Upon Acquiring the Defenses Required to be the Defender for a Raid

Getting def capped is quite the slog! I've heard that a tank is the hardest role to gear in preparation for raids, but, of course, I'd never done it before. We've all heard the truism before: DPS can squeak by and be carried with mediocre (or bad) gear, healers can get by on pure skill if they're good enough and their tanks are geared enough...but a tank has a hard number she has to reach. 540 defense. Wow. "Ooo, new defense upgrade! That's like forty defense over what I'm wearing now! ...oh, that brought me up two points. 'Awesome.'" Getting up to the defense cap required a fair number of lucky gear drops, a lot of runs through Trial of the Champions (and incidentally stealing the pieces from the two or three other brand-new paladins in the guild), some creative and slightly expensive enchanting (defense to rings rather than stamina would be awesome), and a couple of emblem purchases. But reach the cap I did.

I found something interesting, too. Once you get over the psychological aspects of "Oh my god it's hitting me in the face!" and "Oh my god, everyone's waiting for me and depending on me..." Once you get over those...tanking is actually really easy. Particularly in raids. I'm not sure if this is an aspect of paladin tanking or tanking in general, but once you've grabbed the mob and have a head of threat (I find that a well placed early Hand of Sanctuary helps immensely in making sure your head is well above the mage or ret paladin [thank you Divine Guardian for the suggestion])...it's easy. Sure, some bosses you have to move. No problem, really, just walk in a circle. Some bosses you have to switch with the other tank. Meh, I have two real taunts, then some messy taunts. Most bosses you just stand there and do your rotation. On Loetheb, I saw my threat as about 10 times that of the next nearest (due to well-timed Salvation)...so I sent the mage buddy a tell along the lines of, "Gonna go make a samich, brb. =)" I *probably* could have, too. Paks would keep standing there and putting her shield in the way whether I tell her to or not. Well, not as well or as much, but she would.

It's also still odd to not be playing the role I'm accustomed to. In the Sapph fight in particular, I was constantly reaching for abilities (particularly group heals) that simply weren't there. I feel like there's more I should be doing than watching the aggro meter, watching my health for a bounce that's a bit too low, and throwing around Hands. But there's not. If I'm doing my job right...it's easy.

And you know what? I think I like it.

On Trying a Role That is Completely New

Paks has recently hit 80. That was probably the quickest level grind I have ever done. I did, however, find myself going "Ugh, this quest again?" through most of Northrend. I think I'm going to lay off leveling another alt as my next project. Which is good timing, as the patch has hit, and it's time to go farm heroics for those tasty Emblems of Conquest. (On a separate note, it sure would be nice to trade all those Emblems of Heroism I have *up*. Ah, well.) I think that, other than doing heroics again, I'll also start doing some PVP. That might prove fun with a refocus on battlegrounds (the only time my arena teams have seen 1500 is when they started).

What I intend with Paks is tanking. I already have two to three ranged dps, a dedicated healer, and a melee dps. So, tankadin, ho! It's been quite the experience. My roommate recently got her warrior up to 80 and did some tanking. She's been telling me about the differences in roles and perceptions. So, between what she's told me and WoW Wandering's posts about tanking, I've had some good recent information about switching roles to being the tank.

Wow. It really is different. There's nothing really different in the physical mechanics of how you do it. "Target mob, cast spell." No, this is all psychological. The group is depending on *you* to go get that mob. They're waiting for you to finish up and go get the next mob. They're depending on you to keep that mob off of them. They're depending on you to know where to put that pack. They're depending on you to know to turn that a-bomb around. And to line of sight that caster. And to not get out of line of sight of the healer. And to pull it off the mage. And...And this is just five mans. I haven't even gotten def capped yet, let alone tanked a raid.

I feel that my guild has blessed me with amazing healers, which is what has allowed me to be as successful as I have so far in tanking. (Xiriia, Korth, Bung...free enchants for life, you guys. Wow. I can't believe how you keep a nub like me alive.) I've done several heroics now, and haven't had *too* much difficulty on any of them. Most of the wiping and failing is coming from me mis-pulling, honestly. I know the instances pretty well...but I'm starting to feel like I've only really watched the action and thrown in once it started. Now I am in the center of it all, getting punched in the face.

