Loremaster Dorgol

Creation:
The first character I ever created on a live World of Warcraft server was a Night Elf Druid named “Karak”. He made it to level 16 before I made my Human Warlock. Of course, this came as no surprise at the time – I had planned on making a Warlock my “main” since I read about them in open Beta.

So why did I want to play a Warlock? I think the main reason was my love of the Necromancer class in Diablo II. Something about having a creature of evil completely under your own control just intrigues me. Not only that, but I read early on about how the Warlock was going to be able to summon creatures so powerful that they would turn on the summoner, possibly killing them.

So why did I want to play a HUMAN Warlock? I blame Druids. Really! In Warcraft III the Druid was my favorite unit in the game. I loved the effect of Rejuvenation and the ability to shapeshift. This is the reason that my first created character was a Druid! However, because I was introduced to the Druid class in Warcraft III, I felt that Tauren Druids were somehow “cheating”. So when you add the personal choice to have a Night Elf Druid to the limitation of “same faction only” on PvP servers – I had to be an Alliance Warlock. Given the choice between Human and Gnome, Human won out.

Thus, Dorgol was created. I remember sitting there looking at the various hair styles, faces, and skin tone options. I wanted to make a character that would look different than the other thousands of human males, so I went with a darker skin tone, bald head, and goatee. I must say, I was fairly successful. I didn't see another bald human for years, and I still very rarely see dark skinned players out there. Side note - nearly every single character I have created since then has been bald.

Leveling (1-59):
I spent the majority of my leveling days solo, though I hit up a number of 5-man instances along the way. I have a solid love of the questing structure in World of Warcraft. I’ll freely admit that the sense of “I accomplished something!” is a huge reason why I continue to play today. Despite my heavy solo focus, I still managed to complete a solid portion of the 5-man content. Unlike today, though, I rarely (if ever) repeated a dungeon while leveling.

I have distinctive memories of clearing The Deadmines, The Stormwind Stockades, Gnomeregan, Scarlet Monestary (except the Graveyard wing), and Ulduman. After that things get muddled. I know that I did parts of Zul’farrak – though I didn’t finish it. I know without a doubt that I did not do Sunken Temple. I did Maraudon one or two levels early because Warlocks were so rare – and people really wanted Banish to crowd control the elementals and demons. I completely skipped Blackrock Depths, and I completed Lower Blackrock Spire without even knowing it. Of course, by that time I was at the level cap.

At the Cap (level 60):
Initially I spent my time at 60 pretty much how I spent the other 59 levels. I would continue to quest and look for groups for “5-man content”. By the time I hit the cap Blizzard had put the kibosh on “40 man Stratholme”, but players would still permitted to run 10-man raids of 5-man content. Undead Stratholme would be my major haunt for a long while. Scholomance saw many repeated visits. Blackrock Spire was the king of the hill, but few people had the Seal of Ascension needed to open the door. Like many other players, I spent a good chunk of time completing my (what is now referred to as tier 0) Dreadmist set. I completed that set the day before my guild got our first Lucifron kill – where I broke the Dreadmist set for the Felheart Gloves.

Yes, in those days I was a “serious raider”. I no longer remember how many hours I poured into the raid game in those days, but I know it was too many. My wife later told me that I pushed things to the breaking point – where I would have become another statistic where a video game destroyed my marriage. During those days (dark days looking back, at the time I was having a blast) our guild cleared Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Zul’gurub, and even had some “server first” kills in Ahn’qiraj. It was shortly after the Gate of AQ opened that I realized my priorities were backwards.

Molten Core had become Molten Bore. Blackwing Lair was still fun, but my renewed focus on my family caused my attendance to drop. Ahn’qiraj didn’t inspire me at all. Not leastwise because my Cenarian Circle reputation was all the way down at Hated. So I cancelled my Warcraft subscription. Really, though, I should have known it wouldn’t last. Four months later I was back in Azeroth. Only this time I was coming in with a different viewpoint. No longer did I have to have the best gear. No longer did I have to attend every possible raid for fear of losing “DKP”. WoW would become a game instead of a job.

