Shared Topic: Thankful

I'm taking a little break from my IntPiPoMo posting to bring you this post as part of the Blog Azeroth Shared Topic for this week. This particular topic was brought to you by Amerence!

It's Thanksgiving over there in America this week, and although we Aussies don't celebrate it, it's still nice to reflect on things we are thankful for.

I'm coming up on my third blogaversary here at R&R and although I've been very quiet during this year, I am soooo thankful for all the readers that are still dropping by and saying hello from time to time. I'm not going to name anyone in case I miss people, but you make this all worthwhile! Yes, you! I don't tend to get a lot of comments but I love it when I do, so thank you all!

I hope, whatever you are up to this weekend, you have a lovely time in your Heartland with your family, friends or whomever you spend it with.

The Heartland, Valley of the Four Winds

Geotag from WyriMaps

First Few Days

It's time for a meme!  This Cataclys-meme came from Janyaa of Muradin's Musings, although I read about it on Type "H" for Heals so it's doing a good job of being passed around so far. It also ties in quite nicely with this week's Blog Azeroth Shared Topic, suggested by Jaedia.

1. Disk or Download?
   Download. It was the most smooth game purchase I think I've ever had - I didn't even notice it downloading anything!


2. Did you experience any difficulties? IE: Login servers crashing, late delivery, etc?
   Nope, it was great. At 6pm my time on the 7th, I logged out with the rest of the US/Oceanic population and had trouble reconnecting for about 10 minutes. After that I was able to log in and train my flying right away. I'm feeling sorry for those people on high-population servers who have had hours of queues this week - I haven't seen one at all on Nagrand yet.


3. What are you doing first? IE: Speed leveling to 85, rolling a new race, completely avoiding the new content, etc?
   Sadly I haven't had a lot of time to play this week so my Druid is still only level 82, but I will be leveling to 85 as soon as I can. I have been mucking about with Archaeology a little bit but haven't really looked at other professions yet.


4. Mt. Hyjal or Vash’jir?
   Mt Hyjal!  As a Druid I felt it was my duty to head up there and see what I could do to help. I will probably take my Mage to Vashj'ir when I get around to leveling her.


5. Worgen or Goblin?
   I rolled a Worgen, even though my other characters are Horde - I really wanted to see Gilneas and the other side of the quests I'd already done in Silverpine and wow, haven't they done a great job with that? It almost felt like I was playing a different game while working through the worgen quests. We'll see how much I actually get to play her. At some point I will roll a Goblin, but it's a little way down the priority list.


6. Questing, dungeons or both?
I intend to do both, although so far I have only been questing with Mr Ang.  I really wanted to do the first dungeons with guildies rather than randoms, but for some reason not many of my guildies have been online so far.  I'd really rather not pug the new dungeons but it might be the only way I get to see places like Blackrock Caverns while they're still relevant!


7. What was the first piece of gear you replaced and with what?
   I replaced my Frozen Bonespike with Druidic Channeler's Mace.  It wasn't a huge upgrade, but I thought I might as well take it. I've since also replaced my Tier 10 head and Muradin's Spyglass!


8. Did you take any time off from work or school?
   No. Since the game released at 6pm our time, I didn't need to miss out on work or sleep to play right away. The following couple of days I was pretty distracted, but it's been busy at work so I wouldn't really have been able to take time off.


9. Will you be keeping the same spec and main, or changing to a different toon?
   My Druid is my main and will be for the foreseeable future.  I love playing her too much to change :) I'm leveling as Balance but will go back to Resto for dungeons.


10. What’s been your favorite aspect of Cataclysm so far?
    Hmm, that's a tough question. I've liked pretty much everything I've seen so far - flight in Azeroth, questing in Mount Hyjal (sooo epic), Archaeology, the revamped zones including New Orgrimmar. I think my absolute favourite has been the visibility of major lore figures while questing in Mount Hyjal - they have never been so visible before, complete with voice acting for each.  It made me feel like I was actually a hero of Azeroth taking part in important storylines.

Bring on the next chapter of leveling!

