alliance in disguise‏

My Troll Priest hit 68 this week and is already Northrendbound. I hadn't leveled a toon in a long while, since before Dual Spec was released, and, wow... it's REALLY a life-changing feature. Coupled with the Dungeon Finder, undoubtedly WotLK's greatest success (not like there are many), being Disc/Shadow is almost everything you could ask for levling a toon. Whenever I'm bored of quest grinding, which is far from a rare occurrence, I can just hit the "I" key, queue as a healer - which are usually in short supply - hit "N", respec Discipline and heal an instance. Dungeons give me tons of XP, usually more than I would get if I spent the same amount of time questing, plus a shot at nice blue gear. I think only Druids have it easier, if they go Feral/Resto they can queue as Healer, Tank AND DPS! That must be the most awesomest way to level a toon.

I love loveloveloveluuurrrve trolls. They are so damn awesome. The Priest is the third iteration of my first toon, who started as a Troll Shaman and later became a Troll Rogue. Both of those times they were abandoned because of my faithful Alliance heart, but Troll Priest is such a great combination (plus Dual Spec, plus Dungeon Finder, plus interfaction Bind-on-Account transfering, plus built-in Quest Helper...). I just fell in love. I'd put trolls in my "hardcore race" category, together with dwarves. Even though they aren't sexy, like the bearded daddy humans or Slavic bodybuilding draenei, they still have an almost irresistible appeal to them. Maybe because they are ugly. Regardless, when you see a troll player, you can tell he's either a griefer (although gnomes are still the premiere griefing race IMHO), or a hardcore player who doesn't care about his looks - beauty is overrated, "mojo" (or, for Dwarves, "true manliness") is what really counts!

The ugly side of leveling a Horde toon stems from my firmly rooted Alliance mentality. I feel extremely bad about killing Alliance people in quests. One of my first Howling Fjord quests had me fly a griffon a bat and drop poisonous bombs on Alliance ships... it was horrible. I also couldn't feel at home in Horde cities, they are so different. I'm fond of the fact that Northrend orc cities are more "steampunk" than "slum", and Undead towns give off a rather pleasant Victorian vibe, dare I say... so currently, it's not that bad (and Dalaran is as Ally as it gets).

Now, PvPing is truly painful. Thankfully, I can PvP as a healer, and I always do. This way I don't really have to KILL Ally - I let the cows and the orcs do the dirty work. But sometimes a Dwarf or Draenei Paladin or Hunter (it seems like it's always either a Pally or a Hunter) feels like stalking me. That really sucks, and I have no choice - its Ally-clobbering time, "for the Horde!" and all that jazz. So don't you Alliance dare to mess with us Horde healers - we might be fellow Allys in disguise who in truth don't feel like killing you! Don't leave us with no choice but to rape your sorry ass.