Shared Topic: The Coming Cataclysm

In an effort to get back into the habit of blogging and writing, here's a shared topic from the Blog Azeroth forums. The question put forth is, "How will the Cataclysm change your game?"

A lot of us are looking forward to the new expansion. It's still a ways away, and I still have a lot I want to accomplish before it comes, but the new expansion will change a lot of things in the game. And I'm excited about most of it.

A Changed World

Many of the old world areas we know and love today will be forever changed. One of those areas is Ashenvale, which is rumored to be finally be decimated by the Orcs. In a role play sense, this is the home of Elionene, and it will be a very significant event to her. Where she may be at most distrustful of the Horde now, after they rampage over the forest she grew up in, she will become more openly hostile. This makes a difference in how I role play with people in game, what role play I do anyway. Since becoming a raid leader and officer in the guild, I've sort of let role play slide off to the side a bit. The Cataclysm might be what entices me to return to it a bit.

New Races

I'm excited about both of the new races. I don't typically play horde, but I think it would be a lot of fun to play a goblin. I'm at least going to run the new starting area for them. I've also got plans to make my goblin a hunter, which will be my first hunter since rolling my main, Elionene. Where Elionene is about skill, grace, and precision (I tend to use bows exclusively), my goblin hunter will be all about the explosions, the kill, and might be a tad on the insane side. I need to contemplate the perfect pet for him. Ideally, something much bigger than he is.

Worgen will be awesome. I'm hoping to roll this race with Lal and maybe a few other people to play through the starter area as a group. My plan is to make a worgen priest. A discipline priest if I ever get to a high enough level where it matters. My inclination is to think of worgen as a melee class, fighting claw and tooth at the front lines. So I'm purposefully going against that grain and creating a spell caster, and a healer to boot. Should be fun.

Raiding

Speaking of a worgen priest, I've come to find out (after 3 years of having a dps main) that I actually really enjoy healing. I've experienced both restoration druid and shaman healing at level 80. I generally prefer the shaman healing, but healing in general is very satisfying for me. There's a possibility that I would consider switching my main to a healing class to raid with at level 85. Since we all start over with gear when an expansion hits, it's the perfect time to switch mains for raiding.

My hang up is that as a raid leader, it's hard to watch the fight and call out stuff to the raid when I'm glued to healing bars. That alone will probably prevent me from switching. As a dps, and especially as a ranged dps, I have a good view of every fight we do. And I do intend to raid in Cataclysm. Before I roll any new races, I'll be working my way to 85 on several toons.

One major thing that will be different for raiding is that Veritas as a 10 person raiding guild is light years beyond where we were when we started Karazhan. I expect to start raiding much earlier into the Cataclysm expansion than we did in the Wrath expansion, and competing with the other top 10-strict guilds on our server.

Guild Leveling

Something the other officers in Veritas and I are very excited about is the new guild leveling system. We don't have a lot of details, but from the sound of it, it will be fun and rewarding for everyone in the guild. Something to work on together besides just raiding. It may change how we run the guild, or how we do ranks and privileges for our members. I'm eager to hear more about this.

The more things change...

As I'm going over all of these changes in my head, I realize I'm probably not going to change much about how I play the game, but just looking forward to the new stuff that's coming. Above all else, I'm most excited about new lore, new quests, new dungeons and raids, and new alts to roll. All of which I'm doing now.