever readers might have pieced it together from the name), I’ve specced him Fury right off the bat.  In his downtime he’s been questing and working on his gathering professions.  I’ve geared him with the appropriate Heirloom items that a Fury Warrior should have (the Chest, Shoulders, and Weapon – Trinkets are next on the shopping list).  Unlike the Warlock, I know Afuryan is going to use the gear I get for him.  The goal is to get him to 80, on the off-chance he moves to another server.  It pays to be prepared, and Afuryan is going to be ready for deployment.  Why am I prepping him?  Well you never know what might happen at Blizzcon. I could meet some interesting peeps, for example, and decide I might want to raid with them.  Yes, raid.  I have the time, so why not get a little more out of the game?  Herc’s already rooted in his own amazing guild, so it’s nice to have options.

Let me tell you, running with a lowbie had both shown me some new things, and reintroduced me to things I’d long forgotten.

– Dungeons: Alliance has Deadmines and Stormwind Stockade  – simple layout, fairly straightforward.  Horde has Serpet Shrine Cavern and Razorfen Kraul, which are both horrible gong shows to navigate for the first few times you go through them.  I know that faction doesn’t matter as far as what you have access to, thanks to the LFD system, but it’s the principle of the thing.  Also, Gnomeregan can eat the peanuts out of my poop.  That’s right I said it.  HATE that place, and Afuryan isn’t even 30 yet.  I can only imagine the twisty car wrecks that are on their way.

– Tanking: I have come to the conclusion that you really have to try to be horrible as a lowbie tank.  I’m fairly certain of this.  Yes, Afuryan has his share of BOA gear, which puts him ahead of the curve compared to many others coming up the ranks through Instances.  But about five times now I’ve had to step in to tank after the original tank disappeared or quit after dying or being told he outright sucked.  Every time I’ve tanked with a two-handed axe, not the traditional sword & board.  Also, all my points are in the Fury tree.  I don’t respec to tank, to clean up someone else’s mess.  I step in and do what I can for the group, pick up the ball that the other tank dropped.  I never lost aggro, and when I did I just hit taunt, sundered a few times, and life was good.  The only thing I did differently between DPS and tanking was to change my stance from Battle to Prot.  I may even queue up as a Tank for a little while, just to get my Instance run done quicker.  I’ll play around with the Fury Tank concept for a bit and see how it goes.

– Players can be silly: Sure that goes without saying.  Take the Warlock that stood there for about five minutes before finally pulling out his Voidwalker.  Seconds later I had the “vote to kick” panel pop up in front of me.  I couldn’t click it fast enough.  Last night, during one of my 2h tanking sessions, I kept having a druid pop bear form and try to take the mobs from me.  I guess he thought he was saving me because OMG you need a shield to tank at level 25!  He eventually changed his mind after being unable to peel the mobs off of me.  I had to tell him that it would be great if he would kill the mobs that run at low health.  He was so worried about trying to “help” that the runners kept taking off and pulling adds.  I also had to break up a tiff between a healer and a mage, who were going back and forth calling each other noobs (sorry, I meant n00bz).  I simply asked if anyone else thought Betty White was hawt (HAWT), and that brought the conversation to a momentary halt.  Oh well, at least they didn’t /votekick me for my awesome taste in women.

Who doesn’t love a Betty White Sandwich!

I have to say, it’s been much more entertaining running low level Instances compared to the 80’s where everyone is worried about what shade of purple they need to be wearing.  When survival isn’t an issue, you can afford to worry about stupid things like that.  I prefer being shoulder to shoulder with groupmates who feel they have to perform because they have something to lose.  That’s something that has gotten lost at the “end game” of Gearscore and ePeen.

This is Herculano.  Betty White, break out the baby oil and scented candles.  I’ll see you in my dreams.