And you know what's really remarkable about my relative success so far? ...I still have no idea what I'm doing. Here's what I do to tank:

• Mark what I think might have to go down in what order? Geez, I never really payed attention...I just shoot the skull...oh, good, the healer made a suggestion on alternate marking...
• Throw Avenger's Shield and hope it doesn't miss the caster
• Freak out about Avenger's Shield missing the caster, forget about Hammer of Justice, run up to the caster, get hit in the back a few times by the rest of the pack
• Retarget the skull
• Lay down a consecrate
• 969 on the skull, trusting to a paladin's built-in AOE tanking to keep the mobs on me and off the Flamestrike-happy mage
• Pray
• Get crit from not being def capped
• Note mana is low
• Note Divine Plea is on cooldown
• Consider letting Holy Shield drop off to get more heals
• Realize that the mobs have started eating the healer's face
• Try to gather them back up, this time with no mana
• ...?
• Profit!
• Apologize to the group for sucking and the healer for not being def capped
  

(I'm fully convinced that the "...?" there is actually filled with the awesome of healers.)

I've commented in blogs before that I think tanking is easily the most difficult of all the roles. I've done them all in the past (I was forced to be a druid tank in TBC...which is why I quit that guild and rolled horde), and I've done them all much more extensively in Wrath. I would say that (good) DPS is the most activity intensive, healing is the most concentration and focus intensive...but tank is the most pressure. As noted above, they're all waiting for you and depending on you. The positioning, the pacing, the order...it's all your job. I think it is easily the least passive role in the game.

Now that I've gotten some experience simply doing it under my belt, I can put some polish on my technique. Fortunately, I walked in with some really good information from Honor's Code on the 969 rotation. I can't even begin to tell you how much easier it made my life to *begin* tanking knowing that and with the rotation lined right up on my toolbar. And I recently gleaned some great information from Righteous Defense on what's coming in the new patch and how that's going to affect me.

Now I just need to figure out how to get def capped and a better way to pull mobs off people. (Right now, I'm using a click-to-cast healer addon keyed to Righteous Defense to keep aggro on me. This is usually because I have *no idea* where or what mob moved off me if it's not a boss. I really need to get some more situational awareness.)

On Skinning Creatures with Minds

Just a quick note today.

Things you cannot skin:

• Centaurs
• Gnolls
• Taurens
• All other non-furred humanoids (with one exception, see below)
  

Things you can skin:

• Humanoid dragons

WTF? I always thought you couldn't skin the rest of them as Bliz didn't want the stigma of you killing and skinning sentient races. Despite the fact that there are several locations in Orgrimmar decorated with centaur skins. But then they go and let me skin both bipedal and quadrapedal (is that still the term even if they have another pair of arms above the legs?) humanoid dragons. I mean, these guys wear armor, have weapons, and cast spells. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I'll take their delicious scales and skins. But just sayin'.

/sigh

On the Route One Takes to Changing Specs

I mentioned in the previous post that I have been varying levels of noob-ish at varying times due to a combination of my playstyle while leveling, growing experience, and the classes that I played initially. I thought that I truly had a handle on playing a priest. I was pumping some serious spellpower, I had regen flowing like it was water, I could raid heal with the best of them, and I could bust out tank heals like I had a pair (of Righteous Orbs, of course).

But I had a bit of a problem, and I didn't even know it. I wasn't using every tool in my toolbox. Sure, what I was doing worked just fine. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm by no means the type of player who says, "You have to do it this way or you're doing it wrong." I wasn't doing it wrong, per se, but I wasn't doing it...optimally.

You see, my background as a healer is as a druid. Back in good ol' vanilla, I was a druid. I walked into Molten Core and was promptly told, "Heal." 'Cause that's what druids did in MC. (Incidentally, MC is what made me quit WoW the first time. But that's a different story. And it had nothing to do with my role.) So, my entire experience with healing pre-Wrath (I was a huntard in BC) had been as a pre-tree, leather wearing night elf.

How does that effect my priest, you ask? Well...if I remember my old school druid healing rotation correctly, it went something like: HoT, HoT, downranked big heal to not quite top off, wait, downranked heal, refresh first hot, rinse, repeat. That was pretty much the extent of my tools and abilities then. No Swiftmend, no Lifeblooom. Just HoTs and direct heals.

And what is this thing I wasn't doing or using that I alluded to a paragraph ago and you are just waiting for me to get to? So, being a good little monkey who soaks up his conditioning well, I used what I knew. When I started priest healing, I rolled out the HoT first thing, and then spammed a bunch of Flash Heals, and a Greater Heal when I could afford the time (this was before the change that made Greater Heal faster after a few Flash Heals). Yeah, that's pretty close to the spell priority when a holy priest is healing a single target. There are a few things missing, though. Prayer of Mending I learned to use pretty early on. And I already wrote about when I learned the power of Binding Heal. But there was still something missing from my repertoire. Have you spotted it yet?

