Ding 80!

When Wrath was announced, my reaction to the idea of a melee hero class was pretty underwhelmed. If you had told me that my first level 80 character would be a Death Knight, I wouldn't have believed you. I REALLY wouldn't have believed you if you'd said that I would have said level 80 character a month and a half before the expansion launches, by leveling straight through the entire Wrath of the Lich King beta. And yet, here I am.

Overall, I've been pretty impressed with the home stretch of Wrath. Poor Cheery got nerfed into the ground a few patches back, but now they're adjusting things back to a reasonable level. I've also picked up some decent gear from questing (including a fair amount of actual tanking gear). Zul'Drek and the Storm Peaks didn't impress me as much (indeed, a fair number of Storm Peaks quests remain broken), but Icecrown has some very fun quests including a fair number of daily quests. Meanwhile, Death Knight glyphs are finally in the game, as are inscription recipes that actually use skill-level appropriate ingredients; the profession has come a huge way in the last two weeks and is now pretty close to ready to go.

I have a kind of mini-tradition where I bring my retail characters to Shadowmoon Valley as they get very close to level 70, in order to ensure that the kill that pushes them to the level cap is a felboar (in honor of the famous boar grind carried out by Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny). I haven't really seen many boars in Northrend, so I wound up gaining that last level off of a misc daily quest. As a consolation prize, however, I may not have had boars, but at least now I get to ride a Hog.