Because I can’t stand tanking with crappy gear (and while I’m waiting for a friend of mine to hit 80), I’ve been leveling a mage for the past week or so.  It’s been a breath of fresh air for me, seeing as I’ve played a warrior for nearly 3 years now with no alts.

There have been a few difficulties that I’ve come across in my transition from a melee class to a caster class.  One of the most significant changes is that I’ve had to learn a whole new set of hotkeys.  It didn’t seem that difficult at first, but it became increasingly overwhelming as I leveled higher and higher, learning more skills and having to find new keys to bind them to.  As a warrior in PvP and tanking, I pretty much knew what buttons to press and so I binded them closest to me.  For my mage, it took a while for me to get used to them.

See more after the break (including a really weird quest item icon that totally needs to be changed!)

I’ve also learned from firsthand experience that DKs are pretty OP at the lower levels and that they can literally 1-2 shot me.  I really think its due mostly to the blue set rewards they earn for their whole starting area chain.  It took a while for my gear to actually compare to theirs and I still have a bit of hard time trying to avoid getting ganked.

Caster downtime is pretty bad compared to melee downtime.  For melee, you usually only have to eat when low life and can basically grind away at mobs till you absolutely have to eat.  As a mage, luckily I can make my own food but it does stink having to drink, evocate, or use a mana pot/gem every so often just so I can attack.

Nevertheless, I’m really enjoying the change and I look forward to getting owned by rogues in the arena =(

ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED TOPIC:

I’ve leveled two characters past 60, and this picture always bothered me:

What was Blizzard thinking when they designed this picture?  I mean, seriously, who would’ve known its supposed to look like this:

Good grief, what kind of bird is that Blizzard?