I returned to WoW the week after the Scourge invasion ended and Naxxramas opened. It was also the same week my old guild collapsed and merged with another guild. This wasn’t a bad thing, though, as it allowed me the chance to stick to my guns about WoW being a “game”.

I had a plan, though. A shift change at work meant that I could play for hours on end during the day – when my wife was at her job – and then spend the evenings with my wife. And it was great! I got my “Warcraft fix” and she got her husband.

I spent the first month or so entirely focused on fixing my Cenarian Circle reputation. My hope was that I would be able to run the 20-man Ahn’qiraj during the day, so fixing my rep would allow me to actually obtain the set pieces. That never actually occurred, though. Turns out that raids simply did not form during the day. Ultimately my Cenarian Circle reputation would climb all the way to exalted – 90% of which was done in a solo grind.

After that, though, I was lost for things to “do”. I ended up spending most of the days leading up to the release of The Burning Crusade on my alt, grinding the old PvP ladder.

The Casual Crusade (60-70):
Then along came the first Expansion. I, like millions around the world, went through the Dark Portal and found myself in a new world - a very crowded world. I did the first few quests with no problem. Kill a few orcs, bomb a few demons, blah blah blah. I actually remember when I decided to change tracks – I was literally waiting in line to kill a particular demon. Only the line was fully made up of Horde players who all seemed to have a little bloodlust in their eyes.

So I logged off my Warlock and created my Draenei Paladin. I wouldn’t revisit my Warlock for a few days – long enough for said Paladin to reach level 20 or so.

When I returned, the questing landscape had changed. It was still crowded, but it was considerably less crowded than before. A strange thing happened, though – I didn’t run a single one of the new instances until I was level 68. I did a few groups when a quest needed it, but otherwise I simply kept my head down and focused on leveling up.

If I remember correctly, my questing experience went like this: Hellfire, Zangarmarsh, Terokkar, Nagrand, Blade’s Edge. Being the quest junky I am, I did every quest in these zones. Once I hit 70, though, I wasn’t done. I continued to quest, completing all of Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm. I did this because I had a goal – epic flying.

I started The Burning Crusade with around 2k gold in my coffers; a small fortune at the time. Not only that, but I also had epic riding skill on both my Warlock and Warrior. While that seems like an odd thing to mention, you would be surprised by how many people started The Burning Crusade still riding a 60% ground mount.

Anyway, epic flying was my goal – and 5k gold was needed to reach that goal. If memory serves, it took me around 3 weeks post-70 to complete every quest in Outland while selling herbs and transmuting Primals to earn that gold. But oh it was worth it. I was probably one of the first 50 players on my server to have epic flight, and it was glorious. Of course, all good things must come to an end.

So now I was level 70, I had done all the new quests in the expansion, I had reached my goal of epic flight! Now what? Well, I’m playing casual so raids aren’t even an option. These new “heroic” mode 5-mans though? Right up my alley. Of course, Warlocks weren’t welcome into heroics at that time. See, heroics in Outland were really, really hard. Non-tanks would die in a single hit. If a pull contained more than 3 enemies, crowd control was a necessity. And Blizzard had – at the time – made 99% of the enemies immune to seduce. So if a Warlock wanted to do a heroic, he could expect to easily find a group for Heroic Mechenaar or Heroic Underbog (since these two heroics had Elemental and Demon enemies), but other than those two the sign read “Help Wanted, Warlocks need not apply”.

So what do I do while trying to find a group that would accept a Warlock DPS in a punishing heroic? Farm herbs.

Well, as it turns out, epic flying wasn’t such a boon after all. At the time, mounting did not cause pets to despawn. So while I flew around the landscape looking for herbs, my pet would run along the ground – attracting the attention of all the various critters along the way. Ultimately the pet would either despawn when I moved too far away, or it would die to the beatings from our enemies. Either way, it meant that I would pretty much always land without a pet.