Bubbles. For some reason, I had it in my head that Power Word: Shield was just not worth the global cooldown and/or the mana. They were relatively expensive for me, and (I have no idea why I thought this) I thought they didn't scale with spellpower. I actually said to a guildy at one point, "Yeah, I could bubble. But it only prevents, what, 1500 damage? Or I could Flash Heal with for almost 7k. I'll Flash Heal, thanks." Why he didn't smack me, I don't know. He even used to play a priest. I think what made me actually start using bubbles was when I read a patch note about a change to the spellpower coefficient on them. I went, "Orly?" And I started bubbling the tank.

It was like a breath of fresh air. I had more breathing room. I had another powerful spell in my rotation. Even better, it was instant. I gave it a prime spot on my click-to-cast setup. And I loved it. I loved it so much, I wanted to use it more often. But there's that pesky cooldown. So, I started tinkering with talent calculators and very quickly determined that I could either have Guardian Spirit or no-cooldown shield. To which I said, "But...I love my glyphed Guardian Spirit. I don't know that I could do some fights without it." (Call me whatever you want, but Arachnid Quarter is still the quarter I dread healing the most. I lose more tanks between Anub'Rekhan and Maexxna than I do the rest of the raid combined.) So I kept using my bubble when it was available and the tank didn't have Weakened Soul.

But those bubbles were awfully tasty. It's like having plain old oatmeal for months, than adding a few dried blueberries. "Wow, I really like these dried blueberries! I bet that fresh blueberries would be even better!" I kept eyeing those fresh blueberries...er, instant shields, tinkering with talent calculators and hybrid disc/holy specs. "But I lose this..and this...and my crit's only at, like, 12%. I obviously don't have the gear to itemize Disc." Then, we were doing some Ulduar and I decided, "Screw it! I'm going Disc!" I damn near hearthed right then. But, I finished out the morning's raid (we downed Kologarn for the first time, exciting!). And *then* I respecced.

Turns out, all those purples that I had collected and were just cluttering up my bank? With a touch of regemming...some borrowing from my shadow set...ooo, regem that...Oh my...I have over 25% crit? How did that happen?!

Down one Circle of Healing and one Guardian Spirit (I'm not a big fan of Lightwell), I walked into Naxx armed with Penance and no-cooldown, powerful bubbles. And I loved it! I occasionally missed Circle of Healing. But Pain Suppression did me just fine in place of Guardian Spirit, and the bubbles. Oh, my, the bubbles. Some quotes from the night:

Me: "So...how do I go about running out of mana in this spec?"
Paladin: "Holy Nova."
Me: "OMG! It gives everyone little bubbles!"

Raid healing resto shaman: "Man, I love this healing next to a disc priest!"
Me: "Oh, why's that?"
Resto shaman: "I'm sorry, what did you say? I was making a sandwich."

Hunter: "...why do I have a bubble? Wait, my pet has a bubble too..."
Paladin: "Yeah. The whole raid has bubbles."
Me: "I love bubbles!"

Hunter: "It's kinda cool how the character flinches when they get hit with Penance. It's like the heal hurts."
Me: /target Hunter /cast Penance /repeat /chuckle

I actually had a lot of fun for some of the less healing-intensive fights weaving my bubbles so that everyone in the raid had one the whole time. See previous comments RE: mana and sandwich. =)

So, yeah, I think I like me some Disc.

On the Speed at Which One Achieves Level Cap

Don't you hate it when you have a topic in your head all day, then forget it when you sit down to write? I need to start keeping my notes on, say, GoogleDocs, rather than on my home computer. So, in lieu of the topic I was going to write, you get: speedy leveling!

Wow.com reported a few minutes ago that, if you already have a level 80 character with Cold Weather Flying, future alts will be able to gain the ability at level 68 via a single use bind to account heirloom item. (IE, you buy the item with your 80, send it to your 68, they use and consume it to gain Cold Weather Flying early.) This has been confirmed by Blizzard as almost certainly going to be making it into the live realms.