BA Shared Topic: What's in a Name?

Before I start today I just wanted to say hi!  Hi to all those people coming here for the first time from guild websites, other blogs (thanks for the links!!) or by searching for gem information. Make yourselves at home!  I am just about to go away for a week so don't be surprised if there's not much happening if the patch does happen to drop on Tuesday, but try not to trash the place while I'm gone, eh?

But now, to the subject at hand! This week's Blog Azeroth Shared Topic, as suggested by Llani from Pocket Heals:

How did you decide upon the name for your character(s)? Did you delve into Norse, Greek, or Roman mythology? Did you choose a name from one of your family members? Did you mash the "Random" name generator button in vain until you stumbled upon something you liked? Is your name a play on aspects of your class, using spells or other traits? Did you play around with syllables, vowels, and consonants until you found something that you loved? How long did it take you to come up with your name? Do all of your characters share the same 'theme' or naming convention?

Has your character name become your online persona, or maybe the other way around?

Choosing a name is one of the most difficult parts of starting a new character, in any game. I have been known to sit there for ages after choosing all the attributes in a new character, just trying to choose a name!

I'd been known to pick odd names in past games but when I started playing WoW I knew that the name was going to be important. As an MMO, I was going to be playing with other people and those other people would refer to me by my character name, so I knew I didn't want my name to be something like Furrypants.

It was only much later I started seeing names like "Imapalalulz" and "xxarthasxx" and so on.  I wonder if those people are slightly embarrassed later once they start being called by that name.  I was in an ICC pug recently with someone called "Imcoolmom". When someone asked him something on vent he said sheepishly, "Oh, call me <whatever his real name was>, please."

In general I've always tried to name my Wow characters by names that are close to real names, or names that might sound suitable for the race of the character.

My first Night Elf druid was called Aoifen. I wanted Aoife, but Aoifen did well enough. I didn't play her for all that long before I decided to try something new and started my Human Priest, Angelya.  As you can probably tell, she went on to become my main and my online persona within my EU guild, where I was usually called "Ang".  I decided to keep the name once I started blogging, even though I don't play my priest any more.

My other character's names have had varying difficulties to come up with - most races can fall back on a baby name website, but races such as Orcs and Trolls need some special fantasy consideration. It took me ages to come up with the name for my Orc huntress:  Shagroth.  I still wasn't happy with it, it sounded too LOTR to me, but the other names I came up with were already used.

Other names of various characters include Morshanna, Eleanor, Gladiys, Halvaar (my only male character - a huge Draenei Pally <3 ).

You can probably guess the origins of my current tribe: Leesah = Lisa, Aefa = Eva and Balindah = Belinda. A bit boring, to be honest! People do seem to have a bit of trouble with pronouncing Leesah for some reason. A few people have called me Lee-sha over vent.  It annoys me when people can't read names well enough to pronounce them - if you can't work it out, ask :)

Do you have any tips for naming your characters in WoW, or any other game? Resources, name generators, mythology websites, sources of inspiration, etc.

I usually use baby naming websites - just Google "baby names" and you will get a stack of them!  If you search for "fantasy names" there are plenty of those as well, so all you need to do is look at a bunch of names and write down the ones that appeal to you.  It's a lot like the process we're going through to short-list names for our real baby, to be honest.  But I won't be naming a daughter "Lisa", in case people think I'm naming her after my main!

Have you got a favourite naming website?  Or do you name your characters on a theme?

BA Shared Topic: Mementos

This week's Shared Topic on Blog Azeroth was from Feraltree:

What items or mementos have you kept (in your toon's pack or bank) and why? Whether it be keepsakes, quest rewards, special items, random drops, whatever! - why did you decide to hang on to it? What's its significance to you?

This suggestion has come at a perfect time for me to write about.  My Hordies, being fairly young characters, don't have much in their bank that isn't put there for future usefulness.  My Alliance toons however, are several years old, and my priest in particular has a bank full of random bits and pieces I haven't been able to part with.  Since I just started playing her a bit, I had a rummage through the bank vault to see what I could find.

