Dearest Lyssith - Paladin Week

Blue Drake - Flying High

It's Paladin Week in Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation calendar and as my main is a Paladin, this should be easy right? Well, yes and no - the thing is my Paladin is not only my main, she's my very first ever toon so as of this week, she's four years old and we've done almost everything together. She's my achievement queen, my mount collector, my first love in game and these days, the wayward child I'm almost tempted to give up on!

Albino Drake

It all started so innocently - I chose human as a race and Paladin because of Sparhawk & Kalten - two main characters in David Eddings books, The Elenium & The Tamuli series. I love all the David Eddings books but Sparhawk is a grumpy old man wearing armor & armed with a healthy shield of sarcasm & cynicism and for some strange reason, that has always made me like him more! So once I chose the class & race, I needed a name. I wanted Lessa - the main female character in Anne McCaffreys Dragonriders of Pern series but that wasn't available so after about 20 minutes of thinking, I came up with Lyssith or Lyss as my friends and guildies call me in game.

Brewfest Kodo

I started playing just before Brewfest started and had no idea about any of the holiday events but the following year, I'd learnt a lot more about the game and set out to get as many achievements as I could. One of the very first special mounts I managed to acquire was the Brewfest Kodo. I'm cheating a bit here as I actually got it on my Gnome Rogue first and it was only with the arrival of account wide mounts in Mists that Lyss could finally ride her dinosaur! She did get the Brewfest Ram though so it's not totally cheating!

Leveling during Wrath was fun but kind of slow too - as my first character, I had no heirlooms, very few add-ons and no clue where to quest next or even really how to play well but I managed. As part of the gearing up process back then, grinding dungeons for the various reputations and currency was normal so when I stumbled across the Oracles in Sholozar Basin, it was just another reputation that needed grinding. I was super lucky though and once I'd hatched my first or second Mysterious Egg, I was rewarded with the Green Proto Drake, much to the chagrin of my guild mates!

Green Proto-Drake

I learned to tank and spent many hours in ICC as off-tank for my guild as well as running guildies through dungeons. I started working on Achievements seriously at this time including the Argent Tournament. I never quite finished that though so it's still on my list! Running all those dungeons did have their rewards though - the Blue Proto Drake and the Blue Drake both dropped for me quite early on - apparently in those days, the Gods of RNG liked me & Lyss!

Fast forward a year or so and I was struggling to adapt to the changes wrought on my Class by the Cataclysm - I hated the Holy Power mechanic and I'd lost my guild too. I did find another, by the name of Bloodthirsty Meercats which I joined just for the fantastic name! It was being run by 4 teenage Danish lads but at summers end, they all graduated to higher education and had to give up WoW to concentrate on their studies. By this time, my old guild was almost derelict so I re-joined and my Meercat guildie Ben soon joined me there.

All through that first winter of Cataclysm, I tried, I really tried hard to master the Holy Power mechanic but it just wasn't happening and after a particularly nasty hour in Grim Batol, I pretty much gave up on Lyss. We did grind the Wintersaber Trainers reputation before it changed so this beautiful cat became mine and was my main ground mount for a long while.

Winterspring Frostsaber

After that Grim Batol experience, I retreated mostly back to the Auction House but I did run quite a few dungeons on my other alts. None came close to my Lyss though so for the remainder of Cataclysm, Lyss & I ground our way through reputation after reputation - Sha'tari Skyguard for the Nether Ray mounts, Netherwing for the gorgeous Netherwing Drakes and the Kurenaai for the riding Talbuks - I absolutely love the White War Talbuk! Purple is my favorite colour and he is so regal! Look how proud & tall he stands!

White Riding Talbuk

So that brings us to Mists - a new chance to fire up my Zygors leveling guide, raise alts and explore new lands and that is exactly what Lyss & I did, straight out of the gate. She was the first to open up her farm and reach Exalted with various Pandaren factions but I still struggled with the Holy Power thing - she felt so squishy that doing the Golden Lotus dailies was a real chore. We struggled on though, after all, she owed it to the others in my team to get those Commendations to make their struggles easier and she is proud to be my Achievement Queen. She nags me constantly to keep trying, I have tried to ignore her & promote one of my other alts to Main but I always come back to her in the end.

If you look at my to-do list (on the tab at the top) you'll see a long list of things she wants to do before the next expansion but she has given me permission to get the others leveled too - she knows I need some 'alt time' occasionally. Dearest Lyssith, my demanding first love!

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Say Hello to Fyzz - My New Mage

Fyzz!

Yup, after all my expressed dislike of playing a Mage, I felt that it was time to give them another try thanks to Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation project! To be honest, Fyzz has been around a while but with 3 days played, she was still only level 2 - shows how much time I spend in the Auction House though! So late on Friday, I made a last minute decision to send all my cloth heirlooms to her & give this whole Mage thing another try.

As of this morning, she is now level 10 and I have no idea what spec to choose! I've always gone Frost in previous incarnations so perhaps I should try one of the other specs but which one? She does look pretty in her heirlooms though and as I haven't played a Mage at all since Mists arrived with all the changes that brought plus I'm now using keybinds more, I'll probably keep her going for now.

I think the highest I've got a Mage to previously was mid level 20's but as my character slots fill up on my main server, I tend to delete them to make space for new alts. I've leveled a Priest to max level before & my Warlock is in her 50's but for some reason, I've always found the Mage to be particularly squishy. One incarnation died about 6 times in 20 minutes over near Thelsamar and needless to say, she got deleted rapidly that evening!

This time though, I have about 6 or 7 heirloom pieces for Fyzz so I'm hoping she won't be quite so squishy! With all the blogging & playing of other alts though, I don't think she'll be leveling very quickly unless something magical happens and I fall in love with her!

So why Fyzz for a name? Well, she's a gnome & she's a Mage - she needed something expressive to go with all the whizzbangs & flashy spell effects of a Mage so I thought Fyzz was appropriate especially as I'm such a bad Mage, most of my spells fizzle out before reaching their target!. If I had to give her a family name it would be something like Flashmaker or Fireblaster but as I don't Roleplay at all, that's just a bit of fancy.

Next week is Monk Week and so far my female Pandaren Monk has only made it to level 5 in the first week of Mists, I don't think I've even logged her since! I'm planning on leveling her a bit for Monk Week though so it gives me yet another excuse to send Fyzz back to the Auction House for a while longer!

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