Writing About Nothing

Whenever I try to commit myself to a blog, it never lasts more than two or three entries. I haven’t looked at this thing since September – or possibly October – I can’t really tell as I’m writing this in MS Word on the train to Boston, and I don’t have internet access.

But since I want to write, and I don’t know what to write about, and I’m not trying to impress anyone anyway, I’ll write about my Paladin.

Ceinwynn (whose name is derived from the excellent Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell) is doing well – she’s on the bleeding edge of useless content, with Artisan Riding and three (!) epic flying mounts – and a number of ground mounts as well.

-The Summoned Warhorse
-The Summoned Charger
-A Silver Riding Talbuk (Requires Exalted with the Kurenai faction)
-A Swift Brewfest Ram
-A Snowy Gryphon
-A Swift Purple Gryphon
-An Azure Netherdrake (Requires Exalted with the Netherwing)
-A Turbo-Charged Flying Machine (Requires 375 Engineering skill to build and use)

Mounts are fun, but my main reason for having so many (six more than I really need) is to give Cein a little bit of much needed individuality among the other 25,000 or so characters on Durotan. Pre-BC and flying mounts, being a Paladin was enough because she had a Charger – a unique epic mount, only available to Paladins. The quest line to receive it was, and still is, the longest of all the Paladin class quests, and deemed annoying enough that many other Paladins frequently passed it up in favor of buying their training and mounts.

After that, I was lucky enough (or patient enough) to save up the money for Artisan Riding fairly early in BC’s life cycle, about three months after release (this was before Daily quests were available – I did it the hard way). At this point, epic flying was rare as it is, and the Swift Gryphon was enough to distinguish her from most other people. But, since amassing great wealth is more or less a joke now, a lot of other people soon picked up the epic flight skill as well. By this time, of course, the Netherwing faction was added – a month of casual questing netted me the Drake. Flying around very quickly on a fucking Dragon is pretty tough to beat until everyone else is doing it too.

Right now, I’m going with the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine (also known as a “Roflcopter” because it is hilarious). You don’t see too many of them, as capping Engineering is still sufficiently irritating that only people like me (who consider mastering a crafting profession “endgame”) really pursue it.

There are, however, some serious benefits to being a Master Engineer that outclass even a unique, attractive mount - particularly if you happen to be a Paladin. Patch 2.1 added the epic Engineering goggles for all classes and armor proficiencies, and the Paladin, being one of the two plate-wearing classes currently in the game and a true specialist, is in the privileged position of being able to wear all three versions of the plate goggles – one each for healers, tanks, and melee damage-dealers. As these are Bind on Pickup, and require 350 Engineering to build and equip, they are still fairly uncommon and difficult to acquire, so the stats on them are very generous – they hover somewhere between tier 5 and 6 armor, in terms of quality. I am particularly happy with these because unless my situation and playing habits change dramatically, I won’t replace them until sometime into the next expansion. I currently have two of them – the Justice Bringer 2000 Specs (for healing) and the Tankatronic Goggles (for…tanking). I primarily use the tanking goggles, as I am primarily specc’ed for tanking.

While better gear is never a bad thing, I’m actually very content with the place Cein is right now. She’s sitting at somewhere around 13k armor, with decent avoidance and mitigation – not yet “uncrushable,” but crushability is not an issue, considering I’m only looking to tank basic level 70 five-mans and heroics. She has achieved 485 defense, which effectively pushes critical hits off of the attack table where heroics are concerned, and that is more than enough to satisfy me for the moment. Considering her gear level, her health is particularly high, sitting at around 12.5k before any buffs. Threat output is, of course, phenomenal – Cein actually has a decent bit more +spellpower than is recommended as a minimum for tanking Karazhan and beyond. In pretty much every way, she is actually the ideal choice to tank any five-man or heroic. In short, she’s doing well.

/nerding