All of this came to a head in Terokkar. I was flying around on my Swift Purple Gryphon, searching for herbs and looking for a group. Spotting an herb spawn, I fly down, dismount, and begin to gather. I suddenly see a blur of red and a Horde Rogue lands next to me. Without so much as a hesitation, the Rogue begins to slice into me. I have no pet, but I can quickly summon one! So I quickly summon my Felguard, activate Soul Link, and place my DoTs on the Rogue. It’s a brief fight, and I never really had a chance. The Rogue is at roughly 50% life when I go down. I release my spirit in frustration – only to realize that I’m within a few scant yards of my corpse! I have a chance at redemption!

I quickly run to my body and rez. Of course, I’m at 50% life and mana and I have no pet, but that shouldn’t matter as the Rogue is ALSO at 50% life and he can’t go into stealth! Turns out, he didn’t NEED to go into stealth. Thanks to Cloak of Shadows he removed all of my new DoTs waltzed up to me and splattered my innards all over his tabard.

So in the space of 90 seconds I had died twice to the same Rogue – a rogue who never even had to enter stealth. And in the back of my mind I knew that I had played well. I had utilized every tool in my arsenal. I wasn’t necessarily “outplayed”, I was simply “out classed”.

So I logged off my Warlock and switched back to my Draenai Paladin.

In the two years that followed, Dorgol became less and less my “main” character. I still played the character regularly. Blizzard changed things so that Seduce worked as viable Crowd Control in most / all heroics. Pets despawned / respawned when mounting / dismounting. But, with one exception, Dorgol would never again accomplish things before my Paladin.

That exception was obtaining a Netherdrake. When The Burning Crusade was in beta and being advertised, Blizzard made it clear that dragon mounts would be available to all players, not just raiders. And I told myself that I would get one, no matter how painful the reputation grind might be. As it turns out, it wasn’t painful at all. In fact, it was downright fun! The Booterang is still one of the most amusing quest items in WoW! Dorgol would be one of the first 20 people on the server to obtain a Netherdrake, and I loved every bit of it.

I wasn’t completely done with Dorgol, though. Despite my “casual” status, by the end of The Burning Crusade era I would take him into Karazhan and Zul’aman. I even managed to go back and finish Ahn’qiraj and Naxxramas (the original, 40 man version).

Wrath of the Alt (71-80):
By the time Wrath of the Lich King launched, Dorgol was definitely in “alt” status. My Paladin had taken over the role of “main” character – and would be the first character in 4 years to be a higher level than my Warlock. In fact, I actually had a second character (a Druid) hit 80 before the Warlock. For the first few months I was all Paladin all the time. Then I was all Druid all the time.

The problem I faced was the same as many other “pure” classes face: If I wanted to do a 5-man dungeon it was considerably easier to find a group as a healer or tank than as a DPS. So Dorgol found himself relegated to the sidelines. Not completely ignored, though. He would hit level 80 within a short time of my Druid, though he still lagged behind in a few areas.

Things changed when 3.3 was released, thanks (not surprisingly) to the Random Dungeon Finder. Now I didn’t have to sit in Dalaran and HOPE would invite me. Now I could enter a queue, go about my business, and get a group whether the other people liked it or not. Of course, the question then became “what do I do during the 15 minute queue”? Initially I started out doing Argent Dailies, not because I needed money but because “they were there”. I became discouraged, though, when I looked at my faction reputation and the requirements of the “Crusader” title.

Most people probably don’t know this, but in the early days of Warcraft reputation was really, really hard to come by. It didn’t matter if it was a reputation associated with a raid or if it was the reputation for your home city. It was something you had to earn. By the end of Classic WoW I had exactly two factions at exalted: the Cenarian Circle and the Stormpike (from Alterac Valley). Despite having personally seen to the downfall of Ragnaros, my reputation with Ironforge was merely Honored. Even though I brought the head of Onyxia to Stormwind (after exposing Katrana Prestor as a traitor) I was merely Revered. The peoples of Gnomeregan, Darnassus, and the Exodar had hardly heard of me. So when I started looking at the Argent Tournament as a possible time-killer while in the Random Dungeon queue, I simply couldn’t bear the thought of doing those quests and not be able to obtain the “Crusader” title.

