In the Last 24 Hours

Oh my gosh! Is anyone loving Cataclysm as much as I am!?

This expansion has absolutely blown me away and it has only been 24 hours into it! We still have about two years left of it and so far I am looking forward to every second of it! Server first was finished at about 10 or 11 hours after the initial launch and went to Scorchr, Level 85 Mage, <Edge> of US-Garona. And they began to slowly pour in after that. I leveled from 3 a.m. to about 8 p.m. (so about a total of 17 straight hours) and am currently sitting about 20% into level 83. What can I say, I'm a really slow leveler because with mobs with 50k health it takes me forever to kill anything.

I love the new zones! I went to Mount Hyjal first and after you got passed the people who were being jerks (to all those who get on giant ass Proto-Drakes and sit on quest givers, gratz, you have no life at all) and began to phase people out it was really enjoyable. However, it started getting repetative about the 90 quest mark and I couldn't wait to get out of there. Then I continued onto Deepholm and man that place was beautiful. Gorgeous zone and really cool quest line. Then it was onto Uldum where I settled myself for some well deserved rest for my tired little bird wings. I started the expansion with about 900g after I bought the flight license and all of the new Enchanting/Jewelcrafting recipies and logged last night with 2,100 gold. So, the quest reward money is some GOOD stuff :D. I will be doing the grind to 85 tonight and will probably be there on Thursday if I am forced to sleep in the middle of 84. (There's a total of 9.1 MILLION exp in just level 84 to 85 alone!). Pic of me dinging soon to come!

The dungeons are VERY difficult. Not difficult in a Sindragosa way but difficult in a Lich King way. I love them! They're not face roll anymore. You HAVE to move from things or you're going to die. You can't just stand and heal through things because things one shot you! Trash pulls in The Stonecore made me go OOM when several phases of Lich King didn't do that! I don't do them very often, about once per instances for the quest experience. But they are beautiful instances with awesome boss encounters. RAZ SMASH!

So in the meantime of waiting for Cataclysm to launch and sick of looking at my 0.9 fps in front of the Stormwind Flight Master I decided to do some calculations! Below is a list of my personal choices from Best in Slot Restoration Druid gear list to head into the first raid tier with. (Relic not in the calculations because I'm a dork and spaced on that little thing!) After looking them over, am I glad I capped my Justice Points!

Helm - Cluster of Stars (2200 Justice Points)
Neck - Quicksilver Amulet (Karsh Steelbender (Blackrock Caverns Heroic))
Shoulders - Mantle of Bestilled Winds (Altarius (Vortex Pinnacle Heroic))
Chest - Robe of Forgetfulness (2200 Justice Points)
Waist - Thatch Eave Vines (1650 Justice Points)
Pants - Leggings of Late Blooms (2200 Justice Points)
Feet - Awakening Footfalls (Anhuur (Halls of Origination Heroic))
Bracers - Armbands of Change (Corla (Blackrock Caverns Heroic))
Hands - Deep Delving Gloves (Slabhide (The Stonecore Heroic))
Ring - Red Dragonheart Ring (Battle of Life and Death Quest Reward (Twilight Highlands))
Ring - Diamant's Ring of Temperance (Therazane Reputation Reward (Revered))
Trinket - Witching Hourglass (Lord Obsidius (Blackrock Caverns Heroic))
Trinket - Tear of Blood (Azil (The Stonecore Heroic))
Main Hand - Biting Wind (Ertan (Vortex Pinnacle Heroic))
Off Hand - Prophet's Scepter (Neptulon's Cache (Throne of the Tides Heroic))

Total stats. This includes all of the gear stats, all of the best enchants, and all of the gems with some of the socket bonuses. Buffs, talents and initial starting stats not included. This is strictly what the gear will give me. Also does not include the Procs from Weapon Enchant/Trinket. This includes no Jewelers gems but the two ring enchants.

Intellect - 3,678
Spirit - 1,052 (8.79 MP5)
Haste - 1,757
Crit - 6.4%
Mastery - 3.20%
Spellpower - 5,476

Total Mana from Gear - 70,911

Woah! That is A LOT of mana! Considering my druid went through most of Wrath of the Lich King with 24,000 max when we stacked Spellpower and not Intellect. I also have all of the Intellect talents (Furor increases maximum mana by 15% and Heart of the Wild increases total Intellect by 6%) and those aren't even in the calculation of total mana and neither are buffs like Mark of the Wild and Arcane Brilliance. All in all I haven't even gotten to the first raid tier and my best in slots give me about 85,000-90,000 mana. And I'm going to need it since the recent nerf of Druids awesome mana regeneration and the increase in mana costs to all of our healing spells.