A few weeks ago, not long after some of the first announcements of the mount changes for 3.2, Beta Rogue, another guildy (I don't remember who, sorry), and I had a friendly debate about whether the changes were a good thing or a bad thing. They argued that all the changes aimed at getting people through the old world content faster had an adverse effect on the game and the experience. I called them curmudgeons who were jealous of the new-fangled toys the kids have these days. Ok, not in those words, but...

Back when I was new to this game, I remember level 60 being a far-off, nigh-unobtainable goal. Running after those centaur in Desolace seemed endless, but I did both sides of the quest chain because grinding was not a bad way to level back then (or so we all thought) and that particular spot combined grinding humanoids with quests! I also remember grinding through 58 and 59 on those ogres down in Burning Steppes. I always loved ogre mages. "Casters who don't cast! Awesome!" This bout of nostalgia makes me remember how long that really did take. Now, we WoW players have never had anything to complain about to players of most other MMOs. It's always been one of the, if not the, easiest MMO to hit level cap on. But it's damn near trivial now.

For example: When I made my first post here on 20 June, Paks was approximately level 35. It's now 7 July, two and a half weeks later, and she's level 67. I'm well under four days played. I would be *very* surprised if my first character was under four days played at level 40. I believe she was at near two weeks when she finally hit level 60.

And not only that, but our characters are actually more powerful now. With the rebalancing of talents for level 80 raiding and pvp builds, a level 50 character has access to much more power now than they did when the level 50 content was new. My paladin facerolled her way through content that was honestly challenging on other characters. (I commonly solo 3-man quests, and occasionally a 5-man. The most recent example is Tusker. It took my shaman at least three tries to solo that. Paks did it one shot. Those are the only two I've leveled straight up since Wrath. And I don't think soloing her was feasible in BC. Not at her level, anyway. My hunter couldn't manage it.)

So, is this detrimental to the game? I can really see both sides of it. You really shoot by the lower levels, not even slowing down until you hit the tail end of Outland. All that content, just whizzing by so fast that you have a really hard time taking any of it in unless you stop and look for it. For veteran levelers, it's just a long line of quests that you've already done X times. (Personally, I've done it all so many times that I put a movie up on the second screen and use something like Carbonite or QuestHelper to just remind me of exact locations and a rough guide of where to head next.) I really think that someone who has never seen the content before is not going to shoot by it nearly as fast and will pick up more than those of us who don't pay attention to it think they will.

On the other hand, it really does seem as if the end game is where they intend you to be. The talent trees are focused and balanced around both arenas the cutting edge raid. The best gear comes from the same two places. Even the newest casual content requires high levels to either access or get the most out of (Argent Tournament and the holiday achievements that have level requirements). The vast majority of the new content and, thus, the development time is being spent on what you can do at level 80. So, yeah, the devs really do want to get you there as fast as possible. Wouldn't you want people to see and play with all the shiny new toys that you just made, rather than the toys that are five years old? That seems to be the real reason that they're accelerating the level gain.

Well, that and can you imagine how mind-numbingly boring it would be to level a third (or fifth, tenth, etc) toon at the slow pace that would be required if you still leveled all through Azeroth, Outland, and Northrend at the original rate of each?

With that in mind, I've heard a number of times that one should be able to either accelerate leveling *or* auto-create higher level characters once one is level capped. One points to the Death Knight as an example of this already being done and the heirloom shoulders (and soon the chest) as another way it's implemented. These same people also seem to think that new players should have to pay their dues and level the slow way like they did.

I don't seen any reason to punish new players by making them level more slowly. So what if you leveled that way? Just because you had it the "hard" way doesn't mean that others have to. It seems that these people are complaining mostly to rail against change and out of some odd sense that their accomplishments are being stolen from them if others don't have to work the same length of time. Because, really, that's all that leveling is: a time investment.

In speeding up the leveling process, Bliz is just making us invest less time in getting to the cap. The argument I hear against this is: you don't know how to play your class nearly as well if you haven't spent as much time playing it. To which I say: bull. I have leveled every class except rogue up into Outland. And I did it all solo. I don't have the first idea how to play a Warrior in a group. I was totally a huntard when I hit 70 (cap at the time). I didn't know a Flash Heal from a Binding Heal when my priest hit 80. And you know what? It doesn't matter how much time I spent leveling...it would have been exactly the same. Because I'm not the type of person who groups when leveling. Oh, sure, if I happen to be on a particular group quest and in the area when someone hits /1 looking for help, I'll join them. But, generally, I skip them. Poor XP/hour, wrangling group members. This is also true of dungeons. Just quicker to do quests.

