Guess Who's Back... Back Again.

So here I am, then of another deployment and before I get to all the WoW related stuff I just want to say that deployment is probably one of the worst and, at times, best times of my life. Never did I ever imagine that I would get the chance to see the world like I have. Thailand was never a thought in my head. Hell, I had never even heard of some of the place I've been to, for example Bahrain. The people I've met in the Navy I will never forget and long after I'm done with the Navy we'll always be friends and have all the times on deployment to remember. The part that makes it the worst is the time away from my family and friends back home. I miss my wife and daughter daily, and most days it keeps me from being able to really enjoy myself. It was 7 months of water, and sometimes land. It reminds me of living in Arizona growing up, everything around us was desert and there was this thing called the ocean somewhere out there but I never saw it enough to actually believe it. That's how it is when you are in the water, there is land, or at least you've heard of it. But since you hardly ever see it, it starts to feel like it doesn't really exist. The good thing about being in today's Navy that makes things a lot easier is the fact that I have email and am able to talk to people off the ship whenever I want to instead of the way it was in the old days when they had to wait to get to port to use a pay phone or send out letters. In summation, deployment was another great time filled with lots of memories, but it was long and I'm definitely glad to be home with my wife and daughter.

So I'm back to my old ways, playing WoW whenever it is convenient and doesn't bother the wife too much. I spent a good seven months thinking about what the first thing I was going to do was when I started playing again. Well before I got back I got a tip from a friend that there was a small lack of raiding healers in the guild and that my odds of getting into a permanent raid would be a lot higher if I were to level my healer. So as was the case with Nashette, my Draenei Paladin, being my first level 80, she became my first level 85 toon.

So now I am a permanent part of team Snuffalupagus as a Holy Paladin healer and let me just say I'm very excited about this. Not only am I finally a part of an actual raid team, something I had been trying to get to happen all through WOTLK, but I am on a team with my good friends Mike (Kierphas), Stephen (Zanduran) and Andrew (Thereddeath). After all the pugging and alt runs I did in WOTLK it really feels good to be wanted on a team and be counted on as part of a team. Let's just hope I'm not too much of a letdown.

So now the main is out of the way. I've made my choice and holy paladin heals is the spec and class of choice. My new dilemma is what I want to be my next 85. I have Nashamire, my level 81 balance druid , whom I raided on as my main through WOTLK. Then I have Jip, my level 80 tank death knight. Seems like it would be logical to pick one of the two to go next on their way to 85, but I'm not actually sure either of them will become my second 85.

I have been playing a mage for the past week or so and have been loving it. I went from creation screen to level 46 in probably about 30 hours. With three pieces of heirloom gear adding 30% extra experience on top of the extra 10% I get from our guild level, the leveling experience is flying by. I still have a cloak to buy when I get the gold for it and that will add another 5%. My favorite toon to play has always been my boomkin, so the idea of playing another caster role has fit me pretty well. I forsee this toon hitting 85 with a quickness.

Then today I was checking out some articles on wow insider's blog and started reading about how Death Knight tanking was going in Cataclysm. It seems to me that it's got some pretty awesome new mechanics with all the healing and shielding you can do for yourself. I'm really wanting to get back and do some tanking now since I do enjoy filling that roll when I can. So now I'm really starting to think that I'd like to roll my DK the five levels it will take to cap. The only thing I know I'm going to really miss tanking on my DK is dual wield tanking. I'm gonna be sad to have to give up my two Lucky Old Sun's.

The next toon that has a chance to be the second 85 I level is my Druid. I had a lot of fun in WOTLK leveling him up http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifto 80 bear tanking. And then of course, being a boomkin, I ran heroics as a bear tank to get emblems to buy my upgrades for my boomkin set. It was a fun little setup I had going considering how much I enjoy both aspects of my druid. On a side note, thank goodness for dual specs. Problem is, since I've gotten back I really haven't been able to get back into my druid the way I was before I left on deployment. So for now Starcaller Nashamire will probably sit in fourth place, sad as it may be.

The last toon in the running but falling far behind is my level 59 goblin shaman. For those that don't know (so pretty much everyone but me, Kierphas, and Elocine) I started out playing as an Orc Hunter. So for all of BC I played a Horde toon. All the friends I joined WoW with basically stopped playing so I started a Alliance toon on my current server to play with Elocine and meet some new friends to hopefully keep me interested in the game. So after two and a half years of playing Alliance I decided I wanted to check out what Goblins were all about and get back to having a Horde toon. So I faction changed my Shaman over to the dark side. I played about five levels on him before I realized that I really wasn't into my Shaman the way I thought I would be when I got back. So he'll get to 85 eventually, but he'll probably be number five.

So here I am with a decision to make. The decision is pretty much mad up in my eyes, but I always like to hear from friends and find out what they think. After all, my Shaman and Mage I'm not particularly familiar with. So if you have any ideas on DK tanking, Mage DPS, Shaman speccing, or the mechanics of bear tanking in cataclysm, I'm up to hear them.