It was around this point in time that I noticed that I didn’t have the “Loremaster of Outland” Achievement. As I mentioned before, I went out of my way to complete every quest I could find in Outland while farming the gold for my epic flying skill. So the fact that I was missing four quests (one in Nagrand, three in Hellfire) was somewhat frustrating. So, while in the Random Dungeon queue, I flew out to Nagrand. Well, as it turns out the “repeat once a month” quest for free gems from the Consortium was all I needed. So off I went to Hellfire – where completed the small quest chain near the Horde mine (starts with “Outland Sucks!”) for the Achievement.

And that’s when inspiration struck. I was going to be in the Random Dungeon queue for big chunks of time, and I couldn’t bring myself to do the Argent Tournament Dailies, so why not go for Loremaster? I didn’t matter that I had already completed the Loremaster title on my Paladin! I love questing! And what better way to show that than to get the biggest quest Achievement in the game?

The first thing I had to do, though, was complete a few zones in Northrend. INSERT DETAILS ON WHICH ZONES HERE.

So away I went. My stats showed that I needed something on the order of 400 quests in Kalimdor and 200 quests in Eastern Kingdoms. I focused on Kalimdor first since it was going to take the longest. My thought process was simply “if I complete Eastern Kingdoms in a week the Kalimdor grind is going to feel all that much longer”. And it did take awhile. I took a few breaks here and there. I spent most of my time in the Random Dungeon queue, ultimately ending up getting tired of heroics before I was done (after buying all the PvE AND PvP gear I could, I bought some heirlooms – and I still have a hundred Emblems or so).

As I started getting closer and closer to my goal, though, I realized that I was might attain Loremaster on my Warlock nearly 1 year to the day that I attained the same title on my Paladin. Ultimately, though, Eastern Kingdoms really did take a very short amount of time, and I became “Loremaster Dorgol” 355 days after my Paladin (03/01/10 vs 03/11/09).

Sitting on the Sidelines, Again (Present):
And that brings us to up to date. After farming heroics to death and completing hundreds of quests, Dorgol now sits in relative peace and quiet. I still log onto him semi-regularly for Enchanting needs. When 3.3.3 was released one of my first orders of business was to log onto the Warlock and craft him a second Flying Carpet mount (what can I say, I’m still a nut for mounts).

I have taken Dorgol into a few raids – specifically Trial of the Crusader 10 and 25 man. I have killed Sartharion + 3 drakes 10 man (zerg of course). I have killed Malygos. I have NOT killed Kel’thuzad, though, and thus I don’t have the “Champion of the Frozen Wastes” title.

Looking into the Future (Cataclysm):
Dorgol will long hold a special place for me. Even to this day I am referred to by that name while in Vent – despite only 2 or 3 people from “back in the day” still playing. In fact, when I moved Dorgol into my main raiding guild I had a few people send me “welcome!” messages, despite them having played alongside me for months and being referred to by that name.

What does Cataclysm hold in store for him? I don’t know. While the Druid stole the “main alt” position for awhile, and right now the Death Knight is doing the same, I don’t ever see Dorgol being abandoned. There are days where I don’t want to tank or heal; I just want to blow stuff up. And when I want to blow stuff up from range, the Warlock is a blast.

I would love to see Blizzard really expand on each class, effectively making them “hybrids”. I don’t think we will see it happen, but I would love to see the Demonology tree becoming capable of tanking a 5-man heroic.

The recently released “Cataclysm Class Preview” has really excited me as a Warlock player. If you look at the Warlock notes closely, you will see the word “Demonology” in several places. And Demonology has been my preferred spec since I first hit level 40 way back in February of ’05.