So it doesn't matter if I spent three weeks of my life, three days, or if my character was born 80...I still wouldn't know how to play them with other people. You learn that when you start doing it.

Best example I have offhand: We were doing Naxx as progression content. It was probably my first time or second time healing a raid with a priest (my healing background was with druid. I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took me to learn that bubbles are my friend). We were doing Four Horsemen, with me healing...oh, either a caster or a hunter in the back. Whatever, doesn't matter. I'm struggling back there, trying to keep myself and the other person up through what feels like really heavy, constant damage. We wipe a few times. Then the other priest in the party makes the offhand comment of, "I don't know why you're struggling. You just cast Binding Heal and Renew." And I facepalmed. I had completely forgotten that Binding Heal existed. I've never lost a person in the back of Four Horsemen since.

So, really, it's not the time you spend leveling that makes the character or the player. It's the experience in what you're actually doing, the willingness to make mistakes, the ability to learn, and adapting.

Take it from the priest who didn't know Binding Heal from Power Word: Shield. Going faster at level 20 and 40 will *not* change whether or not you play well when you get to 80. And flying all the way through Outland and Northrend is not going to really make you skip anything that is of any consequence in how you actually play your class. I promise.

On Obligatory Congratulations

Those of us who are in a guild of any size have all seen it many times:

[Guildy] has earned the achievement [Completed a Dungeon]!
Grats!
grats
congrats!
rats

[Guildy] has earned the achievement [Level 80]!
Whoo!
Grats!
*throws confetti*
*commits indecent exposure*
rats

[Guildy] has earned the achievement [1000 Fish]!
Grats!
grats
I'm sorry.
...grats?

It often feels to me like we're obligated to congratulate someone on whatever set of arcane accomplishments the devs have deemed it appropriate to grant an achievement. Sure, some are very obviously something praiseworthy (assuming that you're a devotee of the game, and not one who thinks it's a giant waste of time). Getting to level cap, while not the chore that it was in vanilla, still takes a fair amount of dedication. So does something like [Superior] or [Epic]. But something like [Professional Journeyman] seems much less so something that I want to congratulate someone on. Really, that's just part of playing the game. It's like getting an achievement for getting to level 2. It's hard to avoid it. But, yet, you still see the congrats roll out.



[tangent] For just a moment, I want to look at the profession achievements. There's one for training each level of a profession...but not one for maxing it out. Seriously, I get told how awesome it is for me to spend two seconds and 10c at the trainer to pick up a profession, but I get no acknowledgment for having made enough items to have gotten 450 points in it? I think that is something congrat worthy. [/tangent]

For a while, I actually had a character-shared macro for congratulations. The first iteration of it made fun of the fact that we congratulate on every achievement. It was something like, "Grats! (This congratulations has been brought to you by the power of macro.)" ...Yeah. I think it annoyed even me so much that I modified it after about four uses to just say, "Grats!" I even fell out of using that. It's almost as easy to type it out as it is to click the button. And uses less screen real estate. But just the fact that it's something that happens often enough and that I felt was enough of a chore that I needed a macro for it tells me that I found it a bit onerous.

Really, I think we've lost something when the whole guild gives you a grats for [Blow Your Nose]. It makes the grats for something like [The Fall of Naxxramas] feel much less epic and satisfactory.

On Dragons and Seige Engines

Well, I've finally done it. Marrisol has gotten Champion of the Frozen Wastes. Just a wee bit behind the curve. =) But, you know what? I have a small secret to tell. At the same time that I received CotFW, I also received two other achievements: Northrend Dungeon Hero and...Heroic Oculus. It wasn't Malygos that was my sticking point. It was Ley Guardian Eregos. (I finished off Malygos about a month, month and a half ago.) I actually didn't plan on doing this until they nerfed it after the next patch, but Beta Rogue really wanted to get it done, and they couldn't find a third dps inside the guild...so I ran it rather than make them suffer a PUGger.

I'm not the biggest fan of vehicular combat in WoW. Now, I don't detest it like some, but I do think that it's a bit gimmicky. We have a hunter/shaman in the guild who just goes nuts over it, though. He runs Wintergrasp every time a battle is up and squees over Flame Leviathan. He made an interesting comment when I was making my nth attempt on Eregos the other night: "I really like that fight because it's hard. It's hard to find a challenging fight now."

