Week 1

So, a week has past since BC hit. The servers have had their ups and downs and I've been booted more times than I can count. All things considered though the launch was much less hectic than I anticipated.

Draenei
I've got to that I've really enjoyed the new starting zones. My wife and I have both leveled our characters to 12 (she might be 13...). The Paladin/Shaman combination is really quite astounding. My paladin is focusing on tanking the mobs/staying alive while she just focuses on killing things. Pretty amazing what we can survive. I've also leveled a shaman to 12, but am keeping behind the duo so I can experience the new content with her.

The quest rewards are all pretty good, much better than what I remember getting from rewards in the other start zones. Not to mention that the new quests are much more fun and innovative. The quest chain starting with Learning the Language is hands down the best chain I've ever done.

Hellfire Ramparts
I've run this 4 times now. The first time we started too late and I had to leave after the first boss. Second time went off without a hitch and we downed all three bosses without a wipe. Third time we just couldn't kill the dragon before the fire damage wiped the party. 4th time (last night) we wiped once on the dragon, adjusted and took him down.

If this instance is indicative of the remainder of instances in BC, I'm impressed. Just enough trash and then a boss when you start to get bored. The loot is also amazing. On my second run I picked up the Garrote-String Necklace, which is very nice. On my fourth run (last night) I snagged the Shadowrend Longblade, which at 52.9 DPS is amazing.

Oddity with the drops, I've seen the Scale Leggings of the Skirmisher and the Kilt of Rolling Thunders drop twice. The leggings were okay as they were grabbed by hunters both times, but the kilt is Shaman only. We had a Paladin last night who, if he could have, would have grabbed them for his caster gear. As far as I know it's the only item in the instance that is class restricted. There is even a staff that is basically only useful to a Druid (+AP in forms), but it's not class restricted. Oddness...

Now that I feel pretty comfortable with the Ramparts, I'm looking forward to running the Furnace. From what I've heard the pulls are actually a lot easier to set up, which will be nice as there are some tricky ones in the Ramparts. I'll have to run the Ramparts at least one more time as we've never got Prunella (priest) finished with the quest "Weaken The Ramparts". So the Furnace will have to wait till this weekend at least.

Rogue
So, as is obvious from my grabbing the afore mentioned sword, I'm no longer specced for mutilate. While I still love mutilate for PvP, I grew tired with it in PvE. I just did not like having to worry about positioning while questing and in the Ramparts. It's very burst damage intensive so it was easy to pull aggro, once I'd done that I was out of luck as my damage was gone, unless I was able to get behind the mob. So I specced back to combat, but since I wanted to try something new, I went combat fist and purchased a nice, green 48 DPS mainhand fist to go wit my Gargoyle Slashers that had been sitting in my bank from Strat (never even used). I played with that for all of one night before I discovered that combat rogue is pretty boring. Yes, it's nice not worrying about position and BF+AR+SnD=I win, but it was just...dull.

After much research yesterday I specced 11/0/41 for Shadowstep/Hemo. I've never before run a build with more than 17 points in subtlety (went 31/3/17 for a while, pre 2.0). Having done so, I've got to say that it's a lot of fun. I don't have to worry about positioning thanks to Hemo, I can burn cooldowns like they're going out of style. I always forget about Premeditation, but being able to Premed+CS->5 CP Eviscerate is just ridiculous. Of course I always forget that I have it... Shadowstep is just plain fun. It may not be effective in PvP, but it sure is fun in PvE. Last night I was able to Sap some very poorly placed mobs, just get near, Shadowstep->Sap and run. Loads of fun.. Sinister Calling and Deadliness put my AP through the roof (well, for me). I'm pretty sure that it net me 120 AP. I'm not sure if Deadliness increases the AP after my increased AGI goes in, but either way was nice. The 15% increase in AGI net me around 45 AGI, which is 45 AP, ~1.8 crit, etc.. I went from a bit over 800 AP to nearly 950 AP, and that was before the new sword :P. I'm sure for most raid equipped rogues that's nothing, but for me, who barely crested 700 AP pre-BC, it's night and day.