One of the main sets of items in the bank that I couldn't bare to part with is my Frozen Shadoweave Boots, Shoulders and Robe. These were a labour of love (or a major cash outlay) for any Shadowpriest or Warlock, as soon as they reached level 70 and got their Tailoring up to max level. Being mostly flat broke at level 70 (I only saved up my 5k for epic flying once the Quel'Thalas dailies were available, much later), I did a LOT of grinding to get the mats for this set.

To make all three pieces took 38 Primal Water, 8 Netherweb Spider Silk and 26 Shadowcloth.  At that time, Shadowcloth had a four-day cooldown and could only be made at the Altar of Shadows at Shadowmoon Valley, but as a shadowcloth Tailor I could make two pieces at a time. Each crafting of Shadowcloth required a Primal Shadow and a Primal Fire, as well as the Imbued Netherweave. That's 90 primals. I ground a lot of them, but knowing myself I am fairly sure I bought the last few pieces of cloth and possibly some waters too. I also would have swapped Spellcloth and Mooncloth with other tailors - I am pretty sure it didn't take me the full 52 days that it would have taken if I made all the Shadowcloth myself.

The bags on each of my characters are always full of something or other. Mostly on each of my max level toons there is an offspec set in there, whether heal, dps or PvP. I don't go offspec or do PvP that often, but when I do it's nice to have the gear to hand rather than having to visit a bank.

Then there's the flavour items. I keep a bunch of holiday items in my banks, but there are certain ones that I keep in my bags for the odd moments in raids and so on when a bit of fun is in order. Blossoming Branch, Preserved Holly, Weighted Jack-o'-Lantern... the list goes on.  Other festive stuff ends up in the bank, like Pilgrim's Hat, Purple Brewfest Hat, Red Winter Hat - I seem to have a collection of silly hats!

I always carried around my Orb of the Sin'dorei on my Human priest, and used to turn into a Blood Elf and dance and flirt during raids to annoy my guildie who couldn't get one to drop.

And on Leesah, my Super Simian Sphere is for monkeying about!

Shared Topic: Heal priorities

This week's Blog Azeroth shared topic was suggested by Ecclesiastical Discipline:

Where do you draw the line on shifting the priority of someone's heals down (or refusing to heal them all together)? Is it if they upset you personally? If they are consistently standing in the fire? If they have lame dps? If they aren't managing their aggro? If they go afk for fifteen minutes in the middle of a boss fight? Is it only when it's jeopardizing the entire group's success? I believe there is a point for every healer, but where does the gray area fall? Does anyone really heal the jerk who is offensive and stands in fire when there is anyone else who needs healing?

In general, I'm a calm and reasonable player. I wasn't always like that - when I first started raiding I was one of those people who would get extremely frustrated every wipe, although I never told anyone off for being crap (out loud, anyway). Nowadays, people who rage in raids make me giggle.

When healing, I do always try to keep everyone alive, even if they are being a complete idiot. I think it's just an automatic reaction to the health bars dropping.

There are a few situations, however, where I feel it's alright to let someone die.

1. Everyone is taking damage.
In this situation, keeping the tank (or my heal assignment) and myself alive is the priority.  I will throw Wild Growth out when it's available, but my casts are going into the tank if heavy damage is going on.

2. If a dps and I are taking damage.
I often forget this until it's too late, but as a healer taking damage, your priority should be yourself. If you're not alive, no-one gets any healing! Unless of course you have one of those very situationally-aware hybrids in your group who can pop a few off-heals to get you through.

3. If dps pulls aggro.
This really depends on whether they are melee or ranged. Melee - not much you can do, they are often dead before you can get a heal off, especially in a raid situation. With ranged dps you can sometimes heal them through it until they can use Iceblock/Fade/Feign Death, or until the tank can taunt. Sometimes, not.  I never feel too bad about letting them die, just as if I pull when I'm dps, I don't blame the healers for my death.

