Firstly, I would like to say that I'm 100% with the Darkspears in their campaign against Garrosh. Blizzard had said prior that they would make Garrosh more - err, likeable - in Cata but I think they pretty much failed on all fronts in doing so. If anything, they made him even worse. If Vol'jin can /end Garrosh, I wouldn't be the least bit upset. It would free up the title of "Warchief" for someone more deserving, such as Saurfang or even Vol'jin himself. Even the young Bloodhoof would be a better choice, though he lacks in experience compared to others.
With that said, moving on to new adventures as players begin assisting the Darkspears with their rebellion. Just like with Landfall, I'm not particularly happy about being forced to complete several scenarios before being able to get the actual quests. I'd be fine if they allowed us to do these solo, like with the Isle of Thunder ones. I dislike scenarios because they throw three players in there, group makeup be damned, and expect everything to go smoothly. It almost never does. The groups always rush in there and just start killing crap without even bothering to think, "Hmm, we're all dps - no one to tank and no one to heal. We should pull carefully." Thankfully, the Blood in the Snow and Dark Heart of Pandaria scenarios were fairly easy and, once each of my groups wiped once to stupid shit, they became more cautious with pulls.
I just started on the quests themselves so I'll write more later on those since I'm still not sure how I really feel about them. But the ones I'm doing are all in Durotar and when I arrived there yesterday, it was jam-packed with players, of course. It made it a little difficult to kill the mobs I needed and to loot the overturned caravans before anyone else got to them. However, it did make it easy to kill Commanders, since it's faction-tag and more horde seem to be around than alliance.
I'm happy with some of the class changes, and very unhappy with others. Mage aoe's were buffed, which is great because I could feel how weak they were before and they needed a little boost. Now I don't feel quite so useless when Frozen Orb is on cooldown. With the changes to Living Bomb, I swapped out Nether Tempest for that talent instead and it seems to do better for single-target than NT. I noticed a 1-2k dps increase. But for mass aoe, Frost Bomb still looks to be king.
More crying from the populace led to even more paladin nerfs. I should be used to this, really, since nerfs have been making paladins their bitches since the dawn of WoW. Oh no, how terrible that the pally tank in your raid is doing more healing than you because of Battle Healer. That shouldn't really be happening if you are actually healing and not whispering your friend while simultaneously chatting with your guild about how cute it is when your cat chases your mouse as you move it around. NERF. Non-bubble healers (and even rival disc priests) crying over how much holy pallies can absorb with Illuminated Healing. Sure, that's always #1 in my top 3 heals on the meters. But I have to actually cast heals to make that shield happen. Do you see how much mana I have to use to even cast that many spells for that many shields? Give me the heal-over-time capabilities of a druid or the mana regen of a priest, then you can nerf one of the few things that actually make my job easier. It's like taking crit/Illumination away from me all over again. And I'm still waiting (though not holding my breath) for Blizzard to give me back my 1-minute Divine Plea. At least the small change to Daybreak will make the T15 2-piece bonus a little more appealing. Yay for small blessings?
I'm not really sure but I might try main-healing on my priest, instead. Just a bit burnt out from playing the paladin for so many years and Blizzard completely gutting the class every time they feel like it. I don't think I will retire Rhu - she'll always be my favorite - but I think I just need a break. I got my druid to 90 but find healing on her to be kinda meh; same with my shaman. But I haven't touched my priest in a while and have always liked healing on her before so I might give that a shot now that the xp needed to level was been reduced by 33%. It gets a little tedious after the first 2-3 alts. And! I'm ecstatic that there is no GL bottleneck for rep with the other factions anymore. Time to get that Royal Satchel pattern!
