Slow week

Rogue obtained level 41 on Monday.  20 bars of XP from Uldaman (full rested, two BOAs)

Wednesday:
* Ran VOA-10
* Obtained 251 PVP pants
* Ran HH twice, no epic mount
* Obtained 5 champion seals

Wednesday Night

Activities:
* L72 DK ran Nexus
* L72 DK ran UK
* L72 DK finished up the quests in Taunka'Le Village, BT
* L72 DK achieved L73

Tuesday Night

Activities:
* Ran weekly raid (Patchwork must die) with guild
* Tried tanking on my 80paladin for the first time -- regular Violet Hold.

Observations:
* Paladin tanking isn't bad.  The rotation I used was..
Open with Avenger's Shield and Consecrate
- Crusader Strike (+1 HP)
- Judgement
- Crusader Strike (+1 HP)
- Hammer of the Righteous
- Crusader Strike (+1 HP)
- Shield of the Righteous (-3 HP)

I actually think it goes a bit more smoothly than 969 although there is a little lag on CS (I need haste).  My 3.5 rotation was..
Open with Avenger's Shield and Consecrate
- Hammer of the Righteous
- Judgement
- Consecrate
- Crusader Strike
- Shield of the Righteous

* I like self healing with WOG, and saw +11000 manaless self heal/crit with a +6000 add on with talent.  It can be a huge life saver.

So, all in all, a good night.

Ret lag and ability queues

Retribution Paladin observation:
* Just saw a good blog about how ret paladin (RP) is now a rogue and the special HP powers are basically finishing moves.
* Shared the opinion that spamming CS and the little lag in between is hrm.. different.  My previous rotation was something like:
Consecrate
Judgement
Divine Storm
Crusader Strike

Now its:
CS
Wait
CS
Wait
TV
repeat

* I don't like the ability queue for the reasons listed on the forum:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26859116137&sid=2000&pageNo=1

Again, I prefer instant abilities with longer CDs and the 969 rotation.  To be honest, it doesn't even have to be 969.  I just like instants with longer CDs.  I feel the new system is like socialism.  The game tells you what to do.

Thought

Cataclysm is new coke.  They took a tried and true formula, changed it... and now the brand is different.

Monday Night Derp Derp

Activities:
* Headless Horsemen
* 70 priest did a UK RDF
* Tried Hunter

Observations:
* Priest works ok. Not a big changeup from 3.5, at least for shadow.
* Hunter is new and possibly confusing. Rotation unknown.
* Lost the love for my (3) paladins so... not motivated at this point to work on the other (3). Sigh.
* Rogue is still on xp bonus CD.
* TLDR:  Cata classes for me may be rogue, mage, DK.

Nice

Last Nights Observations:
* 1-60 leveling is faster. My rogue went from 37 to 40 in just under 2 hours (full rest and 20% BOA bonus)
* DK rotation seems to be okay. (unholy):
Icy Touch
Plague Strike
Scourge Strike
Blood Strike
Creep was down by then. I had heard some difficulties with the rune CDs. It still is slightly wonky but I was in practice mode. Every fifth creep, one would still be on CD (because they are linked now). Still not terribad.

Mkay

Friday Observations:
* Voidwalker quest is gone, instead you just learn it at level 8
* Paladin redemption quest is gone. Just learned at trainer, level 12.

Saturday Break:
* Ran wintergrasp, and won first round.  You get 90 honor for a win.
* Raised enchanting 375 to 400.  There should be some easy enchants at level 81.
* Vellums have been replaced by one generic enchanting vellum.

You have gained Level 11

Ran around on the 4.0 Paladin last night and hit 11.  At 13 I can pick up on my main server where all my BOAs reside.

After that, did a few Argent Tournament dailies so I could get more cloth BOAs to move to Fizzcrank.

Better

Discoveries:
* 80 Warlock is doing very nice damage. Destro rotation has not changed that much. Drop immolate, conflag and chaos bolt/incinerate til it dies. I got some 10-13k crits... drool.
* 28 Paladin wasn't very difficult. Just crusader strike + templar verdict (at 1 HP) was dropping 20ish creeps. I think double that to kill 33ish creeps. Add a judgement in there for more. I would like another button to mash, instead of waiting.
* 44 mage was good too. Its weird not to have ice armor and arcane intellect until later. Basically now just frost bolt a few times and then either cone of cold or frost nova, then repeat frost bolt.
* I am woefully short on glyphs for everyone.

Plans (minor)

* Level a 4.0 paladin so I know wtf I am doing.
* Retire rogue, druid alts.

Do Not Want!

So after three hours of downloads and installs, here's what I know...

* 80 spell book is confusing as hell
* Plate armour needs to be upgraded at trainer... seriously?
* Spells are missing/gone from actionbar
* DPS/Tank rotation/spells are unknown
* Not enthralled by holy power
* I see soulshard combo points on Warlock but huh? How to use?
* Mage was nice but is getting nerfed... boo!
* Pretty much start a level one to learn shit all over again
* Still have 1 GB to download through the new launcher
* Lag/lagged to a standstill in Dalaran

Good things:
* Item conversions seem to have gone well, ie brilliant runed gem and spellpower to intellect
* Sharper graphics

Minor good things:
* Got gold on my main. Others have enough honor to get a mammoth
* Main is 100 or so JP from getting a T10 head, which would complete my set.

So far more negatives than positives.

Ugh

File under good things:

Background Downloading the 4+ GB patch.

File under bad things:

6 GB free space to install when the patch needs 17 GB free.

Freed up 3 more GB for 9 GB but after reading someone's post on the forums, decided to move a copy to my 100 GB second drive and try from there.  At this point, I'm installing on the 9 GB since it didn't find the patch and just loaded WOW 3.3.5 from the second drive.

UGH!! This patch has been not very good so far.

Justice Points

The new reward system will reward 75 Justice Points for using the daily RDF or heroic dungeon boss.  By my calculation, 2200 points for item divided by 75 is 29.x or roughly 30 bosses to grind for an item?  That sounded high to me, but LK T9 requires 30/50 emblems for the gloves/chest, and LK T10 requires 60/95 emblems for gloves/chest.  I am probably not going to do all that at 85 but meh, whatever.

Things I want in Cataclysm

* I like how they rolled out Tier 9/10, which was a three tier reward system:
Normal dungeons reward i251
Heroics dungeons reward i264
Raids reward i272

* I am going to miss consecrate 8 sec cast/8 sec CD (seven times per min) which is now 10 sec cast/30 sec CD (two times per min).  I wish this were 10 or 15 seconds.  This has been totally nerfed.  And I think useless now.  I guess we'll see.