#ImStillWithHer

So, I am not a real fan of the faction conflict in Warcraft and I play both factions. But Jaina's purge of Dalaran in Mists made my Alliance toons feel less relatable, and Legion's faction bickering cemented my feeling that the Horde's actions just made a lot more sense to me. And so the pattern continues, because faction conflict right after the joint defeat of the Burning Legion makes absolutely no sense, but at least I can believe that Sylvanas is mistrustful, pessimistic, and prefers to be proactive rather than reactive. On one hand, her belief that Anduin will attack the Horde unprovoked seems a little batshit-crazy, but at the same time, by playing Alliance toons I know that Anduin sends SI:7 to spy on the Horde in Silithus and his champions to sabotage the Horde mining operation (killing goblins incidentally), which does seem to be batshit-crazy. 

Then there's the War of the Thorns (Week 1) quest text, such as: 

Is there really a good reason (besides "NElves") all of the Alliance quest text reads like racist propaganda? It seriously makes me feel sick to my stomach. The Horde text doesn't sound like this. When I see Alliance quest text like "we are not savages like our enemy", it reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episode where Picard is being held captive by a Cardassian, who brings his daughter in where Picard is being kept. The daughter asks if humans have children, and is told "Yes, but they don't love their children as we do." (paraphrasing, I'm not going to look it up.) It's just not a good feeling, and probably is the reason I played my Alliance toons very little in Legion. So I guess if Blizzard's goal is to force us to take sides, then mission accomplished. I'm not going to abandon my Alliance toons, but I won't be able to play them without a significant amount of eye-rolling. And if they were allowed to defect then they would all be saying:

Too Long in the Spin Cycle?

Ghost Raptor before the patch:

Ghost Raptor after the patch:

Well. At least it matches how puny my DPS feels post-patch. Yay?

I Am Not a Fan of Change

But I am trying. So, the things I like about the pre-patch: 

1.

It shows your pets when you switch them now! Or this may be an addon I have, I'm not completely sure because I had to disable around half of them the first time I logged on. But it's kind of cool either way!
2. I did three emissaries this morning and had over 1000 wakening essences so I went to see what class legendary I would get when I rolled the dice, and SURPRISE! I get to pick a legendary roll item for whichever class I want now! Nice! Also, and this doesn't really count as a change but it does have to do with the shitty talent changes that I am unhappy about so I may as well count this as
3. since it's a discovery that makes a shitty change not-so-shitty. So, in addition to a roll item for whichever class you want, you can also buy any specific legendary for your class. I already have all of them in void storage, but I noticed that Soul of the Farseer gives you the talent Echo of the Elements, which means I can have it and still choose Elemental Blast on that talent tier, which is awesome because I was really missing it in my rotation*!

I don't want to enumerate the changes I am unhappy with because I'm really, really trying to be as positive as I possibly can, and I've been bemoaning the loss of Gusto for a long time already. I'm going to play Elemental Shaman regardless so I may as well try to figure out how to do that the best that I can. But since I suck at positivity, I have to say I'm surprised that Stormkeeper didn't get a name change to go with the new icon when it was added as a talent. I'm thinking more along the lines of StormBorrowerIfItsOKICanWait. I can see how that might be a little cumbersome, though.
My brother thinks the change to Flame Shock is good because Elemental Shaman aren't supposed to be running around dotting everything anyway, but it's really disappointing to lose an instant cast that used to mean I could tag maybe three falcosaurs before an Alliance hunter barraged them all, but now means that all I can do is stand still and cast, mostly finishing off kills for said Alliance hunter. I can't get the hang of the cooldowns, either, because now. everything. feels. so. ungodly. slow.

I did find out that I'm still able to grind Honor and get the final tint for my artifact weapon, so that's another thing I'm happy about! So I guess that makes it

4. things. However, I have to get to Honor level 80 and I'm at 54 (took me forever to find that out) and doing all of the PvP WQs and one extra prior to reset this morning didn't net me a single Honor level, so apparently this is going to take forever. But it's PvP week so we'll see.

*R.I.P.

SHOO BEE DOO, SHOOP SHOOP BEE DOO

I noticed the Reins of Poseidus on the AH for less than half of the 100k it had always been listed for, back when 100k was a lot of gold, so I went ahead and picked one up. Now I don't have to be in Vash'jir to call upon my Sea Pony.