4. If the damage is coming in so fast, there's no time to get a heal in.
Sometimes you can tell that someone is taking damage so fast, there's no time to get a cast in to save them. This may actually come at the same time as point number 3. For this situation, I have a "holy shit" macro that combines Nature's Swiftness with Healing Touch. I usually save this for tanks who are getting low on health, but it is great for saving dps if you can get in quick enough. (I really should macro in the "/y oh shit oh shit!" part a la Gnomeaggedon)

There is one situation when I will purposely not heal to prove a point.

5. When someone else other than the tank purposely pulls.
This really annoys me. I will usually warn whoever it is, usually a hunter misdirecting or a DK yoinking mobs in - the next time you pull before the tank, I'm not healing you.  They generally get the picture.  A few accuse me of being grumpy or whatever. Pulling and generally setting the pace is the tank's job in my opinion, since they're the ones getting hit (usually). Stfu, and let them do their job.

The nice thing about Druids, of course, is that we have our combat resurrection - Rebirth. With a macro for Nature's Swiftness, it's instant cast.  If you do lose someone and if it's safe to do so, it doesn't take much to get them back up again while the fight's still on.  Just make sure you heal them like crazy once they accept the res, or you might lose them again.

#showtooltip Rebirth
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/stopmacro [nohelp,nodead]
/run c="Resurrecting %t"if UnitInRaid("player")then SendChatMessage(c, "RAID")elseif GetNumPartyMembers()>0 then SendChatMessage(c, "PARTY")end
/cast Rebirth

Find more macro info on my new shiny Macro page!

BA Shared Topic: Burnout

The Blog Azeroth Shared Topic for last week was about dealing with pre-expansion burnout. I know this response is a little late, but better late than never, eh?

My guild is small and casual. Many of the 10-man core team have children, so we don't start raiding until 8pm server time so that bedtime can be properly taken care of. A few others in the team live in New Zealand, so we don't tend to raid past 10pm because that's midnight for the Kiwis. We raid ICC on Wednesdays and Mondays.

That's four hours of progression raiding a week. Time is against us, for sure.

For this reason, I don't feel bad that we haven't got to the Lich King yet. Each progressive raise in the Warsong buff has helped us get a little further in our allotted time limits, but even at 20% we are only 8/12. I haven't even seen the BQL or Sindy fights yet.

It's been a little frustrating for me coming from a larger guild on the EU server I was on, where we did progression raiding 3 nights a week, sometimes more. I considered looking for another guild, but I really like the laid-back culture of this group. I always have fun raiding with them, even if we don't get as far each night as I'd like.

Our main problem is that we're losing people, and we didn't have many to start with. Because we only get the first 6 or so bosses done each week, that's a LOT of the same content over and over again. People are starting to take breaks, to lose interest. If we can get everyone together and on time we do well, but if core people are missing we have to bring in other lesser geared and inexperienced guildies, or call the whole raid off.

For the last couple of weeks, the officers have decided to take a different approach - a progression break. The raids this week have been for people who don't normally raid with the core team, to help gear them up a bit so we can bring them in for our progression runs if we need people. The rest of the spots have been a chance for the core raiders to bring their alts along.

I healed on Leesah for one of the nights but the other times I took Aefa in for a look-see. Apart from the rep-ring I don't think I picked up any gear at all, but it was fun for a bit of a change. We had some people there who hadn't seen many of the fights, as well as tanks who needed to learn the tricks, so it was still a bit of a learning curve.  The first week we downed up to Festergut and Rotface and were all very proud of ourselves. This last week we had slightly lower dps overall, and while we got Saurfang down, we struggled with the two farting nasties and just went and cleared the rest of the trash instead.

This week coming, we are back to a progression week. It will be interesting to see how it goes. If we have a really good night with our top dps there we can get 7 bosses down in one 2-hour session - we've done that before.

The raiders that aren't on WoW-breaks agree that we'd all really like to get Arthas down before Cataclysm, and I don't doubt that we have the ability, with practise, but the stars are going to have to line up for us to get that far.  If it's the 30% buff that allows us to get there in a faster time so we can have a crack at it, so be it.

