More of Dad's adventures in Azeroth

Well, it's been almost 3 months since I last wrote about my dad's exploits in Azeroth, so I figure it's about time for another update.

As for the content of the last post...

I did spend that weekend down at my parents' place, most of which was playing WoW along-side dad.

We worked out a Prot spec, figured out the rotation, and shored up some of the holes in his tanking gear. A lot of this was a learning experience for me, too, as I had no idea how Prot Warriors played.

I also got him set up on Vent and showed him how to use that.

By the time we did all that and got a group together, we really only had time for one run. We took it slow, but overall he did pretty well. He held primary targets just fine, and did a good job of not breaking CC. The biggest weak spot was not realizing when he lost aggro on tertiary targets or when CC would break and a new mob would enter the fray mid-fight and go straight for the healer. "Taunt Star," was probably the one thing I said most often.

Sadly, we haven't been able to run another dungeon since then and that's something I feel legitimately bad about. My dad's mostly a weekend day-time player, and most of our guild members that are more patient and willing to take the time to go on those sorts of runs are evening players. So it's been hard to mesh our schedules and get a group. But it's something I want to try harder to do, because I think he had a lot of fun tanking for us. And actually playing together.

That doesn't mean he's been idle, though. He took up Mining and Blacksmithing on his Warrior, though not at the same time. He didn't pick up BS until after he'd maxed out mining...and had already sold most of the low-level ores he collected while doing so.

He also rolled a second toon. He now has a Gnome Mage that he's been working on and has already gotten him to Zangarmarsh. Being home for Mother's day last weekend provided the first opportunity I've had to really talk to him about it since he started the toon. I was happy that he seemed to be legitimately enjoying it, rather than just kinda falling back on it as "something to do." He was really excited about the fact that he'd been able to solo most of the group content out in Hellfire with good usage of Mirror Image. He even managed the quests out on the West end of the zone where you have to kill the big, red rock giants. One at a time, mind you, waiting for the cooldown on Mirror Image to expire between each. But still, that's impressive. Most of the toons I've taken through there, I couldn't solo those while level-appropriate.

The only one he needed help with was Arazzius. I was out there on Maeniel at the same time, so I actually got to help out on a level-appropriate toon for the first time since he started playing and I followed him around on a baby Pally. Almost every other time he's needed help with group stuff, I've either had to go out there on San or Dal and just keep him healed up while he fought, or ask Norfin to jump on one of his toons closer to the right level and go help. (He doesn't like it when you take an overpowered character to "help" and then just slaughter whatever he's up against. Not that I blame him. I don't like helping or being helped that way most of the time, either.)

He's also been working on Enchanting and Tailoring on the Mage as he's leveled and has kept those up with the curve. So he's definitely got professions down now.

Of course it wouldn't be a trip home without a fun noob moment to share. We were sitting on the couch chatting about the mage and he mentioned that he really liked how many ways he had to freeze mobs and run away from them when he needed/wanted to. This got me wondering...

"What tree did you spec down?"
"Frost."
"Frost? Really?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"If you were Frost, you should have a Water Elemental running around with you, helping you out. I've never seen you with one."
"Oh, I have him. But I couldn't seem to make him do anything, so I just put him away and left him there."

He's gone from 10 (Frost Mages get the elemental as soon as they select that tree now) to 65 without it.

So I got to go teach him pet management and how they work. For example, selecting the Move To command and placing them out amongst some mobs is not very effective.