Closing The Burning Crusade

OMG I have so many things to blog about.

For starters, we're on the run-up to the expansion, due out later this week. The Burning Crusade is officially over - Kil'jaeden's been beaten back into the Sunwell, Illidan is a crumpled corpse on the ramparts of the Black Temple, and his little buddies Kael'thas and Vashj are merely dark stains on the boots of millions of adventurers who streamed through the dark portal nearly two years ago.

Yes, nearly two years ago. It's been ages since we first took our noobie selves into Hellfire Peninsula. At 60 we were the shiznit. At 70, well, we're still the shiznit.

I started TBC a happy ASTIG raider and am ending it a maybe not-so-happy GoV raider. (I'm quite happy in the Guild socially, but disgruntled at raid progression... familiar story, yes?) I started in purples on one toon and blues on another; this time around, I'm in purples on both toons with significant raiding experience as a rogue and paladin (both healing and tanking). And I started TBC quite poor, unable even to afford epic riding skill on Froufrou. Now... well, I've got epic flying mounts, it's true, but let's just say that other things don't change.

So what's The Wrath of the Lich King looking like for my toons? I had hoped to put Avierra behind me as the Paladin class is so effin' problematic. Instead I find myself constantly affirming how great paladins are to play despite the constant nerfs. I still can't play a retadin for shit, but my buddy Rizal has shown me that not all retadins are noobs by constantly topping the DPS charts, outstripping even my tricked-out rogue.

And I'm not despairing of Froufrou either... she's still rocking 800+ dps in raids - consistently sixth or seventh (depending on who's online). In 10-man raids she's often top DPS, and here's the best part - she doesn't die that often any more. I'm still solidly in Combat as it's the best spec for raiding, but Subtlety has grown on me. I wouldn't mind using a good hemo build if I could find one.

I intend to level Avierra solo as protection. I intend to level Froufrou with the Asian Invasion. Those sound like good ways to go.