How about your guild? Have you downed Arthas? Are you losing raiders to burnout?

BA Shared Topic: Exploring Azshara

The Blog Azeroth Shared Topic for this week, suggested by Jaedia, invites us to get out there in the world and explore a zone or two.  There are quite a few other calls out there from bloggers to document the world before it changes, and I've chosen Azshara to start with.

Azshara was once a part of the great Night Elven city of Zin-Azshari, but it was destroyed during the Sundering. All that remains is half-submerged ruins guarded by Naga, and a beautiful autumnal land edged by dramatic cliffs.

The vegetation consists of a tall open forest and grasslands in reds and golds, with wildflowers and grasses on the ground.

Along the border with Ashenvale Forest runs the Southfury River. At the northern end of this stretch is a mighty waterfall that cascades down two levels before the river calms as it flows south.

In the centre of the map is the ruins of Eldarath - an extensive area extending down to the ocean and containing ruined buildings patrolled by Naga.

The building in the middle is the Temple of Zin-Malor, guarded by Naga and Warlord Krellian, a level 55 non-elite.

The Bay of Storms contains a large, partially sunken temple called Hetaera's Clutch. The entrance is underwater but beward of the clutch of hydras making their home here.

On the northern side of the Bay is a large temple called the Temple of Arkkoran - home to the god Arkkoran. The waters around the temple are patrolled by giants called Son of Arkkoran. Aefa didn't want to go inside (she dislikes murlocs), but I hear the god himself is friendly. His sons and the murlocs and makura who guard the temple will attack on sight!

In the northwest of the zone, in the side of a mountain, stands Timbermaw Hold, guarded by Keeper Rageroar and two Den Watchers. If the gates were ever opened, they would meet up with other Timbermaw Hold entrances in Winterspring, Felwood and Moonglade.

The Tower of Eldara stands at the northeastern tip of the zone.  It looks as though it was once a lighthouse or warning beacon - all is now dark and silent in the Tower now.

The Horde Encampment is called Valormok and is located near the mountains in the western side of the zone, but east of the river. The camp is small and unprotected by guards, but one can get a repair or food and drink here, as well as a windrider in or out.

The Alliance camp, Talrendis Point, is also unguarded but contains the necessities as well as a flight master.

The southeastern corner of the zone is an area of high cliffs, broken apart by chasms. The Naga who live in this area have built bridges to get from cliff to cliff. At the end of the easternmost cliff is the ruined Ravencrest Monument. It was once a tall statue in the ancient city, but now all that remains standing is the legs.  The head and other ruined parts lie on the ground nearby.

Here's something you might not know about Azshara - it almost contained a battleground. Azshara Crater was planned back before the release of BC, and was designed to be similar in style to Alterac Valley. The entrances would have been either side of the Forlorn Ridge.  It was never implemented in any PTR though, and Eye of the Storm was released instead.

Azshara is truly a very beautiful zone and it will be interesting to see what the Cataclysm will bring for it.  At present, Azshara is aimed at players of level 48-55 and people rarely go there, preferring the more condensed quest chains in the Hinterlands, Un'Goro Crater or the Plaguelands. Blizzard have said they plan to make the zone a low-level area and an integral part of Goblin leveling including a new city. I just hope they keep the feel of the place.

Lore is from wowwiki.com - if anyone can suggest any other lore sites to me I'd appreciate it, but wowwiki is fairly comprehensive.

BA Shared Topic: Raid's Canceled!

This week's Blog Azeroth Shared Topic was suggested by Deyndor (who, incidentally, is celebrating his first blogaversary!):

So I was talking with Eda on twitter tonight and she mentioned that she's had 4 raids in the last 2 weeks get canceled. And that got me wondering, what do people do when their raid is canceled?

I'm sure there will be the mundane like farming stuff or running heroics, but I'm sure there are a lot of people with some really interesting and fun things too. Maybe you invade an enemy capital by yourself. Maybe you go play an alt. Whatever it is, share it!

Since I found myself in the position last night of my ICC-10 raid having been canceled, I thought it was a perfect time to write about this.