And he's right, to a degree. The fight is hard. I was originally going to write that I think it's hard for the wrong reasons...but in writing out what I thought the reasons for that are, I think I may have convinced myself otherwise. The fight doesn't challenge you to play your class to the tip of its ability. Really, it can't, as class's abilities scale with gear. Once you're Naxx/Ulduar geared, Heroics become a joke (I healed a timed CoS the other night and didn't drink once). So, they brought in the equalizer of a vehicle with static stats. Now everyone's on the same playing field. It's all about organization and strategy. So, Oculus and the Eregos fight are a success in that it brings a level of strategy and teamwork into an area that has otherwise become "CC lawls faceroll ftw".

I still think that introducing an alien mechanic into a fight makes it unnecessarily...I want to say difficult, but no. Unnecessarily frustrating. You have to do something completely different in order to win. The best example of this that comes to mind is Giants: Citizen Kabuto. If you're unfamiliar, this game is a bit RPG, a bit RTS, and a bit slapstick action. Except for the jet ski level. That's right, I have to lay down a little town, run around and kill dudes, manage resources...and then I have to run a jet ski race. It doesn't fit at all. That's what the Oculus fight feels like to me. A jet ski fight that I don't want to do. (I actually never made it past that level as it's not even a very good jet ski race. The bad element made me never finish the game.)

My frustration with vehicles is lessened in Wintergrasp. There, it actually makes sense. "We're assaulting the fortress, go get us a siege engine!" Yeah, that I can get behind. I can't breach a wall with shadow spells or arrows, so I need something that can throw boulders at it. But in a boss fight...I'd really rather just throw down some dots and call it a day. I'm not adverse to a gimmick that makes the fight harder...I'm not even against something that neutralizes the advantage of greater gear. But I do like to be able to control my character in the way I've become accustomed to.

Fortunately, I think that Blizzard learned a bit from all the moaning and groaning they heard about Eregos, because the vehicle portion of Ulduar is not nearly as onerous. The vehicles are actually *fun* to play! You get to mow through hundreds of dudes at a time (we actually got Dwarfageddon completely by accident last run) rather than having to spend a minute or so on each piece of trash. That feels much more epic. And the vehicle abilities have more application to what you're doing, rather than just doing the same thing that your character would be doing...only not doing it as well.

So, yeah, I'm a bit of mixed minds about vehicles, but I think I've just won myself over. =)

Now I'm not nearly so sure how I feel about the Flame Leviathan vehicles scaling with gear and/or the upcoming scaling of the drakes on Malygos and Oculus as I was half an hour ago.

PS - Update on Paks' gear. I've seen the first bit of torso armor creep. I expect that line of flesh to steadily move up for the next thirty to forty levels. =)

All I Want for Christmas is Pants

I know that this topic has been beaten to death throughout the WoWblogoshpere, but...I felt that I needed to weigh in on it. Perhaps not the most auspicious first post for a blog, but why not start with something tried and true, eh?

From the advent of custom avatars on, I have been drawn to females as my representative in digital environs. The reasons for this are complex and varied enough that it will likely get its own post in the future. So, I have seen a pretty good range of how various games deck out the women of their world. And I have to say that, while WoW isn't the worst offender of "less armor is more", it certainly does suffer from it.

Recently, my baby paladin had asked the guild's resident healdin, disguised as a mage, for a port. Upon arriving in Silvermoon, said pala-mage commented, "Wow, I forgot what low level paladin gear was like." I had noted, but hadn't really noticed, that my paladin was wearing the article depicted to the right.

Yes, that's right, my paladin was wearing "pants" that would get her arrested. That's not pants. That's not shorts. That's not even a loincloth. That is a strip of fur on the front and a piece of fabric on the back that don't meet between the legs. Her bits are...getting an airing. And this is mail armor. /sigh

Now, in all fairness, this particular piece and related pieces (see left) are almost as bad for males. They at least meet between the legs for males, though.

Running around in these, I kept thinking, "Boy, I wish I was wearing pants. I'm glad I have a cloak long enough to hide that from the back at least." I was embarrassed for my character. I was quite glad when I finally upgraded to real pants:


That's some respectable mail armor! Now I get to look forward to bared mid-riffs on plate armor! Yay! (/groan)

...In other news: Have you ever spent a decent amount of time staring at the idle animation of a blood elf female? (The percentage of gamers I don't need to point the following out to is probably larger than I wish to admit or know.) If you've never taken the time or had the curiosity to note this, watch the hips, pubic mound and crotch as she shifts positions. It's...hypnotic. And not just in a sexualized way. There's really a lot of realistic body motion animation going on there.