I'm in a casual 10-man guild. Even though we do have about 14 or 15 raiding members we do find ourselves short on raiders from time to time. Rather than run a bunch of heroics like I probably should do (badge-gathering on my scrub mage is still ongoing), I like to use these opportunities to do something different, and get things done from my list of goals.

In this post back in January I made these plans:

1. Get Leesah to 80, into a raiding guild and get into ICC before a pre-expansion nerf (if one occurs).
2. Get a second character to 80.  Just have to decide which of several lowbies to work on first...
3. Get epic flying for at least Leesah.
4. Save up at least 10k gold before the Cataclysm.  I am terrible at saving gold so this one might be a real challenge!

Well I've taken care of 1 and 2, and I'm almost there with number 3.  Number 4 could take some time since there are always plenty of things to spend gold on.

Since that time I've added a few goals to the list:

5. Level up fishing and cooking (I've done part of this at least!) 
6. Get the Karazhan key and run it to get Attumen's mount and the Mongoose enchant, but mostly for old time's sake. 
7. Get the Explorer achievement for Aefa and add to my screenshot library (like I need more screenies) 
8. Make Aefa a flying carpet. (just a few more levels of tailoring...) 
9. Get Balindah (my shaman) to level 80.

So, to last night. We decided to form a VOA-10, pugging the missing spots. Once that was done and I had taken care of a random on each 80 for the frosties, I dragged Mengfu (my husband's shaman) into the Black Morass to finish off the Karazhan Key chain.

Karazhan, in case you are a Wrath baby, was the entry-level raid in Burning Crusade times, but it was still hard enough that you had to be pretty well-geared from heroics or crafted stuff to be able to pull your weight. I believe that to begin with, everyone had to have done the key quest chain as an attunement - the key was required for entry to the tower. This requirement was later removed, but someone with a key still has to be there to open the door for anyone without it.

The quest chain starts outside the Tower itself, in Deadwind Pass, and involves travel to places all over Azeroth and Outland including the dungeons Shadow Labyrinth, Steam Vaults, Arcatraz, Old Hillsbrad and Black Morass. If you don't have the keys for ShadowLabs or Arcatraz, there are additional chains that take you to Sethekk Halls (for ShadowLabs) and the Botanica and Mechanar (for the Arca key).  Fortunately, you only need to run the normal versions of each of these dungeons so I was able to solo all of them as Moonkin except for Mechanar - the gauntlet at the end was a bit much for my squishy feathers.  I also brought help to the Black Morass because if something goes wrong on a boss and you fail (or the second boss bugs on you and goes back to full health like it did the first time for me!!), you have to do the whole thing again. With two level 80s it was laughably easy.

So, I ended up with The Master's Key. Hooray!

Attumen the Huntsman drops Fiery Warhorse's Reins and Moroes drops the pattern for Mongoose, and those two bosses went down very easily as Moonkin with Mengfu healing.  I doubt I'd be able to solo them as Moonkin - they still hit pretty hard. No sign of the horsie this time but Moroes and his gang were nice enough to drop Mongoose right away! It was so nice to be back there again after such a long time - the music reminded us of good times, and I'll look forward to going in each week (or each time we remember) to see if we can get a horsie.


How about you?  What do you do when your raid is canceled?

Shared Topic - Starting Over

I thought it was about time I took part in one of Blog Azeroth's shared topics, and this one is particularly interesting to me because I've recently done it!

From Pieces:

If you had the chance to start all over again in WoW, but your char is already level 80, or level 1 depending on if you like to level or not. What class would you pick? What race?   What faction? Why would you pick that class/race/faction?  And most of all what would you plan to do with it? Raid, PvP or just hang out in Dalaran?

About a year ago, my husband and I were just about to leave the UK to travel on the adventure of a lifetime, home to Australia.    

We said a sad goodbye to our guildies on Eonar-EU, and my Priesty ate some chocolate cake so she could log out very happy, sitting on her favourite bench in the south bank of Dalaran.

The journey home took us across the world for 5 months, during which time I desperately missed the game. It didn't help that we kept hearing about the great progress our guild was making in Ulduar, and later ToC. I hate to miss out on things! The WotLK soundtrack was a great comfort, especially the Dalaran music.

Once we finally got home moved into our place and got connected, we made the difficult decision to reroll on an Oceanic server and start again from scratch - we started over in the most complete sense - no realm/faction transfers, no heirlooms or money - completely from nothing. I had fired up my UK account and played a little, getting a few upgrades for my Naxx gear and getting to see a couple of the raids I'd missed, but I couldn't really play with my old guildies anymore and the latency was dreadful.

Why a Druid? 
The second character I ever made in the game was my nelf Druid, but I didn't get her to max level until early 2009. My Priest was my main, and I didn't get to play my Druid that much, but I loved healing on her. I wanted my new main to be a healer, and I liked Druid healing more than Priest healing, so Druid it was. Besides, shape changers are awesome :)

Why Horde? 
My husband had briefly had a max level hordie before switching to Alliance to join me many moons ago, but I'd never had a hordie past level 40. He says the horde are more cool but I'd play either faction to be honest! I'm so glad we decided to see the other side of things - Northrend especially is such a different experience for each faction. 

Why Tauren? 
I really like playing a Tauren as their lore is really interesting. Plus, they have a really chilled out dance! There's something about being a big beautiful cow-lady that brings out my motherly side I think - perfect for a healer wouldn't you say?

Why Nagrand?
We wanted a server with a decent-size horde population. Originally we were going to roll on a PvP server, but when my chosen name wasn't available I chickened out of PvP and we ended up on Nagrand.

What do I plan to do with it?  
Raid when I can. I've recently discovered that I quite like healing in PvP although once someone targets me I'm not much good at keeping myself alive. I'd be rubbish in an arena but I do alright in Wintergrasp, throwing out the heals in big battles. I haven't done much in the way of Battlegrounds yet but perhaps I'll give it another go sometime. The hanging around in Dalaran part is a given :)

The leveling process
Our three months of Refer-a-Friend time has just run out in the last few days.  We didn't use it as much as we could have, but after three months I have a level 80 Druid, 72 Mage and 41 Shaman.  My husband has a (just dinged today!) 80 Shaman, 60-odd Mage, 60-odd Druid, 41 Warrior and a smattering of other lowbie alts. My husband's mage was gifted 60 levels from my characters as a refer-a-friend perk, and he then had to go buy a tonne of cloth to level up tailoring so he didn't have to wear level 10 gear to start Outlands in! He still hasn't got his Zhevra mount - I think we'll be getting in touch with Blizz after this weekend since that's why my next subscription is due.

In all it was a crazy-fast way to get back up to the end-game, but it served our purpose perfectly.  Money was a problem - we often didn't have enough money for training, in fact my druid still hasn't trained any of the feral talents past level 40 or so... I really should get that sorted one of these days! We didn't buy any gear because we grew out of it too quickly, so by the time we made it to Outlands and the GOGG I was still wearing some level 30-ish gear.

The tourguide addon for RAF was a godsend, but by the third time through we almost knew where to go without looking at it. I'll be interested to see where the normal tourguide takes me on my Shaman, now that I won't be skipping every other quest.

If you ever or find a need to re-roll and start from scratch, the hardest part is probably the leveling. These days, once you hit 80 the emblems and then gear flow like water and you will be in top content before you know it.

The part that I'm finding difficult now, is that I miss the things I had on my old characters. When we left the UK I had two level 80s, both of which had epic flying, plus a few alts in their 70s. I had a load of bits and pieces in the bank collected along the way - the Urn from Kara, Direbrew remote, a Frozen Shadoweave set and other random junk that nevertheless meant something to me. I left behind my Onyxia whelpling, Vampiric Batling, Baby Blizzard Bear and my beloved Nether Drake. Most pets, mounts and achievements can be acquired again, but I'm missing them for the moment. At least I still have Mr Frosty, even if his cuteness looks vaguely evil.